Annapurna (26 page)

This was quite different. An enormous gulf was between me and the world. This was a different universe – withered, desert, lifeless; a fantastic universe where the presence of man was not foreseen, perhaps not desired. We were braving an interdict, overstepping a boundary, and yet we had no fear as we continued upwards. I thought of the famous ladder of St Theresa of Avila. Something clutched at my heart.

Did Lachenal share these feelings? The summit ridge drew nearer and we reached the foot of the ultimate rock band. The slope was steep and the snow interspersed with rocks.

‘Couloir!’

A finger pointed. The whispered word from one to another indicated the key to the rocks – the last line of defence.

‘What luck!’

The couloir up the rocks, though steep, was feasible.

The sky was always a deep sapphire blue. With a great effort we made over to the right, avoiding the rocks; we preferred to keep to the snow on account of our crampons and it was not long before we set foot in the couloir. It was fairly steep, and we had a minute’s hesitation. Should we have enough strength left to overcome this final obstacle?

Fortunately the snow was hard, and by kicking steps we were able to manage, thanks to our crampons. A false move would have been fatal. There was no need to make handholds – our axes, driven in as far as possible, served us for an anchor.

Lachenal went splendidly. What a wonderful contrast to the early days! It was a hard struggle here, but he kept going. Lifting our eyes occasionally from the slope, we saw the couloir opening out on to – well, we didn’t quite know, probably a ridge. But where was the top – left or right? Stopping at every step, leaning on our axes, we tried to recover our breath and to calm down our hearts, which were thumping as though they would burst. We knew we were there now, and that no difficulty could stop us. No need to exchange looks – each of us would have read the same determination in the other’s eyes. A slight détour to the left, a few more steps – the summit ridge came gradually nearer – a few rocks to avoid. We dragged ourselves up. Could we possibly be there?

Yes!

A fierce and savage wind tore at us.

We were on top of Annapurna! 8,075 metres, 26,493 feet.

Our hearts overflowed with an unspeakable happiness.

‘If only the others could know …’

If only everyone could know!

The summit was a corniced crest of ice, and the precipices on the far side, which plunged vertically down beneath us, were terrifying, unfathomable. There could be few other mountains in the world like this. Clouds floated half way down, concealing the gentle, fertile valley of Pokhara, 23,000 feet below. Above us there was nothing!

Our mission was accomplished. But at the same time we had
accomplished
something infinitely greater. How wonderful life would now become! What an inconceivable experience it is to attain one’s ideal and, at the very same moment, to fulfil oneself. I was stirred to the depths of my being. Never had I felt happiness like this – so intense and yet so pure. That brown rock, the highest of them all, that ridge of ice – were these the goals of a lifetime? Or were they, rather, the limits of man’s pride?

‘Well, what about going down?’

Lachenal shook me. What were his own feelings? Did he simply think he had finished another climb, as in the Alps? Did he think one could just go down again like that, with nothing more to it?

‘One minute, I must take some photographs.’

‘Hurry up!’

I fumbled feverishly in my sack, pulled out the camera, took out the little French flag which was right at the bottom, and the pennants. Useless gestures, no doubt, but something more than symbols – eloquent tokens of affection and goodwill. I tied the strips of material – stained by sweat and by the food in the sacks – to the shaft of my ice-axe, the only flag-staff at hand. Then I focused my camera on Lachenal.

‘Now, will you take me?’

‘Hand it over – hurry up!’ said Lachenal.

He took several pictures and then handed me back the camera. I loaded a colour-film and we repeated the process to be certain of bringing back records to be cherished in the future.

‘Are you mad?’ asked Lachenal. ‘We haven’t a minute to lose: we must go down at once.’

And in fact a glance round showed me that the weather was no longer gloriously fine as it had been in the morning. Lachenal was becoming impatient.

‘We must go down!’

He was right. His was the reaction of the mountaineer who knows his own domain. But I just could not accustom myself to the idea that we had won our victory. It seemed inconceivable that we should have trodden those summit snows.

