George, backed by Percy Unna, outlined Dreyer’s findings for the committee. It was the most accurate information at hand, albeit collected in the controlled and artificial environment of Dreyer’s steel tank, and only an attempt on the mountain would prove the argument one way or the other. The minutes of the meeting, pasted roughly into an archived scrapbook, recorded the outcome in a matter-of-fact manner:
After discussion the committee requested Captain Farrar, with the assistance of Messrs Somervell, Unna and Finch, to proceed with the scheme for the use of oxygen by the climbing party at a cost not exceeding £400 and to report progress to the committee. It was resolved to apply to the Air Ministry, the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research and the National Physical Laboratory for any assistance possible.
The minutes did not capture the passion of the debate inside the room that day, as Sir Francis would recall bitterly a decade later at another meeting of the committee as it planned a new assault on the mountain. He grimaced and snarled at the memory as the committee launched into yet another debate about the use of oxygen, revealing that the vote had been tied at the 1922 meeting. He, as president, had held the casting vote. The minutes in 1932 would record: ‘The committee took into consideration the question of oxygen. Sir Francis Younghusband said that he gave the casting vote for oxygen in 1922 and had regretted it ever since. He was now definitely against oxygen …’
The division among the expedition members in 1922 was palpable. Bruce and Strutt were against the idea from a moral perspective, Wakefield was distrustful and Longstaff, who with Charles Bruce had dismissed Mumm’s 1907 experiment on Mount Trisul, wanted his opposition noted formally, worried that any interruption to a supply of artificial oxygen would be fatal to climbers. George Mallory fumed at the decision, telling Sir Walter Raleigh, the chair of English Literature at Oxford, ‘the physiologists might explode themselves in their diabolical chamber, but we would do well to explode their damnable heresy’.
But the decision had been made, if with some suspicion and regret. Ignoring the background rumblings George now turned his attention to the task of designing, manufacturing and testing the cylinders that would carry the oxygen that would be strapped to the backs of men attempting to scale the world’s highest peak in the icy tempest that swirled around its upper reaches even during summer.
He retreated to Oxford where he and Georges Dreyer quickly ruled out trying to create oxygen through chemical reaction and instead opting for either producing liquid oxygen, which had to be generated on site, or taking compressed oxygen in steel cylinders from England. The first option was impractical and expensive but the second had already proved successful with pilots during the war. The challenge was to design cylinders that were light and did not leak.
The British company Siebe Gorman, which manufactured equipment used in the mining industry and in marine salvage, was chosen to build cylinders to George Finch’s design. The cylinders were made of thin carbon-steel, each with the capacity to carry sixty-three gallons (240 litres) of compressed oxygen that would last a climber approximately two hours. Critically, each cylinder would weigh only five and a half pounds (2.5 kilograms) when full – barely one-quarter of the weight of the cylinders carried up Mount Kamet by Alexander Kellas. The carrying frame, hitched to the climber like a backpack, was made from the aluminum alloy duralumin, and weighed six and a half pounds (three kilograms), while the valves and hoses added another six and a half pounds. A full rack of four cylinders, which would provide a climber with oxygen for eight hours, would weigh only thirty-five pounds (sixteen kilograms).
To ensure a continuous flow of oxygen, George attached two hoses, which could be regulated by a pressure gauge and switched by opening and closing a simple valve, to the central cylinders. This would provide four hours of oxygen from two cylinders before the climber had to find a resting place where he could exchange the two near-empty cylinders with the remaining pair. The oxygen was almost pure, distilled from liquid air and cleaned by spiralling it through cooled metal coils to ensure that in the frigid environs of Everest there would be no residual moisture that could turn to ice and block the hoses.
Amazingly, the equipment was designed and manufactured within a month, the air compressed to 120 rather than 150 atmospheres to allow for the change of temperature between England and India and ten sets of four cylinders were packed carefully into wooden trunks and shipped on February 21. Another set was kept by George to train his fellow climbers during their own voyage a week later.
Some expedition members had already left for Marseilles where they would all gather to travel together to India, but most were still in London on February 22 when George presented his creation to the committee. That morning Hinks sent a letter to Bruce to discuss the departure of the expedition. He could not resist another dig at Finch: ‘This afternoon we go to see a gas drill. They have contrived a most wonderful apparatus which will make you die of laughing. Pray see that a picture of Finch in his patent climbing outfit with the gas apparatus is taken by the official photographer.’
The climbing outfit ridiculed by Arthur Hinks was another piece of unrecognised genius on George Finch’s part and another example of establishment ignorance and bile. On February 13 Hinks had taken delivery of a bulky parcel from the London firm SW Silver and Co, ‘outfit contractors and manufacturers of camping equipment’, with an accompanying letter: ‘We are sending you herewith an eiderdown lined coat, trousers and gauntlet as per instruction from Capt Farrar. These garments have been made to the order of Captain Finch of the Mount Everest Expedition.’
