Chapter Nineteen - Ascents Autumn 1924

I wrote to Ruth immediately, rushing from the scene with Owen to my desk, not only to forestall a row, but because my own grief must be nothing compared with hers. I was sorry now that I hadn’t told her of the dream, prepared her.

21 June 1924
My dear Ruth,
Writing is no use -– & yet I can’t not write. Apart from the passionate futile protest of one’s whole being against it being true, against the loss of him, I think what I most feel I must do is to pay my tribute to him, to you – tell you what, to people like me, he meant – Did and always will mean and will be. That may sound a selfish sort of need, but I don’t think it is really. No one can come into your heart – no one can stand in the terrible place where you are now – but the people who loved him come a little nearer than t he rest. And my personal loss & misery, which is nothing to yours, is still the thing that makes me feel nearest to you.

You see he has always meant an enormous lot to me – he was IS one of the people who have counted most in my life. He was almost the first real friend I ever made – in fact as I now realise being friends he was quite the first. And I got no end from him – all the things I cared most about: pictures – & books & climbing, he cared for more & with more knowledge. He was always taking one on further, showing one new roads & a fresh point of view. You know how he did that to people, better than anyone. He was so sound, so clear, he had such an extraordinarily delicate perception for all those things that he shaped one’s own views, without one’s knowing it. The pleasures he led me into! Half or more than half that side of my life, I owe directly to him. He had such an appetite for beauty. And no one ever had a greater genius for appreciation.

And in ethical things I think he was even more remarkable. In any question, big or little, of right or wrong one felt absolutely he would instinctively be able to get it right. I remember how he talked about that kind of thing & still more how he did. All sorts of occasions – his patience one day when a keeper or someone was rude to us on one of those big Sunday walking parties – his unselfishness in turning things over & over again in Wales, his astonishing courtesy; his tolerance in actions & speech when he was feeling greatly intolerant & impatient. He was one of the people one wanted naturally to throw oneself on.

But I can’t express it. You know better than anyone all the ways in which he was good and passionate and loveable and vulnerable – his love of moral heart – how he had himself – how dear he was and how companionable. I never am with him for an hour without getting happiness at time and something to take along. Knowing him, I have known for a long time, was one of the best treasures I had – a sort of cave of riches.

I can’t believe in it – not at all.
Oh Ruth my dear, I am, I am so miserable for you. He was all this to me, only a friend. I think if I were you though I might in time be able to feel that – this and all – I was a very happy woman, that what I had had of love and companionship and happiness had made me rich for life.

Know one thing – don’t, please don’t try to keep up or be brave or anything like that. I am so sure it makes it worse after we do. Your courage while too perfect – I know that – I mean that in any way you can let go, do. But oh, how dare I suggest anything? I am all muddled and stupid – you must forgive me – I love you both so much.
Mary Anne
P.S. if and when any time you would like to rest I shall love to come.

The letter went out in the afternoon post. I did not expect a response, but on Monday morning, after harried sleepless nights for us all, during which I mostly cried, which disturbed the children in their dreams and had them up also, there was a note from Ruth in the first post that shook me to the root:

Dear Mary Anne–
Thank you for your very kind letter. I cannot write much yet, but I did want you to know how much your letter meant. We must share George now with the world, but I like to think that we who loved him best have a part of him always that others do not, small though it is.

Mary Anne, I have a very great favour to ask of you. People will want to know George now, even more than they did before. You are a writer and shared so much of his inner life so can do what I cannot. Would you write a biography of him? It would mean so much to us, and I know to George. He would have wanted you to do it.
Ruth.

The proposal took my breath away. It was true the few articles and stories I had published in periodicals and climbing journals gave me great pleasure, but my mystery and romance stories were of a different nature than revealing the character of my dearest friend. This was a charge, a sacred charge, and the enormity of it threw me into a confusion, as it meant I must directly confront the grief that I was holding not very well at bay. I paced agitatedly about the dining room with Ruth’s note in hand while Diana and Patrick scampered into the hall hallooing on their way outdoors from the back sitting room.

It was from the very room I had watched George come home from the expedition in 1921. Now the sun beyond in the garden and on the road was dazzling and in the white flash I caught an image of a white world, a radiant ecstatic moment, George exultant in incandescent glories of mind and spirit on the summit of his mountain. The pain and beauty of it was too much: it broke my heart. Should we never know again those exquisite talks we had used to have in Alpine huts, never again know crystalline sunrises on summits hitherto unclimbed? Was he truly gone forever? It could not be! It could not be! I forgot the children’s presence and stood sobbing, clutching Ruth’s note, my hand clenched in the curtains, until the dazzling light passed and the fit with it.


I found the children standing in the hall like trees in a storm, staring agape at me, afraid to move.
I smiled feebly at them, wiping my eyes with the back of one hand.
‘Mummy has just had a letter from Mrs. Mallory,’ I told them. ‘She wants me to do something very special for her, and it took me by surprise.’
Diana, emboldened by my confidence, came forward into the room. ‘Is it to do with Uncle George? Because he is gone to heaven?’ She demanded.
I smiled at her, dear child, and laid a hand on her brown hair, could have kissed her fierce, upturned face. George’s goddaughter, of course she would guess!
‘Yes. Yes it is. She has asked me to write a little book and tell people about Uncle George and how we knew him.’

