The Abominable: A Novel

Colonel Norton broke the silence.

“It’s good to see you, Richard. I’m sorry we have only twenty minutes or so before the formal Alpine Club dinner begins. Since you’re a fellow in the RGS and former expedition member, we could always find room for you…”

The Deacon waves that away. “I’m hardly dressed for it, Teddy, and it wouldn’t be appropriate at any rate. No, my friends and I only want to ask a few questions of you gentlemen, then we’ll be on our way.”

Our drinks arrive: whiskey, neat and amber-colored and aged eighteen years in sherry casks. It is warm going down. My hands aren’t shaking, but I realize that they want to. I also realize that I probably will never be in such an august company of world-class climbers again, which must be the cause of this tension. I’m not afraid of trying to climb Mount Everest, but I’m almost frightened to be in the presence of these men who’ve become world-famous by attempting and failing to do so.

“About Mallory and Irvine, I presume?” says Norton to the Deacon, his tone—I think—rather cooler. How many times has this group been asked questions about the disappeared “heroes” in the past four months?

“Not at all,” says the Deacon. “I had a visit with Lady Bromley this summer and promised that I would help her find out as much as I can about the disappearance of her son.”

“Young Percival Bromley?” says the filmmaker Noel. “How on earth can we help her? Bromley wasn’t with us, you know, Richard.”

“I was under the impression that he traveled from Darjeeling to Rongbuk with you.” The Deacon sips his whiskey, his aquiline profile lighted by the fire from where I sit.

“Not with us, Richard,” says Howard Somervell. “Behind us. By himself. Just himself on a Tibetan pony and his gear on a single mule. Always a day or two behind us. He caught up with us and visited our camp…what, John?” He is asking the filmmaker, Noel. “Three times?”

“Only twice, I believe,” says Noel. “The first time at Kampa Dzong, where we spent three nights. The last time at Shekar Dzong, before we turned south toward the Rongbuk Monastery and Glacier. We spent two nights at Shekar Dzong. Young Bromley never seemed to spend more than one night camped anywhere. He had a simple Whymper tent. One of the smaller, lighter kinds.”

“Should he not have passed you, then, on the trek in?” asks Jean-Claude. He is obviously enjoying his whiskey. “I mean, if you spent multiple nights in certain spots and Bromley would camp only one night…”

“Oh, I say,” says Dr. Hingston with a laugh. “I see your point. But no…Bromley seemed to be making little side trips. South along the Yaru Chu River, for instance, after we spent two nights at Tinki Dzong. Possibly to get a glimpse of Mount Everest from the low mountains there. At any rate, he was behind us again when we arrived at Shekar Dzong.”

“Strangest thing,” says Colonel Norton. “Whenever young Lord Percival did drop in for a visit—both times— he brought his own food and drink. Would accept no hospitality from us, though God knows we had enough food to spare and left a ton of tinned goods behind at the end.”

“So he was well provisioned?” asks the Deacon.

“For a weekend camping trip in Lincolnshire,” comments John Noel. “Not for a solo expedition into Tibet.”

“How could he have traveled alone without official permission from the Tibetan government?” I hear myself asking. I feel the blush rising to my cheeks, as warm as the whiskey in my belly. I’d not planned to speak tonight.

“Rather good question, Mr. Perry,” says Colonel Norton. “We wondered ourselves. Tibet is in a state of relative barbarism, but the local dzongpens—the tribal and village headmen—as well as the government, do post guards and soldiers here and there, especially on the high passes which one cannot bypass. Guards checked our papers there, so I have to assume that Lord Percival had some formal permission papers—perhaps received through the governor of Bengal. The Bromley plantation there near Darjeeling— Bromley-Montfort now—has long been a friend of the Tibetans and whoever is in charge of Bengal and Sikkim.”

