Sacred Mountain (20 page)

Occasionally they came across abandoned equipment that had been jettisoned by the exhausted Chinese soldiers. Ammunition lay beside the trail and Philip wondered whether it had been quietly abandoned by exhausted men or dumped as the result of a direct order. Whichever way, he didn’t care. It meant fewer bullets to be shot at them when they did catch up. He picked some of it up, others following suit without breaking stride. Within a short stretch, they’d accumulated over 200 rounds of ammo and a hand grenade, while many other items like mess tins were left lying frozen into the snow.

The higher they climbed, the stronger the wind became, blasting into their faces. Philip had his hood tied tight around his face and thick scarf pulled up over his mouth and nose. When they’d started walking on the snow he’d pulled out the snow goggles from his pocket and slid them on, although he had to stop frequently to clear their lens from mist. Despite this he could feel his cheeks going numb and every few minutes rubbed at them vigorously with his hands. His fingers and toes were dead and yet he could feel sweat running down between his shoulder blades, his silk vest plastered to his back.

A flurry of snow blew past, flakes caking themselves onto his face and goggles. As he wiped them off he looked ahead, trying to work out whether it was a fresh snow fall or simply spindrift being picked up and driven by the wind. Another flurry hit him, the flakes bigger and more persistent.

“Bugger it,” he muttered under his breath. He glanced around and saw that visibility had dropped considerably. Unless they were careful it would be all too easy to lose someone in these conditions. Mingma and Lhamu had stopped and he caught them up.

“How far to the top?” he yelled into the wind, peering up the pass.

“Soon,” Lhamu replied, her voice emerging from within a heavy hood that completely covered her face. “It is hard to be sure, but at this pace we should be over in less than an hour.”

Philip nodded. “We must keep moving.” He turned and faced the rest of the men. “Quickly, gather in close.” The men huddled in, leaving Mingma, Lhamu and him with their backs acting as a barrier to the worst of the weather. “We’ve made good time,” he yelled, trying to make himself heard over the roar of the wind. “Less than an hour and we’ll be over and on our way down. It’s important we stick close and don’t get lost in this snow. Whoever else is carrying guy ropes get them out and pass them around.”

He slipped off his pack and pulled out the ones he’d been given, replacing them with the tops he’d hung on the outside to dry and which were now flapping around annoyingly. Two of the men untied the neat bundles of cord that hung from their packs and passed them around. “Tie them to the man in front, off his bag, and get the other tied to your belt. That way we won’t lose anybody if the snow gets thicker and becomes a white out.”

There was a burst of activity as goggles were pushed up and gloves removed. With a silent efficiency the cords were tied in place and an order worked out. Philip found himself behind Lhamu and when she saw him fumbling to tie a knot with his cold hands she came over and tied it to his belt for him.

“You must work your hands,” she said, feeling how cold his fingers were. “Rub them together and keep them tight together inside your glove. Otherwise you will have a problem with them later. What is it you say?” She looked up at his face. “They will have frost-bitten.”

Philip grimaced and nodded, pulling on his gloves and mitts and silently cursing that they’d lost any semblance of heat they’d contained before.

“Let’s go,” yelled Mingma, trudging forward and the column slowly moved off.

If Philip had thought it had been tough going before, now it felt impossible. The wind blasted the snow directly into his face, plastering his skin and freezing in his stubble. His goggles constantly steamed up making it all but impossible to see. Being tied in a long line meant that when one person stumbled he would pull against the person in front or behind. Often the whole column ground to a halt, only to start forward again when the tautness went from the cord. It was hard enough keeping your own balance without this constant pulling and tugging. It felt as if their progress had pretty much stopped.

To Philip, everything was white except the blurred outline of Lhamu in front. He concentrated on her footsteps, trying to step in the exact same spot and keep them open for those behind. It was impossible. The whiteout was complete, meaning there was no shadow to show where her feet had gone and through misted goggles everything was a uniform white.