‘Daddy won’t like it!” Patrick growled from the doorway, looking fierce also. That was true! But Owen would simply have to be got round. I would not neglect him, the house, or the children. I could write very early in the morning as I had done with stories when Diana was very small. I realised, with this thought, that I would do it. I would write to Ruth and tell her so, begin straightaway tomorrow. But now Patrick wanted an answer, for the child had put to words the unspoken tension of the house, of our marriage, as children, being freer of mind than adults, so often perceive the realities adults are unwilling to face.
‘No,’ I agreed seriously, ‘he won’t. But this is important for people who do – did not know Uncle George as we did. Daddy will see that.’ Patrick looked as dubious of this as I felt. But it could not be helped. I felt the old Day rebellion rising within me. I would do it, and damn Owen!

I wrote to Ruth a brief note of assent whilst the children were out playing in the garden before Grania woke from her nap and was wheeled out in the pram. I then made up an outline for the next morning’s work and put it into my pocket. My heart and mind were racing now at the prospect, and throughout the day, little things from down the years would come to me, making me wince or smile, and I made mental notes to myself about diaries and journals to consult and interviews to conduct. It occurred to me after luncheon while I was overseeing Diana's lessons that the book might actually help me feel closer to George, feel his loss less than I would otherwise do. If I had the memories firmly contained within the covers of a book, he would never really be gone. A lofting of the window-curtain at this thought made me smile. All right then, George, as you will have it. Thank you for this gift.

By the time Owen returned from town on the last train at teatime, I was fizzing with energy for the project, and had nearly forgotten that he knew nothing of it, so was genuinely surprised when he harrumphed at me over the pudding that I seemed to be in extraordinary fettle.
‘I suppose you’ve heard from George again!’ He sneered, referencing my dream.
It was a vile thing to say considering the news, and disappointing as he had written off a telegram to Arthur Hinks for me of his own volition. I made every effort not to throw the napkin at him in exasperation. The demon of his jealousy had not yet given vent to its full spleen, which it must do eventually. ‘As a matter of fact,’ I managed, ‘I have heard from Ruth,’ I looked at my plate and not him, speaking slowly and choosing words with care. ‘She has asked me to write a book, and I will do it.’

That stopped him. He blinked and adjusted his spectacles. ‘Book? What sort of book?’ Then, blustering, ‘Why should she want you to write a book?’ It never failed to astonish me how Owen could insult several people entirely with so few words. His implication was that Ruth was illiterate, which was not true, and I incapable, demonstrably not true.
I held my flare of temper with difficulty, as so much depended upon this work.
‘She asked,’ I spat, ‘because I have known him longer than most everyone apart from Geoffrey Young, and I am published.’ We stared at each other, at an impasse. ‘It will mean a good deal to many people, but most especially to her. She must be simply at sea! Though she has always been so brave about his climbing, this must be her worst fear realised. Does she not deserve some little comfort to see him honoured?’

‘To say nothing of its being an opportunity for you to see those climbing people again!’ Owen burst out, throwing the napkin down on the table and shoving himself out of the chair. I was out of mine as well at that. I had missed out on too much I loved due to his tyranny, and would not have my enforced misery thrown in my face now.
‘Yes! Yes it is! There! You cannot keep me from them! For all your scheming, Owen, I matter to them, to Ruth! And--’ I incautiously threw in the worst I could say – ‘I mattered to George!’

He went livid and I thought for a moment he should have an apoplexy, or strike me, but with a cry he only picked up the wineglass from the table and hurled it across the room. It smashed into the vase on the buffet, shattering. Then, with a look of horror like a badly wounded child, he fled the room and went rattling up the stairs, where I heard the door to his room slam, echoing in the upper passage before all fell silent. I stood grimly for a long time. I should have to smooth things over in a day or two, when he was willing to speak to me again. It was perhaps not the wisest course to have deliberately goaded his impotency there. It was the old, unhealed wound, his mother’s legacy….

After a little my mind turned defiant again. He had nearly destroyed me; I could not forever live hostage to his demons. If only in the space of these walls, I had to declare myself free sooner or later, and now seemed the time. With this thought reverberating in my mind, I went upstairs and tucked up and said goodnight to the children, then got down my box of journals and George’s letters and read them in bed until the small hours, taking notes as I went along.

