— Touching the Void —
Joe Simpson

13 Tears in the Night

Almost without noticing it I had entered a wide area of rocks and river gravels. Moraines again? I was unsure. The steep descent of grass and cactus had disorientated me. When I turned to look behind me, a dark sinuous line was just visible on the white snow-covered hillside. There was no snow on the rocks. Which rocks were these? I fumbled in the rucksack until I found my head-torch. A dull yellow glow flared briefly when I turned it on. I shone it round in a circle and saw grey tumbled rocks. I was sitting in a huge barren field of them, quite unable to choose which way to crawl. The torch beam died quickly. I discarded it and moved forward into the darkness with my head whirling in confusion. I tried to think clearly, sweeping away the medley of mad thoughts for brief snatches of reality. The river bed! That was where I was, though the realisation didn't help, for I slept immediately and woke later unable to remember it. The notion that I was on the river bed flitted through my mind but I failed to grasp it again and insisted on returning to wilder ideas.

The river bed was half a mile wide, strewn with rocks and pocked with pools of icy melt-water. Somewhere out in the darkness lay the river. I couldn't hear it for the storm winds. The tents were snuggled on its far bank, but where was I? Was I moving towards the centre or curving back towards the moraine dam? Does anyone care? I kept shuffling along, bumping my feet up against rocks, moaning at the spasms of pain, muttering questions to the darkness and hearing only the sibilant rush of stormy wind in answer. The voice had left me hours ago. I was glad not to be bothered by its interruptions.

Instinct made me turn my course from side to side, as if I recognised the jumbled stones, saw familiar patterns in the darkness, and followed a subconscious compass bearing. How far were the tents? Perhaps they're gone! I could wait till morning showed me the way, so I sat waiting in the wind. I found myself moving again, unsure how long I had waited. If I waited it would never come. A watched kettle never boils! What a silly saying. I cackled inanely at my private joke and kept on laughing long after I had forgotten the joke.

When I checked my watch I found that it was morning. Yet another day. A quarter to one in the morning. I felt the rough edge of a large boulder against my shoulder and pulled myself up it until I could sit swaying on its top. Something told me that I was close. I stared through the darkness. It must be here; I could feel it. There was a high, sharp faecal smell gusting round me. I sniffed my mitts, flinching with repugnance at the stench. It took a long time to sink in.

'Shit? ... Why am I sitting in shit?'

I slumped back on the boulder. I knew where I was but seemed incapable of acting on it. I stared bleakly into the darkness. The cooking rock would be sticking up somewhere ahead of me, but where? Sudden flurries of snow whipped my face and I raised my hand to protect myself. The sharp stench caught in my nostrils, and my head suddenly cleared. All I had to do was shout! I sat up, yelled hoarsely into the darkness. The word came out strangled and distorted. I sat dumbly peering ahead, waiting.

Perhaps they had gone. The cold was taking me again. I felt its insidious touch on my back. I wouldn't survive this night, that was for sure, but I no longer cared. The notions of living or dying had long since become tangled. The past days merged into a blur of real events and madness, and now I seemed fixed in a limbo between the two. Alive, dead, was there that much difference? I raised my head and howled a name into the darkness:

'SIIIIMMMmoonnnn ...'

I wobbled unsteadily on the boulder, staring into the night. The pleading in my head had become hysterical, and I heard a voice moaning in a cracked whisper, as if I were listening to someone else!

'Please be there... you must be there... Oh Jesus Christ Almighty... Come on! I know you're there... help me you bastards, help me ...'

Snowflakes feathered against my face; the wind tugged at my clothing. The night remained black. Warm tears mingled with the cold melted snow on my face. I wanted it to end. I felt destroyed. For the first time in many days I accepted that I had finally come to the end of my strength. I needed someone, anyone. This dark night-storm was taking me and I had no more will to resist. I cried for many things, but mostly for not having someone to be with in this awful night. I let my head fall to my chest, ignored the darkness, and let the anger and pain weep. It was too much for me. I just couldn't keep on; too much of everything.

'HELP MEeeeeeee!'

The howl keened out into the darkness, and the wind and snow seemed to have swallowed it the moment it was uttered.

I thought at first it was an electric flash in my head, like the sudden blinding flashes which had flared after falling into the crevasse. It didn't flash! It kept on glowing, red and green, pulsing colours into the black night. I gaped at it. Something floated and glowed ahead of me. A semicircle of red and green hanging in the night.

