Chapter Fifteen - Everest 1921

Both Francis Younghusband, in 1904, and Captain John Noel, in 1913, had made secret expeditions to Tibet to try and get near enough to Mount Everest to make a reconnaissance of the mountain, to see if it was climbable. Both were turned away –Younghusband in Lhasa and Noel, after an extraordinary journey in disguise as a Tibetan peasant, a mere thirty miles from the mountain. From the time of its discovery by the British in Darjeeling in 1850 it had been an enticing possibility to mountaineers, especially after its height was estimated at over 29,000 feet. It was not known then if men could even survive at those heights. Not least of those who wished to scale it was Luigi Amedeo Giuseppe Maria Ferdinando Francesco, the Duke of Abruzzi, who had climbed not only in the Italian Alps, but in Alaska and East Africa as well – and who in 1909 reached a height of 24,600 feet on the East Ridge of K2 in the Karakoram Himalaya, which remained the world record until 1922, when George Finch and Geoffrey Bruce got to 27,456 feet on Everest.

In 1893 Younghusband and his friend Charlie Bruce, then a Captain in the Gurkhas, petitioned the government to mount an expedition, but were refused permission. Similarly, Bruce, Tom Longstaff, and Edward Mumm would have attempted it in 1905, but permission was denied by the Nepalese and Tibetan governments. Finally, after the war, John Noel gave his famous lecture in March of 1919 to the Royal Geographical Society, describing his covert reconnaissance of the mountain in 1913, saying, ‘Now that the Poles have been reached, it is generally felt that the next and equally important task is the exploration and mapping of Mount Everest... It cannot be long before the culminating summit of the world is visited, and its ridges, valleys and glaciers are mapped and photographed... Some day, the political difficulties will be overcome and a fully equipped expedition must map and explore Mount Everest.’

Percy Farrar, bless him, then President of the Alpine Club, took this as a directive, and said that the Alpine Club took the keenest interest in the proposal and was prepared not only to lend such financial aid as was in its power, but also to recommend two or three young mountaineers quite capable of dealing with any purely mountaineering difficulties which were likely to be met with on Mount Everest. Thus the Mount Everest Committee was born – a conjunction of the Royal Geographical Society and the Alpine Club - and by January of 1921 were ready to begin selecting team members. Captain Farrar immediately put forward George’s name.

So on 22 January George received a letter from him, in his official capacity as member of the Committee, and by the first week in February George had accepted. He went up to London for a luncheon meeting with Younghusband, Farrar and Harold Raeburn, and was very cool in his acceptance. Younghusband was puzzled, as he said to sundry persons, including me, and also in his account of the Expeditions. This was not the fiery, passionately keen Mallory he knew. But George had misgivings about the strength of the party and of the necessary equipment for a summit bid. He wrote: Finch and I have had to put on pressure through Farrar, and I hope it will all come right; but such a vital matter as tents has not been properly thought out, and no proper provision for cold at great heights... I have moments of complete pessimism as to our chances of getting up – or of getting back with toes on our feet... But Younghusband amuses and delights me more than anything, that grim old apostle of beauty and adventure. The Everest expedition has become a sort of religious pilgrimage in his eyes. I expect I shall end by sitting at his feet, hearing tales of Lhasa and Chitral.

George Finch was nominated by Farrar and meant to go also, and had likewise accepted, but he was found to be ‘medically unfit’ by the Committee doctors; although it was widely gossiped that his being made ‘4F’ (indicating that his state of health was in some way parlous) was due to personal difficulties with some of the Committee members. Finch, a professor of chemistry by vocation, was Australian, reared in Switzerland, and a very independently-minded and somewhat unorthodox character. He was considered ‘unBritish’ by some of the old boys, who resented his maverick style. In the event, Guy Bullock, who had gone to Winchester with George, and was a founding member of the Winchester Ice Club, replaced him on the team.

A summer reconnaissance was chosen, with the expedition to arrive in Darjeeling in May. The members were: Charles Howard-Bury, expedition leader; Harold Raeburn, climbing leader; George, later appointed acting climbing leader when Raeburn fell ill with influenza; Guy Bullock; Dr. Alexander Kellas, naturalist and interpreter; Dr. A. M. Heron, naturalist; Henry Morshead, surveyor; Edward Wheeler, surveyor; Dr. Alexander Wollaston, naturalist and medical officer; and Gyaltsen Kazi and Chettan Wangdi, local interpreters.

George had gone out alone on the Sardinia – how different that lonely voyage to those subsequent! – and in the long weeks read Lytton’s biography of Queen Victoria, newly published. Of the Queen’s antecedents, in reference to her aunt Princess Charlotte, daughter of George IV, George wrote to me: How complicated were their love-affairs and their family relations! And how dull our own monarch seems by comparison! But their commonplace perception was in great part due to the old lady, or at least, to Albert, and then ossified by Victoria. Royalty had always conducted itself in the manner of the Prince Regent and Caroline, well beyond the common morality of the householder, but the Saxe-Coburgs made them seem just that. I am not certain that I regard this as good.

He did manage to work on his own book of which he also sent me snippets, but mostly he talked about his discontent and his desire to do things. It was not good for him to be cooped up all alone on shipboard. At last he arrived at Calcutta, and on the 10th of May took the narrow-gauge ‘toy train’ up to Darjeeling for the first time (for it was to become a regular feature of the expeditions). This train, as he wrote me, was so small that one may touch the windows, if there were any, on either side. We moved along at the rattling high speed of ten miles an hour and stopped every two miles or so to take on water. On these excursions, passengers got on or off the train at will, took out picnic lunches, or, as some of us – myself included – decided to walk. When the train started up again, it took twenty minutes to catch me up and even then I could easily step up on the boards if I wanted to without having to hurry. This train is the only way into or out of Darjeeling, which renders it charming, if not a puzzle. How is anything brought in? It is staggering to consider that the whole of the British machine in India is transported into Darjeeling in this way. The inefficiency must drive the Quartermaster General raving mad.
Nevertheless, once near the top of run, the slow pace is justified by the lush spectacle spread out below.