By five, I was at work at my desk, and, writing on loose sheets of lined paper, began at the beginning, in Zermatt:
At the end of August 1909, a young man was sitting on an iron chair before a round iron table in front of the Monte Rosa Hotel at Zermatt, reading “The Country House” in a Tanchmitz Zolitoir. Around him the tide of plans and gossip and guides and climbers – the whole va-et-vient of a summer’s day in Zermatt – ebbed and flowed, but he sat in a sort of oblivion, never looking up, only sometimes raising a hand to push back the shock of brown hair which fell constantly over his forehead. He was picturesque and untidy, in loose grey flannels with a bright handkerchief round his neck, but the things which chiefly aroused attention were his good looks and his complexion. It was a bad season, with a good deal of new snow, and faces hideously disfigured by sunburn were the rule. But this young man’s skin was clear and fair as a girl’s. Presently, another man came out of the hotel and roused him for an introduction. He got up at once and went through it adequately, but with a sort of restive shyness, carefully controlled; the moment that courtesy permitted, he relapsed into his iron chair and his book. This was George Mallory, and the man who was with him was Geoffrey Young…

I worked until breakfast – for three hours – then resolutely put the book in a drawer, to be taken up the next day in similar fashion, and got on with the business of the day. Owen was still not speaking to me, and would not hear an apology, but at least this obviated the necessity of talking about the book. He never asked if I was not indeed writing it, nor did I volunteer that I was doing so, even when I received a touched and grateful note from Ruth.

On Monday in The Morning Post there was a lovely tribute from the editor on George and Sandy’s deaths:
In the days of peace, England will always hold some who are not content with humdrum routine and soft living. The spirit which animated the attacks on Everest is the same as that which has prompted Arctic and other expeditions, and in earlier times le d to the formation of the Empire itself. Who shall say that any of its manifestations are not worthwhile? Who shall say that its inspiration has not a far-reaching influence on the race? It is certain that it would go rusty with disuse, and expeditions like the attempt to scale Everest serve to whet the sword of ambition and courage.

There was an aspect of my work that Owen could not ignore, either in his own house – for he was quite good at catching the essence of the household’s dreams; he was really extraordinarily perceptive that way – or in the public press, for stories began to circulate in England of people having communications from either George or Sandy Irvine, which naturally aroused the curiosity of The Spectator and other such organs. Most of these were nonsense, but one or two had the ring of truth, including one experience which happened to Will Arnold-Forster.

He had written to Ruth from Greece where he and Ka were staying, when they first heard the news:
4.7.24 Achnetaga Euboia Greece

My dear Ruth: The first news of it has just reached us here - Oh my dear if only we could escape and turn the misery of it for a moment; or think of any way to help you.

It's true, they say it's true: he's truly dead, that ‘pain-less spirit, beautiful and free’ Up there on his mountain. One can't be thinking yet if ever of the comfortable words that the poets invent to make it seem more beautiful. only time runs away from one's mind, tries not to remember as we waken up.

Courage to you. It is hard for us, and how much harder for you, to think of you without him. I remember when first I met him – he came to Monte Fiano – ran up barefoot in to that terrace. And then we went up to my hill there and we sat in lavender and he told me of ‘finding’ you in Venice.

And do you remember a morning in Franks' shop when first I saw his Ruth. You've always been, you two such a good unit, ‘the Mallorys.’

I'm dull, sick with thinking of it ____ all I can do is send you love from both of us, so much of it. You know don't you how glad we shall be if you can think of any way in which we can help – e.g. about the children, and coming to Cornwall to us. Ka will be writing soon about this, but at the moment you will not hear from her as I have kept the news from her. She has been ill with baratyphoric fever and had a relapse just as we were to have started at last for home: I am nursing her here in this remote but most kindly place, and she is getting on splendidly; but she needs all her spirit still and I want if possible to delay the shock for a few days till she is better able to get over the feeling of sickness.
May we meet soon.
Yours ever, Will

Will and Ka’s house, The Eagles’ Nest, perched on the cliff above Zennor in Cornwall. Paying a courtesy call one evening after supper the friends of friends nearby, he found them gathered round a table, which was bare save for a hand-marked board and a glass, all set for a session of tumbler-pushing. Will had the greatest scorn of anything concerning the au dela, but agreed to play the scribe during this little game, sitting nearby with pencil and paper, ready to scribble notes should anything intelligible come from the glass.

On making the usual enquiries – ‘is there anyone there?’ ‘have you a message?’ – they found answers in the affirmative.
‘Who for?’
‘For Ruth.’
Will perked up his ears at this, for while the company were trying to guess who Ruth might be, Ruth Mallory came to his mind. Leaning forward now, he asked them to enquire who the message was from.
‘George’ came back at once.
‘George who?’ Will persisted, electrified now.
‘George Mallory.’

Now everyone was deeply interested, for the news of the Everest tragedy was the talk of the whole world then, and the idea of being in touch with Mallory himself was almost frightening; though it must be remembered that none of the people whose fingers were actually on the tumbler knew that his wife was called Ruth. From this point onwards, Will told me that he asked most of the questions. Certainly it was he who asked what the message for Ruth was.
‘Tell her she must do something about Frank,’ came the reply.
Will was completely stumped by this. None of George’s three children were called Frank, his brother was Trafford, and none of Mary or Avie’s children were called Frank either.
Puzzled, half-uncertain, but anxious to do the right thing by Ruth, if this really were a message from George, he asked what Ruth was to do about Frank?
‘He’s unhappy – she must do something about him’ came the crisp short reply, which when I heard it convinced me of the authenticity of the communication, for it was George through and through in one of his old debating moods.