'A space ship? Stone me, I must be bad... seeing things now ...'

Then muffled sounds, surprised sleepy sounds and brighter lights flicking out from the colours. A spray of yellow light suddenly cut out from the colours in a wide cone. More sounds, voices, not my voices, other voices.

'The tents!! They're still here ...'

The thought paralysed me with shock. I toppled sideways off the boulder, landing in a crumpled heap on the rocky river bed. Pain surged up my thigh and I moaned. In an instant I had changed to an enfeebled, sobbing figure, incapable of moving any part of my body. Something which had held me up, kept a flicker of strength pulsing, had evaporated into the storm. I tried lifting my head from the rocks to look at the lights but to no avail.

'Joe! Is that you? JOE!'

Simon's voice sounded cracked with strain. I shouted a reply but nothing came out. I was sobbing convulsively, retching from the spasmodic heavings in my chest.

Incoherent words were mumbled into the dark. I turned my head to see a bobbing light approaching in a rush. There was a sound of stones rasping underfoot and someone shouting in a high-pitched voice of alarm:

'Over there, over there!'

Then the light flared over me and all I could see was the dazzle of its beam.

'Help me... please help.'

I felt strong arms reach round my shoulders, pulling me. Simon's face became abruptly visible.

'Joe! God! Oh my God! Fucking hell, fuck, look at you. Shit, Richard, hold him. Lift him, lift him you stupid bastard! God Joe, how? How? ...'

Too shocked to realise what he was saying, his words tumbled out in an obscene litany, expletives said for no reason, a meaningless stream of obscenities, with Richard hovering, nervous, scared of the pain.

'Dying... couldn't take any more. Too much for me... too much... thought it was over... please help, for God's sake help me ...'

'It'll be okay. I've got you, I have you; you're safe ...'

Then Simon was hauling me up with his arms round my chest, dragging me, heels bumping over the rocks. Dropped heavily by the doorway of the tent in a soft glow of candlelight from within, I looked up to see Richard staring down at me, wide-eyed with apprehension. I wanted to giggle at the fuss, but tears kept crawling from my eyes and I could speak no words. Then Simon dragged me into the tent and laid me gently back against a mass of warm down sleeping bags. He knelt by my side staring at me, and I could see a confusion of pity, and horror, and alarm fighting in his eyes. I smiled at him, and he grinned back, shaking his head slowly from side to side.

'Thanks, Simon,' I said. 'You did right.' I saw him turn quickly away, averting his eyes. 'Anyway, thanks.' He nodded silently.

The tent was full of warm light from the candle. People seemed to hover over me. Shadows played on the tent walls. An immense tiredness seemed suddenly to drain my strength. I lay still, feeling my back pressing through the soft down. Faces peered over me, two faces, constantly appearing in brief visions, confusing me. Then Richard was pressing a plastic mug into my hand.

Tea! Hot tea! But I couldn't hold it.

Simon took it from me, helped me sit up, and then fed me the tea. I saw Richard busy over the gas stove, stirring thick milky porridge, spooning sugar in as he stirred. More tea followed, and the porridge, which I couldn't eat. I stared across at Simon, seeing the haggard tension in his face and the shock in his eyes. For a moment nothing was said. With a start, I recognised the last time I had seen Simon look at me in this way. He had stood at the top of the ice cliff and stared at me for that moment too long. That instant moment when I knew he had accepted I would die. Then the spell was broken, and we burst into a torrent of questions, all blurted out at the same time, yet mostly unanswered. In that long silent meeting of eyes every question had become futile, every answer superfluous. I told him of the crevasse and the crawling. He told of his nightmare descent after the cutting and how he knew I was dead. He looked at me then as if he couldn't quite grasp that I had come back. I smiled, and touched his hand.

'Thank you,' I said again, knowing it could never tell him what I felt.

He seemed embarrassed and quickly changed the subject: 'I've burnt all your clothes!'

'What?'

'Well, I thought you weren't ...'

He burst out laughing at the expression on my face, and I laughed with him. We kept at it for too long, and the sounds were harsh, almost manic.

