The Mammoth Book of Mountain Disasters Read online

  Great! In a trice everything turned upside down. The accident happened 400 kilometers as the crow flies from Prague where I was up to my ears with work. Instead of concentrating all my thoughts on the main problem of what to take with me, I began to speculate where the avalanche accident might have happened. I was a little confused because I knew very little of those southerly slopes of the seventy kilometre-long mountain chain. The majority of that hillside was inaccessible then, far from roads and railway, without hotels, lodges marked routes, downhill runs, chairlifts or ski-tows. Really, virgin mountain country with the only exception being the southern part of Chopok.

  Deliberating on these things I lost a lot of precious time. But in spite of this I landed at Banska Bystrica airport by five pm and immediately went on by mountain rescue service car. The young man who met me couldn’t tell me much because he himself knew little. He was, however, a skilled driver who, in spite of the twisting narrow roads, snowdrifts and ice, covered the fifty kilometers to the village Dolna Lehota within the hour.

  It was from this village that the SOS call had been sent several hours previously, a small Slovakian mountain village in the old style, with low wooden cottages, a quiet idyllic place. But when I arrived this was no longer the case. Military vehicles, soldiers, lighting and telephone cables were everywhere with the unhappy villagers looking on in amazement.

  I didn’t have much time to take all this in but was impressed how much had already been done. I sensed that there was a good feeling of fellowship amongst the rescuers, a voluntary unit, a blend of intellect will and technical expertise whose common aim was to save human lives. Aware of these high ideals, I entered the village headman’s house.

  It now served as the headquarters of the commanding officer. The high-ranking army officer did not let anyone forget that he was appointed as lord of the avalanche and that everybody must comply with his orders without hesitation.

  “You’re late!” he greeted me with those tense words and a firm hand-shake. “Will you have a drink?”

  “Thanks.”

  “Let’s start immediately,” he continued, “you are said to be an avalanche expert. Let’s hope so.” He looked at me steadily. “As you have probably seen, the army has undertaken the rescue operation, as we have the necessary equipment and men. But you must help us because we have no experience with avalanches. My second in command is avalanche commander above in the search area and he’s been told to carry out your orders. The position is this,” he cleared his throat, “there are about two hundred people above. Tomorrow, if necessary, there will be three or four hundred. You are fully responsible for their safety. Do you understand? You must safeguard them against further avalanche danger!”

  “No, sir, I do not agree to your conditions!”

  My reply took the officer unawares – he wasn’t used to being talked to like this. His mouth closed with a click of teeth – I continued before he recovered.

  “After eight days of snowfall there is a general avalanche hazard. That’s all I can tell you. If you have taken on the overall responsibility for this rescue you must also reckon with the risk. I can only assure you that I’ll assess the snow situation on the avalanche slopes above as soon as it is possible. Now it is getting dark and I can’t do it until first light. I must tell you, too, that I’ve never been in this region before. I don’t know it and won’t tell you any fairy tales!”

  “All right,” he said slowly, “your points sound sensible. I’ll ring up the avalanche commander. You go up there in about half an hour. I’ll give you a tracked vehicle and a driver at your permanent disposal. Here is a large scale map of the area and I won’t try to influence your decision tonight. It’s your decision whether you will let the rescue go on, or stop it till tomorrow. I have ordered a helicopter for the early morning to observe the situation from the air. You will want to use this, I presume.”

  “For heaven’s sake, no helicopter, no airplane, no noisy machinery at all!”

  “Why the hell not?”

  “The noise and the air turbulence of low flying aircraft could release additional snow masses and cause avalanches that might threaten your soldiers and the others as well.”

  “Yes, I see,” he mused, rubbing his chin. I think he was beginning to appreciate that there was more to an avalanche than a pile of snow.

  We went up as far as the forest lodge. The narrow road had been cleared and made wide enough for vehicles moving in one direction only. The traffic was controlled by the police.

  Beyond this, I had to walk. It was not far, some 400 or 500 metres as far as I could judge in the dark. The trail was hard packed and wide, having been trampled by hundreds of feet. Somewhere in the dark to the right a diesel engine throbbed and the battery of lights ahead indicated my final destination.