It was impossible to build a cairn; there were no stones, and everything was frozen. Lachenal stamped his feet; he felt them freezing. I felt mine freezing too, but paid little attention. The highest mountain to be climbed by man lay under our feet! The
names
of our predecessors on these heights chased each other through my mind: Mummery, Mallory and Irvine, Bauer, Welzenbach, Tilman, Shipton. How many of them were dead – how many had found on these mountains what, to them, was the finest end of all?

My joy was touched with humility. It was not just one party that had climbed Annapurna today, but a whole expedition. I thought of all the others in the camps perched on the slopes at our feet, and I knew it was because of their efforts and their sacrifices that we had succeeded today. There are times when the most complex actions are suddenly summed up, distilled, and strike you with illuminating clarity: so it was with this irresistible upward surge which had landed us two here.

Pictures passed through my mind – the Chamonix valley, where I had spent the most marvellous moments of my childhood, Mont Blanc, which so tremendously impressed me! I was a child when I first saw ‘the Mont Blanc people’ coming home, and to me there was a queer look about them; a strange light shone in their eyes.

‘Come on, straight down,’ called Lachenal.

He had already done up his sack and started going down. I took out my pocket aneroid: 8,500 metres. I smiled. I swallowed a little condensed milk and left the tube behind – the only trace of our passage. I did up my sack, put on my gloves and my glasses, seized my ice-axe; one look round and I, too, hurried down the slope. Before disappearing into the couloir I gave one last look at the summit which would henceforth be all our joy and all our consolation.

Lachenal was already far below; he had reached the foot of the couloir. I hurried down in his tracks. I went as fast as I could, but it was dangerous going. At every step one had to take care that the snow did not break away beneath one’s weight. Lachenal, going faster than I thought he was capable of, was now on the long traverse. It was my turn to cross the area of mixed rock and snow. At last I reached the foot of the rock-band. I had hurried and I was out of breath. I undid my sack. What had I been going to do? I could not say.

‘My gloves!’

Before I had time to bend over, I saw them slide and roll. They went further and further straight down the slope. I remained where
I
was, quite stunned. I watched them rolling down slowly, with no appearance of stopping. The movement of those gloves was engraved in my sight as something ineluctable, irremediable, against which I was powerless. The consequences might be most serious. What was I to do?

‘Quickly, down to Camp V.’

Rébuffat and Terray should be there. My concern dissolved like magic. I now had a fixed objective again: to reach the camp. Never for a minute did it occur to me to use as gloves the socks which I always carry in reserve for just such a mishap as this.

On I went, trying to catch up with Lachenal. It had been two o’clock when we reached the summit; we had started out at six in the morning; but I had to admit that I had lost all sense of time. I felt as if I were running, whereas in actual fact I was walking normally, perhaps rather slowly, and I had to keep stopping to get my breath. The sky was now covered with clouds, everything had become grey and dirty-looking. An icy wind sprang up, boding no good. We must push on! But where was Lachenal? I spotted him a couple of hundred yards away, looking as if he was never going to stop. And I had thought he was in indifferent form!

The clouds grew thicker and came right down over us; the wind blew stronger, but I did not suffer from the cold. Perhaps the descent had restored my circulation. Should I be able to find the tents in the mist? I watched the rib ending in the beak-like point which overlooked the camp. It was gradually swallowed up by the clouds, but I was able to make out the spearhead rib lower down. If the mist should thicken I would make straight for that rib and follow it down, and in this way I should be bound to come upon the tent.

Lachenal disappeared from time to time, and then the mist was so thick that I lost sight of him altogether. I kept going at the same speed, as fast as my breathing would allow.

The slope was now steeper; a few patches of bare ice followed the smooth stretches of snow. A good sign – I was nearing the camp. How difficult to find one’s way in thick mist! I kept the course which I had set by the steepest angle of the slope. The ground was broken; with my crampons I went straight down walls of bare ice. There were some patches ahead – a few more steps. It was the camp all right, but there were
two
tents.

So Rébuffat and Terray had come up. What a mercy! I should be able to tell them that we had been successful, that we were returning from the top. How thrilled they would be!

