Hell Is Above Us: The Epic Race to the Top of Fumu, the World's Tallest Mountain by Jonathan Bloom (bookreader TXT) 📗

of laughter, women, and draughts – a place that must have seemed mythical and impossible to souls stuck in such a raw Hell.

No one could have possibly slept that night through the cold and the caterwauling of the mountain. Ejecta shot forth from the earth’s deep places, barreling into the sky then landing on and around the tents. Small holes were scorched into the tent, allowing cold air to blow in. Sleep must have been even more difficult to come by because, in a way, they were already sleepwalking through their waking life. Sleep would not be recognizable as something different, made of unique stuff. Any dreams would have included climbing and ice and loud noise, and rising from slumber would have included the same.

Junk made one brief entry that night in his journal. The garrulous socialite wrote: “Leaf. McGee. Mom. Hoyt. End of this is nigh.” He also added “I feeling light [sic].” He may have meant that he felt lightheaded but was too exhausted to finish the thought.

Some time just prior to midnight, Junk and Cole heard yelling from the Sherpa’s tents. Pasang Dolma was incensed about something, throwing a wobbly which was directed at the other men in his tent. For the first time, Junk and Cole heard the dyspeptic Sherpa raise their voices at their leader. That they were rebelling against the orders of their sardar was odd enough, but odder was the fact that they no longer seemed to be speaking Sherpa. The new tongue was foreign to the Americans, still possibly of Nepalese origin, but new. The yelling stopped as quickly as it had started. “After what seemed like a long spell, we heard Pasang Dolma’s voice right outside of our tent” Junk wrote later. No fear of being heard by the dyspeptic Sherpa, “he told Cole to run. Cole? Why Cole? Why not me? We both scrambled to get our boots, packs, and oxygen on.”

Cole was first out of the tent. When Junk came out, he looked upon a ridge lit up by a full moon in the southern sky. Its angle was low enough to the horizon that Fumu’s cloud did not obscure it. The scene must have felt like a dream; a dream wrought with unfamiliar symbolism. Men cloaked in white with dead cobras tied around their necks. The men’s faces are the faces of people Junk knows, but playing a different role in waking life. They were the faces of the four dyspeptic Sherpa. Why are they dressed like that? Why had they removed Cole’s oxygen mask? And why are they holding a curved knife to Cole’s throat? To Junk’s right, he sees Pasang Dolma walking down the ridge, descending into obscurity. “We let him go” one of the men in white yelled over the sound of eruptions. “He is a fellow countryman. We showed mercy and let him live. Maybe he will be willing to join our ranks some day.” Ranks?

As we will soon see, Junk had an extended window time to write down the events of the evening, and he did so in a rather thorough manner:

“All I could mumble in my confusion and exhaustion was the inevitable question ‘Who are you?’ Their response was thorough, eloquent, but as odd as their outfits. The one man holding the knife to Cole’s neck spoke, or rather yelled, over Fumu’s racket.

“‘We are the Nepalese Cobras: Weapons Division. Our mission is to develop the weapons capable of liberating Nepal. We will cleanse it of the bacteria permeating its every facet, from government to school to steppes to mountain top. We mostly fill our days attacking British soldiers, stealing their weaponry. We had been in Calcutta last month for two reasons. First, we intended to meet Nepalese citizens in India who were involved in India’s nationalist movement. They would be likely sympathizers with our cause. Although they generally agreed with our grievances against the West, they thought our methods – and our uniforms - were too garish. Too bedizened. We had no luck recruiting there so we killed several of them. Second, we were waiting to ambush a British minister named Galloway who was reported to be on his way to Nepal from England. We had heard he would have an entourage of soldiers guarding him. These targets were sure to get us on the front page of Indian papers. But as we waited in a portside tavern, we overheard you, Mister Junk. And we heard you, Doctor Cole. We had struck gold. Not only did we have Americans to rend, but we had an American who knew how to make a weapon that incinerates entire cities! The ultimate weapon. The weapon that can make Nepal not only independent, but feared! What needed to happen was patent; We disguised ourselves as Sherpa, spoke Sherpa, and threw ourselves at Pasang Dolma. The Cannibal Division of the Nepalese Cobras had taught us a thing or two about climbing, and we were trained in the Gurkha battalions to fight at high altitudes (none of the Cobras wore oxygen masks). You know the rest. We have feigned peonage ever since. Cole, your documents are not lost. We have them and will return them to you once we have begun our trip down the mountain. You are coming with us to Kathmandu. There, you will help us build an atomic bomb.’

“The guy kept talking and talking. His bass-heavy voice was just forceful enough to be heard over the eruptions. He went on about how, yes, he did spit on the man-children’s monastery, because Mano and his people had proved unwilling to join their cause. He found the man-children’s pacifism offensive. Even after threatening to kill one of these man-children, and even after following through on that threat, the others just cried. They were useless to the Cobras. He found them to be an embarrassment to the Kingdom.

“As this freak of nature jawed away, I became distracted. There was someone climbing in