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

“Then, unlike our Gurkha brothers who were not smart enough to do so, we began to question the British army. Recommendations for our decoration from British field officers were written in pencil and therefore dismissed as ‘unofficial.’ We also found it is a rule that no Gurkha can ever be promoted to officer. Correspondences between British soldiers about our battalions always referred to us as “the little fellows.” Little! Again like we were children. Since the Treaty of Segauli, we have been infantilized while risking life and limb for no return. This epiphany brought embarrassment. What is dedication when it is to an aggressor? I’ll tell you what it is. It is foolishness. All of Nepal, not just the Gurkhas, deserves liberation from these white oppressors. Now I will try to ignore your last comment, Phurbu Tawa, the one about us being ‘traitorous donkeys’ and ask again, are you and your neighbors with us or are you against us? If you are with us, you will provide us with your village’s young, healthy men.” The man momentarily glanced at Phurbu Tawa’ son, Chhiri Tendi. “If you are against us, we will do damage tonight and come back in the future to do more. We will keep coming back until you acquiesce. So, what will it be?”

Phurbu Tawa was still cleaning out his nose with his index finger, in no rush to finish and answer this man. When he had finally succeeded in cleaning out the left nostril, he admired the contents for a moment and then wiped it on the stranger’s medals.

“Your gripe with the British military seems like a legitimate one. The Gurkhas are people, just like them, deserving of respect, good treatment, and the chance at promotion. Nonetheless, you are going about things all wrong. You are choosing to solve the problem in a bloody manner, a strategy by which the Sherpa do not abide. You talk about spilling British blood and then you even threaten us! You are behaving like those German scoundrels who sometimes come to climb Kanchenjunga. Why would you threaten us so? There has been no animosity between Hindu and Buddhist in our country. No aggression between Sherpa and, well, anyone. There is no need for abuse if we are brothers. But you choose to come in here with the force of a truncheon.”

Then Chhiri Tendi remembers his father touching the cobra around the stranger’s neck. “Sorry. We might have helped you if you had asked with kindness and if your plan was to peacefully address the issue. Alas that is not the case. You chose instead to act like Nepalese cobras.”

Finally the stranger moved, turning his head around to glance at his men. He nodded to them. Looking back at Phurbu Tawa, he said “First of all, let me thank you for giving us our name. I can’t believe I did not think of it before. The Nepalese Cobras. How obvious. I feel silly. Second, let me inform you that you are going to die now.”

The Gurkha thrust his kukri at Phurbu Tawa’s chest, but the rascally Sherpa changed his stance only slightly thereby averting the blow. The Gurkha’s arm now extended, Phurbu Tawa grabbed and twisted, quickly forcing the Gurkha to roll up with his arm behind him. Phurbu Tawa then dug his fingers in between the bones on the top of the Gurkha’s hand, forcing him to drop the kukri. Phurbu Tawa had not even started using his left hand yet. Now was the time. He used the free hand to grab the falling kukri and hold it to the Gurkhas back. Finally, Phurbu Tawa let go of the Gurkha’s hand and pulled the snake’s head around back and pulled. Knife in back and neck constrained, the Gurkha stopped moving. A gagging sound emanated from his mouth.

“Putting a snake around your neck was not a good uniform decision” Phurbu Tawa jested quite casually. “Did you also consider wearing a codpiece full of gunpowder?” The eight other “Nepalese Cobras” edged forward. “Don’t come any closer or I put this sword through him! I know Gurkhas are trained in hand to hand combat, but I too have learned how to fight, passing through a countryside teeming with dacoits each time I return from porting. The same goes for many of my friends in attendance. Tonight you chose to threaten the wrong people. Now walk and do not return or so help me, I will injure you so terribly that you will think your great Akapura lumbered away and the Earth dropped into infinite darkness.”

Phurbu Tawa let go of the cobra and the gagging sound ceased. The lead stranger massaged his neck as if that would cure the pain ringing it. He began to walk away from Phurbu Tawa and toward his fellow “soldiers,” a look of shame on his face.

“Your wife. Your child.” The stranger uttered in a hoarse voice.

“What did you say?”

The stranger looked back and pointed at the two people of which he spoke. “Your wife. Your child. I have remembered their faces. We will return and we will kill them in the night.”

The threat caused Phurbu Tawa to explode. Yelling, he burst forward, closing the distance between himself and the stranger in less than candlelight takes to be blown out. The stranger turned toward the yell just in time for the crooked sword to enter his belly. He did not scream as much as expel all of the air in his lungs in a voiced manner. The expelling of air was followed by blood trickling down his chin, slowly at first, then in a swollen river. Chhiri Tendi remembers that although large amounts of blood came from the man’s mouth, almost none exited the hole in his stomach which still sheathed the kukri. The stranger dropped to the floor, made some unpleasant gurgling noises, kicked his leg several times, and then ceased to move.

A few cries came from