Read Online Buried in the Sky: The Extraordinary Story of the Sherpa Climbers on K2's Deadliest Day by Peter Zuckerman, Amanda Padoan - Free Book Online
Authors: Peter Zuckerman, Amanda Padoan
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pomade, he considered marriage “coercive” and could talk himself out of danger in a dozen languages. In 1889, the twenty-six-year-old joined six Gurkhas—elite soldiers from Nepal—and left in search of Shimshal. From the stories traders told him, Shimshalis moved like snow leopards, silently stalking and devouring their prey, then vanishing into the Karakorum. Intrigued, Younghusband trekked in the direction of the raids. Within a month, he had found the Shimshal Pass and, below it, a den of thieves. Younghusband scrambled up the cliff to the raiders’ fort, peered inside the wide-open gate, and waved a greeting.
The gate slammed shut. Instantly, “the wall was manned by wild-looking Kanjutis, shouting . . . and pointing their matchlocks” at him. The spy waited, “expect[ing] at any moment to have bullets and stones whizzing about [his] ears,” until two henchmen emerged from the gate, sized him up, and left.
Younghusband returned that afternoon on horseback. This time, when he approached the gate, it swung open. Leaving his Gurkha soldiers behind, he trotted inside the fort. Before his eyes could adjust to the darkness, a man sprang from the shadows and yanked the horse’s bridle. The startled animal reared, nearly bucking Younghusband off the saddle. In the commotion, the Gurkhas charged, ready to defend horse and rider, but Younghusband kept his cool. He dismounted as though he’d just arrived at a stable, and the Shimshalis burst out laughing. As the spy had guessed, this mock ambush had been their way of testing his mettle. He had passed.
The raiders welcomed him, offered him tea and dope, and showed off their matchlocks, which fired the only slugs available: garnets gouged from the hillsides. When conversation turned to the caravan raids, the Shimshalis said they couldn’t negotiate; Younghusband would have to speak to their employer, Mir Safdar Ali. They agreed to escort him to Baltit, the Mir’s stronghold down the valley.
Younghusband scaled the Shimshal Pass to map it and continued his reconnaissance. En route, he encountered his archrival, Bronislav Gromchevsky, a spy for the Russians. Although adversaries in the diplomatic duel known as The Great Game, Younghusband and Gromchevsky considered themselves gentlemen, so they shared vodka and brandy , debated imperial policy, and gossiped about the Mir, whom Gromchevsky knew by reputation. Mir Safdar Ali, Younghusband learned, claimed descent from Alexander the Great and a promiscuous fairy. Safdar had ascended the throne by chucking one brother off a cliff, beheading a second, dismembering a third, poisoning his mother, and garroting his father, who had murdered his own father by sending him a smallpox-laced robe. “Patricide and fratricide may be said to be hereditary failings of the royal families of Hunza,” contemporary historian E. F. Knight once noted. The Mir, “whose cruelty was unrelieved by any redeeming feature ,” took personal and military advice from a drum pounded by invisible hands, audible only to him. Younghusband must have wondered how he could negotiate with such a psychopath.
When Younghusband arrived in Hunza, he buttoned up his scarlet Dragoon Guards uniform and, flanked by Gurkhas, strode into the Mir’s ceremonial tent. The throne of absolute power resembled a wooden lounge chair, and, when Younghusband glanced around for a place to sit, the Mir motioned for him to kneel in the dust.
Younghusband suspended negotiations. The next day, the Mir visited Younghusband’s tent and proposed a compromise. Raids through Shimshal were a legitimate source of income, Safdar declared, and would stop only if Britain provided a bribe.
But “the Queen is not in the habit of paying blackmail ,” Younghusband replied, balancing on the folding chair his aides had found. He switched tactics and tried intimidation, ordering his six Gurkhas to point their rifles out the tent flap and shoot a rock far down the valley. Every bullet
The gate slammed shut. Instantly, “the wall was manned by wild-looking Kanjutis, shouting . . . and pointing their matchlocks” at him. The spy waited, “expect[ing] at any moment to have bullets and stones whizzing about [his] ears,” until two henchmen emerged from the gate, sized him up, and left.
Younghusband returned that afternoon on horseback. This time, when he approached the gate, it swung open. Leaving his Gurkha soldiers behind, he trotted inside the fort. Before his eyes could adjust to the darkness, a man sprang from the shadows and yanked the horse’s bridle. The startled animal reared, nearly bucking Younghusband off the saddle. In the commotion, the Gurkhas charged, ready to defend horse and rider, but Younghusband kept his cool. He dismounted as though he’d just arrived at a stable, and the Shimshalis burst out laughing. As the spy had guessed, this mock ambush had been their way of testing his mettle. He had passed.
The raiders welcomed him, offered him tea and dope, and showed off their matchlocks, which fired the only slugs available: garnets gouged from the hillsides. When conversation turned to the caravan raids, the Shimshalis said they couldn’t negotiate; Younghusband would have to speak to their employer, Mir Safdar Ali. They agreed to escort him to Baltit, the Mir’s stronghold down the valley.
Younghusband scaled the Shimshal Pass to map it and continued his reconnaissance. En route, he encountered his archrival, Bronislav Gromchevsky, a spy for the Russians. Although adversaries in the diplomatic duel known as The Great Game, Younghusband and Gromchevsky considered themselves gentlemen, so they shared vodka and brandy , debated imperial policy, and gossiped about the Mir, whom Gromchevsky knew by reputation. Mir Safdar Ali, Younghusband learned, claimed descent from Alexander the Great and a promiscuous fairy. Safdar had ascended the throne by chucking one brother off a cliff, beheading a second, dismembering a third, poisoning his mother, and garroting his father, who had murdered his own father by sending him a smallpox-laced robe. “Patricide and fratricide may be said to be hereditary failings of the royal families of Hunza,” contemporary historian E. F. Knight once noted. The Mir, “whose cruelty was unrelieved by any redeeming feature ,” took personal and military advice from a drum pounded by invisible hands, audible only to him. Younghusband must have wondered how he could negotiate with such a psychopath.
When Younghusband arrived in Hunza, he buttoned up his scarlet Dragoon Guards uniform and, flanked by Gurkhas, strode into the Mir’s ceremonial tent. The throne of absolute power resembled a wooden lounge chair, and, when Younghusband glanced around for a place to sit, the Mir motioned for him to kneel in the dust.
Younghusband suspended negotiations. The next day, the Mir visited Younghusband’s tent and proposed a compromise. Raids through Shimshal were a legitimate source of income, Safdar declared, and would stop only if Britain provided a bribe.
But “the Queen is not in the habit of paying blackmail ,” Younghusband replied, balancing on the folding chair his aides had found. He switched tactics and tried intimidation, ordering his six Gurkhas to point their rifles out the tent flap and shoot a rock far down the valley. Every bullet
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