Chapter Nine

Annapurna South Face

Don Whillans was seated outside a cave under a boulder, smiling like a benevolent gnome.

‘You’re looking a bit slimmer than when I saw you last,’ I said. ‘How did it go?’

‘Not too bad.’

‘Did you see the face?’

‘Aye.’

‘What does it look like?’

‘Steep. But after I’d looked at it for a few hours it seemed to lie back a bit. It’s going to be difficult but I think it will go all right.’

I felt an immense pressure lift from my chest. So much was riding on those first few words. Behind us, down the valley, was a vast train of porters and equipment. Ahead of us was one of the greatest challenges in the Himalaya: the south face of Annapurna. Three miles wide and a mile and a half high, a wall of white snow and golden granite that steepens at 7,000 metres at a near-vertical rock band. We had spent two years poring over photographs, talking, speculating and plotting. Would it be possible? The expedition was a new direction for me, the first time I’d led a team to the Himalaya, my baptism of fire. Had I overreached? What if the route was unjustifiably dangerous? Don had gone ahead of the main party with my old army friend Mike Thompson to assess the difficulties and find a site for base camp.

‘I looked at it for about four hours,’ Don said. ‘A big avalanche came down on the left but our line looks fairly safe.’ I trusted Don’s judgement. I never climbed with anyone else with the same feel for big mountains. It was a mixture of intuition, profound common sense and the ability to interpret the features of a mountain and the complexities of climbing them. I had almost dreaded hearing Don’s verdict. Now it was in, I could relax.

In the autumn of 1968 I came home from the Blue Nile expedition. My latest experience of someone else’s adventure had left me determined to paddle my own canoe. Captain John Blashford-Snell’s military team had a period quality about it, as though drawn from a Rider Haggard novel. We were frequently thrown out of our rubber boats and I almost drowned in a huge stopper wave. Nobody had told any of us what to do and there were crocodiles all over the place. While carrying our rafts round some cataracts, a fellow crewmember and SAS corporal called Ian Macleod was swept away and drowned while crossing a swollen tributary.

If that wasn’t bad enough, local tribesmen living near the banks of the river attacked us on two occasions. The second attack was at night and only the vigilance of our sentry saved us from being massacred. We dashed down to the boats to protect them, fired off a few rounds and escaped down the river in the pitch dark. Afterwards, I realized that I was a voyeur, with no control, observing an enterprise that could have got me killed.

That October, Nick and I decided, come what may, we would go on an expedition in the spring of 1970. Included in our little group was Martin Boysen, living nearby in Altrincham. Martin and I had been climbing together for years, from the days when he was a prodigy at Harrison’s Rocks, outside Tunbridge Wells. His father was German and his mother English, and his earliest memories were of Lancaster bombers dropping bombs on Aachen near his home village. Martin was passionate about the natural world, as well as being one of the most gifted rock climbers Britain has ever seen. His long limbs seemed gangly on the ground, but once poised on a stretch of rock he would drift up effortlessly, like a hugely intelligent sloth, assured and methodical. Martin had recently attempted Cerro Torre in Patagonia with a team that included Dougal Haston, who we immediately pencilled in as a fourth member without yet telling him. We knew he’d come.

Nick, compared to Martin, was not a natural climber. Wiry and strong, and very competitive, he had forced his way to a high standard of climbing. His background was more typical of prewar climbers. Educated at Eastbourne College and Cambridge, he had been president of the university’s climbing club. His father had introduced him to the Alps as a schoolboy and consequently he had a broad range of experience. He’d climbed in Greenland, but this was his only experience outside Europe. He and his wife Carolyn, like Martin and Maggie Boysen, were part of our close network of friends.

