Howard-Bury telegraphed the Royal Geographical Society when the expedition party crossed the border into Tibet. The message, sent from Darjeeling after being relayed by a ‘native runner’, was received in London four days later, just in time for Sir Francis Younghusband to announce the achievement, to rapturous applause, at the society’s anniversary dinner.
But behind the self-congratulations there were serious concerns. On May 29, eleven days after setting out from Darjeeling and less than halfway to the mountain they still could not see, the men reached the village of Phari, built almost 14,500 feet above sea level on the dry, stony, windswept plain of the Tibetan Plateau. Trees did not grow here, let alone the jungle they had travelled through a week earlier.
The bleak surroundings and the grime and poverty of the village with its starving populace only emphasised the party’s own problems. More than half the mules had to be replaced with horses, donkeys, oxen and yaks, and four of the nine men were ill – Wollaston, Wheeler, Raeburn and Kellas.
Mallory wrote of his despair in a letter to his wife, Ruth:
I suppose no one who could judge us fairly as a party would give much for our chances of getting up Mount Everest. The hardships such as they have been so far have not left us scathedless. Dr Kellas arrived in Phari suffering from enteritis and though he is somewhat better now he has been carried from there on some form of litter. Wheeler has constantly been suffering more or less from indigestion and has been sufficiently bad these past two days to make it a real difficulty to come on. Raeburn seems frail. All have been more or less upset inside at different times.
Mallory’s words showed the sheer logistical problem of the assault. Everest was like no other mountain, not just because of its size but because it was so inaccessible, hidden like a shy child at the back of the classroom and only revealed when the others stepped away. George Finch had recognised the problems back in 1909 when he and Max had travelled to Corsica to test themselves in a hostile environment. As he wrote: ‘For the Himalayas we judged that … mistakes or omissions would not easily be rectified after one had left one’s base, usually the last outpost of civilisation.’
There had also been ructions inside the team. Mallory, who appeared to have embraced the role of gentleman, suddenly found he didn’t much like the attitude of a man like Howard-Bury and found it difficult to hide his contempt for the expedition leader’s arrogance – ‘too much the landlord with not only Tory prejudices, but a highly developed sense of hate and contempt for other sorts of people than his own’. To add to the discomfort, Harold Raeburn’s abrasiveness was alienating the others. So much for George Finch being a ‘morale’ problem.
From Colonel Howard-Bury
Pharljong, Tibet, June 7, via Simla, June 8 (delayed).
I deeply regret to report the death of Dr AM Kellas, of the Mount Everest Expedition, at Kampa Dzong, on June 5, from sudden heart failure.
On reflection they would all agree that Alexander Kellas should not have even begun the expedition. He was the last to arrive in Darjeeling, clearly exhausted and already ill. Within a matter of days he was being carried and, although he rallied on occasions, his death was inevitable. It was another sign of just how unprepared and poorly resourced the mission was, and when Harold Raeburn, the climbing co-ordinator, was carried back to Darjeeling two days later with dysentery, it threatened to unravel.
Back in London, Hinks and Younghusband issued a statement that mourned the death of Kellas but vowed to carry on regardless, concluding: ‘The expedition will proceed, relying for its success on the same undaunted spirit which had always animated Dr Kellas and which in men nearly thirty years younger, like Mallory and Bullock, Morshead and Wheeler, will, the committee are confident, carry out the expedition through to its end.’
On the morning of Kellas’s funeral (he would be buried on a stony hillside, the grave facing three peaks in the distance that he’d previously climbed – Pauhunri, Kangchenjhau and Chomiomo), George Mallory and Guy Bullock rose early and quietly left the camp to climb a steep hillside on top of which sat an ancient fortress, although they were not interested in the architecture.
The two men climbed about 1000 feet before the object of their scramble came into view – Everest: ‘There was no mistaking the two great peaks in the west; that to the left must be Makalu, grey, severe and yet distinctly graceful, and the other away to the right – who could doubt its identity? It was a prodigious white fang excrescent from the jaw of the world.’ Everest was still more than one hundred miles away, behind another range of mountains that had to be crossed, but at least their goal could now be seen.
The mission, in its darkest hour, was saved in a sense by the tragedy of Kellas’s death and Raeburn’s illness because it elevated Mallory to the head of the climbing party. It was a leadership role that he grabbed eagerly, and even though Raeburn would recover and rejoin the party, Mallory had become the head, heart and hope of the mission to conquer Mount Everest.
There was another salvation at this critical moment. As the party crossed the Gyankar Range and drew closer to its goal the group split in all directions, with Morshead and Wheeler leading smaller groups as they surveyed and mapped 12,000 square miles while Wollaston collected flora and fauna specimens and Heron conducted geological investigations.
Howard-Bury, now cut off from Mallory’s climbing group, led Wheeler and Heron west as far as Nagpa La, the ancient trading route that linked Tibet and Nepal, while Morshead and Wollaston crossed the Nepal border into Tibet at the holy village of Lapchi and continued exploring to the north.
