Last Hours on Everest

by Graham Hoyland

  The Downs School, run by Geoffrey Hoyland, and where young John Hoyland, my uncle, taught briefly in 1934, realised some of these same ideals. From their colleague Auden’s writings, we can understand how exciting it must have been for Mallory to see the possibility of sweeping away the philistine old public-school system of Greek and rugger. In all of this, his other interest of climbing was seen as a means towards realising his ideals, rather than an end in itself.

  After the Armistice, back home with Ruth and again teaching at Charterhouse, he became restless, finding the teaching of children too slow compared with the training of adult soldiers that he had undertaken at the end of the war. One gains the feeling that he was casting around for a cause that might save the world. He became interested in the League of Nations, and a letter of application to Gilbert Murray, Regius Professor of Greek at Oxford and a Vice President of the League, reveals how he chose to present himself at that time:

  How shall I tell you about myself? … I believe that I am not without some gift for lecturing – partly from some little experience I had in France when we set about educating the Army, and partly because one can’t be a schoolmaster for long without developing such talent of expression as he may be endowed with. I am to some extent a student of history – that is ‘my subject’ here; in a second rate sort of fashion no doubt as is almost inevitable, apart from mental gifts, in the case of a schoolmaster; still, history is an interest and a foundation which might be helpful. I have also a very great interest in literature and in writing on my own account but I expect that is not much to the purpose. Perhaps the most important thing about me which I ought to tell you is that I think and feel passionately about international politics …1

  Soon afterwards Mallory went on some kind of fact-finding mission for the League to Ireland during ‘the Terror’, just before Partition, but it led to nothing. Again, there is a sense of casting around for something to do. After Mallory’s death Geoffrey Winthrop Young said that Mallory had worked out a scheme for promoting international understanding by geography teaching, and Howard Somervell told of his ‘wonderful schemes for doing something to draw classes together and thwart the appalling scourge of class-consciousness being thrust upon the present generation’. Benson, writing in his diary after Mallory visited him in 1923, remarked that his friend was ‘a bright gallant figure, possessed of much personality’, who was ‘absorbed in the League of Nations’.

  Marriage and the war had re-directed his interests, rather than blunting them. Towards the end of the war Mallory felt that, when he was training young soldiers, he had found his true vocation in the teaching of adults. Hinks – in one of his few positive actions – had met Revd David Cranage, the Secretary of the Board of Extra-Mural Studies at Cambridge, on a train and suggested Mallory for a position teaching workmen. Mallory seemed ideal for the job as it appealed to his socialist ideals and training, and he was appointed. Soon, however, he asked for leave from his new job to take part in the 1924 expedition and, under great pressure from Hinks, Cranage relented and let him go.

  Mount Everest must have seemed a heaven-sent opportunity to further Mallory’s cause to make the world a better place. He was right to believe that success on the mountain would give him an attentive audience. If he had survived he could perhaps have enjoyed a long BBC career like Jack Longland, another Everester and pedagogue, or he could have been directly involved in setting up a new kind of school. I think he had a strong sense of destiny, which sometimes made him clutch at straws.

  Audrey Salkeld, among others, has noticed how his feelings towards Mount Everest developed. In 1921 he was excited by the reconnaissance, but in 1922 his pleasure was overshadowed by guilt at the death of the Sherpas. Then, in 1923, when he was lecturing and planning the next Everest climb he became obsessed with climbing the mountain. In 1924 bad weather forced Norton’s abandonment of his scheme, and Mallory’s last-ditch climb was an attempt to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. His state of mind in 1924 could be characterised by: ‘This is it, at last I’ve found my vocation, and if I climb this mountain now I can get on with my real life’s work.’

  This is a very dangerous approach to a mountain that – more than any other – demands patience. I, too, caught summit fever near the top of Everest, and I know just how seductive it can be.