Will wrote to me, asking if I knew anything about this, as we had lived at the Holt and should therefore know better than anyone whether he should trouble Ruth at such a time with what might prove nonsense. On the other hand, he reluctantly admitted, he dare not suppress what might be a genuine communication from George. Urgently, I sent back to him to write to her immediately, but did not dare tell him why on a postcard.

In 1922, Ruth and George had sponsored a young Austrian boy, Franz Knefel, whose family had been torn apart by the war; he was in school in Cirencester, but he needed a permanent home, and they took him in. Eventually, his mother was located and he was sent back to Austria. It transpired that young Franz was indeed very unhappy in Vienna. His mother had remarried and there was trouble with his stepfather; he was feeling neglected and unhappy. So Ruth and her sisters got him back to England and once more Westbrook became his home; he decided to become an English citizen, changed his name to the more British-sounding Frank Nevel, and spent the remainder of his life as a furniture-maker of some local reknown.
This incident had another very happy conclusion for these two dear people, for it helped to cement their friendship quite apart from that of the Forsters and George. Ka had always been quite friendly with Ruth, and Will kind, as he was indeed to everybody, but many years after when Ka had died, Will married Ruth and they were very happy together in the years she had left to her. Between whiles, I must say as a testament to their friendship, when Owen and I went through our ordeal with the Foreign Office in 1928 these two were pillars of strength to me. Ruth came all the way from Surrey to Switzerland where I was staying with Patrick where he was recovering from a dangerous illness when the bad news came. She, blessed girl, came to me without a thought for her own family or the inconvenience of travelling in winter. And dear Will, who was afterwards a quite important person in the Labour Party, gave me some good advice for coping with the machinations of government. But this is not the place for such a story, for it is wholly my own.

Meanwhile, I had myself been having quite vivid dreams of George and Sandy at the Everest camps, very like the one I had experienced the night before their ascent. These I could not keep from Owen, as he caught the lingering shadows of the ghosts in the morning as they slipped away into the ethereal realms until the night should come again. Owen remarked sourly now and again on the ‘presences’ in the house, but he could not stop me dreaming, nor could I, for the dreams were entirely unpredictable in their timing, course, and content. The dreams and the book became almost an obsession with me. I thought about it and them continuously. I would tuck up the children, bid Owen a hasty good-night and retire to write long past midnight, only to rise in the morning after more dreams to the same round. I doubt if I slept more than four hours a night, though I was careful not to run myself entirely down. Over those few weeks a picture emerged of George and Sandy’s last days, which I knew I could never put into this or any book, but which nevertheless was a validation of my previous impressions of their success and a comfort for my grief. As I had shared Will Forster’s communication to me with Ruth, so did I share the essence, if not some of the more distressing particulars, of these dreams with her as we worked to clear out the house in Cambridge in preparation for her move back to Westbrook.

4 June
George:
There was general disappointment when Norton and Howard came down from the mountain without having found the way through the Band. We were all distressed at their condition: Howard had dislodged the lining of his throat up on the mountain and was in great pain, and Norton was snow-blind and could not bear even the dim light of the tent – it had to be covered over with sleeping-bags while he lay inside with his face covered also. I went to speak with him, sitting beside him in the cramped little space, and joked to him that it was better at any rate than our infamous night on the North Col. This made him laugh! We held a council of war, and I told him that I had a brainwave, and that I wanted to go up the mountain again, to see if we could make a go before the monsoon arrived; it was nearly upon us, and if we should not go now, we never would this year. I perhaps never. Norton started up at this, with a mixture of pain, alarm and delight.
‘What will you do? How will you take it?’ He asked me.
The picture was in my mind as clearly as on my map in my study at home. I outlined it to him, from our high camp up to the North Ridge. I wanted to try the route that had haunted my dreams for three years, the very blade-edge of the Ridge. We had seen the rocky obstacles of the route – Norton had seen them better than I from his traverse – and as we spoke, they seemed not insurmountable. No worse than some of the crags we had climbed on in Scotland and Wales, although I was concerned about the exposure high up and the frighteningly dulling effect of altitude on the mind. It yet seemed to me the best route for the ascent, for we could follow the Band down to the camp on our descent. Norton argued against it, more for the sake of debate I expect, and the meticulousness of his observations cleared my mind and determined me. All my restless agitation left me then and I was resolute with the keen sharp excitement of a climb before me.

The great question settled we turned to resultant matters.
‘Who will you take with you?’ He asked me with a wry sort of wariness tingeing his voice. He knew already. I smiled and lifted my head.
‘Irvine,’ I said decisively.
‘Odell would be better,’ he said, as a matter of form.
‘Irvine,’ I repeated. ‘He’ll get us there.’
‘Noel has more experience,’ Norton cautioned.
But my mind was set. ‘Irvine. He wants it more.’

