“Let Bond have another go,” someone in the crowd said.
“Yes, that should clinch it.”
Marquis was fuming. “Very well. Bond, if you hit it, fine, you win. But if you miss, I win.”
“You’d still be tied,” Glass reminded him.
“Shut up!” Marquis snapped. “Whose side are you on, anyway?”
“Fine, Roland,” Bond said. “If I miss, you win.” Bond took the ice ax, concentrated on the tin can that had been reset by Glass, then threw the tool. It spun around, hit a nearby rock, bounced off it, and struck the can. The spectators applauded and shouted.
“Whoa, fancy move!”
“Well done!”
Marquis glowered at Bond. “You cheated.”
How? It was your bloody game. There were no rules.”
He stuck his finger into Bond’s chest and said, “I never liked you, Bond. Not back at school, not when we were in the service, and not now- Someday you and I will really have it out.”
Bond stood there, silently taking it. He couldn’t jeopardize the mission by getting into a fight with Marquis now. They had to get to the plane, and Marquis was the only one who could adequately lead them up the mountain.
It was Hope who defused the situation. “Roland, I want you to go to bed. You’re exhibiting AMS symptoms.”
“No, I’m not.”
“One of the first symptoms is denial that you have them.”
“I agree with Dr. Kendall,” Bond said. He attempted to control his anger and speak calmly. “Look, this was just a game. We’ll do it again sometime if it will make you feel better. But the doctor is right. You’re not thinking straight.”
Marquis looked around him and saw that the entire team was staring at him. He began to protest, then backed down. “Fine,” he said. He seemed to relax a little. “But you wait. I’m going to prove to you all that there’s no one else who can summit this mountain faster than me.”
“We’re not summiting the mountain, Roland,” Hope reminded him.
“Oh, believe me, I will,” he said. “I haven’t come all this way just to pick over a bunch of dead bodies in a plane wreck. I don’t give a shit about your ‘secret mission,’ Bond.”
That did it. Bond grabbed him by the parka. He whispered through his teeth, “Listen to me, Marquis, you had better start behaving. Might I remind you of your duty and of M’s instructions? I will not hesitate to exercise my own authority to have you replaced. I can do it, too.”
Hope Kendall was the only one who heard him. She said, “Come on, Roland. Lets go to the medical tent. I want to take a look at you. Let’s check your blood pressure.” She gently pulled him away from Bond. Marquis glared at his adversary but allowed her to take him away.
NINETEEN
KANGCH AT LAST
A WEEK PASSED AND Roland Marquis picked a small team to prepare the temporary camps up the north face of Kangchenjunga. The plan was to ascend the mountain over two weeks, with several days spent acclimatizing at the halfway mark. Camp Five would be set up at the crash site on the Great Scree Terrace.
Bond expected Marquis not to pick him, and when Marquis announced that the Lead Team would consist of himself, Philippe Leaud, Carl Glass, Tom Barlow, Otto Schrenk, Doug McKee, and two Sherpas, Bond protested.
“Let me and Chandra go with you,” he insisted.
“Sorry, Bond, only professional climbers are allowed to be in the Lead Team. It’s the rule.”
“Bollocks, Roland. You know damned well I can do it. So can Chandra.”
Marquis thought for a moment. He was quite aware that Bond was properly acclimatized simply from observing his ability and stamina during the trek from Taplejung.
All right, Bond,” he said patronizingly. “I suppose we can use you.”
Climbers usually work in pairs so that one can belay the other and take turns making pitches, so Marquis could not exclude Chandra.
Bond put on Boothroyd’s One Sport boots and made a thorough inspection of his equipment. His various ice tools—axes, ice screws—were made by Black Diamond, among the finest available. His snow pickets, the stakes used as anchoring devices, were MSR Coyotes. He had chosen the Deadman model simply because he liked the name. He examined the points on his Grivel 2F crampons to satisfy himself that they were sharp enough. Crampons are necessary for ice climbing, allowing the climber to gain a solid foothold on hard ice and snow. They were hinged so that they would bend naturally. He used the Scottish method of strapping them to his boots—a strap with a ring in the middle is permanently connected to the two front posts of the crampon; a strap then runs from one side post through the ring to the other side post, with a rear strap wrapping around the ankle from the two back posts. He knew it was a rather old-fashioned way of doing it, but it was how his father had taught him when Bond first started climbing at the age of five. Like everyone else, he carried Edelweiss 9mm Stratos ropes, made with polyamide braid in fifty- meter sections, and fixing ropes, which are different and made of 7mm Kevlar cord in one-hundred-meter sections.
Marquis and Leaud set off in the lead, followed by Barlow and Glass, then Bond and Chandra. The two Sherpas, Holung and Chettan, who had come back to the Base Camp after leaving the injured Bill Scott in Taplejung, were next, and Schrenk and McKee brought up the rear.
To get to Camp One at 5,500 meters, the team had to walk up a moraine and across a low-angle rock and ice glacier. They had made such a trip at least once during practice runs the previous week, so they were familiar with the path. Unfortunately, the wind was now blowing hard and the temperature had dropped significantly.
The first part of the ascent was relatively easy. The French had developed a widely used technique for ice climbing called ‘flat- footing,” which requires the climber to keep his feet as flat against the ice as possible at all times to keep all crampon points on the ice. The Germans developed a technique known as “front-pointing,” in which the climber kicks the front crampon points hard into the ice and then steps directly up on them. In both techniques, climbers must progress by moving their weight from one point of balance to another, supporting themselves as much as possible on their legs, and planning several moves in advance. Bond liked to call it “climbing with one’s eyes.” Climbers learn to rely on surface features, seeking out buckets and protrusions for handholds, footholds, and ice-tool placements.
Technical expertise was needed once they reached the upper glacier. One man climbed while his partner belayed. The belay had to be connected to an anchor, the point of secure attachment to the rock or ice. The belayer paid out or took in rope as the climber ascended, ready to use one of the various methods of applying friction in case the climber fell. Marquis took the lead, belayed from below, and moved up the rock face to the next desirable spot to set up a new belay. The last climber would take apart the belay and climb up, belayed from above. The distance between belays is known as a pitch. The climbers leapfrogged their way up so that the one who went first led all the odd-numbered pitches, and followed second on all even-numbered ones. The leader attached hardware—called “protection”—to the rock or ice on the way up.
All along the way the team pitched flags and ropes, marking the route so that the others would have less difficulty ascending. It was a strenuous four hours, but Bond felt great to be climbing again. It reminded him of his youth in the Austrian Tyrol, when he first fell in love with the sport. The cold air that burned his lungs was a painful yet exhilarating sensation.
As he and Chandra pitched their tent at Camp One, though, he got the disconcerting feeling that he was in grave danger. He felt that the Union could raise their ugly head at any time.
At dawn Bond and Chandra were awoken by the Sherpas, who brought them hot tea. The tea was welcome, but he would have given a year’s salary just to have a plate of his housekeeper May’s scrambled eggs. He also would have killed to have a cigarette, but this was truly a situation when having a cigarette would have killed him. He rose stiffly from the sleeping bag, coughed and hacked for several minutes, then sipped the tea. Chandra sat up, said “Good morning” but was otherwise atypically speechless. The climb was getting to them both. Bond had slept fitfully, with very vivid, disturbing dreams, which was quite normal at high altitude. What was worrying was that the conditions would worsen as they got higher. That day they were ascending to 6,000 meters. It wouldn’t be long before they would require oxygen.