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It's Tough at the Top

    Mount Everest has long been a great attraction to millions of people throughout the world. Many people have risked and lost their lives in the course of expedition. Modern explorers, however, are becoming more fascinated by the ultimate fate of earlier doomed explorers.

    "Because it's there," George Mallory reportedly replied when asked why he wanted to climb Mount Everest. The only man to take part in all three of the British pioneering expeditions in the 1920s, Mallory was driven by a fascination to reach the summit of the mountain with which he had formed a strong personal bond with. "It's an hell-like mountain, cold and treacherous," he once wrote in a letter home from Everest Base Camp. "The risks of getting caught are too great; the margin of strength when men are at great heights is too small. Perhaps it is mere folly to go up again. But how can I be out of the hunt?"

    In 1920 when Francis Younghusband, the President of the Royal Geographical Society (RGS), first put forward the idea of supporting an expedition to Everest, the mountain was still a mystery. At 8 848 meters Everest was almost 1 500 meters higher than anyone had previously climbed. There was even doubt as to whether it was possible to breathe at such altitude. At the time no one had been within 65 kilometers of the mountain, which could only be approached through the unknown kingdoms of Nepal or China's Tibet.

    With the North and South Poles already discovered, Younghusband had his sights set on the "third pole", setting up the joint RGS/Alpine Club, Mount Everest Committee. "The accomplishment of such a feat will elevate the human spirit and will give man, especially us geographers, a feeling that we are acquiring a true mastery of our surroundings. This is the incalculable good which the ascent of Mount Everest will confer," he said.

    High Hopes

    George Mallory and Andrew Irvine had set out from Camp VI on 8 June 1924, attempting to become the first men to set foot on the summit. They never returned. Today, with more than 550 mountaineers from 20 countries having reached the summit, the mystery has shifted away from Everest the mountain, towards Mallory the man. In March 1999, 75 years after Mallory's death on the mountain, the Mallory and Irvine Research Expedition set out for Everest, not because it was there, but because he was. Leader of the 1999 expedition Eric Simonson and his team were hoping to discover whether or not the two men achieved their goal before they died.

    They had only a few clues to go on. In 1933 an ice axe, thought to be Irvine's, had been found on the route, and in 1975, the body of a climber was discovered nearby by a Chinese climber who described it as being an "old English dead" on account of the vintage clothes the body still wore. However, the identity of the dead climber has never been confirmed. Simonson's team expected to relocate the body during their high level search. They anticipated it to be Irvine, the inexperienced Oxford graduate who had possibly fallen, dropping his ice axe on the icy slabs of Everest's North Face. Mallory's fate was unknown.

    Searching amongst the snow gullies and scouring ledges at 8 320 meters, Simonson's team discovered a body, the skin bleached porcelain white by the sun. It was lying face down, head and arms frozen into the earth. Only the collars of the tattered clothes were intact and on one was uncovered a manufacturer's label, still legible despite years of vicious assaults by ice and wind. Beneath this was another label, which they could all easily read. In simple carefully stitched letters was written: G Mallory. Mallory's name on the clothes so surprised the search party their first thought was to wonder why Irvine had been wearing his climbing partner's shirt. The discovery of Mallory's body prompted admiration of expedition search member, Jake Norton. "As a climber, to know what Mallory did was phenomenal. He was a powerful tough guy, who fought till the end," he told reporters.

    During the early decades of the twentieth century, it was this strength, tenacity and love of adventure which had established Mallory as a leading figure in the close-knit climbing world. He was an obvious choice for the Mount Everest Committee as part of the first reconnaissance expedition in 1921. For Mallory this was the opportunity of a lifetime. It was a challenge, but that only increased its appeal, for as he once said: " To refuse the adventure is to run the risk of drying up like a pea in its shell."

    By 1924, after two exhausting and unsuccessful attempts to the mountain on expeditions in 1921 and 1922, his early enthusiasm began to wane. He was now 38 years old. A family man with three children, he had just begun a teaching job at Cambridge. Yet, he couldn't resist one final attempt to complete a task he had started. Meeting Irvine, recommended by Noel Odell, the expedition's geologist, buoyed him up for the challenge. Although Irvine was young with no track record as a climber, he was strong, resourceful and good-natured. The expedition "superman", they called him. Mallory had warmed to him immediately, describing him as "a fine fellow", who should, "prove a splendid companion on the mountain."

    Before departing for the 1924 expedition Mallory had confided in a friend that it would be, "more of war than an adventure", and that he was prepared for a siege on the summit. Two attempts were to be made, one with oxygen and one without but Everest repelled both attempts. Mallory's climbing teams were defeated through lack of oxygen and exhaustion. He refused to give up and was determined to risk one last try. Only Odell and Irvine were in a fit state to partner him. For Mallory it was a simple choice. He threw his lot in with Irvine and the pair set off on their fatal summit bid.

    The day after Mallory and Irvine departed for the summit, Odell saw them for the last time from a crag at 7 925 meters. A sudden clearing above him unveiled the whole summit ridge. On a snow slope, clinging to the steep North Face, he noticed, first Mallory, then Irvine approach a broad rock step. As he stood, his eyes tracking them against the mosaic of rock and snow, the weather closed in again, clouding their fate for the next 75 years.

