"RESCUED"

I was indulging my sorrow in the only way I could to alleviate the pain of her loss. The funeral being over some weeks ago, I had returned to Nepal to walk on my own among the high tops of the Himalaya mountains we loved and throughout whose regal heights we had climbed together over the years.

Our twenty years of childless but happy marriage had ended in the cruellest of ways. Cancer. She had kept it from me as long as she could but eventually I could see the suffering in her eyes. This occasionally, but with increasing frequency, erupted in a muted groan of pain which latterly she had difficulty in suppressing. Just indigestion, she had initially maintained, but it started to happen too frequently and I began to suspect there was something far more seriously wrong. She eventually agreed to go and see our local GP and from there it was the local hospital for X-rays and other tests. That was when they diagnosed it.

Several weeks and many tests later we were called back to the hospital. Sorry, they said. The cancer was too far advanced now to be operable. If only she had seen about it sooner, they told us. They gave her six months - maybe less. It turned out to be less.

The initial devastation at the news was total for both of us but probably more so for me. She, however, was made of hardier and more resilient material. She shed no tears of self pity, just a resolve to try to beat this outrage to her body in any way she could. Chemotherapy. Radiotherapy. Homeopathic treatments. Unfortunately all were applied to no avail. The terrible disease advanced with increasing and frightening ferocity and she lost pound after pound in weight.

Near the end she was so charged with painkilling drugs that she failed to recognise me when I went to visit her. That last night in the hospital with her was by far the worst few hours of my life. She died at three-thirty in the morning.

Neither of us having any close family there was only myself to witness her peaceful departure to join that core of light which we must all eventually join. I sat with her, holding her hand, for two hours after she had gone. The nurses thankfully and thoughtfully observed the sad little scenario only from a distance. They obviously must often have witnessed more or less the same scenario many times before.

The funeral was simple and, with no close family to attend on either side, there was no cortge. She was cremated two days later and all that remained of Aileen's beautiful being was a small urn containing her ashes. It seemed so little for the twenty years of happiness we had shared, yachting, mountaineering, and writing our respective articles for a variety of magazines and technical journals.

Why us? I had asked myself time and time again. And why someone like Aileen? She had been a loving and caring human being. The old clich that "God works in mysterious ways" brought no consolation whatsoever to me. The bad should die in this way, I reasoned, not the good. The day she died I lost whatever tenuous thread of belief in a beneficent God I might have had.

We had each promised that whoever survived the other would, if they were able, take their ashes to Nepal. There we would allow the wind to spread them over the mountains we had come to love. It was a promise I knew I had to keep, and that was the reason for my now being here, on my own.

I was almost 20,000 feet up on one of our favourite Himalayan mountains, Dhaulagiri. It was a mountain we knew well but one on which we had both almost been killed by an avalanche only two years after we were married.

I knew it could be dangerous climbing on one's own, but I wasn't the only person to have tackled these mountains alone. Shipton had done it, Slessor had done it, Stdler had done it, Harrer and Buhl had done it. Although I had been given time off, I deliberately hadn't told anyone in the office where I was going but frankly, at the time, I was in frame of mind where I didn't give a damn any more. My own death, should it happen here, would give me welcome relief from my sorrow.

I had spent some days at altitude, acclimatising, and was feeling good from a fitness point of view. I hadn't used the small oxygen tank I had brought for the higher altitude I had hoped to reach. The weather had been excellent for many days now but from experience I could tell from high cloud formations that a change was coming soon. Although I dearly wanted to, I knew I couldn't waste any time in going higher on this 26,800 foot peak. I turned round and surveyed the panorama before me. Nothing but pure and untrodden snowfield after snowfield, mountain after mountain, as far as the eye could see. Directly below me was the glacier, its crevasses showing translucent green ice before disappearing into the dark and ancient depths.

Aileen would have loved this scene. There was only a gentle wind soughing across the fresh snow and all around me was peace and tranquillity. There was also a purity of spirit and absence of any kind of worldly contamination here. It epitomised the entity that had been Aileen and I decided this was the ideal place for my wife to spend the rest of her ethereal existence, her freed spirit spread over these mountains that she had loved.