He could not argue there. Odell hated the oxygen apparatus, had no faith whatever in its efficacy, whereas Sandy had rebuilt the system while yet at Oxford. It was his, he knew it intimately. I was keen enough on bottled air after watching Finch do well on it and watching Howard’s condition especially since he came down this last time without, for he was badly done over, Howard who could withstand anything. But I knew and Norton knew it was not his understanding of the mechanics of the oxygen gear that made me choose Sandy; it was the look in his eyes the first time we met at my lecture at Reading. I saw my own young self there echoed, and nothing between us since had convinced me otherwise than that he was the man on the job. He had improved remarkably in mountaineering skills since coming on the mountain. He would go. He wanted it as much as I did, although he had never said. That would carry him, carry us. Determination was everything.

‘Will you tell him?’ Norton asked me.
I smiled again, and shook his shoulder affectionately. ‘I’ll tell him now.’
We shook hands on it, and I left him then, and went in search of Sandy.

I found him in his workshop tent, sitting in the door with the flap tied up. He was writing in a notebook in pencil, intensely absorbed, and all round him were strewn pieces of work: crampons belonging to the porters, parts of Noel’s photographic equipment, and gauges and tubing from dead oxygen sets he had cannibalised. His hands were dirty; he wore his hat and glasses against even the twilight after tiffin, for he was horribly sunburnt, looking like a creature out of the Inferno. But wholly absorbed in his task, wholly himself. There was a lantern burning within, illuming the tent with an ochre glow. I stood before him with my hands in my pockets for some moments before he noticed me, looking up in surprise. He removed the goggles with a painful wince. I could scarce believe the emotion welling in me, delight and anticipation, a kind of wild joy for the return of a lost hope.
‘Sandy,’ I could not help smiling. ‘I’ve just spoken with Norton…. I want to go up again.’
I shall not forget his face then. Disbelief and a boy’s holiday joy. He broke out into a wide grin and jumped up, laughing incredulously. ‘We’re on? We’re on!’ he kept repeating, nodding to me as if to confirm it were really true. There was much backslapping and hearty handclasps, as his unease in company deserted him as surely as if he had just won the Regatta single-handedly.
‘I can’t believe it! I thought the show was over.’ He said at last. The company were watching us now, from stools and tent-doors and the near corner of the Mess. I squinted up at the sky wryly.
‘It looks as if the weather will give us a chance after all.’ But I could not help grinning. He was so pleased.

We spent the next day preparing, making lists and conferring in my tent about manoeuvres and the oxygen supply. This continued into the afternoon when we went up to the Col. I spoke with John Noel while at III about some plans I had in my mind; to get a bivouac above VI if I possibly could; about our route along the summit ridge and a plan so that he should know exactly when and where to look for us with his telescope, calculating the time the route should take based on the oxygen-flow rates Sandy and I had discussed long into the night, and against Norton’s rate without oxygen. Both the camps above the Col were fully stocked. We could use the porters for the transportation of oxygen, food, and the Mummery tents for the bivouac, which although smaller were also lighter than the Whymper. We took nine cylinders with us – and Howard had reported there were two about half-full at V, although they appeared to be leaking badly, and thus of dubious use. Sandy suggested they might be used for the porters in an emergency, and this seemed wise. I gave Noel the signal codes, and a note with the markers on it, in case it should be necessary for anyone afterwards to remember where they were. We agreed I should send down to him when I had scouted the route when and where to look for us on the mountain.

6 June
Sleep was impossible that night on the Col, not due to wind or bad weather, but sheer nerves. We were awake long before the sun next day, and too agitated to do justice to the breakfast so painstakingly prepared for us. We were late getting off, by my estimation, and breakfast, apart from tea, was simply one more thing to keep us behind schedule.

Sandy:
I never told poor Odell, and certainly not George! How I hated sardines, especially for breakfast! Who could complain of food so kindly prepared in that finger-numbing cold on the unfriendly Primus stoves? But I would rather have eaten the porters’ tsampa with rancid yak butter than face fried sardines before dawn above 21000.


7 June
George:
We reach camp VI in good time on half-flow by noon, and have a rest for tea and food, although all I can manage to get down myself are some raisins and a rather unappetising piece of chocolate which has managed somehow to work its way out of the wrapper in my pouch, there to commingle with the contents, which include my pencil. This is very amusing to the porters who roll about laughing good-naturedly and offer me a piece of their barley cake, which is even more unappetising to me. Sandy is laughing at me too, painfully, so to restore order, I march everyone up to the Northeast shoulder and we dump the oxygen and set up camp there. By four this is completed and we are able to send the porters back down to IV. They have done well, climbing up to 27000’ with half-loads. I tell Lhakpa to remind Noel about the reward I promised. He grins at me, takes my notes and shoves them into his fleece-lined coat, and, with many benedictions, departs with the two others who have come up with us. We busy ourselves about the camp, setting out what we need for the morning, putting up the markers so that we are able to find the camp on our descent – I have brought extra neckerchiefs for the purpose. Then, feeling fizzy, I take a walk as high up the ridge as I am able to go. I can see the top of the South Summit from here, but not down into the dizzying icefall. There is no wind. The sky is clear. It is even warm, at least by Everest standards. Perfect weather for it. I’m pleased with our progress. Our experiment on half-flow has been remarkably successful.

