The Abominable: A Novel

The Deacon taps his cold pipe against his teeth—the air is already too thick in here and redolent of wet wool for him to add smoke—and says, “I’ve built in search days from each camp along the way, Lady Bromley- Montfort.”

“But your goal is still to summit Everest,” she says.

“Yes.” The Deacon clears his throat. “But we can spend time after the summit parties succeed—until the monsoon really hits—to continue the search for Lord Percival’s remains, if necessary.”

Reggie smiles and shakes her head. “I know the condition of the men who’ve achieved the high-altitude records here and not summited. Bruce with heart problems and traumatic shock and frostbite after his oxygen set quit working. Morshead, Norton, and Somervell too weak to descend safely in ’twenty-two and falling toward the overhang, saved only by tangled ropes and Mallory’s impossible belay of all three. High-climbing porters dead from brain embolisms and broken legs, others sent home due to terrible frostbite. Norton’s sixty hours of screaming in pain from snow blindness last year…”

The Deacon waves away her objections. “No one says the mountain’s not going to take a toll on us. We may all perish. But odds are good that even if we summit by seventeen May, some or all of us should be in good enough shape to direct the Tiger Sherpas in the search for Percy. We have advantages that none of the previous expeditions had.”

“Pray tell,” says Reggie. I can see Jean-Claude’s curious interest, and I admit that my own is fairly keen as well.

“First of all, the oxygen sets,” says the Deacon.

“Two of the three previous British expeditions used similar oxygen apparatus,” says Reggie. Her voice is calm.

The Deacon nods. “They did, but with apparatus not nearly as good. And not as many tanks. George Finch is sure that the problem was that most of the previous climbers, including me, used too little, too late. The altitude sickness begins eating away at our energy and reserves even here at Base Camp. You and I are acclimated, Lady Bromley-Montfort, but you can see the effect that just seventeen thousand feet has on some of the Sherpas and… others.”

His glance my way is just a flick of the eyes.

“Above the North Col,” he continues, “especially above eight thousand meters, our bodies and brains begin dying. Not just becoming fatigued and tired, but literally dying. Previous expeditions tended to dole out the oxygen tanks, even to porters, only when they were well above the North Col. And then almost always only when climbing. I plan for us to go on oxygen from Camp Three and beyond—including the Tiger Sherpas when needed—even when stuck in the tents. Even when sleeping.”

“Pasang and I spent two weeks on the North Col and climbed above it without oxygen,” says Reggie.

“And were you miserable the entire time?” asks the Deacon.

She looks down. “Yes.”

“Did you sleep well…or at all some nights?”

“No.”

“Did you have any appetite even when you still had food reserves?”

“No.”

“Did you rouse yourselves enough every day—after a while at that altitude—to get snow and to fire up the Primus when you needed to melt it for soup or drinking water?”

“No.”

“Were both of you dehydrated, sick with headache, and vomiting after a few days?”

“Yes.” Reggie sighs. “That comes with being on Mount Everest, does it not?”

The Deacon shakes his head. “It comes from our bodies beginning to die on Mount Everest near and above eight thousand meters. Oxygen from the tanks—just breathing a few liters at night while we sleep—can’t stop that slow dying, but it can slow it down a bit. Give us a few more days at altitude in which we can think clearly and function properly.”

“So we’re definitely going to use English air all the way up after the North Col, Ree-shard? ” asks Jean-Claude.

“Yes. And on the North Col when we have to. I don’t like being stupid, my friends—and this mountain makes everyone stupid. And often causes hallucinations as well. At least above Camp Three at the base of the Ice Fall. In ’twenty-two, I climbed for two days with a fourth man on our rope…a man who didn’t exist. The use of oxygen, even at a low flow rate, day and night, will reduce that fatal stupidity a bit. Enough, I hope, to give us the edge for reaching the summit and for finding Bromley’s remains.”

I can tell that Reggie is not totally convinced, but what choice does she have? She’s always known that the Deacon’s—and Jean-Claude’s and my—primary goal is to reach the summit (although in the past two days of illness, I’ve been very discouraged about the odds of reaching that goal). She just has to believe that we’ll do our best in searching for Percy on the way up and back down—if there is a “back down.”

On the morning of the fourth day, as the snowstorm finally shows signs of relenting, we reconvene in the Big Tent and go over the Deacon’s strategy. “There’s a reason that all the English expeditions have been led by military men,” the Deacon is saying as we huddle over the map of the mountain. His gaze rests more on Reggie’s face than on J.C.’s or mine, and I understand he’s making a final effort at persuasion. “This way of attacking the mountain—carrying to Camp One, then Camp Two, and so forth up to Camp Six or Seven before attempting the summit—is classic military siege strategy.”

“Such as the sieges in the Great War?” asks Reggie.

“No,” says the Deacon with a tone of absolute finality. “The Great War was four years of trench warfare insanity. Tens of thousands of lives lost in a day for a few yards of ground gained…yards that would be lost the next day at an equal price. No, I’m talking about classical sieges from the Middle Ages on. The kind of siege of Cornwallis at Yorktown that your general, Jake…Washington…was taught by his French friend”—a nod at J.C.—“Lafayette. Surround the enemy where he can’t retreat—a peninsula worked fine as long as the French ships didn’t allow the Royal Navy to save Cornwallis and his men. Then bombard. Under bombardment, advance your trenches yard by yard, mile by mile, until you’re right up against the enemy’s defenses. Then a final quick assault and…victory.”

“But none of your English generals here on Everest,” says Jean-Claude, “have moved their trenches close enough to the summit for that successful final assault.”

The Deacon nods agreement, but I can tell he’s distracted. Perhaps by Reggie’s unwavering gaze. “The ’twenty-two and ’twenty-four expeditions both planned to establish a Camp Seven at around twenty-seven thousand three hundred feet, but neither achieved that goal. Mallory and Irvine and all the rest of us before them started our summit assault from Camp Six at about twenty-six thousand eight hundred feet.”

“That’s only five hundred feet difference,” says Reggie, moving her gaze down to the map of the Rongbuk Glacier and the mountain.

“Five hundred vertical feet can mean half a day’s worth of climbing at those altitudes.” The Deacon plays with his unlit pipe. “There’s no only to it.”

“Didn’t Norton and Mallory fail to establish a Camp Seven because the porters gave out?” I ask. I’ve heard and read all the reports. “Were just unable to carry tents higher?”

“In part,” says the Deacon. “But the sahib climbers also gave out, in terms of carrying loads, above Camp Six. And that includes Finch and me in ’twenty-two. Besides, Camp Seven was always the plan for a final assault without oxygen; when Mallory decided that he and Irvine would make an attempt with the O-two apparatus, the extra five hundred vertical feet didn’t seem to make that much difference.”

“But you think it did,” says Reggie.

“Yes.” If she’d been attempting irony, the Deacon’s tone suggests he hadn’t noticed it. He presses his pipe stem down on a point on the map above our inked-in Camp VI and below the juncture of the North Ridge with the long North East Ridge. “The problem isn’t just altitude up there—although that’s debilitating enough. The slabs are steeper as one approaches the North East Ridge, and there’s much less packable snow—very few places to carve out a platform for even one tent, and the climber doesn’t have enough energy to be moving stones to create a