We had a team, but no objective. In 1968, following a series of conflicts in the Himalaya, the mountains were off limits. You could reach the Hindu Kush of Afghanistan but that didn’t appeal, so we looked instead at the mountains of Alaska. Then, in early 1969, Nepal reopened a limited number of peaks. We immediately forgot about Alaska. Where the idea of the south face of Annapurna came from is a little hazy. Martin had heard Dennis Gray mention it as being like the north face of the Grandes Jorasses, only three times the height. I remembered a photo of the face Jimmy Roberts, my expedition leader on Annapurna II, had shown me. He had seen it while trying Macchapuchhre in 1957. I phoned two of the members living in Britain.

David Cox, a fellow in modern history at Oxford, was vague but not dismissive. He promised to send us a photograph. Roger Chorley, later a distinguished chairman of the National Trust, was incredulous. ‘Going for the south face of Annapurna? It’s swept by avalanches the whole time.’ Then I got a letter from Jimmy himself suggesting our idea wasn’t so crazy after all: ‘The south face of Annapurna is an exciting prospect – more difficult than Everest, although the approach problems are easier.’ When David’s photograph arrived, Martin and Nick came round and I projected the image onto the wall of our living room. We sat there gazing at it, slack-jawed.

Annapurna’s south face, 1970.

‘There’s a line all right,’ Martin said, ‘but it’s bloody big.’

He was right on both counts. From the glacier we traced a hard, uncompromising route on the left of the face all the way to the top, starting with a squat snow ridge like the buttress of a Gothic cathedral, leaning against the steeper upper face. Immediately above was an elegant ice arête; even at this distance you could tell it was knife-edge. This ended at a long snow slope leading to a band of ice cliffs.

‘I wonder how stable they are,’ Nick said, then traced his finger through them to the rock band. ‘That must be at least a thousand feet.’

What would hard rock climbing be like at more than 23,000 feet? Nothing like it had been done before. Above that, it didn’t seem far to the top but we weren’t fooled: the picture was foreshortened. I dug out some shots taken from Annapurna II that showed the top of Annapurna’s south face. We could look across at the top of Annapurna’s rock band. It was another 3,000 feet from its top to the summit, with a rocky crest to finish.

The scale of this route was mind-blowing. The north face of the Eiger was not quite 6,000 feet high, much the biggest challenge among the classic faces of the Alps. Annapurna’s south face was almost twice that and at altitude. Yet I felt confident we had a good chance with the right team. Almost by default, I became leader, although I didn’t think of myself as one. I’d approached Mike Ward to see if he was interested, but wisely he turned us down. It was as much a desire to make the expedition happen that prompted me to make decisions; the others were happy enough to go along with that. It was only as I learned my role that I discovered I enjoyed it, and was good at it.

One thing was clear: we were going to need a bigger team. I preferred a small, compact group but the scale of this adventure was unprecedented. Blitzkrieg wouldn’t work; it could only be a siege. We settled on a group of eight. Choosing the other members was crucial. Shortly before we left, a reporter asked me about discipline: what I would do if someone turned round and told me to get lost? The short answer was ‘nothing’. I would already have failed if things got so bad. Climbing leadership was nothing like the army. Discipline came from below not above. If I had to make an unpopular decision it would be accepted only if the others respected my judgement and team spirit was strong. That meant knowing each other.

Two old friends immediately sprang to mind, both from my Eiger days. Ian Clough was now running a small climbing school from his cottage in Glen Coe, which he shared with his wife Nikki and their young daughter. I had known Mick Burke from our early days in the Lake District; he had since made the first British ascent of The Nose on El Capitan in Yosemite Valley. On the Eiger Direct, suffering in snow holes with almost no food, we had come to know each other better and my respect for Mick deepened. He was argumentative, but never sulked.

My third choice was the most obvious and most problematic. Don Whillans and I had done great climbs together like the Central Tower of Paine. I thought I could handle the differences in personality, even though he might chafe at the notion of me as leader. The biggest problem was his physical condition. In the last few years he had let himself go, developing a beer-belly through long sessions in the pub. I wanted Don because of his Himalayan experience. He had been three times before the region closed in 1964 and performed brilliantly. But that was five years ago: could he still function on a high mountain?

‘I think I’ll have a try at this,’ he said. ‘It’s about my turn to go out in front.’

