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With only a couple of hours of daylight left, it did. I soon found the right line
down. Darkness overtook us when we reached the glacier and we continued by
headtorch. René came out with his torch to direct us to the top of the moraine and
told me off for not being faster. I said nothing. Despite the exertion of the previous
few days, the dal bhat presented to us by our reliable cook Pemba was not appeal-
ing. I slunk back to my tent and retreated into my dry, base camp sleeping bag. I
could hear Alex and René laughing and shouting in the cook tent as they opened a
second bottle of rum. As snow began to fall heavily, I sank into an uneasy sleep.
On the final days we shared in base camp, Alex was subdued. Strange things
happened at night. Alex and I woke several times dreaming of stone fall, but when
we listened, only the silence of the high mountains greeted us. I was very dis-
turbed, wanting to ask Alex was he sure he was in control? Was the climb now
what he wanted, or was it what René wanted? Even if I were not ill, I was con-
vinced I had been manoeuvred out of the team. I knew René was aggressively am-
bitious. Seeing the same behaviour from Alex in the mountains was a new experi-
ence for me.
Three days later, I was still suffering from diarrhoea and stomach cramps as I
crawled out of the tent to see how they were getting on. The weather had improved
and they were getting ready for the face which rose majestically with its plastering
of snow two kilometres straight up. Alex was pulling the sheath off a forty-metre
rope to use as a second rope for abseil. They would only use one rope to climb on.
Two ice screws and three rock pegs comprised all the technical equipment they
would carry.
'You look like shit,' Alex said. 'What are you going to do?'
'I think I'd better not go.' I was torn with indecision. What I wanted to say was,
'Fuck you guys, I'm part of this trip and I'm coming even if you don't want me to.'
But I didn't. 'No. I'd be too slow in this state,' I added, half in tears, and uncertain
if I really did want to go.
René looked at me and snorted. 'John, what has happened to you?'
Perhaps my state of mind had made me ill, given me the shits. I didn't know. I
did know that unless something remarkable happened now, the expedition was
over for me.
That night, Alex spoke to me as an old friend. 'I hope you get better and if we
don't do it this time, we'll be back and you can come with us on the second at-
tempt.'
'That would be good Alex. I don't know about you, but I have a bad feeling about
all this and falling out, letting you down. Be careful up there. We've got lots more
mountains to climb.'
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