I got there, dropping down from above. The platform had been extended, and the two tents were facing each other. I tripped over one of the guy-ropes of the first tent; there was movement inside – they had heard me. Rébuffat and Terray put their heads out.

‘We’ve made it. We’re back from Annapurna!’

¹
In May 1952 Lambert, with the Sherpa Tensing, reached 28,215 feet on Mount Everest, possibly the highest point yet attained. [Translators’ note.]

14

The Crevasse

RÉBUFFAT AND TERRAY
received the great news with excitement and delight.

‘But what about Biscante?’ asked Terray anxiously.

‘He won’t be long. He was just in front of me! What a day – started out at six this morning – didn’t stop … got up at last.’

Words failed me. I had so much to say. The sight of familiar faces dispelled the strange feeling that I had experienced since morning, and I became, once more, just a mountaineer.

Terray, who was speechless with delight, wrung my hands. Then the smile vanished from his face: ‘Maurice – your hands!’ There was an uneasy silence. I had forgotten that I had lost my gloves: my fingers were violet and white, and hard as wood. The other two stared at them in dismay – they realized the full seriousness of the injury. But, still blissfully floating on a sea of joy remote from reality, I leant over towards Terray and said confidentially, ‘You’re in such splendid form, and you’ve done so marvellously, it’s absolutely tragic you didn’t come up there with us!’

‘What I did was for the Expedition, my dear Maurice, and anyway you’ve got up, and that’s a victory for the whole lot of us.’

I nearly burst with happiness. How could I tell him all that his answer meant to me? The rapture I had felt on the summit, which might have seemed a purely personal, egotistical emotion, had been transformed by his words into a complete and perfect joy with no shadow upon it. His answer proved that this victory was not just one man’s achievement, a matter for personal pride; no – and Terray was the first to understand this – it was a victory for us all, a victory for mankind itself.

‘Hi! Help! Help!’

‘Biscante!’ exclaimed the others.

Still half intoxicated and remote from reality, I had heard nothing. Terray felt a chill at his heart, and his thoughts flew to his partner on so many unforgettable climbs; together they had so often skirted death, and won so many splendid victories. Putting
his
head out, and seeing Lachenal clinging to the slope a hundred yards lower down, he dressed in frantic haste.

Out he went. But the slope was bare now; Lachenal had disappeared. Terray was horribly startled, and could only utter unintelligible cries. It was a ghastly moment for him. A violent wind sent the mist tearing by. Under the stress of emotion Terray had not realized how it falsified distances.

‘Biscante! Biscante!’

He had spotted him, through a rift in the mist, lying on the slope much lower down than he had thought. Terray set his teeth, and glissaded down like a madman. How would he stop? How would he be able to brake, without crampons, on the wind-hardened snow? But Terray was a first-class skier, and with a jump turn he stopped beside Lachenal, who was concussed after his tremendous fall. In a state of collapse, with no ice-axe, balaclava, or gloves, and only one crampon, he gazed vacantly round him.

‘My feet are frost-bitten. Take me down … take me down, so that Oudot can see to me.’

‘It can’t be done,’ explained Terray regretfully. ‘Can’t you see we’re in the middle of a storm … It’ll be dark soon.’

But Lachenal was obsessed by the fear of amputation. With a gesture of despair he tore the axe out of Terray’s hands and tried to force his way down, but soon saw the futility of his action, and resolved to climb up to camp. While Terray cut steps without stopping, Lachenal, ravaged and exhausted as he was, dragged himself along on all fours.

Meanwhile I had gone into Rébuffat’s tent. He was appalled at the sight of my hands and, as rather incoherently I told him what we had done, he took a piece of rope and began flicking my fingers. Then he took off my boots, with great difficulty, for my feet were swollen, and beat my feet and rubbed me. We soon heard Terray giving Lachenal the same treatment in the other tent.

For our comrades it was a tragic moment: Annapurna was conquered, and the first ‘eight-thousander’ had been climbed. Every one of us had been ready to sacrifice everything for this. Yet, as they looked at our feet and hands, what can Terray and Rébuffat have felt?