Coronation Everest

by Jan Morris

  It was the radio transmitters I was thinking of, and the havoc they could wreak with all our well-laid plans; but he convinced me, and before I went to bed I untangled my crampons and made sure that my ice-axe was still standing, an esoteric talisman, in the snow outside my tent. As I sank into my sleeping-bag, I sleepily considered my situation. I would certainly hear of the ascent of Everest, or the failure of the attempt, before any other correspondent. I had runners at Base Camp who would get my news back to Katmandu in six or seven days. There the Ambassador was ready to send a brief message over his radio to London. I reckoned that a message sent in code by this means would be in the newspaper eight days after the event.

  But there was always the radio at Namche Bazar. There was a risk attached to its use, for a message might easily go astray, or somehow leak out and be miraculously deciphered by those many correspondents who hung about the Indian Embassy in Katmandu: but it would get my news to London in a matter of hours, a marvellous possibility. I fumbled about in my baggage in the dark, and extracted that new and nasty code whose key, I knew, was safe in Katmandu. How did it go? Message to begin: Snow Conditions Bad. Oh Mr. Tiwari, I hope you will both help me and forgive me! Remember all those aspirins I gave you!

  *

  ‘We’ll go straight up to Camp III,’ said Pugh as we tramped away to the foot of the icefall. ‘Nobody uses Camp II nowadays, it’s unnecessary anyway and it’s getting to look rather dangerous. You’ll see some big changes in the icefall.’

  And indeed I did. Gone was the track intermittently visible between the snowfalls, a week or two before. The whole messy crumbling cataract was messier and crumblier than ever before, for the summer heat had melted many of its huge seracs, widened its crevasses and made its ice-bridges soggy and ominous. Michael Westmacott had been working inside this horrible place for ten days, keeping some kind of route open, so that the climbers in the Western Cwm would not find, when it was time to descend, that they had been trapped up there by its slow and sticky disintegration. Here and there were signs of his work, and I could picture him vividly working there alone, with a silent Sherpa to belay him, cutting steps, fixing ropes, moving ladders, all in the white empty wilderness of the ice. In one place a crevasse had widened so severely that he had lashed a couple of poles to the aluminium ladder that bridged it. Elsewhere, jumping and scrambling among the pinnacles, he had cut away dangerous and tottering seracs, hammered in pitons, and tried to discipline those little red flags which, egged on by the thaw, persisted in sliding away from the route. I have often thought of Westmacott since, immured there in the icefall, and marvelled at his tenacity.

  We climbed slowly. Now and then we exchanged a few words, but for most of the time I thought about our adventure, and wondered what was happening at that very moment, in the middle of the morning, May 29, 9,000 feet above us. You could see nothing from the icefall, except the empty valley behind you and an occasional ridge of the soaring rock walls that hemmed it in; and on such a day one felt blind and helpless shut in there. We stopped at Camp II for some lemonade and boiled sweets. The two tents were still there, muckier and more forlorn than they used to be, but a huge decaying tower of ice seemed about to fall with a clatter on top of them, and just beside the camp a big insidious crevasse had split the small plateau as a wedge splits a stone. No longer did we have to boil the snow to get some water. The Sherpas took our mugs and, striding off across the snow, came to a little glacier puddle, a gift from the thaw. Camp II was an ignored and abandoned place; whatever happened on the mountain, our expedition already had a dying fall. Hunt had plans for a third assault, but I suspected that most of the climbers were as tired as those two small wind-blown tents appeared to be.

  The afternoon came, free of snow, and we pushed into the upper part of the icefall. This was an entirely new landscape to me, as if some petulant child, tired of his sand castle, had kicked it about with his tiny feet and made a different kind of slobber out of it. After an hour of climbing we came across a sharp straight gully, running downwards parallel to the route we were following. Suddenly I heard from the top of the gully a rumbling, roaring, clattering noise; and there rolled by us an avalanche of ice, snow and stones. Pugh and I threw ourselves hastily to the ground; but it swept past us imperiously, with never a glance in our direction, down through the ice castles and leaning blocks, with a noise like the passage of a million marbles, until the last stone and the last lump of ice had rattled away out of sight and hearing. We picked up our axes and our rucksacks, and continued our journey wearily.

