Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
and potentially doomed. I needed to impress. In the hallway, a few other young
men sat clutching thick, neatly ordered files and maps neatly rolled and stacked on
their laps. I carried nothing. I had a flashback to one of those schoolboy night-
mares of having forgotten to do essential homework before an exam.
This was my first visit to the MEF. Peter Holden had made the pitch for the pre-
vious year's Anglo-Polish expedition to the Hindu Kush. He was a veteran at these
screenings. All I knew about the MEF was that it was very venerable and almost
impenetrable; this was also about as much as I knew about our objective. Alex and
I prided ourselves on our cavalier attitudes in those days, so much so that we did
not recognise it as anything unusual. Why get frightened before you got there?
Thirty-five years on, that attitude seems naive and even disrespectful. I had no
idea who might be on the panel or what questions they might ask. I thought to my-
self: 'Just look earnest, answer questions politely and we'll get a big grant. I'll be
back on the train north within an hour or two.'
I was right only about the venerable bit. When I entered the room, a large as-
semblage of what could have comprised an entire pre-war Everest expedition
looked up from the long polished table. Without knowing who they were, I guessed
quite a few of them must be among my boyhood heroes. The only faces I recog-
nised were Doug Scott and Bob Pettigrew, the only two not dressed for Tibet in
1921. I suddenly realised bluff was going to be more important than sincerity and
good manners.
The first part of the interview went well. I got our names and destination right,
and produced a scruffy piece of paper from my pocket on which I had calculated
the various costs, which were not a lot because Alex wasn't accustomed to spend-
ing money. We had to assume that the Poles would fly us out once we had cashed
our assembled dollars and pounds on the black market. However, we had the peak
fee to cover and porters to pay as well as food for base camp. We would sell
whatever excess goods we could get on the plane for additional Indian rupees and
cash more hard currency on the Indian black market to get a bit more. That was
the way to leverage our dollars. It seemed straightforward enough but the stern ex-
pressions of the screening committee suddenly matched those of the portraits of
the venerable explorers hanging on the room's walls. My story must have been
hard to swallow by anyone who had not been on a Polish expedition, and that
meant everyone in the room except for me. It was all very un-British.
Then things got even more difficult. 'Where does your route go, youth?' Doug
Scott asked, floating a black and white photo across the table at me. I picked it up
and was confronted by an image of a Dru-like peak but nearly twice as high. 'Bug-
