Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
of septicemia, Oudot gave the men penicillin. Herzog sensed that the monsoon could
spring a trap, for, swollen with floodwaters, the Miristi Khola might become uncross-
able. Schatz, who had gone ahead to scout a ford, sent a note back reporting that the
river's volume had doubled in a single day.
At last, Schatz and some Sherpas were able to construct a flimsy bridge over the
Miristi Khola, by using lianas to lash together four or five tree trunks. Adjiba gamely
carried the two invalids across piggyback, one at a time. Both men were unnerved by
the passage.
Though bound together by such acts of teamwork, the expedition began at this
point to unravel. There is no hint of this in
Annapurna,
with its fiction that from start
to finish the party was glued together by common purpose and loyalty to its leader.
But on June 10, Lachenal complained to his diary:
I have to ask for everything several times and wait forever before receiving it. Even the
food—I must literally yell to get someone to bring me any. Everybody, sahibs and Sherpas
alike, out of a natural attraction to the leader, fusses around Momo, who in my opinion
knows how to make the most of it. All this might seem bad will on my part, certainly I
probably shouldn't write it, but if not, will it be remembered afterward?
As the doleful retreat progressed, Rébuffat too sensed the dissolution of the team's
solidarity. On July 2, he wrote Françoise, “The members, except for Oudot, are pos-
sessed of quite some egotism! They think only of eating and of doing nothing else.”
Lachenal's diary methodically records the daily tribulations. On June 12, “Momo
was awakened by the need to piss, so I had to help him get it done.” The day before,
“The descent for me was extremely painful, although a bit numbed by morphine.” On
the 12th, Lachenal took the dressings off his feet to look at the damage. “They have a
lot of swelling. I have to hold them vertical, exposed to the air, until the swelling al-
most disappears.”
On June 14, Lachenal and Herzog got involved in a “violent polemic,” after dis-
agreeing whether to camp at a notch in the ridge or, as Lachenal and Rébuffat desired,
descend farther. Herzog's wish prevailed. Lachenal's congenital impatience could not
drive the stricken party's retreat any faster than a halting plod. In one moment, he
could take pity on the Sherpa carrying him on his back; in the next, he was fed up with
everyone around him.
On the dangerous traverse to the pass on the south ridge of the Nilgiris, a laden
porter slipped and fell to his death.
Annapurna
fails to note this tragedy, which only
Lachenal's diary documents.
