Abominable Read online

  ABOMINABLE

  by William Meikle

  This eBook edition published 2010 by Ghostwriter Publications, Dorchester, Dorset, England.

  This eChap is available as a hardcopy chapbook at:

  www.thepennydreadfulcompany.com

  www.williammeikle.com

  © William Meikle 2010

  Cover Design by Neil Jackson

  Ebook Creation by Stephen James Price

  William Meikle is a twenty year overnight success following the release of his #1 Amazon listed ebook, the sci-fi bestseller, THE INVASION. With ten novels and over 300 professional short story sales to his name, Meikle is a genuine Master of Pulp.

  Nobody knows exactly what happened on the last ascent of Mallory and Irvine in 1924. No details have been passed down to us.

  The heights of the tallest mountain have kept their secret.

  My father was a Sherpa. Indeed, most of the males of my immediate family have spent their working lives helping Westerners carry heavy goods up steep hills.

  I resolved early on to buck that trend.

  You may have seen me in the market in Katmandu. There are always tourists, always with too much money and too little sense, willing to buy a piece of Tibet to take home with them. And I am only too willing to oblige them. After all, they do not need to know that most of the products on my stall were made in factories in Shanghai and Delhi.

  The recent collapse in the world financial markets saw a steep decline in both my customers and my profits this year, and I was starting to worry about my prospects for the coming winter.

  That was before my father, who had been ill for quite some time, called for me.

  I have known about the iron chest all of my life, but no amount of boyhood tantrums had any success in my seeing the contents.

  My father’s imminent death changed all of that. He has entrusted the box to me, as his father entrusted it to him. And now I am offering to share it with you, with the whole world. After you have seen the materials I am about to lay before you, I know we will be able to settle on a price we can both be happy with.

  It took some time, but I have arranged the papers chronologically for ease of understanding. We start with their arrival at Camp III.

  May 19th 1924

  It is now four days since we received the blessings of the Lama at the Rongbuk Monastery. Whether by fortuitous coincidence or by divine intervention, the weather improved considerably thereafter and Norton, Somervell, Odell and myself had an easier than expected climb to Camp III, our advanced base camp at twenty one thousand feet. This latest camp is planned to be our main base of operations for the duration of our attempts on the ascent, and is less than a mile from the icy slopes leading up to the north col.

  The weather has not yet lifted sufficiently to give us a view of our goal, but we all know it is there, looming over us. I can see it in my mind’s eye even now, and it is there every night in my dreams.

  I will not let it beat me.

  Not this time.

  As I suspected, being in this close proximity has brought the nightmare back to mind. I let my pride get the better of me in ’22, and I am man enough to admit it now. After Finch got to twenty seven thousand feet and higher, I was determined that I would be first. I saw it as my right.

  My hubris nearly got all of us killed.

  The Sherpas warned me that the weather would close in, but I was too close to my goal. I pressed on, determined to beat Finch’s height, and also to show him it could be done without the use of oxygen. And if that damned monsoon hadn’t swept in from nowhere I might have done it.

  In the end the Sherpas talked me into a strategic retreat. I am still of the opinion that there was something more than just the fear of the weather that caused those hardy men to show such abject terror, but whatever brought on their funk, it was obvious I could not go on without them.

  We turned back, just in time -- or so we thought. I was leading a group of porters down the lower slopes of the North Col in fresh, waist-high snow when the lead man pointed up the ridge. I followed his gaze. I was just in time to see a roiling wave of snow roll down towards us.

  I was lucky to make it out of that mess alive. Seven of my Sherpa team were not so fortunate and were lost in the avalanche. The surviving porters did not blame me, but the folks back home were not so accommodating.

  I had hoped the newspapers would go easier on me this time after two years out of the limelight, but that has not proved to be the case.

  I must not grumble. I could so easily have been left behind in Blighty like poor Finch. I am dashed lucky to be here at all, and this time I intend to make the most of it.

  So, you see what I have here? Even this first entry is a work of historical importance – in George Mallory’s own hand. And what is to come is better yet.

  Better by far.

  There are many pages that pertain to them setting up Camp IV and being beaten back by the weather. They too are worth a pretty penny on their own I think you will agree. But let us jump forward to Mallory’s first attempt at the peak.

  June 2nd 1924

  Failure is a bitter pill to swallow. Especially after a promising start we made yesterday morning.

  Bruce and I left Camp IV planning to take the North Col route and establish two higher camps that day before making a final push for the summit on the morrow. We knew that Norton and Somervell would start their own attempt twenty-four hours after our own, and both Bruce and I were determined that we would be first up the hill. We took a small team, only nine tiger porters.

  The early climb proved simple, taking place as it did in the relatively protected space below the lip of the North Col. At that stage spirits were high, and there was even some good-natured banter among the porters, several of whom had been with me in ’22.

  Matters started taking a turn for the worse when we left the shelter of the ice walls. High winds, bitterly cold and lashing at us like whips, ran across the whole span of the North Face.