What followed was a masterclass. Not bothering to place any runners, Don danced up the pitch, almost doing the splits on the wide bridging. Both Tom and I had a struggle when it came to our turn. I made up my mind to invite him. When we got down to Ian Clough’s cottage, I showed him David Cox’s photo. He pondered for a while and then said: ‘It’ll be hard, but it should go all right. I’ll come.’ Given Don’s experience, I promptly made him deputy leader.

So far, the team all knew each other but now money played a hand. My new agent George Greenfield suggested I recruit an American: ‘It would make my job a lot easier in the States.’ Various names presented themselves, but Don and Dougal both spoke warmly of Tom Frost, one of that extraordinary group exploring Yosemite’s big walls. A Stanford engineering graduate, Tom had climbed Kangtega, a difficult peak in the Everest region and put up new routes in the Andes. I had doubts when I discovered he was a Mormon, a faith that forbids not just drinking, gambling and smoking, popular activities with many of the team, but also bad language and tea. As things turned out, he proved not only a popular Mormon, but a tolerant one too.

We had our eight climbers but needed some trustworthy workers lower down the mountain to keep supplies flowing. I approached Mike Thompson, my old friend from Sandhurst. The army had tried hard to hang onto Mike but, with characteristic style, he finessed their objection by standing for Parliament. Thus liberated, he studied anthropology, earning a doctorate and delving into complex ideas about society and the environment. Good fun and equable, he didn’t have the same experience as the lead climbers but would offer incredible support organizing the expedition’s food.

I was lucky with our doctor. Dave Lambert was a registrar in Newcastle, who heard about the expedition and offered his services. He had climbed in the Alps and impressed me with his enthusiasm and energy. He was even prepared to pay his way. I invited him on the spot. That just left someone to manage base camp. I needed someone used to logistics that could manage Nepali staff, so I asked Charles Wylie, a serving army officer who had been to Everest in 1953. He suggested Kelvin Kent, a captain in the Gurkha Signals stationed in Hong Kong. He was a wireless expert and spoke Nepali fluently.

Our expedition gained stature almost in spite of ourselves. This was partly down to George, a superbly connected figure on the literary scene, whose clients included John le Carré. George also looked after Enid Blyton, and following her death in 1968 was managing her literary estate. He had a double first from Cambridge and served with distinction in North Africa and Italy during the war, though he never mentioned either. He had also collected a small posse of notable adventurers like Sir Francis Chichester, Wally Herbert and Robin Knox-Johnston.

George’s great wisdom was to listen, find out what made you tick and act accordingly. He also had plenty of experience raising the finance for expeditions, having negotiated deals for the Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition in the late 1950s. He now brought all his experience and exceptional contacts to the problem of financing Annapurna, arranging a meeting with the banker Pat Pirie-Gordon, a power behind the scenes in the expedition world. Thanks to him, we got the full support of the Mount Everest Foundation (MEF).

I’d always felt under suspicion from the establishment, having earned disapproval for the newspaper headlines and lecturing I’d done after the Eiger. Now I was drawn under its wing, with a committee appointed to look after us that read like a who’s who of mountaineering, with Lord Hunt as one of our patrons. George put together a deal with various newspapers, publishers and television companies. We took an outstanding film crew with us to base camp, which ultimately produced an excellent documentary. But payments were related to height gained. Bringing the MEF on board meant the whole thing was underwritten and I could relax a bit.

That spring I was preoccupied with my family. Not long after moving into our new house, Joe, just eighteen months old, suffered an acute attack of gastroenteritis. Not having signed up with a local doctor, we got a number out of the phone book. The doctor told us not to worry and suggested something from the chemist. Joe continued to get weaker and twenty-four hours later we were both out of our minds with worry. It felt almost unreal that something could be so wrong with our second son. He was slipping into a coma when the doctor finally arrived; he immediately called an ambulance. Joe was rushed to Wythenshawe Hospital and we spent another agonizing night at his bedside before we were told he would be fine.