Hours went by without us noticing, and the tent filled with a babble of voices blurting out our stories. Laughing at the money-search, and all my underwear now burnt outside the tent. Endless cups of tea given with concern, and now a deep abiding friendship. And, at every gesture, a touch on the arm, a look, an intimacy we would never have dared show before and never would again. It reminded me of those storm-swept hours on the face when for a short time we had played parts in our very own clichéd third-rate war film.

Simon forced me to finish the porridge as Richard prepared fried egg sandwiches. It seemed I swallowed a different drug with every sip of tea. Painkillers, and Ronicol, and antibiotics. I balked at the sandwiches, unable to swallow the dry bread.

'Eat it!' Simon said sternly. I coughed at the dry bread catching in my throat and mouthed it helplessly. I could get no saliva into my mouth so, despite his order, I spat it out.

'Right. Let's take a look at your leg.'

He had suddenly become stern and efficient. I started to protest but he had already begun to cut my tattered over-trousers with a penknife. I saw the blade slicing effortlessly through the thin nylon material. It was red-handled. My knife. The last time it had been used on me was three and a half days ago. A spasm of fear ran through me. I didn't want any more pain. Not today at least. Sleep was what I craved, warm downy sleep. I flinched when he raised my leg to pull the trousers away.

'It's okay. I'll be as careful as possible.'

I glanced from him to Richard, who looked as if he was going to be sick. I grinned at him, but he turned away and busied himself with the stove. I was both excited and apprehensive to see what my leg looked like. I wanted to know what had been causing me so much agony, but I was scared of seeing it rotten and infected. Simon unzipped my gaiters and gently released the laces and Velcro catches.

'Richard. You're going to have to hold his leg down. I can't pull the boot off unless you keep it firm.'

Richard hesitated by the stove. 'Can't you cut the boot off?' 'Yes, but it's unnecessary. Come on. It'll only be for a second.' He moved to my side and held my leg gingerly below the knee. Simon began pulling at the boot and I screamed.

'Grip it tight, for Christ's sake!'

He pulled again and the pain seemed to balloon up from my knee. I squeezed my eyes shut and whimpered at the gathering flood of fire in my knee, praying for it to stop.

'Right. Got it.'

The pain ebbed quickly away. Simon threw the boot out of the tent, and Richard hurriedly let go of my leg. I think he'd had his eyes closed as well.

My polar trousers followed, sliding gently from my legs. Richard moved to the back of the tent, and I sat up expectantly. When Simon pulled my thermal long-johns off we both gawped at my leg in astonishment.

'Bloody hell!' 'Fuck me, it's enormous!'

The leg was a bloated stump stained yellow and brown, with livid purple streaks running down from the knee. There was no discernible difference between my thigh and my ankle. Only the hugely distended lump which twisted grotesquely to the right half-way down showed where the knee had been.

'God! It's worse than I thought.' I felt weak at the sight of it, and reached forward tentatively to stroke the skin around my knee. At least there was no angry inflammation, no obvious signs of infection.

'It's bad,' Simon muttered. He was examining the underside of my foot. 'You've broken your heel as well.'

'Have I? Oh well.' It didn't seem very important to me. Foot, knee, the whole caboodle, what did it matter. I was down. I could rest, and eat and sleep. It would mend.

'Yes. See those purple streaks? They're signs of haemorrhaging. You have them all round your heel, and the ankle as well.'

'Here you go, Richard,' I said. 'Take a look at this!'

He peered over my shoulder and then pulled away hurriedly. 'Ohhh! I wish I hadn't.'

I laughed happily, noticing how quickly I had changed. The manic hysterical laughter had become a thing of the past. Simon pulled my long-johns back over my legs with a worried expression on his face.

'We'll have to get you out of here quickly. The donkeys are coming in the morning. One of us can go down and ask Spinoza to bring a mule and his saddle as well.'

'I'll go,' Richard volunteered. 'It's half-past four now. I'll go after this tea. That way you can use my sleeping bag and Joe can take yours. I'll be back by six ...'

'Hang on,' I interrupted. 'I need rest and food. I can't cope with two days on a mule straight away.'

'You'll just have to,' Simon said sharply. 'There's no question about it. It'll be three days at least before you get to a hospital. You've got frostbite as well as the leg, and you're exhausted. If you leave it any longer, it will get infected.'

'But -'

'Forget it! We go in the morning. It will have been broken for over a week by the time we reach Lima. You can't risk it.'