  Our plan had been to install Camp V at twenty-five thousand feet just after lunch and press on upwards, but the wind proved to be a tough opponent and it was late in the afternoon before we reached the spot we had only previously seen in the binoculars.

  Bruce was first onto the small plateau, and I noticed a quizzical tone in his voice as he turned and called to me.

  “I say Mallory. Are you sure we are the only team on the mountain?”

  I saw what he meant when I climbed up to join him.

  A set of fresh tracks led away from us and on further up the slope. Studying those closest to me I could see that whatever had made them had stood atop the cliff and looked down, watching our ascent, before turning and climbing higher.

  “Snow leopard?” Bruce asked.

  I shook my head.

  This was no four-legged beast. The tracks were clear. They were exactly as if a man had made them. But as I walked the ground beside the nearest tracks I realized that perspective had played tricks with me. If it had been a man that made these, he would have had to have prodigiously long legs, for there was near six feet between each step. And the tracks themselves were sunk deep in the snow, as if borne down by a heavy weight.

  I had just bent to study one more closely when the porters started to pull themselves onto the plateau. The second one up took one look at the tracks and let out a shriek that echoed loud in the canyons around us. Without another word, he turned and fled. Three others joined him almost immediately. I looked down the slope after them to see them abandoning their packs, leaving them strewn on the hill in their haste to depart.

  I did not have time to stand there and ponder why such stout men would flee so readily, for the day was coming to a close, and, four porters short, we were going to be hard pushed t
o get the camp set up before nightfall.

  Bruce and one of the tigers fetched the discarded packs while the rest of us set up the tents. We were all exhausted by the time we gathered around the small stove for tea later that evening.

  I tried to engage the tigers in conversation as to why the others had fled in such fashion, but they responded only by mumbling, their eyes lowered as if afraid to look me in the eye.

  We retired to our beds early knowing that, with four men short, we would have a hard push the next day.

  I was not to be given the rest I had hoped for. I was woken at some point in the night. At first I thought that Bruce was snoring even louder than usual, but the snuffling I heard from outside the tent was not of human origin. If I had been climbing in North America I might have taken it for the sound of a bear foraging for food, but no bears existed in this area – at least none that I had ever heard of.

  I rose and left the tent. It had started to snow, only a light fall, but enough to obscure my view of whatever was causing the disturbance. I only caught the merest glimpse of a darker shadow heading off up the hill. When I went back into the tent the tigers all turned to stare at me, their eyes wide with new fear.

  There were fresh tracks outside the tent in the morning.

  The tigers flat out refused to climb any higher, eyeing the tracks with trepidation. Indeed they seemed in a great hurry to leave the camp forthwith. Given my experiences in ’22 I was loath to do anything to further discomfort these men, and Bruce and I reluctantly agreed to abandon the ascent in favor of the greater good. We made sure the camp and provisions were secure and started our way back down the hill. Camp VI would have to wait for the next team to establish it for themselves.

  They are up there now, Norton and Somervell. We passed them on our descent as they began their climb. I managed a quiet word with Somervell, knowing that he is carrying a camera, and have asked him to take pictures of any tracks they might come across.

  Just as we reached Camp IV I looked up and saw the new team climbing up above the heights we ourselves had reached. I am happy that a new attempt is now well underway.

  But it should be me up there.

  Maybe in a few days, it will be me.

  June 5th 1924

  Norton and Somervell have failed. Indeed, Somervell only just made it back to Camp IV with his life. He has stupendous tales to tell of the tops. He did not reach the summit, but we believe he has set a new worldwide altitude record and he says that he has taken the most stunning photographs ever seen on any mountain heights. But he has paid for it dearly, having coughed up most of the lining of his throat and dashed near choked in the process.

  I am to make the next attempt. I depart in the morning with young Sandy Irvine. By rights it should be Norton to accompany me, but the last climb has taken too heavy a toll on him. I have no worries about having Irvine with me. The lad is as strong as an ox and has a zest for the climb such as I have rarely seen.

  Somervell and Norton managed to establish Camp VI, but it was not without incident. Three of the tigers they took with them succumbed to the same blue funk as those on my climb, and refused to go higher. Norton tells of marks on the ground, but he has attributed them to mere spots of ice, which have melted and refrozen to leave the effect of tracks of a large animal. He scoffed at the idea of a large biped living that high in the mountain, and has berated the tigers as superstitious peasants.

  For my own part, I shall keep an open mind until more evidence is forthcoming.

  It matters not in any case.

  Large unknown animals will not keep me from my mountain.

  I have shown you this much just to give you a taste for what is to come. Did you know that Irvine had a camera with him on the ascent? Can you imagine what might be on the roll of film?

  What if I told you that a battered Kodak camera was among the effects I found in the tin box left to me by my father? I imagine that would increase the value of the package substantially.

  I haven’t tried to open the back of the camera, but it sure looks like there’s a film still in there. And what with today’s advances in technology, I’m sure that the photos can be recovered. Given what is related in the rest of Mallory’s journal, I can only guess at the wonders that might be waiting to be developed.

