A Bearer Of Ill Tidings

by G. B. Spenceley

I was anxious to be in Katmandu as early as possible to report the accident, and speed was essential too if I was to complete my work there and be back in Base Camp before our planned departure on 22nd May.  I calculated that I could complete my outward journey in five days and be back in six.  I did in fact keep to this schedule but the heat of the valleys together with the pace of my travel imposed some strain.

Originally I had planned to take only Pasang, our odd job Base Camp Sherpa, as my companion and to travel light, dis­pensing with a tent.  But if I was a little stirred by the adventure of having only a Sherpa for company I was to be disappointed for Murari insisted on joining me, and insisted too on bringing a tent apparently necessary both for our comfort and status.  I had no complaints, he proved to be an excellent companion, untiring, cheerful, always considerate and helpful and he relieved me of nearly all responsibility.

And so on 5 th May we departed.  A Tampathang Sherpa, come up for empty tins, reheved me of my load in exchange for a wooden box, on the first leg of the Journey and only Pasang seemed burdened.  He carried 50 lbs.  but this included his heavy yak skin from which he would not be parted and a wardrobe of warm woollen clothing, scarves and balaclavas, all to add to his prestige in the populated plain.  He wanted to take an ice axe too but this last sanction to his pride I would not allow.

Down we went then to Pemsal, the green Sherpa pasture, 3,000 feet down the winding track up which a few weeks earlier, on the last day of the march, we had come with such high hopes.  I did not like to think of my mission now.  Two or three Sherpas and a young boy with a most engaging smile who seemed to regard himself as my personal guide and guardian along the intricate jungle path, kept us company until after we had crossed the Rhakti Khola and entered the first Sherpa clearing, where along with our escort, we halted for food.  From then onwards I had to carry my own load and most heavy did I find it.  We had been going twelve hours when we entered Tampathang and dusk had already fallen.  I was very tired.

But If I had hoped that speedily the tent would be erected and the fire blazing for the needful food and drink I was mistaken.  It seemed necessary that our respects should be paid to the leading households of the village and to each, at great length and with dramatic detail., the tragic tale was told.  Murari enjoyed being the centre of so much attention but here at least his story fell on sympathetic ears.  These hill people knew well enough of this mountain terror and there was much sorrowful shaking of heads and for me, understanding glances.  These were the men who had carried for us to Base Camp and in a small way they felt themselves to be part of the Expedition.  Fox for three days had been their Burra Sahib and it was evident that in this short time he had earned their respect.

Only Pasang took httle part in these noisy social gatherings but sat at our feet hke a great obedient dog waiting for his master’s orders.  But once the camp site was settled—here it was amongst the goats and hens on a Sherpa’s doorstep — he would busy himself seeing to all the comforts of his Sahib with touching devotion.  Only occasionally did he halt in his labours to gaze with an unmistakable look at a passing Sherpani, but I think he would cause no hearts to flutter.  He was in fact married, or rather he shared a wife with his brother, yet he was the most ugly of beings, ugly and perhaps more grotesque.  Pasang of all our Sherpas was the only one who claimed to have seen a yeti and sometimes in the morning when he entered my tent, his face positively dis­torted in a smile — I think distorted is the word — I sometimes wondered if he was not himself a yeti.  But his animal and amorphous features behed his character; simple earthy soul though he was, there was no more willing worker or more kindly and devoted servant.

We ate that night by the light of bamboo flares held by our Sherpa friends as we sat in the porch of their house.  Many came to watch, some to bring simple gifts.  Sherpanis brought their babies asleep upon their hips while others spun their wool.  The flames were reflected in their brass soup plate earrings and strange shadows were cast upon the walls; there was rich atmosphere about the scene.

We were away next morning early and all day we walked along forest paths down the gorge of the Belephi Khola.  A Sherpa from the village joined us and relieved each of us a little of our loads; a typical kindly act for which he sought no reward.  He was a Trader travelling to Kuti, over the border in Tibet, for a load of salt.  He returned, he told us, over a high pass and down the Nosem Khola, a valley unvisited as yet by western travellers.

I had hoped to reach Palem Sankhu that night so that we could cross the chain bridge and tackle the long steep climb up the other side in the cool of the morning but the distance was greater than I had thought.  Furthermore the heat was now intense — I did not then know it, but Nepal was suffering a heat wave and the temperature in the valleys was probably 110°F; this together with the halts at the prescribed resting places, which convention on the part of our Sherpa escort decreed us to observe, caused further delay.

The result was that at nightfall we were erecting our tent in some Tamang village still a few hours short of the goal we had set ourselves.  Our tent did not stay long erected.  We could hear thunder among the mountains and suddenly a fearful wind tore down the valley, scattering the fire we had just lit and threatening to blow the tent into the torrent far below.  Even great teak slating blocks were being wrenched from the roofs.  At last we found sanctuary on the porch of a nearby house and here that night we lay down, sharing our bed with creatures that either cackled, bleated or barked or just crawled and bit.