On the 18th, he left Darjeeling with Wollaston, Wheeler, and Howard-Bury in the first party. The rest left the next day. The monsoon was already within striking distance of them, looming in great black clouds to the South, and the rain began to come down in torrents as they crossed the lush glades of Sikkim. They were pestered by mosquitoes, even in the dense forests of evergreen between Ghoom and the Teesta Valley, and tempers were a little short. It is a badly-chosen company, he wrote. Some of those on it are far too old and difficult, but were chosen for their prestige, rather than their suitability. I must include Howard-Bury in this, as well as Raeburn, both of whom are entirely intolerant of other opinions than their own. I have so nearly lost my temper with Howard-Bury, who seems determined to run the show with the inflexibility of Sir Douglas Haig that I have found it necessary to make a strategic retreat into deferential silence.

They passed through tea plantations, and beside tree ferns, twenty and thirty feet high, intertwined with massive Coelogyne, or linden, orchids in colours ranging from cream to brilliant fuchsia with such an extraordinary fragrance as to wake one from sleep. I would send you a cutting, he wrote, but am afraid it would not survive the journey in unknown hands. In Teesta the butterflies were so numerous and vivid as to amount to a swarm. They were a distraction from the heat and damp, but made talking difficult. After Peshoke, they descended 2,000 feet through a Sal forest to the Teesta river gorge, by a hazardously muddy clay track, and crossed the torrential river by a rope suspension bridge; the first such they had seen. George drew a sketch of it in his letter and called it not worth of the name of a bridge, being only as you can see three rather dubiously sound ropes, fixed together by what appear to be vines. Nevertheless, they all managed to get across it, while the mules and other transport goods were hauled across on slings. At Kalimpong, the Dak bungalow where they stayed had a beautiful garden, and he did send me one each of its roses and hibiscus, pressed, as he commented, between King Lear and Hamlet, and weighted down by his rucksack for good measure. What symbolism would I find in that? He wondered teasingly. It still rained heavily every night and day, and the heat and damp made the daturas and bougainvilleas grow upwards of twenty feet high.

From Pedong, on the 22nd of May he wrote with some irony: We are about to begin climbing now in earnest, away from this tropical enclave, and into the rare air of Sedongchen. But, he continued seriously, I have not forgotten your situation there, and would very much welcome a report of how you do, and how matters stand with Owen, if there is hope of it reaching me by return, as I am repeatedly assured there is.

I received this letter some two and a half weeks later, on the 9th of June, after which I confronted Owen with my news, so had a report to give. It had not been necessary to say anything to Owen about the pregnancy sooner. I was reluctant to live with his unpleasantness about it any longer than required, and had planned on saying nothing until I was noticeably large enough to attract his attention. This happened in the middle of June, when we were on holiday at his parents’ house, Denton, some seven miles from Oxford, where we commonly took the children for summer holidays, as it was cheap for us and pleasant for the children.

What matter that there was no bathroom, and that the only lavatory higher than ground-floor level functioned precariously with the aid of a garden watering-can; and that there was no heating except open fires and no light but the soft glow of oil lamps? There was otherwise every possible comfort – an abundance of excellent food, a house full of servants, and one of the most beautiful gardens in England. The earliest parts of Denton date from the 16th century; it had two Tudor fireplaces, a fine Jacobean staircase, a room with oak paneling of the same period, and another with ash panels of about 1800. The main parts of the building were, however, built in the 18th century. The garden stood in a large enclosure next the road to Garsington, which runs round it. Barring the company, it was idyllic.

Here at Denton, for the sake of his father mostly, we nominally shared a room, though Owen commonly slept in his dressing room. Here too, on a morning several days after we arrived, he came in when I was dressing, standing in front of the wardrobe in just a pair of combinations, and he had got all the way to the tray for his morning tea, picked up a cup and was trundling across the room with it again before he looked up at me, and stopped.

‘Getting a bit podgy, aren’t we?’ He said nastily, looking me up and down. ‘Shouldn’t you take some exercise?’ The pier glass revealed a tall lithe healthy blonde woman, long in the arms and legs and not in the least podgy, but with a perfectly normal bump for middle pregnancy. Owen took a step, fully prepared to go blithely about his morning after this sortie, before I blasted him. I was absolutely livid, and snapped back at him without thinking of tactics,
‘I’m not fat, Owen, I’m pregnant!’ I stood glaring at him, while he spilled his tea, jumped a little and swore.
‘Damn it all!’ He shook the tea off his hand and glowered at me, his colour fading slowly. The scald – of the words and the tea, was bad enough, but I had ruined his clothes, about which he was fastidious.
‘You would be, you bitch! You just would be.’ He came near, and I stepped away warily, for I thought that he would strike me. ‘So, whose brat is it, as it certainly isn’t mine? Or are you prepared to invoke the Holy Ghost?’
‘I hate you!’ I cried. ‘You’re contemptible!’
‘That’s rich, coming from a trull,’ he sneered. ‘Did you think to pass it off as an O’Malley?’ His arrogance was too much to bear. I was sick to death of his ramming his damned family and their pedigree down my throat.
‘And how many of your... your brats...’ – I stammered, surprised at my own use of his contemptuous word – ‘are passed off as other men’s, Owen!’ It was probably truer than he would ever admit, but it was a foolish thing for me to say.

‘Bitch!’
He did strike me then, with an open-handed blow that sent me staggering. I was unhurt, but very angry. So, however, was Owen. I had ended up against the bench at the foot of the bed and he loomed over me menacingly, his expression murderous.
‘Don’t you ever say such a thing to me again!’ he ranted. ‘Don’t you ever impugn my honour again!’ I had struck at the very heart of his fragile self-esteem. ‘Whose it is, Mary Anne? Tell me, you will tell me!’ He grabbed by arm. ‘Whose is it? Tell me, Mary Anne!’ He had grown very loud, was practically shouting. They’d hear him all over the house. I looked at the door, prayed for the maid to come in, but she did not. ‘Tell me, Mary Anne, tell me what cur fathered your brat, and I’ll see him in the courts –’ he lifted back his hand again.


