Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Lachenal dares to remark that “Herzog was chosen leader by a decision among the
powers that be, not for any incontestable alpine supremacy.” Devies: “Wrong. Herzog
was chosen for a combination of qualities, not for his acrobatics. His quality as a
grand
montagnard
was not overlooked.”
Everywhere Devies and Herzog go to great pains to correct Lachenal's plainspoken
spin on the expedition. The attack on the impossible Northwest Spur was hardly a
blunder and a delay; it was in fact, according to Devies, “not an attack but a recon-
naissance.” Lachenal raises the important question of why the expedition failed to use
willow wands—thin bamboo stakes, usually painted green—to mark their route above
Camp IVA. Had they used them, the bivouac in the crevasse would have been obviated.
“I have been a partisan of willow wands,” insists Devies. “But nobody brought them
along. . . . Why didn't Lachenal want to bring them?”
Lachenal characterizes the team's descent as a
débandade:
a retreat in complete dis-
order. “But no!” cries Devies; and Herzog: “Is this the place to say so?!”
The attack on Lachenal's text reaches a frenzy in its last two pages. Scrutinizing the
marginal annotations, Gérard Herzog prepared Lachenal's diary for inclusion in the
Carnets.
In the end, he did not so much attempt to restore a Devies-Herzog spin to
Lachenal's text as simply to excise anything that contradicted
Annapurna.
Most not-
ably, he suppressed the whole of the “Commentaires.”
It is a godsend that Michel Guérin was able to rescue those 2,000 words, for they
amount to the most powerful thing Lachenal ever wrote. As a judicious reconsid-
eration of the expedition—which had already, by 1955, passed into the realm of le-
gend—the “Commentaires” represents a tour de force of self-appraisal, pinpointing
both the team's errors and its successes. Finally, it casts a light on Annapurna that no
one else was capable of shining.
“Oh, yes! The morphine was necessary!” Lachenal begins his “Commentaires.”
“More than a third of my diary is given over to the return [from Annapurna], and it
is nothing more than a long succession of complaints and recriminations.”
Stubbornly, Lachenal refuses to see any redeeming value in the suffering he under-
went. Not for him, Herzog's transcendent sense of fulfillment:
The discomfort became intolerable. Fatigue, physical and moral, seized the sahibs. It is this
that explains why the attitude of my comrades often justified my reproaches. I could no
longer be a cheerful invalid. To discomfort was added suffering. Beforehand, I had been
overjoyed at the prospect of sauntering out through this very interesting countryside, which
we had dashed through on the approach in order to lose no time. Even this pleasure was
denied me.