George Finch, who had already stitched together his own duvet sleeping bag, had designed a knee-length padded jacket, mint-green in colour and made from the gossamer fabric used for hot air balloons, its carefully stitched layers filled with down and topped with a wide fur collar that could be wrapped against the neck when the Everest gales blew. There were matching trousers and gloves which created a largely windproof suit which contrasted sharply with the attire of the other members of the expedition, who were hoping to climb to more than 26,000 feet above sea level in various layers of pullovers, scarves and even pyjamas, topped with a Norfolk tweed suit. George Finch’s creation would be a forerunner to the staple of modern alpine garb and urban streetwear – the puffer jacket – but it would be another two decades before anyone realised his brilliance.
20.
‘WHEN GEORGE FINCH STARTS TO GAS’
The men had been at sea, aboard the SS Caledonia, for three days before George Finch unpacked his precious oxygen tanks and called the climbing party to the main deck for a drill. The adventure was finally under way and he held what he believed would be the key to their success.
George had said goodbye to Bubbles in the afternoon of March 2. They had embraced hurriedly as a cold wind hustled across the main platform at Victoria Station and although nothing was said between them, both were keenly aware that he might not return. George was not afraid. He had faced death many times in his relatively short life but his third marriage, barely two months old, had significantly changed his outlook. There had been a time when he hadn’t seriously contemplated the consequences of his death, the achievement of a daredevil ascent worth far more than the risk. But now he had a reason to return.
The world for now seemed at peace: bright sunshine, calm waters and dolphins at play, surfing on the bow wave of the white-hulled vessel as she steamed south across the Mediterranean toward Egypt. At Port Said they would turn down the Suez Canal before heading across the Arabian Sea to the teeming city of Bombay on the west coast of India. The voyage would take two weeks, more than enough time to ensure the men knew how to use and take care of equipment that would keep them safe at altitudes never before attempted by a human being.
George was keenly aware of the controversy surrounding the use of artificial oxygen, but the decision had been made and its implementation should be taken seriously. But it was clear from the first morning that Arthur Hinks had suc
cessfully sowed the seeds of distrust and, therefore, disharmony. The others attended George’s training session but were visibly uninterested and dismissive. His cause had not been helped when a pressure valve had leaked slightly, even though George quickly repaired it. The following morning, March 7, was the same, as he noted in his diary, the first he had ever kept: ‘Progress is somewhat slow because most of the others think it is all so simple that it does not need concentrated practice. However, today some made rather fools of themselves and got a bit muddled over the question of the valves. So shall probably do better next time.’
George’s optimism was not well placed, though he continued to call daily drill sessions over the next week, sometimes scheduling them as early as 6am to beat the heat of the day. He had always planned his climbs meticulously in an effort to eliminate errors in this most dangerous of pastimes. He could not understand why the others were so laissez-faire in the face of such gigantic odds, preferring to sleep, to stroll the decks, read, gamble and even play cricket on a ship that was designed to carry 400 passengers in relative luxury but was largely deserted. Wakefield, one of the climbers, and Strutt, Bruce’s deputy, were particularly venomous behind his back.
Only Somervell seemed fully supportive. In his subsequent book, After Everest, he recalled lengthy discussions about oxygen, and outlined his own views:
I, as a physiologist, could not help feeling – in conjunction with many physiologists much more experienced and distinguished than myself – that it was extremely doubtful whether human beings could live and move upwards at a height anything much above 23,000 feet, the highest point attained by any mountaineer up to that time. We all hoped the additional power given by the oxygen it [Finch’s apparatus] supplied would more than counterbalance the awkwardness of so heavy a load, and would make up for the actual extra work expended in raising it along with our own body weight. Anyway, we decided to take it with us.
Even so, Somervell couldn’t resist penning a light-hearted poem as he watched George doggedly battle the cynicism around him, the men preferring their games or drinking to addressing the serious challenges of the task ahead. Even though Somervell signed the ditty ‘HS. A mon ami G.F’, George would not take it well.
The anchor weighed in the Port of Marseilles
When we started to verify travellers’ tales.
The weather was fine and we all were at ease
And prepared for a fortnight’s good rest on the seas.
But Hark! What was that? It’s six bells without doubt
And soon all our holiday’s gone up the spout;
For whether we’re resting, or reading or ill
We’re ruthlessly summoned to Oxygen Drill.
Are you lounging at ease or trying to sleep?
Are you watching the porpoises play in the deep?
Are you busy increasing your beverage bill?
Come away, for it’s time for the Oxygen Drill.
Are you eating your breakfast or playing deck tennis?
Are you trying by guessing the Run to get pennies?
Never mind what you’re doing your time for to kill
You’ve got to be present at Oxygen Drill.
Have you theories precise on the subject of gas?
Respiration, and so on, and action in mass?
The exactest of thought will appear rude and boorish
Compared to the latest in science from Zürich.
Do you think that you know about altitudes high
And what kind of glass keeps the sun from your eye?
On such questions your ignorance really is crass
But you’ ll soon be made wise when George Finch starts to gas.
So put down your books, come along learn the knack
Of hoisting the cylinders on to your back.