‘Don’t!’ I begged, cringing. ‘Please – ’
‘Tell me!’ he demanded. He shook me. ‘Tell me who it was, Mary Anne!’ But I could barely speak now, and was shaking all over.
‘I – I –I –’ I was terrified of what he would do if I told him. He drew himself up as I sat there stammering and cringing, glaring at me in contempt, and then the oddest expression came over his face. I had seen it before, from the beginning, that weird perspicacity of his in action. And I knew that he knew.
‘It was George,’ he said, as if remembering it from a dream. I went cold and started shaking again. Owen snapped back to consciousness and glowered at me. ‘It was George wasn’t it?’ He grabbed my shoulders and pulled me off the bench, menacingly. ‘Tell me the truth, Mary Anne! It was George Mallory and you’ve been swiving him all along, haven’t you? Haven’t you!’ He shook me again.
‘No no no!’

‘Liar!’ He let go of me and stalked across the room, pacing back and forth in that caged-animal, frantic way I knew too well. He was muttering to himself, and glaring at me now and again. While he did so, I edged away from the bench and limped over to the dressing table. I had a great bruise on my leg, and my face was reddened, but there was no other obvious damage. Thank God. I wondered what I would say to George. He had been so angry over the probability of this kind of response....

‘How long have you known?’ Owen demanded, startling me out of my ruminations. He came near and I shrank away from him.
‘Since February.’ There was no point in subterfuge.
‘It was George, wasn’t it?’
‘Yes it was,’ I admitted. ‘But it really was the only time, Owen.’
‘I don’t know what sort of fool you take me for,’ he snapped. ‘What about Pat?’ His voice rose again. ‘Why would he want you in his house but that it was convenient?’
‘For God’s sake Owen!’ I cried, ‘he was in France! And we were being bombed! He did it to protect us! And you, if you’d been so gracious as to actually go there once in a while!’
‘How long has he known?’ Owen went on, ignoring my rational response. ‘He does know?’ He sneered at me again. ‘I can’t imagine you’d send your buccaneer lover off to his doom without telling him.’
‘Don’t be ghoulish, Owen!’ I snapped. ‘Of course he knows! He knew immediately.’
‘And he didn’t run away with you...’ Owen murmured in mock pity. ‘How very gallant! He must love you so....’

‘I hate you!’ If I had found a way to kill him then, I would have done it. I darted a glance at the dressing table. There was a heavy ashtray there.
‘As if I care!’ Owen derided. He followed my glance, and smiled cruelly. ‘You’d hang, Mary Anne, even if you reached it.’
Enraged by his contempt, I reached, but he caught my arm and twisted it until I thought he would break it. I gritted my teeth and tried not to make a sound, not to give him the satisfaction of breaking me. But it was so very painful.

‘Isn’t this pretty,’ Owen murmured into my ear. ‘A pretty little melodrama.’ He shoved me towards the dressing table chair. ‘Sit down, Mrs. O’Malley, and we shall have a little talk,’ he pushed my shoulders, so I sat with a hard thump in the backless seat, ‘about your bastard and your lover – ’ But there was a knock at the door. The maid, at last! Thank God. I heard her thin voice, ‘Excuse me, me’m.’
‘Come!’ I nearly shouted in relief, and she opened the door. Quick as anything, Owen sprang away, picked up his teacup and disappeared into the dressing room like a wraith.
He refused to speak to me for the next three days, as was his habit. But by this time I had written and posted a letter to George, sending it via Owen’s father, who was an ally of mine. I had learnt not to trust his sister Eva with private missives, the nasty little spy.

Denton, Oxon 12 June 1921
My dear George: Your birthday will have passed by the time this arrives, and I don’t know if you will have got the card I sent, so I hope it was happy. Thank you very much for your lovely long letter from Kalimpong – I have it marked on the map – the flowers arrived intact and very nicely....
You had asked me for a report on how I am, and how things are with Owen. You will be pleased to know, I hope, that I am disgustingly hale in this very warm weather, spending the days reading in the garden, amongst the hydrangeas, which are tall enough for an umbrella... I did tell Owen, George, and he was every bit as nasty as you said he would be. I won’t distress you with the details, dear one, for you have so much else on your mind just now! I promise to tell you when you return. But do know that he has calmed down and there is the peace of a frosty silence the last several days. I believe it will last. In the event, he goes back to the City next week, so the children and I will be alone here with his parents...
...I had a letter from Bunny Garnett the other day, asking me an anthropological detail for a frieze Duncan is painting in the house, and saying that Duncan was too busy to write...
once again, a very happy birthday to you, my dear. With all love, Diana

As might be expected, George was not thrilled by my report on Owen. At the end of a very long letter from the Everest Base Camp, he vented his concern and frustration about it:
Base Camp June 25, ’21
...From Gyanka Nangpa, Bullock and I made an early start and proceeded down the gorge. It was a perfect morning and for once we had tolerably swift animals to ride; we were fortunate to choose the right place to ford the river and our spirits were high. How could they be otherwise? Ever since we had lost sight of Everest the Gyanka Mountains had been our ultimate horizon to the West. Now the great Arun River was to divulge its secrets and we should see Everest again after nearly halving the distance. The nature of the gorge was such that our curiosity could not be satisfied until the last moment...Then in a minute, we were out on the edge of a wide sandy basin stretching away under complex undulations to further hills. Sand and barren hill as before, but with a difference; for we saw the long Arun Valley proceeding Southwards to cut through the Himalayas and its Western arm which we should have to follow to Tingri; and there were the marks of more ancient river beds and strange inland lakes. It was a desolate scene: no flowers were to be seen nor any sign of life beyond some stunted gorse bushes on a near hillside and a few patches of coarse brown grass, and the only habitations were dry inhuman ruins; but whatever else was dead, our interest was alive.
We made our way up a steep hill to a rocky crest overlooking the gorge. The only visible snow mountains were in Sikkim. Kanchenjunga was clear and eminent; we had never seen it so fine before! It seemed now singularly strong and monumental, like the leonine face of Stokowski, with a glory of white hair. In the direction of Everest no snow mountain appeared... Our attention was engaged by the remarkable spire of rock, a proper aiguille. As we were observing it a rift opened up in the clouds behind; at first we had merely the fleeting glimpse of some mountain much more distant... it was Makalu, appearing just where it should be according to our calculations with map and compass. We were now able to make out almost exactly where Everest should be, but the clouds were dark in that direction... Presently, a miracle happened. We caught the gleam of snow behind the grey mists. A whole group of mountains began to appear in gigantic fragments, like the wildest creation of a dream. A preposterous triangular lump rose out of the depths; its edge came leaping up at an angle of 70º and ended nowhere. To the left, a black serrated crest was hanging in the sky incredibly. Gradually, we saw the great mountain sides and glaciers and arêtes, now one fragment, and now another through the floating rifts... Everest is not one mountain, but two – the great black mountain to the South is connected to it by a continuous arête, and divided from it by a snow col, which must itself be at least 27,000 feet high. The black cliffs of this mountain which faced us, were continuous with the icy East face of Everest itself...

