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

As soon as the slightest hint of light touched the cave in the morning, the captives were at work. McGee walked to one of the far walls of the cave. The biggest of the Sherpa climbed up McGee’s back and then onto his shoulders where he took a seat. The Sherpa pressed his gloved hands against the low ceiling of the cave to secure his position on the Irishman’s back. Then McGee began to walk, ever so slowly, toward the center of the cave. The ceiling height increased gradually above them as they moved. Once the ceiling became too high for the Sherpa to touch with his hands, he called out and McGee stopped walking. The next Sherpa, the one who knew some English then ran up to the men and began to slowly and gently climb up McGee’s back. With his feet now planted on McGee’s shoulders and resting his hands on the first Sherpa’s shoulders, McGee began the challenging task of walking forward slightly without the first Sherpa’s hands available to secure them by holding the ceiling. With space above him now, the English-speaking Sherpa scrambled up the back of the first Sherpa, mounted his shoulders and pressed against the roof. Three men now formed an object roughly twelve feet tall. They also stood halfway between the wall of the cave and the Oculus. The last Sherpa began to climb, but the human totem pole collapsed.

They didn’t wait a heartbeat before trying again. Within moments, the three men were again one. McGee apparently did not falter. The weight above him meant nothing when compared to the hope of escape, of another glass of whiskey, of another spring day on the streets of the South End. The third Sherpa began his climb and the group fell once more.

Again they tried.

And again.

And again.

Then it worked. The four men were balanced on one another. McGee probably strained but not enough to be of any concern. He would not break. The Sherpa at the top held the roof for dear life with the Oculus only about two yards away and six feet above his head. River Leaf was next and last. Our fair lady hero was not what she used to be. Her demeanor, which most would describe as taciturn, was now being replaced with another kind of silence altogether. It was a flowering idiocy, and that did not become her in the slightest. River Leaf seemed “punch drunk” to use McGee’s words. Her mouth hung open and she moved slowly. But she moved nonetheless. She began to climb up the backs of these friends and strangers and the light shining down on them grew brighter as the sun rose. The burden of her body on the others was negligible, starvation and other deprivations having diminished her weight to at most six stone. Her weakened mind did not hinder her progress. Drooling and gurgling like a simpleton, she reached the top of the human totem pole and took her place astride the shoulders of the highest of the three reformed Sherpa. The five of them stood as one, erect in the cave.

Jubilation turned quickly to despair. With all of them atop one another, they still did not reach the Oculus. They were eighteen feet high now but the egress was roughly three feet out of reach. For the first time since anyone on the journey had met her, River Leaf gave out a cry of emotion; not of defeat, not of anger, and not of grief, but something employing all three. It was now definitely over. Their bodies would be interred along with Hoover’s head in this frigid, Godforsaken charnel house. For want of one more person, one extra body to reach the Oculus, their fate was sealed.

And that was when a man broke through the southernmost point in the cave wall. Steam poured out of the hole behind him. He was shirtless, bathed in sweat, and by the looks of him, Japanese.

The sweat on Yuudai’s body had dried and now he sat shivering. McGee initially approached the stranger with caution. But now he saw that the gentleman was too tired and traumatized to pose any sort of threat. McGee quickly changed tacks and placed a blanket around him. After all, should the relationship prove friendly, and should this man be nurtured back to stable condition, he would become a crucial asset to the group.

Yuudai introduced himself. McGee reciprocated. McGee then fed Yuudai tea and dried meat from Yuudai’s own pack. One of the Sherpa attended to a serious, weeping burn on Yuudai’s left shoulder blade. It was then Yuudai launched into a tale about how he arrived in the cave. As you already know, Yuudai was not a man one would consider partial to talking. But McGee’s description of that moment suggests Yuudai had changed in the course of the past several days.

The tale started back atop the Maw as Yuudai watched Hoyt parachute hundreds of feet down. After losing sight of his expedition leader, Yuudai had retired to the small snow cave he and Hoyt had constructed and shared for a time. The air entering the cave from a slit in the mountain’s granite made the cave air wet, but slightly warmer than outside and for the most part livable. Yuudai had gotten into his sleeping bag and prepared for it to become his death bag. The air in the cave and the potable ice drippings were a blessing but also a curse. They would keep him warm enough and hydrated enough to starve and suffer hypothermia over a period of days instead of freezing to death within hours.

The slit in the granite was now very long because the snow was melting near its bottom. And it was no longer a slit. As more of it was exposed, it widened. This sped up the rate at which warm air entered the cave and, in an ever-accelerating