The next day was hotter than ever and once across the chain bridge I could not resist a dip in a nearby pool.  Here too I washed for the first time for some weeks and decided that it was really quite a pleasant habit.  All this was watched with astonishment by Pasang but it must have impressed him too, for soon he also entered the water and washed, an effort I encouraged by lending him my soap.  I must have misjudged poor Pasang for I had not credited him with ever washing; certainly his vest had never seen water.

I was anxious to get our 4,000 foot plod over and we did not stay too long enjoying these luxuries.  But we had gained only a couple of hundred feet when I remembered I had left my camera at the pool.  Pasang returned for it but it was not there.  This was serious.  Murari and I returned across the chain bridge to the village to seek out the Headman.  We found him, a distinguished gentleman of comparative affluence, seated in the porch of his house surrounded by the village elders, smoking an enormous hubble-bubble.  I was offered a seat—surely the only one in the village; this was going to take a long time I could see.  Murari talked at great length, then spoke the Headman and the village elders too, all at great length.  Chang was handed out and I composed myself for a long wait.  Enquiries were leisurely started but there was no hurry and Murari was the last person to hasten the proceedings even if he could have done so.  Time has no meaning in the East.  Sometime towards midday after I had handed out my third round of cigarettes and had drunk my third bowl of chang the camera was returned and with it came the finder, loud in his claim for a reward.

And so at last we started the long grind uphill now in the full heat of the day.  Pasang plodded on only stopping to whistle for a wind, but Murari positively wilted under the heat.  Although at the end of a day he was less tired than I, he could not as well withstand these high temperatures and now he was glad of any excuse to delay our progress.  There was excuse enough too for other travellers were on the path and there were many halts to gossip.  A white man in these parts was cause for curiosity and Murari was always ready to answer their perplexed questions about the nature of our business.  He was proud of his association with the Expedition and of the important mission on which we were bent and he would readily embark on a long account of the whole enterprise, the accident and my part in it in particular.

Our quest for local food, for we were now dependent upon the country, caused further delay and it took us over an hour to negotiate for some maize, tsampa and dried vegetables.  My hope of reaching Okhreni that night I abandoned, and my thoughts now turned to a cave I remembered half way along the forest path.  But we did not even reach that, and when, near the summit of our chmb, we arrived at a rough shack I was glad enough to halt.  A group of Nawars, trading great planks of hard-wood with Tibet, kept us company.

I was determined to make up the distance we had lost and since for a great part of the next day we were in the comparative cool at 8,000 feet this was not too difficult to do.  At Okhreni we made our way to the house of Kami Lama, the headman, for he was to be the Sirdar of the Okhreni Sherpas that we were to employ for the return march.  His wife asked us into the house where we were ceremoniously treated to bowls of refreshing chang.  Our course along the track afterwards was shghtly erratic.

Halfway to Nawalpur we were joined by a fellow traveller returning to Sankhu; a shop keeper and a man of some social standing in that town, he felt we were fitting company for the rest of his journey and for the hundredth time I listened to the interminable questions and Murari’s lengthy replies.

At Nawalpur we halted and while Pasang built a fire for tea, Murari and Purma Das, our friend from Sankhu, went shopping.  This was rather necessary for we had now exhausted our food and already we had travelled ten hours without anything to eat.

Food had indeed been much in my mind that day and when, as darkness was on us, we forded the Indrawatti, I was glad to buy from a naked fisherman casting his net in the centre of the river, a quantity offish.  Purma Das supervised the cooking of this while I talked in Enghsh to a Hindu Holy-man on pilgrimage, and they were served to me, complete with heads, fried in oil with onions and rice and so heavily spiced that I was left gasping for breath and clamouring for drink.

The Indrawatti is little over 2,000 feet in height and so appalled was I with the thought of chmbing the far side in the day’s torrid heat that I had ordered a 4 a.m.  start without breakfast.  It was indeed still dark when we left the village next morning and before the sun was fully upon us we had gained most of our height.  I rejoiced at this for I was now tired of the dust, flies, the heat and the constant thirst, and was thinking with an increasing longing of the comforts that I soon would enjoy.  But I might have guessed that once the heat of the day had caught us up this would be excuse for some delay.  We reached a village on the crest of the hill and here with a look of triumph Purma Das produced more fish that he had secretly bought.  With httle ceremony we took over a room in someone’s house and ht a fire on the floor.  But there were going to be no more hot eastern dishes for me, my mouth had hardly ceased to burn from last night’s meal and so I cooked my own.  In half an hour I had eaten and was ready to leave, not so the others.  There was going to be nothing casual about this meal.  After three hours of preparation, of preparing unnumerable strange spices and herbs, all painstakingly ground down on a flat stone, watched by me with mounting irritation, they were ready to eat.  And so by the time our breakfast was over and we were again on our way it was almost midday.  It took us a further three hours before we had dropped again to Pheidi Sankhu, the site of our first camp on the march out.  Now at least there was no more chmbing, we were in the Plain of Katmandu.  Pasang celebrated by decorating our loads with wild roses and by donning his warm woollen clothing.