I stuck my walking poles into the snow, slid my snow goggles onto the top of my head, and removed the small urn containing her ashes from my pack. Holding it in both hands I considered the finality of my next action and the tears welled up in my eyes once more. I turned my back to the light wind and after a few seconds of silent contemplation I removing the screwed stopper. Gently tilting the urn I let its contents slowly trickle out, to be wafted away to spread themselves over many mountains in a way which would have been impossible in Aileen's corporeal state.

"`Bye, love. I'm sure we'll meet again someday soon." Although I knew within myself it would never happen, it seemed the right thing to say.

The urn now empty, I hurled it away from me and watched as it as it bounced and slid down the icy mountainside. It eventually disappeared over a precipice, probably to come to rest on the glacier, four thousand feet below. I sat down in the snow and wiped the tears from my eyes. I had to look to the future now - Aileen would have wanted me to.

It was then I heard the all-too-familiar and gut-wrenching sound from somewhere high above me. I looked up. There were a few seconds of ominous silence as a few small particles of ice and snow bounced past me, followed by gradually bigger particles. I knew what was coming and my worst fears were soon realised. From above a roaring sound was now increasing in volume and I recognised the sound that all mountain people dread - an avalanche.

I looked around me but there was nowhere for me to go. I was on an exposed slope with no protective rocks anywhere near, behind which I might have sought some measure of protection. I gave myself up to the inevitable and although I dug my walking poles into the snow as far as I could, I was soon enveloped in a rushing wind. Then I was bowled head over heels as the avalanche struck me, taking me with it down the mountainside at breakneck speed, over cliffs, down snowfields, through gullies, bouncing off rocks. On the way down I was being struck repeatedly by huge lumps of hard snow and harder ice.

I had the sense to cover my nose and mouth with my hands to prevent the ingress of powder snow into my lungs under pressure. I knew this could have resulted in my drowning should I survive the actual avalanche.

Eventually I was struck on the head by a large chunk of ice and knew no more. My last thought was that I was dead.

* * * * * *

I came to in a diffused and ethereal semi-darkness and I wondered if this was the Afterlife. No - it couldn't be. We had always been promised there would be no pain in the Afterlife. Not like this. I ached all over, one of my arms was useless, and one eye was seeing things through a red haze. I was on my back and obviously looking towards the surface because I could see brighter light above me. I used my other arm to scoop the snow away from my face and as I did so I became aware that the level of light coming through the snow from above me intensified. I knew I must be near the surface. Lucky me. It's well known that people buried in avalanches lose all sense of orientation. I groaned with the pain in my arm and my right ankle, which also felt as if it was broken. I tried to move it and blacked out again with the pain.

During the next half hour or so I was only semi-conscious but was, at some point, aware of being lifted out of the snow and carried. In amazement I realised I was being rescued. But by whom? I had no knowledge of any climbing expeditions in the area. And how had they known I was in trouble anyway? They must have seen the avalanche hit me. I was also aware of a bad smell, the source of which I was at a loss to identify. In my semi-conscious state I couldn't be bothered even to wonder about it for any length of time. I kept blacking out completely with only short spells of mental lucidity.

One thing I was pleased about was the fact that I was warm. I appeared to have been wrapped in some kind of fur and I suddenly realised that this was the source of the obnoxious smell which was assailing my nostrils. I could also hear some kind of muttered conversation in a language which I could not understand. But what the hell - I was alive and being rescued.

It seemed I was carried like this for several miles downhill and eventually was laid down on the ground. The fur skin was still over my eyes and I was unable to identify my location. I could hear a river or stream gurgling close by and longed for one of my rescuers to loosen my cover and allow me to thank them for snatching me from the jaws of certain death.

The furry skin was eventually pulled back from my face and I had to screw my eyes up against the sudden light. One of my rescuers was bending over me and as my one good eye adjusted I involuntarily screamed in terror, for above me was the face, not of a human being, but of a huge ape-like creature. It jumped back in mutual alarm and I then realised there were several of them around me, including young ones, and what were obviously females. All were covered in white fur and showed no aggression towards me whatsoever.

Standing upright, they had gathered closer together and were obviously discussing me, using the guttural but completely alien language I had heard earlier.

I made an abortive attempt to sit up and the youngsters clung to their mothers in alarm. The huge male, who appeared to be the group leader, watched me warily in case I made any attempts at attacking them. How could I, even if I had wanted to? I had an obviously-broken arm and ankle, blood from a head injury was caked down one side of my face and into my right eye. I also appeared to weigh only about one quarter of that of the large male creature.

