Dan Simmons - The Abominable - A Novel

Introductions completed, Pasang waves more than half the men into a more distant part of the yard, where they squat amicably and speak softly amongst themselves.

“I’ve never interviewed a Sherpa for a job position before,” whispers Jean-Claude.

“I have,” says the Deacon.

But in the end it is Pasang and Reggie who help us make up our minds. As the three of us make little more than small talk, Pasang might say, “Nyima can carry more than twice his weight all day without tiring,” or Reggie might comment, “Ang Chiri lives in a village situated above fifteen thousand feet and seems to have no trouble with greater altitudes,” and that sort of information, along with a man’s ability to speak or understand English, is what helps us decide, especially on who our personal Sherpas will be.

After twenty minutes, we realize that Pasang will be Reggie’s sole Sherpa—as well as Sirdar or boss-man of all the Sherpas, even while serving as the expedition’s physician. J.C. has chosen Norbu Chedi and Lhakpa Yishay as his Sherpas. The two men, while from different villages and evidently not related, look enough alike as to be brothers; both have let their bangs grow down over their eyes, and Reggie explains that these long bangs take the place of darkened goggles to protect against snow blindness where the men live high up amongst the glaciers.

The Deacon has chosen Nyima Tsering—a short, stout Sherpa with a loud giggle he uses as prelude to his pidgin English answer to each question, and who can carry more than twice his own weight. The Deacon’s second choice is a taller, thinner, more English-proficient man named Tenzing Bothia who never went anywhere without his own assistant, young Tejbir Norgay.

I choose a smiling, roly-poly, but obviously healthy and happy fellow named Babu Rita to be one of my two Tigers and Ang Chiri of the high-altitude village as my other co-climber. Babu’s wide grin is so infectious that it’s everything I can do not to grin back at him all the time. He has all his teeth. Ang is a relatively short man but with a barrel chest so broad that my father would have described it as “doing a Kentucky thoroughbred justice.” I can imagine Ang Chiri climbing all the way to the summit of Everest without ever needing oxygen from anyone’s tank.

We spend a few more minutes chatting, and then Reggie announces that the jovial little fellow named Semchumbi—no last name evidently—will be the head cook for the expedition. A tall, serious, relatively light-skinned Sherpa named Nawang Bura will be in charge of the pack animals.

“And speaking of pack animals,” says Reggie, “we need to start apportioning the gear into bundles for the mules.” She claps her hands, Pasang makes gestures, and all thirty of the men rush toward the lower stables, where our trucks are parked with the gear.

“And, gentlemen, you need to get about choosing your riding ponies and saddles,” says Reggie, leading us briskly toward the larger upper stable.

“You’ve got to be kidding.” I’m sitting on the white pony and my feet are flat on the ground.

“They’re Tibetan ponies,” says Reggie. “Much more surefooted than regular horses or ponies on the icy mountain trails we’ll be taking, and able to graze where a regular horse or mule would find no forage.”

“Yes, but…,” I say. I stand up and let the pony walk out from under me. Jean-Claude is laughing so hard he’s holding his sides. His legs are short enough that he can hitch them up his pony’s flanks and look as if he’s actually riding. The Deacon has chosen a pony but hasn’t bothered getting on the thing.

When I saw Reggie’s big roan gelding trotting into the stable at dawn after her ride, I assumed we’d be riding real horses into Tibet. After all, Bruce’s equipment list for the 1924 expedition had recommended each Englishman bring along his own saddle.

I look at the miniature white pony walking out from under my bowed legs. Hell, even an English saddle would weigh the poor thing down; an American western saddle would crush it.

As if reading my mind, the Deacon says, “You can ride with just a blanket pad on the poor beast, but you’ll get tired holding your legs up, Jake. Sliding off the pony on some of the narrow mountain trails we’ll be on would be a bad idea…it might be three or four hundred vertical feet to the river below. There are wooden Tibetan saddles that Mallory wanted us to use in ’twenty-one, but I would not recommend them.”

“Why not?” I ask.

“They’re shaped like a wooden ‘V,’” says Reggie. “They’ll crush your testicles after two or three miles.”

I’ve never heard a woman say testicles before, and I realize that I’m blushing wildly. Jean-Claude doesn’t help by laughing.

“I’m going down to help Dr. Pasang supervise the loading,” says the Deacon.

Reggie is telling the liveryman which small pony saddles should go with which small pony. I get the largest saddle.

“Luncheon is at eleven sharp,” she calls after the Deacon. “We have to settle the provisions problem then.”

The Deacon stops, turns, opens his mouth to say something, but then pulls his unlit pipe from his tweed jacket’s pocket and bites down on the stem. Making a military turn on his right heel, he walks quick time out of the stable and down toward the garages and smaller stable, from which direction we can hear the shouting of Sherpas and the braying of mules.

The Deacon and Reggie argue loudly during lunch, continue the argument over sherry in the afternoon when the gear and provisions finally have been apportioned to packs for quick loading on the mules in the morning, and resume the arguments again during dinner in the grand dining room.

They argue over provisions, about the route, over alternate plans for the search for Percival Bromley’s corpse, about methods of climbing once we get to Everest, and—most central to all of the arguments—about who is in charge of the expedition.

In the middle of the arguing at lunchtime, the Deacon brings up a mystery that we haven’t been able to solve despite all of the Deacon’s contacts with the 1924 expedition: i.e., how on earth had Percival Bromley been allowed to tag along behind the expedition? Both General Charles Bruce, before he became ill and had to leave the expedition, and Colonel Norton, who took over general command of the expedition, were sticklers for staying with the plan they’d laid out. Even the addition of one more person to be responsible for would have fouled up their plans, and certainly young Percy wasn’t such a renowned climber that Mallory and the others wouldn’t have objected strongly to his nearby presence, even if he weren’t a member of the expedition. Even the Deacon’s good friends Noel Odell and the moviemaker who’d caused such controversy with his dancing lamas, Captain John Noel, had told the Deacon that they had no idea why Percy had been allowed to tag along. All they knew was that both General Bruce and Colonel Norton insisted that it was all right, against all logic—and each climber that the Deacon queried had said that Percy was such a nice and unassuming chap that as long as he simply followed the expedition, perhaps a half day’s march behind, he was tolerated.

But there had been no plans for young Lord Percival Bromley to go with them even as far as Everest Base Camp at the foot of the Rongbuk Glacier. Everyone had understood that.

In the middle of arguing over provisions, the Deacon returns to this issue of how and why Percival Bromley was allowed to tag along to Mount Everest.

Reggie is weary of the talk, and her tone is of the sort that ends most conversations. “Listen one last time, Mr. Deacon. Cousin Percival was visiting here when the ’twenty-four expedition leaders were invited to the plantation to have dinner with Lord and Lady Lytton, as well as Percy and me. Lord Lytton, as you may remember, was Governor-General of Bengal, and he and General Bruce and Colonel Norton met alone with Percy for the better part of an hour in the study. When they emerged, both Bruce and Norton announced that Percy would be allowed to follow the expedition—not travel with them, you understand, and never be on the official rolls, but strictly travel behind them—the condition being that Percy provide his own pony, tent, and foodstuffs. The last was no problem because Percy had been assembling his kit here at the plantation for two weeks before the expedition arrived in Calcutta.”