    Frozen to the Core

    In finding Mallory's body, Simonson's team had helped to come to a theory of how he had died. Prior to the recent expedition it was thought that Mallory and Irvine had been climbing at 8 535 meters, and could have either fallen or simply laid down exhausted in the snow to die. But after seeing the body, Norton is sure they were climbing tied together when Mallory fell. "There was a rope wrapped round his waist. You could see black and blues on him, he probably had internal bleeding. He slid down the North Face digging into the snow or gravel, crossed his legs in pain and died a few moments later."

    Other more significant questions remain. Despite the initial find of the body, Everest was reluctant to give away too many more clues. The team failed to find the camera, lent to Mallory by his climbing partner Howard Somervell, the existence of which may prove whether or not the pair made it to the top. However, searching for needles in a hostile, windscorched haystack of rock and ice is a perilous business. Between 8 230 meters and the summit, Simonson's team counted 17 other bodies, besides Mallory's. In the face of such danger the expedition's fascination with the man, must be almost as great as the man's own fascination with the mountain.

    Macabre though Simonson's quest is, it is not unique. In the autumn of 1984 the face of John Torrington appeared in national newspapers. What was unusual about this was that Torrington had been dead for 138 years, buried under 1.8 meters of Arctic permafrost. Torrington had been chief Stoker aboard the Erebus which along with the Terror sailed with Sir John Franklin during his expedition to chart the Northwest Passage. The expedition had set sail from the Thames River on 19 May 1845, carrying with it the hope of the nation for the discovery of a navigable route through the Arctic into the Pacific Ocean.

    Neither ship was ever seen again and 129 men lost their lives in a polar enigma which mesmerized Victorian Britain. The conclusion of the 25 major search expeditions, which set out to solve the puzzle was that Franklin's men had succumbed to scurry, starvation, stress and hypothermia. In 1981 American anthropologist Owen Beattie, set out to apply modern scientific and forensic technique to any remaining evidence of Franklin's expedition. Over the following five years Beattie scoured Franklin's expedition sites for clues. His most grisly task was the exhumation and autopsies of three expedition members, one of whom was John Torrington.

    For men buried in the year that the Corn Laws were repealed, they were in a remarkable state of preservation. Being kept in the frozen earth since 1846 had prevented major outward appearances of decay. Torrington looked very much as he has done in life; skin was still on his face, he had kept his teeth, eyes and most of his hair. Samples of his body tissue looked almost recent in origin and certain bacterial stains collected had even survived the big freeze.

    The autopsy showed Torrington was an ill man when he died. His lungs were blackened with atmospheric pollutants and he showed evidence of tuberculosis. There were also signs that the ultimate cause of death had been pneumonia. However, what struck Beattie most were abnormally high levels of lead found in samples of hair, indicating acute lead poisoning. Lead poisoning can lead to weakness, fatigue, stupor, neurosis and erratic behavior, far from ideal conditions for surviving long exposure to the harsh Arctic environment. Beattie confirmed the elevated lead levels in John Hartnell and William Braine, the two other exhumed bodies. In 1845, tinned preserved food was a modern invention, tin cans having been only patented in England in 1811. They were made from a wrought-iron sheet bent into a cylinder and joined along the seam with solder containing more than 90 percent lead. Franklin's expedition carried nearly 8 000 lead-soldered tins containing meat, soup, vegetables and pemmican—a pressed cake of shredded dry meat. Beattie's examination of tins collected near the site of the graves confirmed the high levels of lead in the solder and also that the side seams of some tins were incomplete, increasing the risk of contamination.

    Beattie's gruesome raising of Franklin's death had answered the age-old question of what happened to the ill-fated Northwest Passage expedition. Weakened by the physical and neurological side effects of lead poisoning, the men would have not been physically able to fight off the diseases that were the eventual cause of death.

    The Missing Link

    Simonson's expedition returned from Everest at the start of June 1999. He has similar hopes of answering the questions surrounding the last hours of Mallory and Irvine. Although Mallory's camera was not recovered, various other artifacts were unearthed, including an oxygen bottle, Mallory's watch, an altimeter, glacier goggles, a pocketknife and several letters from family members. An American documentary team, who traveled with the expedition, is already planning to run a series of forensic examination on the artifacts, similar to those of Beattie. They hope to piece together the many possible scenarios of Mallory and Irvine's last day. Beattie's solution to the Franklin mystery took four expeditions and Simonson is not expecting miracles. Already he is looking ahead to the next year and planning a second expedition. Next time he wants to look for Irvine's body and the elusive camera, which he still believes is on the mountain. But for the present, the mystery of both the man and the mountain live on.