When I return, Sandy has left off his tinkering and has got the damned stove up and running. He grins at me. There is macaroni and pea soup for supper. He has fixed one of the oxygen cylinders with a ‘T’ tube that we may both use it for sleeping. We break down camp and retire. In the event, neither of us can sleep, and we talk long into the still night, which has become progressively colder but at least we have the comfort of the oxygen. If it has been good for nothing else, it has been worthwhile in the night. Tomorrow will prove whether our well-laid siege is successful… Before fitful sleep descends at last, I think of my darling girl, and how proud she will be…

8 June, Summit Day
The old alarm-watch rang its call at 2. but it was 2.30 by the time we could bear to struggle out of the sleeping bags. It was quite a scramble, knocking everything about in the freezing cold, fumbling all the while. I say, it would have been easier to dress and pack outside, but it was too cold! But at least the thermos hadn't leaked, or been left out. Didn't feel much like breakfast, but it had to go down.

Sandy:
We left the tent just as the sky was starting to get light, long before dawn as the sky started to brighten to the east. The world was a fantastic ice-cold frozen still beauty. The time was 4.10 a.m.; we had intended to leave at 4.00 – a typical Mallory target! – so we were on schedule. The cold was penetrating to the core. Very quickly my feet started to freeze and I focused on wriggling my toes and walking at the same time, conscious that the only source of heat was my own body; this was as good a reason as any to move deliberately and as quickly as possible. For an immeasurable length of time the only thing I could appreciate was the numbing cold, matched with a fierce determination to continue. My mind was locked in a rhythm, memories of days and weeks of training in the Oxford boat, keeping the rhythm, not deviating from it, going through all the barriers, the only thing that mattered being the next stroke, in a timeless continuum. One more stroke, one more stroke, one more stroke, and eventually you cross the line. Matched also with George, like keeping pace with the oars, having to match his pace and his step; if we did that all day we'd win through.

George:
"Come on then, no time for laggards, you'll warm up presently." Look at the North-east ridge! What a glory! And the sun coming up on Makalu. We could have not asked for a better day. I was feeling fizzy and quite fit as we scrambled up to the ridge. For a fleeting moment I could have run! It felt like the Alps and not Everest.

Sandy:
Time passes without measure, the sun comes up, a perfect still day, warmth, going well, the body strong enough, feet now seemingly safe from frostbite, hands stuffed deep in pockets on the Ridge crest, no conversation, just steady and continual focus. A few fleeting doubts about whether I could do this, quickly banished with more memories of rowing.



George:
He matched my pace so well, so well without complaint, I believed he was feeling more fit than he really was. I was so pleased with Sandy's progress. We would do it this time and no mistake. No need for conversation, just the work. Everything seemed to go swimmingly. We came to the North ridge proper and what a sight it was! My heart quickened, and I looked back at Sandy who was standing beside me. There was work ahead, but I was nerved up for it, and he looked so determined. I had no idea that it was grimly determined. A few words –‘let's to it, then’, or along that line – and we were off.

Sandy:
A bit fuddled, I left my ice-axe on the way up – imagining I would again collect it on the way down - to help me focus on the very difficult – for me – rock climbing. George, I think allowed me to continue without, assuring me that he would be okay and it was more important that he had the axe to belay me with were I to slip. I don't think the thought of his slipping ever occurred to him – or if so, he banished it from his mind.

George:
Sandy’s axe was missed between the First and Second steps, when we were on the crest of the Ridge. It was a while before it had dawned on either of us that Sandy had left it behind. I didn't think it much of a bother. There would be too much time wasted to retrieve it. It was not the bloody traverse of the band I worried over, but falling off the Couloir. Perhaps the traverse around the step from the crest of the Ridge was more daunting to Sandy than I allowed for, but I thought it better to climb once rather than twice. The actual step was not terribly challenging to me, which was something of a surprise.

Sandy:
At the Second Step. We're on the wall to the right of a wide crack. Not able to make it up the very top bit of the wall, slipping, scared, feet on crumbly holds, wondering how George scampered up it as if he were weightless. I tried to do likewise, girding all my loins to follow him after he'd made it look so easy, I gave it my clumsy all and all was okay but then a foothold crumbled away – quite a big one on which I had much of my weight. Neither of us noticed at the time that as the rope came tight round my waist it chafed slightly on a sharp edge; this tiny event was to prove our undoing at the end of this, the longest day. At that point, gasping and unable to speak, I couldn't tell George what had happened and G. only knew I was in extremis from the look on my face and the way I was starting to panic and lose control. I'm exhausted, with a rising panic, feeling ashamed and in crisis. George standing above me, cool as a cucumber, reaches down and like he's helping a child pulls me up with an astonishing strong arm (how can it be that strong?) under my upper left arm, and I'm ingloriously and summarily hoisted to the top of the step. In so doing, George says, "Come on, old boy, you're making this look difficult!” but he's kindly and gentle, not chiding. He doesn't have his mask on. I was winded and had been frightened and had spent all my energy holding on and coping with the move; that was harder than George's because of the crumbled foothold. I could not speak. I realised George had the wrong idea, and was being sort of avuncular about it but such was my reserve, my Englishness, that it was not good form to give an excuse. So I just felt bad and was consumed in my semi-addled state that G felt the less of me.

