One wonders whether Lhakpa Chedi’s family knows what he achieved. It would be a fine project one day to visit the Khumbu (the Sherpa district of Nepal) armed with the team photos and track down his descendants.
Up they went. Somervell describes this part of the mountain-side as ‘easy’, which it is, but he didn’t know about the technical difficulties further up. At this point he says they were hampered by Semchumbi’s knee (Somervell carried part of his load) and their physical condition, but most of all by the ‘atmosphere’. This is still true. Everest is not so much a climbing problem as an altitude problem. They were not using oxygen sets. In the thin air you literally take one step, then ten breaths, then another step. It is agonisingly slow.
They levelled a camp site at 26,700ft (8,140m), at a place with good shelter behind a rock. It was 2,200ft below the summit, and a bit too low, Somervell says. Given the time-consuming route finding further on, they were committing themselves – and Mallory and Irvine a few days later – to a very long summit day by placing their last camp so far from the top. Interestingly, the South Col on the south side of the mountain is at 25,940ft (7,906m), and it is where everyone camps nowadays for an attempt on the Hillary route, although the first few successful ascents started from a camp at 27,900ft (8,500m).
Norton and I settled down to melt snow for to-night’s supper and to-morrow’s breakfast, looking out from time to time to see the porters bucketing down the mountain-side, and far beyond them at a sunset all over the world, as it seemed – from the rosy fingers of Kangchenjanga in the east, past the far-distant peaks of mid-Tibet, separated from us by several complete ranges of mountains, to Gaurisankar and its satellites in the west, black against a red sky.
And here was a comment on their approach to the limits of human ability:
I remember a curious sensation while up at this camp, as if we were getting near the edge of a field with a wall all round it – a high, insuperable wall. The field was human capacity, the wall human limitations. The field, I remember, was a bright and uniform green, and we were walking towards the edge – very near the edge now, where the whitish-grey wall said: ‘Thus far, and no further.’ This almost concrete sense of being near the limit of endurance was new to me, and though I have often felt the presence of a Companion on the mountains, I have only on this single occasion had this definite vision of limitation.7
The human limitation they were to encounter the next day was a lack of oxygen, and we will meet the phenomenon of the Companion in Chapter 17.
Somervell awoke at 5:00am on 4 June with an extremely sore throat and to the announcement from Norton that the cork in one of the two Thermos flasks had come out, and that they would therefore have to melt more snow. They set off an hour and forty minutes later, taking with them axes, a short rope, a few cardigans, a Thermos flask of coffee and the vest-pocket Kodak.
Somervell had his own ideas on what to wear for this kind of outing:
I used to have a sort of short mackintosh coat with buttons up to the top and I used this as an outer windproof thing and varied the thickness. I had boots to take four pairs of socks inside. I had a woollen vest, a flannel shirt and three cardigans.8
Dressed like tramps, Somervell and Norton climbed up into the jet stream, higher than anyone had ever climbed before. In a BBC recording Somervell remembered that day:
We had no rope between us because we felt that if one fell the other couldn’t hold him so it was better to risk one life at a time rather than two. I felt absolutely done to the world. Norton was all right in his breathing. I was breathing [he gasps, gasps and coughs] like that, and I tried to cough, to cough this thing out but it would not come. I said I can’t go on any further so I stayed on a ledge and in spite of my difficulty in breathing I felt a kind of elation about the wonderful view we got. It was a magnificent day. We had no excuse that we could blame on the weather for not getting to the top, simply that we were two ordinary mortals and we couldn’t do any better.9
His throat was beginning to bother him:
A couple of crocks slowly and breathlessly struggling up, with frequent rests and a lot of puffing, and blowing and coughing. Most of the coughing, and probably most of the delay, came from me.10
The apparent weather conditions were the best they could have hoped for, with a warming sun and a less cutting wind. However, there was a hidden aspect of their environment that was invisible: the air pressure. At around 27,500ft (8,360m) they found that the effects of altitude suddenly asserted themselves. From climbing at 300 vertical feet an hour they were cut down to 100. Finally, at around 28,000ft (8,510m), with the summit only half a mile away, Somervell felt he could no longer continue. His throat had become more and more obstructed, and he told Norton to carry on without him.
