by Wade Davis
BY UNCANNY COINCIDENCE, Mallory, Somervell, Norton, and Morshead, along with nine Tibetan porters, reached Camp IV, on the shelf just below the North Col, within minutes of Finch’s arrival at Camp III. Their thoughts turned immediately to shelter, and with the sun still warm they pitched five light tents, three for the porters and two set slightly apart for the British, all in a row along the terrace. Mallory noted the colors against the snow, the green canvas and the blue ice, and somehow it reminded him of ocean waves breaking over “swelling seas.” “For the safety of sleep-walkers,” he insisted that the openings to the tents be oriented inward, toward the ice wall, away from the exposed drop, an alignment that in any case provided better protection from the west wind.
While Somervell and Morshead set off to fix rope to secure the route from the shelf to the height of the col, Mallory and Norton saw to the food and water. They had two sources of fuel: absolute alcohol and, for emergency purposes, cylinders of white metaldehyde, or meta, a solid that burned readily at the strike of a match. The meta, smokeless and highly efficient, was in short supply. To melt snow for water, they were obliged to use alcohol in a spirit burner, a laborious process that consumed much of the afternoon merely to yield six large thermos flasks of tea and water for the following day. For food they had cocoa, pea soup, biscuits, ham, and cheese. Well fed, they turned in for the night just after 4:30, as the sun left the mountain and the temperature plummeted. Norton and Mallory shared one tent, Somervell and Morshead the other. They lay with their heads to the door for air. Peering from his eiderdown bag, Mallory could see the crest of Everest sharply defined. All of the signs were favorable. “We had,” he wrote, “the best omen a mountaineer can look for, the palpitating fire, to use Mr. Santayana’s words, of many stars against a black sky … It remained but to ask, would the Fates be kind?”
The plan was to head up the mountain with as light a camp as possible, four loads in all, none exceeding twenty pounds, to be shared by nine porters: two small tents each weighing fifteen pounds, two double sleeping sacks, two thermos flasks, the minimum of cooking gear, and food for one and a half days. The intention was to gain 1,500 feet in elevation before the heat of the sun fully consumed the day, and then in fits and starts to move even higher, making an upper camp at 26,000 feet. Mallory had no illusions that they would reach the summit. “We shan’t get to the top,” he wrote on May 18 in his last letter to Ruth, but “if we reach the shoulder at 27,400, it will be better than anyone here expects.”
Like so many Everest plans, this one did not survive the dawn. Mallory was the first up, and when he attempted to rouse the porters just after 5:00 a.m., he found them half dead, sickened with mountain lassitude, in part because they had sealed the flaps of their tent. Only five were fit to climb. Yet another delay was caused by a trivial oversight. The tins of spaghetti meant for breakfast had been left in the cold. Frozen solid, they had to be thawed, which took time. The climbers were finally off just after 7:00 a.m., with a cheerful Morshead setting the pace as they made their way up the steep slope of snow that fell away to the col from the Northeast Shoulder. Mallory followed with two porters. Norton and Somervell led the rest on a separate rope. They made good progress, following an edge of stones, a virtual staircase that gave firm footing and carried them readily 1,200 feet up the mountain.
The challenge was less the terrain than the cold and wind. Mallory found himself kicking the ground whenever they paused, simply to keep circulation in his toes. He had had the sense to add layers of warmth, a Shetland sweater and a silk shirt; Morshead had merely wrapped a woolen scarf about his neck. Their ability to cope with the cold was not helped by Mallory’s rather clumsy blunder when they first stopped to rest. Norton was sitting slightly apart from the others, his knapsack resting on his knees. Gathering up the slack in one of the ropes, Mallory accidentally knocked the pack over. Norton made a desperate lunge, but it tumbled out of reach. Gaining momentum with every bound, it soon disappeared from sight, destined for the Rongbuk Glacier, several thousand feet below. Norton lost all of his warm gear, save what he was wearing, including Mallory’s pajama legs, which he had borrowed. Fortunately, the other three had sufficient clothing in reserve, and they could all continue.