Two days ago our climbing party set forth from Tingri. We were two Sahibs – Bullock and myself – sixteen coolies, the Sirdar, Gyaltsen, and a cook, Dukpa. As we looked across the wide plains of Tingri, we saw the dark monsoon clouds gathered in all directions, and were not reassured that our reconnaissance would prove a straightforward matter. The whole magnitude of the enterprise was very present in our minds as we left Tingri, and so long as a doubt remained as to the way, we decided that we would make no attempt to climb the peak. We were trusting to the guidance of the local drivers and felt very uncertain as to where exactly we should be aiming... An almost interminable three-cornered argument ensued between the drivers, the Sirdar, and ourselves. It appeared that our guides intended to take five days to Chobuk. In the end, we separated and Bullock and I made a bee line for a bridge where we should have to cross the Rongbuk stream. At the foot of a vast moraine we waited on the edge of the maidan, anxiously hoping that we should see some sign of fresh animals approaching. It was a very late camp last evening, on the strip of meadow beside the stream, but we have the comfort of reflecting that we foiled the natives, whose aim was to retard our progress.

There, at Chotbuk, a green ribbon stretches out along the margin of the stream, with grass and low bushes, yellow-flowering asters, rhododendrons, and juniper. We hadn’t seen anything so green since we came up onto the table land of Tibet. It was a day of brilliant sunshine, warm and windless, and I thought of Alpine meadows, remembering their manifold allurements, and could almost smell the scent of pines! How I was filled with the desire lie there in that green oasis and live at ease and sniff the clean fragrance of mountain plants! But we had to get on, up the long valley – all stony hillsides under the midday sun, and monotonously dreary. At length we followed the path up a steeper rise crowned by two chortens. Here we paused in sheer astonishment. The sight of Everest, looming at the head of the Rongbuk Valley, banished every thought...

Dear girl, I received your letter of the 12th, which arrived with the coolies and our Sirdar – taking the slow way enabled the post express to catch them up. I can’t say that I’m very much surprised by Owen’s reaction, although I can but imagine the details you left out of your letter – Damn the man! You are quite all right, I pray, but it is maddening to be able to do no more than that, or even have proper and timely news of how you are. If I am sorry for one thing, it is the timing of this. For God’s sake, prevail upon Ursula or Celia or even old Sir Edward, if needs be. They will help you and you needn’t tell them anything but that you need help, reasonable enough in the circumstances.... with all love, George.

I did not ‘prevail upon Ursula or Celia’ for help, and certainly not on Owen’s father. I liked Uncle Edward, as everyone called him, but I doubted very much he would bear me the least sympathy if I complained to him that his youngest son was a bounder. He had spent his life in various legal capacities under the Colonial Office, mostly in countries usually referred to as White Man’s Graves; it had not affected his health or wit one bit: he was full of lively and amusing stories – a charming man. He liked what he called ‘good sort of people’, that is to say, well-bred, intelligent persons of respectable life and habits – immoral peers or divorcing dukes he could not tolerate. He would be exceedingly displeased to find such objectionable goings-on in his own family. No, I kept it all to myself, and as the summer passed, looked to my chickens and geese and pigs at Bridge End and kept up with the news from Everest, via George’s letters, and the despatches sent to the Times.

Of the mountain itself, he wrote: Everest is a rugged giant. It hasn’t the smooth undulations of a snow-mountain with white snow cap and glaciated flanks. It is rather, a great rock mass, coated often with a thin layer of white powder which is blown about its sides, and bearing perennial snow only on the gentler ledges and on several wide faces less steep than the rest. Once such place is the long arm of the North-west arête which with its slightly articulated buttress is like the nave of a vast cathedral roofed with snow. I was, in fact, reminded by this Northern view of Winchester Cathedral with its long high nave and low square tower...

On the Western arm of the Rongbuk glacier we had spied immense seracs . An hour’s hard work was required to bring us to the edge of the white ice. These were not seracs as one meets with in an Alpine icefall. We saw no signs of lateral crevasses. They were the result not of movement, but of melting, and it was remarkable that on either side the black ice looked over the white, as though the glacier had sunk in the middle. The pinnacles resembled a topsy-turvy system of colossal icicles, thrust upwards from a common icy mass, the whole resting on a definable floor; the largest were about 50 feet high.

We were divided from this fairy world of spires by a deep boundary moat and entered it on the far side by what may be described as a door, but that it had no lintel. An alley led us over a low wall until we reached the interior. We wandered about for some time, hither-thither. The White Rabbit himself would have been bewildered here. No course seemed to lead anywhere! Our idea was to keep to the floor so far as we were able, but mostly we were scrambling up a chimney or slithering down one, cutting round the foot of a tower or actually traversing along an icy crest. The labour of step-cutting was relieved by the sight of an enchanted scene of little lakes, of the ice pinnacles reflected in their unruffled waters, and of the searing blue sky showing between the white spires. Unfortunately, in so looking, I fell into one if these little lakes; in crossing the frozen surface, which I thought quite solid enough, I went through a thin patch. Nothing was disturbed, except my dignity! And we soon came to a broadening alley that led to a way out the labyrinth, and we entered it, to lie basking in the warm sun, for the sun temperature was over 80º.

