Deliverance - True Summit - page 74

Terray and Rébuffat had arrived at Camp V the day before full of hopes of going
to the summit themselves. Now there was no possibility of that. Instead, their utmost
efforts would be devoted to saving their friends' lives.
For Terray and Rébuffat, there was no other possible course. This was what a
mountain guide did. In later life, however, Rébuffat's bitterness about Annapurna was
deepened by the sense that Herzog had never fully acknowledged either the two men's
sacrifice of their own chance for the summit, or their heroism in saving the frostbitten
pair's lives. For all Herzog's considerable magnanimity in crediting the others' achieve-
ments on the way up the mountain, Annapurna is curiously thin on such benedictions
on the descent. In place of any expression of true indebtedness, within moments of
his return to Camp V Herzog tries to bathe his partners in his own joy: “This victory
was not just one man's achievement, a matter for personal pride . . . it was a victory
for us all, a victory for mankind itself.” (That sentence from Annapurna seems uncon-
sciously telling, as if, with “one man's achievement,” Herzog had already started to
write Lachenal out of the story.)
At this point, Terray seemed once again to take charge. As the men packed up on the
morning of June 4, with the storm in full fury around them, he alone had the wits to
urge a course that, had it been followed, might have saved the men much of the agony
that lay in wait for them. Terray stuffed food and his sleeping bag into his pack, ur-
ging Rébuffat and Herzog to do likewise (neither man heeded the advice). Terray then
started to collapse a tent and pack it up as well. All his training as a guide told him
that to carry a tent and bag with him would give the team a huge extra safety margin
in case the men lost their downward track. But Lachenal's impatience forestalled this
canny instinct. Already roped up, Lachenal yelled, “Hurry up! What the hell do you
think you're doing with a tent? We'll be at Camp IV in an hour.” Terray allowed his
partner's optimism to persuade him.
In the chaos of the previous night, Terray had laid down his ice axe somewhere near
the tents. Now he could not find it under several inches of new snow. With time at a
premium, he and Rébuffat seized the two remaining axes, and each took charge of a
frostbitten teammate, to whom he was roped. Herzog and Lachenal had had virtually
no sleep for forty-eight hours, and both men were almost exhausted. With his frozen
fingers, Herzog had been unable to dress himself, so Rébuffat had put on his clothes
and boots for him.
As the four men started down, Lachenal's apprehension that the track would have
disappeared proved true: not a trace of their steps showed in the newly drifted snow.
Lachenal led the blind stumble through the storm, his impatience screwed to a new