Bear Grylls Page 18

‘Hello, Colonel, good morning, it’s Bear here,’ I mumbled.

  ‘Hey everyone, it’s Bear calling from the summit of Mount Everest. Quick.’

  ‘Uh, no, Colonel, I’m at Base Camp. We’re still waiting for these winds to lift, I’m not at the …’ I tried to tell him.

  ‘Marvellous, Bear, congratulations. The summit eh … boy,’ he interrupted.

  He refused to believe I was at Base Camp. After all, I had been away for over two months now – I couldn’t possibly still be at Base Camp. But I was and no, I hadn’t reached the summit. I despaired.

  Six months later, after I had been back in England a while, the Colonel left me a message on my answerphone. I had given him a rock from the summit of Everest inscribed with a verse saying, ‘Be still for the Glory of the Lord is shining in this place.’ Some weeks earlier, he had been diagnosed suddenly as having terminal cancer. His voice was weak and shaky on the machine, and he simply said, ‘Thank you, Bear, for my rock, thank you from the bottom of my heart.’ By the time I heard the message he had died. I wept at home. A true gentleman now lived in heaven.

  Mick and I decided to get out of Base Camp for a day. We wanted some exercise, having been lying around for now almost ten days. We packed up and left in search of a ‘supposed’ Italian research station in the valleys below, somewhere off the beaten track. There was rumour of pizza and pasta. We left in high spirits.

  Ten hours later, nine of which had been spent walking, we returned. The Italian research station turned out to be a hut that served spaghetti and spam. We should have suspected as much. Spam. We just couldn’t seem to avoid it. It seemed to follow us round everywhere. We were fed up with eating it for almost every meal at Base Camp, couldn’t people realize it was ‘banned’ in England. Sure as eggs are eggs, we should have known that the research station would produce the infamous tinned meat. We had two mouthfuls then left, and arrived back at Base Camp as night fell – chuckling and well-exercised. ‘Flipping Italians,’ we announced.

  The forecasts were still bad and were now accompanied by a warning that they would get worse. We shook our heads. It was ridiculous. We began to suspect that this season could be like the last one – in the autumn of 1997, when not one single climber reached the summit of Everest. The weather hadn’t allowed it. This was fast becoming a possibility now as well. Mick and I agreed to see what the next day would bring and then decide whether we also should go down for a proper rest. But the next day brought tragic news. Things weren’t going right.

  The Sherpa bustled into Camp. He looked scared and nervous. He spoke quickly.

  ‘Man dead. Altitude sickness. He dead,’ the Sherpa muttered. We listened to what had happened.

  The trekker was Japanese. He was one of a party getting close to the crescendo of their trip – approaching Base Camp. They had all failed to recognize the symptoms of altitude sickness in this man. He had carried on up, when he should have gone down. It was his last and worst mistake. By late afternoon he was in the late stages of pulmonary oedema. His lungs began to fill up with fluid, and his breathing became more and more laboured as he choked in his own blood-filled lungs. By evening he had died of a heart attack, induced by pulmonary suffocation. At 17,000 feet the altitude had claimed its latest victim.

  Rigor mortis soon set in. They needed to get the body into a basket, in order to carry it back down the valleys to where a helicopter could collect it. The body, though, was now rigid and those around him were unable to bend it. Left with only one option they twisted the body and leant on the back until it gave way and broke. With a shrill crack the spine split in two and the body could be squeezed into a basket and carried down.

  It came as a deep shock to us all at Base Camp. We hadn’t known the man but he would have a family somewhere. It was such a tragic waste of life. A waste that could have been avoided if the symptoms had been recognized earlier.

  At the small village of Dingboche, halfway along the trek to Base Camp, is a small hut called the ‘Himalayan Rescue Association’. Resident Western doctors work here, researching the effects of high altitude on the body. They are all volunteers and do three-month stints in the mountains as part of their research. They lecture daily to trekkers on the effects of mountain sickness, predominantly pulmonary and cerebral oedema. These Japanese had obviously opted not to hear the lecture. It was a fatal decision.

  We had visited the doctors en route up to Base Camp and had chatted endlessly about the climb ahead. They offered fresh and new advice to us. We listened carefully. They measured the oxygen saturation levels in our blood and monitored pulse and blood pressures.

  The danger they warn trekkers about is going too high too fast. The body reacts differently with different people, but the symptoms are pretty universal. Severe dizziness, headache, vomiting, and laboured breathing; these all mean one thing – go down. It’s as simple as that. A descent of some 1,000 feet can make the difference between life and death. We all had to have an expert knowledge about all this.