July 5, ‘21
Bullock and I started out at 4.15A.M. at first light this morning with our coolies to make some photographs, an hour earlier than usual, and proceeded up the stone shoots immediately above our camp. I made some photos of Everest and his neighbours at the glorious moment of sunrise and reached the high shoulder above us – some 2,500 feet – by 7 A.M. By this time B and the coolies were very tired, so we roped up and made the snow col by a long traverse by 9.30 or so. Ahead of us was a long, curving snow arête, slightly corniced and leading ultimately to a rocky shoulder. We thought that once this shoulder was gained the summit of the North Peak would be within our reach, but the angle steepened as we went on very slowly now, but still steadily enough, until we reached the rocks, a frail slatey structure with short perpendicular pitches.

My memory of the shoulder onwards is dim. I have the impression of a summit continually receding from the position imagined by sanguine hopes and of a task growing constantly more severe, of steeper sides, of steps to be cut, of a dwindling pace, more frequent little halts standing just where we were, and of breathing quicker but no less deep and always continuous. At last we found ourselves without alternative under an icy wall, the soft flaky substance smothering the rocks behind it. We reached the summit at 2.45 P.M., having climbed 5,500 feet from our camp. The North Peak on the aneroid was 23,500 feet... We were not dissatisfied to be where we were, but our situation was far from secure. I felt distinctly mountain-sick , and the prospect of proceeding downwards with perfect accuracy of balance was by no means assured. Moreover, dark thunderclouds from the North were now gathering round us threatening. It was clear that we must not wait. After fifteen minutes on the summit, we started down at three o’clock. Fortune favoured us: we rejoined the coolies, whom we had left at the ice-wall, and were back here in our camp by 7.15. I am very grateful not to have had to make a descent in the dark.

July 16, ‘21
I made an early start with two coolies at 2.45 A.M. and followed the medial moraine to the Island. Reached the near summit at sunrise at 5.30 A.M. Difficult to imagine anything more exciting than the clear view of all peaks... To the left of our col a beautiful sharp peak stood in front of the gap between Everest and the North Peak, Changtse. Over this col I saw the Northwest buttress of Everest hiding the lower half of the West face, which must be a tremendous precipice of rock. The last summit of the South Peak, Lhotse, was immediately behind the shoulder; to the right (West) I saw a terrible arête stretching a long distance before it turned upwards in my direction... I stayed until 7 A.M. taking photos, a dozen plates exposed in all. Back to breakfast at 9 A.M. A pleasant morning collecting flowers, not a great variety, but some delicious honey scents and an occasional cheerful blue poppy.

July 19, ‘21
Started at 3 A.M; still some cloud, particularly to the West. One amazing black tooth was standing up against the moonlight. No luck on the glacier and we had to put on snow-shoes at once. An exciting walk. I so much feared the cloud would spoil it all.... we reached the col at 4 A.M., a fantastically beautiful scene; and we looked into the West cwm at last, terribly cold and forbidding under the shadow of Everest... But there was another disappointment – it is a big drop about 1500 feet down to the glacier – and a hopeless precipice. I was hoping to get away to the left and into the cwm; that too quite hopeless. However, we have seen the Western glacier and are not sorry we have not to go up it. It is terribly steep and broken. It was not a very likely chance that the gap between Everest and the South Peak could be reached from the West. From what we have seen now I do not much fancy it would be possible, even could one get up the glacier.

We saw a lovely group of mountains away to the South in Nepal. I wonder what they are and if anything is known about them . It is a big world!

August 8, ‘21
I am sorry, my dear, for the long gap since my last [the 28th]; we have been at Kharta, taking a rest, and there was much to do. Bullock and I left there on the 2nd, to follow the Rongbuk stream, and with luck to find the outlet of the East Rongbuk glacier. We hoped in two days to see the Chang La [North Col] ahead of us. The start on this day was not propitious. We had enjoyed the sheltered ease at Kharta; the coolies were dilatory and unwilling; the distribution of loads was muddled; there was much discontent about rations, and our Sirdar, Gyaltsen, was no longer trusted by the men. At a village where we stopped to buy tsampa some 3 miles up the valley, I witnessed a curious scene. As the tsampa was sold it had to be measured. The Sirdar was on his knees before a large disused Quaker Oats tin. Each measure-full was counted by all the coolies standing round in a circle; they were making sure of having their full ration. Nor was this all; they wanted to see as part of their supplies, not only tsampa and rice, but tea, sugar, butter, cooking fat and meat on the Army scale. This was a new demand altogether beyond the bargain made with them. The point of course, had to be clearly made, that for their so-called luxuries I must be trusted to do my best with the surplus money (100 tankas or thereabouts) remaining over from their allowances after buying the flour and rice. These luxury supplies were always somewhat of a difficulty; the coolies had been very short of such things on the Northern side – we had no doubt that some of the ration money had found its way into the Sirdar’s pockets. It would be possible, we hoped, to prevent this happening again. But even so the matter was not simple. What the coolies wanted was not always to be bought, or at the local price it was too expensive.

If the coolies behaved badly on this first day, they made up for it on the second. At the Langma La when we reached it we found ourselves to be well 4,000 feet above our camp of the previous night. We had followed a track, but not always a smooth one, and as we stayed in hopes of a clearing view, I began to wonder whether the Tibetan coolies would manage to arrive with their loads; they were noticeably less strong than our Sherpas and yet had been burdened with the wet heavy tents. Meanwhile we saw nothing above our own height. Fortunately our difficulties with the coolies seemed to be ended. Two of our own men stayed at the Pass to relieve the Tibetans of the tents and bring them quickly on. Grumblings had subsided into friendliness and all marched splendidly on this day.

The weather on the morning of August 4th was not more favourable to our reconnaissance. We went down steeply to the valley bed, crossed a stream and a rickety bridge, and wound through lovely meadows and much dwarf rhododendron till we came to the end of a glacier and mounted by its left bank. Towards midday the weather showed signs of clearing; suddenly, on our left across the glacier we saw gigantic precipices looming through the clouds. We guessed they must belong in some way to Makalu. But we saw no more. In a few moments the grey clouds blowing swiftly up from below had enveloped us, rain had begun to fall heavily, and when eventually we came to broad meadows above the glaciers, where yaks were grazing and Tibetan tents were pitched, we were content to stop. The weather signs were decidedly more hopeful as I looked out of our tent next morning, and we decided at once to spend the day in some sort of reconnaissance up the valley. Everest itself began to clear; the great North-eastern arête came out, cutting the sky to the right; and little by little the whole Eastern face was revealed to us.

