Bear Grylls by Bear Grylls Read Free Book Online Page B

couldn’t hear. I then saw him gesturing something with his fingers. I
squinted through the window. With a broad grin he held out his two fingers, and twisted them up the inside of the glass – symbolizing a man climbing up a mountain. He reached up as high as he
could, then mimicked the man tumbling off. As he put his hand back in his pocket, he laughed out loud. I smiled at him from outside.
    ‘I’ll see you in three months, all being well; I’m not waiting in this queue any longer,’ I shouted. Tim was then swept back from the window by the crowds inside, and was
gone from view.
    I turned and went home. I slept little that last night.

 
    CHAPTER FIVE
AMONGST THE GIANTS

    ‘All men dream, but not equally, those that dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds, wake in the day to find that it was vanity; but the
     dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act upon their dreams with open eyes, to make it possible.’
    T. E. Lawrence, Seven Pillars of Wisdom
    DIARY, 27 FEBRUARY:
    Sitting in the plane finally on our way, at the end of a long, very busy, emotional rollercoaster of activity – raising the funds, organizing equipment, getting
     fit, staying healthy and strong, and saying our goodbyes.
    Peace at last. But also anticipation. It’s time now to focus on what’s ahead – yet a nervous gulf hovers over us, as to what the future holds.
    Mick and I were travelling out about four weeks before Neil and Geoffrey, the idea being to get a bit of extra time at high altitude before the climb itself would start. We
wanted to really begin to focus on the job ahead; away from the ‘busyness’ of before.
    One of the pieces of research I had done before leaving was to contact a few of the British climbers who had successfully reached the top of Everest. I hungered for any pieces of advice that
they could offer. One of the recurring patterns that emerged amongst those who had achieved this and those who hadn’t was that the former had often spent a few weeks beforehand training at an
altitude of around 12,000 or 13,000 feet, in preparation. ‘A time of focus before the battle’ was how I heard it described.
    And so the two of us found ourselves 30,000 feet up in the Qatar Airways first class section, heading for the Himalaya. Ironically, from a team of four ‘tough’ men, I now found
myself alone with Mick, with whom I had shared rugby boots and maths books since the age of seven. Rather than feeling part of this hardened mountaineering team, off to wrestle with the extremes of
cold and fatigue, I felt more as if we were going back to school at the start of term; as snotty, homesick kids.
    But no one would have guessed it, as we reclined in our huge first class seats and ordered another drink.
    Qatar Airways had very generously agreed, as sponsorship, to fly the team there and back. Having only ever flown crammed into cattle-class squashed between two sweaty squaddies, or with my
parents, buried under piles of luggage, first class was a treat. I would love to be able to say how we drank the plane dry of complimentary whisky and champagne, and then needed to be wheeled off
at the other end with Moët poisoning. But unfortunately that didn’t happen, and the journey passed more or less in quiet anticipation.
    Seeing this young couple in the row next to me, kissing their way across the skies, made me heinously jealous. I thought to myself how I would be able to do that soon; well relatively soon; like
three months soon. Just a bit of discomfort along the way beforehand, then back to England and long kisses. I was annoyed with myself for feeling like this already.
    The pilot brought us up to the cockpit and pointed out Mount Everest through the window, as we passed over Northern India. I pressed against the glass and there, as if piercing through a blanket
of cloud on the horizon, stood that place of dreams. The frozen snow poured off the summit, streaming miles across the sky, as the jet