Chapter 12
We awake early at Reggie’s estate. The plantation house has a neatly manicured backyard as trim and broad and long as a cricket field. Above and below the house, morning fogs seem to be rising like respiration from the green rows of tea plantings, and suddenly I can see silhouettes of men moving between and then out of those rows, onto the yard, as if the fog had congealed itself into human forms. I count thirty figures as the sun brightens and the fog begins to dissipate. Beyond the plantation hills rise the distant white peaks of the Himalayas so brilliant with the dawn’s sunlight that I have to squint toward them, and yet still their white glare makes my eyes water.
“Too many men,” says the Deacon. “I’d planned on only a dozen or so Sherpa coolies.”
“Just ‘Sherpas,’ not ‘coolies,’” says Reggie. “‘Sherpa’ means ‘people from the east.’ They came over the nineteen-thousand-foot Nangpa La generations ago. They’ve fought a thousand years for their land and independence. And never have they been anyone’s ‘coolies.’”
“Still too many,” says the Deacon as the ragged forms of men solidify more fully and move across the grassy expanse toward us.
Reggie shakes her head. “I’ll explain later why we need at least thirty. For now I’ll introduce all of them and pull aside the dozen or so that I think will make excellent high-climbers. ‘Tigers,’ your General Bruce and Colonel Norton liked to call them. Most of the chosen speak English. I’ll let the three of you interview them and choose whomever you want as your two co-climbers.”
“You know all their names?” I ask.
Reggie nods. “Of course. I also know their parents and wives and families.”
“And these Sherpas all live near Darjeeling?” asks Jean-Claude. “Near your plantation?”
“No,” says Reggie. “These men are the best of the best. Some live in the Solu Khumbu region of Nepal, near the southern approaches to Mount Everest. Others come from the Nepali district of Helambu or the Arun Valley or Rowaling. Still others from Kathmandu. Only about a fourth of these climbers live within four days’ walk of Darjeeling.”
“Previous expeditions have always chosen a few Darjeeling Sherpas and then added more porters from the Tibetan villages along the way,” says the Deacon.
“Yes,” says Reggie and smacks her leather riding crop against her gloved palm. She had come in from her morning ride as the three of us were gathering in the huge kitchen for coffee just before sunrise. “That’s why the first three English expeditions had some good Sherpa climbers but many porters not at all fit for climbing. Tibetans are wonderful people, proud and courageous, but when pressed into duty as porters, as you probably remember from your two expeditions here, Mr. Deacon, they tend to act rather like unionized Englishmen and go on strike for better wages, more food, fewer carrying hours…and always at the worst time. Sherpas don’t do that. If they sign on to help, they help until they die.”
The Deacon grunts, but I notice that he doesn’t argue the point.
Pasang has put the thirty Sherpas in a rough line, and one by one they come forward, bow to Lady Bromley-Montfort, and are then introduced to us by Reggie herself. As the strange names wash over me, I wonder how she can tell the little brown men apart, but then I realize my own American astigmatism: this Sherpa is heavier than the others, this one has a full dark beard, that one a few wispy whiskers, this one is clean-shaven but with brows grown together into a single black line above his eyes. This man has missing front teeth, the man after him a dazzlingly brilliant white smile. Some are burly, some thin. Some are dressed in fine cotton, others in little more than rags. A few wear Western-style hiking boots; far more are in sandals; some are barefooted.
Introductions completed, Pasang waves more than half the men into a more distant part of the yard, where they squat amicably and speak softly amongst themselves.
“I’ve never interviewed a Sherpa for a job position before,” whispers Jean-Claude.
“I have,” says the Deacon.
But in the end it is Pasang and Reggie who help us make up our minds. As the three of us make little more than small talk, Pasang might say, “Nyima can carry more than twice his weight all day without tiring,” or Reggie might comment, “Ang Chiri lives in a village situated above fifteen thousand feet and seems to have no trouble with greater altitudes,” and that sort of information, along with a man’s ability to speak or understand English, is what helps us decide, especially on who our personal Sherpas will be.
After twenty minutes, we realize that Pasang will be Reggie’s sole Sherpa—as well as
The Deacon has chosen Nyima Tsering—a short, stout Sherpa with a loud giggle he uses as prelude to his pidgin English answer to each question, and who can carry more than twice his own weight. The Deacon’s second choice is a taller, thinner, more English-proficient man named Tenzing Bothia who never went anywhere without his own assistant, young Tejbir Norgay.
I choose a smiling, roly-poly, but obviously healthy and happy fellow named Babu Rita to be one of my two Tigers and Ang Chiri of the high-altitude village as my other co-climber. Babu’s wide grin is so infectious that it’s everything I can do not to grin back at him all the time. He has all his teeth. Ang is a relatively short man but with a barrel chest so broad that my father would have described it as “doing a Kentucky thoroughbred justice.” I can imagine Ang Chiri climbing all the way to the summit of Everest without ever needing oxygen from anyone’s tank.
We spend a few more minutes chatting, and then Reggie announces that the jovial little fellow named Semchumbi—no last name evidently—will be the head cook for the expedition. A tall, serious, relatively light- skinned Sherpa named Nawang Bura will be in charge of the pack animals.
“And speaking of pack animals,” says Reggie, “we need to start apportioning the gear into bundles for the mules.” She claps her hands, Pasang makes gestures, and all thirty of the men rush toward the lower stables, where our trucks are parked with the gear.
“And, gentlemen, you need to get about choosing your riding ponies and saddles,” says Reggie, leading us briskly toward the larger upper stable.
“You’ve got to be kidding.” I’m sitting on the white pony and my feet are flat on the ground.
“They’re Tibetan ponies,” says Reggie. “Much more surefooted than regular horses or ponies on the icy mountain trails we’ll be taking, and able to graze where a regular horse or mule would find no forage.”
“Yes, but…,” I say. I stand up and let the pony walk out from under me. Jean-Claude is laughing so hard he’s holding his sides. His legs are short enough that he can hitch them up his pony’s flanks and look as if he’s actually riding. The Deacon has chosen a pony but hasn’t bothered getting on the thing.
When I saw Reggie’s big roan gelding trotting into the stable at dawn after her ride, I assumed we’d be riding
I look at the miniature white pony walking out from under my bowed legs. Hell, even an English saddle would weigh the poor thing down; an American western saddle would crush it.
As if reading my mind, the Deacon says, “You can ride with just a blanket pad on the poor beast, but you’ll get tired holding your legs up, Jake. Sliding off the pony on some of the narrow mountain trails we’ll be on would be a bad idea…it might be three or four hundred vertical feet to the river below. There are wooden Tibetan saddles that Mallory wanted us to use in ’twenty-one, but I would not recommend them.”
“Why not?” I ask.
“They’re shaped like a wooden ‘V,’” says Reggie. “They’ll crush your testicles after two or three miles.”
I’ve never heard a woman say