He watched as Norton picked his way across to the great couloir now named after him. It is worth noting that they did not contemplate trying to climb the Second Step, a sheer cliff above them, now ascended by a fixed aluminium ladder installed by the Chinese in 1975. Norton got about 100 feet in height and 300 yards in distance beyond where they had rested and reached a point later measured by Hazard by theodolite as 28,126ft (8,570m). He was at the end of his endurance, too, and shouted down that he was becoming snow-blind, asking his companion to come up and bring the rope as he could not see where to put his feet. As Norton descended, Somervell went up and joined him. They returned, Somervell being so far from normal that he dropped his ice axe for the first time in his climbing experience.
Stopping at Camp VI they picked up a tent pole to replace the ice axe and un-roped as the going got easier:
Alas that we did so! Somewhere about 25,000 feet high, when darkness was gathering, I had one of my fits of coughing and dislodged something in my throat which stuck so that I could breathe neither in nor out. I could not, of course, make a sign to Norton, or stop him, for the rope was off now; so I sat in the snow to die whilst he walked on, little knowing that his companion was awaiting the end only a few yards behind him. I made one or two attempts to breathe, but nothing happened. Finally, I pressed my chest with both hands, gave one last almighty push – and the obstruction came up. What a relief! Coughing up a little blood, I once more breathed really freely – more freely than I had done for some days.11
He rejoined Norton, who thought Somervell had hung back to make a sketch before the light went, and together they met Mallory and Odell coming out of Camp IV, carrying oxygen (it is interesting to note that by now Mallory was regarding the gas as a panacea). They didn’t want any, but were more heartened by the news that Irvine was brewing hot tea and soup in the tent below.
As a footnote, Somervell tells his medical readers that the obstruction in his throat was a slough of the mucus membrane lining the larynx, due to frostbite caused by the inhalation of very cold air. He thought this happened during the rescue attempt on 24 May. After being warmed and fed they retired to their sleeping bags. Conditions seemed to be as good as they get on the mountain. But they had been beaten by their weakness:
no fresh snow, no blizzards, no intense cold had driven us off the peak. We were just two frail mortals, and the biggest task Nature has yet set to man was too much for us.
Norton and Somervell had just pulled off one of the most remarkable climbs in history. Without oxygen, and while not at all fit, they had climbed together to 28,000ft (8,510m) on a new route on Everest and had the mountaineering judgement to turn back before they got into serious trouble. Norton’s record of 28,126ft (8,570m) stood for 55 years. Mallory, however, had become obsessed with the summit and wanted one more chance. John Noel, in one of the BBC recordings, said this:
I myself, knowing Mallory’s character, that he was obsessed by climbing Mount Everest, it dominated his life, so did he feel he could do it? Did he feel that if he didn’t do it he would die anyway? He was late. Did they go on and reach the summit and die there or on the way back? They knew they were doomed.
As in 1922, this was to be a third, disastrous attemp
t that would end in death. Norton and Mallory lay in their tent on the North Col that night, and Mallory explained that he had been down to Camp III to get more cylinders for an oxygen-assisted attempt.
Norton surely would have briefed Mallory about where the top camp was, about the route he had followed that day and how close the summit seemed to be. Mallory told him of his decision to take Irvine instead of Odell, as Irvine had ‘a peculiar genius for mechanical expedients’. Norton did not agree with this decision but did not attempt to interfere with it. Sometime after 11:00pm Norton was smitten by snow-blindness, a particularly painful affliction caused by the removal of his goggles at altitude. The next morning he was badly snow-blind and had to stay in a darkened tent on the North Col. Somervell was advised to go down to Base Camp. He could do useful work there, such as continuing the meteorological readings.