George:
The apparatus came off on the ledge so I could climb unencumbered. I’m afraid my manners were wanting here. It was my way in these circumstances, a way of holding the line. More war experience. I had every confidence that he could make it. It was just a momentary panic as the job stiffened. No point in giving into it. When we came to such points with the porters, hauling them up the North Col, it was the same, don't give into them or they'll simply sit down.

Sandy:
I am spent at the top of the step, and rest for several minutes, half prone, until I notice at knee-level view that George is stamping his feet slightly and quietly and I realise I must pull myself together and get on. At this point I'm having trouble with my own self-image. I'm not used to failing, finding things difficult, accepting help, or feeling scared, but all these emotions have suddenly piled in uninvited and I don't know how to handle them. I'm bewildered and my mind is a scramble as we continue and warm up again. I feel at once shaken and triumphant, lost in admiration of this magnificent superman ahead of me, not able to tell what he really thinks of me, desperate not to let him down, can't let the team down, can't let the team down, unfamiliar doubts rattling round my empty head with the monotonous steps: "Am I good enough? Am I good enough?”

But we continue. It must have been 11.30 at the top of the Second Step, maybe fractionally earlier. It might have been ten minutes later when we finally depart. An endless slog up the summit ridge. Never-ending. One foot down. Next foot. Next foot. Next stroke, Next stroke. Got to keep pace. Can't let the boat down. Lasting forever, like those training sessions at Oxford. No end. No end. Pain, no air, can't breathe, must breathe, must breathe, must continue, must continue, next step, next step, like an endless mantra, an endless torture, lost within my own world in a perfect day.

Clouds have gathered below us as we’ve made our way across the ridge, bringing an afternoon flurry of snow, which has become familiar to us. In the past, it has snowed and cleared in the afternoon, leaving the evening clear and cold. We can only hope that this is the same and not the monsoon arriving. But the squall doesn't hit us – we can see it swirling below and all we get is a little wind. In my numbed mind I know we'll make it but I feel no emotion. It's duty. I'm still stung by the shocking dent sustained in my well-being and sense of self, sustained at the Second Step. I feebly try to rationalise it all to myself but my mind isn't working well. I know I have to redeem myself and keep up and not give up. On and on, and on and on.

We're not at full flow on oxygen – conserving. We had talked about this down at IV and V, thrown about the advantages and disadvantages of flow-rates, all based on mathematical theory and Finch’s observations. By the time we got to VI we, mostly George, were convinced that conservation of our three cylinders would give us the best chance of getting down to IV at the end of the day, which was his plan.

George:
I was lost in my own world then, afire with it. The summit had been in sight for quite some time now, tantalizingly so, beckoning us on and on, but now it really did seem near, until we truly were so close! I have never felt such elation at a summit in sight. There was a rush of that wonderful energy that propels one to the top, after all the progress of weariness and frustration and wondering if the summit will forever vanish into the distance beyond one's view, like a nightmare. Then, suddenly, we are there and have no higher to climb in all the world….

Sandy:
I collapse in the snow. We have reached the summit and it's late. 4.51 pm, George announces triumphantly. I cannot feel glad.

George:
Seventeen minutes on top of the world…. There was so much love and pride that I could hardly contain it all. We had made it! We! Far better than Odell or poor old Norton or even stout-hearted Somervell was being there with Sandy, in whom I saw so much of myself as a young man, with whom I felt such a kinship. He was the best partner in all the world to have on such a day. I could say nothing; I was so overawed by the views and the emotion that overwhelmed me. My life had led ever and only to this moment and I was as close to heaven as I had ever been. The home of the mountain gods was mine and I was too home at last. At last! I never knew before this complete exultation and penetratingly holy ecstasy. How could I speak? It was the finest moment man has ever known. For the first time I did not scorn Geoffrey's Grail tease, calling me Galahad. He was right. And I had seen the Grail, was riven and suffused by it, bathed in the gilded light of true being and exquisite joy beyond any earthly realms could give. I could reach out and touch the sky, the stars; the heavens themselves were within my grasp. Time and place were empty and meaningless, and the vast stretch of eternity danced and sparkled within my compass....

