Dan Simmons - The Abominable - A Novel

I can tell that Reggie is not totally convinced, but what choice does she have? She’s always known that the Deacon’s—and Jean-Claude’s and my—primary goal is to reach the summit (although in the past two days of illness, I’ve been very discouraged about the odds of reaching that goal). She just has to believe that we’ll do our best in searching for Percy on the way up and back down—if there is a “back down.”

On the morning of the fourth day, as the snowstorm finally shows signs of relenting, we reconvene in the Big Tent and go over the Deacon’s strategy. “There’s a reason that all the English expeditions have been led by military men,” the Deacon is saying as we huddle over the map of the mountain. His gaze rests more on Reggie’s face than on J.C.’s or mine, and I understand he’s making a final effort at persuasion. “This way of attacking the mountain—carrying to Camp One, then Camp Two, and so forth up to Camp Six or Seven before attempting the summit—is classic military siege strategy.”

“Such as the sieges in the Great War?” asks Reggie.

“No,” says the Deacon with a tone of absolute finality. “The Great War was four years of trench warfare insanity. Tens of thousands of lives lost in a day for a few yards of ground gained…yards that would be lost the next day at an equal price. No, I’m talking about classical sieges from the Middle Ages on. The kind of siege of Cornwallis at Yorktown that your general, Jake…Washington…was taught by his French friend”—a nod at J.C.—“Lafayette. Surround the enemy where he can’t retreat—a peninsula worked fine as long as the French ships didn’t allow the Royal Navy to save Cornwallis and his men. Then bombard. Under bombardment, advance your trenches yard by yard, mile by mile, until you’re right up against the enemy’s defenses. Then a final quick assault and…victory.”

“But none of your English generals here on Everest,” says Jean-Claude, “have moved their trenches close enough to the summit for that successful final assault.”

The Deacon nods agreement, but I can tell he’s distracted. Perhaps by Reggie’s unwavering gaze. “The ’twenty-two and ’twenty-four expeditions both planned to establish a Camp Seven at around twenty-seven thousand three hundred feet, but neither achieved that goal. Mallory and Irvine and all the rest of us before them started our summit assault from Camp Six at about twenty-six thousand eight hundred feet.”

“That’s only five hundred feet difference,” says Reggie, moving her gaze down to the map of the Rongbuk Glacier and the mountain.

“Five hundred vertical feet can mean half a day’s worth of climbing at those altitudes.” The Deacon plays with his unlit pipe. “There’s no only to it.”

“Didn’t Norton and Mallory fail to establish a Camp Seven because the porters gave out?” I ask. I’ve heard and read all the reports. “Were just unable to carry tents higher?”

“In part,” says the Deacon. “But the sahib climbers also gave out, in terms of carrying loads, above Camp Six. And that includes Finch and me in ’twenty-two. Besides, Camp Seven was always the plan for a final assault without oxygen; when Mallory decided that he and Irvine would make an attempt with the O-two apparatus, the extra five hundred vertical feet didn’t seem to make that much difference.”

“But you think it did,” says Reggie.

“Yes.” If she’d been attempting irony, the Deacon’s tone suggests he hadn’t noticed it. He presses his pipe stem down on a point on the map above our inked-in Camp VI and below the juncture of the North Ridge with the long North East Ridge. “The problem isn’t just altitude up there—although that’s debilitating enough. The slabs are steeper as one approaches the North East Ridge, and there’s much less packable snow—very few places to carve out a platform for even one tent, and the climber doesn’t have enough energy to be moving stones to create a platform. But mostly it’s the wind up there. Camp Six is bad enough, but closer to the North East Ridge, that wind rolls over and down most of the time. It can carry away a climber, much less his tent.”

“You originally wanted a rapid alpine assault from Camp Five at twenty-five thousand three hundred feet or lower, Ree-shard, ” says J.C. “The three of us climbers carrying just a rucksack, bread, water, chocolate, and perhaps a flag to plant on the summit.”

The Deacon smiles wryly.

“And maybe a bivouac sack,” I say. “For when we get caught by the sun setting while we’re descending the Second or First Step on the way down.”

“Aye, there’s the rub,” says the Deacon, audibly scratching his stubbled cheek. “No one’s ever survived a night bivouac at those altitudes. It’s hard enough to survive in a tent with a working Primus at Camps Four, Five, and Six. That’s why I’ve decided that we have to make the assault from Camp Seven, or, failing that, from a high Camp Six, as Mallory and Irvine did. But start earlier. Perhaps even at night as Reg…as Lady Bromley-Montfort has suggested. Those little headlamps work pretty well. But I haven’t worked out how we avoid freezing to death while attempting to climb before dawn—or after sunset, for that matter.”

“As far as surviving,” begins Reggie. “Excuse me a moment…” She leaves the tent and snow blows in. Pasang remains behind, retying the door cords.

The Deacon looks at us but we shrug. Perhaps he’s said something to upset her.

A few minutes later she’s back from her own tent, brushing snow out of her long black hair, her arms full of what we first think are extra Finch goose down duvet balloon jackets.

“You three have laughed at me bringing my treadle sewing machine on the trek,” she says. And before we can speak, she insists, “No, I’ve heard you complaining. Half a mule’s total load, you said. And I heard you sniggering in the evenings along the trek when I was in my Big Tent sewing and you heard the treadle going.”

None of us can deny that.

“Here’s what I was working on,” she says and hands out the bulky but light items.

Three pairs of sewn and hemmed goose down trousers. So that’s why she took our measurements back at the plantation, I think.

“I believe that Mr. Finch solved half of the problem,” she says. “There’s still too much body heat lost through the silk and cotton and wool of the climber’s underwear and trousers. I’ve made enough of these for all of us, Pasang, and eight of the Tiger Sherpas. I can’t promise that it will allow any of us to survive a night bivouac above twenty-eight thousand feet, but it gives us a fighting chance to keep moving before dawn and after sunset.”

“They’ll rip and tear,” says the Deacon. J.C. and I are busy shedding our boots and squirming into our new goose down trousers.

“They’re made of the same balloon cloth that Finch used on the parkas,” says Reggie. “Besides, I have a waxed-cotton outer shell for all the trousers. Not heavy. Tougher than the anoraks you wear over the Finch duvets. Notice that all of your trousers, inner and outer, have buttons for braces and a button fly. That last was extra work, I tell you.”

I blush at this.

“I’m also using the last of the balloon fabric to make buttoned-on goose-down-filled hoods for our Finch duvet jackets,” says Reggie. “And I must say that using that sewing machine treadle at this altitude is hard work.”

The Deacon clamps down on his cold pipe and scowls. “Where on earth did you get balloon fabric?”

“I sacrificed the plantation’s hot-air balloon,” says Lady Katherine Christina Regina Bromley-Montfort.

Jean-Claude and I spend twenty minutes or so parading around Base Camp through the blowing snow and minus-fifteen-degree temperatures while wearing our three layers of mittens, Finch coat, Reggie trousers, Shackleton windproof anoraks, Reggie’s just-finished button-on goose down hoods, and our tough duck trouser shells. With our three layers of glove-mittens and our leather and wool aviator caps pulled down under our new hoods, balaclavas and goggles on, it’s a strange feeling to be so warm in such terrible conditions.