The Abominable: A Novel

“How early do you suggest a summit team should leave camp with these…these… things on their heads?” asks the Deacon.

“No later than two a.m., Mr. Deacon. I would suggest closer to midnight the night before the actual summit attempt.”

The Deacon laughs at the thought of climbing at that altitude at night. “We’d freeze,” he says dismissively.

“No, no,” says Jean-Claude. “Remember, Ree-shard, that thanks to you, we have Monsieur Finch’s lovely warm goose down duvet jackets, enough for all of us and for our Tiger Sherpas. And I believe that Lady Brom…that Reggie has a good point here. There are fewer avalanches at night. The snow and ice are firmer. The new crampons would work better with the colder snow and more solid ice. And if these headlamps truly show the way…”

“They do for hundreds of modern Welsh miners,” interrupts Reggie. “At least the engineers and supervisors. And Welsh miners don’t have the advantage of starlight or moonlight in their dark holes.”

“Magnifique!” says Jean-Claude.

“Very interesting,” I say.

“Leave high camp at midnight for the summit,” says the Deacon. “Absolutely absurd.”

There are 40 mules allocated for the trek in to Everest, and each mule is capable of carrying a double pack weighing some 160 pounds. One Sherpa porter can handle two mules even while carrying his own heavy loads of our excess baggage.

Reggie has argued for more prepared food for the expedition. The Deacon is adamantly against it. As we’re eating a delicious dinner of pheasant under glass set off with a very fine white wine, the two erupt at each other again.

“I don’t believe you understand my theory behind this expedition, Lady Bromley-Montfort,” the Deacon says coolly.

“I understand it all too well, Mr. Deacon. You’re attempting an alpine assault on the tallest mountain in the world, dealing with it as if it were the Matterhorn. You plan to buy as much food as you can in the Tibetan villages along the way and hunt for more: wild goats, rabbits, goas —Tibetan gazelle—white deer, Himalayan blue sheep, whatever you can find and shoot.”

“That is the idea,” says the Deacon. “And since you claim to have climbed both in the Alps and here in the Himalayas, you know that such an alpine assault has never been tried against Everest.”

“For good reason, Mr. Deacon. Not only the size of the mountain, but the weather. Even in this pre-monsoon season, the weather on the mountain can change in a matter of minutes. The mountain creates its own weather, Mr. Deacon. And you simply don’t have enough portable food to last weeks on the mountain if weeks are called for. You can’t just keep running back from the Rongbuk Glacier over Pang La to Shekar Dzong to go shopping when you run low, you know. And the tiny village of Chodzong on the Everest side of Pang La doesn’t have enough extra food this time of year anyway.”

I’ve learned by now that La in Tibetan means “pass.” Pang La is the 17,000-foot pass south of Shekar Dzong: the last such high pass before one approaches the Rongbuk Monastery, the Rongbuk Glacier, and Mount Everest. Most expeditions take four days or more trekking from Shekar Dzong to Everest Base Camp at the opening of the Rongbuk Glacier valley…then many more days finding a way up the glacier and onto the North Col.

“We can buy extra food from villagers on the way in,” insists the Deacon.

Reggie laughs. “The average Tibetan villager will sell you his last chicken even if it means his own family will go hungry,” she says, showing her very white teeth. “But how do you keep a chicken carcass fresh over weeks if the snows hit you at Camp Three below the North Col, Mr. Deacon? Do you plan to carry ice with you? An electric refrigeration unit? And once you’re past Rongbuk, don’t plan to survive on what the party may shoot. Except for a few rare burrhel—mountain sheep—and even more rare yeti, there’s nothing up there. You’d spend your days hunting rather than climbing…and still likely starve.”

The Deacon ignores the yeti comment. “I’ve been there, please remember, Lady Bromley-Montfort. I’ve spent many more weeks exploring the north side of the Everest approaches than you could have.”

“You only spent so much time there in ’twenty-one because you and Mallory could not find the obvious way in via the East Rongbuk Glacier, Mr. Deacon.”

The Deacon’s face darkens.

“Listen,” says Reggie, turning to J.C. and me as well as toward the Deacon, “I am not suggesting that we provision ourselves the way Bruce, Norton, and Mallory did…Good Lord, I watched them leave Darjeeling. Seventy Sherpa porters—a hundred and forty porters by the time they added Tibetans across the border—and more than three hundred pack animals, carrying not just oxygen and tents and necessary supplies, but scores of cans of foie gras and smoked sausages and beef tongue.”

“Appetite wanes with altitude,” says the Deacon. “You need foods that stimulate the appetite.”

“Oh yes, I know.” Reggie smiles. “I lost more than thirty pounds on the North Col last August, you may remember my telling you. Above twenty-three thousand feet, the very idea of food becomes repugnant. And one does not have the energy to prepare it. That is why I’ve added the supplemental canned goods, simple staples, bags of noodles and rice that will warm up in the boiled water, in case we’re pinned down by weather.”

The Deacon looks at J.C. and me as if we should jump in to support him in this argument. We smile at him and wait.

“Instead of three hundred pack animals,” continues Reggie, “we’ll travel with only forty and buy replacements along the way if need be. Instead of seventy Sherpa porters, we’ll use only thirty. Instead of hiring another hundred and fifty porters in Shekar Dzong, I’ve arranged for us to trade the mules there for yaks and to continue with just our thirty Sherpas as porters. But we must have enough food. The search for Cousin Percy may take weeks. We simply can’t return without finding him because we’ve run out of food.”

The Deacon sighs. He can’t tell her the real reason that he, Jean-Claude, and I have signed up for this expedition. A wait for good weather and then an alpine dash for the summit and then…home.

Reggie looks at each of us in turn. “I know your real reason for coming on this expedition, gentlemen,” she says as if reading our guilty minds. “I know that you hope to climb Everest, that you’re using my aunt’s money and the excuse of searching for Percival’s remains only as a way to get yourselves onto the mountain and, with luck, to the summit.”

None of us replies. And none of us can meet her cool gaze.

“It doesn’t matter,” continues Reggie. “It’s more important to me to find Percival’s body than it is to you— perhaps for reasons you don’t yet understand—but I also want to climb Mount Everest.”

We all do look up at that. A woman on the summit of Everest? Ridiculous. Yet none of us speaks.

“It’s nine p.m.,” says Reggie as clocks throughout the great plantation house chime at the same second. “We should all get to bed. We’ll be leaving at dawn.”

J.C. and I rise with Reggie, but Deacon remains seated. “Not until we settle this issue of who is in command of the expedition, Lady Bromley-Montfort. An expedition cannot have two leaders. It simply won’t work.”

Reggie smiles at him. “It worked well enough last year when General Bruce grew ill with malaria, Mr. Deacon. Colonel Teddy Norton—who probably knew he would not end up on the summit team—took overall command of the expedition, while Mr. Mallory was in charge of the climbing plans and sorting out who would make the summit bid. Naturally that turned out to be himself and his healthy if inexperienced assistant Sandy Irvine…a nice boy. I enjoyed having him as a guest in my home. Now I suggest we use the same system. I shall be in charge of the expedition per se; you shall be climbing master on the mountain, answerable in terms of climbing decisions only to any sound suggestions I might have in the search for Cousin Percy’s remains.”

I can see the Deacon struggling to find the proper words to rebut this suggestion once and for all. But he is too slow.

Pasang…Dr. Pasang…pulls Reggie’s chair out of her way.

“Good night, gentlemen,” she says softly. “We leave for Mount Everest at dawn.”