But by now the sun had slipped behind the clouds, and the wind grew like a tempest. They plodded up the slope, leaning forward into the gusts, each struggling to breathe. No climber had ever before faced such conditions. Windchill added the equivalent of forty degrees of frost to air already bitterly cold. Mallory took the measure of his senses and found that his extremities were numb. Frostbite threatened them all, and the danger grew with every passing moment. Morshead at last had the sense to put on his sledding suit—scant warmth but at least some protection from the wind. They desperately needed to get into the lee of the ridge, but to move toward the east meant cutting steps in hard snow, 300 feet of grueling labor at such altitude.
It was noon before Mallory, Somervell, and Norton finally attained shelter, behind a wall of rocks. The aneroid measured 25,000 feet. There was no question of going any farther. Morshead lingered well below, accompanied by three of the porters. They had two tents, sufficient only for the climbers. With the weather worsening by the minute, they needed to make camp to allow time for the porters to get down the mountain to the shelter of Camp IV. The challenge was finding anything resembling level ground. Somervell, eventually joined by Morshead, after fully two hours of searching finally located a spot out of the wind where stones could be piled into a low wall, and a small platform built the size of a single Mummery tent. Norton and Mallory searched for similar ground, and some fifty yards beyond came upon a sloping slab of rock, half the dimension of their tent. It would have to do.
The porters headed down at 3:00 p.m., by which time Somervell had set up a kitchen of sorts, just outside the flaps of his tent. They had a quick meal, tins of ham and hot Bovril to drink. None of them had much appetite. The day had been brutal. Norton’s ear, severely frostbitten, was swollen to three times its normal size. Three of Mallory’s fingers had also been touched by frost. Much more serious was Morshead’s condition; he suffered not only from frostbite on the extremities but also a deep and disturbing chill, impossible to shake, and a weary lassitude marked by nausea.
No one slept well. Norton and Mallory crushed together at the bottom of their tent, the former in considerable pain and capable of lying on only one side, Mallory restless for the dawn, his pillow a pair of climbing boots in a wet rucksack. In an exhausting day they had managed to climb 2,000 feet in three and a half hours, albeit with modest loads. This left them lower than he had hoped, but another 1,000 feet would have taken three additional hours, never a possibility. Though still 4,000 feet below the summit, they were camped higher than anyone had ever slept, and in this achievement Mallory found some small comfort. The wind dropped in the night, and there were moments when stars could be seen. But with the dawn came snow, followed by hail, and to the east thick clouds, darkening with the growing light of day.
Mallory was the first to stir, prompting a stifled yawn from his tent mate. “I suppose,” Norton said, as if awakening in a luxury cottage by the sea, “it’s about time we were getting up.” They both groaned at the prospect of leaving the warmth of the sleeping bag they had shared through a bitter night. Both had headaches, and Norton’s ear did not look good. As always in the morning cold, it took time to accomplish anything, and finding but a single thermos (the porters having foolishly taken the others), they had to melt snow for tea. There was no flat ground, and as they stumbled about, one of them brushed against the rucksack that contained all their provisions. It fell from its perch and immediately tumbled a hundred feet, only by chance coming to rest on a narrow ledge.
Morshead offered to retrieve it, and suffered considerably for his efforts. When they finally pushed up the mountain at 8:00 a.m., he paused after only a few steps. “I think I won’t come with you,” he said. “I am quite sure I shall only keep you back.” Morshea
d’s withdrawal came as a complete surprise, for he had made light of his troubles of the previous day, and showed no outward signs of serious discomfort or injury. After a brief consultation with Somervell, all four men agreed that Morshead was capable of remaining alone for the day in the shelter of his tent. With not another word Somervell tied into Norton’s rope and they set off as three.
Mallory privately wondered whether any of them ought to continue. Starting out, he later confessed, he lacked the power to lift his own weight, and he only hoped that if he did so, step by step, the machinery would somehow kick in. The summit remained their goal, but it took heroic efforts merely to work their way back up to the crest of the North Ridge, some 800 feet above their position. They advanced in spells of twenty minutes, resting for five and then plodding on, moving from ledge to ledge, all of which were tilted to their disadvantage. The angle of attack was severe, yet not steep enough to allow the use of their arms, an exhausting prospect. They were climbing, yet not climbing, and with several inches of fresh snow covering the ground, it made for slow progress.