His recovery was an immense relief and we settled into a happy spring. Wendy was pregnant again, giving birth to Rupert in July 1969, at the same hospital where we’d watched over Joe a few months before. This time the birth was easier and it was wonderful to be there to see his little head emerge and then hold him in my arms. A few months later Rupert developed a stomach condition that caused him intense pain. The poor little soul just screamed and no amount of patting or burping helped though I did seem to ease him into sleep with the way I held him. The doctors told us it would cure itself, and it did. We got a cat, Tinker, a big tabby, and a dog, Bessie. The family was growing. I also hired a secretary, Joan Lister, to help me plan the Annapurna expedition. Joan was the first of several, all of whom became close friends with Wendy and very much part of the family.

Don had agreed to organize equipment for Annapurna but on the phone one day, he said: ‘Eh, this expedition organizing is ‘ard work.’ The penny dropped. He had so far only contemplated this hard work and not done any, so I took over while Don concentrated on design. He worked on a new version of his box tent to use on the face and worked on a harness, the first webbing harness ever. It worked superbly and soon became a bestseller.

I would get up at six, work until late afternoon, jump in my car and drive up to eighty miles to give a lecture, coming back the same night to do it all again next day. I had never worked harder in my life but was enjoying myself. After years of other people’s stories, I was writing my own, no longer a spectator but fully engaged. The responsibility was intimidating, but at the same time I felt elated. By mid January 1970 we had gathered everything together in a furniture store near Don’s house in Rawtenstall: 15,000 feet of rope, hundreds of pitons, buckets, plates, soap, tin-openers – everything. Now you can equip and supply a similar expedition in Kathmandu, but in 1970 it all came with you.

Getting our kit to base camp was the crux of the enterprise. We’d thought about sending it in trucks, but that would require several of us to drive them; none of us had the time. We would send it by boat to Mumbai. Two days before our ship sailed, the agent rang to say it was in dry dock with engine trouble. After a day of nervous tension, he called back. The State of Kerala was leaving next day from London. We dashed down with our cargo just in time. In late February Don and Dave Lambert flew to Mumbai to meet it. Soon after, a cable arrived from Don saying the State of Kerala was still in Cape Town, delayed with engine trouble, and wouldn’t arrive in Mumbai for a fortnight. We wouldn’t be able to start the approach until early April. I plunged immediately into despair. The entire expedition seemed doomed before it had started.

I did what I would have done in the army: wrote an appreciation of the situation so I could formulate a plan. I would send an advance party ahead of the main expedition to scope the route on the face and site base camp. Don was already in India so it made sense that he should lead it. There was no point in him waiting in Mumbai. In a happy coincidence an army team, under the leadership of Major Bruce Niven, with Henry Day as climbing leader, was planning to climb Annapurna from the north, the route of the first ascent in 1950. They agreed to lend us some food. I also airfreighted a small amount of extra equipment to tide us over. Needing a good man to shepherd the gear off the boat, when it finally arrived, I asked Ian Clough if he would go. He was endlessly patient, unselfish and tactful – the ideal man for the job. Then I left London in a flurry of snow on board an Air India 707 bound for Mumbai.

Don, by now in Kathmandu, was predictably sceptical when he heard I was on my way. ‘The only useful strings ’e could pull would be a bloody great big one attached to the ship.’ But delivering the gear as fast as possible was essential. When I got to Mumbai I discovered the boat had been delayed a further five days. I met with officials and watched my agent, a tubby man called Freddie Buhariwala whose charm masked a shrewd mind. I knew he’d see us right and so went on to Nepal, staring at Annapurna’s huge white shape through the window of the Fokker Friendship as it approached Kathmandu. When I’d flown in ten years before, the airport was a grassy strip. Now there was smooth tarmac and a terminal building. Inside it, Kelvin Kent and Mike Thompson were waiting for me.

