Alive: The Story of the Andes Survivors

by Piers Paul Read

‘It’s like Holy Communion. When Christ died he gave his body to us so that we could have spiritual life. My friend has given us his body so that we can have physical life.’

It would have been possible now to avoid eating such things as rotten lungs and putrid intestines of bodies they had cut up weeks before, but half the boys continued to do so because they had come to need the stronger taste. It had taken a supreme effort of will for these boys to eat human flesh at all, but once they had started and persevered, appetite had come with the eating, for the instinct to survive was a harsh tyrant which demanded not just that they eat their companions but that they get used to doing so.

Díaz gave him two letters from his father. ‘One is for you,’ he said, ‘and one for the whole group.’ Carlitos opened them and read first that which was for them all. ‘Cheer up and confidence,’ it read. ‘Here I give you a helicopter as a Christmas present.’ The second was to himself alone. ‘As you can see, I never failed you. I am waiting for you with more faith in God than ever before. Mama is on her way to Chile. Your old man.’

There was one question, however, which Inciarte had asked him and he could not answer. Why was it that he had lived while others had died? What purpose had God in making this selection? What sense could be made out of it? ‘None,’ replied Father Andrés. ‘There are times when the will of God cannot be understood by our human intelligence. There are things which in all humility we must accept as a mystery.’

Then Methol asked them if, by any chance, they had some maté. ‘Maté? Of course we’ve got maté. How can you imagine that four Chileans would be without maté?’

It was clear, therefore, that the survivors were to be regarded neither as saints nor as sinners,