For what felt like hours they trudged forward. His head was pounding, a point of throbbing pain sitting behind his eyes that pulsed in time with his racing heart. His breathing was ragged and breathless, trying to gasp oxygen into his lungs that just wasn’t there. His legs felt like jelly, his feet and hands had no feeling and he felt on the point of collapse.

Something in the featureless white caught his eye, initially a dark blur until he got closer. It was a body, dressed in green with its legs drawn up close to its chest. Snow had drifted behind it, mercifully covering the man’s features. His back and buttocks were taking the full brunt of the gale, the material of his clothes frozen by the bitter wind. Beside him lay a large bag, a solid lump of canvas and ice. He watched Prem stoop to clumsily rip it’s flap open and peer inside, before retrieving a rifle that lay frozen to the icy ground. As he wrenched it free Philip saw that beneath it was black rock. A few more steps and they were walking on bare stone, blasted so smooth that no snow could cling to its surface.

Squinting ahead Philip noticed the blurry outline of colourful prayer flags flapping wildly off a small, bent pole wedged into a pile of rocks and realised that they weren’t climbing any more. He looked around. The snow was easing and he glimpsed jagged white peaks towering over them as the cloud momentarily lifted. They pressed on, their speed picking up considerably now they were off the snow. After a few minutes Mingma came to a large boulder left from an old rock fall and halted. Without being told they untied the ropes and stowed them away. Already the strength of the wind had decreased and it was possible to talk again.

Philip tried to remove his goggles but found his hands too cold to grip them. Clumsily he pushed them up with his gloves, blinking in the brilliant light. He looked around, squinting and trying to ignore the pounding headache. It was a relief to see the world in focus again, if only for a few moments. They were standing in an area of bare rock, dotted with small patches of frozen snow that lay protected from the prevailing winds behind small rocks and boulders. The glacier they’d been following had vanished, left behind in the valley as they’d climbed up to the pass in the storm. Ahead he could see a new glacier tumbling down the far side of the valley. It was different from the dirty, grey ice they’d been following that morning. This was pristine white, covered in a dazzling layer of fresh snow. He fumbled for his goggles and slid them back over his eyes. This ice flow fell from a small hanging valley down into the one they were now following, tumbling off ahead of them towards Tibet. Its beauty made him momentarily forget his exhaustion.

Lhamu pulled back her hood and smiled at him. “We are over the pass. It will be easier now.” She stepped closed and took his hands, pulling the outer mittens off and rubbing them hard between her own gloved hands. “We must get these working again.” She looked at him sternly. “As we walk you must work them constantly. Keep them moving and rub them.”

Despite the pain in his head he smiled at her weakly. “You sound like my mother!” he said, wincing as his dry lips split and he tasted blood in his mouth.

“Someone has to look after you while you are here,” she replied, not looking at him as she carefully slid his hands back into his mittens. “We will descend quickly now, mostly on the rocks beside the glacier. There is little snow from now on. It all falls on the Nepal side from the Monsoon rains. The mountains prevent it from reaching Tibet, which is why the plateau is so dry. Apart from occasional storm there is little rain on this side.”

“We must now be alert for the soldiers,” added Prem. “You saw the dead man on the pass?” he asked, indicating with his head back up the slope. “They must have been in a bad way when they got here and I don’t think they would have been able to go much further yesterday. It was their radio in that bag and if they were not able to retrieve that they must have been exhausted.”

Philip nodded. “You and Mingma scout ahead so we don’t stumble into them. When you locate them, follow until they camp and come back and report.” He winced as he dabbed more cream onto his lips. “We’ll keep moving until we meet up with you. Then we’ll decide on a plan of attack.”

Prem nodded and had a brief conversation in Nepalese with the Sherpa.

“If we’re not back by nightfall, camp when you find a suitable place,” Prem said. “We will find you.”

Philip and Lhamu nodded and watched as the two men pulled on their packs and head off down the slope, walking strongly and springing from rock to rock.

Philip turned to the men and explained what was happening. “We must keep going as long as we can. It’s going to be tough on the knees for the rest of the day but at least the air will be getting thicker and the temperature warmer the more we drop. It everybody OK?”