...Perhaps the astonishing charm and beauty of the Kama Valley lie in the complications half hidden behind a mask of apparent simplicity, so that one’s eye never tires of following up the lines of the great arêtes, of following down the arms pushed out from their great shoulders, and of following along the broken edge of the hanging glacier covering the upper half of this Eastern face of Everest. But for me, the most magnificent and sublime in mountain scenery can be made lovelier by some more tender touch; and that too is added here. When all is said about Chomolungma, the Goddess Mother of the World, and about Chomo Uri, the Goddess of the Turquoise Mountain, I come back to the valley, the valley bed itself, the broad pastures, where our tents lay, where cattle grazed and where butter was made, the little stream we followed up to the valley head, wandering along its well-tufted banks under the high moraine, the few rare plants, saxifrages, gentians, and primulas, so well watered there, and a sift familiar blueness in the air which even here may charm us. Though I bow to the goddesses I cannot forget at their feet a gentler spirit than theirs, a little shy perhaps, but constant in the changing winds and variable moods of mountains and always friendly.

It is the property of all that is most sublime in mountain scenery to be uniquely splendid, or at least to seem so, and it is commonly the fate of the sublime in this sort to very soon be mixed up with what is trivial. Not infrequently, we had wonderful moments. And such a situation may be arranged quite comfortably; lying with his head but just within the tent one has but to stir in sleep to see, at all events, half the starry sky. Then perhaps thoughts come tumbling from the heavens and slip in at the tent-door; dozing is an ecstasy, until, at length, the alarm-watch sounds; and afterward, mean considerations din it all away, all that delight.

Yesterday morning the trivial with us preponderated. Something more than the usual inertia reigned in our frozen camp at 2 A.M. The cook was feeling unwell; the coolies prolonged their minutes of grace after the warning shout, dallied with the thought of meeting the cold air, procrastinated, drew the blankets more closely round them, and – snored once more. An expedition over the snow to the outlying tents by a half-clad Sahib – namely myself – who expects to enjoy at least the advantage of withdrawing at the last moment from the friendly down-bag, is calculated to disturb the recumbency of others; and a kick off in this manner to the day is at all events exhilarating. The task of extricating our frozen belongings where they lay and ought not to have lain was performed with alacrity, if not zeal....

How this last dear letter, when received, made me laugh and cry! It was a perfect encapsulation of George’s modus vivendi in all our mountain days. And no greater contrast could the life its contents described be to my own. I received this letter in a batch of four – a month’s worth of writing – in the beginning of September, by which time I was not only beginning to be busy with our pigs’ killing season – putting up hams and the like – but Owen had decided that it was too much trouble to drag himself up and down on the train to London early and late, and that it would be much more convenient simply to have Lily in our house, as we ‘had the room’ as he said. I was informed of this at breakfast, while I was occupied in reading the day’s letters, and his pronouncement shattered the silent calm like a bolt from the blue relativement à rien. I put down my letter from Aunt Isabel, in a fury.

‘Oh you have?’ I retorted. ‘And have we?’ I picked up the paper knife and nearly proceeded to butter the toast with it before realizing that the handle looked odd. ‘And what am I to tell the children? And how I am to wait on her, as surely you expect, with a baby?’ It was due at the end of next month.
‘Tell them she’s a family friend, like Ursula,’ he said blandly. ‘As for managing with a baby, that’s your problem. It’s none of my concern.’ He looked at me, with a cruel little fleeting smile and went back to his newspaper. I sat for a moment, speechless and open-mouthed, unable to take in that he was actually proposing this outrageous scheme. He was ignoring me entirely, now he had delivered his salvo, considering the matter settled. It was, after all, as he had so often said, his house.
‘And it minds you not,’ I sputtered at last,’ the indecency of the thing, in front of your own children?’
Owen put down his paper with an unpleasant expression. ‘Tit for tat, Mary Anne,’ he said harshly. His glance wandered in contempt over the frilly pink dressing gown I wore. ‘It’s done.’ He rose from the table abruptly, taking tea, newspaper, and the remains of his breakfast, and went upstairs, leaving me to sit in despair and outrage at this permanent invasion of my own house by a creature who could only be described as tawdry. Bloomsbury this was not, and she was no Ka Forster or Vanessa Bell, who could be counted upon to be decent, friendly, and discreet. Amongst the artistic set, one could be more or les assured, if only because they were in something of their own little enclave, that the lives of the children would not be unduly disrupted, and that the personal humiliation would be at a low level. Not so here. It was that, more than Owen per se that I minded. What angered me was that he was deliberately and with cruelty exposing me to public humiliation and his own children to all manner of insecurities and confusion.

I went for a walk later, after feeding the hens. It was still quite early, breakfast being at half-past six so Owen could meet his train. The sun poured over the hedges from the farm, and the birds were still singing. In Ursula’s cottage, the blinds were up. Walking along the field by the edge of the hedge on our side in the still morning quiet, the dew brushing the bottom of my skirt, I imagined first my friend’s peaceful breakfast, pottering about the small kitchen of the cottage with no one to disrupt her – and then a colder, more toilsome breakfast at 20,000 feet where the Everest expedition were camped. I would prefer either of them to this morning’s demonstration.

What was I to do? I didn’t fancy that at any time my life would be in the least pleasant with Lily in the house, baby or no. She was not the sort of person to be entertained by books or music – which was to say, entertaining herself – for she was a city girl and not an intellectual. When she had been in the house in the past, she either followed me about my daily routine blethering about goodness knew what, or sat sulking in the parlour desultorily reading cheap romances about parlour maids who become duchesses, or are rescued from lives as waitresses by wealthy Americans.

What was I to do? I didn’t fancy that Owen’s motive for revenge was simply that I had an affair with George – or anyone – let alone a child. In part, I believe, his reason was purely selfish – he wanted something and would have it, like a spoiled child. But there was a deeper reason, which had nothing to do with me: it was about control over both his immediate environment and the woman ‘running’ it, as he perceived. This went back to his mother, who was – at best put – a looming unpleasant restrictive figure in his childhood.

