Touching the Void (24 page)

Instinct made me turn my course from side to side, as if I recognised the jumbled stones, saw familiar patterns in the darkness, and followed a subconscious compass bearing. How far were the tents? Perhaps they’re gone! I could wait till morning showed me the way, so I sat waiting in the wind. I found myself moving again, unsure how long I had waited. If I waited it would never come. A watched kettle never boils! What a silly saying. I cackled inanely at my private joke and kept on laughing long after I had forgotten the joke.

When I checked my watch I found that it was morning. Yet another day. A quarter to one in the morning. I felt the rough edge of a large boulder against my shoulder and pulled myself up it until I could sit swaying on its top. Something told me that I was close. I stared through the darkness. It must be here; I could feel it. There was a high, sharp faecal smell gusting round me. I sniffed my mitts, flinching with repugnance at the stench. It took a long time to sink in.

‘Shit?…Why am I sitting in shit?’

I slumped back on the boulder. I knew where I was but seemed incapable of acting on it. I stared bleakly into the darkness. The cooking rock would be sticking up somewhere ahead of me, but where? Sudden flurries of snow whipped my face and I raised my hand to protect myself. The sharp stench caught in my nostrils, and my head suddenly cleared. All I had to do was shout! I sat up, yelled hoarsely into the darkness. The word came out strangled and distorted. I sat dumbly peering ahead, waiting.

Perhaps they had gone. The cold was taking me again. I felt its insidious touch on my back. I wouldn’t survive this night, that was for sure, but I no longer cared. The notions of living or dying had long since become tangled. The past days merged into a blur of real events and madness, and now I seemed fixed in a limbo between the two. Alive, dead, was there that much difference? I raised my head and howled a name into the darkness:

‘SIIIIMMMmoonnnn…’

I wobbled unsteadily on the boulder, staring into the night. The pleading in my head had become hysterical, and I heard a voice moaning in a cracked whisper, as if I were listening to someone else! ‘Please be there…you must be there…Oh Jesus Christ Almighty…Come on! I know you’re there…help me you bastards, help me…’

Snowflakes feathered against my face; the wind tugged at my clothing. The night remained black. Warm tears mingled with the cold melted snow on my face. I wanted it to end. I felt destroyed. For the first time in many days I accepted that I had finally come to the end of my strength. I needed someone, anyone. This dark night-storm was taking me and I had no more will to resist. I cried for many things, but mostly for not having someone to be with in this awful night. I let my head fall to my chest, ignored the darkness, and let the anger and pain weep. It was too much for me. I just couldn’t keep on; too much of everything.

‘HELP MEeeeeeee!’

The howl keened out into the darkness, and the wind and snow seemed to have swallowed it the moment it was uttered.

I thought at first it was an electric flash in my head, like the sudden blinding flashes which had flared after falling into the crevasse. It didn’t flash! It kept on glowing, red and green, pulsing colours into the black night. I gaped at it. Something floated and glowed ahead of me. A semicircle of red and green hanging in the night.

‘A space ship? Stone me, I must be bad…seeing things now…’

Then muffled sounds, surprised sleepy sounds and brighter lights flicking out from the colours. A spray of yellow light suddenly cut out from the colours in a wide cone. More sounds, voices, not my voices, other voices.

‘The tents!! They’re still here…’

The thought paralysed me with shock. I toppled sideways off the boulder, landing in a crumpled heap on the rocky river bed. Pain surged up my thigh and I moaned. In an instant I had changed to an enfeebled, sobbing figure, incapable of moving any part of my body. Something which had held me up, kept a flicker of strength pulsing, had evaporated into the storm. I tried lifting my head from the rocks to look at the lights but to no avail.

‘Joe! Is that you? JOE!’

Simon’s voice sounded cracked with strain. I shouted a reply but nothing came out. I was sobbing convulsively, retching from the spasmodic heavings in my chest. Incoherent words were mumbled into the dark. I turned my head to see a bobbing light approaching in a rush. There was a sound of stones rasping underfoot and someone shouting in a high-pitched voice of alarm:

‘Over there, over there!’

Then the light flared over me and all I could see was the dazzle of its beam.

‘Help me…please help.’