I managed to shake the skin off of me and this time managed to sit upright. I looked around me. I was in a clearing of trees, far below the snow line. I was obviously in a small living community as there were shelters all round made from branches and leaves. What was even more amazing was the fact that in the centre of the clearing a fire was burning. Over this a stone or earthenware pot was suspended and from it steam was issuing. What kind of animal used fire to cook, or for any other reason?

I now sat with my back against a rock and surveyed my position while these creatures, which I now realised with great excitement must be the Yetis of Himalayan mythology, considered me in likewise curious fashion.

Gradually I came to realise they meant me no harm and my initial terror subsided. When one of the females approached with a small stone cup of water, instead of shrinking away from her I looked at her strangely-human eyes and saw in them only genuine concern. I accepted the cup and drank some of the water, after which I soaked my handkerchief in the cup and wiped the caked blood from my face and eye. I then gently probed in my hair to gain some idea of the seriousness of my scalp injury. Fortunately it appeared to be only superficial.

I handed her back the cup and nodded my thanks. I could have sworn she smiled in response and my fears dissipated even further. She went away then returned and indicated that I should remove my outer clothing. Although we were down below the snow level it was still extremely cold. I indicated this to her by clasping my good arm round my shoulders. Amazingly she understood for the next moment she brought another, softer, animal skin and laid it around my shoulders.

I removed my clothing with some help and wrapped the skin round me closer. It was then I noticed on the ground nearby another skin, furry side down, on which was a small mound of what looked like clay. She pointed at my broken arm and I realised with further amazement that this was to be used as a plaster cast. I had already noticed that one of the youngsters had one arm encased in this material.

The same female then handed me two small leaves and made obvious signs that I should chew them then spit them out. I did so, but not without some hesitancy. What was O.K. for them to eat might not be suitable for my digestive system. The relative relief from pain a few minutes later was sheer bliss. Gritting my teeth, I was then able to allow two of them to manipulate the broken bone into position without too much pain. In no time at all my arm, then my ankle, had been immobilised in rapidly hardening casts of clay.

I was helped into one of the shelters and just sat there for a while, taking in the amazing scene of quite normal domesticity.

The following day I was able to stand up and hobble about the clearing on a makeshift crutch.

I stayed with these creatures - I hesitate to call them animals because of their obvious level of intelligence and the fact that they cooked their food - for several weeks. Although I was never able to understand their guttural language we soon established an effective, if limited, means of communication through sign language.

Apart from my initial alarm, at no time thereafter, during my stay with them, did I feel threatened in any way and I was allowed to roam about their encampment at will, with the aid of the tree-branch crutch which I had been given, while my injuries healed.

After three weeks I indicated, not without some regret, that I wished to leave and return to the low valleys. My plasters were carefully removed and although my ankle was stiff I was able to walk on it without too much pain. I kept my arm in a sling for a few days more and it was with a mixture of regret and relief that I accepted from them a skin shoulder bag containing food. This consisted mostly of wild berries and water. I was then escorted to within a few kilometres of a small Nepalese village by the female who had attended to my injuries, and by the huge male leader of the group. Not knowing whether its significance registered on them or not, in turn I clutched each of the two Yetis' `hands' in thanks and my firm clasp was returned.

I began walking down towards the village and when I turned back to wave, the pair had disappeared.

Being fairly well known in mountaineering circles my return to civilisation was reported in the international press. I explained that, after the avalanche, in my confused and injured state I had descended into a strange valley. I had also to explain that I had survived for all these weeks by eating berries and roots but in view of my relatively good physical condition I knew that many of my media interrogators viewed this claim with more than a little scepticism. I was certainly not about to reveal the real reason for my survival and the existence and location of my rescuers. I knew that once this was known they would be hounded from valley to valley and mountain to mountain, resulting in their eventual but certain extinction.

Several months later I returned to the beautiful little high valley in which their little community had been set up. Although there were signs of their occupation there was no additional indication of the species of creatures whose kindness and `humanity` had saved me from certain death high up on the mountain. Considering the state of our world and man's worldwide inhumanity to his fellow human beings, I reflected that, as beings obviously close to being animals, they could have taught mankind a thing or two about the meaning of humanitarianism.