  Camp III, as the evening arrived, with a few wisps of snow, no more, and a glorious sunset colouring the face of Lhotse far ahead of us: I walked through the snow to a little plateau outside the camp, overlooking the valley below us. There the icefall crawled down the mountainside, huge and shapeless in the dusk, and Pumori and its sisters stood in shadow above the glacier. Far down the hill ran the Khumbu between its mountain walls, twisting a little, like a crumpled ribbon, but marching steadfastly to Thyangboche. That was the way my news must go, down the green and into the blue. It was all dark and deserted; for the first time since I had come to Everest, I felt lonely looking at it, and wished there were a few lights twinkling down there, with a warm fireside below mountain meadows, or an English inn, with tankards, chicken, old waiters in frayed tail coats, prints of forgotten horses, and trout for breakfast. Now that the adventure was approaching its last climax Everest felt an especially aloof and unfriendly place, a blind thing that took no notice of us, but simply went its senseless seasonal way – snows and sunshine, heat and cold, thaw and monsoon – like some mindless robot, deposited to tick away in silence in an empty corner of the world.

  I shivered, and kicked myself for morbidity, and returned to camp.

  *

  So at last to Camp IV again, out of the cruel white desert of snow. The tension and suppressed emotion that now filled this camp emanated from it like ripples, so that far down the Cwm, when the tents first appeared as blobs on a distant ridge, a sharp tang of expectancy suddenly struck us. It was midday, and most of the climbers were gathered there. The months had left their mark on them, as on the mountain itself. I remembered them all as I first saw them, at the end of March: Evans, Gregory and Bourdillon at Thyangboche; the New Zealanders crawling out of their tents at Lake Camp; Band, Ward and Westmacott, cheerfully hauling me up the icefall; Noyce, Wylie, Stobart and Pugh, in the big dome tent at Base Camp; Hunt himself, the leader, cream-faced at Lobuje. They were gay and friendly still, but indelibly marked by the strains of the campaign. Evans and Bourdillon, fresh from 28,500 feet, were visibly weakened by their tour de force. Bourdillon’s huge graceful frame looked shrunken; Evans, beneath the queer half-beard dictated by his oxygen equipment, looked a great deal less rubicund than he had a month or two before (and infinitely less Dickensian, in every way, than he was to look in future months over a port and a good cigar at many a London dining table). Even Alfred Gregory, sharpest and liveliest of men, was moving a little slower than usual, and his incisive Lancashire voice had lost some of its edge. Westmacott was there, in his wide bush hat; George Band, tall and sprawling still, who was later to stand upon the summit of Kanchenjunga; Stobart with his camera; and a cheerful company of Sherpas, many of them fresh from the South Col, and proud of the fact.

  And there in his shanty-tent was Hunt, still hideous with ointment; a heroic figure, I thought, like some grizzled Hannibal in climbing-boots, awaiting the arrival of the elephants. This was nearly the end of the adventure. Soon, within an hour or two, we would know whether all his careful plans had succeeded, whether his own wonderful climb to 28,000 feet had been justified, whether the loading tables had been correct, the choice of climbers wise; whether the weather he had trusted had turned sour on him, whether the equipment he had chosen had proved sound; or whether, when Hillary and Tenzing returned defeated from the last ridge of Everest, he would have to begin all over again, threading his teams of porters through the dangers o
f the icefall, computing his tables again, naming his teams, and preparing (as he had planned) for the third assault which he himself would lead, come what may. He had given Hillary a small white crucifix to place upon the summit of Everest, if he reached it; if Hillary did not get there, Hunt would place it on the top himself.

  I joined him in the shade, and ate thirteen more of the Swiss biscuits.

  ‘Well, dear old James,’ he said. ‘It’s nearly over now, I suppose. Supposing they climbed it, now, how soon d’you think you could get the news home to England? A week? Or less?’

  I told him I thought I might get a brief message back to London rather quicker than that, if all went well; and a longer account of Hillary’s and Tenzing’s climb, well, yes, about a week.

  ‘Of course it would be marvellous,’ said I, ‘if we could get it back to London in time for the Coronation, wouldn’t it? Let me see, May 30 today. Coronation Day is June 2. Thirty days have September, April, June and … Three days, really, counting today. I suppose it’s just possible, John, but don’t count on it. What do you think, it would be rather good, wouldn’t it?’