“I rode over to Lord Percival’s camp once or twice,” Noel Odell says. “Early in the expedition, just after we’d crossed into Tibet after cresting Jelep La. Young Percival seemed very content to be alone—not overly welcoming, but certainly friendly enough once I sat by his fire. I was worried about his health, you see—so many of us had either dysentery or the beginnings of real mountain lassitude by that point—but Bromley appeared perfectly fine. Every time we saw him, he seemed healthy and in high spirits.”

“And did he follow you from Shekar Dzong to your Base Camp at the foot of the Rongbuk Glacier?” asks the Deacon.

“Oh, heavens no,” says Colonel Norton. “Bromley continued on west the dozen or fifteen miles to Tingri after we turned south toward Everest. We never saw him again. I had the impression that he was set to explore farther west and north beyond Tingri. Much of that area is essentially unexplored, you know, Richard. Tingri itself is a rather frightfully crude former Tibetan military garrison on a high hill. You were there with us when everyone went out of their way to Tingri Dzong in ’twenty-two, as I recall.”

“Yes,” says the Deacon, but adds nothing else.

“I also had the impression from young Bromley,” says Dr. Hingston, “right from the time we met him at the family’s tea plantation, that he was going into Tibet to meet up with someone. It was as if he had just enough food and gear to get to a rendezvous somewhere beyond Shekar Dzong.”

“What about climbing gear?” asks the Deacon. “Bruno Sigl has told the German press that Lord Percival and another man died in an avalanche high on Everest. Did any of you see climbing gear with Lord Percival?”

“Some rope,” says Norton. “One always can use some good rope in Tibet. But not nearly enough rope for an attempt on Everest…nor enough food, nor tents, nor Primus stoves, nor any of the other things he would have required to get even as far as Camp Three, much less up onto the North Col…much, much less the huge mass of material he would have needed to get up to Camp Five or out onto the Face.”

“This Bruno Sigl…,” begins the Deacon.

“Is a liar,” interrupts Colonel Norton. “I’m sorry, Richard. I did not mean to be rude. It’s just that everything Sigl has told the press is sheer rot.”

“So you never saw Sigl or any other Germans, including this possible Austrian Meyer, who’s supposed to have died with Lord Percival?” asks the Deacon.

“Never heard the slightest whisper that any Germans were within a thousand miles while we were on the mountain or glacier,” says Colonel Norton. There are pink spots high on his sharp cheekbones. I have to think that the Scotch he is finishing is not his first of the evening. Either that, or the idea of Germans having been anywhere in the area during their attempts on Everest this year is somehow infuriating and intolerable to Norton.

“I confess to being confused,” says the Deacon. “The last of your party left Base Camp…when? On sixteen June, some eight days after Mallory and Irvine’s disappearance, no?”

“Yes,” says Odell. “We took time to let the most fatigued climbers rest, and to build the memorial cairn for George and Sandy—and for the porters lost in ’twenty-two—but the last of us were out of the Rongbuk Valley by the afternoon of the sixteenth. We were all in bad shape, except for me, strangely enough: heart conditions, the aftereffects of Colonel Norton’s snow blindness, frostbite, fatigue, constant altitude sickness, headaches for everyone. Everyone coughing constantly.”

“My cough almost killed me on the mountain,” says Howard Somervell.

“At any rate, we left in different groups—invalids, most of us—and the majority went with Colonel Norton to explore the never-before-visited Rongshar Valley under Gaurishankar—we had permission to do so—and to recuperate for ten days at lower altitudes before the hard march back.”

“I had to get my film back, so I came straight back to Darjeeling with the porters and mules,” says Captain Noel.

“John de Vere Hazard, our primary cartographer, wanted to finish up the survey your ’twenty-one expedition had begun, Richard,” says Colonel Norton. “We gave him permission to accompany Hari Sing Thapa of the Indian Survey to the West Rongbuk region for a few days. We waved good-bye to them as they and their few porters went west on sixteen June, the day most of us went north and east.”

“And I had my own detour,” says Odell. “I wanted to do a little more geological work.”

The other four famous men laughed. Odell’s geological ardor, even at altitudes above 27,000 feet on Everest, had evidently become a bit of a joke amongst these otherwise somber survivors.