  Come -- let us move on, to the crux of our story.

  Mallory and Irvine took to the hill at 8.40 am the next day. They camped that night at Camp V, and on June 7th climbed to Camp VI, from where we get the next entry in the journal.

  June 7th 1924

  I am glad we decided to bring the oxygen, and gladder still that Irvine is here with me, for he has an aptitude with the blasted bottles that I have not yet mastered. Despite my early misgivings, the tanks have proved to be a boon on the climb so far, enabling us to reach these heights faster and with less effort on our bodies than I had thought possible. Odell has also been converted to the benefits to be gained, and he should have ascended to Camp V by now where he will be able to find many new rocks to keep him busy cataloguing. I have sent two of the porters down to him with a message that he should look out for us on the heights in the morning.

  If truth be told, the porters did not need much persuasion to depart.

  The night had been bitterly cold and the wind whistled and tugged alarmingly at the tents – so much so that I feared at times we might all be swept away like sailors lost to the sea. I did not get much sleep.

  Around two-thirty in the morning the wind died to a whisper.

  And that is when I heard it.

  The only thing I can compare it to is the sound of a wolf pack I once heard in Canada, the high wild wails as they chose a new leader. But this sounded like it came from the throat of a single animal, albeit one with a prodigious voice. No Italian tenor ever projected tones so ethereal, so beautiful. It was as if a god sang to us, there in the highest heights of the planet.

  I am sorry to indulge in such flights of fancy, but the experience did indeed move me in a manner that was almost religious in the depths of feeling that rose up inside me.

  The porters were not so sanguine about the experience. One of them started to scream until silenced by the others. He only said two words, over and over again.

  Metoh-kangmi.

  Minutes later the wind started up again and all other external noise was lost in the fury.

  It took some convincing, but I finally managed to get one of the tigers to tell me what had them so spooked. The story I was told is fairly typical among less civilized people – of a man-demon that haunts the high places and carries off the women and children of the unwary – a beast of cunning, ingenuity and above all, fearsome strength and rage. I have long thought these to be mere cautionary tales designed to keep the young of the villages from straying too far from hearth and home, and I am not likely to change that opinion based on some high-singing, no matter how musical it might be.

  Besides, they say the mountain belongs to this beast. That I cannot allow.

  This hill is mine.

  This is my last note before the final push. The porters have all gone, back down the Camp IV, leaving only Sandy Irvine and I on the hill. Sandy is working on the O2 tanks to ensure the equipment will suffice for the rigors that lie ahead, and I can feel the old excitement rising.

  The skies are clear, and my hill is waiting.

  I don’t know how much of the history of this attempt you are aware of, but that is pretty much all that anyone knows – in fact, what you have already read is more than was previously known. The best is yet to come, but before we get to that, I want to draw your attention to this note that I found detailed in contemporary reports of the expedition, as it fills in another part of the story.

  It is a journal entry written by Odell, the geologist that Mallory already mentioned. He did indeed climb to Camp V, arriving there on the 7th of June. He met Mallory and Irvine’s porters who were descending, and received a note from Mallory that read:

  Dear Noel,


  We'll probably start early to-morrow (8th) in order to have clear weather. It won't be too early to start looking out for us either crossing the rock band under the pyramid or going up the skyline at around eight.

  Yours ever

  G Mallory

  On the evening of the 8th of June Odell wrote a note in his journal.

  Field Journal of Noel Odell, 8th June 1924

  I fear the worst.

  This morning I started an ascent to make geological studies. The mountain was swept by wind and mist so I could not see the ridge where I might expect to follow Mallory and Irvine’s climb. I reached twenty six thousand feet and climbed over a small outcropping where I spent some time studying a particularly fine granite intrusion.

  At 12.50, just after I had emerged from a state of jubilation at finding the first definite fossils on Everest, there was a sudden clearing of the atmosphere, and the entire summit ridge and final peak were unveiled. My eyes became fixed on one tiny black spot silhouetted on a small snow-crest beneath a rock-step in the ridge; the black spot moved. Another black spot became apparent and moved up the snow to join the other on the crest. The first then approached the great rock-step and shortly emerged at the top; the second did likewise. Then the whole fascinating vision vanished, enveloped in cloud once more.

  I was most concerned because Mallory and Irvine seemed to be five hours behind their schedule and surely had no chance of reaching the summit that day. I could also see that a band of weather was threatening to close in. I resolved to climb up to Camp VI and make myself available should any aid be required.

  I arrived on the ledge with two porters at 1:45pm, just before the weather set in with a vengeance. We almost had no place to take shelter, for it was immediately obvious that the camp was in a state of some disrepair. Rations and sleeping bags were scattered over a wide area, as if they had been thrown around in a rage. I thought I could see large fresh tracks in the snow, but by this time the squall had started to blow across the face of the mountain throwing stinging snow into my eyes and forcing us to take refuge in the only tent that remained standing.