I felt too weak to argue and looked imploringly at the two of them, hoping they would change their minds. Simon ignored me and began feeding my legs into his sleeping bag. Richard passed me some tea, smiled reassuringly, and then stepped out into the night. 'Be back soon,' he shouted from the darkness, but already I was falling asleep. There seemed to be something important still to do before I slept, but I was losing the struggle to keep my eyes open. Then I remembered:

'Simon -'

'What?'

'You saved my life you know. It must have been terrible for you that night. I don't blame you. You had no choice. I understand that, and I understand why you thought I was dead. You did all that you could have done. Thanks for getting me down.'

He said nothing, and when I looked across at him lying on his back in Richard's bag there were tears on his cheeks. I turned away as he spoke:

'Honestly, I thought you were dead. I was sure of it... couldn't see how you would possibly have survived... '

'It's okay. I know... '

'God! Coming down alone... Coming down, I couldn't bear it. I mean... what was I going to say to your parents? What? I'm sorry Mrs Simpson, but I had to cut the rope... She'd never understand, never believe me... '

'It's all right. You don't have to now.'

'I wish I had stayed longer... just believed you could still be alive. It would have saved you so much.'

'Doesn't matter. We're here now. It's over.'

'Yes.' He said it in a choked whisper, and I felt the unstoppable flood of hot tears filling my eyes. How much he had been through I could only guess at. A second later I was asleep.

I awoke to a hubbub of voices and laughter. Girls' voices chattered excitedly in Spanish close by the tent, and I heard Simon talking to Richard about the donkeys. I opened my eyes slowly to the unfamiliar glow of the tent walls. Sun dappled the red and green fabric, and shadows passed by every few seconds. It seemed as if there were a bazaar in full trade outside the tent. I remembered with a shock the events of a few hours before. I was safe; it was true. I smiled drowsily and moved my arms against the silken downy sides of the sleeping bag, luxuriating in the feeling of homecoming. It had been so bad, I thought idly in half-sleep, so very bad.

An hour later I started from sleep to a voice calling my name from far away. I felt confused. Who was calling me? Sleep dragged me softly back to the warmth of the bag, but the voice kept calling:

'Come on, Joe, wake up.'

I rolled my head to the side and looked blearily at the heads crowded into the doorway. Simon knelt there with a steaming mug of tea in his hand, and behind him the two girls peered curiously over his shoulder. I tried to sit up but couldn't move. A great weight was pressing down on to my chest, pinning me to the ground. I swung my arm feebly in an effort to haul myself up but it flopped limp at my side. Arms reached round my shoulders and pulled me into a sitting position:

'Drink this, and try to eat. You need it.'

I cupped the mug in my gloved hands and crouched over it, feeling the steam wetting my face. Simon moved away but the girls remained squatting near the door smiling at me. There was something unreal about them sitting there in the sun, watching me drink tea. Their wide-hipped peasant skirts and flower-strewn hats seemed very strange. What were they doing here? My mind seemed to be running off at tangents from second to second so that I couldn't fully grasp what was happening. I had got here safely. I understood the tents, and Simon and Richard, but not these weirdly dressed Peruvians. I decided that the best thing to do was ignore them and concentrate on my tea. It scalded my mouth with the first sip. The gloves which protected my frozen fingers and the lack of sensation in my hands made me forget how hot it would be. I gasped and blew quickly, trying to cool the tip of my tongue. The girls giggled.

An endless stream of food and drink followed during the next half-hour, along with quick snippets of encouragement and information about what was happening. There was some delay because Spinoza was being bloody-minded about payment for the mules. I could hear Simon's voice getting louder and more infuriated with every passing minute. I heard Richard translating calmly to Spinoza. The girls occasionally looked over at Simon and frowned. Then suddenly they were gone, and there was no more need to stay awake. I slumped forward and drifted into sleep, letting the chaotic Spanish-English row fade into the background.

A hand shook me awake again. It was Simon:

'You'll have to get out of the tent now. We're packing up. He's finally agreed on a price, and if he changes his mind again I'm going to rip his bloody head off!'

I tried to shuffle round to move out of the tent and I was horrified by how weak I had become. I fell sideways as my arm buckled beneath me when I was half out of the tent, and I couldn't push myself up again. Simon lifted me gently and dragged me clear of the sun.

'Simon, I'll never be able to cope with the mule. You don't know how weak I am.'

'It'll be all right. We'll help you.'

