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

The lock was turned and the door opened. Cooper stood at the threshold, a streak of blood on his shirt but otherwise quite presentable. He had his arm around the young girl who was visibly shaking. In his journal, Fenimore quoted Cooper as saying, “Gentlemen, and pretty Indian woman, welcome to the Mediterranean. You are welcome to wander the ship again provided you keep your mouths closed.”

The team exited the hold. Everything was in disarray. Life vests, ammunition shells, and blood-tainted seawater covered the floors. Furniture was knocked over. Upon reaching the deck, they hoped to be greeted by fresh Mediterranean air. But that sensation was compromised by the smell of gunpowder and burning oil. In the distance, off the stern, they could just make out burning ships in the night.

“We’re lucky they did not waste air support on us” Cooper said. “The U-boats may not have been able to tackle such a threat.” It became clear to the Americans in that moment they were in the hands of “the enemy,” although each of them had been so indifferent to the war that sides meant little. Cooper told them not to worry. He was not about to tell the Germans about the revenue-generating American cargo he had on board. He was on any side that paid him.

Quite unexpectedly, the remainder of the ocean voyage – through the Mediterranean, along the Suez Canal, down the Nile, through the Red Sea and across the Indian Ocean – was calm. German ships and planes passed quietly. The sounds of waves, seagulls, and the Souls At Sea’s engines dominated. The weather remained relatively calm. The air was hot, varying in humidity with each leg of the voyage, but always forgiving at night.

The Americans did not challenge Cooper’s judgment after Gibraltar, not even Junk. With the exception of McGee and River Leaf, the Americans spent the remaining weeks at sea planning the rendezvous with the Sherpa team in Calcutta, the land journey to Fumu, and the climb itself. River Leaf spent her time reading novels in silence. McGee wiled away the hours throwing up.

Upon passing Sri Lanka, the ship turned northward. Morrow wrote:

“On July 12, almost two months after shoving off from New England, we sighted land off of the port side. We smelled jasmine, chai, and smoke in the sultry atmosphere. Small buildings began to take shape on the shore connected by clotheslines festooned with saris. Then the Ganges Delta was around us and we followed her for a day before a major city was around us. We had arrived at Calcutta.

“The city before us was lovely. It writhed with activity. With the monsoon late to arrive, the sun beat down on children playing in the streets, stevedores unloading ships, and even actors performing a play – a jatra - on a distant outdoor stage. If these sights and sounds did not signal the end of our sea voyage, then the scent of lemons, tubers, and other cargo did the trick. But the commotion did not give us the sense we were any closer to Fumu. We were even deeper inside Humanity’s belly than we had been before setting sail!”

Less obvious to their senses was the fact the city before them was caught in a large maelstrom trapped within an even larger maelstrom: Civil unrest had been plaguing Calcutta for years as many Indians began to clash with their British colonizers. Now that conflict was getting swept up in the British engagement in World War II. Given Cooper had been in the employ of the Axis powers, he and his ship were not welcome here at all. But Cooper was aware and prepared. He had made some deal in advance with local government sympathizers of Subhas Chandra Bose and the Indian independence movement, allowing the ship, crew, and passengers safe access to a slip. There was not a British soldier within several hundred feet of the ship when they threw their lines to the dockworkers. The expedition members walked off the Souls at Sea for the first time in weeks. In the case of McGee, unlike Cooper before him, he did not care what land he was on or who inhabited it. He was just happy to be touching land. That feeling would quickly dwindle once the long hike to Nepal commenced.

Junk was back in the city he had last seen on the Everest voyage. It likely brought back memories of injury and defeat. This time would be different, he likely told himself. This time, the name Aaron Junk would become as holy as a prayer upon the lips of mountaineers for centuries to come. And if all went well, William Hoyt’s name would be exiled to a footnote in an out-of-print book in some failed author’s cellar.

Chapter Eight: The Lord High Executioner

Journal: September the 1st, 1941

I write now to you, dear Journal, because Wizzy has left me. She has grown overly concerned about the climbing, especially when it is being driven by an obsession for vengeance. She claims to still love me, and she hopes I do not die. But beyond that, she says she ‘just doesn’t know anymore.’ She is staying with the rest of the Dodge clan on the Upper East Side. So until this business is over, it is you and me. I trust you are as good a listener as she was.

I am writing this from our camp on a moraine at the bottom of the Qila Pass, waiting for our Sherpa to arrive. Behind the pass is a mountain so menacing I cannot find the words to do it justice. Glaciers crack and grumble, rocks fall, streaks of ash hundreds of yards long taint pristine snow, overhanging limestone cliffs block routes, and above it all, a cloud looms. Its shape is impermanent but it is ever-present. We already hear distant thunder constantly. It is likely not thunder at all, but small eruptions from on high. Without a