Bear Grylls (25 page)

A day later we returned to Base Camp. The shins felt better going uphill, but any little descents still stung madly. Thank God it’s all uphill to the summit, I thought. I didn’t even
think about the descent, I knew it would hurt. I tried instead to forget about my shins and focus on the climb ahead.

As we crossed the last part of the glacier back to Base Camp we became stuck behind a trail of yaks heading across the glacier. They would be bringing supplies in. I offered to help the Nepalese
ladies herd them. I grabbed a stick and started shouting and prodding the big, lazy animals to move. It took my mind off the tedium of the walk.

‘Hooii, come on, move, you oafs,’ I hollered from behind. Mick chuckled.

I was sure that they were becoming more attractive, then I reminded myself how long we had been in the hills. What the hell, I thought, and gave them all names. Dolly was the best-looking by
far.

Base Camp was the same as ever. People wandered languidly between tents, clutching large mugs of hot lemon, and chatting with each other. It was relatively peaceful. The majority of people were
still away, resting down the valley.

We heard from Henry that our Camp Two had taken a severe beating in the storm and that possibly our Camp Three was destroyed. We didn’t know. We would take spare tents up with us on our
ascent just in case. Great, more stuff to carry, I thought.

That night I went to sleep early. I had looked forward to being in my tent again. I had quite missed it; my little home. I noticed, though, as I lay down that I had a bit of a cough and sore
throat, but I didn’t think it was anything major. It had started whilst we were walking back from Dingboche. It was a minor irritant, that was all. It should be gone by morning, I hoped. I
didn’t give it a second thought.

I fumbled frantically in the dark for the zip of my tent. I undid it quickly, pulled myself out and threw up violently on the ice. I lay there in the freezing air, panting for
breath, with my head hung low. It was 1.00 a.m.

I stayed in that same position, hunched in the porch of my tent, for what seemed like an eternity. I had a throbbing headache. My throat felt like sand-paper, and my ribs shook with each deep
spluttering cough.

I must have picked it up in Dingboche. ‘Damn. I was stupid to go down.’ Descending to the more disease-prevalent valleys is the risk one takes in order to get a good rest. In my case
it was a serious mistake. I lay awake until dawn, trying to squeeze the migraine from my head by shutting my eyes tight. It didn’t work.

I sort of knew that the next forecast we would get would be different. I just had a feeling inside. We had had bad forecasts now for so long that the tension, even after a rest, was growing.
People had risked a lot for a chance of the top, and waiting for the right weather is draining. Everyone felt this. For some the wait had been too much. Iñaki had taken his chances with his
two early attempts. But they had failed and time still marched on. Much longer and the monsoon would be here with the snows, and then it would be all over.

It looked as if that transitional period between the two seasons, where the winds lift for those crucial few days, might not happen. We waited for the news.

The fever sent shivers up and down my body, I felt drained and weak – and looked it too. Andy, who worked as a physician’s assistant back in Colorado, had taken over from Scott as
our doctor. He took one look and quietly came and talked to me. He was the only person I felt like speaking to. He soon diagnosed it as a chronic chest infection, which my body was struggling to
recognize. That was why I had been sick as well.

One of the greatest dangers of being ill at altitude is dehydration. Your body works so much slower that fighting disease is a long process. As the days go on, dehydration sets in –
slowing the body’s recovery even longer. Andy gave me a course of eurythromycin to start. These antibiotics would fight the infection; but it would take time. Time that I suspected I
wouldn’t have.

My greatest fear came true later on that morning, when Henry entered the tent with the forecast. People sat around looking determined and eager. They shifted in their seats. They longed for the
news that the winds were beginning to rise; I dreaded it.

‘Okay, good news at last. It looks as if we’re going to get the break around the 19th. That gives us five days to get up there and in position. We need to start working towards this,
okay?’

Henry, for the first time in weeks, appeared deadly serious. He knew this game all too well. You have got to wait and not fight, but when it suddenly shows signs of clearing, then you’ve
got to go. We had done the waiting and now it had come. The moment I had longed for and the moment I now most feared.

I lay in my tent, struggling to move. My body shivered even in the sun, and my joints ached with the fever. I was too weak to eat properly and the journey to the mess tent to fill my
water-bottle left me shaking uncontrollably. I was in no state to go anywhere. My mind tried to fight the fever, refusing to acknowledge it – but it was obvious. There was no way that I was
going to climb now. I slowly felt it all slipping away like sand through my fingers. Then came the anger.

That afternoon the improvement I had told my mind would come never came. I lay sweating in my tent as the others scurried around in preparation. I rang my sister. I didn’t
have anything I wanted to say to her. I just wanted to hear her voice. I missed her.

‘Promise me you won’t go up while you’re like this. Promise, Bear. Don’t be stupid. You know what would happen, okay?’ Lara said in a panicky voice. She was right.
Classically it is how people die. They are ill, the time comes, the pressure is on and they go. As they ascend their body begins to shut down. It happened to Scott Fischer, one of the climbers who
had died in 1996. He went up on antibiotics, still weak. The body can only put up with so much, and in the extreme heights above Camp Three it is at its limit. A sick body cannot survive. Scott
died. Lara made me promise again. I was promising away my dream.

I began to turn my anger against God. I had felt it was all so right, but was now being kicked in the teeth. Maybe He had never even been with me. I felt let down. I hadn’t been ill like
this for ten years. I couldn’t understand why. I pushed God aside in my mind. ‘I’ll get better tonight without Him.’