For if you’d be the victor of Everest’s hill
You must finish each morning with Oxygen Drill.
As they eased down the Suez Canal, the dry, clean heat of the Mediterranean was replaced by baking desert temperatures, cooling only under the clear black night skies. The rains began at the Gulf of Aden, adding to the humidity as they neared the Equator: ‘Hotter and damned moist,’ George recorded briefly as he finally admitted defeat and ended the oxygen drills.
George Mallory had watched them with distaste – ‘I sicken with the thought of the saliva dribbling down. I hope it won’t be necessary to use it’ – but also with a measure of sympathy for a man he had been told to dislike, as he wrote to his wife on March 15:
I must say that in this company I’m amused by Finch and rather enjoy him. I’m much intrigued by the shape of his head, which seems to go out at the sides where it ought to go up. He is a fanatical character and doesn’t laugh easily. He greatly enjoys his oxygen class and talks about what he has got to do about it somewhat egotistically. However, the drill is being abandoned so perhaps we shan’t hear quite so much about the subject – which nevertheless is very interesting – and Finch has been very competent about it. After endless discussion as to the volume of air one can breathe in a minute, the proportion of oxygen, I have very good hopes it will serve us well enough without psychological dangers from a camp at 25,000 feet.
Despite his previous cries of heresy, Mallory appeared to be softening his attitude and coming to accept oxygen as a legitimate tool that he might be prepared to use, although he was sceptical of Finch’s belief that they all required a fortnight’s training: ‘Of course this is fantastic nonsense – two days would be ample training,’ he told Ruth.
The Caledonia docked in Bombay on March 17 and after buying some supplies at a British army and navy store and several books from Thacker’s publishing house (including Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies and Rifle and Romance in the Indian Jungle) George and the others caught the first of several trains travelling north-east across the central plains to the city of Darjeeling, where Charles Bruce, his cousin Geoffrey and the other Indian Army officers, John Morris and Colin Crawford, waited, passing the time by choosing a team of cooks, interpreters and dozens of porters to carry the stores of food and equipment including the reconnaissance mission’s tents that had simply been patched.
It was a three-day journey from Bombay to Darjeeling, in relative comfort but for the spiralling dust that invaded the carriages. It gave George his first taste of the poverty of the undeveloped world and of the complexities of Indian culture. Travelling through rich agricultural plains he observed that people seemed incapable of making the best use of the land and lived ‘little better than animals’, in sharp contrast to the people living in the hills: ‘The hill men here are totally different; they are fine, well set-up, self-reliant men,’ he wrote.
They reached Darjeeling on March 20 to find Charles Bruce eager to leave as soon as possible and begin the expedition. It would take a week to finalise arrangements but any delay beyond that would limit or even thwart an attempt on the summit, particularly with the monsoon due in early June and the mountain still 300 miles away.
But there was a problem: the oxygen equipment had been delayed, shipped around the coast of India and unloaded in Calcutta to reduce the overland train journey and avoid breakages. Someone – George Finch – would have to stay in Darjeeling until the tanks arrived while the rest of the party went on ahead to the hill town of Kalimpong, thirty miles north, from where they would begin the real trek across the Tibetan Plateau. George didn’t question the decision; after all, the oxygen was his responsibility. Crawford, as a support officer, would wait with him.
As he waited in the lush hill station, the Himalayas forming a jagged white backdrop to the dense green of the region’s famed tea plantations, George Finch recorded his assessments of the others in the party in his diary, even while conceding to himself that they were preliminary estimates only and he was prepared for the possibility that he might be wrong.
Some like Charles Bruce and Thomas Longstaff were ‘non-starters’, unable because of their age and ill health to climb higher than
base camp. Others, like the photographer John Noel, Geoffrey Bruce, Crawford, Morris, Strutt and Heron, would go higher, but were support staff and unlikely to have ambitions to get to the summit. Geoffrey Bruce, for example, was a fit young man but had never climbed before.
George regarded the real climbers as Mallory, Morshead, Somervell, Norton and himself, although his assessment gave none of them – not even himself – a chance of reaching the top, at least not without oxygen.
The assessments were not intended for anyone’s eyes except his own, and typically for George Finch, his conclusions were candid:
Captain Geoffrey Bruce: Good for 23,000 feet. Too young (lack of stamina), lung capacity not very pronounced (he is slightly narrow in chest from back to front). Not a climber.
Captain Morris: Good for 23,000 feet. Wears glasses. Not a climber. Rather clumsy. Body long, legs short.
Captain Crawford: Good for 22,000 feet. Nervous disposition tending faintly to hysteria. Informs me he has much difficulty in sleeping above 19,000 feet. To judge by appearances is now suffering from mild insomnia.
Major Norton: Good for 23,000 feet. Trunk long, legs short in relation. Stamina good. He may do 24,000 feet but he is no mountaineer.
Colonel Strutt: Would be good for 24,000 feet or even more but for the fact that his opinion of himself is rather a gloomy one. He lacks full confidence in himself and that may very well stop him at 23,000 feet.
The Brilliant Outsider Page 18