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

up. Once he had planted a flag – one with his name on it - the rest of the men were welcome to have at it. Chhiri Tendi, the sardar who he had chosen for the expedition, was required to assist Hoyt all the way to the top. For everyone else, the top was optional.

The weather turned tragic just off the coast of the Marshall Islands. They had entered a part of the South Pacific known as “Freytag’s Triangle,” a rather nasty patch of ocean in which ships and planes simply went missing. William’s brother Randolph Hoyt wrote in his personal journal:

It had been a hot, humid, stagnant week. The world had been completely still with the Auxesis the only thing in motion, cutting steadily through the glassy water with her engines humming at a consistent unwavering pitch. The water began to churn long before the storm was over us. The sun still shone through a hazy, hot sky, but the placid water we had enjoyed for weeks became choppy. Then the ocean beneath the chop began to roil on a much larger scale. The swells were about ten feet high and caused the Auxesis to groan and pitch. The crew had gotten lazy over the past weeks and had stopped securing items when putting them down. Now all of those items began to fall and crash. We could just make out cumulonimbus clouds through the sunny, hot haze in the western sky. When they got closer, the world underneath their majestic whiteness turned completely black. I had been at sea more than half of my life and had seen some truly foul weather, but this storm looked like it was going to take the prize. Thunder and lightning could be heard over the creaking of the ship. The first gentle wind arrived off the starboard bow. Seagulls raced past us heading eastward. We were moving directly into it.

The sun disappeared turning day to night and the wind became violent. Rain did not so much “fall” as “fire” in varying directions. Visibility dropped to zero. Randolph estimated the swells reached forty feet at the height of the storm but even at that size they could not be seen until they were already upon them.

The crew went about their business as calmly as possible, running around securing everything, minding the hull for leaks, and keeping the engines running. Randolph focused his entire being on steering the boat directly into oncoming swells. If they took one of these beasts on the beam they could capsize and sink. If they took one from behind they could broach and sink.

The climbers stayed in their hammocks trying to keep their meals down and focusing their thoughts on the fact a storm of this magnitude would not last too long. It would subside soon enough. Thornton and Ferguson, being the younger members of the expedition, had the hardest time. According to Drake, “They both looked as white and clammy as steam.” The vomit came soonest for them. Hoyt, Drake, Chatham, and Wilde took longer to succumb.

By far, the strangest response to the storm came from the Hollywood denizens. According to Randolph:

They responded to the crisis as if scared, but the responses were ‘off’ for lack of a better word. The movements, facial tics, and comments were those of some alternate universe’s responses to crisis. A young Fay Wray lookalike held the back of her hand to her head and then seemed to faint into a handsome actor’s arms. I have seen men and women faint before and none of them put the back of their hand to their head, nor did they conveniently fall into another person’s arms. The male actors started getting angry in the face of danger, yelling and throwing around the words ‘damn it’ a lot. Stranger yet, not a single actor I could spy was showing even the slightest evidence of seasickness. None vomited. None turned pale.

The actors’ behaviour would have been merely an oddity to discuss at journey’s end, except that it began to escalate and impair Randolph’s ability to control his ship. The male actors could not stand being on the periphery of the unfurling crisis. They all wanted to “save the ship.”

A Clark Gable type stormed onto the bridge uninvited. He approached me at the wheel, fists clenched and yelling. He demanded I explain my ‘incompetence’, and then stated with the confidence of a bullfighter that he was taking charge of the ship. Without turning his head to face the two sailors behind him, he addressed them, telling them to take me to ‘the brig.’ The sailors saw this as mutiny and quickly subdued the lunatic with quick punches to the face. But the trouble was not over. Yet another actor came onto the bridge and did practically the same thing, except he threw in some extra gibberish about “doing it for the orphanage.” Another sailor subdued him, taking him down to the hold. I was now alone. Unfortunately, another actor, entered. I could not look at him for more than a second because I was concentrating so hard on steering the wheel and looking out for swells. Even a moment’s glance showed him to be tall and built like a brick wall. His sleeves were torn off in perfect symmetry to one another, as if he did it to himself. He stared at me even though I could not look back. Then he said ‘At what price your vanity, Prescott?’ I had no idea what he was talking about or who Prescott was. There were no sailors left on the bridge to help me. The actor put me in a full nelson, lurched me away from the wheel and pushed me out the door of the bridge. I heard him say ‘Jack Meachem’s taking this ship to safety.’ With that he locked the door behind him and took the wheel.

Now at the mercy of someone who clearly had no experience steering