  In the harsh glare of searchlights I felt myself lost amongst a mass of busy people, mostly soldiers. However, Joe walked out from the dark, having seen me. Instead of friendly words of greeting he shone a powerful light on six mangled corpses lying on the dirty snow.

  I was shocked. It was such a horrid spectacle that I was obliged to transform it in my imagination and thought of it as a Shakespearean tragedy in a theatre. A velvet-black background contrasting with the sharply illuminated foreground, the lights being focussed upon the terrible scene. A brilliant arrangement of light and shadow, indeed; Shakespeare himself wouldn’t have prescribed such a cruelty. The only woman among those six corpses was scalped. Her long black hair laid out beside her bloody bald head.

  “. . . hardly 900 metres above sea level . . . no avalanche as yet . . .” I caught only fragments of Joe’s speech; he must have been speaking for some time. I was full of horror and couldn’t concentrate. I was simply not there.

  “. . . we wanted to probe but it was quite impossible . . . ice-hard snow . . . probes bent and broke . . . what do you say to this system of lengthwise and transverse corridors?”

  “What? Sorry, Joe, I didn’t get that.”

  “Parallel corridors or channels! Two metres apart. It was my idea to dig them and to probe horizontally from within. The snow is hard on the surface only, whereas one or two metres down it’s possible to probe. When I saw so much manpower and tools it occurred to me to make use of them. It seems the only possible way to search the avalanche tip. There are also lots of tree trunks in the debris that must be cut. Do you think this is a sensible method of searching?” he asked me anxiously.

  “Sure. Good work, Joe. I doubt whether such an idea would have occurred to me. Really first class. But tell me, why did you start just in this area? Was it intuition or lucky chance?”

  “Neither. We started to dig in the same place where the forester’s dog discovered two living men and where the forester himself found traces of one man who wasn’t buried, but fell down . . .”

  “Yes, I know. I’ve heard the story already,” I told him. “Nine victims found in such a small area! Incredible.”

  “Yes, that’s right. These six were discovered at a depth of about two metres. The dog couldn’t scent them. It isn’t a trained avalanche dog, of course.”

  “Your corridors are pretty deep. About five metres, aren’t they?”

  “Some even seven metres!” he returned.

  “Joe, I think there are too many people concentrated in one area. Isn’t it possible to enlarge the search area?”

  “You had better tell it to the commander. He’s just coming. I’ll introduce you.”

  The avalanche commander was a young officer of lower rank. At first sight he appeared self-confident and energetic. I realised he expected something different where I was concerned. He surely thought I’d be some sort of superman, with an inscrutable expression, who would confidently point in an instant to where the missing ten persons were to be found. Instead, I presented the figure of quite an ordinary human being called an avalanche expert. Fortunately, he was immediately called to the phone in the signals tent, so that our first impressions were brief and we didn�
�t exchange a word.

  Later, when he returned, he came with an inconspicuous man.

  “This is the forester,” Joe made the introductions.

  I immediately found the forester sympathetic; he was a man of the outdoors.

  “Would you mind, Mr . . ., I am sorry, I didn’t catch your name?”

  “Call me Charlie like the others used to.” He nodded towards the avalanche debris.

  “Well, Charlie,” I began, “could you tell me the story of the avalanche from the very beginning? You seem to be the only reliable witness and I must know all that’s happened.”

  He described the events as he knew them, slowly but briefly. Suddenly I had a feeling of being observed by somebody. I was, but it was the dog who’d fixed his bright amber gaze upon me. When our eyes met I smiled and the dog wagged his short tail – our friendship was sealed.

  Charlie noticed this and said, “This is my dog, Brok. I’m sure he’s the only hero of this terrible day, though he’s not aware of it.”

  “Tell me, Charlie, can you locate the lumberjacks’ hut?”

  “No, I can’t. Everything has changed, and I’m puzzled. Maybe tomorrow in daylight. However, I still haven’t finished the avalanche story,” he continued. “I don’t understand why John climbed that tree over there, you can see it silhouetted in the dark. What do you make of it?”