But that last stretch along the road to Katmandu was the dustiest, driest, hottest trudge of the lot.  Perhaps it was no worse than before, but now on the last lap a general weariness beset the party and even Pasang lagged behind.  And so at 7 p.m., one woollen clad Sherpa, one youthful but tired Nepah and a dirty dishevelled, bearded Britisher all carrying loads, were smartly saluted as they entered the gates of the British Embassy.

Colonel Proud and his wife are people who themselves under­stand the rigours of a long march.  They asked no questions but plied me with whisky followed shortly afterwards, oh heavenly joy, by iced beer.  Soon I was relaxing in a hot bath and after dinner and wine I told the story.

To Colonel and Mrs Proud and to Major Burnett with whom I stayed the next few days at the Embassy Residence I shall always be grateful, both for their hospitality and kindness, and for assisting me through the various formalities that had to be performed.  Four days later on 14th May I left on the return journey, taking with me a Memorial Tablet to erect at Base Camp.  There was now no tiring Sankhu road but a bumpy ride in the Land-Rover — Pasang who never before had ridden in a car was both frightened and sick.

Fresh after four days of easy living we made rapid progress.  At the end of the second day’s march we reached Okhreni where we were the guests of Kami Lama and his wife.  We bought a hen — a miserable scraggy creature—which Kami Lama declined to kill, he was too good a Bhuddist, so expertly Murari decapitated it with a kukri — he had learnt to do this in the Hindu temples.

I was not anxious to suffer again the heat of the Belephi Khola and had decided on the return to follow the high-level route of the Nauling Lekh.  Kami Lama agreed to come along with us as guide and he arranged for 25 porters to follow in two days time to carry back to Katmandu.

The next day we were somewhat delayed as indeed the night before our sleep had been delayed, by the apparent necessity of paying social calls where of course politeness demanded we take a measure of chang.  But I was acquiring a taste for this drink and did not complain.  All day we continued to climb until we were above the treeline and it was pleasantly cool.  We might have continued far but water is found on the ridges in few places and these prescribe the halts.  When we dropped down to a col and a pleasant green meadow Kami Lama announced that*here]was the last water for several hours and we must go no further.  It was a beautiful place with a view on one side down into the depths of the Belephi Khola and on the other side, 6,000 feet below, was the Indrawatti River.  At its head we could see the peaks of the Langtang Himal which for once were not obscured by the after­noon cloud.  A delightful place for a camp except that the water when we found it, had all but dried up and we obtained only enough for one small cup each of muddy tea.

By morning the trickle had ceased altogether and so we set off very early with a dry throat and chmbed up to nearly 13,000 feet, where, ht softly by the early morning light the whole range of the Jugal Himal was disclosed.  In the centre and far back, yet dominating the scene, was the ” Great White Peak.” From here I could see the col, a few feet below which Fox and I had halted on the last day of April, and could appreciate how far in fact we had climbed and how near victory we were.

From this vantage point we dropped down into the forest and near a bed of old snow we halted for breakfast, and then on again along forest paths gay with rhododendrons.  The comfort of this elevated walk and the beauty all around me, the views I got through the trees of our mountains, all combined to put me in a contended frame of mind.  I was looking forward to reaching Base Camp and learning of a wealth of exploration and survey completed.  I had been away thirteen days and I was confident that much work would have been done to lessen our failure on the ” Great White Peak.” Such was the frame of mind I enjoyed when abruptly round the corner I came upon a pathetic procession; Lhakpa Tserring on a stretcher and Jones crippled with a dislocated shoulder.

For a second time all our hopes dashed, not this time by a natural mountaineering hazard, but by an unfortunate mischance, a moment of carelessness or horse play on the part of a Sherpa, not on mountain or glacier, but on a well trodden and easy path.

For the rest of the day, down to Tampathang, melancholy thoughts pursued me and neither the chang that I later enjoyed, nor the natural high spirits of the good people of that village lifted my mood of depression.

I was still anxious to be at Base Camp for I knew that Anderson and Tallon, who with Pemba Gyalgen, were now all that was left upon the mountains of our once strong and determined party, would be doing heroic deeds to make up for our tragic loss.  We nearly reached Base Camp the next night but through the jungle it was a slow and tiring path and I was content to spend the last night of my journey in the cave high up the Pulmutang Khola.  We were not alone for there joined us several Sherpas in search of jobs and loot, amongst them Nima Lama, his load carried on the back of his twelve year old grandson.  It thundered and rained to some purpose that night, and it was cold.  The Sherpas ht a great fire round which we all gathered for warmth.  I spent the time searching for lice.

We had breakfast at Pemsal the next morning, for there was httle water at the cave, and then we made the stiff climb up to the high yak pastures and Base Camp — how differently I walked now from my first laboured plod up these slopes, and how different too were my thoughts!  The camp was deserted, the bungalow tent had collapsed under a weight of fresh snow, but there was a message, Anderson and Tallon had completed the map and were that day to return from a camp on the west ridge of the Dorje Lhakpa Glacier.  This was indeed good news.