  But he was listening to me no longer. Tilting back in his canvas chair, like a rather unorthodox Hollywood director giving instructions to the gantry camera, he was looking through his binoculars at the Lhotse Face in front of us. I looked hard through mine, but could see nothing, only the endless mass of ice-blocks, rumpled seracs and snow.

  ‘There they are!’ someone shouted. ‘There! Just behind that big serac! See them? You know the one, Charles, that brute of a thing with the big crevasses just behind it. See them? There they go! Just crossing the gap!’

  I looked again, and high, high on the face of the mountain sure enough, there they were. Five little figures were moving slowly down the snow: Hillary, Tenzing, Lowe, Noyce, and the remarkable Sherpa Pasang Phutar. How were they walking? Jauntily, like men who have reached a summit? Or dragging their feet in the depression of failure? Nobody could tell, for they were just specks on a mountain wall.

  What a day it was for great news! That old secluded valley of the Cwm was crisp and sparkling, like a girl decked out in a party frock. The sky was a miraculous blue, the floor of the Cwm dazzlingly white. The massive wall of Nuptse, bounding the Cwm on its southern side, shone mysteriously like silk or rubbed velvet, with the curious greasy sheen of melting snow. From the ridge of Lhotse, directly above us, a small spiral of snow eddied and swirled into the sky, like a genie released from a bottle. There was little wind, and we sat there becalmed in the stillness and the sunshine. The Cwm was silent, as always; but sometimes we heard a sudden high-pitched whistle, thrilling and menacing, as a boulder screamed down from the heights above.

  *

  The hours dragged by. Endlessly we discussed the chances of success. Hillary and Tenzing had been seen at nine o’clock the day before crossing the South Summit and going strongly up the final ridge. With the rest of the morning before them, they had plenty of time to reach the top and return; but who knew what that last ridge was like? It showed in some of the aerial pictures, but not very clearly; perhaps there was some insuperable obstacle along it, an impassable ledge, dangerous cornices; perhaps their oxygen had failed them, in the last 500 feet; perhaps, faced with the horrors of the altitude, their will had faltered or their bodies slumped. We sat in the dome tent and talked about it.

  ‘Just coming down to Camp VI,’ said the watchers outside. ‘Somebody’s sitting down, can’t make out who. Anyone care to lay the odds?’

  They were clearer now, those little figures on the mountainside. At least they were all safe, I thought. No need for my catastrophe codes, nor my prepared obituaries. Once they were down in the Cwm there was only the passage of the icefall to worry about; and exhausted though the climbers were, I thought they would probably survive that. Not a broken limb had the party suffered; only colds, stomach upsets, and a few minor cases of frost-bite.

  Inside the tent there was a mess of newspapers: The Times, the Auckland Weekly News, with an enormous picture of a lady in a picture hat, a big bouquet pinned to her bosom, presenting prizes, presiding at a banquet, marrying her daughter off, being introduced to a duchess, or performing some such immemorial social duty. I remembered Roberts’s description of his first arrival in New Zealand, when the woman in black behind the hotel reception desk raised her thin eyebrows at his open shirt, and pursed her tight lips primly when he asked the way to the bar. It seemed a strange and bourgeois society for heroes to come from, and I found it difficult to equate the lady in her blue crepe with her countrymen up there on the heights, swaggering, big and breezy.

  *

  ‘Well, yes,’ (I heard a snatch of conversation through the open door of the tent). ‘I suppose so, but the moon will never be quite the same. Who cares about the moon? There are no little moons to start with. Nobody goes exploring moons at week-ends, like we go climbing mountains. Anyway, you can keep the moon so far as I’m concerned. All I’m interested in is creature comforts. A l-o-n-g glass of beer! A really good steak! Or a good fug at the Climbers’ Club Hut at Helyg!’

  Hastily I turned and crumpled the pages of my newspaper. Somebody had been doing The Times crossword puzzle, with a muffled stub of red crayon.

  26 Foot – foot – foot – foot – slogging over –

  (Kipling) (6).

  The red crayon had answered that one in bold and confident letters, so bold that it had gone through the paper, and I could see where the crossword puzzler, on some cold and lonely evening in a flapping tent, had folded the newspaper to give himself something solid to write on. Who had it been, I wondered? Westmacott, during his icefall vigil? Noyce, in some high camp on the Lhotse Face? Hunt, breaking himself away for a moment from the perpetual preoccupations of leadership?

