Home is the Hero
AMIS and FORTINBRAS, two crusty old buffers, sit in a cosy gentlemen’s club. WITHERINGTON, a climber, enters.
AMIS: Ah, come in, Witherington. You know Sir Charles Fortinbras?
WITH: Yes, sir.
FORT: Take a pew, Witherington.
WITH: Thank you, sir.
FORT: Now then, Witherington, we’ve read your report of the expedition to K9. Damn good read, jolly exciting. Bit like Alistair MacLean, what?
AMIS: Should make a thunderin’ good coffee table book. In fact, I’ve just bought a thunderin’ good coffee table to put it on.
WITH: Thank you, sir.
FORT: Just one small cloud on the horizon, Witherington, one tiny goolie in the chota peg. We see you’ve dedicated it to this Sherpa Whatsisname.
WITH: Sherpa Tinto, yes sir.
AMIS: Not British is he, Witherington?
WITH: No, sir. Nepalese.
FORT: Yes, well, I don’t think we need to make him out to be some sort of hero do we, Witherington? After all, this was essentially a British expedition.
WITH: But if it hadn’t been for Sherpa Tinto I would never have made it back alive, sir.
AMIS: So you say on page 13.
WITH: In fact, he saved my life on more than one occasion, sir.
FORT: Pages 39 to 68 inclusive.
WITH: Yes, sir. It was Sherpa Tinto who single-handedly held me up for two hours on the north face after my safety harness had gone, sir.
AMIS: I’m sure any of our chaps would have done the same, Witherington.
WITH: They were all drunk at the time, sir.
AMIS: Well, there you are. Can’t expect a British soldier to climb twenty thousand feet without needing a bit of R&R can you?
WITH: But you can see from the photo that Sherpa Tinto only had one leg, sir.
AMIS: I can count, Witherington.
WITH: And he was blind, sir.
FORT: Leave us not turn this into a soap opera, Witherington. There are more important facts to consider. For example, your report states that he was the only man to actually perish.
WITH: Yes, sir.
AMIS: What about our own chaps? No casualties there at all?
WITH: Only Sergeant Makepeace, sir.
FORT: Ah, this is promising. Paralysed, was he? Laid up? Carried on uncomplaining in the face of unspeakable –
WITH: Touch of frostbite actually, sir. Turned his nose black.
AMIS & FORT: Black?!?
WITH: It’s cleared up now…
(frosty pause)
AMIS: No cases of exposure at all?
WITH: No, sir.
FORT: Malnutrition? Pneumonia?
AMIS: Any broken limbs? Nose bleeds?
FORT: Windy-pops after luncheon?
WITH: No, sir, nothing like that.
FORT: Pity.
WITH: Sir?
AMIS: Well, the point is, Witherington, we did in fact sponsor you for a suicide mission.
FORT: A British suicide mission.
AMIS: We were going to make you a star, Witherington, preferably posthumously.
FORT: Like dear old Ed Hillary.
WITH: But Edmund Hillary isn’t dead, sir.
FORT: Exactly. Your one chance for immortality and you botched it.
AMIS: You see, Witherington, one dead body isn’t playing the game.
FORT: And a Johnny Pongo at that.
AMIS: I mean, you come in here, not even snowblind, don’t even have the courtesy to cringe in front of the fire.
WITH: I’m sorry, sir, but as I say, if it hadn’t been for Sherpa Tinto –
FORT: We couldn’t give a toss about Sherpa Tinto, Witherington. Sherpa Tinto can go fall off a cliff as far as we’re concerned.
WITH: He did, sir.
FORT: Any pictures?
WITH: No, sir.
FORT: To get back to the issue at hand, Witherington. You don’t happen to have any footage of this Sergeant Whtsisname’s gammy leg do you?
WITH: No, sir.
AMIS: Any film of exhausted climbers –
FORT: – exhausted British climbers –
AMIS: – exhausted British climbers slumping in the snow?
FORT: Keeling over from oxygen starvation?
AMIS: Thawing their beards over mugs of cocoa?
WITH: No, sir. I do have a Polaroid snap of Lieutenant Brown being sick over a precipice.
FORT: Colour?
WITH: Black and white.
FORT: Bad show, Witherington.
AMIS: Haven’t you even got any shots of this Tinto chappie doing something Sherpa-like for local colour?
WITH: Like what, sir?
AMIS: Well, I don’t know. What do these people do for fun? Skinning a mountain goat.
FORT: Falling off a cliff.
WITH: No, sir.
AMIS: Well, I’m sorry, Witherington, we’re going to have to ask you to go back again.
WITH: Sir?
FORT: Without Sherpas, Witherington.
AMIS: Yes, keep it an all-British affair this time. And see if you can’t get some really boffo pikkies of people dying and so forth. Media love anything like that.
WITH: But sir, we won’t stand a chance!
AMIS: Not to worry, Witherington, we’ll handle all the publicity this end. Heroes of the peaks.
FORT: White hell.
AMIS: Dunkirk spirit.
FORT: Theirs not to reason why.
WITH: But why, sir?
FORT: Yours not to reason why, Witherington.
AMIS: Off you pop then, Witherington, and remember, break a leg.
FORT: Preferably your neck.
WITH: Yes, sir. (exits)
AMIS: Ah, this is more like it. About time we had someone to put up there alongside old Ed.
FORT: Johnny, I’ve been thinking. Wasn’t old Ed a Kiwi?
AMIS: What, played rugger you mean? Should damn well hope so.
FORT: No, New Zealander wasn’t he? Antopodean chappie?
AMIS: Oh bugger…
FORT: One of us is going to have to do the decent thing.
(FORT takes out a gun. AMIS makes a grab for it)
AMIS: Bags I. You can inform the queen.
FORT: No no, you inform the queen.
AMIS: No, Charles, I bags first.
FORT: Johnny, I’m the senior officer.
AMIS: I screwed more fags than you did.
FORT: I’ve peed out of more second-floor windows.
AMIS: You poop.
FORT: Donkey-plop yourself.
(They argue, struggling over the gun)
PS
Had there been something in the news about some heroic climbing expedition? Or was I just fed up with some gung-ho feat of British imperialism that had recently been splashed endlessly all over the papers? Who knows? But I like the pace of this one, every line leads to the next joke, and like real life it’s nasty, brutish and short. Don’t tell me this kind of conversation has never gone on behind the heavy doors of gentlemen’s clubland.
I like these two moments in particular:
WITH: But you can see from the photo that Sherpa Tinto only had one leg, sir.
AMIS: I can count, Witherington.
And
WITH: … I do have a Polaroid snap of Lieutenant Brown being sick over a precipice.
FORT: Colour?
WITH: Black and white.
FORT: Bad show, Witherington.
Feel free to pick your own…