had ignored his pleas for them to stop and he had straggled farther and farther behind on the trail until he had disappeared from sight. ‘He’ll catch up,’ Forester said. ‘He’s more scared of the commies than he is of me.’ He grinned with savage satisfaction. ‘But I’ll change that before we’re through.’
Rohde was in nearly as bad shape as Forester, although he was more used to the mountains. He sat on the floor of the hut, gasping for breath, too weary to shrug off his pack. They both relaxed for over half an hour before Rohde made any constructive move. At last he fumbled with numb fingers at the fastenings of his pack, and said, ‘We must have warmth; get out the kerosene.’
As Forester undid his pack Rohde took the small axe which had been brought from the Dakota and left the hut. Presently Forester heard him chopping at something in one of the other huts and guessed he had gone for the makings of a fire. He got out the bottle of kerosene and put it aside, ready for when Rohde came back.
An hour later they had a small fire going in the middle of the hut. Rohde had used the minimum of kerosene to start it and small chips of wood built up in a pyramid. Forester chuckled. ‘You must have been a boy scout.’
‘I was,’ said Rohde seriously. ‘That is a fine organization.’ He stretched. ‘Now we must eat.’
‘I don’t feel hungry,’ objected Forester.
‘I know – neither do I. Nevertheless, we must eat.’ Rohde looked out of the window towards the pass. ‘We must fuel ourselves for tomorrow.’
They warmed a can of beans and Forester choked down his share. He had not the slightest desire for food, nor for anything except quietness. His limbs felt flaccid and heavy and he felt incapable of the slightest exertion. His mind was affected, too, and he found it difficult to think clearly and to stick to a single line of thought. He just sat there in a corner of the hut, listlessly munching his lukewarm beans and hating every mouthful.
He said, ‘Christ, I feel terrible.’
‘It is the soroche,’ said Rohde with a shrug. ‘We must expect to feel like this.’ He shook his head regretfully. ‘We are not allowing enough time for acclimatization.’
‘It wasn’t as bad as this when we came out of the plane,’ said Forester.
‘We had oxygen,’ Rohde pointed out. ‘And we went down the mountain quickly. You understand that this is dangerous?’
‘Dangerous? I know I feel goddam sick.’
‘There was an American expedition here a few years ago, climbing mountains to the north of here. They went quickly to a level of five thousand metres – about as high as we are now. One of the Americans lost consciousness because of the soroche, and although they had a doctor, he died while being taken down the mountain. Yes, it is dangerous, Señor Forester.’
Forester grinned weakly. ‘In a moment of danger we ought to be on a first-name basis, Miguel. My name is Ray.’
After a while they heard Peabody moving outside. Rohde heaved himself to his feet and went to the door. ‘We are here, señor.’
Peabody stumbled into the hut and collapsed on the floor. ‘You lousy bastards,’ he gasped. ‘Why didn’t you wait?’
Forester grinned at him. ‘We’ll be moving really fast when we leave here,’ he said. ‘Coming up from the camp was like a Sunday morning stroll compared to what’s coming next. We’ll not wait for you then, Peabody.’
‘You son of a bitch. I’ll get even with you,’ Peabody threatened.
Forester laughed. ‘I’ll ram those words down your throat – but not now. There’ll be time enough later.’
Rohde put out a can of beans. ‘You must eat, and we must work. Come, Ray.’
‘I don’t wanna eat,’ moaned Peabody.
‘Suit yourself,’ said Forester. ‘I don’t care if you starve to death.’ He got up and went out of the hut, following Rohde. ‘This loss of appetite – is that soroche, too?’
Rohde nodded. ‘We will eat little from now on – we must live on the reserves of our bodies. A fit man can do it – but that man … ? I don’t know if he can do it.’
They walked slowly down the airstrip towards the crashed Dakota. To Forester it seemed incredible that O’Hara had found it too short on which to land because to him it now appeared to be several miles long. He plodded on, mechanically putting one foot in front of the other, while the cold air rasped in his throat and his chest heaved with the drudging effort he was making.
They left the airstrip and skirted the cliff over which the plane had plunged. There had been a fresh fall of snow which mantled the broken wings and softened the jagged outlines of the holes torn in the fuselage. Forester looked down over the cliff, and said, ‘I don’t think this can be seen from the air – the snow makes perfect camouflage. If there is an air search I don’t think they’ll find us.’
Walking with difficulty over the broken ground, they climbed to the wreck and got inside through the hole O’Hara had chopped when he and Rohde had retrieved the oxygen cylinder. It was dim and bleak inside the Dakota and Forester shivered, not from the cold which was becoming intense, but from the odd idea that this was the corpse of a once living and vibrant thing. He shook the idea from him, and said, ‘There were some straps on the luggage rack – complete with buckles. We could use those, and O’Hara says there are gloves in the cockpit.’
‘That is good,’ agreed Rohde. ‘I will look towards the front for what I can find.’
Forester went aft and his breath hissed when he saw the body of old Coughlin, a shattered smear of frozen flesh and broken bones on the rear seat. He averted his eyes and turned to the luggage-rack and began to unbuckle the straps. His fingers were numb with the cold and his movements clumsy, but at last he managed to get them free – four broad canvas straps which could be used on the packs. That gave him an idea and he turned his attention to the seat belts, but they were anchored firmly and it was hopeless to try to remove them without tools.
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