Jalapahar Barracks, Darjeeling, Northeast India
March 16, 1939
6:00 a.m.
Lieutenant Charles Macfarlane scraped the sharp safety razor over his chin, thinking of the day ahead. He was delighted to be finally going up into the high Himalayas, relieved he was getting a chance to do so before returning to England and his regiment, the Coldstream Guards. He’d hoped for a possible turn as a liaison officer with a foreign mountaineering team before leaving Darjeeling, and, with his year-long attachment to the 2nd Gurkha Rifles now almost over, something had finally come up.
While he shaved, Macfarlane reminded himself of what his local commanding officer, the irascible Colonel Atkinson, had told him about the expedition he was joining that morning. “Bunch of Jerry hobbyists, really. No serious mountaineering ambitions, certainly not for Kangchenjunga itself, but they are Germans and so we do need to keep an eye on them. It will give you a chance to get up into the snow for a bit of a look before you head back to Blighty. You might even be able do a bit of hunting while the gentlemen of the swastika are doing their hill walking. Bharal, tahr, argali, wolves, even snow leopard can be found near the Zemu Glacier where you’ll be. That surly SS chappie Schäfer bagged quite a bit when he was up there, I hear. Anyway, look on this trip as bit of a reward, old man; your fellow officers here have given you very favorable reports, and I am only disappointed we can’t persuade your regiment to let us keep you for a little longer.”
Macfarlane was going to miss the eccentric colonel, India too. His time there had absolutely flown by. The region fascinated him and he was incredibly impressed by the brigade’s cheery-faced Gurkha troops. They were an indomitable group, strong and humorous, hardworking and loyal, traits that tended to distract you from a deadly streak of savagery they could tap into in an instant. It took little to imagine the stories of them in the Great War volunteering to crawl through no-man’s land to the German lines to slit a sleepy sentry’s throat or retire an off-duty machine-gun team with their long, spoon-bladed kukri. Macfarlane’s razor caught with a sting. Wiping the small trail of blood that ran off his chin, he told himself to stop daydreaming, or he’d cut his own throat.
The next hour he spent packing his rifles and his kit bag. The expedition was due to head out from Darjeeling at 11:00 a.m., and Ernest Smethwick, the secretary of the British Himalayan Club, was going to introduce him to its leader, a Professor Markus Schmidt, at 9:00 a.m. sharp, so he left to breakfast with Smethwick at the Windermere, and afterward they walked together up to the Hotel Nanga Parbat.
They arrived to a whirlwind of activity. Porters were hauling boxes and bags from every direction to furiously load three old tea lorries. A motor coach with “St. Michael’s School for Boys, Darjeeling” painted along the side was parked beyond them awaiting the expedition team itself. Nearer the front door, another, smaller group was being addressed by a dapper-looking local man wearing a trilby with a long pheasant tail feather waving from its brim. Upon seeing Smethwick and the English officer, the man instantly stopped talking, stood almost to attention, and enthusiastically shook Smethwick’s hand. Smethwick turned to Macfarlane, then back to the man, saying, “Lieutenant Macfarlane, let me introduce you to Namgel Sherpa. He is the sirdar for this expedition, and these good men around him are the climbing Sherpas.”
With a nod to each, Smethwick greeted the others by name. “Dorge Temba, Nima, Sen Bhotia, Lobsang …” He looked at the last and hesitated before finally saying, “Ang Noru.” Macfarlane thought Smethwick gave the man a rather severe look—a look that was returned in kind.
After Smethwick had said, “Good luck, you chaps; we must go in to meet Professor Schmidt,” he confirmed Macfarlane’s observation, saying under his breath, “Keep a close eye on the last one, Ang Noru. He’s trouble. Wouldn’t be on any English expedition, that’s for sure.”
Inside they sought out Schmidt, who was with Hans Fischer. Smethwick introduced Macfarlane, and all four sat to consider the objectives of the expedition. A large map was unrolled, and Schmidt explained in slow, faltering English how the team was to go north by road into the tiny kingdom of Sikkim, then to its capital, Gangtok. From there, they would journey still further north, up the Tista Valley, following the old trade route toward Tibet as far as the monastery town of Lachen. West of that they would establish a camp at the foot of the Zemu Glacier.
The professor stressed that the expedition was as much a wildlife and geological endeavor as it was about mountaineering, but then, with a puff, pronounced, “But we are not without alpine ambition. We might try for a repeat of Siniolchu or possibly attempt Nepal Peak to remind you what we Germans are made of.” Abruptly standing up, he looked down at the English lieutenant to say, “We will be leaving at 11:00 a.m., following the taking of an official expedition photograph for which you will not be required. I will introduce you to the team now, and then you will check our paperwork for passage into Sikkim. I do not want any delays from the authorities at the border, and it will be your job, Tommy, to ensure that doesn’t happen.”
Schmidt smirked to himself and walked away without so much as a by-your-leave. The man’s use of the German nickname for a British soldier grated on Macfarlane as he was forced to get up and follow. By the time the professor had introduced the lieutenant to his companions, all bar one, Macfarlane knew that he was going to dislike Schmidt intensely.
The obnoxious professor appeared in no hurry to track down the absentee, so Macfarlane quickly excused himself to consider the expedition’s paperwork. He reviewed the name of each team member again as he studied the completed forms noticing that the man he hadn’t yet met was called Josef Becker. He was twenty-seven, from Elmau in Bavaria, and for his profession Schmidt had written “lanwirtschaftlicher arb.”
The lieutenant asked Fischer’s wife for a translation and then, crossing it out, wrote “farmworker” alongside it in English so the border authorities would know what it meant. It sounded rather odd as he inked it in, but his mind was already occupied with wondering exactly how annoying and difficult Schmidt was going to prove to be.