All of Owen’s little unnecessary cruelties came from Winifred; they were a direct mirror of his own treatment by her. The psychology of it was crystal clear to me. He would do or be done by. Any woman who was in any way attractive or intelligent – a draw, alluring – was a threat to his fragile sense of personal autonomy. He considered himself under their spell, although, as in my own case, they had done nothing to entice him; it was all in his own head. Psychologically, I suppose, Owen could be considered quite fragile if not downright dangerous, as his destructive words and actions were directed outwards towards others, rather than kept inside or directed towards himself.

But, what was I to do? I couldn’t run away, although I had thought of it, for I had no money and there were specific stipulations on my drawing on my minute marriage portion (to do exclusively with the children’s education). Besides, if I did so I would never see my children again, and I couldn’t bear that! Running away with them was out of the question; legally they were Owen’s wards if not property. Bolting, as it was commonly known, was scandalous, with family often telling that the offender had died. Suing for divorce would be very messy and public – and was the sole reason very few divorces were sought in this country and fewer granted. Divorce, though seemingly more above-board, was even worse than bolting, with every scurrilous detail and some lurid invented ones being dragged through the courts and published in the newspapers. One was ruined forever socially – far more serious than not being let into Claridges! - persona non grata. Like being excommunicated. No one would speak to one, or receive one in their houses. A divorced person, like a known homosexual, would find it very difficult to get a job. The only choices I had were to stay and endure it all, or find some way to support myself and get Owen’s agreement that we should actually live apart. Scotland would be nice. I adored the Highlands. And it was cheap. So was the Italian Riviera, although I had no interest in it apart from the fact that it was nearer the Alps than I presently was.

As I was leaning on the gate at the edge of the field, thinking these things, the baby stirred. Oh yes, and then there is you. We must look after you. I felt such a sudden ache, an actual pain in the chest, that I choked on a sob. I couldn’t bear to be away from George. It was as simple as that. We were parted now, but for the rest the mere eight miles was a journey of little more than half an hour. It was as far away as I wanted to be. Never at any time did either of us broach the notion that anything might be made different. It was simply not on the cards. In this, George was constant; even in Wales, he had said, 'I make no promises'. As far as our beautiful afternoon was concerned, we were both adults, with full cognisance of the consequences of our action before it was undertaken; rashness or any 'ungovernable passion' would neither of us accept as an alibi. Besides, to do so would only be to cheapen what was. It was what it was. So I should have to stay, and find some way to tolerate life. Not a happy prospect! I realised just then how near the surface the undercurrent of depression was in me.– like the stream that murmured at the edge of the field, almost without one’s consciousness, but not quite. It was not healthy, for me or the baby, but there was nothing to be done about it.

The children would be finished with nursery breakfast by now; I must get back inside. Reluctantly, I turned and made my way back towards the house.

August 9, ‘21
...It is remarkable that while Everest is never, for a moment, pink, Makalu is frequently tinged with the redder shades, and the colour of the sky in that direct was a livid Chinese blue red-flushed... The first crux of the expedition before us was the ascent of a steep wall up to the conspicuous col lying East of our mountain. The least laborious way was offered by an outcrop of rocks. The obstacle looked decidedly formidable and the coolies have little or no experience of rock-climbing. But it proved a pleasure of so many good moments once again to be grasping firm granite and encouraging novices to tread delicately by throwing down an occasional stone to remind them of the perils of clumsy movements. The coolies, as usual, were apt pupils, and after agreeable exertions and one gymnastic performance, we all reached the col at 9 A.M. with no bleeding scalps.



August 15, ‘21
I have been sanguine about the health of our party, including the coolies, all along, but about a week ago, as we toiled over the nevé in the afternoon, I felt for the first time a symptom of weariness beyond muscular fatigue and beyond the vague lassitude of mountain-sickness. By the time we reached the moraine I had a bad headache. In the tent, at last, I was tired and shivering and spent a fevered night. In the morning, a photograph had to be obtained of our conquest the day before; I dragged myself and the quarter-plate camera up a few steps to the crest of the moraine – only to find that a further peregrination of about 300 yards would be necessary: 300 yards was more than I could face. I was perforce content with less interesting exposures and returned to breakfast with the dismal knowledge that I was, at least for the moment, hors de combat. On the 11th, we pitched our tents in a sheltered place well up the Kharta Valley at a height of about 16,500 feet. The next day, one of necessary idleness after three long marches, was spent by the coolies gathering fuel, which we were delighted to find in great abundance, with rhododendron and gobar all about us, and down the valley – the best we could hope for – was juniper. But I personally observed none of this. The last march had been too much for me, and I was again obliged to keep to bed with a sore throat and swollen glands; tonsillitis was later pronounced by Wollaston.

I thought, lying in my tent, feeling quite dull, that the next few days surely must provide the climax, or anti-climax, of our whole reconnaissance: is there an outlet to the glacier within reach of our camps or not? It, and its access to the col, is the key to our whole operation, and to any hopes of getting up the mountain from this side. Bullock went off on the morning of the 13th by himself, and I admit that I was very ungrateful that he should have the adventure all to himself. I couldn’t stay in bed, but got up and tried to write such letters as my dullness would allow.

A prod from one of the coolies interrupted me. I looked round, to find, with genuine delight, Major Morshead approaching, and he arrived at just the right moment to cheer my present solitude, to strengthen the party, and to help us when help was greatly needed. Moreover, he brought from Wollaston for my use a medical dope. Stimulated by the unusual act of drug-taking, or possibly by the drug itself, I began to entertain a hope for the morrow.

As the darkness was closing in, a coolie came running down the last steep sandy slope to our camp, with a chit from Bullock: ‘I can see up the glacier ahead of me, and it ends in another high pass. I shall get to the pass to-morrow morning if I can, and ought to see our glacier over it. But it looks after all as though the most unlikely solution is the right one and the glacier goes out into the Rongbuk Valley.’ We had discussed this possibility, but there remained the unanswerable difficulty about the stream, the little stream which we had but just failed to cross in the afternoon of our first expedition. How could so little water drain so large an area of ice as must exist on this supposition?

