Annapurna (30 page)

By midday eight inches of powder snow. Continual avalanches, visibility nil.

Heard voices about 4 o’clock and in the mist, which continues for about a hundred yards below the camp, four forms appeared – Oudot and his three Sherpas. Obviously sinking in up to their waists. Nothing to do but to get boiling water ready for them.

They arrived at 7 o’clock: that morning Oudot had remained in his tent. Towards l o’clock the bad weather got worse and Ajeeba had come to him and said: ‘It’s the monsoon! If we stay here we’re done for.’

Monday, June 5th

Will today end better than it has begun? What alarms there have been – for us, anyway! At one time I thought Oudot and myself were the sole survivors of the party of eight who left Le Bourget on March 30th!

At 6 o’clock thought I heard someone calling and went outside: the sun was rising through threatening clouds. Nothing to be seen. Got back into my sleeping-bag; immediately heard two distinct shouts and through the field-glasses saw two men on a patch of ice at the height of Camp IV, but well over to the left. They kept on shouting and signalling with their arms. Who could they be – Oudot thought Schatz and Couzy. Their immobility – particularly one of them – was most alarming. Frost-bitten feet no doubt. What did they want? Normally it takes six hours to get up so far in fine weather. But in powder snow and with the monsoon striking repeatedly … They’re still shouting … things are getting urgent. Where are the other eight? Higher up near the summit? Their position must be pretty
precarious
at camp IV, but what can they be waiting for to descend to camp III?

8 o’clock:
Oudot is preparing a rescue party. He has no ice-pitons, etc. Noyelle is going down to Camp I with Ajeeba to bring up reinforcements (equipment and Dawathondup). Up here the Sherpas are uneasy. Three of them belong to the same family: Pansy, Aila and Angdawa.

8.30:
Shouting continues. On the off-chance I’m tracing out the letters ‘VU’ in the snow. A few minutes later a man moves quickly towards the seracs which must shelter Camp IV. He’s stopped 300 yards away from it – on the same level – is making signs and has now gone back again. The others are getting up, apparently without difficulty, and are traversing across to Camp IV. Not two of them but four.

So there are four, plus the one who went to meet them, plus his companion or companions. The position of Camp IV near the funnel of the Sickle is more sheltered, and from there one can get down quickly to Camp III or Camp II. The avalanches have now stopped.

9.30:
Saw Noyelle arrive at Camp I.

10 o’clock:
At last – three men have appeared in the funnel of the Sickle coming down towards Camp III (one Sahib, two Sherpas?) Miraculously the weather is holding, with a west wind. Annapurna is completely clear – if only it lasts!

11 o’clock:
Two men, unroped and therefore Sahibs, appear and come quickly down the former party’s track. At the pace they’re going, they should be here by evening. At last we’ll know everything!

11.15:
A man has appeared exactly at the spot where we saw one this morning, going
towards
Camp V. He has stopped and is evidently looking up. His appearance is comforting in one way, for he is certainly not alone at Camp IV. So that he and his probable companion make two, plus those coming down – three and two – seven in all. Seven out of ten. It looks, then, as if one party must still be somewhere higher up.

12.20:
I’m watching the group of four crossing a very steep slope above Camp III. Behind them is one man alone, lagging a bit. Now, very high up, another man has just left Camp IV and is quickly descending: perhaps one of those I saw a short time ago? Suddenly a cloud of snow – like a volcano – appears to spurt out beneath the feet of the four near Camp III. They are knocked down and go rolling over and over. Then the avalanche passes on, leaving three figures stretched out on the snow; the lowest, who has been swept down 150 feet,
³
is now climbing up the slope again; now two more – ah, thank God! – they have separated and revealed a fourth. So they are safe.

Our Sherpas have realized what’s happened. Angdawa and Phutharkay
have
gone off to meet them with ice-axes and glasses which they have lost. The others are continuing to descend. At 3 o’clock they meet the two Sherpas at the top of the avalanche cone. At last we shall know everything …

We were now quite near the tents of Camp II and Ichac, Noyelle and Oudot rushed up to meet us. I was in a fever to tell them the good news.