  “Have you tried talking with him since he came round?”

  “No, they took them all off to the hospital.”

  “I’m puzzled as well, Charlie. I don’t understand it either.”

  Joe, Charlie and I sat down on a broken tree trunk near a fire made by the soldiers. The fire slowly sank down into a snow hollow. Brok, making the most of the pleasant heat, was cuddled upon a sack and soon fast asleep.

  The young officer came back. He had probably received further orders from the CO., for he immediately asked me for instructions.

  “I understand,” I answered, “you are in command of about 200 soldiers and policemen.”

  “Correct,” the officer agreed, “most of them are working on the avalanche, the rest on the road, the generator and communications. There are also the cooks, lorry and bulldozer drivers. Then there is the medical staff. There are another sixteen mountain rescue personnel. However, they are under the command of the rescue chief here.” He nodded towards Joe.

  “Have you really sixteen people available, Joe? I’ve seen about half that number. Where are they all?”

  “I’ll tell you later,” Joe said mysteriously.

  I thought Joe’s reply odd, but didn’t pursue it just then.

  “Tell me,” I addressed the officer again, “when did you discover those six victims?”

  “About three hours ago. They were found practically all at once, certainly within fifteen or twenty minutes.”

  “And since then, what else did you find?”

  “Nothing. Oh, yes, there was a pocket watch belonging to one of the dead men.”

  “I see.” I deliberated, then continued, “I think little more will be discovered in that area. A lot of people are wasting their energy and they cannot work properly as they are too concentrated. Let’s arrange the search more effectively. Unless you have any objections, sir, I would recommend you to allow only fifty people to work here to enlarge the corridors, and another hundred should start the same operation at the end of the avalanche cone and work uphill.”

  “Are you sure that the missing ten men may be there?”

  “No, I am not. But this is normal procedure for avalanche search if no other facts are known, and at the present I don’t know any other facts. Unless someone can give you further information that could change my instructions? No? Well, I haven’t, for example, any idea of where the hut was. I cannot, therefore, but recommend that you start digging at the end of the avalanche tip.”

  “All right, sir, I’ll do it according to your instructions,” the officer agreed, “but I have another twelve soldiers at my disposal. Am I to let them work here or send them down to the end of the avalanche tip?”

  “No, I’ve an idea how best to employ those twelve men. I have seen that the rescuers piss any old place on the avalanche. Tomorrow morning an avalanche dog from High Tatra will arrive and such distractions will interfere with its work. Have these twelve men build latrines somewhere in the wood. Nobody should be allowed to pollute the avalanche further. You must give these orders immediately.”

  The officer’s face was a picture of disenchantment. Such a mundane matter, piss houses indeed!

  Up till then Charlie had been silent and meditatively smoking his pipe, but when the officer and Joe left he turned to me.

  “I think you are right that nobody else will be found in this hollow. I was well acquainted with all the people from the hut. Those discovered in this small area, including John and the two men found by Brok before noon, came from one village and lived together in one room.”

  “And what about the dead woman?” I asked.

  “She was their cook. Loggers from another village lived together in the second room. There was always rivalry between those two groups. The women caused most of the quarrels. You can well imagine the situation: eighteen virile men and two wives. The corridor between the two rooms often formed a boundary that couldn’t be crossed.”

  “Wait a minute, Charlie! Eighteen men and two women. Unless I’m mistaken, that’s twenty people and not nineteen! I was told that there were nineteen people in the hut, not twenty!”

  “That’s right,” Charlie answered slowly, “one of them, called Jim, left for town yesterday as he has to stand trial today. He sells pigs on the black market and is charged with tax evasion. That swindle has saved his life.”

  “Did he live in the same room as the others discovered here?” I pointed to the holes in the avalanche.

  “Yes, he did and, as I said, all in that room have been found. Now we must concentrate the search for the ten missing people from the other room.”

  It was midnight. The snow had stopped falling some time before; the wind had dropped, but now fog slowly crept in. Anonymous figures moved in it like blurred shadows on a screen.

