And Nick was thinking to himself, Why are all these buggers making money out of us and we’re not? The truth was, as Mal pointed out, these buggers (Kurt and Julie, myself, the PR firm, our accountant, lawyer, everyone down to the caterers) were being paid for doing a job, and that job was raising the publicity and money that gave us a three-month Everest expedition with a lot of valuable gear to keep, for the princely sum of £200 each. Without the climbers there’d be no film, no book, but without the media contracts there’d be no Expedition.
‘So, can we sign the contracts, please?’ We all signed, wrote out our nominal cheques, formally enlisting ourselves to the common venture. Then Dave Bricknell made a welcome and unexpected statement: Pilkington’s were aware that we might feel a certain pressure to succeed because of all the money put behind us. They didn’t want that. ‘What we want to see,’ Dave continued, ‘is a successful expedition, and by that we mean going out and doing your best, which you will anyway, and coming back all in one piece and as a cohesive team.’ Silent, appreciative nods. The ideal sponsor’s ideal parting words.
Business over, we broke up the meeting and returned to pleasure. Though there was the usual laughter, drinking and carry-on, Jon noticed there was slightly less excitement and high spirits than customary before an expedition. It may have been the size of the team, and us not knowing each other well. There was also less of the death-and-destruction humour, precisely because this was a death route. There was a lurking seriousness behind the smiles. We were also very tired by the weeks and months of activity it had taken to get us to this point.
These factors, together with the prospect of a 5.0 am start next morning, kept most of us under control. We slipped away quietly upstairs with our partners by midnight, leaving only Jon and Sandy in full cry pursuit of a good time …
At 6.0 am on 6th March we stumble through our last Press conference in a basement room at Heathrow. We try to look suitably keen, fit and enthusiastic, but in reality we were grey and hungover. Allen Fyffe in particular is grim as Dundee in November. ‘Can’t you guys smile? Please!’ We assume hideous rictus snarls.
In an alley on the way back to the departure lounge a ladder is propped against the wall. Bob Barton and Sandy hesitate then walk deliberately round it. Already we’re becoming superstitious.
1 Unsoeld and Hornbein climbed Everest via the West Ridge and North Face in the 1963 American expedition.
6TH – 9TH MARCH
‘What’s that about?’ The future, I should think.’
Three hours gone, another nineteen before we arrive in Peking. The Expedition sleeps or slumps back blank-eyed. Jon and Chris have Thoroughly Modern Music on their headphones (New Order and Yellowman); Bob, as befits his age and temperament, listens to Dylan, thinking of his wife Anna and their new daughter. Andy Nisbet is white-faced and immobile, he travels very badly and this flight is a purgatory for him. He thinks of the two flights after this one, across China and on to Lhasa, then three days of journeying by truck, and groans inwardly. Nick and Sarah are talking quietly with each other, as they will for much of the trip. Others conscientiously sign their way through stacks of Expedition postcards for schoolkids.
Tony Brindle is missing his girlfriend Kathy to a degree he didn’t know possible. They’d informally become engaged shortly before his departure; he’s told only Liz about this to avoid teasing from the more cynically minded. I envy them their certainty, and the way Kathy had come to the airport with us to be with him till the last minute. I could use some of that certainty. For me the last three months have been an emotional soap-opera when everyone is in love with the wrong person, each wanting what we don’t have. Once in a while we’d look at each other and laugh at our painful absurdity.
How are we to live? I’m not going back to the mountains just for more climbing and new scenery. We’re all setting out with half-formulated questions to be resolved, even if it’s just ‘Can I go to 8,000 metres?’ Each one of us on this plane has our own inner expedition, the secret expedition with its twists and turns, moving like an underground river below the surface of events.
Mal hands round blow-up photos of the Pinnacles, taken from the North Ridge. The lads pore over the problems that are going to dominate our thoughts for the next three months. The Pinnacles look chilling to my unpractised eye: hard climbing at any altitude, an unprecedented level of difficulty at over 8,000 metres. Falling away steeply on the West side, and the sheer drop of the Kangshung face on the other – there’s no escape route off these Pinnacles till the far end of them when the North Col Ridge meets our one. ‘See that little notch on the First Pinn, that’s where Bonington turned back … Renshaw had his stroke a little higher … Looks like you turn the last Pinn on this side … See that tiny colour patch below the Second Pinnacle? It might be a bivvy tent … Or Pete and Joe …’ A short silence, no one wants to think too much about that, though it’s a mystery we all want solved.
‘Looks real horrorshow,’ Rick says quietly. No one disagrees.
Jon points out the base of the First Pinnacle. ‘You see that? That’s as far as I’m going. From then on you’re on your own.’
But I am thinking of a last hug from Kathleen before boarding the bus to Heathrow, the softness of her pink sweater under my hands while over her shoulder the full moon was setting in the blue-black sky behind the hotel. I am thinking of our last night together, the things we said, and the hollow talismanic stone she hung on a thong round my neck. It’ll stay there till I return. Then behind me Jon, who’d been up all night, his hair a devastated cornfield, enthuses ‘I’m thoroughly rat-holed – great!’
Peking in March has the aethetic charm and oriental mystery of a fifties tower block; it is as stimulating as a wet January afternoon in Fort William. Or so it seemed to us as our coach nosed its way through Peking’s 10 million rush hour cyclists. The city was utterly flat and utterly monochrome. Clouds of grey dust blew down the streets from endless building sites where hundreds of men and women laboured with picks and shovels and baskets. It seemed that the entire city was being rebuilt in grey concrete. The patient cyclists were swathed in dark, padded jackets, fur-lined hats, many wearing grey face-masks against the dust.
‘These are new workers’ apartments,’ our interpreter Jack announced, pointing out another ten-storey concrete block. ‘And this is the LARGEST GROCERY STORE IN BEIJING!’ We try to look suitably impressed as we trundle by what looks like a particularly shabby and dimly-lit post-war Woolworth’s.
Still, the Chinese arrangements had accorded with their reputation for efficiency. All our baggage was quickly retrieved at the airport, and we passed with almost indecent ease through the Diplomatic Channel of the Customs (two stages which can take several days at Delhi airport, many hours in Rawalpindi). Outside stood two coaches, one for us and one for our gear. We explained we’d only ordered one, but two was what we got and two is what we’d pay for. Which is also very Chinese. Rick, whose meticulous nature well suited him to being our money manager, noted it down as the first of our additional expenses. On the bus our interpreter introduced himself as Jack though he was in fact Yan – very slight, young, thin-faced with a long bony nose, bespectacled and given to blinking a lot; he did not look very Chinese and his English was easily the best we were to come across. In turn he introduced ‘Mr Luo, your Liaison Officer.’ A thick-set man with a broad Mongolian face, expressive mouth and a black crew-cut stood up and bowed. We chorused a ragged hello, feeling like Mystery Tour trippers introduced to our hosts.