‘We’re back from Annapurna,’ I shouted. ‘We got to the top yesterday, Lachenal and I.’ Then, after a pause: ‘My feet and hands are frost-bitten.’

They all helped me; Ichac held something out to me, and Noyelle supported me, while Oudot was examining my injuries.

My responsibility was now at an end. We had succeeded, and I knew that the others would all be with us in a few minutes.

We were saved! We had conquered Annapurna, and we had retreated in order. It was now for the others to take the initiative, above all Oudot, in whom lay our only hope. I would put myself entirely in their hands; I would trust myself to their devotion. Henceforth only one thing would count – the victory that we had brought back, that would remain for ever with us as an ecstatic happiness and a miraculous consolation. The others must organize our retreat and bring us back as best they could to the soil of France.

My friends all rallied round – they took off my gloves and my
cagoule
and settled me into a tent already prepared to receive us. I found this simplification intensely comforting: I appreciated my new existence which, though it would be short-lived, was for the moment so easy and pleasant. In spite of the threatening weather the others were not long in arriving: Rébuffat was the first – his toes were frost-bitten, which made it difficult to walk and he looked ghastly, with a trickle of blood from his lips, and signs of suffering writ large on his face. They undressed him, and put him in a tent to await treatment.

Lachenal was still a long way off. Blind, exhausted, with his frost-bitten feet, how could he manage to follow such a rough and dangerous track? In fact, he got over the little crevasse by letting himself slide down on his bottom. Couzy caught up with him on his way down and, although desperately weary himself, gave him invaluable assistance.

Lionel Terray followed closely behind them, held on a rope by Schatz, who was still in fine fettle. The little group drew nearer to the camp. The first man to arrive was Terray, and Marcel Ichac went up towards the great cone to meet him. Terray’s appearance was pitiful. He was blind, and clung to Angtharkay as he walked. He had a huge beard and his face was distorted by pain into a dreadful grin. This ‘strong man’, this elemental force of nature who could barely drag himself along, cried out:

‘But I’m still all right. If I could see properly, I’d come down by myself.’

When he reached camp Oudot and Noyelle were aghast. Once so strong, he was now helpless and exhausted. His appearance moved them almost to tears.

Immediately after, Schatz and Couzy arrived, and then Lachenal, practically carried by two Sherpas. From a distance it looked as though he was pedalling along in the air, for he threw his legs out in front in a most disordered way. His head lolled backwards and was covered with a bandage. His features were lined with fatigue and spoke of suffering and sacrifice. He could not have gone on for another hour. Like myself, he had set a limit which had helped him to hold on until now. And yet Biscante, at such a moment, still had the spirit to say to Ichac:

‘Want to see how a Chamonix guide comes down from the Himalaya?’

Ichac’s only reply was to hold out to him a piece of sugar soaked in adrenalin.

It was painful to watch Terray groping for the tent six inches from his nose: he held both hands out in front of him feeling for obstacles. He was helped in, and he lay down; then Lachenal, too, was laid on an air mattress.

¹
The day Lachenal and I left Camp V and were going up towards the summit.

²
Oudot and Noyelle were intending to go up to Camp III to pitch tents to replace those taken on by Gaston and Lionel to Camp IV. For Oudot this ascent was to be a vitally important experiment in the use of oxygen.

³
In fact it was 500 feet.

16

The Retreat

EVERYONE WAS NOW
off the mountain and assembled at Camp II. But in what a state! It was Oudot’s turn to take the initiative, and he made a rapid tour of inspection. Faced with the appalling sight that we presented, his countenance reflected, now the consternation of the friend, now the surgeon’s impersonal severity.

He examined me first. My limbs were numb up to well beyond the ankles and wrists. My hands were in a frightful condition; there was practically no skin left, the little that remained was black, and long strips dangled down. My fingers were both swollen and distorted. My feet were scarcely any better: the entire soles were brown and violet, and completely without feeling. The arm which was hurting me, and which I was afraid might be broken, did not appear to be seriously injured, and my neck was all right.

I was anxious to have Oudot’s first impression.

‘What do you think of it all?’ I asked him, ready to hear the worst.

‘It’s pretty serious. You’ll probably lose part of your feet and hands. At present I can’t say more than that.’

‘Do you think you’ll be able to save something?’

‘Yes, I’m sure of it. I’ll do all I can.’

This was not encouraging, and I was convinced that my feet and hands would have to be amputated.

Oudot took my blood pressure and seemed rather concerned. There was no pressure in the right arm, and the needle did not respond at all on my left arm. On my legs the needle oscillated slightly, indicating a restricted flow of blood. After putting a dressing over my eyes to prevent the onset of ophthalmia, he said:

‘I’m going to see Lachenal. I’ll come back in a moment and give you some injections. I used them during the war and it’s the only treatment that’s any use with frost-bite. See you presently.’

Lachenal’s condition was slightly less serious. His hands were not affected, and the black discoloration of his feet did not extend beyond the toes, but the sinister colour reappeared on his heels. He
would
very likely lose his toes, but that would probably not prevent him from climbing, and from continuing to practise his profession as a guide.

Rébuffat’s condition was much less serious. His feet were pink except for two small grey patches on his toes. Ichac massaged him with Dolpyc for two hours and this appeared to relieve him; his eyes were still painful, but that was only a matter of two or three days. Terray was unscathed: like Rébuffat he was suffering from ophthalmia – most painful, but only a temporary affliction. Couzy was very weak, and would have to be considered out of action. That was the balance sheet.

Night fell gradually. Oudot made his preparations, requisitioned Ichac and Schatz as nurses, and Camp II was turned into a hospital. In cold and discomfort, and to the accompaniment of continual avalanches, these men fought, late into the night, to save their friends. Armed with torches, they passed from tent to tent, bending over the wounded and giving them emergency treatment, at this minute camp, perched 20,000 feet up on the flanks of one of the highest mountains in the world.

Oudot made ready to give me arterial injections. The lamp shone feebly and in the semi-darkness Ichac sterilized the syringes as best he could with ether. Before starting operations, Oudot explained:

‘I am going to inject novocaine into your femoral and brachial arteries.’

As I could not see a thing with the bandage over my eyes, he touched with his finger the places where he would insert the needle: both groins and in the bends of my elbows.

‘It’s going to hurt. Perhaps I shan’t get the right place first shot. But in any case you mustn’t move, particularly when I have got into the artery.’

I was not at all reassured by these preparations; I had always had a horror of injections. But it would have to be done, it was the only thing possible.

‘Go ahead,’ I said to Oudot, ‘but warn me when you are going to stab.’

Anyhow, perhaps it would not hurt all that much in my present condition. I heard the murmur of voices – Oudot asking if something was ready, and Ichac answering: ‘Here you are. Got it?’

Oudot ran his fingers over my skin. I felt an acute pain in the
groin
and my legs began to tremble; I tried to control myself. He had to try again, for the artery rolled away from the needle. Another stab, and my whole body was seized with convulsions, I stiffened when I should have relaxed, and felt all my nerves in revolt.

‘Gently!’ I could not help myself.

Oudot began again: my blood was extremely thick and clotted in the needle.

‘Your blood is black – it’s like black pudding,’ he said in amazement.

‘That’s got it!’ This time he had succeeded in spite of my howls which, I knew very well, made the operation all the more difficult to perform. The needle was now in position:

‘Don’t move!’ Oudot shouted at me. Then to Ichac:

‘Hand it over!’

Ichac passed him the syringe; I felt the needle moving in my flesh and the liquid began to flow into the artery. I should never, until then, have believed so much pain to be possible. I tried to brace myself to the utmost to keep myself from trembling: it simply had to be successful! The liquid went on flowing in.

‘Can you feel any warmth?’ asked Oudot, brusquely, while he was changing the syringe. Again the liquid went in; I gritted my teeth.

‘Does it feel warm?’

Oudot was insistent – the point was evidently crucial; yet still I felt nothing. Several times the syringe was emptied, filled up, and emptied again.

‘Now, do you feel anything?’

‘I seem to feel a little warmth, but it’s not definite.’