Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Lachenal's own account of his fall (written, apparently, within two or three days) is
vivid in its details:
A little before arriving at Camp V, I took a fall of 150 meters, due to what cause, I don't
know. Throughout the fall, I had time to say to myself, “This is it, this time I've wiped my-
self out.” After turning over and over again in the air, getting stripped of one of my cram-
pons, my ice axe, my gloves, and my hat, for no reason I stopped, stupefied. Completely
transfixed with cold, my hands frozen. I still had my pack. I thrust my hands inside it and
started yelling for help, incapable as I was of climbing by myself back up to the tents.
No one came! It was a long time. The occupants of the tents had to put their boots back
on. Between two patches of fog I saw Lionel descending toward me. I wanted to descend at
least to the next camp [Camp IV]. He convinced me that I wasn't in good enough shape for
that. I had a great fear that in the morning we wouldn't be able to find the route. Finally, I
climbed back up with a great deal of trouble.
With darkness upon them, the four survivors huddled in their tents. Terray brewed
hot drinks long into the night, as he and Rébuffat tirelessly performed what was then
considered the necessary torture prescribed for saving frozen digits. Each took the stiff
end of a rope and lashed away for hours, Terray whipping Lachenal's toes, Rébuffat
Herzog's toes and fingers. All they accomplished, as medical science would later learn,
was to exacerbate the damage.
I
N
A
PRIL
1999, I interviewed Maurice Herzog in Paris. He had turned eighty just two
and a half months before. By now, he and Francis de Noyelle, the expedition's liaison
officer, were the only surviving French members of the 1950 expedition.
We met in Herzog's posh office on the Rue de Louvre. Traffic delayed his arrival,
and as I waited for some forty minutes, having been ushered by Herzog's assistant into
his inner sanctum, I noted the furnishings. The huge brown desk behind which Herzog
habitually sat had a brass nameplate perched on it. On the floor, before the black-and-
white marble fireplace, spread a luxuriant potted orchid. An original painting by the
alpine artist and cartoonist Samivel hung on one wall, a framed and signed photo of de
Gaulle on another. One bookshelf was wholly given over to editions of
Annapurna
in
various languages.
Herzog arrived, nattily dressed in suit, vest, and tie. As he offered his apologies for
being late, he shook my hand vigorously, and I had an instant of squeamishness as I
clasped the shortened stumps of his fingers. Herzog installed himself behind his desk.
Through much of our hour together, he laid his hands on the desktop facing me, or
brought them together in a low arch, as if praying.
