Hell Is Above Us: The Epic Race to the Top of Fumu, the World's Tallest Mountain, Jonathan Bloom [best ebook reader TXT] 📗

you die on this trip.” The largest wager the two had ever placed. An odd wager at that, but Junk must have felt he knew what he was doing. This man would work twice as hard if money were on the line. Of course if McGee died, he would not be able to pay out. Junk suggested he deposit the money into a bank account under both of their names.

Slowly and painfully, McGee put out his hand. Junk shook it and then hugged his old friend.

While he waited on the shore that night with his motley team of disenfranchised adventurers, Junk must have sensed how far away his destination lay. There he was on a clear, cool New England evening, listening to seagulls cry out in hunger and war, smelling salt air, watching large waves crash and roll away, and feeling cool winds from the north. How on earth could he be leaving the approaching spring for such a forbidding destination? Fumu may have been answering his question at that moment, but from so far away, Junk could not hear it.

Out of the dark a small boat appeared, the light of a small lantern in the bow bobbing on the waves. One distant voice was yelling rhythmically in a foreign tongue; commands to the others on the boat to take strokes of the oar. Then the boat was coming over the breaking waves. A short man stood in the bow. He was a dashing oriental, dressed impeccably – but oddly - in an American naval captain’s uniform. Next to him was a girl of no more than thirteen. The rowers, their backs to the shore, were shirtless and sweating. When the boat made land, the standing man jumped ashore and rushed up to the team. “Junk!” he shouted. Junk walked forward. The man saluted. Junk saluted back. Then the man shook Junk’s hand formally and said in very good English, “You may remember me as Than. I am Gary Cooper now. Please address me as such. It is a pleasure to see you once again. My ship is at anchor only a few hundred yards out. Now if you will excuse me for one moment.” He walked past the Americans and dropped to his knees. Then he dropped flat on the ground, face to the side and contorted in ecstasy. He slowly sifted the sand through his fingers. He craned his neck back in what appeared to be a painful position and kissed the sand beneath. For the first time in his life, he was touching America.

Morrow wrote near the beginning of his journal:

“He bounced up quickly and strode back to the group, not removing the sand still holding fast to his face. Cooper then told half of us to get on the boat. He would return momentarily for the second group and then return several more times to pick up the equipment - over one ton’s worth- that could not fit on the first two trips. As part of the first group, I loaded my backpack, tent, and dried goods, and jumped aboard. I sat next to my equipment. My hiking boots were tied to my pack and they drove into my side. Water soaked through my loafers. The young girl looked at me, expressionless. To break the ice, I asked Cooper if this lovely girl was his daughter. Cooper looked back at me with an expression that could have set my hair on fire had it not been slick with sea water. Out of self preservation, I never said a word to the man again.”

And so, on the evening of May 22nd, 1941, Junk’s team left the United States on its way around the war-torn world to ascend to its loftiest perch. Some of them would never return.

Within less than one hour on the Souls At Sea, a pirate was already trying to have his way with River Leaf. He pawed at her and flicked his tongue near her face. Morrow wrote, “His back was to us and he was quite tall, so we could not see River Leaf behind him.” The rest of the Americans watched quietly, uncertain what to do. If they did nothing, her honor would be compromised. If they acted, they risked roughly twenty armed pirates killing them in cold blood.

As it turned out, they did not need to do anything. The randy pirate was suddenly screaming. “From behind, all we could see were his hands trembling in the air, fingers contracted into claws. He whirled around to show a gaping orifice beginning at the left shoulder and ending at the right hip. He looked down at parts of his body he had never seen before, not daring to touch for the certainty of pain beyond that which he was already experiencing. Blood was already pooling at his feet. Then he fell and never moved again.”

River Leaf was brandishing a small knife she must have taken from the galley and stowed in her clothing for just such an occasion. She was standing as if ready to take on another comer. The Americans stood silently waiting for death. But to their surprise, after a long silence, Gary Cooper laughed deeply and this made the other pirates laugh. Cooper approached River Leaf, slapped her on the back and handed her a glass of whiskey. The dead pirate was unceremoniously thrown overboard like so much jetsam and the rest of the night was spent in sloppy revelry. Junk looked at River Leaf all night as she drank deeply. Perhaps he would not have to watch over her as much as he thought.

And so the journey started off well. The Souls At Sea traveled slowly eastward across the Atlantic. The Americans busied themselves studying maps of India and Nepal, checking and re-checking their equipment, and debating strategies to surmount the Qila Pass. Fumu routes be damned; the knotty issue of the Qila Pass would have to take all of their attention or else