The enforced separation ironically preserved the expedition’s unity. Mallory and Bullock set off with sixteen sherpas and porters to reach the southern end of the Rongbuk Valley, then pushed on to the Rongbuk Glacier where they pitched their base camp at 16,400 feet. It was higher than the summit of Europe’s biggest mountain, Mont Blanc, and yet they had not even reached the base of Everest which they could now see clearly, from closer than any European had ever been.
In the first few days of July, after a week of acclimatising to the altitude and as George Finch headed to Switzerland, Mallory and five sherpas traversed the glacier to reach the base of the mountain’s North Col, the point where climbers would begin their ascent of the north ridge toward the summit. It would be almost three months, their progress interrupted by the monsoon, before Mallory and Bullock climbed the col, reaching 23,622 feet where they were forced back by high winds. By September 26, with gale force winds now driving across the ridge, Howard-Bury abandoned the upper camps and ordered the party back to Darjeeling where they arrived a month later. The reconnaissance mission was over.
On November 16, a few days after being reunited with his wife in Marseilles, Mallory wrote to Arthur Hinks to confirm that he would be available to return to Everest in 1922 if, as expected, an expedition was mounted. But he added a prophetic warning: ‘We must remember that the highest of mountains is capable of severity, a severity so awful and so fatal that the wiser sort of men do well to think and tremble even on the threshold of their high endeavour.’
George Mallory was bothered by something other than death – money. Unlike most of his companions who came from wealthy backgrounds, he was a working man, a teacher like George Finch, although not at the tertiary level but at the swank Charterhouse School in Surrey. Mallory had initially turned down the offer to join the reconnaissance mission because of the financial burden it would place on his family, and it played on his mind even as he sheltered against the squalling rain and ripping winds on the lower slopes of Everest, as he wrote to Arthur Hinks on August 21:
I needn’t conceal the fact that having given up my job last April I owe it to my family to make some money this winter and I should like to earn something by lecturing about Everest. But for the convenience of making arrangements I am willing to lecture on any terms which may be considered just by the committee – either as their servant at so much per lecture or as a contracting party under the auspi
ces of some lecturing firm and paying so much of what I receive to the committee. The position as I see it from a business point of view is, simply, that I have something to offer which no one else can give.
It took Hinks more than a month to reply, writing back on September 30 with the cautious approval of an administrator with his own interests at heart: ‘I do not doubt that some arrangements equally advantageous to you and to the funds for next year can be reached … would you be prepared to lecture on the Continent and in America?’
The right to earn an income from lecturing would also become a critical issue for George Finch.
PART III
18.
PROSPECTS OF SUCCESS
The Queen’s Hall, a gilded West End amphitheatre with walls painted ‘belly of mouse’, was packed on the night of December 20, 1921. Every one of the 2500 seats was taken and hundreds more people stood at the back of the room to witness the public return of the eight surviving Everest heroes from the reconnaissance mission.
Prince Albert, the Duke of York and second in line to the throne, was on hand to hear the expedition leader Colonel Howard-Bury describe how the climbers had persisted through appalling weather conditions to find a possible route up the mountain via the North Col, and Sir Francis Younghusband wax lyrical about the fruits of the mission: the seeds of rare primulas, gentians and rhododendrons brought back by Wollaston and already planted at Kew Gardens and Edinburgh; the extensive mapping by Morshead and Wheeler; and Heron’s account of the geology of one of the last unexplored regions on earth. Even the cost of the trip had been a success, the expenditure of £4000 having already been recovered by selling rights to the story to newspapers.
But the crowd had only come to hear one man – George Mallory – and they only wanted to know one thing – was it possible to climb Mount Everest?
The Times reported his reply the next morning, delivered from a stage decorated with aquariums of goldfish to a room full of expectant men in dinner jackets and women in furs, most of whom could never imagine the grime of a six-month expedition in the wilderness, let alone the life and death exertion of a mountain ascent.
Mallory spoke from the head and heart:
We have not had a single convincing argument to solve that problem. I felt, somehow, when we reached the North Col that the task was not impossible; but that may only have been a delusion based on the appearance of the mountain from that point. It looks much smaller than it is. I believe it to be possible at all events, for unladen mountaineers to reach 26,000 feet, and if they can go up so far without exhaustion, I fancy the last 3000 feet will not prove so very much more tiring as to exclude the possibility of reaching the summit. But in asserting this bare possibility, I am very far from a sanguine estimate as to the prospects of success. Before we parted I put this question to [his climbing partner] Bullock: ‘What are the chances that a given party will get up in a given year?’ After considered reflection he replied: ‘Fifty to one against.’ That answer expressed my own feelings.
George Finch listened carefully as he sat in the front row in a group of invited guests, including three men who were about to become his companions in one of the most dangerous adventures ever undertaken. Neither Brigadier-General Charles Granville Bruce nor Lieutenant-Colonel Edward Lisle ‘Bill’ Strutt could be described as friendly toward George. Both were the epitome of the elite he detested: General Bruce the son of Lord Aberdare and Colonel Strutt the grandson of Lord Belper.
Although clearly struggling with his health, Bruce had already been appointed to lead the 1922 British Mount Everest expedition after Howard-Bury agreed to stand aside. Strutt, a career soldier approaching fifty years of age who had climbed mostly in the northern Alps, was second in command and would lead the climbers headed by the two Georges – Mallory and Finch.
