Alive: The Story of the Andes Survivors

by Piers Paul Read

‘At least it got over the Andes,’ one of the girls replied tartly, ‘which is more than yours will.’

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‘For God’s sake, be quiet!’ came cries from the back of the plane. ‘You’re no worse off than anyone else.’

‘He said that if we weren’t rescued, he’d eat one of the pilots to get out of here.’ There was a pause; then Carlitos added, ‘That hit on the head must have made him slightly mad.’ ‘I don’t know,’ said Fito, his honest, serious features quite composed. ‘It might be the only way to survive.’

He felt triumphant. His conscience had overcome a primitive, irrational taboo. He was going to survive.

‘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.’

‘We have survived the worst,’ he said. ‘From now on, things can only get better.’

To Pedro, God was the love which existed between two human beings, or a group of human beings. Thus love was all important.

‘Look, Nando. If we’re going to die, we’re going to die, so let’s at least get a good night’s sleep.’

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.

‘Come on,’ said Parrado. ‘You may not deserve it, but you need it.’

The shade...

‘What did you eat?’ ‘Oh, we had some cheese, and things like that.’

Indeed, they became increasingly disgusted with the journalists, who showed no reticence or tact in what they asked.

As Delgado finished, it was quite evident that the entire company was deeply moved by what he had said, and when Daniel Juan asked the assembled journalists if they had any questions to ask the survivors he was told that there were none. Whereupon the whole room burst into a spontaneous hurrah for the gentlemen of the Uruguayan and international press, followed by a final cheer for those who had not returned.

If anything, the experience had made him less religious; he now had a stronger belief in man.

Each day that passed had peeled off layer upon layer of superficiality until they were left only with what they truly cared for: their families, their novias, their faith in God and their homeland. They now despised the world of fashionable clothes, nightclubs, flirtatious girls, and idle living. They determined to take their work more seriously, to be more devout in their religious observances, and to dedicate more time to their families.

Some saw their dead sons in the survivors, for it was not difficult to understand that if their children had stayed alive and the others had died, the same thing would have happened; and that if all forty-five had survived the accident and avalanche, all forty-five would now be dead.

‘Papa,’ she said. ‘You came back from heaven, didn’t you? But when is Mama coming back?’ Javier crouched down to the level of his little daughter and said to her, ‘You must try and understand, Marie Noel, that Mama is so nice, so very nice, that God needs her in heaven. She is so important that now she is living with God.’