From the porters’ reports – and from notes sent down – we know that Mallory and Irvine made it safely up the familiar route to Camp V, where they spent the night of 6 June. In a note to Odell, Mallory wrote: ‘There is no wind here, and things look hopeful.’ The next day they pushed on up to the small tent that Norton and Somervell had established at Camp VI. Here Mallory sent down two additional notes; one to Odell:
Dear Odell, we’re awfully sorry to leave the camp in such a mess – our Unna cooker rolled down the slope at the last moment. Be sure of getting down to IV tomorrow in time to evacuate before dark, as I hope to. In the tent I must have left a compass – for the Lord’s sake rescue it: we are here without. To here on 90 atmospheres for the two days – so we’ll probably go on two cylinders – but it’s a bloody load for climbing. Perfect weather for the job! Yours ever, George Mallory.
Once again, unfortunately, Mallory was losing things. On the approach march he was notorious for leaving a trail of forgotten items behind him, his companions picking them up while he strode on ahead, perfectly unaware. Here they seem to have lost a cooker, which was vital to produce drinking water, a compass, vital for a safe return to camp in blizzard conditions on an unknown route, and later Odell was to find they had left behind an electric torch, vital for a descent in the dark. Luckily, Norton and Somervell had left a stove at Camp VI. Most climbers I know neurotically check and check again the items they need as they prepare for their final climb. The curious collection of impedimenta found later in Mallory’s pockets, such as bills and nail scissors, suggests a disorganised mind.
The other note was to Noel:
Dear Noel, We’ll probably start early tomorrow (8th) in order to have clear weather. It won’t be too early to start looking out for us either crossing the rock band under the pyramid or going up the skyline at 8.0 p.m. Yours, G Mallory.
The obvious mistake of ‘8.0 p.m.’ instead of ‘8.0 a.m’, and the contraction of the former ‘George’ to ‘G’, suggest he was in a hurry to finish the note off and let the porters get away quickly. By the ‘rock band’ he meant the rocks beneath the summit pyramid – the way Norton and Somervell had gone. If he hoped to get there in a couple of hours he was sadly mistaken. It can take modern climbers five times as long from a closer top camp, and using fixed ropes and lighter oxygen. By the ‘skyline’ he meant the ridge route, the route he originally favoured, implying that he was keeping the two route options open.
The next morning Mallory and Irvine left their tiny tent, and climbed up into oblivion, leaving behind them the greatest mystery in mountaineering history. There was a brief and controversial sighting of them by Odell later that day, whose note to Norton after his long but futile search had a valedictory cadence: ‘No trace can be found, given up hope, awaiting orders.’
Before he left the North Col Mallory had asked Somervell if he could borrow the VPK camera, as he had forgotten his own. Here are Somervell’s actual words in a BBC interview:
When Mallory set off on his expedition he borrowed my camera, and of course it never came back. If ever Mallory’s body was found I wonder if the camera will still be in his pocket. If so we may find out whether or not he reached the top.12
Here we freeze-frame our story and return to the small boy listening to the old man on a lawn in Gloucestershire, 40-odd years later. ‘If my camera was ever found,’ said Uncle Hunch to me, ‘you could prove that Mallory got to the top.’
9
A Pilgrim’s Progress
After university I got a job at the BBC, and eventually this allowed me to pursue my climbing in the Himalayas. Running parallel to this was my interest in mountaineering history, and in particular Somervell’s story of the 1924 Everest expedition.
The facts have been examined over and over again in the intervening years, and many theories have been put forward. But the question that still hovered over the whole incident was this. Did Mallory and Irvine get to the top? And therefore, was Everest climbed in 1924, nearly thirty years before the New Zealander Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing reached the summit on the British expedition of 1953? Somervell had a hunch that they had done it, as did other members of that 1924 expedition. So did people who knew Mallory well.
I realised that it is very hard to prove that they didn’t do it, and I became desperate to prove that they had. Over the years it became an article of faith with me. It seemed that if I could prove that these two men had won against all the odds, then this would inspire the struggle against impossibility. It became a sort of pilgrim’s progress.