(1973 words) TOP

课文一

艰难登顶

    珠穆朗玛峰对于全世界数百万人来说，长期以来有着巨大的吸引力。在征服珠穆朗玛峰的过程中，许多人冒了巨大的危险，而且失去了生命。然而，现代探险者对早年遭到厄运的攀登者的最终命运，表现出越来越浓厚的兴趣。

    据说,当乔治·马罗礼被问及他为何要攀登珠峰时，他这样回答，“因为有珠峰”。他是唯一参加二十世纪二十年代英国组织的所有三次征服珠峰活动的探险家。他对珠峰怀有强烈的情感，一直神往登上山顶。“它是一座魔鬼般的大山，冷峻而且反复无常，”他在珠峰大本营给家人写信时有一次这样写道。“冒的险实在太大；人们攀登峰顶时可使的力量又是这么小。也许只是发疯了才再次攀登。可是我怎能摆脱这种诱惑呢?”

    1920年皇家地理学会主席弗兰西斯·扬哈斯本首次提出支持珠峰探险的想法时，人们对这座山还一无所知。高达8848米的珠峰比当时人类攀登过的最高峰还高出1500米。人们甚至怀疑，在这样的高度有没有可能呼吸。那时，还没有人到过珠峰周围65公里的范围，只能从人们不太熟悉的尼泊尔王国或中国的西藏走近这座高山。

    随着人们发现了北极与南极，扬哈斯本把他的目光投向“第三极”，设立联合皇家地理学会/登山俱乐部下属的珠穆朗玛峰委员会。“这次壮举的完成将振奋人类精神，也让人类，尤其是我们地理学家感到，我们正在成为我们这个环境真正的主人。登上珠穆朗玛峰所产生的效益是难以估量的，”扬哈斯本说道。

     厚望

    乔治·马罗礼与安德鲁·欧文于1924年6月8日从六号营地出发，试图成为首次登上珠峰的人。可他们再也没有回来。时至今日，已有20个国家五百五十多名登山运动员登顶成功。谜团也就从珠峰这座山转向马罗礼这个人了。1999年3月，在马罗礼罹难后的第75年，马罗里—欧文研究探险队向珠峰进发，不是因为珠峰在那里，而是因为他在那里。1999年探险队长埃里克·西门松及其队员希望发现这两人死之前是否成功登顶。
　

    他们只有几条探寻的线索。1933年，在登山线路上找到被认为是欧文使用的一把冰斧。1975年，一名中国登山运动员在附近发现一具登山者的尸体，将其描述为“一位年长的英国死者”，因为尸体穿的是老式衣服。然而，这位死去的登山者的身份从未得到确认。西门松的探险队期望在高地再次找到那具尸体。他们认为会是欧文，这位经验不足的牛津毕业生可能是从悬崖上坠落的，将冰斧掉在珠峰北坡的冰层上。马罗礼的下落则不清楚。

    在8320米的雪沟与冰棱间搜寻时，西门松小组人员发现了一具尸体，太阳把他的皮肤晒成瓷白色。尸体的脸部朝下，头与双臂与地面冻成一块。破碎不堪的衣服只有领子完好无损。其中一个领子上发现制造厂商的标签。虽经数十年的风霜冰雪严酷吹打，标签上的字仍清晰可辨。在这块标签下还有另一块标签，队员们很容易辨出上面的字。简单而细心缝制的字母为：G.Mallory。衣服上的马罗礼的名字令搜寻小组感到十分惊讶，他们的第一个反应就是猜测欧文为何穿着他登山伙伴的衬衫？发现了马罗礼尸体后，探险队员杰克·诺顿对其产生了无比的敬意。“作为一名登山者，了解马罗礼所做的事情意义重大。他是一位意志极为坚强的人，战斗到最后一息，”诺顿跟记者这样说道。

    二十世纪前几十年时间里，力量、坚韧不拔与富于冒险的精神使马罗礼在组织严密的登山界成为一名出类拔萃的人。1921年他被珠穆朗玛峰委员会一眼相中，成为第一个珠峰探险队的成员。对于马罗礼来说，这是一生一次的机会。这次攀登珠峰是一次挑战，但挑战更提高了它的吸引力，因为正如马罗礼曾经说过的那样，“拒绝这次冒险机会等于让自已庸庸碌碌地渡过一生。”

    到了1924年，经过1921年与1922年两次使人精疲力竭的失败尝试后，马罗礼早期的热情开始减退。他已38岁。作为有三个孩子的一家之主，他开始在剑桥大学执教。然而他无法抵挡最后一试的诱惑，以最终完成他业已开始的事业。他会见了探险队地质学家诺尔·奥德尔推荐的欧文，这重新唤起他应对挑战的干劲。虽然欧文年轻，还没有登山记录，但他体魄强壮，主意又多，而且性格随和。在探险队里，队员们称他为“超人”。马罗礼马上给他鼓劲，称他为“好汉”，会是“登山中一个出色的伙伴。”

    1924年的探险出发前，马罗礼私下跟一位朋友说，这次探险“与其说是一场冒险不如说是一场战争，”而他做好在山顶遭受灾难来袭的准备。他们打算做两种尝试：一种是带氧，另一种不带氧气。但是珠峰对这两种尝试均未买账。由于缺氧和体力衰竭，马罗礼的登山队失败，但他毫不气馁，决心冒险做最后一搏。只有奥德尔与欧文身体状况尚好，可以陪着他。对于马罗礼来说，选择很简单。于是他决心与欧文共命运，俩人踏上登顶的不归路。