I had never met Kelvin before. His job was already important, but the delay had made it critical. He was quite short, lean and sharp-faced, but bubbling with nervous energy and warmth. He plunged into details about the latest developments while guiding me through customs, solving bureaucratic problems with the same enthusiasm the rest of us reserved for mountains. He’d been down to the border at Nautanwa to prepare for Ian’s arrival and dashed up the approach trek to order food and fuel. In Kathmandu he had charmed a typist at the British embassy into working as the expedition’s unofficial secretary. ‘If you wear an open shirt,’ Kelvin warned me, ‘you might be mistaken for one of the hippies. You’ve got to look the part if you want results.’ He whisked me through a sequence of meetings with officials, me playing the gracious, properly attired figurehead. Then we would leap on bicycles and pedal off to the next meeting, dodging cars and buffalo.

Next morning, Mike and Don went on ahead to begin their reconnaissance. I felt a little envious but had to stay behind to meet the rest of the team. That night I was taken out to dinner by the owner of a famous travel company. He quizzed me on my approach to leadership. ‘I wish I was a bit more self-confident,’ I wrote to Wendy. ‘You know, the big leader type. I feel anything but at the moment. I hope I can make a good job of this.’

The team arrived looking more like a rock group than a climbing expedition, their shirts very much open. Ian Clough had flown south from Delhi to meet the State of Kerala, now due any day. Kelvin was a blur of activity. Finally it seemed we were making progress. Despite all the setbacks, we left Pokhara just one day behind schedule, largely thanks to Kelvin and Henry Day’s army expedition. The walk to base camp was short, but late spring snow had sent avalanches into the upper reaches of the Modi Khola, an awkward and sometimes dangerous proposition for our porters. They took off the shoes we gave them to walk through it barefoot.

Even before Ian and Kelvin arrived, we began work on the route. Don and Dougal, teaming up from the start, threaded their way across the glacier to a rocky feature, called a rognon, that split the glacier. Here we placed camp one, at around 16,000 feet. Camp two went in 1,200 feet higher, tucked under the shelter of a cliff. On 7 April, Don and Dougal pushed the route up a gully to a col beneath the delicate ice ridge we had spotted in our photograph. Bad weather shut us down for a few days, but on 11 April, Martin and Nick put up one of Don’s box tents on the col on a wide flat area free from avalanche risk. After all the uncertainty of the last few weeks, we were safely established at the start of the hard climbing.

Tom Frost and I teamed up for the first part. The more time I spent with him, the more I liked him. He reminded me, as I told Wendy, of a character from a John Steinbeck novel, full of quiet dignity. At night, he read his Bible while I read novels full of violence and lust. On our third morning trying to force the route straight up the ice ridge, Dougal arrived, shouting up from below: ‘I think there’s a good route round here, Chris, which will bypass the whole of the ridge.’ He was right. We’d made a mistake and wasted time. As we descended, I couldn’t help snapping at Tom, but instantly regretted it. My temper came from insecurity that the team wouldn’t listen to me after such a basic error.

Back at base camp, we watched Don and Dougal crawling up the ice ridge, tiny insects on a gigantic white elephant. Yet they were making progress, and in two more days camp four was established, dug into the crest of the ridge like an eagle’s perch, the tent door looking out into a yawning gulf. Above, the crest of the ridge was barred by a series of white towers like gigantic ice creams. It was Nick Estcourt and Martin Boysen’s task to surmount these and open the route to the rock band. Martin solved this puzzle, sneaking past the first tower through a sort of tunnel in the ice and then using all his genius on what was undoubtedly the hardest ice climbing yet done at altitude.

Despite their great efforts, in three weeks we’d climbed only 1,500 feet. We still had weeks in hand, depending on when the monsoon broke, but the route was fraying nerves and wearing us down. For every day a climber got to spend pushing the route, another dozen were spent ferrying supplies. There were grumblings of discontent during our radio calls, not surprisingly in a team full of ambitious climbing stars.

On 3 May, Dougal and I emerged from the top of the ice ridge, after five weeks of effort. Above us lay a thousand feet of easier ground ending at huge ice cliffs. Just beyond these lay the rock band. Don came up to join Dougal and I went down for a rest, suffering from a nagging cough that I put down to altitude. It got worse at base camp and Dave Lambert diagnosed pleurisy.