  In those last hours it must have seemed that a great prize was slipping from his grasp. Exhausted by bad weather and oxygen starvation, the constant stream of decision-making that is the lot of the high-altitude mountaineer would have slowly trickled to a halt. For some climbers it then resolves into the mantra ‘Summit or die. Summit or die.’ However, Mallory was a better climber than that. I believe he went too high for the conditions, led on by the seductive prospect of success, but that he did make the decision to turn back when the weather became impossible. Then the lethal relaxation of vigilance during descent made one of the pair slip, and the rest was up to gravity and contingency. The brutal wreck of a fine mind and much-loved man swiftly followed, and all those ideals evaporated in the whirling blizzard.

  22

  Weighing the Evidence

  By now, after studying the evidence for some 30 years and visiting the mountain on nine expeditions, I thought I ought to able to make a fairly accurate guess about what happened to Mallory and Irvine. If we evaluate each clue, then take the climb hour by hour, we might reach some reasonable conclusions.

  Mallory had returned from his first attempt with Bruce in 1924 a frustrated man. His party had only reached 25,000ft (7,620m), when porter trouble prevented any further ascent. His swift abandonment of this oxygen-less attempt suggests that he thought it was a waste of effort. Returning to Camp III he fished out the gas sets to make a last-ditch attempt with Irvine. Turning them on, they climbed swiftly up the North Col slopes at record speed, which may have reinforced his belief that the oxygen would prevail. After a night on the Col they left for their summit attempt.

  If Mount Everest were in the dock, standing accused of killing George Mallory and Sandy Irvine, the prosecution and the defence would stand or fall on the evidence. I would like to lay out that evidence as follows:

  Reliable evidence:

  Mallory’s body and where it was found. That he was not directly on the fall line from the ice-axe position suggests that there were two falls, not one.

  Mallory’s injuries. As we have seen, George Rodway’s evidence suggests these were not consistent with one long fall. In addition, the severe bruising around his waist would have taken time to form. It is possible, in the case of a really severe accident, to have bruises start to form within 20 to 30 minutes of injury. So, if Mallory only fell once, he had to live at least that long post-fall for the bruises around his ribs to form. The bruises were pretty extensive – Rodway’s best guess is that they might have taken at least an hour to form. So, again, we might have two falls.

  The clothes that Mallory was wearing. They were studied, replicated, tested in the field and the laboratory, and found to be adequate if the weather remained good, dangerously inadequate if it did not.

  Mallory’s belongings taken from his body: sun goggles from an inside pocket, a broken watch, an altimeter and some letters.

  The weather. We now know there was dangerously low air-pressure that day, which was associated with a blizzard. The barometric readings were taken from calibrated instruments by men at Base Camp.

  The ice axe found in 1933 by Percy Wyn-Harris and Bill Wager. It is beyond reasonable doubt that it belonged to either Mallory or Irvine. It is probable that it was Irvine’s, as it had identifying marks that tallied with his swagger stick.

  The approximate place where the axe was found. We know this by marked-up photographs from the 1933 expedition.

  Smythe’s sighting of a body in 1933. We can give weight to this clue as Mallory was found exactly where Smythe reported a body to be.

  The oxygen cylinder first spotted by Simonson on the North Ridge in 1991, and brought down to Base Camp in 199
9. Its unique markings established that it came from Mallory or Irvine in 1924, and it is identified in Mallory’s jotted note on the back of a letter as cylinder No. 9. It had contained 110 atmospheres. Its exact original location is uncertain, though.

  The position of their last camp, Camp VI. This was found in 1933 and excavated in 2001.

  A woollen mitten found in 2001 by an American searcher on the exit from the yellow rock band.

  Less reliable evidence:

  Odell’s sighting. He was a credible witness, and his eyesight was good. He drove a car without needing spectacles well into his 80s. However, visual witnesses are notoriously unreliable, as many studies have shown.1 The so-called ‘forgetting curve’ effect means that visual memory is already disappearing within twenty minutes, and Odell did not make his diary entry until a long time after his sighting. The effects of high altitude and stress have also been well documented by Jon Krakauer, among others. The problem is that eyewitnesses are generally given a great deal of credence in courts of law – and by wishful thinkers. Odell changed his story so much, however, that his evidence becomes too unreliable to support a whole series of events.