  

    马罗礼与欧文出发登顶的第二天，奥德尔最后一次看见他们是在海拔7925米的险崖处。他头顶上突然现出一片晴朗，整座山脊一览无余。紧靠着陡峭的北坡的雪坡上，他先看到马罗礼，然后看见欧文到了一块宽阔的岩石阶上。他站在那里，双眼紧紧盯住岩石与雪地交织地带的俩人，云气再次降临下来，将他们的命运一盖就是75年。

    寒冻到了极致

    西门松探险小组发现了马罗礼的尸体之举，有助于解释他的死因。在这次探险之前，人们认为马罗礼与欧文攀到8535米的地方时，他们要么翻下了山崖，要么是体力不支，躺倒在雪地上死去。但检验了尸体后，诺顿确信马罗礼坠落时，他们俩正在一块攀登。“一条绳子绕在他的腰间，身上青一块、紫一块的，他大概内出血。他在用冰镐往雪地或砾石上钉眼时从北坡滑落，双腿痛苦得蜷在一起，不久便死去。”

    还有更重要的问题依旧悬而未决。除了最初发现的尸体，珠峰不愿提供更多的线索。探险小组没有找到马罗礼的另一位登山伙伴霍华德·萨默维尔借给他的相机。若是找到了相机，就有可能证明这两人是否成功地登上了峰顶。然而，搜寻这部相机无异于在崖石与冰雪构成的狂风怒吼的海洋里寻找一根针，危险太大了。在8230米与峰顶之间，西门松小组共找到除马罗礼以外的另外17具尸体。在这么危险的情况下，探险队员们在寻找这个人时表现出来的执着，一定与这个人对珠峰的执着一样强烈。

    虽然西门松一行人的探寻活动看起来相当恐怖，但并非是独一无二的。1984年的秋天，约翰·托林通的头像出现在全国的报纸上。非同寻常的是，托林通早在138年前就死了，葬于1.8米深的北极永久冰土下面。托林通是“埃里伯斯”号船上的仓库管理主管，在他赴西北航道探险时，同船前往的有约翰.富兰克林爵士，另有“恐怖”号船同行。探险队于1845年5月19日从泰晤士河起航，带着举国上下的希望，去发现一条从北极到太平洋的航道。

    此后这两艘船再也没有踪影。船上129名船员全部丧生神秘莫测的极地，这使维多利亚时代的英国人百思不得其解。为了解开这一迷团，人们先后组织了25次大规模的搜寻行动。最后得出的结论是：富兰克林一行人死于阵雪、饥饿、心理压力与体温过低等方面的原因。1981年英国人类学家奥温·比泰开始用现代科学与法医技术检验富兰克林探险队存留下来的遗迹。此后五年的时间里，比泰走遍了富兰克林探险队所经过的地方寻找线索。他那最令人毛骨悚然的工作，是把三名探险队员的尸体挖出来并进行尸体解剖，其中一名是约翰·托林通。

    作为刚好是废除谷物法的那年被埋的尸体，它们保存得非常完好。1846年起尸体一直埋于冻土之中，外表主要部分没有腐化。托林通看上去跟生前差不多。脸上皮肤完好；牙齿、眼睛与大部分头发尚存。他体内组织的标本看上去跟刚死去的人差不多，而且某些细菌感染处历经严寒后依然存在。

    尸体解剖表明托林通死的时候正患病。他的两片肺叶由于空气污染物侵蚀变黑，并表现出肺结核症状。还有迹象表明最终导致他死亡的原因是肺炎。然而，最令比泰吃惊的是在头发样本中发现高出正常很多的铅含量，这说明是急性铅中毒。铅中毒会导致虚弱、乏力、精神愰惚、神经机能症及行为怪诞，远远达不到长期在恶劣的北极环境中生存的理想身体状况。比泰在另两具挖掘出的尸体即约翰·哈特内尔与威廉·布莱恩体内也也发现铅含量过高。在1845年，罐头食品是一项现代发明。锡罐于1811年在英国取得专利权。这种罐是由精制铁皮卷成圆筒而成，切口的缝由铅含量达90%以上的焊锡来焊接。富兰克林探险队则带有近八千个装有肉、汤、蔬菜，以及压缩肉糜饼（一种用干肉捣碎压制而成的饼）的含铅焊锡封口的罐头。比泰检验了墓地附近采到的铁罐，证实焊锡铅含量较高，并且一些罐头边缝也没完全焊牢，这就增加了食物受到污染的危险性。

    比泰揭示了导致富兰克林死亡的可怕原因，回答了许多困扰人们的问题，即什么原因使西北路线探险遭到如此厄运。由于铅中毒所产生的身体与精神上的副作用，人们的体质受到削弱，无力与疾病作斗争而最终导致死亡。