Yesterday I set out with Morshead, and had the surprising good fortune of a clear sky until noon. I soon decided that we were looking up the glacier where we had looked down on the 7th, as Bullock too had decided: at the head of it was a high snow col and beyond that the tip of Changtse. The time had come to abandon our idea of finding the foot of the glacier in order to follow it up; it would be much easier to go up to the head of it and if necessary follow it down. This new plan has good prospects of success, and might obviate the difficulties and inconveniences of shifting the base again to the Rongbuk side (which I have no desire to revisit). When I got into camp just now there was a note from Howard-Bury with a note and sketch from Wheeler, who has seen what we have: the Eastern branch of the Rongbuk Glacier has a Western exit. I hope we have discovered a way at last to the Chang La.

They had. On the 18th they set out, Morshead, Bullock and George, with the Tibetans; well within George’s plan to have the reconnaissance completed by the 20th. They needed snowshoes immediately, and on the glacier experienced that very curious phenomenon of extreme heat which made it nearly impossible to make any progress at all. They struggled up the slope, Morshead at one point unroping, unable to go further. At length, they found themselves on flatter ground. The pass before them was invisible in the mist, and they found themselves on the brink of a crevasse. They worked slowly round it, wondering if after all their pains they were meet with more troubles of this sort, until they realised that they really were on the edge of thing: they had reached the col itself. It was 1.15 P.M. then, with the clouds thickening so that there was no hope of a clear view above them. But on the Lhakpa La they were not actually in cloud: they could see the wall under the North Col, which they reckoned at well over 500 feet . George was convinced that they could find a way up from the East before September. He would, as he said, ‘bet his bottom dollar’ on it, which showed that he was definitely feeling better. I was glad he was better; it was worrisome to know he was ill. For my part, reading his letters and the despatches were a welcome relief from the unpleasantness of my own life, and I looked forward to the post and the Times every day, bringing news of what I felt was my true being, that emotional nexus with George.
At the end of August he and Bullock made a camp at 21,000 feet, but the weather turned bad and they could not start up until the 20th of September. Morshead and he set out in darkness with the coolies and fourteen loads to the Lhakpa La. In an hour, they were at the icefall, but fought a winding and dangerous way through it. It was only at dawn, three hours after setting out, that they made their way out above the icefall. The men were done in, but struggled on – one of the Tibetans taking on two loads rather than one, collapsed – and finally at the close of day they made a camp on the Lhakpa La, with eleven of the loads, with the others to be brought up in a few days time. The first full view of the headwall of the North Col greeted them: a formidable obstacle, unpleasantly broken by insuperable bergschrunds and the general angle undoubtedly steep. It is no work for untrained men, and to have on the rope a number of laden coolies, all more or less mountain-sick, is not a proposition for the moment.

On the 23rd, George, Bullock, and Wheeler started off for the North Col. They were late going, for everyone was ill, starting out only an hour or so after sunrise. Only one passage shortly below the col gave them trouble; they cut about 500 steps and were on the col shortly before 11.30 A.M. But once they got there, they found their party not at their best, though Bullock and Wheeler were willing enough to continue; and there was the wind. Even where they stood under the lee of an ice-cliff, it came in fierce gusts, blowing up the powder snow in a suffocating tourbillion. It was worse above: the fresh snow on the great face of Everest was being swept along in unbroken spindrift, and the very ridge where the route lay bore the brunt of it. A frightful blizzard rushed violently downward on the leeward side. To see it was enough. It would be folly to go on. They went back to their high camp to wait. But waiting only proved the wisdom of not going on: if any one of the party collapsed it would be bad enough, but if it were one of us sahibs, it would be worse still as there were too few of us to look after the coolies in case of mountaineering difficulties. Such a collapse I judged might well be the fate of one or another of us if we were to push our assault above the Chang La to the limit of our strength. And so we came down. By the 29th, they were packing up their camp at Kharta, and the next day they departed on their march across Tibet for Darjeeling.

I had one letter from George at this time, from Darjeeling, saying in part: I have not forgotten that this will likely reach you about the time you are to expect your baby – if he isn’t as early as Patrick! I wish you every ease and happiness then, and I want you to know I’m thinking of you. I’m sorry that we will be on holiday, and that I won’t be at home until the 19th or 20th [of November], but do send a telegram to the house with the news.

The baby was not a ‘he’ at all, but a girl, named Grania for the O’Malley pirate ancestor, Grace O’Malley, and Kate, for Catherine Nesbit, her godmother, and she arrived on Hallowe’en, for which ever afterwards Patrick was to call her ‘the fairy woman’. Later, as a teenager, she preferred to be called Kate, but when she was a child was quite taken with her romantic name, and could recite the story of the historical Grania O’Malley with convincing bloodcurdling frankness. I always thought that she should be a writer, and indeed she was a great help to me later on in concocting plots – her imagination was full of drama. But her entrance into the world was extremely uneventful.

She arrived precisely on time, in the middle of a Monday afternoon, without a scrap of bother to anyone. In the morning, I had one of the housemaids fetch the doctor, and later Ursula from across the road, because she was good company, and just after lunch, Grania arrived. There were the usual congratulations from the doctor and Ursula, but I looked the child over with an especially fond and careful eye, swept for a timeless moment back to the winter afternoon in the blue and white parlour, and the close perfection of the time with George. It was such an ache! Like a vivid dream one never forgets, the immediacy of it forever coming on in recollection. But so much had happened since then! The whole tenor of my life had changed, taken on a decidedly grey and melancholy cast – whereas, I mused, George would now be famous, heralded, lauded, all doors opening to him. But perhaps Grania would change my luck, and end the long spell of sorrow.

‘She looks like Diana,’ Ursula murmured into my ruminations.
‘She does rather,’ I agreed. She had the same dark brown hair and odd, pale silver-blue eyes. But she looked to me more like Annie Jebb, and George. I was lucky I suppose that my mother Marie had the same dark colouring; Grania would ‘fit’, with no questions asked by strangers. That was good. I wanted everything to be easy for her – as easy as it could be, with Owen – easy because of what she meant to me. She was a symbol of real happiness, and for that she deserved all the sweetness I and life could give her.... I did send George that telegram, to the Holt, writing Grania born this afternoon. All well. We look forward to welcoming you home. C.