When finally they reached the ridge, they took a long halt. Mallory’s foot was painfully cold. Fearing frostbite, he removed his boot. Norton rubbed his foot warm and suggested that he shed one of the four pairs of socks he was wearing; the boot was too tight. Problem solved, they continued directly up the ridge, heading for a great tower of rock that marked the junction of the Northeast Shoulder and the Northeast Ridge of Everest. Their pace, as Mallory recalled, was no better than a “miserable crawl” and their rate of climb—400 feet per hour by his estimate—diminished with every step.
They had agreed in the lucidity of morning to turn back at 2:30 p.m., whatever their position. At 2:15 they reached the height of a steep pitch, beyond which was somewhat easier ground. They rested and snacked on a bit of food, sweets mostly—chocolate, mint cake, acid drops, raisins, and prunes. None felt truly spent, and the stunning view of the summit of Everest, seen from a vantage where no human had ever been, tempted them to continue. They were, Mallory estimated in his first report from the mountain, perhaps 600 to 700 feet below the Northeast Ridge, a figure he later revised to 400 feet in the official expedition account. Whatever the distance, given their rate of ascent, it would require at least four more hours to the ridge, a destination of no particular significance.
The summit was out of the question. Retreat was the only option. As Mallory later remarked, “We were prepared to leave it to braver men to climb Mount Everest by night.” Their aneroid registered 26,800 feet. Certain that they were above the summit of Cho Oyu, which they saw to the west, Mallory later estimated their true height to have been 26,985 feet. Either way, they had clearly set a new record. None of them relished the thought of a second night in bivouac on the side of the mountain. And, of course, there was Morshead to consider. The decision made, they paused just long enough for a nip of brandy, “medical comfort,” before starting down the shoulder.
Mallory led, followed by Norton and then Somervell. Dropping some 2,000 feet, they reached Morshead just after 4:00 p.m., and found him well and keen to head down to the relative comfort of Camp IV. Leaving the tents and sleeping bags in place, they gathered their few belongings and began a slow traverse back along the ledge they had followed the previous day. Camp IV was another 2,000 feet below, but with three hours of daylight, they anticipated no difficulties. Uncertain of Morshead’s fitness, they tied into a single rope, with Mallory again in the lead; Norton and Somervell flanked Morshead, ready to assist him if necessary.
Fresh snow had obliterated their tracks, and Mallory inadvertently took a lower line, ending up in broken ground, difficult to negotiate: ice and old snow, dark rocks hidden beneath powder. As they crossed the head of a steep gully of snow, Morshead slipped at the precise moment that Somervell, bringing up the rear as anchor, was taking a step. Caught unawares, he, too, lost his balance. The force of their fall swept Norton off his feet. In an instant all three men were cascading down the couloir toward the glacier 3,500 feet below. Mallory, already alert to the hazards of the traverse, was cutting a step when he sensed as much as heard the accident. Before sound had time to form or take on meaning, he instinctively thrust his ax into the snow and spun a coil of rope around it as a belay. Somervell plunged his ax into the slope as a brake, as did Norton. But it was Mallory’s reflexive response that saved all of their lives. No one was hurt, but all were deeply shaken, and whatever reserves of strength Morshead might have had were utterly spent.
Though Camp IV was not distant and there remained still an hour of light, they were now dealing with an invalid who could walk only a few paces at a time and whose critical judgment had slipped into the irrational. In his confused and weakened state, Morshead insisted on glissading down slopes that demanded the caution of steps. Only by propping him up and offering constant reassurances could they persuade him to move at all. He had entered that zone of lethargy brought on by hypothermia and provoked by altitude sickness that leaves a person perfectly content to lie down in the snow and die. Norton stayed at his side, lending the support of his shoulder and an arm around his waist, as Mallory sought the easiest line of descent and Somervell maintained the rear. The light faded, and in the gathering darkness they crawled down the mountain. There was no moon, only dark clouds and the occasional flash of lightning. Mallory could hardly see his companions, vague shadows against the snow. At last they reached the staircase of stones that had led them up the shoulder from the North Col. They had only to follow it down, through the long hours of the night.
