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

About three minutes after the actors took their bows, Ubugai followed by four soldiers walked up from the darkness of the back of the room. He was not amused. He said his soldiers should feel great shame for laughing at this ‘travesty.’ He felt it was a mockery of his great nation. The Japanese were made to look like buffoons. Most angering to him was the music. Why, Ubugai asked, was the music full of Western tonalities if it was supposed to be Japan? The answer, he explained, was simple: The Mikado was an act of musical imperialism by the West. If Americans and the British did not attack a people using one weapon, then they would attack brandishing another. Ubugai finished his scolding by saying ‘none of this matters’ because other events had transpired during the performance. He held up a pocket-sized book. Ubugai said the book was found in the hold of the Auxesis along with fifteen other copies. He threw it hard at Captain Randolph Hoyt, who had stood up when Ubugai began to speak. The crew of the ship would only see later that it was an English-Chinese translation book.

Without another word, Ubugai pulled out a pistol and shot Randolph in the chest. Ferguson wrote:

I had never heard a gun before. At the picture shows, they sounded no louder than a pan falling to the floor. In reality, it was deafening. My heart responded to the shock as if I were the one being shot in the chest. I watched in horror as Randolph’s upper left shoulder went back at an impossible angle. Then without making a sound, he fell to the floor. The women in the room screamed. William, not making a noise, went down on the floor over his brother. He started shaking Randolph, and if I made out his lips correctly, he was repeating Randolph’s name in a warbling whisper. There was no response because Randolph Hoyt was dead.

Ubugai did not leave after that. He looked around the room and asked in a loud voice, “Who are the mountain climbers here?” Everyone was silent. Ubugai went on to explain that he had found in the hold climbing equipment for six men. If they came forward, he made a promise he would not harm them. William Hoyt rose from the ground “tears in his eyes and staring off to nowhere” wrote Ferguson. Hoyt simply said in a shaky voice, “I am, as are five others.” The five others came forward. Ubugai told the climbers to follow him. They did as they were ordered. They were followed by the four soldiers who were prodding them with occasional shoves from their rifles.

According to Ferguson’s journal, Ubugai took the climbers to his office, a sparsely decorated space with walls of rice paper, a desk with a few framed photographs and a tea tray, and one larger table in the middle of the room. Ubugai suddenly turned gracious, pouring tea for his guests and gesturing downward toward the table sunken into the floor. While the soldiers stood in the corners of the room, the seven men sat down.

“I was once a climber, as was my father and my grandfather” explained Ubugai. “Ibuki, Shirouma, Fuji. The Ubugai family has climbed them all countless times. Many in this great nation are drawn to the sea and its life-sustaining riches. Ubugai men are different. In Japan, being different is not something that is celebrated. No, we climb despite ridicule. That is how much we crave it.” Hoyt likely did not even hear the Major-General’s words. “I have also been to the mainland and climbed in China before the war began. Many difficult climbs there. And after my father died, my first expedition without him was all the way to Tibet with the goal of Chomolungma, which I believe you call Everest. The ascent would have been a success, had it not been for early snow ahead of the monsoon. So you see, I know a thing or two about your world.” Still, Hoyt said nothing.

Ubugai clapped his hands unexpectedly and loudly an inch away from Hoyt’s face. Hoyt summoned the ability to focus on the Major-General for a moment. “Listen to me” Ubugai said very seriously. “I looked through your maps and your journals and I know you are going to a mountain called Fumu which you claim to be the tallest. Being a fellow climber, I have found it in my heart to let you go. Your brother was an enemy of Japan, as are all of those performers and their handlers. But I have no quarrel with you. You clearly talked your way onto that ship with no intention of wrongdoing against the Japanese Empire. So you are free to go on your way. That is not all. I am prepared to airlift you to your destination. We can fly over Nepal at night and you can parachute down. We will airdrop your equipment as well.”

The Americans, with the exception of Hoyt, looked at each other, eyes wide and disbelieving. Backs were patted. Ferguson wrote that the feeling at the moment was “as if a growling dog, baring its teeth inches from your face had suddenly started panting and licking.”

However, Ubugai was not finished speaking. “As the American expression goes, ‘Too good to be true’. Yes? Indeed it is too good to be true. You see, I require something in return.” Ubugai then stood up and growled “Yuudai,” causing the prisoners to flinch because they did not know what the word meant. One of the soldiers in the corners of the room came quickly forward. The soldier bowed to the Major-General. Ubugai put his arm on the soldier’s shoulder. This man was only slightly shorter than Ubugai and had a similar look to him only many years younger. Both of their noses were rather pronounced for Japanese, and the two were strikingly handsome. Apparently, Yuudai was the