  Mallory’s intended route. Our examination of this suggests that if Mallory had looked at the difficulties of the Second Step he would have rejected it as a route for its lack of a belay at its base. It’s also unlikely that he would have attempted it in the worsening weather with an inexperienced second man. Moreover, all of the expeditions in the 1920s and 1930s followed the Norton–Somervell route. The likelihood is that Mallory would have done the same as his peers, or perhaps turned back when he examined the dangers of the Step. There is no hard evidence until someone discovers an oxygen cylinder above the Second Step, or a photograph in Somervell’s camera.

  Mallory’s state of mind and motivation. This was his last chance, and we have seen how his contemporaries were getting ahead of him in worldly success. We have seen that he was a man of high ideals, and that it is likely he would have had a receptive audience had he climbed the mountain. In addition, there was a culture of self-sacrifice after the First World War among its survivors, and Mallory was clearly in the grip of an obsession. These factors might have predisposed him to take a risk on what was his last attempt at Everest’s summit. On the other hand, he had a climbing novice in tow whose life depended on him. He was also a married man with children, and a close examination of his previous climbs does not suggest a reckless nature. He himself wrote: ‘No mountaineer would be content to reach the top and not get down,’2 so I think we can discount any notion of a one-way suicide mission.

  In the end it is unclear how all of these factors would have affected his decision-making, and so his state of mind has to go in the less reliable pile of clues.

  The fact that Mallory’s sun goggles were in a pocket might suggest that he was climbing in poor visibility. However, Norton had also removed his goggles in good visibility on the same part of the mountain. And Mallory may have carried two pairs, as all sensible mountaineers should.

  The position of oxygen cylinder No. 9. Although in 1991 Simonson spotted one or two bottles about 600ft (160m) before the First Step at around 27,800ft (8,475m), the one recovered in 1999 may have been moved from somewhere else. Dave Hahn remembered seeing an old cylinder sticking out of the snow below the Yellow Band that was picked up by a Sherpa and cached somewhere on the ridge. Alternatively, the cylinder could have been moved down from somewhere higher by Chinese climbers, who were known to move oxygen sets around the mountain. If it was found in the place where it was dumped by Mallory and Irvine, it is the highest-lying evidence of their passage. But we cannot be sure.

  The calculations of oxygen usage. If oxygen cylinder No. 9 was found where Mallory or Irvine left it, and if their oxygen consumption was continual and consistent, Hemmleb calculates that the pair might have arrived at that point some time around or after 8:30. This depends on too many unknowns, and so unfortunately it is unreliable, like all calculations of heights reached that are dependent on calculations of oxygen consumption.

  The absence of a photograph of his wife Ruth from Mallory’s clothing, suggesting that, as promised, he had left it on the summit. Mallory’s notorious absent-mindedness is a more likely explanation, as he had even forgotten to bring his camera, compass and torch.

  Wang’s sighting of a body, and his gestures suggesting it had been pecked by birds. As Wang and Hasegawa did not share a common language, something about the damage to the face may have been lost in translation.

  Xu’s sighting of another body, possibly that of Irvine. The story has changed so much that it is not yet a tangible clue. Several searches have so far turned up nothing.

  The quantity of oxygen carried. Two cylinders each, or three? In a letter to his wife, Mallory wrote: ‘My plan will be to carry as little as possible, go fast and rush the summit. Finch and Bruce tried carrying too many cylinders.’3 He could have changed his mind, but later he said that ‘we’ll probably go on two cylinders – but it’s a bloody load for climbing’.

  Reports from psychics. These were fashionable in the 1920s, and one present-day Mallory researcher has consulted a psychic. Their reports are contradictory and unscientific, and I would suggest that they carry no weight at all.

