mountaineering expedition that failed early because of conflict between two would-be leaders. (Nor, as I will notice over the next sixty-nine years, would it be the last.)
But then we’re leaving Sealdah Station in the loud, infernally hot, and eternally dusty first-class section of the equally loud, infernally hot, and eternally dusty first leg to Siliguri, and I find myself staring out at some of the most boring landscape I’ve ever traversed: endless rice paddies, interrupted only by plantations of various kinds of palm trees. It is also a chaotic train, with second- and third-class and nonpaying passengers hanging from every door and window and many more on the rooftop of every car except the first-class ones. As darkness falls, the number of villages we’re passing on this great, flat plain becomes obvious by the thousands of campfires and lantern lights we glimpse. A million people appear to be preparing their dinners at the same time, most over simple open fires in or near their open-doored homes, and—from the not totally unpleasant scent that fills the air even with our windows closed, the air moving only because of small electric fans set high on the walls turning slowly—it becomes obvious, and is confirmed by the Deacon, that most of the cooking fires we pass in the encroaching dusk are fueled by dried cow dung.
The Deacon does not apologize for his earlier outburst of temper at the Calcutta staging area, but as our Siliguri-bound night train moves deeper into the countryside and real darkness punctuated by hundreds or even thousands more fires in villages and isolated homes, his manner suggests both apology and embarrassment. After we dine on a basket of hotel-roasted chicken and a decent white wine in our small compartment where all three of us will be sleeping on fold-down cots, the smell of the Deacon’s pipe tobacco mixes with the cow dung scent of India’s humid air.
This is strangely calming. We say little to each other, all of us more interested in the tableaus glimpsed briefly as the now hurtling little train passes villages and homes lighted by open fires and the occasional lantern. We are climbing a little, but we know that narrow-gauge Darjeeling Himalayan Railway train tomorrow morning will have to pull itself and us from near sea level to Darjeeling—the town and the Bromley-Montfort tea plantation are set in the Mahabharat Mountain Range, also known as the Lesser Himalayas—at an average altitude of around 7,000 feet.
The heat eventually forces us to open the windows to allow more dust, smoke, and flying cinders in, but that thick, humid air becomes a tiny bit cooler as we roll through more coconut and banana plantations and the cooking-dinner scent of cow dung campfires is slowly balanced, if not replaced, by the thickly sensuous tropical funk of irrigated palm trees.
We are three or four hours out of Calcutta when the Darjeeling Mail express roars and clatters its way across the famous Sara Bridge which spans the Padma. After that, all is darkness, broken only by the dim constellations of the hundreds upon hundreds of distant villages across the plain.
All three of us are in our thinly cushioned fold-down beds by eleven p.m., and from the sounds my climbing partners are making, they are soon sleeping deeply. I’m plagued by thoughts and doubts for a while—the meeting with Lord Bromley-Montfort at the Mount Everest Hotel tomorrow night or Tuesday morning may be as disastrous as I fear—but then I also fall asleep to the swaying of the train and the soothing sound of its iron wheels on the Darjeeling Mail rails.
Early the next morning in Siliguri—after tea, coffee, and a good Western breakfast in an area of the station reserved just for British and other white passengers—we transfer to the narrow-gauge railroad that always departs for Darjeeling precisely thirty-five minutes after the mail train arrives in Siliguri. Seven miles up this line— the train really is so tiny that it seems a slightly overgrown toy train of the kind boys dream of owning—we reach the Sukhna station and begin the absurdly steep (and absurdly slow) switchback climbing to Darjeeling. The humid scents of the crowded Bengali plain are soon replaced by refreshing breezes and the thick, green, rain-scented forest that punctuates rolling plantation rows of tea plants. We are scheduled to arrive by noon, but two rockfalls onto the tracks put us hours behind schedule.
The engineer and fireman of the little Coney Island toy train roust out dozens from the third- and even second-class cabins to move the rocks fallen from the rain-drenched cliffs, but Jean-Claude and I enthusiastically join in the work, prying with crowbars to lever small boulders off the tracks.
The Deacon stands to one side, arms crossed, and glowers. “If you hurt your back or legs or hands now,” he says tightly, “you’ve ruined your chance at climbing Everest for
J.C. and I smile our agreement but ignore him, helping clear the track while the engineer and fireman and useless conductors (who collected all our tickets before the Darjeeling Himalayan Railway toy train started, since one cannot walk from one of the tiny cars to the next, but who have done no work since) lazily watch with crossed arms and frowning faces. From time to time they shout instructions and criticism in Bengali and Hindi and some other dialect. Eventually we’re finished, the rails are clear, and J.C. and I stagger back to our coach.
Twelve miles further on, we stop for another rockfall, this one with even larger rocks and boulders heaped all over the tracks. “Heavy rain,” says the engineer, shrugging and looking above us at the vertical cliffs from which run a thousand miniature waterfalls. Jean-Claude and I again join the second- and third-class passengers in levering off a few tons of rocks. Pointedly, the Deacon stays in his bunk and takes a nap.
So we arrive hours late in Darjeeling, not at noon as the schedule promised, but toward dusk. And in a heavy rain which has prevented us from catching views of the summits of Kanchenjunga or any of the other high Himalayan peaks usually visible—according to the Deacon—during the approach to Darjeeling. Two of us are sore and bruised from moving tons of rock, our muscles aching despite being honed for climbing, our climbing- necessary fingers torn and bloody; the third member of our party is also bloody—bloody disgusted with us.
We walk back to the fifth and last car on our Coney Island Express—the so-called “freight car,” in reality just a flatbed with our many crates and boxes hastily lashed down and covered with tarps—and wonder how we are going to get the tons of stuff to the Hotel Mount Everest. (Expedition members, especially their leaders, are often invited to stay up the hill at Government House, but our expedition is so totally unofficial that we want to be invisible. So the hotel it is.)
Suddenly, miraculously, a tall man with an umbrella appears out of the pounding rain. He’s followed by more than a dozen porters pouring out of three Ford trucks with wooden beds behind their cabs. The station platform has no roof. The rain is cold up here at 7,000 feet, and steam rises from the Fords’ hoods still ticking with heat.
The tall man is wearing a finely made cream-colored cotton robe with long wool vests hanging down like brown scarves. On his head is perched an elaborate and carefully fitted cap unlike anything I’ve seen so far in India. He doesn’t look either Indian or Tibetan—not quite Asiatic enough for the latter nor brown and short and dark-haired enough for the former—and while he might be one of the mythical Sherpas I’ve heard so much about, I know that Sherpas also tend to be short, and this man’s brown-eyed gaze is exactly level with mine—and I’m 6 foot 2. Without saying a word or making a gesture, he somehow projects a powerful sense of dignity and self- respect. He obviously has what some call “a commanding presence.”
The Deacon walks forward through the rain, water cascading from his fedora, and the other man extends the umbrella so that the Deacon can stand close under the broad black circle.
“Are you sent by Lord Bromley-Montfort?” asks the Deacon.
The man stares at the Deacon. Long, silent seconds pass in the pouring rain.
The Deacon points at his own chest and says, “Me…Richard Davis Deacon.” He points at the tall man’s chest. “You?”
“Pasang.” The voice is so soft that I can barely hear it under the pounding of rain on the umbrella fabric.
“Pasang what?” asks the Deacon.
“Pasang…Sirdar.”
I step closer through the rain and extend my hand. “Pleasure to meet you, Pasang Sirdar.”
The tall man makes no move except to shift the umbrella a bit so that it offers me some protection.
“No, no, Jake,” says the Deacon, almost shouting over the downpour. “