I felt strong arms reach round my shoulders, pulling me. Simon’s face became abruptly visible. ‘Joe! God! Oh my God! Fucking hell, fuck, look at you. Shit, Richard, hold him. Lift him, lift him you stupid bastard! God Joe, how? How?…’

Too shocked to realise what he was saying, his words tumbled out in an obscene litany, expletives said for no reason, a meaningless stream of obscenities, with Richard hovering, nervous, scared of the pain.

‘Dying…couldn’t take any more. Too much for me…too much…thought it was over…please help, for God’s sake help me…’

‘It’ll be okay. I’ve got you, I have you; you’re safe…’

Then Simon was hauling me up with his arms round my chest, dragging me, heels bumping over the rocks. Dropped heavily by the doorway of the tent in a soft glow of candlelight from within, I looked up to see Richard staring down at me, wide-eyed with apprehension. I wanted to giggle at the fuss, but tears kept crawling from my eyes and I could speak no words. Then Simon dragged me into the tent and laid me gently back against a mass of warm down sleeping bags. He knelt by my side staring at me, and I could see a confusion of pity, and horror, and alarm fighting in his eyes. I smiled at him, and he grinned back, shaking his head slowly from side to side.

‘Thanks, Simon,’ I said. ‘You did right.’ I saw him turn quickly away, averting his eyes. ‘Anyway, thanks.’

He nodded silently.

The tent was full of warm light from the candle. People seemed to hover over me. Shadows played on the tent walls. An immense tiredness seemed suddenly to drain my strength. I lay still, feeling my back pressing through the soft down. Faces peered over me, two faces, constantly appearing in brief visions, confusing me. Then Richard was pressing a plastic mug into my hand. Tea! Hot tea! But I couldn’t hold it.

Simon took it from me, helped me sit up, and then fed me the tea. I saw Richard busy over the gas stove, stirring thick milky porridge, spooning sugar in as he stirred. More tea followed, and the porridge, which I couldn’t eat. I stared across at Simon, seeing the haggard tension in his face and the shock in his eyes. For a moment nothing was said. With a start, I recognised the last time I had seen Simon look at me in this way. He had stood at the top of the ice cliff and stared at me for that moment too long. That instant moment when I knew he had accepted I would die. Then the spell was broken, and we burst into a torrent of questions, all blurted out at the same time, yet mostly unanswered. In that long silent meeting of eyes every question had become futile, every answer superfluous. I told him of the crevasse and the crawling. He told of his nightmare descent after the cutting and how he knew I was dead. He looked at me then as if he couldn’t quite grasp that I had come back. I smiled, and touched his hand.

‘Thank you,’ I said again, knowing it could never tell him what I felt.

He seemed embarrassed and quickly changed the subject:

‘I’ve burnt all your clothes!’

‘What?’

‘Well, I thought you weren’t…’

He burst out laughing at the expression on my face, and I laughed with him. We kept at it for too long, and the sounds were harsh, almost manic.

Hours went by without us noticing, and the tent filled with a babble of voices blurting out our stories. Laughing at the money-search, and all my underwear now burnt outside the tent. Endless cups of tea given with concern, and now a deep abiding friendship. And, at every gesture, a touch on the arm, a look, an intimacy we would never have dared show before and never would again. It reminded me of those storm-swept hours on the face when for a short time we had played parts in our very own cliched third-rate war film.

Simon forced me to finish the porridge as Richard prepared fried egg sandwiches. It seemed I swallowed a different drug with every sip of tea. Painkillers, and Ronicol, and antibiotics. I balked at the sandwiches, unable to swallow the dry bread.

‘Eat it!’ Simon said sternly. I coughed at the dry bread catching in my throat and mouthed it helplessly. I could get no saliva into my mouth so, despite his order, I spat it out. ‘Right. Let’s take a look at your leg.’

He had suddenly become stern and efficient. I started to protest but he had already begun to cut my tattered over-trousers with a penknife. I saw the blade slicing effortlessly through the thin nylon material. It was red-handled. My knife. The last time it had been used on me was three and a half days ago. A spasm of fear ran through me. I didn’t want any more pain. Not today at least. Sleep was what I craved, warm downy sleep. I flinched when he raised my leg to pull the trousers away. ‘It’s okay. I’ll be as careful as possible.’

I glanced from him to Richard, who looked as if he was going to be sick. I grinned at him, but he turned away and busied himself with the stove. I was both excited and apprehensive to see what my leg looked like. I wanted to know what had been causing me so much agony, but I was scared of seeing it rotten and infected. Simon unzipped my gaiters and gently released the laces and Velcro catches.