When finally they reached the snows of the col, they still had to make their way, through the darkness, across a broad ice field fissured with dangerous crevasses. Somervell had a lantern in his pack, and mercifully the air was calm; after a dozen attempts he was able to strike a match and light a candle. In the flickering light, they made their way, eventually coming to the edge of a little cliff, a 15-foot drop. They lowered Morshead by rope and then had no choice but to jump. Groping in the snow, they found at last the fixed rope that guided them down to the terrace where their five tents still stood, pitched in a neat row. It was nearly midnight, the end of a day that had begun eighteen hours before. Not one of them had drunk a drop of water since noon. It had taken seven and a half hours to descend a mere 2,000 feet; nearly four hours merely to crawl the last 300 yards across the treacherous crevasses just above their camp. Now, to their horror, they discovered that the porters, heading down from the col to Camp III, had taken with them every cooking pot. They had no means to slake their thirst, save a mixture of canned milk, strawberry jam, and snow, devised by Norton on the spot. Not surprisingly, the concoction induced an agony of stomach cramps all around.
Their trials were not over. Snow fell heavily in the night, obscuring the old tracks and forcing Mallory and Norton to cut new steps in the snow the next morning. What should have been an hour’s descent became four hours of “unbearable” labor, all beneath a strong sun, by men who still had yet to quench their thirst. When they finally reached the base of the col, their discipline collapsed. In the rush for water, the men in the lead inadvertently pulled those still coming down behind them off their feet. Mallory tumbled some 80 feet down the ice until the pick of his ax arrested him at the base of the slope. Photographing his fall was none other than George Finch, who, with Geoffrey Bruce, was heading up the mountain with a relief party of twelve porters. “I could have borne the ignominy of my involuntary glissade,” Mallory later wrote, “had I not found Finch at the foot of the slope taking advantage of my situation with a Kodak.”
Both Finch and Bruce had oxygen cylinders and a breathing apparatus strapped to their back. They also had two thermoses of hot tea, which they gave to the exhausted and parched climbers. “Most of them,” Finch later recalled, “were hardly able to speak coherently. Norton, weather beaten and with obvious signs of strain, gave us a brief account of their climb.” Finch had nothing but admiration for what Mallory and the others had achi
eved, a “magnificent record,” not to mention a safe return. Little more was said. The climbers just wanted to drink. Wakefield now came up to escort them back to Camp III, where Noel waited to film the return, along with Strutt and Morris. Somervell alone drank seventeen mugs of tea. Morshead did not wait for camp. He drank his fill at a snowmelt stream. When he finally reached camp, he seemed a new man. “It was thirst that did me in and nothing else,” he said, even as Wakefield bound up his black and swollen hands.
CHAPTER 11
Finch’s Triumph
GEORGE FINCH AND Geoffrey Bruce, along with Arthur Wakefield, had arrived at Camp III on May 19 just in time to see the dark and distant figures of George Mallory and his party making their way up the final ice cliffs of the North Col. Swallowing his pride, Finch got immediately to work. There were, as it turned out, a number of repairs and adjustments to be made to the oxygen apparatus. Equipped with soldering iron, hacksaw, pliers, and other tools, he and Bruce created what was surely the world’s highest open-air tinkerer’s workshop. It was no small achievement. Working in temperatures well below zero, with steel tools often too cold to handle, he fixed various leaks and inefficiencies, even as he devised a completely new breathing mechanism. The valves of the face mask, as it turned out, stiffened so badly with the cold as to be rendered useless. Finch, anticipating potential difficulties, had brought from Darjeeling T-shaped glass tubes and toy football bladders, with which he managed to assemble a highly effective substitute. Within a day, with the help of young Bruce, he had four sets ready to go. On the afternoon of May 20, even as Mallory and the others struggled toward their high camp, Finch for the first time tested his invention in actual field conditions at high altitude. Just after lunch they set out across the head of the East Rongbuk for the Rapiu La. Wakefield and Strutt walked under their own power, while Finch and Bruce used gas. “The effect of the O2 was remarkable,” Finch later noted in his diary. Though the apparatus weighed some thirty pounds, “we two went ahead like a house on fire.”