After a while of just waiting for the team to show up, Messner made up his mind to cut that Goddamn pole off. At least, give it a fucking try anyways.
He pulled the bolt cutter clippers out of his gear bag, with the hope that it would be strong enough to handle a pipe as big as the one sticking out of his friend’s head.
“Hey Krak, listen up. What do you say if we cut that fucking thing a little shorter?”
He turned, and nodded.
“You hold on to the bar with both hands. Whatever you do, you can’t let it move so you’ve got to hang on tight.”
Messner could see it now, he tries cutting that stupid pipe, it slips and Krak’s head splits open or something.
“When it snaps it’ll vibrate, so you’ll have to hold on really fucking tight. Got it?”
“Yeah, alright.”
Fucking hell – thought Messner, but he didn’t have much of a choice.
The idea of carrying Krak while he lays on the hammock, through the jungle with that fucking thing sticking out of his eye was insane.
As he put the bolt cutter into position, he wondered if he could keep the vibrating to a minimum somehow.
By taking it all very, very easy, was his answer.
He couldn't do much better than that. Take it all very, very easy.
“Ready?” Messner asked him.
“Fuck yeah.”
“Got it tight?”
“Yeah, yeah. Go.”
Messner tightened the clippers as slow as he could but because the bar was made of iron and not steel thankfully, snapped making a loud SNAP sound as it did anyway.
Krakauer gave a muffled cry behind his clenched jaw.
Messner quickly put some more bandages on, to cover the rest of the iron that was still there in his eye socket.
The haemorrhage had just gotten worse, of course, and Krakauer was pretty pale already.
His remaining eye was getting more and more bloodshot as they spoke, shiny because of the morphine and distant, almost as though Krakauer was possessed or something.