Philip Kerr - Esau

Once again, the sirdar closed his eyes and whispered a short prayer as he realized that in his terror of the yeti, he had soiled himself.

Gradually he became aware of the smell produced by the results of his own reflexive action. But it was nothing compared to the strong smell of the yetis. As soon as they had charged him, he had become aware of an overpoweringly pungent stink polluting the fresh mountain air, like the smell produced in a place where there were a great many cats. It was so strong he almost gagged, and the sirdar wondered if this was not some kind of fear odour that had been secreted by the frightened yetis. He was certain that their fear was nothing compared to his own.

For a moment the smell seemed to grow more intense, and opening one eye a fraction again, he saw that the creature was now dropping dung. Horror turned to disgust as the yeti reached under its backside, caught the coil of dung before it hit the snow, and consumed this fecal matter as if it had been the tastiest of morsels.

Hurké’s gagging revulsion became a cough and the sound was enough to set the two yetis screaming hysterically in his face once more, only this time so close that he felt the heat of their breath and the sting of their spittle on his pale cheeks. But still they did not hit or bite him, and gradually the sirdar began to think that they only meant to intimidate him. For the next thirty minutes the sirdar’s slightest movement resulted in another bout of roaring to keep him cowed until the two creatures were absolutely sure that he posed no threat to them.

It was the longest thirty minutes of Hurké Gurung’s life.

When at last the two yetis returned back up the slope of the mountain, toward the Rognon from where they had come, the sirdar offered up a prayer of thanks to the Lord Shiva for his deliverance.

He was still kneeling in prayer when Jack and the others found him.

Jack lit a cigarette and inserted it between the sirdar’s bluish trembling lips. Inspecting the mangled radio that the yeti had torn from Hurké’s storm-proof jacket, he said, ‘Looks like this fella’s got a hell of a handshake. I’d say you had a pretty lucky escape, Hurké.’

The sirdar nodded silently, his face displaying a vexed and quizzical expression, his brow furrowed almost apologetically. Jack was shocked to see that there were tears welling up in his friend’s eyes. He wondered if these were tears of gratitude at having come through the experience he had just described to them or if they were tears for the men who had died in the ice field.

Hurké Gurung sucked noisily at the cigarette and for a moment let the puff drift around his open mouth like gun smoke before trying to force a smile past his chattering teeth.

‘You’ve had a bad shock,’ Jameson told him. ‘You ought to go back to ABC.’

‘There are five men dead,’ said Jack. ‘Perhaps we should all go back to ABC.’

‘Like hell we should,’ said Swift, pointing up the slope of the Rognon and to the forbidden holy mountain behind it. ‘Look at those tracks. We might never get a better trail than that. Come on. Jack, this time we know it’s the real thing.’

‘Not some local mountain maharishi,’ said Jameson. ‘She’s right. Jack.’

Jack glanced at Mac, who was taking the sirdar’s photograph. ‘Mac? What do you say?’

Mac shrugged. ‘I say we do what we planned. We carry all this gear up to the top of the Rognon. While two of us establish Camp One, the other two can follow the trail. The weather’s good. So’s the forecast. There’s still plenty of daylight. The lady’s right. Jack. We might never get a better chance. This is what we bloody came for.’

Jack asked the sirdar if he felt up to returning to ABC on his own.

‘I think yes.’

‘What about the families of those men who died?’ asked Swift. ‘Someone will have to tell them.’

‘I will do it,’ added the sirdar.

Jack caught Hurké Gurung’s eye and looked uncomfortable.

‘You’d better make sure they’re aware that it was running away that caused their deaths. Not the yetis,’ he said. ‘And you can tell them that they will receive the proper compensation.’

‘I understand, sahib. And you must not be reproaching yourself. It was not your fault, Jack sahib. No more than last time. It is as you say. Sherpas should not have run away. But instinctively you would wish to do so. Yeti is a pretty terrifying fellow. And what is more, he is smelling abominable, just like Boyd sahib is saying to us.’

Mac sniffed the air suspiciously. There was still a faintly musky smell hanging around the area where they had found the sirdar.

‘That’s the smell I remember from Nuptse,’ he said.

‘And you say he ate his own dung?’ asked Jameson.

The sirdar grimaced.

‘Yeti very dirty fellow. Him eat his own shit, yes. Like very raagako maasu dinner.’

‘That would certainly explain why no one has ever found any yeti excrement,’ observed Swift.

‘Most great apes are coprophagous,’ explained Jameson. ‘It enables the animal to absorb some extra nutrients beyond what is available in its normal diet. It’s simply a matter of squeezing every possible mineral and vitamin out of the food it eats. If you see what I mean.’

‘I’ll remember that,’ said Jack, ‘next time I’m hungry.’

‘The fact that it had a shit at all would seem to indicate that the animal was probably as scared as poor old Hurké.’

The sirdar shifted awkwardly inside his trousers.

‘I not think so, Jameson sahib. Besides I do not think yeti is an animal. He look much more Like a man. Behave like ape, maybe. But teeth not as sharp. No big dog teeth. And face not as flat as ape. Before I see him up close, face to face, I think that yeti was an animal. But now I am no sure. He is, as people say, a snowman. And now I think that is why some Sherpas are calling yeti by a different name. Teh is the name of this creature, sahibs. Yeh is meaning rocky place. Yeti means rock creature. Only some Sherpas call this fellow Maai-teh. Miti. Maai means a man. So not Yet-teh , but Maai-teh . I think this maybe a better name for what I have seen. Miti . For he was like a very big man, sahibs. A very big man creature.’

The sirdar finished his cigarette and tossed the end into the nearest crevasse. Jack lit him another and then handed him his own radio. Turning to the others, he said:

‘Okay, you asked for it. To the top of the Rognon is a straight pull of about three hundred metres. Not much more than a bit of simple hill walking if you were at sea level. But at almost five thousand metres it will seem a hell of a lot harder, believe me.’

At Jack’s request the sirdar helped him to shoulder a large box that had been discarded by one of the dead Sherpas.

‘And with a fifty-pound load on your back?’ He grinned cruelly. ‘Well, let’s say that you’re about to have an object lesson in just how tough Hurké and his people have to be. Guys? You’re going to learn what it takes to be a Sherpa.’

Halfway up the icing-sugar slope. Swift stopped and tried to think beyond the endless effort of her ascent of Machhapuchhare’s Rognon. She had not thought it possible to feel quite so exhausted and still force herself to go on. More than anything, she wanted to drop the load off her aching back, only she knew that she would never find the strength needed to pick it up again.