Dan Simmons - The Abominable - A Novel

“I’ll give you two reasons for my going on this expedition besides the absolute necessity of my funding,” Reggie says calmly. “Will you be so kind as to listen, or will you continue to interrupt me with those barnyard noises?”

The Deacon folds his arms and says nothing. Everything about his expression and posture says that nothing will convince him.

“First…or, rather, second, after the funding,” says Reggie, “is the appalling fact that you’ve provided no doctor for your expedition. All three of the previous British expeditions had at least two physicians, one of them a surgeon, and usually they had more than two medical men along with them.”

“I learned some important first aid during the War,” says the Deacon through gritted teeth.

“I’m sure you did,” says Reggie with a smile. “And if any of us were to receive a shrapnel wound or be shot by a machine gun during this expedition, I have no doubt that you could prolong our lives for entire minutes. But there are no Aid Stations behind the battle lines in Tibet, Mr. Deacon.”

“You’re going to tell us that you’re a competent nurse?” says the Deacon.

“Yes, I am,” says Reggie. “With more than thirteen thousand local people working on our two plantations, I’ve had to learn some nursing skills. But that’s not the point I was going to make. I intend for us to have an excellent doctor and surgeon on our team.”

“We can’t afford to add people…,” begins the Deacon.

Reggie stops him with a gracefully raised palm. “Dr. Pasang,” she says to her sirdar. “Would you like to tell these gentlemen your medical credentials?”

Dr. Pasang? I thought. I confess—and it is a confession, a shameful one—that vague images of Indian fakirs and holy men, not to mention Haitian voodoo witch doctors, dance through my brain in the few seconds before Pasang speaks in that smooth and cultured English accent.

“I attended one year at Oxford and one at Cambridge,” says the tall Sherpa. “But I then trained a year at Edinburgh Medical Centre, three years at the Middlesex Hospital Medical School, eighteen months studying surgery with the famous thoracic surgeon Herr Doctor Claus Wolheim in Heidelberg…that’s Heidelberg, Germany, gentlemen…then, after returning to India, I served another year of residency in the Karras Convent Hospital in Lahore.”

“Cambridge and Oxford would never allow…,” begins the Deacon and then bites down on what he was about to say.

“A wog in their midst?” asks Dr. Pasang without rancor. He shows the first broad, bright smile we’ve seen from him to date. There is no malice in it. “For some strange reason,” he continues, “both worthy institutions were under the odd illusion that I was the eldest son of the Maharaja of Aidapur, as were the medical schools in Edinburgh and Middlesex I mentioned. This was a short while before your days at Cambridge, Mr. Deacon, and the maintenance of friendly relations with the royalty of India was very important to England then.”

We are silent for a long moment, and then Jean-Claude asks in a very small voice, “Dr. Pasang, if you don’t find it impertinent of me to ask, why—after such excellent medical training and after becoming a licensed physician—did you return to work as a… sirdar …here at Reggie’s…at Lady Bromley-Montfort’s tea plantations?”

Again the white smile. “ Sirdar will be my title only on this expedition to the Tibetan sacred mountain Chomolungma,” he says. “As Lady Bromley-Montfort has explained, there are more than thirteen thousand men and women in her direct employ. Those employees have extended families. My skills as a physician here in the hills between Darjeeling and the southern Himalayas do not go unpracticed. We have two plantation infirmaries, one for each large tea plantation, which are…if I may be so bold…somewhat superior in both equipment and medicines to the small British hospital in Darjeeling.”

“How can the people do without you while you’re on expedition, Dr. Pasang?” I hear myself asking.

“Lady Bromley-Montfort has, most graciously, sent younger men than I for medical training in England and New Delhi. And several of our Sherpa women have completed comprehensive nurse’s training in both Calcutta and Bombay and, to honor their benefactress as I did, returned to the plantation to offer their services.”

“You’re really a surgeon?” asks the Deacon.

Pasang shows a different, sharper sort of smile. “Allow me time to fetch a scalpel and lancet from my bag and I will show you, Mr. Deacon.”

The Deacon turns back to Reggie. “You said there were three reasons we’d have to accept your company. We could take Dr. Pasang along—with our gratitude—but having a woman on an Everest expedition…”

“I imagine you’ll find it very difficult traveling through Tibet without official Tibetan permission,” Reggie says.

“I…we…,” begins the Deacon. He hits the table with his fist. “Lady Bromley promised that she would obtain such permission and that we should receive the documents here in Darjeeling.”

“And so you shall,” says Reggie. She lifts her hand over her right shoulder and Pasang puts another rolled-up document into it. She smooths the thick parchment out over the map of our planned five-week trek from Darjeeling to Rongbuk and then Mount Everest. “Would you all care to read it?” she asks, turning the document.

All three of us half-stand to lean over the table to read. It is a handwritten document, in beautiful script, and affixed with half a dozen stamped and waxed seals.

TO THE JONGPENS AND HEADMEN OF PHARIJONG, TING-KE, KAMBA, AND KHARTA:

You are to bear in mind that a party of Sahibs are coming to see the Cho-mo-lung-ma mountain, even though the Dalai Lama has set a temporary ban on such travels by foreigners due to bad manners after the 1924 so-called “Mt. Everest Expedition.” This exception is given by the Sacred Dalai Lama only because this party’s leader, Lady Bromley-Montfort, has long been a friend of the Tibetans and of the many jongpens and we wish her to be able to travel with her associates to and onto Cho-mo-lung-ma in an attempt to retrieve the body of her deceased cousin, British Lord Percival Bromley, whom many of you have met. He died on the sacred mountain in 1924 and our friends the Bromleys would like to see him properly buried. We trust that Lady Bromley-Montfort’s group will, in the tradition she has long established at her Darjeeling plantation, continue to evince great friendship and generosity towards the Tibetans. Therefore, on the request of the Great Minister Bell, and by the express wish of His Holiness the Thirteenth Dalai Lama, a letter of passage has been issued requiring you and all officials and subjects of the Tibetan government to supply transport, e.g., riding ponies, pack animals, and coolies as required by Lady Bromley-Montfort and her Sahib helpers, the rates for which should be fixed to mutual satisfaction. Any other assistance Lady Bromley-Montfort may require, either by day or by night, on the march or during the halts, in or near their encampments or in our villages, should be faithfully given, and their requirements about transport or anything else should be promptly attended to. All the people of the country, wherever Lady Bromley-Montfort and her Sahib helpers may happen to come, should render all necessary assistance in the best possible way, not merely to re-establish friendly relations between the British and Tibetan Governments, but to continue the long amity between Lady Bromley-Montfort’s tea plantation—long famed for its hospitality to our travelers—and all the people of Tibet.

Dispatched during the Water Dog Year