  Here was a dispatch of mine. ‘Plans For Double Assault On Peak Of Everest.’ Somewhere between the mountain and the printed page the wrong dateline had crept into it. I had sent the message from Camp III, but it was headed ‘Base Camp, Everest.’ ‘This is a bleak spot high above the Khumbu Glacier,’ I was alleged to have written of our little Base Camp on the Khumbu Glacier, ‘with the ugly mass of the icefall spilling below.’ Oh well, probably nobody noticed; to most newspaper readers, Base Camp, Everest was practically the South Summit. ‘Oh my goodness me,’ they would say to me in America, ‘all those weeks on the glacier! Didn’t you feel giddy?’

  *

  There was a kind of feverish hush over the camp now, and John Hunt sat outside his tent on a packing-case, his waterproof hat jammed on his head, as tense as a violin string. I could see the little figures no longer. They had left the Lhotse Face, and were hidden behind a ridge at the top end of the Cwm. They must be going well, to get there so soon. Would they move so swiftly if they were suffering the pangs of defeat? On the other hand, could they move so swiftly if they had reached the summit of Everest? I remembered the terrible exhaustion of the old Everest climbers, and wondered if a man could go so well after a night at 27,800 feet.

  There was a clatter of crampons outside, and Tom Stobart stumped off up the valley with his camera to meet the summit party. I watched him labouring away along the snow, a lonely but determined figure, until he vanished over a ridge. All was then empty in the Cwm around us. The face of Lhotse was blank and lifeless, and all we could see stretching away to its foot was the rolling empty snow. Somewhere hidden away there, not so very far from us, were Hillary, Tenzing and their support party. It was one o’clock, but nobody felt like lunch.

  In the corner of the tent there was a radio receiver, tilting drunkenly on the edge of a cardboard box. As the minutes lurched past it murmured intermittent music, and then a cultured Indian voice announced that this was All-India Radio, and that here was the news. We pricked up our ears. Sure enough, very soon Everest was mentioned. Agency messages had now confirmed, said the radio, that the British assault on Everest had failed, and that the expedition was withdrawing from the mountain. There go my competitors, I tho
ught, as active as ever. A slight communal guffaw ran around the tent. Somebody twiddled the knob, half amused, half irritated, and:

  ‘There they are!’

  *

  I rushed to the door of the tent, and there emerging from a little gully, not more than five hundred yards away, were four worn figures in windproof clothing. As a man we leapt out of the camp and up the slope, our boots sinking and skidding in the soft snow, Hunt wearing big dark snow-goggles, Gregory with the bobble on the top of his cap jiggling as he ran, Bourdillon with braces outside his shirt, Evans with the rim of his hat turned up in front like an American stevedore’s. Wildly we ran and slithered up the snow, and the Sherpas, emerging excitedly from their tents, ran after us.

  I could not see the returning climbers very clearly, for the exertion of running had steamed up my goggles, so that I looked ahead through a thick mist. But I watched them approaching dimly, with never a sign of success or failure, like drugged men. Down they tramped, mechanically, and up we raced, trembling with expectation. Soon I could not see a thing for the steam, so I pushed the goggles up from my eyes; and just as I recovered from the sudden dazzle of the snow I caught sight of George Lowe, leading the party down the hill. He was raising his arm and waving as he walked! It was thumbs up! Everest was climbed! Hillary brandished his ice-axe in weary triumph; Tenzing slipped suddenly sideways, recovered and shot us a brilliant white smile; and they were among us, back from the summit, with men pumping their hands and embracing them, laughing, smiling, crying, taking photographs, laughing again, crying again, till the noise and the delight of it all rang down the Cwm and set the Sherpas, following us up the hill, laughing in anticipation.

  Down we went again, Hillary and Tenzing still roped together, Tom Bourdillon rolling back with his hands in his pockets, grinning, Gregory, fired by the occasion, already sharp and vigorous again. Above the camp most of the Sherpas were waiting in an excited smiling group. As the greatest of their little race approached them they stepped out, one by one, to congratulate him. Tenzing received them like a modest prince. Some bent their bodies forward, their hands clasped as if in prayer. Some shook hands lightly and delicately, the fingers scarcely touching. One old veteran, his black twisted pig-tail flowing behind him, bowed gravely to touch Tenzing’s hand with his forehead; just as Sonam, down in the valley, had touched the likeness of that saintly Abbot.