    缺失的环节

    西门松探险队1999年6月初从珠峰归来。他同样希望能解答马罗礼与欧文最后几小时出现的问题。虽然没有找到马罗礼的照相机，但发现了其他的物件，其中有马罗礼的手表、冰原用护目镜、一把小刀及几封家信。跟随探险队的一个美国记录片拍摄小组已准备对这些物件做一系列类似法医比泰的检查。他们希望将马罗礼与欧文最后一天的生活片断汇集成片。比泰为解开富兰克林之谜作过四次探险，因此西门松并没有期待出现奇迹。他已筹划在明年进行第二次探险。下一次，他要寻找欧文的尸体及那只尚未找到的相机。他相信相机还在山上。可眼下，人与山的迷团尚待破解。

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Text 2

Visions on Ice

    Wally Herbert is the greatest pioneering polar explorer alive today. Here is a man who led the British Trans-Arctic Expedition, a 16-month, pioneering journey of 3 800 miles, much of it in the pitch darkness, over a moving ice ocean that was constantly shifting and breaking up, with three men and a team of four dogs. This journey, it is now universally agreed, was the "last great journey left on the face of the earth." A journey that no one since has even dared attempt. This was a geographical first that ranked alongside climbing Everest and the first surface crossing of the Southern and Northern icecaps of the Earth.

    Thirty years on from this journey Wally Herbert is the last link between the explorers from the heroic age of exploration and our modern day adventures. Yet he has never been honored for his outstanding achievement in Polar exploration. This is despite the fact that Prime Minister Harold Wilson claimed the Trans-Arctic journey as "a feat of endurance and courage which ranks with any in polar history", Shackleton called it a "phenomenon" and HRH Prince Philip, the expedition's patron, hailed it as "an achievement which ranks among the greatest triumphs of human skill and endurance."

    Today, among his contemporaries in polar exploration Herbert is a guru and Sir Ranulph Fiennes says: "I've grown up thinking he's the greatest of the polar travelers of today. His navigation, fieldcraft and logistics are superb and his awareness of what dogs can and can't do unparalleled. Wally is very genuine and if I had to pick out of all the travelers who are alive today, Wally is the greatest by a big head." Herbert has helped many a young adventurer on his way, with crucial advice on equipment, mapping and contacts. None of these men have retraced his pioneering journeys in the Antarctic or the Arctic.

    To mark the anniversary of Herbert's expedition reaching the North Pole on the 60th anniversary of Robert E Peary's discredited claim to have done so first, an exhibition of Herbert's polar paintings will be showing at the Atlas Studio Gallery in London. For nowadays, Herbert, aged 64, has become a polar painter, etching out the most detailed, intense and moving scenes from polar history and the present that have influenced his life.

    At Inverness airport, Wally and his wife Marie are waiting to meet me. I get a good look at him before he does me. He is diminutive, 5 foot 8 inches, not the usual macho image of a great explorer—but he has on a coat designed for the Arctic weather, with a fur-lined hood, framing a grizzly beard and small sparkling eyes. His posture is unimposing and his shoulders a little hunched. Marie gives me a warm welcome. 

    The Herberts have never owned a house of their own and they are presently renting a doll-size white-washed "bothy", overlooking the Spey valley. The view of the rolling hills is impressive but the noise from the small, occasionally busy road aggravates Wally. He craves silence.

    "See me in my environment," he urges before we start the interview proper. He shows me a film of his life in the Arctic and past journeys that is currently in post-production. When he is in the Arctic, the shackles and difficulty that he finds with life in Britain are shaken off and he visibly relaxes.

    In his environment, Herbert is the Sean Connery of all James Bonds. He is softly spoken, glowing and confident. On film, he reminisces passionately of the fear he felt before setting out on his Trans-Arctic journey. Looking ahead at the journey was psychologically very frightening because while he had traveled in the footsteps of Shackleton, Scott and Amundsen, no one had ever attempted this journey.

    Finding the North Pole was "rather like stepping on the shadow of a bird hovering overhead." This was because the ice was constantly moving and the sun only intermittently appearing to let them take their reading. Like Robert E Peary before them had done, they nearly missed it. The story is an amazing one: On 5 April 1969 Herbert messaged Her Majesty the Queen, "I have the honor to inform your Majesty that on the 5th April by dead reckoning we reached the North Pole." However, once the sun had come out he realized that the group had drifted off course and in order to get that all important proof they struggled on. It was not until the next day that they actually reached the North Pole and by amazing coincidence this was the very same day that Pearsy had claimed to have done so too on 6th April 1909.

    Herbert places a lot of emphasis on some very strange coincidences which lead him to believe that there is a "soul connection" with explorers of that region and discovery of the world and its environment as a whole. As the expedition headed home they photographed their first siting of land for 16 months. It was precisely the moment that the Astronaut Jack Young took the famous photograph of the "Earthrise" from the moon. Strangely too, at the end of journey they touched land at the exact moment, that 16 years earlier Hillary and Tensing had reached the summit of Mount Everest.

    "For me this first sight of land meant so much. The earth was like a precious jewel and that moment changed my life. It was from then that I began searching for the Third Pole." Herbert's spiritual quest has, he says, been as tough and demanding as his physical one.