Lying there alone in my eighteen square feet of tent, something came into my head that I hadn’t heard for five years. Not since my great-uncle Arthur had died. He had been a naval padre in
the Second World War. Arthur was one of seven children. There were now only five left. One had died at sixteen from Weil’s disease at school and one of the twins had been shot in the War.
Those that now remained were all over seventy-five. As Arthur lay on his bed dying, he turned to my grandfather and whispered something to him. My grandfather had then subsequently told me, and I
had never forgotten it.

His words had been simple: ‘Remember this if you remember nothing else. When God goes, everything goes. Never let your faith leave you. Promise me.’

The words rang in my head. I said out loud, ‘I won’t, I promise.’

I slept peacefully for an hour after that. There must be a purpose to it all, I thought, there must be.

That night was probably the longest of the expedition. I was dry, I was safe, and I was near my friends – but I felt for the first time a real sense of loneliness. In a matter of hours
Neil and Mick, along with Allen and Carla, would leave Base Camp for the first summit attempt on Everest’s south side for over six months. I had not been included. I would be a liability, I
was far too weak. I would not survive. It wasn’t a decision that I had to make; the decision had been made for me by Neil and Henry. I lay, feeling so alone as the night dragged on. I
didn’t want to sleep.

Henry had insisted Geoffrey stayed behind as well. Graham and Michael, the remainder of the Everest party, were also ill with the same fever. The three of us and Geoffrey would form the reserve
summit party. It had to be like this. Us three were ill and to have Geoffrey on the first attempt would unbalance the numbers. Logistically there were enough supplies to cope with a summit team of
four. Five would be too large and leave the reserve team too small. Geoffrey was kept back to join us – if there even was a chance for the second summit team. I doubted there ever would
be.

The Lhotse team were also leaving this morning for their attempt. The three of them, Andy, Nasu, Ilgvar had looked focused the previous night. They had eaten well and retired to their tents
early. Today was important for them as well.

I felt, though, that I was no longer in the e´lite. I had held my ground but had fallen at the last fence. I dreaded watching Mick and Neil leave in a few hours’ time, without me.
For the first time, I was no longer terrified of leaving; instead I was scared of staying.

At 5.00 a.m. I heard the first rustles from Mick’s tent. This morning there was no ‘Morning, Miguel’ to be heard. We both knew things were different. I remembered Mick’s
mother assuring me that she knew everything would be okay, as long as we were together. The words rang in my mind. I retched from the fever, but kept it down. The illness was still rampant. I had
no choice, I had to stay.

Ten minutes later Neil and Mick whispered to each other in hushed tones, as they put on their harnesses in the cold air of dawn. I thought of them looking at the sky above as we always did
before leaving. At dawn it seems so fresh and new. I could hear them clapping their hands through their mitts to keep warm. I knew those feelings. I had done it with them so many times. They would
want to get moving soon. Now was the coldest time of the night.

As I levered myself to the flap of my tent, my head spun. I cursed the fever. Mick and Neil were both crouching outside to say goodbye. I didn’t know what to say.

‘Just be careful, guys, eh? Just be careful,’ I said, looking them each in the eye. ‘Wise decisions, okay? If it turns nasty up there just get down. The mountain will always be
there.’ The words sounded hollow as I spoke. They knew all this. How I envied them.

Mick knelt, shook my hand and held it.

‘You should be here, you know that? We’ll all be up there together, okay?’ he said quietly.

Yeah, I know – together, I thought.

At 5.35 a.m. the four of them left Base Camp. I could hear from my tent their boots crunching slowly and purposefully across the rocks towards the foot of the Icefall. The sound soon faded. All
I could hear then was the wind beginning to pick up across the glacier as the dawn beckoned in a new day. I lay back down. My tent had never been so bleak.

The radio crackled to life. Ed rushed to the comms tent and arrived at the same time as Henry. They grabbed the handset.

‘Say again, over,’ Henry ordered sternly.

‘Henry, it’s Andy. Neil has passed out.’

I could hear them from my tent, five yards to the left.

‘I’m with him and he’s come round now – but I’m worried,’ Andy added.

Only two hours into the Icefall, Neil had begun to feel dizzy. Ten minutes later, his body was suddenly overwhelmed with heaviness. He collapsed on the rope and fainted. He had come round but
fainted twice more in five minutes. He didn’t know why. They radioed in as they sat amongst the ice. They rested and made Neil drink; ten minutes later they started slowly on their way
again.

By 8.30 a.m. they were all safely in Camp One. They put Neil in the tent and began brewing whilst they discussed what should happen. Andy and Henry talked quickly between themselves on the
radio. Neil should come down. Something was wrong. He shouldn’t be fainting.

Neil took the radio.

‘Look, all is fine, I was a bit dehydrated and nervous and was probably pushing myself too hard in the Icefall. That’s all. I feel fine now and okay to go on. What’s more,
there is a fine Baxter’s soup on the go. I couldn’t possibly leave it,’ Neil said unconvincingly.

Secretly he knew he should descend. Going on when something is wrong is lethal. But Neil was not coming back. It was a risk to go on, but it was a risk he decided to take. We hoped his desire
for the summit wouldn’t cloud good judgement. I couldn’t decide if he was being brave or stupid, or whether the two met somewhere in the middle – I wasn’t sure. But I knew
Neil would make the right decision. We trusted his judgement. He decided to go on and review everything from Camp Two. We knew what that meant. He was going up.