  Pulmonary oedema affects the lungs; the capillaries dilate under the lack of oxygen and the lung-cavities begin to fill up with blood. Eventually the climber suffocates in a frothy mixture of mucus and blood. Cerebral oedema affects the brain. The lack of oxygen to the head makes the person severely drowsy, with searing migraines. This causes the brain to seek oxygen by absorbing more blood. If this continues the brain eventually swells and then dies.

  Both these conditions can kill in hours, if not recognized. Even more so with the heights we were to be going to. We took this deadly seriously, as we had witnessed it at first hand.

  DIARY, 10 MAY:

  Thinking of what happened to this poor man terrifies me. He died of altitude sickness some 400 feet vertically beneath the height of Base Camp, and we are sitting here preparing to go some 12,000 feet above Base Camp. It seems crazy.

  I’m going to get out of Base Camp tomorrow, my head’s going berserk. I need space. The storms that were predicted are soon moving in, so we can’t climb yet. I’m going to go down to Dingboche to rest, get some food that isn’t spam, and then sleep. I need to get away from everything for a while. I pray for the Japanese man’s soul.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  TORN APART

  ‘Luck and strength go together. When you get lucky you have the strength to follow through; you also have to have the strength to wait for the luck.’

  Mario Puzo

  As we snaked our way back down the valley leading away from Base Camp, I felt a deep pain in my shins. Each step I took, sent this pain shooting through my leg. I winced. I didn’t mention it to any of the others – I didn’t want them to know.

  Mick, Neil, Geoffrey and Ed were with me. We had all decided to go down to Dingboche at 14,000 feet to spend our precious few rest days – it was our recovery time before the summit bid. For Neil and Geoffrey it was their second time down below Base Camp. Dingboche was low enough to ensure that the thicker air would replenish our bodies, and the prospect of cheese omelettes provided an added incentive to get there.

  I couldn’t shake the pain from my shins. Each time I stood on the hard rocks of the glacier, they stung viciously. I knew what it was, I had seen enough people in the Army suffer from it. Invariably it had hindered them continuing any exercise. I almost refused to acknowledge it was what I thought.

  Shin splints is the severe bruising of the muscles at the front of the lower leg. It comes from excessive pounding on hard ground. It makes walking agony. I turned up the volume of my Walkman and tried to ignore the pain and just enjoy the richer air. It didn’t work.

  As we tumbled into the lodge at Dingboche and threw our packs into two double cubicles, I sat and rubbed them hard. I had to rest them or I would never be able to climb up high. This was an added burden that I could do without.

  I told Mick about it that evening as we sat alone on our tiny wooden beds in the lodge. There wasn’t much he could do.

  ‘Brufen, Bear. That’s what you need, and masses of it,’ h
e suggested, in between writing his diary.

  The old Army favourite for numbing pain. Technically designed as an anti-inflammatory, it takes the swelling away. I swallowed three of Mick’s small supply.

  ‘Thanks, Miguel.’

  For three days we sat in the lodge, eating and relaxing in the fresh air. It was the break I had wanted. I tried not to think about the mountain. Every night, after taking several Brufen, I would sleep soundly. I hadn’t slept like this in seven weeks. It was wonderful. As I rubbed my shins every night for half an hour, Mick and I chatted in our room. Our minds invariably drew us back to the mountain.

  Our second day there, the weather turned. The winds far above us were now blowing fiercely. We could see the clouds licking across the wall of Lhotse above us. It meant that Everest would be taking a severe punishing behind. These were the storms we had expected. Dingboche was cold and blowy; Everest, though, 15,000 feet above, would be atrocious as the cold front pounded into her. At least everyone was now safely off the mountain, I thought. I wondered what damage the storm would cause to our camps up there.

  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.

  DIARY, 14 MAY:

  Neil has just come to see me. I knew he was coming and knew what he would say. He had to say it.

  They have got to leave Base Camp tomorrow morning for their attempt. There isn’t the time to wait for me to recover, it could take over a week at this height. I knew he was right. I told him that I may be okay tomorrow morning, in which case I would come as well. He looked doubtful. He knows I won’t be better by then.

  We have done everything together and suddenly now the team is being torn apart. Why? I just can’t understand why.

  I’ve given my everything just for a chance to climb this last part and now I see it slipping away. We’ve worked our guts out on this mountain for seven weeks. Given so much.

  I find it hard to write. My mind swirls with this sodding fever, and the feeling of anger and upset. Please, not now. Just please make me better, God. Please.

  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 ha
dn’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.