Philip Kerr - Esau

‘Cut the National Geographic video,’ said Jack, ‘and tell us what we do now. I don’t like the look of these bastards.’

Jameson unslung the Zuluarms, broke open the rifle barrel to remove the Cap-Chur syringe, but left the percussion cap in the shotgun barrel.

‘They don’t seem at all afraid of us,’ remarked Swift as another wolf appeared atop a block of ice.

‘I expect they’ve not seen men much before,’ said Jack. ‘If it comes to that, I’ve never seen wolves in this part of the Himalayas.’

‘Fire the gun, for Christ’s sake,’ urged Mac.

‘You’re the one who’s afraid of avalanches,’ Jameson said pointedly. ‘How about it. Jack? Is it safe?’

Jack looked up at the rock face above them. They were probably far enough away to survive any ordinary avalanche. But one caused by gunshots? That was harder to call.

‘What’s the alternative?’ he said. ‘Will they attack?’

‘As long as we all stick together, they probably won’t risk it. But we can hardly stay out here all night.’

‘How about this?’ said Jack. ‘We all link arms in a square and head back toward the camp. There’s fire there. We can scare them off with that.’

‘What about the leopard?’ said Jameson. ‘We can hardly leave him to get eaten.’

‘Do you have a better idea?’

‘No.’

‘Right then. Let’s do it.’

They linked arms and formed a square, with Jameson walking backward to protect their rear. The wolves watched them for a moment and then, growling loudly, one of them snapped at Jack’s leg. He kicked the wolf away and called a halt.

‘That ends that idea.’

‘I didn’t much like it anyway,’ observed Jameson.

Jack looked again at the rock face. There were maybe a couple of thousand tons of snow up there. But now there seemed to be no alternative.

‘Okay, use the gun.’

Jameson didn’t need to be asked twice. The big leader was closing in on him with a look of real purpose. He levelled the rifle straight at the wolf’s head and fired. On top of the Rognon, the gun sounded like a howitzer.

With a yelp of fright the wolf sprang back and trotted away, with the others scattered ahead of him. Jack glanced up the rock face and then back at the wolves.

‘Another,’ he said.

Jameson loaded another cap and fired again to hurry the pack on its way. The gunshot seemed almost to bang against the rock face, as if daring the snow to break. But this time the wolves ran with an even greater sense of urgency.

‘Thank God for that,’ breathed Mac. ‘For a minute there I thought I was some evil mutt’s breakfast.’

‘Poor bastards,’ said Jameson. ‘They might have tracked the leopard for as much as a hundred kilometres.’

‘I know the feeling,’ said Swift. ‘This time I really thought we were going to be lucky, y’know?’

‘This time we were lucky,’ said Jameson. He loaded another cap and gazed over the Rognon, but the wolves had gone.

‘I mean, with the yeti.’

‘Sure,’ said Jameson. ‘But you’re a hunter. You’ll have to learn patience if you’re going to pull off this expedition, y’know?’

Jack glanced at his wristwatch and then at the drugged cat.

‘Five o’clock. Sun’ll be up soon.’

‘Cup of tea anyone?’ said Mac. ‘I could use a brew after all that excitement.’

‘I’m going to wait here for a while,’ said Jameson. ‘See this chap safely back on his feet in case Mowgli’s brothers come back again.’

Jack stretched lazily.

‘It’s back to bed for me. There’s not much we can do until the Sherpas get here with one of Boyd’s space suits.’

It was midmorning by the time the Sherpas from ABC, led by Ang Tsering, reached Camp One. They were accompanied, at protracted length, by Byron Cody and Jutta Henze. Their ascent had been without incident, although in the whirl of the bitter wind and spindrift, the end of Byron Cody’s nose had succumbed to frostbite, while his feet felt quite frozen. Almost as soon as he had removed his small rucksack, Jutta Henze took him into the undamaged tent, where she covered his nose with a dressing to keep it warm as much as anything, handed him some antibiotics, and then administered an intravenous shot of low-molecular dextran.

He emerged from the tent yawning as widely as any gorilla he had ever studied.

‘You should have stayed in bed,’ Jack told him.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘But I didn’t get much sleep last night.’

‘I thought you wanted to go and visit with those Chinese,’ said Jameson.

‘Tsering’s right. They were probably deserters. Besides, I didn’t want to miss anything up here.’

‘I think you’d miss the end of your nose,’ remarked Jutta. ‘If it doesn’t improve today you’ll have to go down to base camp and have some oxygen and an anticoagulant.’

‘Where’s Hurké?’ Jack asked Jutta. ‘I was counting on him being here.’

‘He wanted to come, of course. But I made him stay. He’s had quite a shock. It’s on his mind what happened and his mind needs to be on the mountain if he’s going to be up here.’

Unequal to the task of arguing with the German, Jack nodded. There was something about her tone of voice that sounded so common-sensical, so matter-of-fact that he cold only agree with her decision that Ang Tsering should lead the Sherpas up to Camp One.

‘He’ll come up later this afternoon. But only if he’s one hundred percent.’

‘Good thinking, Jutta. You’re absolutely right. A mistake up here is nearly always fatal.’

He found Ang Tsering enjoying his sixth or seventh mug of Tibetan tea with Mac. Sherpas always drank large quantities of tea, aware that exhaustion on the mountain was more often due to the want of body fluids. Brewed with salt and butter, Tibetan tea was an acquired taste that Jack had never acquired. That Mac should seem to enjoy the stuff almost as much as the Sherpas seemed quite unaccountable.

‘Delicious,’ grinned the Scotsman, and smacked his lips with relish.

‘As soon as you think the boys are ready, we’ll get going down the corridor,’ Jack told Tsering.

The assistant sirdar nodded slowly and took one of Mac’s cigarettes.

‘Were there any problems with them this morning?’

‘Naturally,’ said Tsering, puffing his cigarette to life with the help of Mac’s flamethrower of a lighter. ‘The loss of so many close friends confirms their expectations that looking for a yeti is just the same thing as looking for trouble. They burned some incense before leaving ABC. And several times on our way we had to stop for prayers. No doubt they were asking the gods for the good health to spend the extra hard currency that Boyd sahib has given everyone in order to stay on.’

‘He did that, huh?’ Jack nodded. Boyd may have been a harsh critic of their mission, but there was no denying his capabilities. Not to mention his willingness to put his hand in his pocket and buy their way out of what could easily have proven to be a potential crisis with the porterage. Up here, when the porters went home, an expedition was finished.

‘New notes too,’ added Tsering. ‘The boys prefer new notes, of course. Boyd knows that. I tell you, one might think that Boyd was printing them himself, such is the quantity of dollar bills at his disposal. It is just as well that we are an honest people. If I were Boyd I’d be afraid that someone would try to rob me.’

‘I wouldn’t worry about Boyd,’ Jack told him. ‘I reckon Boyd can look after himself.’

Behind the ruined tent. Jack stripped naked and took a quick snow bath, scrubbing himself clean with handfuls of snow. After drying himself vigorously, he donned the special underwear; then Mac and Jameson helped him climb into the single-piece suit through an access hatch that was revealed when the backpack, with its Antarctic life-support system, was swung open on its rubberized seal. After the arm and leg lengths had been adjusted to Jack’s height, the metal bayonet fittings of two air-conditioning hoses were locked on to their receptacles on the front of the suit. Then came hoses for the water-warmed underwear: The water, heated in the backpack, was designed to circulate through a tiny network of microscopic tubes woven into the material. Jameson and Mac locked each hose into place according to the suit’s simple instructions.