Annapurna Read Free Page B

supply and care of all the films would be his business. Collecting and documenting our scientific observations would be another responsibility of this intelligent, enterprising and lively-minded man. Ichac had managed to solve one of the climber’s biggest problems – a wife is always a risk! – by marrying another climber.
    We hoped Jacques Oudot would be our MO. He was a first-class surgeon, and we should all be able to treat ourselves to the luxury of a fracture. But he was up to his eyes in work, and had very prudently given orders that he must not be disturbed at the Salpêtrière hospital where he performed vascular surgical operations under the direction of his chief, Mondor. The things he dared to do appeared so incredible to me that I was always asking him, ‘And d’you mean to say he didn’t die?’ Simplicity of ignorance! Anyway, my questions about surgery always seemed to cause him great amusement. There are not many surgeons who climb, and I knew from personal experience how invaluable Oudot would be to us.
    ‘Oudot, have you made up your mind?’
    ‘Just now I am very busy.’ His shrewd little eyes blinked cagily. ‘I’ll tell you tomorrow,’ he would promise.
    This performance had been going on for a week; Devies and I were on tenterhooks. Two days before our departure we finally dragged from him the longed-for ‘yes’. His job would be to keep us all in good health, to deal with emergency ailments and accidents, and also to keep me constantly informed about the physical condition of the party and their degree of acclimatization. In addition he would exercise his skill upon the local populations.
    There was one thorny question: the liaison officer. Our preference was for a Frenchman whom we should be likely to get on with and to understand. Robert Tézenas du Montcel had spoken to us, a few days previously, of a young diplomat at the Embassy in New Delhi. A lot would be required of him: as well as English he must know and speak Hindustani and the principal local languages – Gurkhali and Tibetan. He would have to arrange all the transport and would also be responsible for good diplomatic relations with the Nepalese authorities in the capital of Katmandu as well as in the regions through which we should be travelling. Francis de Noyelle seemed the ideal person. Furthermore he was entirely at home in the mountains, being himself an ardent climber – an indispensable requirement in our party.
    Noyelle was the only one I did not know, but his parents and his sister gave me such a clear picture of him that I had the feeling I was dealing with a friend. He was a well-built, self-reliant, keen-eyed young man, accustomed to dealing with the local high-ups. Not long ago he made a trip to Katmandu with Monsieur Daniel Levi, our Ambassador to India and Nepal, who enjoys considerable prestige in these countries. He took part in the negotiations which succeeded in obtaining the rarely granted permission to penetrate far into Nepalese territory. In India, Professor Rahaul, who had himself already taken part in several Himalayan Expeditions, would help Noyelle in Darjeeling to recruit the Sherpas 1 whom for the most part he knew personally.
    That was our party – all tough chaps, all men of marked individuality and striking character. All of them ardently wished to go to the Himalaya which we had talked about for so many years. Lachenal put it in a nutshell: ‘We’d go if we had to crawl there.’
    Let me put it clearly on record that their zeal for the adventure was entirely disinterested. From the start every one of them knew that nothing belonged to him and that he must expect nothing on his return. 2 Their only motive was pure idealism; this was what linked together mountaineers so unlike in character and of such widely dissimilar origins.
    In the days remaining before our departure Schatz and I went round to hustle up all the firms supplying our equipment. Our arms were sore from all the injections we