‘What’s that?’

‘Inflammation of the walls of the chest. I can put you on a course of penicillin.’

‘How long before I can get back up?’

‘Four or five days – at least.’

It sounded like a life sentence. Ian had also retreated, suffering pains down his left side, more muscular than anything sinister. Mike collapsed between camps, suddenly incapable of breathing, simply through over-exertion. Nick kept plugging away, carrying loads every other day on the huge stretch between camps four and five. Martin was going superbly well, making five carries between camp four and five in seven days. ‘I need a rest,’ he wrote in his diary, ‘mentally as well as physically. God, it gets you down. Still, it won’t go on forever; in a few days we should take over from Mick and Tom.’

Above them, Mick Burke and Tom Frost were fighting their way through the rock band, Mick at his irrepressible best, scrapping for every foot gained on fiercely technical ground, brushing ice and snow from holds – thinking his way up each pitch. Tom, patiently paying out the rope, recorded the rhythm of each day’s weather, the few threads of cloud in the early morning quickly swelling until they blotted out the lower face. That tide of cloud was an ominous reminder the monsoon was on its way. All of us at base camp were fretting at the pace of progress. From down below, it seemed the route Tom and Mick had chosen was making things harder.

Nick and Martin were due to take over, but their heroic efforts to keep Mick and Tom supplied had left them exhausted. Dougal and Don were impatient to be back in the lead and I felt they had a better feel for the route than any other pair. Things came to a head during a radio call two days later. Discussion ranged back and forth between the different camps. I wanted Don and Dougal to spend a day carrying supplies. Dougal argued forcefully they should go straight up to the front of the route. I began thinking aloud, trimming my plan as I listened to the arguments. Mick wanted to stay in the lead. Nick was at camp four and knew the logistical situation. The camp had become a bottleneck. ‘There is too much of a job here,’ he argued. We needed to get supplies moving faster. So I confirmed that Don and Dougal should spend a day on the big carry between camps four and five and then move to the front.

I should have ended the discussion there, but Dougal told us Don wanted to say something. ‘I don’t know what Mick thinks he’s playing at . . . unless they get their finger out . . . they should make way for somebody else to try. He’s had a week and progress seems very poor.’ The others were furious, especially Mick and Tom, who had been making good progress in the last few days. The radio waves hummed with frustration and anger: ‘Cut it out,’ I said. ‘Let’s not have an argument here. Everyone’s trying their bloody guts out to do this climb, and I think we can sort this out without any of this kind of argument.’

The plan was agreed and we went off air, but the row had fractured the group. Up at camp five, Mick resolved to show Don and fix all the rope they had left – 800 feet – the following day. He was as good as his word. With Tom in support, Mick found a line to the top of the flat iron, fighting his way up a rocky groove, clearing the ice as he went. At the top, having run out 200 feet of rope from where Tom was belaying, the wall steepened. In overcoming this final barrier, at the limits of his strength, Mick made the team’s eventual success possible.

I was on my way back up to support Don and Dougal when Mick and Tom passed me on their way down to base camp. ‘Don’t think we’ve come down out of spite,’ Mick said, ‘we just couldn’t have gone on any longer.’ Tom didn’t hold back. ‘I think you’ve destroyed the spirit of the expedition by pushing Don and Dougal in front out of turn; it was a real stab in the back for Nick and Martin.’ We talked for a while, quietly and amicably. Privately I was appalled. Of all the team, I respected Tom’s selflessness and judgement the most. I explained my logic; that we had to snatch the chance before it was taken from us by the monsoon. I’m not sure I changed his mind but we strengthened our friendship.