‘Richard. You’re going to have to hold his leg down. I can’t pull the boot off unless you keep it firm.’

Richard hesitated by the stove. ‘Can’t you cut the boot off?’

‘Yes, but it’s unnecessary. Come on. It’ll only be for a second.’

He moved to my side and held my leg gingerly below the knee. Simon began pulling at the boot and I screamed.

‘Grip it tight, for Christ’s sake!’

He pulled again and the pain seemed to balloon up from my knee. I squeezed my eyes shut and whimpered at the gathering flood of fire in my knee, praying for it to stop.

‘Right. Got it.’

The pain ebbed quickly away. Simon threw the boot out of the tent, and Richard hurriedly let go of my leg. I think he’d had his eyes closed as well.

My polar trousers followed, sliding gently from my legs. Richard moved to the back of the tent, and I sat up expectantly. When Simon pulled my thermal long-Johns off we both gawped at my leg in astonishment.

‘Bloody hell!’

‘Fuck me, it’s enormous!’

The leg was a bloated stump stained yellow and brown, with livid purple streaks running down from the knee. There was no discernible difference between my thigh and my ankle. Only the hugely distended lump which twisted grotesquely to the right half-way down showed where the knee had been.

‘God! It’s worse than I thought.’ I felt weak at the sight of it, and reached forward tentatively to stroke the skin around my knee. At least there was no angry inflammation, no obvious signs of infection.

‘It’s bad,’ Simon muttered. He was examining the underside of my foot. ‘You’ve broken your heel as well.’

‘Have I? Oh well.’ It didn’t seem very important to me. Foot, knee, the whole caboodle, what did it matter. I was down. I could rest, and eat and sleep. It would mend.

‘Yes. See those purple streaks? They’re signs of haemorrhaging. You have them all round your heel, and the ankle as well.’

‘Here you go, Richard,’ I said. ‘Take a look at this!’

He peered over my shoulder and then pulled away hurriedly. ‘Ohhh! I wish I hadn’t.’ I laughed happily, noticing how quickly I had changed. The manic hysterical laughter had become a thing of the past. Simon pulled my long-johns back over my legs with a worried expression on his face.

‘We’ll have to get you out of here quickly. The donkeys are coming in the morning. One of us can go down and ask Spinoza to bring a mule and his saddle as well.’

‘I’ll go,’ Richard volunteered. ‘It’s half-past four now. I’ll go after this tea. That way you can use my sleeping bag and Joe can take yours. I’ll be back by six…’

‘Hang on,’ I interrupted. ‘I need rest and food. I can’t cope with two days on a mule straight away.’ ‘You’ll just have to,’ Simon said sharply. ‘There’s no question about it. It’ll be three days at least before you get to a hospital. You’ve got frostbite as well as the leg, and you’re exhausted. If you leave it any longer, it will get infected.’

‘But—’

‘Forget it! We go in the morning. It will have been broken for over a week by the time we reach Lima. You can’t risk it.’

I felt too weak to argue and looked imploringly at the two of them, hoping they would change their minds. Simon ignored me and began feeding my legs into his sleeping bag. Richard passed me some tea, smiled reassuringly, and then stepped out into the night. ‘Be back soon,’ he shouted from the darkness, but already I was falling asleep. There seemed to be something important still to do before I slept, but I was losing the struggle to keep my eyes open. Then I remembered: ‘Simon—’

‘What?’

‘You saved my life you know. It must have been terrible for you that night. I don’t blame you. You had no choice. I understand that, and I understand why you thought I was dead. You did all that you could have done. Thanks for getting me down.’

He said nothing, and when I looked across at him lying on his back in Richard’s bag there were tears on his cheeks. I turned away as he spoke:

‘Honestly, I thought you were dead. I was sure of it…couldn’t see how you would possibly have survived…’

‘It’s okay. I know…’

‘God! Coming down alone…Coming down, I couldn’t bear it. I mean…what was I going to say to your parents? What? I’m sorry Mrs Simpson, but I had to cut the rope…She’d never understand, never believe me…’

‘It’s all right. You don’t have to now.’

‘I wish I had stayed longer…just believed you could still be alive. It would have saved you so much.’

‘Doesn’t matter. We’re here now. It’s over.’