There was a murmur of assent and some nodding heads.

“Good,” he continued. “Let’s get going and get out of this cold before bits start dropping off.”

They set off down the valley, Lhamu setting a pace that everybody seemed comfortable with except Tashi, who was struggling at the rear. Philip slowly dropped back, checking on the men as he passed and offering an encouraging word. When he finally reached Tashi, his face was white with exhaustion and cold.

“Are you OK?” Philip asked, resting a hand gently on his shoulder. He could feel the Indian shaking beneath his hand.

“I … I’ve never been this God damned cold in my life,” he replied at last, his jaw shivering. “Can’t we just camp and get a big fire going. I need a hot drink or I don’t think I’ll make it.”

Philip shook his head. “If we stay here we’d be as good as dead come nightfall. We’ve no fuel and there’s not going to be any firewood this high.”

“How about a proper rest then,” the Indian asked desperately. “Just for an hour or so until we’ve all recovered and had something to eat. I’m sure everybody feels the same.”

“No,” Philip replied firmly. “The only option is to push on and get down as quickly as possible. Don’t worry, the worst’s over. We should have left the snow behind on the other side.” He reached back into a side pocket of his pack and pulled out a half-eaten bar of chocolate.

“Here,” he said, handing it to the Indian. “Eat this; it’ll give you some energy. I’m afraid it’s frozen solid,” he added with a smile, “so you’ll need to suck it until it softens.”

Tashi took the chocolate and ripped off the wrapper, pushing a chunk into his mouth.

“Didn’t you have weather like this when you were growing up in Tibet?” Philip asked, trying to keep Tashi’s mind distracted.

He nodded, moving the chocolate into a cheek to reply. “The winters were bitter,” he said. “There was rarely snow but the wind blew across the steppe and stripped it bare. When I was sent out to fetch wood it would cut through my clothes as if they weren’t there.” He smiled weakly. “At least they couldn’t send me to get the water. It was frozen so thick that I was too weak to break through so my older brothers had to go.”

“What about when you had to flee?” Philip asked, intrigued by the past of the trader. “Were you allowed to bring your possessions with you?”

Tashi shook his head, his face bitter. “We took only what we could salvage after they burnt our home. They said they wouldn’t kill us as we were fellow Buddhists but they might as well have done. My brothers had died trying to defend us, my grandparents and younger sister died as we fled to India.” He spat a small piece of wrapper from his mouth that had been frozen on to the chocolate. “My mother never recovered. She died soon after reaching Darjeeling, broken by the journey and the betrayal. My elder sisters I’ve never seen again, despite searching on my trading trips. That’s why I’m still here and not sauced up in Kathmandu right now. Someone is going to pay for what happened to my family and however tough, this is my chance.” They continued in silence, trudging along lost in their own thoughts. The path here was easier, a frozen crust of small stones and pebbles that their feet crunched into and gripped. Although breathless from the thin air he didn’t feel the need to stop so often but without the exertion of climbing, he could feel himself getting colder and colder. The wind still blew into his face making his sinuses ache from the frozen air.

After an hour they left the stony terrain and snaked down onto the side of the huge glacier that tumbled down from a mountain to the north, filling the valley they were descending. After several hundred yards of scrambling along its surface, leaping small crevasses that cut across the trail, they climbed off its ice and picked up a small trail that followed the loose moraine to its side. Giant boulders lay scattered around; some perched precariously on smaller ones, with others occasionally blocking their progress, making them detour around them.

It slowed progress considerably, every footstep needing careful attention as the scree was loose and liable to slip away. Several of the men fell and slid down the slope to where the glacial ice started, its outer edge melted by the warmth of the rocks to create a menacing black void that seemed to fall away deep into its core. Philip felt his feet slide away at one point, grasping desperately for a stable handhold as he slithered down the slope. When he finally stopped himself some fifteen feet below the trail, he lay on the ground panting, face down on the cold rock with his heart beating wildly.