From the Book “Shambles” by Stephen Tait – A True Story
Reproduced with the Kind Permission of the Strategic Book Publishing & Rights Agency – www.SBPRA.net
Names have been changed to match those in the official Journey Report by Steve Tait
Chapter 29 – Journey: Rescue – Steve Tait
Scanning the escape route through binoculars as it disappeared into the distance down the glacier, I knew we were entering yet another dangerous time. Nige and I were both gripped with massive fatigue. From my position standing on the seat of the skidoo I was praying that I would catch site of the rescue party, but they were hours away as the morning was just upon us, and my entreaties for their super fast travel were impossible for them to answer.
The cold was biting at us and was having a more profound effect on our depleted morale as Nige struggled once again to make a hot drink. His disappointment was apparent when I told him there was still no sight of relief.
Discarded equipment left where it had been dropped over the previous hours of fear and panic meant the inside ofthe tent was an absolute mess. The skidoo fuel we were burning in the stove created a black smoke during the priming operation, which had dirtied us on our hands and faces, and the smell permeated the atmosphere of the inner tent. But the radio stacked on a wooden box took center stage as it crackled into life once more.
“Sledge Golf, come in, over.” I grabbed the handset. The party had left with two aboard and was heading towards us in good weather conditions, and I chatted with the Base Leader and gave my weather report in well practiced style, confirming that the visibility was excellent with no cloud cover. Once again I repeated our location as the party coming towards us would radio back to base every hour or so.
I gave the handset to my companion and left the confines of the tent ostensibly to try to create some order outside, but knowing that I would once again glance anxiously down the sweeping tumbling glacier to will the party to travel faster on their journey and into sight. My eyes kept looking over to the ropes attached to the skidoo and disappearing down into the depths of the crevasse. Even though I was attached to a safety rope, I did not go close to the accident site again, and I was to leave the task of releasing the knots and dropping the ropes down the hole to someone else. Someone who had a clear guilt free conscience and someone who could summon the courage to cut off the final reminder that friends were one hundred feet below in their newly found deaths.
Midday came and went with radio calls informing us of the progress of the rescue party. They had reached the bottom of the glacier but had hit some difficult ground and had to spend time probing the area to find a safe passage. The weather remained at its brilliant best as I prayed that it would remain so. After the last few weeks I would not have been surprised for a quick change, but today of all days it looked positive, and the good visibility and lack of wind continued.
Nige’s morale was very low now and although, following the accident, he had rallied and performed superbly, he now only wanted safety and to be out ofthis place. He drank more hot drinks and tried to laugh at arguments and comments made during the previous days of confinement. But it was too hard; the shock and the grief, and in my case the guilt, were the dominating factors. We were barely alive, although I didn’t recognize it at the time, as the supreme effort we had made to save ourselves had simply caught up with us.
The radio crackled through into an open line once again. Our rescue party, now talking directly to us, were within striking distance but they could not see us. “You must be able to see us,” I said beginning to panic. “Look up to the left of where you’re standing,” I said but they came back with a negative.
My companion grabbed my arm. “Put a flare up!” he said, and in my confusion Ieplied that I didn’t know if we had any. “What do you mean?” he said. “You are responsible for the survival gear. You must have packed them!” Again panic cursed through me immediately. Had I forgotten to pack the flares? Of course I had packed them. We had lots of flares, but in my confused state I simply did not know what he was talking about. I knew exactly where the flares were.
“Tell them to look up to mountains on the left,” I said as I ripped open the bag and set off the first smoke flare. The response was a no sighting, so I immediately let off a “Very” light and watched as it shot up and exploded and traced its red arc across the sky almost directly above our heads.
I dived to the entrance of the tent just in time to hear, “Got you.” Then a pause. “Christ you’re high up.” My world collapsed like the bridge of the crevasse that had collapsed under our companions.
The party approached us carefully, and in my impatience, I remember thinking too carefully and too slowly, as the front man in the party dismounted time and again to probe the ground. It took an age for them to cover the last remaining four hundred yards to our mess of a hurriedly erected campsite. Then, with a roar and an immediate cutting of engines they were upon us. I slumped onto a sledge and waited for them to disentangle their skidoo safety ropes and set up new safety lines in order for them complete the few remaining yards on foot as they approached me side on.
During the few minutes it took for them to cover the distance between us I considered deeply my immediate future and what would happen when the first words between rescuers and rescued were uttered. In my guilt I imagined that I would not even see the first blow as I was to be punished for putting ourselves in this position and endangering the lives of those who had come to help. I knew I would not have time to blurt out my defense of crazy weather conditions, damaged machinery, and depleted stores, as well as the tiredness, which now gripped me to the depths of my soul. I knew I would not have the time to express my sadness at losing two members of the sledging team and I knew that the pleadings of our maniacal efforts to keep the two remaining of us alive would fall on deaf ears.
But I had to prepare myself, so what. Surely nothing worse than that which had happened could be showered upon me in this world or the next. I had been to hell and back during the last thirty hours and I had little energy left to fight. Wilfred put his hand on my shoulder with a brief word, while the second of our rescuers fumbled with his uncovered hands in his clothing before thrusting a lighted cigarette into my mouth. I took my first long drawn out drag and filled my lungs with the intoxicating smoke. Looking straight up into his broadly smiling bearded face, I waited resignedly for the pain of the blow. Instead he, too, touched my shoulder and said, “I knew you wouldn’t stop smoking.” There was an urgency now. Everyone wanted to get away from the scene as quickly as possible as the travel up the glacier, I was to learn later that day, had been pretty hazardous.
I threw our survival bags onto the sledges and roped them down and we picked up some personal gear and were ready to go. The tent was left in position with all the remaining equipment scattered around the inside and littering the landscape outside. The race was on to get away.
My eyes followed the line of the ground from the mayhem of the glacier up to the beautiful ridges and peaks. The mountains, demonstrating their awesome power, seemed to look away from me, casting a veil of innocence over the scene and denying any responsibility for the tragedy. Perhaps, I thought, they were merely contemplating more important things than those that had befallen our beleaguered traveling party. I knew then that my greatest problem was going to be understanding, how such an outstandingly beautiful place could be the cause of such misery and deluge.
I forced myself to take one last look at the hole in the bridge of the crevasse as Wilfred, the lead man in the rescue party, reached forward and separated the ropes from the skidoo that were attached to our friends. As he dropped the ropes downwards, this former military man put his hand to his head in salute. In that movement we had lost them forever.
Steve Tait