On the surface it was a recipe for disaster, considering both men’s intolerance for anything new. Strutt, in particular, deplored the use of climbing tools like crampons and pitons, let alone canned oxygen. Like Hinks, he and Bruce dismissed the argument that using oxygen was akin to wearing clothes and boots designed for the mountains, eating nutritious food and sleeping in wind- and rain-proofed tents. Their attitude made no sense given that these same men were content to let ‘coolies’ carry their equipment and employed guides to show the way.
The third man was Howard Somervell, a 31-year-old doctor and later a missionary who had been born into a wealthy family but did not have the arrogance that often came with money. He had registered more than 350 climbs in Great Britain before tackling the Alps where, on a six-week vacation, he climbed thirty peaks. Importantly for George, he was a man of science who would prove a rare ally in the coming battle over the use of oxygen.
George had known for almost six weeks that despite his run-in with the older Alpine Club members back in Italy during the summer, he was likely to be selected as a climber. A carefully worded letter from Hinks had arrived on November 10. It began: ‘I am instructed by the Mount Everest Committee to say that they would like to be able to consider the possibility of inviting you to join the Mount Everest Expedition which will leave London on 2 March 1922 and be in the field until the end of September.’
Hinks wanted to avoid the farce of the March medical report by clearing George’s candidacy before making a decision, and despite the controversy that assessment had caused he insisted that George be tested by one of the doctors who just eight months earlier had come to the conclusion that the mountaineer was not fit to climb. Dr Graeme, the altitude specialist, either was not available or had decided against being involved again. Instead, it was left to the physician and pediatrician Dr Larkins. After a terse exchange of letters, George went back to Larkins’s Harley Street surgery on November 19.
The appointment was brief and within a few hours Larkins reported to Hinks: ‘I have re-examined GI Finch today. He is now absolutely fit and has lost his glycosuria. In my first report on him I stated that I thought all he needed was to get into training.’ Larkins had clearly been stung by the earlier row and wanted it known that his assessment had been misinterpreted or, worse, misrepresented by others with possibly dubious agendas.
But the attempts to undermine George Finch hadn’t finished. Behind the scenes there was more evidence of sabotage. Just as the previous year Hinks had written to Mallory hoping he would object to George’s selection, Younghusband was now busy stirring up disharmony by writing to Strutt and Norman Collie, the Alpine Club president and Everest Committee member, asking if they wanted George on the team.
It is not known what allegations he made against George because copies of these letters were not, unlike most of his correspondence, kept in official records. The worst that could be said of George Finch was that he could be abrasive and was a man who, at times, expected others to simply take him at his word. But that was also true of Hinks, Younghusband and Bruce, as it was of Howard-Bury and Strutt.
And George had not even met most of the other members of the expedition, let alone annoyed them to the extent that they wanted him off the team. His crime was simply that he had the audacity to disagree with, challenge and defy the establishment who believed themselves untouchable. Of that he was certainly guilty and would continue to pay a high price for.
But for the moment at least, George was safe, as both Strutt and Collie had said yes to his inclusion. Strutt cited George’s exemplary war service record as a reason to support the selection and his belief that Finch was the climber most likely to reach the summit of Everest:
Personally, although my acquaintance with Finch is slight I have no objections to his inclusion. He served at the same time as I in the British Salonika Force, did good work and was popular with his unit. I think that Charlie Bruce and I should be able to manage him. At the same time if the other members dislike him, which I fear is the case, it rather alters the situation. However, in reply to your question I should like Finch to go. He is the one man that I would back to reach the summit, and we should always remembe
r that!
Collie also cleared the way for George’s selection:
I am willing to accept the view that Bruce and Strutt should be able to manage Finch. Last year I was most anxious to safeguard Col Howard-Bury but the situation is different now, and as Bruce and Strutt both say they don’t mind his going, I cannot object any further. Of course I know that as a climber he is as good a man as we can get. I have never heard anything about Finch’s matrimonial arrangements. All I know is the opinion of the people who worked with him at Woolwich and at South Kensington.
Collie appeared to be admitting that the reason George had been excluded the previous year was not on medical grounds but because of a perception that he would make life difficult for Howard-Bury. The committee, it seemed, was prepared to sacrifice his climbing ability to ensure they chose an expedition leader with the capacity to unify his team. As it turned out, it was Howard-Bury who was the problem during the reconnaissance expedition, with Mallory, in particular, regarding him as a pompous ass.
The other disturbing aspect of Collie’s reply was the revelation that Younghusband and Hinks were fishing for potentially scandalous information about George’s personal life – his marriages – that might give them new reason to exclude him.
Unable to forge a division between George and the other men, Younghusband and Hinks reluctantly let his selection stand. On December 1 George was called to a meeting with Younghusband in his office at the Royal Geographical Society in Kensington Gore. He scrawled a note at the bottom of the invitation: ‘Saw Sir Francis 11.30am who tendered me an invitation to join the expedition for Everest.’
The Brilliant Outsider Page 16