  If we concentrate on the reliable clues, there are two that appear to be contradicted by a third: the position of the ice axe and the position of the body don’t seem to fit with the lack of injuries consistent with a fall of nearly 1,000ft. I went back to my witness George Rodway and asked if Mallory could have fallen twice, once from the axe site, then again, fatally, from somewhere below.

  It’s possible that Mallory might have fallen all that way from the site of the ice axe but since he was conscious enough to self-arrest and his body relatively undamaged, not likely. The fall line would have had to be very smooth and unbroken by any significant drop-offs, obstructions or other stuff that would have killed him outright or broken him to pieces.

  What no one has ever proposed (to my knowledge) is that M&I might have taken a minor slip near the site of the axe, recovered somewhat (but gone too far down to go back for the axe) and continued down in their mounting fatigue … then fallen again … this time more seriously. There are variables like this that need to be considered in the mix, I think. The bruising from the rope makes me think he was alive for some time after all the pressure exerted by a roped fall – and I don’t think he lasted too long after stopping from the ‘ultimate’ fall. Bruises like that don’t form in minutes … so he might have had the bruises develop between the first fall and the last fall while they continued descending.4

  George Rodway goes on to say:

  What else can one reasonably deduce from this find? It is likely that Mallory and Irvine fell while descending, possibly late in the day – Mallory’s sun goggles were in fact found in his pocket so they may have no longer been needed as the daylight waned. Alternatively, they may have possibly been descending in a snowstorm, thus removing iced-up goggles in order to at least temporarily improve vision. No supplementary oxygen kit was found nearby, and the lack of such lends support to the suggestion that the climbers had cast aside the useless weight of empty oxygen cylinders to hasten their descent. Aside from the fractured leg and the position of Mallory’s body, the rope injuries on his abdomen and torso support the scenario of a roped fall over a modest vertical distance …

  The climbing rope that remained around Mallory’s body appeared to have snapped after taking the weight of a fall. This fall and subsequent parting of the rope may have left Sandy Irvine separated from Mallory by some distance. Could Irvine have survived this incident relatively unscathed and have been left alone in the growing darkness, possibly in bad weather, high up on the North Face with little in the way of alpine climbing experience to guide him? Regardless of the status of Irvine after Mallory’s fall, he probably did not survive the night out – the clothing of the 1920s simply did not lend itself to safely enduring open bivouacs above 8000
m.

  So now that we have looked at what might have happened to Mallory and Irvine, let us try to reconstruct their last day.

  23

  The Last Hours

  The last men definitely to see Mallory and Irvine alive were their four porters, who had carried their oxygen cylinders, sleeping bags and provisions up to Camp VI, a grandiose name for one tiny tent. Mallory and Irvine had come up in good style from Camp V, ‘going exceedingly strong with oxygen’, as the porters reported to Norton, and had arrived at around lunchtime. Hastily writing the notes to Odell and Noel that we have already seen, Mallory would have waved the porters goodbye, not realising that would be the last he would see of the rest of humankind.

  As the four men clattered down the slope, there would have been time for perhaps a look at the beginning of the next day’s route. The one thing we know for certain is that Mallory noted the pressures of five cylinders on the back of a letter that was found in his pocket. Oxygen equipment strewn around the tent suggests that Irvine might have called out the pressures one by one as he read them on the gauge while Mallory wrote them down. Edmund Hillary spent the whole of his summit day calculating the amount of oxygen he had left, and it seems plausible that our two climbers would have planned to do the same. This might also suggest that the two men slept using oxygen that night. There seems to have been enough gas, and we know Mallory was by then seeing supplementary oxygen as the key to the mountain. They would brewed up some of the loose tea on the stove, and eaten a last supper.

  The moon set at midnight, and not much sleep would have been had that night. Mallory intended to get off early on his summit day of 8 June 1924. Remember that in his last note to the cameraman John Noel he had said: