Annapurna (4 page)

‘But there are more than 50,000 items!’

Without so much as listening the official added: ‘You will be admitted in transit. Upon your return you must bring everything through the Customs again.’

But hadn’t we got to eat while in Nepal? And suppose we were to lose or give away a gun or a tent …

It was clearly a difficult situation. With an accommodating smile the Customs officer made a new suggestion:

‘Your equipment can all be impounded for the duration of your expedition. It will come to no harm!’

‘And what about us?’

‘You can proceed to Nepal. You can pick up your stuff on the way back.’

I was in despair at the way things were shaping. ‘The Himalaya?’
our
Customs man seemed to be asking himself, as he rolled his eyes, ‘All very well for pilgrims –’

We certainly were pilgrims, I thought to myself, pilgrims to the mountains. But I dared not interrupt the reflection in which he was plunged.

‘Well …’ (I felt sure everything was about to be settled), ‘now in this case I shall impound the aeroplane as well.’

I turned round to see whether our pilot had fainted.

Like everything else in India the problem would be solved, provided there was no hurry. Ichac kept right away in a corner, for he is very quick-tempered and didn’t trust himself. He took his revenge by making a sketch of the Customs officer’s skull.

‘A perfect geometrical figure, but difficult to express as an equation,’ Couzy whispered.

Eventually we cleared the Customs after two days of negotiation, and proceeded to load up our gear at Old Delhi station. It was no light job. The work was done at night, with lamps throwing a faint light upon the dismal rows of stalls; acetylene lamps with their bright, blinding glare, flickering and smoky oil lamps, lit up the passing crowds, and threw fantastic shadows everywhere. I was nauseated by the foul smell. Everywhere was an infernal din, and I was constantly in danger of being knocked over by bicycle-drawn rickshaws.

Rébuffat and Terray were given the job of accompanying and looking after all the equipment that could not go by air, while the rest of us took the plane for Lucknow. We were hardly in our places when three magnificent Sikhs got in, colossal figures, with a noble bearing and flowing beards. They wore enormous turbans, and with their swarthy complexions and deep-set eyes they looked very fine indeed. Beside them we felt like little boys in shorts.

‘Gosh! They’re the pilots,’ exclaimed Oudot. We were all amazed by their competence, and by their smooth piloting during our short journey from Delhi to Lucknow.

At Lucknow I met for the first time Angdawa, the youngest of our future team of Sherpas, and his chief, Angtharkay. The rest of them I met at Nautanwa, which is the last straggling Indian village before Nepal and the terminus of the narrow gauge railway. It thrilled me to see these little yellow men, with their plump muscles, so different from the lankier Indians. These Sherpas, whose loyalty
and
unselfishness is proverbial, would in fact be our climbing partners, and I should see to it that they were treated as such: their equipment and their well-being would be exactly the same as our own, and their safety, like that of my friends, would always be in the forefront of my thoughts.

Angtharkay, their sirdar or chief, was very energetic, and assumed undisputed authority over his companions and the porters. He was a convinced and ardent Buddhist, and his moral influence with them was considerable. The other Sherpas – Dawathondup, Angtsering, known as Pansy, Sarki, Phutharkay, Aila, Angdawa, Ajeeba – had all had a certain amount of experience. The expedition was to give them plenty of opportunity to show what they were capable of.

Beneath a torrid sun we got out at Nautanwa, where we met our new Sherpa friends. The four-and-a-half tons of our equipment were added to the one-and-a-half tons of food which, thanks to Noyelle’s foresight, was already waiting for us at the railway station. On April 5th we were at last admitted within the gates of Nepal. Nepal lies higher than any other country except Tibet, and numbers within its forbidden frontiers eight of the fourteen highest peaks in the world. This country of 7 million inhabitants straddles the great Himalayan rampart for nearly 400 miles, and is 120 miles across. Its Indian border, the Terai – the zone lying below the foothills – is overgrown with tropical vegetation. It is an astonishing region, sometimes sweltering under a burning sun that parches everything, sometimes flooded by torrential monsoon rains.

The Nepalese – Buddhist in the north, Hindu in the south, but all suspicious of foreigners – have prospered within the shelter of this formidable natural fortress. They have great respect for tradition and have preserved intact the spiritual estate of their forefathers. From these hill-people we have learned to expect upstanding character and readiness to rise to a great occasion.

The jeep took us along a dusty stony road. About six miles away was Kapilavastu (now called Ruminn-Dei) – a simple and not particularly impressive place, at the foot of Kipling’s beloved Siwaliks. There, thousands of years ago, a man was born whose youth was traditionally as full of poetry as his whole life was of wisdom. Gautama Buddha spent his early years in this country which now lay before my eyes, and he who had founded one of the wisest and most beautiful of all religions had perhaps trodden the paths we were now following.

At Butwal, the first village in Nepal, which marks the end of the great plain of the Ganges and the beginning of the mountains, we had to get our money changed, for in these mountainous regions, particularly in the remoter districts, the natives have no faith in notes and insist upon silver, the standard coinage in most Asiatic countries.

Lachenal and Terray, who formed the advance-party, inspected the wretched horses brought out for them. The preparations of the main party dragged on endlessly beneath a burning sun. The loads were being gradually made up to weigh one maund each, 80 lb., and then distributed to some 200 coolies.

‘Bara Sahib, umbrella, please?’

A fine-looking Nepalese obligingly offered me his umbrella – a protection in these countries against sun as well as rain – and in this casual way I made the acquaintance of G. B. Rana, who soon became a real friend. G. B., as we all called him, was deputed by the Maharajah of Nepal to accompany the Expedition wherever it went. For many years he had served as an officer in Gurkha battalions, crack units of the British Army.

Suddenly we heard wild galloping hooves drumming on the cracked sun-baked ground. The two horses belonging to Lachenal and Terray, all in a froth and without their saddles, rushed towards us from the gorges of the Gandaki
¹
and made for their stables.

‘Real climbers, you see,’ Lachenal explained later, with dignity, ‘real climbers find such artificial means of transport entirely obnoxious.’

On the evening of this first march G. B. conducted us to a rustic rest-house.

‘It belongs to His Highness,’ he informed me deferentially.

‘We are indeed honoured.’

But on this point the Maharajah is rather like the Marquis of Carabas; later we were to realize that in Nepal everything belongs personally to the Maharajah.

On the 10th the main body of the Expedition reached Tansing,
the
capital of the province, and stopped for three days. Here we had to reorganize, check the loads and recruit fresh coolies. Ichac was down with dysentery and we left him in camp in the care of the Sherpas. The rest of us – as soon as camp was pitched and roped off to keep away the crowd of sight-seers – climbed the hill overlooking the village from which the distant mountains were visible. It was a wonderful moment at last to set eyes on the object of our dreams!

We had all read a great many books on the Himalaya, and had talked endlessly with our friends who had been to the Karakoram in 1936; we had put the most ridiculous questions to Ichac, the only Himalayan veteran among us; everyone had formed his own personal idea of these mountains. Were we going to be disappointed?

In reality the sight which awaited us at the top of the hill far exceeded anything we had imagined. At the first glance we could see nothing but filmy mist; but looking more closely we could make out, far away in the distance, a terrific wall of ice rising above the mist to an unbelievable height, and blocking the horizon to the north for hundreds and hundreds of miles. This shining wall looked colossal, without fault or defect, with seven-thousand-metre peaks leading up to the eight-thousanders, and we were quite overwhelmed by the magnificence and grandeur of the sight. This was the Himalaya, our promised land, and from now onwards we would carry this vision with us wherever we went.

The problem now seemed quite simple: to reach the mountains as quickly as possible and come to grips with them. As we lay in our tents that evening, we all did a lot of thinking.

We left Tansing in two detachments, the advance-party, consisting of Lachenal and Terray, going on a day ahead of the main body. Soon after we had started, about noon, I suddenly saw a wild figure loping towards me with long strides. With a shock I recognized Terray,
en tenue népalaise
– that is to say, in a minimum of clothes – his head shaven, his face gleaming with sweat. He looked very angry, and was vigorously brandishing his ice-axe so that everyone stood respectfully aside to let him pass.

What on earth could be the matter? Had there been an accident? Suddenly I felt anxious about Lachenal – Biscante, as we called him, using the Savoy word for cider. I called to Terray:

‘Where’s Biscante?’

‘He’s back up there. The coolies have gone on strike.’

‘What about the loads?’

‘Biscante is up there keeping an eye on them. Anyway I don’t think the coolies mean any harm. They want more pay. They want … I don’t know what they want, I don’t understand a word of their gibberish. But there they are near Waiga at the side of the track. They just refuse to go on; they’ve put down their loads and they won’t budge an inch. It’s blackmail.’

‘All that is G. B.’s pigeon,’ I said.

‘I don’t see how he can get us out of it.’

‘Well it’ll show us whether he has any real authority over these types.’

We left at once and by the end of the afternoon we came in sight of the strikers. Lachenal, usually so cheerful, looked thoroughly depressed. Upon the arrival of our officer, the porters drew closer together, and addressed him noisily, probably telling him exactly what they were claiming. As for us, we settled down calmly to eat and drink at our leisure; we felt that a refusal to be rattled would add to our prestige, and with remarkable nonchalance took off our boots to rest our feet, performing every movement with studied slowness.

Now it was up to G. B. For half an hour he treated the coolies to a flow of eloquence which we shall always remember, though it was quite impossible for us to understand what he was saying. The quiet, measured tone in which he began grew steadily louder, then suddenly it rose to a tornado which echoed in the cathedral-like gorge. Magically the loud complaints of the coolies were transformed into diffidently advanced reasons to which G. B. replied with vigour and assurance. There was no question about his authority. Suddenly a coolie said something, probably abusive. We were amazed to see our officer hurl himself upon the offender and beat him until he took flight. This rough handling produced quick results: one by one, as we watched, the coolies took up their loads and continued on their way.

On Sunday, April 16th, we arrived at Baglung, the last considerable village before you climb to the high valleys. There remained only another three or four marches before Tukucha, but these
would
be the hardest, for we should have to rise from about 2000 to 8000 feet.

Next morning Noyelle woke us early:

‘Come and look – Dhaulagiri! Dhaulagiri!’

Dhaulagiri at last! Noyelle was outside yelling for joy. Could he really see it? Everyone was out in a flash, covering up his nakedness with the first thing that came to hand. Some went out in their sleeping-bags, hopping as in a sack race, others had a handkerchief by way of pants. Lachenal distinguished himself by using his knitted cap.

An immense ice pyramid, glittering in the sun like a crystal, rose up more than 23,000 feet above us. The south face, shining blue through the morning mists, was unbelievably lofty, not of this world. We were speechless in face of this tremendous mountain; its name was familiar to us from all our talk about it, but the reality so moved us that we couldn’t utter a word. Then slowly the reasons for our being here at all took precedence over our own emotions and our aesthetic response, and we began to examine the gigantic outline from a practical point of view.

‘Just you look at the east arête, on the right!’

‘Yes, it’s not even worth thinking about.’

This was rather a blow.

The sight was utterly magnificent, but from a mountaineering point of view there was not a hope on this south face.

‘If you’re good, I’ll show you Annapurna in two days’ time,’ said Ichac who, with Couzy, had just been taking careful bearings.