An hour later it is considerably warmer in the tent. Roger sips hot tea, tries to predict the wind's hammering. The melted water from the cave's ice apparently has some silt in it; Roger, along with three or four of the others, has had his digestion upset by the silt, and now he feels a touch of the glacial dysentery coming on. Uncomfortably he quells the urge. Some particularly sharp blows to the tent wake Eileen; she sticks her head out of her bag, looking befuddled.
“Wind's up,” Roger says. “Want some tea?”
“Mmmph.” She pulls away her oxygen mask. “Yeah.” She takes a full cup and drinks. “Thirsty.”
“Yeah. The masks seem to do that.”
“What time is it?”
“Four.”
“Ah. My alarm must have woken me. Almost time for the call.”
Although it is cloudy to the east, they still get a distinct increase of light when Archimedes rises. Roger pulls on his cold boots and groans. “Gotta go,” he says to Eileen, and unzips the tent just far enough to get out.
“Stay harnessed up!”
Outside, one of the katabatic blasts shoves him hard. It's very cold, perhaps twenty degrees below Celsius, so that the windchill factor when it is blowing hardest is extreme. Unfortunately, he does have a touch of the runs. Much relieved, and very chilled, he pulls his pants up and steps back into the tent. Eileen is on the radio. People are to stay inside until the winds abate a little, she says. Roger nods vigorously. When she is done she laughs at him. “You know what Dougal would say.”
“Oh, it was very invigorating all right.”
She laughs again.
Time passes. When he warms back up Roger dozes off. It's actually easier to sleep during the day, when the tent is warmer.
He is rudely awakened late in the morning by a shout from outside. Eileen jerks up in her bag and unzips the tent door. Dougal sticks his head in, pulls his oxygen mask onto his chest, frosts them with hard breathing. “Our tent has been smashed by a rock,” he says, almost apologetically. “Frances has got her arm broken. I need some help getting her down.”
“Down where?” Roger says involuntarily.
“Well, I thought to the cave, anyway. Or at least to here—our tent's crushed, she's pretty much out in the open right now—in her bag, you know, but the tent's not doing much.”
Grimly Eileen and Roger begin to pull their climbing clothes on.
Outside the wind rips at them and Roger wonders if he can climb. They clip on to the rope and jumar up rapidly, moving at emergency speed. Sometimes the blasts of wind from above are so strong that they can only hang in against the rock and wait. During one blast Roger becomes frightened—it seems impossible that flesh and bone, harness, jumar, rope, piton, and rock will all hold under the immense pressure of the downdraft. But all he can do is huddle in the crack the fixed rope follows and hope, getting colder every second.
They enter a long snaking ice gully that protects them from the worst of the wind, and make better progress. Several times rocks or chunks of ice fall by them, dropping like bombs or giant hailstones. Dougal and Eileen are climbing so fast that it is difficult to keep up with them. Roger feels weak and cold; even though he is completely covered, his nose and fingers feel frozen. His intestines twist a little as he crawls over a boulder jammed in the gully, and he groans. Better to have stayed in the tent on this particular day.
Suddenly they are at Camp Nine—one big box tent, flattened at one end. It is flapping like a big flag in a gale, cracking and snapping again and again, nearly drowning out their voices. Frances is glad to see them; under her goggles her eyes are red-rimmed. “I think I can sit up in a sling and rappel down if you can help me,” she says over the tent noise.
“How are you?” asks Eileen.
“The left arm's broken just above the elbow. I've made a bit of a splint for it. I'm awfully cold, but other than that I don't feel too bad. I've taken some painkillers, but not enough to make me sleepy.”
They all crowd into what's left of the tent and Eileen turns on a stove. Dougal dashes about outside, vainly trying to secure the open end of the tent and end the flapping. They brew tea and sit in sleeping bags to drink it. “What time is it?” “Two.” “We'd better be off then.” “Yeah.”
Getting Frances down to Camp Eight is slow, cold work. The exertion of climbing the fixed ropes at high speed was just enough to keep them warm on the climb up; now they have to hug the rock and hold on, or wait while Frances is belayed down one of the steeper sections. She uses her right arm and steps down everything she can, helping the process as much as possible.
She is stepping over the boulder that gave Roger such distress when a blast of wind hits her like a punch, and over the rock she tumbles, face against it. Roger leaps up from below and grabs her just as she is about to roll helplessly onto her left side. For a moment all he can do is hang there, holding her steady. Dougal and Eileen shout down from above. No room for them. Roger double-sets the jumar on the fixed rope above him, pulls up with one arm, the other around Frances's back. They eye each other through their goggles—she scrambles blindly for a foothold—finds something and takes some of her weight herself. Still, they are stuck there. Roger shows Frances his hand and points at it, trying to convey his plan. She nods. He unclips from the fixed rope, sets the jumar once again right below Frances, descends to a good foothold, and laces his hands together. He reaches up, guides Frances's free foot into his hands. She shifts her weight onto that foot and lowers herself until Roger keeps the hold in place. Then the other foot crosses to join Roger's two feet—a good bit of work by Frances, who is certainly hurting. Mid-move another gust almost wrecks their balance, but they lean into each other and hold. They are below the boulder, and Dougal and Eileen can now climb over it and belay Frances again.