True Summit by David Roberts Read Free Book Online Page A

by the Gurkha officer deputed by the Maharajah of Nepal to accompany the expedition, who beat a particularly obstreperous “coolie” and sent him fleeing as a lesson to the others. The Sherpas, who would prove so vital on the mountain, were more loyal. “It thrilled me,” wrote Herzog, with the unconscious condescension of his day, “to see these little, yellow men, with their plump muscles. . . . The expedition was to give them plenty of opportunity to show what they were made of.”
    Terray was afflicted with a persistent stomachache, Rébuffat with lassitude, headache, and insomnia. As they gained altitude, eventually surpassing the height of Mont Blanc (the highest any of the men except Ichac had been before), Herzog seemed to acclimatize better than his teammates.
    After fifteen days of trekking, the team reached the mountain village of Tukucha, equidistant between Dhaulagiri and Annapurna. Four days before, they had caught their first sight of Dhaulagiri, “an immense pyramid of ice, glittering in the sun like a crystal,” its remote summit 23,000 feet above their lowland trudge. The sight was both joyous and discouraging. “Just look at the east arête, on the right,” one team member blurted out. “Yes, it’s impossible,” rejoined another. (In Herzog’s text, which is rich in dialogue, the identities of the speakers often go unspecified.)
    The team used Tukucha as base, setting out, usually in pairs, to untangle the lay of the land and try to find a way to the foot of Dhaulagiri. It was now that they began to realize that their IndianSurvey maps were seriously in error. On the map, the valley of the Dambush Khola, bent like an arm around a sharp elbow, led directly from Tukucha to the northeast face of the great mountain. In reality, a high ridge blocked the river’s headwaters, barring all access to Dhaulagiri from this side.
    In Annapurna, though suffering from various ailments and driven to distraction by their failures, the men keep up a jaunty banter and an unflagging optimism. Here, the art of Herzog’s writing serves the tale well. Clearly he has made up the copious dialogue that laces the pages; in his hospital bed months after the expedition, he cannot have remembered every exchange down to the exact word. Yet this dialogue has an air of authenticity; it sounds like climbers talking:
    â€œGood Lord! Look at that! A valley starting here—”
    â€œIt’s not marked on the map,” said Ichac. “It’s an unknown valley.”
    â€œIt runs down toward the north and divides into two great branches.”
    â€œNo sign of Dhaula! It couldn’t be that pale imitation, that fake mountain, in front of us, could it?”
    (This version of the passage, retranslated literally from the French to capture its colloquial ease, avoids the arch Anglicisms of the 1952 English translation.)
    Does it matter that, in Herzog’s concocted dialogue, no individual voice emerges? That all nine climbers sound alike? Not to most readers, for the chat serves as it should, to advance a story that gains momentum with every page.
    Herzog does not entirely whitewash the personal conflicts that marred the weeks of reconnaissance. Rather, he presents a series of vignettes that all resolve in the same fashion: with the wisdom of his own leadership prevailing over the impetuous antics of the others. On an attempt to climb through an icefall toward Dhaulagiri, Herzog, Rébuffat, and Lachenal, each roped to a Sherpa, blunder into a nightmare, as a violent hailstorm hits and the seracs around them creak and shudder. Both Rébuffat and Lachenal counsel retreat.Then, with his characteristic wild haste, Lachenal starts tearing down the slope, dragging his Sherpa with him.
    Herzog, alarmed, yells after him: “Watch out for the Sherpas! Don’t let them fall off.” Lachenal does not slow down.
    Later, in safety, Lachenal laments