The final days of the expedition were a war of attrition. Don and Dougal spent nine days at or above camp six, perched on top of the flat iron at 24,000 feet, climbing to the top of the rock band. The rest of us tried to keep the flow of supplies going. Martin got sick and had to go down, having flogged himself to the point of exhaustion for the benefit of others. I moved into camp five with Nick. It was a grim, inhospitable place. Powder avalanches poured off the rock band onto it whenever it snowed. There wasn’t the energy to keep things tidy, so the tent became a sordid mess. Most of us took sleeping tablets but I’d be awake from two, dozing, and then firing up the stove at five, making sure to fill the pan with snow from the right-hand side of the tent and not the left, where we relieved ourselves in the night.

Ferrying loads to camp six was brutal work, dragging myself across hand over hand where the rope ran sideways. I felt like a senile Tarzan attempting a comeback. On the way down from my first carry, I sorted out the ropes to making the job easier, so absorbed I barely noticed it was almost dark. The box tent looked very homely; Nick was busy making a stew, a little worried I wasn’t back yet. As I snuggled into my sleeping bag later, we were both full of optimism. We discussed the tension caused by Don and Dougal moving through; he didn’t share Mick and Tom’s anger. ‘The trouble is, Chris, you tend to think things out aloud. That’s why you often appear to change your mind and seem over-impulsive.’

Next morning, Nick realized he’d reached the end of his strength and disappeared down the ropes to base camp. I did another carry, leaving behind the tent to bring more rope. Yet when I reached Don and Dougal they told me they were near the top of the rock band and ready to place camp seven.

‘Have you got the tent?’ Dougal asked.

I had to confess I had left it behind but promised to bring it next day. ‘I could move up myself and help you establish camp seven.’

‘In that case, why not move up with us and come to the top?’ Dougal said. I was immensely touched by the warmth of his suggestion and as I abseiled back down felt a thrill at the possibility.

I had expected Ian to be at camp five when I got back that night but the tent was silent. Bad weather lower down had forced him back. I dosed myself with sleeping pills and slept fitfully. In the morning, I put my personal gear on top of the tent and food Don and Dougal needed but could barely lift my rucksack. Raging with frustration, I had to accept the summit was beyond me. Then, ashamed at my weakness, I shouted at the tent walls: ‘Get a grip of yourself, you bloody idiot.’ Halfway up the ropes, feeling stronger, I cursed myself for not bringing my sleeping bag but in retrospect instinct had stopped me. I simply wasn’t strong enough and anyway, we didn’t have enough food for three.

That night, Ian was waiting for me in camp five when I got home from my vertical commute. Cheered by his arrival, and with a brew in my hand, I began to plan the final climb to the summit. The following day Don and Dougal would establish camp seven, while Ian and I carried to six. They would go to the summit the following day. Ian and I would follow a day later. Mick and Tom would try the day after that. It was a great plan, but in the morning the sky was laced with high cloud, a sure sign of bad weather. During the night I’d suffered with diarrhoea, dragging myself out of the tent in temperatures of –30°C. Once we got going, I had to stop and relieve myself, dropping my trousers, which instantly filled with powder snow. The weather deteriorated, savage winds driving across the face and hammering against us as we fought our way up.

When we reached camp six, Ian was shivering, his hands numb with cold. We piled into the tent and tried to defrost them over the stove. Five minutes later, Don and Dougal arrived, beaten back by the wind. Their clothes were encased in ice and Don sported a magnificent icy moustache. It was too late to go down, so the four of us, squashed in a two-man tent, waited for dawn. I’d had a hundred bivouacs in the mountains, but that night was among the very worst. Next morning the weather was no better, and with camp five now occupied, Ian and I retreated to camp four. It snowed solidly for the next two days and I fretted that within sight of success the monsoon had arrived.

We spent 27 May in a state of deep gloom. Don and Dougal had said on the radio that morning they would try to establish camp seven that morning but it seemed unlikely given the continuing bad weather. At five o’clock, I switched the radio on for a routine call.

‘Dougal, this is camp four. Did you manage to get out today?’

‘Aye, we’ve just climbed Annapurna.’