    His childhood was spent with his mother and sister on a ranch in the Drankensberg mountains, in South Africa with his father absent in World War II. Herbert has few memories of this time. "I remember almost nothing until the age of twelve. A physiotherapist would probably tell me that I didn't want to be a child, which is probably true. I was not close to either of my parents or my sister and the moment that my voice broke was a great relief."

    One of Herbert's earliest memories is aptly a journey on ice. At the age of twelve, for a bet of five shillings, he walked across the River Severn on extremely thin ice, for which he was promptly beaten by his father. The first man to fire Herbert's imagination was The Reverend Norman Gurney, who had sailed as the boatswain on the Penola, the last expedition which had ventured under sail to the Antarctica in 1932. As a choirboy,     Herbert would sit enthralled at the curate's sermons which would be full of tales of Arctic adventure rather than the more conventional biblical stories. This was when Herbert resolved to become a District Officer somewhere in Colonial Africa or failing that, an explorer.

    However, his family had other ambitions for their dreaming son. To serve Queen and country was every man's destiny in the Herbert family, as it had been for the past four hundred years. At the age of 17, he was frog-marched to the nearest recruiting office and signed up for 22 years. Luckily for him he discovered a clause in his contract that gave him the option to quit after three years. Meanwhile, he hated every moment. "I am not a team player, I hated doing these pointless things which I felt were an insult to our intelligence. I was brutalized in the army."

    When Herbert left the army in 1955 he hitch-hiked home from Egypt, through Turkey, Greece and Italy, drawing portraits for his food and shelter, and as often, sleeping rough. "My father did not speak to me for three years but by the time I returned home from the Antarctic, having hitch-hiked 15 000 miles from Uruguay, he was proud of me and we became friends. He would take me to the pub and being an army man would always march in step with me which I would always purposefully break."

    "What I deeply regret is that I never told my father that I wanted to have his scrapbook of sporting and military achievements. When I was doing my Arctic journey he made a huge scrap book with all the international clippings. But when it had grown to two large volumes, he burnt his own book. I was so sad about that." With his mother, he says, "I had little contact. We spoke politely to each other but I felt embarrassed when she was concerned for me. She was very gentle."

    So where did he get his sense of mission? Was it driven by ego and arrogance? "My sense of mission was always historical," he explains. "It was not so much the physical prowess and the macho thing, although I have come to recognise the value of ego and arrogance in an explorer because without them I simply would not have attempted any of these journeys. I believed totally that we would succeed and would not have gone if I had thought otherwise. For the first two years I was in the Antarctic I was in awe of many explorers but then I began to have the authority to challenge them."

    One day in 1955 he spotted two advertisements in the Telegraph for jobs in the Antarctic. He was selected at the age of 22 to join the Falkland Islands Dependencies Survey, based at Hope Bay on the northern tip of the Antarctic Peninsula.

    Gradually Herbert achieved historic journeys, mapping some 38 000 square miles of previously unexplored country in the Nimrod Glacier region and the Queen Maud Range from 1960-62 and retracing Amundsen's route on the Axel Hiberg Glacier on the fiftieth anniversary of his descent of those icefalls in 1952. Between 1962 and 1963, Herbert worked frantically for a year in New Zealand to draw and publish this map before the Americans did. And then with soaring ambitions he returned to England to gather the support of distinguished polar explorers so that the Royal Geographical Society would approve his expedition to cross the Arctic Ocean. In 1966 he wintered with the Polar Eskimos of North-West Greenland in order to learn their ways and techniques on the ice. Herbert set out from Greenland the following spring re-tracing the 1908 outward route of Dr Freerick Cook, a journey of 1 500 miles.

    Although the journey across the top of the world roundly was applauded it was badly timed because the eyes of the world were fixed on an event of larger historical significance, man's first landing on the moon. And so Wally Herbert returned from the Arctic with a huge financial debt and sense of failure. Married on Christmas Eve 1969 to Marie, he settled down to write two books but soon he needed another journey. In 1971 he set out with his wife and baby daughter, Kari for north-west Greenland to live with the Polar Eskimos. Then came a period of reflection and inner-struggle as Herbert set out to write Peary's biography and reluctantly disprove his hero's claim to be the first man to the North Pole. "This was the blackest cross-roads of my entire life," he says. But worse was still to come. His youngest daughter Pascale was killed in a freak electrical accident four years ago which the whole family are struggling to come to terms with.

    Having diced with death more than most men on earth, he now believes in reincarnation. "When I'm awake I am never, and never have been, afraid of death. I've always been afraid of death through nightmares. For example during my Polar days, if I fell down a crevasse or into the sea through thin ice, I had already done it so many times in my dreams that I knew what to do. So when it happened for real, I had gone through the agony of dying in these situations already and I picked the method in which I lived happily ever after."