In 1986 a book was published that reignited the debate. The Mystery of Mallory and Irvine put forward the theory that Mallory had climbed the mountain. Tom Holzel had become fascinated by the lack of a conclusive answer to the question. He collaborated with the English mountaineering historian Audrey Salkeld, who knew many of the characters and whose library contained the documentary evidence their book needed. He contributed two chapters and Audrey Salkeld wrote most of the rest. She has become a great friend and support to me over the years, supplying rare letters and evidence to help the search.
The mystery has gripped mountaineers ever since 1924. There have been a few scattered pieces of evidence, some of which can be considered as reliable clues and some as less reliable ones. The first real clue came when an ice axe was found on the 1933 Everest expedition by Percy Wyn-Harris and Lawrence ‘Bill’ Wager on their summit attempt, probably marking the site of an accident. I would call this axe and the place it was found a reliable clue. I have handled the axe at the Alpine Club, of which I became a member in 1990. How I wished it could tell its story! It was smaller and rather lighter than I expected. Compared with my modern, machine-made, aluminium axe, it felt more like the work of a craftsman, with a dark-stained, wooden haft and a finely forged head. Turning it round in my hands I was struck by the three notches near the neck, supposedly marking it as Irvine’s as they matched three similar notches cut into his swagger stick. In the 1933 Alpine Journal I found Hugh Ruttledge’s account of how it was found:
Traversing diagonally upwards [from Camp VI] they found after about an hour’s climbing, an ice-axe which must have belonged to either Mallory or Irvine. It was lying loose on a slab at an angle of about 30°, about 60 feet below the crest of the N.E. arête.
In his full account of the expedition Ruttledge described where it was found in more detail:
about 60 feet below the crest of the ridge and 250 yards east of the first step, Wyn Harris, who was leading, found the ice-axe about which there has been so much controversy. It was lying free on smooth, brown, boiler-plate slabs of rock, inclined at an easy angle, but steepening considerably just below. It was in perfect condition, looking quite new. On the polished steel head was stamped the name of the maker – Willisch, of Täsch, in the Zermatt valley.1
My father also used this term ‘boiler-plate slabs’ as a descriptive feature. The name refers to the vast steel plates manufactured for the old steam ships. On Arran I once climbed a rock route called Sou’wester Slabs, which features these smooth boiler-plates. On a hot, dry day they provide plenty of friction, but with snow or pebbles lying o
n them they are lethally slippery, even at an easy angle. Ruttledge goes on:
Firstly, it seems probable that the axe marked the scene of a fatal accident … neither climber would be likely to abandon it deliberately on the slabs, and its presence there would seem to indicate that it was accidentally dropped when a slip occurred or that its owner put it down possibly in order to have both hands free to hold the rope. The slabs at this point are not particularly steep, but they are smooth and in places have a covering of loose pebbles which are an added danger.
Wyn-Harris later wrote of the place:
The angle of the slab was such that it appeared inconceivable to me that a climber would be unable to prevent a slide if he slipped while ascending. Whereas coming down exhausted it would be just the sort of place where it would be just too easy for a man to slip and fall helpless on his back; with the two oxygen cylinders acting as runners such a fall could all too easily end in a fatal slide down the steepening rocks below.2
Then there were more nebulous clues. The most famous sighting in the history of mountaineering must be the one made by poor Noel Odell of his team-members Mallory and Irvine, two days after they parted from Norton and Somervell on the North Col. I say ‘poor Odell’ because he was quizzed about this for the rest of his life, and whenever he changed the exact details of his account he was quizzed about that, too.
The ‘well-known firm’ of Odell and Irvine had been providing excellent support to the summit teams, cooking all the meals on the North Col during the previous week, bringing in exhausted porters and climbers, and looking after the sick. They had both been down to Camp III and back up to Camp IV on three consecutive days. Odell was twice to go up to Camp VI at 26,700ft (8,140m) in support of his companions. We now know this is the kind of altitude profile that is best for acclimatising to great altitudes. I call it ‘spiking’ – climbing high during the day, and then sleeping lower, with a steadily increasing gain in overall height.
Last Hours on Everest Page 11