Tigers of the Snow by Jonathan Neale

Author:Jonathan Neale [Neale, Jonathan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin’s Press
Published: 2020-12-20T00:00:00+00:00

At almost exactly the same time, down in Camp 4 Bechtold and the other sahibs were calling Lewa, the sardar, to their tent. As he came in, the wind blew snow into the tent after him. The sahibs wanted Lewa to find porters for a rescue party. Lewa calmly told them what they already knew: all the porters were now too sick to go up.

Eventually they managed to muster a small party. It’s unclear if this was made up entirely of sahibs or included Lewa and a porter or two. They struggled up toward Camp 5 in “bottomless powder snow,”5 the residue of what was now seven straight days of snow at Camp 4. And it was still snowing. As they broke trail going up, the new snow obliterated it behind them.

At about eleven the clouds parted for a few minutes. On the ridge high above they saw a large number of men coming down from the Silver Saddle. They were stunned and confused. Merkl and the others ought to have been well below the Silver Saddle by now.

Above the main party they saw a lone figure “wandering down.” Then the man sat down on the snow. Why, Bechtold asked himself as he watched, why? The clouds came down again, and they saw nothing more.

It continued to snow, and eventually the rescue party gave up and went back to Camp 4. “What was unspoken between us was now dreadfully clear,” Bechtold said. “Up there our companions and the Darjeeling porters were fighting for their lives.”

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