  Charlie with Brok had left half an hour ago and I sat on the broken tree trunk alone, thinking. They were not pleasant thoughts. I was helpless and could do nothing but wait. There was too little known about the circumstances of the tragedy and the known fragments of the jig-saw didn’t help me to find a reasonable solution.

  A phantom-like figure coming out of the damp fog turned out to be the long absent Joe. He was accompanied by a pleasant smell of warm food for there was a soldier with him with a dixy of hot goulash soup. I suddenly felt awfully hungry because I had not eaten since morning.

  As I tucked in, I asked Joe, “How many men did you say you have?”

  “Sixteen, and tomorrow morning there will be another fifty coming from other districts.”

  “I’ve been wondering about your sixteen merry men. Where are they all?”

  “Well, ten of them are working with the soldiers. They are probing the snow between the corridors and six are high up the valley above us monitoring any snow movements.”

  “Have they a radio transmitter?”

  “No, we haven’t any, but I gave them two flare pistols and instructed them to go up along the verge of the remaining forest as far as the mouth of side valley which is about 800 metres above.”

  “Yes, I know where it is. I’ve studied the map I got from the CO. What’s the precise function of those men?”

  “They are to listen carefully. Should they hear a roar of a further avalanche they are to fire a warning flare. That’s the agreed signal for the soldiers. They would then immediately run away from the avalanche tip into the forest.”

  “A sound idea, Joe! I only hope you don’t believe that this precaution will be of any use?”

  “I don’t, really. It’s only a safety gesture. A matter of psychology. I have been simply obliged to do it. I’m sure you understand.”r />
  “Sure, Joe. But now let’s talk in earnest. Do you know this region? If so, tell me whether we are threatened by any further avalanche release. It’s your subjective opinion I want to hear, not any theoretical precepts.”

  “That’s a difficult question, Milo. To tell you the truth, I don’t know the area well enough. I’ve never been here during the winter season before. This region’s not of interest to skiers or climbers. But I was here once in late summer, about three years ago. To the best of my recollection, the upper forest margin is two or three kilometres uphill. Above that there are grassy and steep slopes of about 30° inclination, reaching as high as 1,900 metres. Perfect avalanche runways. A lot of avalanches must hurtle down those slopes every winter but nobody worries about such a huge deserted area, inhabited only by real bears or by bears like Charlie here.” He smiled good naturedly towards the other end of the tree trunk where the forester and Brok had returned and were about to sit down. Charlie had brought a bundle of branches and a bag of pine cones. I looked back at Joe.

  “Go on! As yet you haven’t answered the most important question: whether there is additional avalanche hazard or not.”

  “I don’t know. Maybe yes, maybe no. What do I know of the snow masses up there? In two seconds a new avalanche could bury all of us and I don’t want to talk about it any more. But tell me why are you so firmly convinced that the avalanche must have come from above? It might be a local snow release. Don’t forget the great distance from the avalanche slopes! Between our present position and those slopes there are curved, narrow and afforested valleys. Also, the valleys themselves are not that steep. I worked out their inclination is only between 5° and 15°. No more. In my opinion too little for an avalanche to travel such a great distance, to overcome such obstacles and to reach down to here.”

  “I don’t agree with you, Joe. An avalanche of enormous mass, energy and speed can do it. I’ve no doubt that the avalanche came from above. Look at the map, Joe! The margin of the forest runs pretty zig-zag. What does that mean? That’s a result of previous avalanches, though none of them travelled as far as this one. Such avalanches may occur four or five times within a millennium; probably beyond human memory, especially in such a remote region. Though I haven’t yet seen the situation above, I’m pretty sure about it. But I’m anxious on another point. The valley above is interconnected with another. The avalanche came down through one of those valleys and the valley through which it came is no longer dangerous because it has avalanched – all that snow is down now and cannot produce any additional avalanche. I’m worried about the other valley where perhaps no avalanche has been released as yet. Or, it might have been a double avalanche that came down through both valleys at the same time and merged into one stream of enormous energy just above the loggers’ hut. That would be the most favourable condition for us.”