(1990 words) TOP

课文二

冰上之景

    威利·赫伯特是当今仍健在的最伟大的极地探险者。就是他率领三个人四条狗组成的“英国北冰洋探险队”，历时16个月，跋涉3800英里，首次进行极地探险。此次探险的大部分时间他们都是在漆黑一片、浮冰不断漂流和碎裂的大洋上度过的。现在人们普遍认为这次旅程是“人类在地球表面留下的最后一次大规模的探险活动”，一次后来无人敢尝试的探险。它是一项地质探险之最，和登珠穆朗玛峰、首次跨越地球南北冰盖齐名。

    那次旅程后的30年里，威利·赫伯特一直是连结以往英雄年代的探险与现代冒险活动的最后一个环节。然而，他从未因为自己在极地探险中作出过杰出的贡献而得到过荣誉。尽管哈罗德·威尔逊首相说过，穿越北冰洋之旅是“一项由耐力与勇气铸就的名垂极地史的伟业。”撒克雷顿把它称为“一种现象”。而极地探险的赞助人——菲力浦亲王殿下将其誉为“一项载入人类技能与耐力杰出成就史的壮举。”

    今天，在同时代的探险家中，赫伯特是领袖级人物。伦努尔夫·费恩斯爵士说道：“我自小到大一直认为他是当今最伟大的极地旅行者。他的航海学知识、野外生存技能与后勤学知识都是一流的；他对狗在探险队中能干什么，不能干什么一清二楚，这一点无人能及。威利确实名不虚传。如果要我在所有健在的探险家中挑选，威利是最伟大的，并且遥遥领先。”赫伯特给过许多行将出发的年轻探险家帮助，在器材、地图与联络方面提供至关重要的主意。这些人中没一人重走他当年在南极或北极首次走过的线路。

    罗伯特·E·皮里宣称自己首次到达北极，但没有得到承认，此事至今已经60周年。为了赫伯特到达北极探险的周年纪念，伦敦的阿特拉斯美术馆将举行一次赫伯特极地画展。目前，64岁的赫伯特已成了一位专攻极地的画家，描绘出影响他一生的极地历史与现实中最详尽、强烈和动人心魄的场景。

    在因弗内斯机场，威利和他和妻子玛丽等着接我。我在他打量我之前好好地打量了他一番。他身材矮小，才5英尺8英寸，不是通常大探险家具有的那种魁伟身材——但是他身穿为北极气候而设计的外衣，头戴一顶缝了皮边的兜帽，裹着灰白的胡子和明亮的小眼睛。他的样子并不起眼，背稍有点驼。玛丽向我表示热烈欢迎。

    赫伯特夫妇从未有过属于自己的房子。他们目前租了一间很小的用白色粉刷的“独屋”，屋子俯视斯佩山谷。起伏连绵的山峦很壮观，可是那条狭窄、有时过往车辆繁多的小路传来的噪声使威利感到心烦。他渴望宁静。

    “要在我的环境中了解我，”我们开始正式采访前他嘱咐道。他给我看了一部正在进行后期制作的关于他在北极以及过去探险经历的片子。一旦身在北极，在英国生活中感受的束缚与困难便荡然无存，他感到明显地放松。

    在自己的环境里，赫伯特犹如扮演詹姆斯·邦德的塞恩·康内里，讲话声音温和、容光焕发、非常自信。在影片中，他极为动情地回想起穿越北极之旅开始前所感觉到的恐惧。只要事先想一想旅程，就会不寒而栗，因为他沿着沙克尔顿、斯科特和阿蒙森的足迹旅行时，没有人做过这种尝试。

    寻找北极就象“脚踏在头顶上盘旋的鸟的影子”。因为脚下的冰块总在不停地移动，太阳只是偶尔露一下脸让他们看一看。就象他们之前的罗伯特·E·皮里做的那样，他们差一点错过了它。这是一个令人惊奇的故事。1969年4月5日，赫伯特在给女王陛下发电报时说：“我荣幸地告知陛下：用陆标定位法计算，4月5日我们到达了北极。”然而，待太阳出来后，他意识到探险小组偏离了方位。为了获得所有重要的证据他们继续拼搏。直到第二天，他们一行才真正到达北极。这与皮里在1909年4月6日宣称到了北极的日子惊人地巧合。

    赫伯特非常重视某些离奇的巧合。这些巧合使他相信，极地探险与探索世界同环境之间有一种“冥冥间的联系”。就在探险队返程时，他们带回了16个月考察北极大地拍下的照片。这一刻也正好是宇航员杰克·扬格在月球上拍下著名的“地出”照片的时刻。同时奇怪的是：他们在结束北极之行踏上陆地的那一刻，也正是16年前希拉里与滕辛登上珠穆朗玛峰之时。

    “对于我来说，这第一次见到陆地意味着太多太多。地球如同一颗珍贵的珠宝，而那一刻改变了我的生活。就是从那个时候开始，我开始寻找第三极。”赫伯特说，他的精神追求跟物质追求一样，既坚苦又迫切。”

    他的童年是与母亲、姐姐一道在南非德拉肯斯堡山脉的一个农场度过的，其时他的父亲远在第二次世界大战 的战场。赫伯特对这段时光没有太多记忆。“对于十二岁之前的事情，我没有什么印象。一位理疗大夫大概会跟我说，我不想做小孩。他的话或许是对的。我跟父母或姐姐都不怎么亲近。我变嗓音的时刻是一个解脱。”

