Mud Sweat & Tears - Bear Grylls [96]
At 10 p.m. I needed to pee – again. I grabbed my bottle, crouched over and filled it. I screwed it shut – or so I thought – then settled back into my bag to try and find some elusive sleep.
Soon I felt the dampness creeping through my clothes.
You have got to be joking. I swore to myself, as I scrambled to the crouch position again.
I looked down. The cap was hanging loosely off the pee-bottle.
Dark, stinking brown pee had soaked through all my clothes and sleeping bag. I obviously hadn’t done it up properly. Brute of a mistake. Maybe an omen for what lay ahead.
On that note I fell asleep.
At 5.45 a.m. we all sat huddled on the ice outside our camp, as we put on our crampons.
In silence we started up towards camp three. I hoped it wouldn’t take as long as last time.
By 10 a.m. we were well into the climb. We were climbing methodically up the steep blue ice. I leant back in my harness and swigged at the water-bottle that hung around my neck. I was moving OK. Not fast, but I was moving.
And I was stronger than last time I’d gone up to camp three. That boded well.
Five and a half hours of climbing, and the tents were just a hundred feet away. It still took me twenty minutes to cover that minuscule distance.
Just keep patient and keep moving. Ignore the heaving lungs, the numb feet and toes, and the drop beneath you. Keep focused on the step in front of you. Nothing else matters.
The laws of physics dictate that if you keep moving up, however slowly that might be, you will eventually reach the top. It’s just that on Everest the process hurts so much.
I had had no real idea beforehand, how a mountain could so powerfully make you want to give up – to quit.
I had never been a quitter – but I would have given anything to make the pain and exhaustion go away. I tried to push the feeling aside.
So began the battle that would rage inside me for the next forty-eight hours, without respite.
We collapsed into the tent, now half-buried under the snow that had fallen over the previous week. We were four scared climbers in that one tent – perched on a small precarious ledge – cold, migrainous, thirsty and cramped.
Many times I have been grateful for the simple, military skill of being able to live with people in confined spaces. It has helped me so much over the years on expeditions and beyond. And I was especially glad to be with Neil.
When we hang with good people, some of their goodness rubs off. I like that in life.
The other thing the army had taught me was how, and when, to go that extra mile. And the time to do it is when it is tough – when all around you are slowing and quitting and complaining.
It is about understanding that the moment to shine brightest is when all about you is dark.
It is a simple lesson, but it is one of the keys to doing well in life. I see it in friends often. On Everest that quality is everything.
Karla had given her word to Henry that she would only continue if the winds died down. Henry knew that in anything but perfect conditions Karla, in her exhausted state, would not survive.
At 6 p.m. the radio crackled with his voice from base camp.
‘The winds are going to be rising, guys. I’m sorry, Karla, but you are going to have to come down. I can’t risk you up there.’ There was a long pause.
Karla replied angrily, ‘No way. I’m going up. I don’t care what you say, I’m going up.’
Henry erupted down the radio. ‘Karla, listen, we had a deal. I didn’t even want you up there, but you insisted – now the ride ends. I am doing this to save your life.’
Henry was right.
It had taken Karla three hours longer than us to reach camp three. If she was slow like that higher up, she would probably die.
CHAPTER 88
At dawn, Karla started down.
We continued up – ever higher.
Only minutes out of camp three, I felt as if I was choking on my oxygen mask. I didn’t seem to be getting any air from it. I ripped it from my face, gasping.
This is crazy, I thought.
I checked the air-bubble gauge