It was stunning news. They had climbed the fixed ropes to where they ended and then carried on unroped, plodding up steep snow to the top of the ridge. They found a spot on the plateau to put up the tent, but it was just before the final steep wall, and since they were now so close to the summit there didn’t seem much point. Dougal left it on a platform in its bag. Don then wove an elegant line up a series of little ice pitches and scattered rock moves. Dougal was struggling to keep his right crampon attached to his boot, and so was a little behind Don when he disappeared over the top on the final short section to the summit; he just had time to get out his little movie camera and shoot some footage. There was no celebration, just a kind of numbness. Elation would come later. It was for both of them I think the greatest moment in their climbing careers.

The relief and excitement in camps up and down the mountain was palpable. All the effort and suffering had been worth it. The question now was what next? Tom and Mick were still set on trying for the summit and it seemed only fair to let them try. But that night I barely slept, half excited at our success, half anxious about what I should do about Tom and Mick. In the morning I told Dougal to take camp six down but Tom persuaded me again. ‘We won’t be slowing your evacuation at all.’ He sounded so reasonable I relented. He and Mick would carry on and those of us at camp four would go down to camp three. Mike was waiting for us there, his tent immaculate as ever, and at around midday Don and Dougal arrived.

‘You want to get everyone off the mountain as quickly as possible,’ Don warned me. ‘It’s falling apart. The whole place feels hostile somehow.’ I felt the same.

Mick and Tom tried for the summit next day but Mick turned back with frozen feet. Tom carried on alone. Reaching the top of the difficulties and seeing how far it was to the summit, he paused in indecision, praying and taking pictures before finally turning for home. Now that they were on their way down, I decided to head down myself, leaving Mike, Dave Lambert and Ian to wait for them. I noticed an avalanche had wiped away Don and Dougal’s steps from that morning over an area spanning 300 yards. The mountain really was falling apart.

Back at base camp I experienced relief rather than elation. Taking my crampons off for the last time, relaxing in a warm sleeping bag in our communal tent, these were great pleasures, yet I was ill at ease. In the morning I set up my desk outside and began tapping away at the typewriter, bashing out a report.

I remember Martin saying, ‘Relax Chris, it’s all over. Nothing can happen now.’

I looked up from the typewriter. ‘I don’t think I’ll be really happy until everyone is down.’ Then I started tapping away again. Kelvin was on the radio broadcasting our success when Mike rushed into base camp, throwing his ice axe into the ground like a javelin.

‘Ian’s been killed, for fuck’s sake,’ he shouted. ‘Ian’s been killed.’

Just above camp one, with Ian just a little ahead of Mike, an ice cliff had collapsed, engulfing them both. Mike was sure he was going to die but when the cloud of ice dust cleared, he was only lightly buried in small blocks of ice. Ian had caught the full blast. Mike and Dave found him at the bottom of the debris, his body emerging from the jumble of blocks. He’d been killed instantly.

We decided to bury him at base camp. Nick and I set off to meet our small band of Sherpas who were helping Dave bring Ian down. It was terribly difficult to believe that the inanimate bundle tied in a tarpaulin, strapped to a ladder, had only half an hour or so before been a breathing, active person: my friend. Ian had been the kindest and most selfless partner I ever had. He had faced so much in bringing the equipment up from Mumbai alone, but he kept his frustrations about the expedition from me. I would only read about them later, in his letters to Nikki.

His grave was a hundred feet above base camp, below a slab of rock where he had spent so many hours teaching ropework to the film crew and our Sherpas. I gave a short tribute and Tom said a prayer. The Sherpas placed a wooden cross at the head of the grave and decked it with wreaths of purple flowers. It was a simple ceremony, but had beauty and dignity.

Our tents had already been pulled down and loads packed. Our porters had arrived from Pokhara to bring us home. All we had to do now was turn downhill into the gaping jaws of the Modi Khola. Don, always ready with a pithy assessment, put it well. ‘If you knew at the beginning that you were going to lose someone you wouldn’t go. You go with the idea that you might.’ Even now, after so many years since that spring in Nepal, I can offer no justification for the risks.