    赫伯特最早记忆中的一件事恰好就是一次冰上之旅。十二岁时，为了五先令的打赌，他在极簿的冰层上走过塞汶河。为此他立即被父亲打了一顿。第一个激发赫伯特想象力的人是诺曼·格尼牧师。他曾在潘诺拉号船做过水手长。该船于1932年作最后一次探险活动抵达南极洲。作为唱诗班的孩子，赫伯特着迷地听着牧师的布道，布道中充满了极地探险故事，而不是较为传统的圣经故事。那时赫伯特正决定当非洲殖民地某个地区的地方官，如果不行，就做一名探险家。

    然而，他的家庭为这位充满梦想的孩子设计了其他雄伟的计划。为女王与国家服务是赫伯特家族每一个人的使命。这个家庭400年来一直如此。17岁那年，他被家人强行弄到最近的一个征兵办公室，签了一份22年的合同。幸运的是，他发现了合同中有一款可以允许他服役三年后选择离开。同时，在这段时间里，他度日如年。“我不是一名团队合作者，我厌倦做那些毫无意义的事情，我感到这是对我们智慧的一种侮辱。我在军队里受到粗野的对待。”

    1955年赫伯特离开部队后，他从埃及搭便车经土耳其、希腊与意大利回家，沿途靠替人画像维持食宿，时常还得露宿街头。“父亲整整三年没跟我说话。可当我结束南极之行从乌拉圭搭便车跋涉15000英里回到家时，他为我感到自豪，我们成了朋友。他会带我去酒馆。作为一名军人，他走路总是要与我同步，而我经常故意把步伐弄乱。”

    “令我深感遗憾的，是我从未跟我父亲说我想要他的有关体育与军事成就的剪贴簿。我在北极探险时，他曾将所有国际上的报纸报道剪下来组成一大本剪贴簿。可是当剪贴簿变成两大卷时他把它们烧了。我对此感到非常悲伤。”关于自己的母亲，赫伯特说：“我与她接触很少。我们说话时彼此很客气。但是当她关心我时我会感到不自在。她是个温柔的女人。”

    那么，他的使命感又从何而来的呢？是不是受自负与狂傲心理的驱动？“我的使命感总是历史性的，”他解释道。“虽然我已意识到自负与狂傲对于一名探险家的意义，因为缺乏这种自负与狂傲我简直无法尝试所有这些冒险活动，但这也不是以匹夫之勇所能做到的。我完全相信我们会成功，而如果我不是这样认为的话我们是不会去的。我在南极的头两年时间里，对许多探险队员都很敬畏，可是后来我开始有资格向他们进行挑战。”

    1955年的一天，他在电讯报上看到两则招募到南极工作的广告。22岁那年他被选中参加大本营设在南极半岛北端的霍普湾的福克兰群岛托管地巡视团。

    赫伯特渐渐地获得一些具有历史性意义的探险机会。从1960年至1962年，他绘制了宁录冰川区与莫德女王山脉之间从未有人涉足过的面积达38 000平方英里区域的地形图。在阿蒙森1952年遇上冰崩罹难的15周年时，他循着这位先驱的足迹到过阿捷尔·海伯格冰川。1962年至1963年间，赫伯特在新西兰发狂似地工作了一年，抢在美国人之前制作出版了那幅地图。然后他怀着凌云壮志返回英国，争取那些著名的极地探险家的支持，以便皇家地质学会批准他跨越北冰洋的探险计划。1966年，为了学会生活在格陵兰西北部极地爱斯基摩人在冰雪上的生活方式与技能，他与他们生活了一个冬天。第二天春天，赫伯特便从格陵兰出发，循着费里利克·库克博士1908年走过的外围路线，开始了1500英里的旅程。

    虽然环绕世界极地之旅赢来了一片喝彩，但这次探险不是时候，因为世人的目光都盯在有更重大历史意义的事件上——人类第一次登上月球。因此，威利·赫伯特从北极回来后便背上了一身债务，心中充满了挫折感。1969年圣诞节前夕他与玛丽结婚，然后潜下心来写两部书。可是过了不久，他需要再一次的探险活动。1971年，他带着妻子与女婴卡里到格陵兰西北部与爱斯基摩人生活在一起。后来，赫伯特着手撰写皮里传记并且很不情愿反驳皮里宣称自己是到达北极第一人的说法，此时他经历了一段时间的反思与内心斗争。“这是我一生中最难决择的时期，”他说道。但更糟糕的事情还在后头。四年前他最小的女儿帕斯卡尔在一次电击事故中丧命。全家正努力弥合这次精神创伤。

    与大多数世人相比，他经历过更多的与死神的赌博，现在他相信轮回再生的说法。“醒着时，我永远不会、也从来没有害怕过死亡，但在恶梦中我总是害怕死亡。例如，我在极地的那些日子里，假如我跌入冰隙里或踏碎薄冰而落入海中，我知道该怎样做：因为这样的情景已在我的梦中多次出现过。因此，要是这样的事真的发生，我已经经历过这种情况下死亡的痛苦。此后，我选择了乐观的生活方式。

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