'Help me! I can hardly stay awake, let alone sit up. How can you help me ride a mule, for Christ's sake? I need rest. I really do. I need sleep and food. I've only had three hours' sleep since I got down... I... '

'You've got no choice. You're going today and that's that.'

I tried to protest but he was having none of it. He walked over to the tent and returned with the first-aid box. Richard passed me another mug of tea while Simon handed me my quota of pills. Then they left me and began dismantling the camp. I lay on my side watching them until I couldn't fight off the appalling drowsy weakness any longer. The deterioration scared me deeply and made me wonder anxiously whether I had burnt myself out completely. It occurred to me that I was nearer to death than when I had been alone. The minute I knew help was at hand something had collapsed inside me. Whatever had been holding me together had gone. Now I could not think for myself, let alone crawl! There was nothing to fight for, no patterns to follow, no voice, and it frightened me to think that, without these, I might run out of life. I tried to stay awake, fighting to shake the sleep away and keep my eyes open, but the sleep won. I dozed fitfully, waking to the babble of different languages and dozing off again to the recurrent thoughts of comas, collapse and unwaking sleep.

It seemed a long time before Simon came to me again. I heard his voice talking to Richard and looked up. He stood by my side examining me with a worried expression on his face:

'Hello. Are you all right?'

'Yes. I'm okay.' I had abandoned any idea of resisting the plan to leave.

'You don't look it. We'll be leaving soon. Perhaps it would be better if you sat up and tried to liven yourself up a bit. I'll get you some tea.'

I laughed at the thought of being livened up but managed to sit up unaided all the same. Eventually Spinoza led his old mule to me and Simon helped me to my feet.

Leaning heavily on his shoulder, I hopped towards the mule, which waited patiently. It looked a pleasant-natured, calm old animal, which encouraged me. As I was about to be lifted into the saddle Richard suddenly called out:

'Hang on, Simon! We've forgotten his money.'

A hobbling search then began with Richard and Simon supporting me on either side as I directed them from rock to rock, vainly trying to remember where I had hidden the money belt. Spinoza and the girls looked puzzled. We laughed happily until at last we found the belt, and held it up for them to see. They smiled politely but clearly didn't understand what was so important about a tattered piece of tubular climbing tape.

The saddle was one of those old-style high-pommelled Western affairs with huge cups of carved leather for stirrups and ornate silver inlays round the pommel. A Karrimat had been bent over the saddle as a cushion and to keep my injured leg swinging out free from the mule's flank. We set off down the river bed at a steady walk, with Simon and Richard walking on each side of me, keeping a watchful eye on my condition.

The next two days were a blur of exhaustion and pain. I couldn't squeeze my thighs together to steer the mule, and it seemed to walk into every tree, boulder and wall that we passed in the twenty-hour journey to Cajatambo. Even with Simon spiking it with a sharpened snow stake, it still blundered on, and I screamed and howled impotently until the pain died. Somehow I managed not to fall. The familiar landscape drifted past me blurred by pain and exhaustion. At the end of each day childish tantrum feelings would rush through me. I no longer had the strength, or desperation, to cope with this added torment. I wanted it finished, wanted to get home. Simon mothered me down through the bad times, walking back and forth on the trail, goading the donkey driver to increase his pace, exhorting the man pulling my mule to take care, and walking close by my side when sleep and weakness threatened to topple me from the saddle. He took my watch from me, and halted the march every time a new drug had to be administered. Painkillers, Ronicol, antibiotics, and the inevitable tea. Tempers frayed around me as I drifted in and out of sleep while the mule walked doggedly on through high passes, steep rocky valleys and lush pampas, but Simon stayed close by my side, encouraging some faint boost of strength whenever I pleaded for a rest.

Cajatambo was a mayhem of hassle as Simon battled with the police to hire a pick-up truck, and then both he and Richard fought off the hordes of villagers trying to climb into the back for a free lift to Lima. At the last minute a young man approached the truck. I lay stretched out on a mattress in the open back. He looked sorrowfully at me, seeing the crude splint on my leg. A policeman with a machine pistol slung across his chest stepped forward and stopped Richard trying to remove the last villager from the truck.

'Señor, please for you to help this man. His legs are bad. Six days he waits. You take him to hospital... yes?'

There was a shocked silence as we all turned to examine the old man slumped beside me in the back of the truck. He looked imploringly at me, and then, grimacing with pain, he rolled his hips and flicked aside the crude sacking covering his legs. The crowd was suddenly deathly silent, and I heard the sharp intake of breath from Simon close by me. The man's legs were smashed. I had a brief glimpse of two distorted legs, ripped-open raw wounds, bloodstains, and the deep angry purple colour of infection. A sharp, sweet stench rose from the blanket as he replaced it gingerly over his legs.

'My God!' I felt sick.

'He is bad. Yes?'

'Bad! He hasn't a hope!'

'I'm sorry. My English is not good -'

'It's okay. We'll take him, and this man,' I interrupted.

'Thank you, Señors. You are kind men.'

The driver was an alcoholic who supplied us with generous quantities of beer. Beer, cigarettes and painkillers gave a cloudy film to my memory of those three days struggling back to Lima. Late that night we arrived at the hospital. The old man, we were told, could not afford a good hospital like this. We said it was no problem and paid the driver for the hire of the truck, with instructions to take the man to his hospital. As Richard helped me out of the truck, Simon gave the man's son our last remaining supplies of painkillers and antibiotics. The truck pulled away into a muggy hot Lima night, and from my wheelchair I saw the old man trying feebly to wave his thanks before it turned the corner of the street.

The hospital was frighteningly out-of-date by our standards, but there were clean white sheets, tinned music from the ward speakers, and pretty nurses, none of whom spoke a word of English. They wheeled me briskly down the green and white corridors, with Simon hurrying beside me unable to relinquish me from his care. The enormity of what we had been through was just beginning to sink in.

An hour later, Simon and Richard had been brusquely told to leave. After being X-rayed, my stinking climbing clothes had been taken away to be washed, and I was sat, naked, on a set of chair-scales as a pretty nurse took my pulse, noted my weight and drew a blood sample from my arm. I turned to see the scales and was horrified. Seven and a quarter stones! Three stones... God, I'd lost three stones! She grinned cheerfully at me before scooping me off the chair and lowering me gently into a deep bath of hot disinfected water. When she had done with me I was put to bed, and instantly fell asleep. An hour later she was back, this time with a concerned-looking doctor. He explained something frightening and complicated about my blood sample while she punctured a vein in my wrist and set up a glucose drip. I woke in the night from dreadful nightmare memories of the crevasse, soaked in sweat, and panicked to screaming point until the nurses came with words of kindness that I couldn't understand.

I lay there for two indescribable days without food, painkillers or antibiotics until my insurance was confirmed by telex and they deigned to operate on me. They came for me early in the morning. A pre-med injection in my arm an hour earlier had reduced me to a familiar enfeebled, barely conscious state. Two people, masked, wearing green, muttered unintelligibly at me as they wheeled me down seemingly endless tiled corridors. It wasn't until we neared the operating theatre that the fear in my stomach rose up as panic. I mustn't go through with this! Must stop them. Wait until you get home, for the love of God, don't let them do it.

'I don't want the operation.'

I said it calmly. I thought that I had said it clearly, but they did not answer. Perhaps the drug has affected my speech? I repeated the sentence. One of them nodded at me, but they didn't stop. Then it hit me. They don't understand English. I tried to sit up but someone pushed me back on to the pillows. I shouted, panic-stricken, for them to stop. The trolley clattered through the swing doors of the operating theatre. A man spoke to me in Spanish. His voice was melodic. He was trying to calm me, but the sight of him checking a syringe made me struggle to a half-sitting position.

'Please. I don't -'

A strong hand pressed me back. Another gripped my arm and I felt the slight pain of the needle. I tried to lift my head but somehow it had doubled in weight.

Turning to the side I saw a tray of instruments. Above me bright lights came on, and the room began to swim before my eyes. I had to say something... had to stop them. Darkness slipped over the lights and slowly all sounds muffled down to silence.

Photos

Joe preparing to ride the mule, 3 hours after reaching Simon.

Joe lies unconscious at Simon’s feet while Espinoza and the girls strike the camp.

Richard, Joe (in saddle) Espinoza (leading) and Simon leave the mountains for the 3 day trip to hospital.

Joe, exhausted, resting during the second day of an agonising mule journey.

Richard helps an exhausted Joe during a break on then two mule ride out.

Joe (centre) on 23 hour pick-up trip to Lima. Un-named man with badly fractured legs on left.

Tibial Plateau Fracture.