Sandy:
I collapse in the snow and at first all I can think all at once is that it's a reason to stop and also that I haven't let George down. I’m lying on my elbow in the snow, utterly knackered, dully relieved that the ordeal is over. Slowly, slowly it sinks in that we’ve done it, we’ve climbed Everest, and I look up at George standing above me. He is beaming at me, with his goggles off, piercing eyes gazing at mine. He's saying nothing, just beaming, looking right through my eyes as if into my soul. I'm confused, not knowing whether this is pride, friendship, love, his attempt to patronise, trying to forgive, and I feel a tear or two and turn my head away, again confused, unused to the unfamiliar unBritish emotion. I gaze out over the north face, deep long mountain shadows now forming over the glaciers and valleys, and it slowly occurs to me how far we have to descend. I'm staring at this in dismay with my back to George and he taps me on the shoulder. I have no proper sense of time; I don’t know how long we’ve been here.

George still isn't talking but hands me a camera. In a haze, I dutifully take some snaps, three or four. I'm still sitting down, half kneeling, so the shots haven’t much of a background, only mountains in the distance whose names I don’t know, not looking down towards Makalu or the Western Cwm. That doesn't occur to me – it's George I'm taking the picture of, not anything else. The shots are more of Mallory against the sky, looking up at him in a dramatic pose. He's striking a pose not dissimilar to the foot-on-Shebbeare's shoulder he struck at base camp. He doesn’t take any of me. I’m the cameraman. He looks himself, but his wits are probably addled too, poor man.

I give the camera back to him automatically. There is little conversation. Now it's time to go. I have a vague mixed-up sense all at once of relief, triumph, pride, of not having let the team down and having held my own, been proved worthy of trust, all mixed in irrationally with hoping that George doesn't think any the less of me, still shocked at my own fear on the Second Step, and fear of the late hour, and knowing full well, but unable to bring my mind to bear to do any calculations, that camp and safety are many many hours away.

Going down is easier. The relatively gentle snow slope from the summit is suddenly easy and a joy. I make a comment about sliding down but George mutters pithily about getting to the bottom of the mountain in a hurry, which knocks that silly idea away. We plod down and seem to be making decent progress. I suddenly feel ecstatic and free as a bird, as if nothing matters any more. That's probably why people walk off cornices. This is no longer hard. We've won this. I feel tremendous tiredness, feel at one with George, and feel at last that this is going to be quite all right. We plod down. I'm utterly happy, feel my strength returning for a while; time passes, again without measure. The sun is slowly setting behind us.

George:
When we turned down into the snowfield, the elation quickly passed and became utter exhaustion, which I was at pains to conceal, after a moment of blind panic when my vision went double at the very top of the couloir. I thought it exhaustion, and did not fear snow-blindness for I had my goggles on. The old heart gave a fearsome little dance too, more than a thrill, and I had to give up the idea of down-climbing or abseiling off there.

Sandy:
We had planned to get down to Norton's traverse, but George had not let out other options. Now we can't down-climb the Second Step, which is too dangerous in our state and besides it will be growing dark soon. Not much conversation, but the decision is clear. After desultory noddings and grimacings, George just points down and I nod in agreement; we had discussed all this long before. Since the California…

Now we're moving very slowly, with infinite care, inch by inch, but it's in control. The sun is now behind the West ridge and the sky is darkening. But the sky is still clear and we can see enough. We've had our goggles off for a while now, ever since we started moving on rock, not snow. We're aware that there may be painful consequences later, but it doesn't matter a jot. We know Norton recovered, and besides, the sun is behind us and has just about set. Now it's not Sandy the oarsman, but Sandy the engineer. With meticulous care, inch by inch, we creep down, no sense of time. Vague awareness that any slip could be the end, but there's no sense in worrying, it has to be done, and our brains are frozen and half-wasted anyway, numb, guiding us down automatically. Not feeling too bad – but it's just a matter of one careful foot in front of the other, bit by careful bit, on and on. No sense of time; the sky steadily darkens.

George:
I am having a great deal of trouble. My heart is still knocking and I cannot catch my breath. My old breathing does not work, and I feel the dull, downward pull of utter exhaustion. Sandy is before me on the rope, not more than twenty yards away, picking his way with such strength and care. The world tumbles in my vision, and I feel ill and numb, unable to speak. I am depending on that strength of his to get us down. I cannot call to him, can no longer trust myself not to stumble or fumble the belay. I don’t understand what is happening to me. My heart is racing. Some old instinct fixes an idea in my mind: I will belay on the axe at every step…I go on, endlessly, beyond all exhaustion. Step after step. I forget to breathe, forget to step, forget to belay on; the world is a dim haze before me, grey in the fading light…
‘In this short span/ between my finger tips on the smooth edge/ and these tense feet cramped to the crystal ledge/ I hold the life of man… for what is there in all the world for me/But what I know and see? And what remains of all I see and know, if I let go?’ Geoffrey’s words, but they were my entire being in that moment. ‘In these two eyes/ that search the splendour of the earth, and seek/ the sombre mysteries on plain and peak/ all vision wakes and dies….’

Sandy:
Then, suddenly, I slip. I stood on one of those little stones on a slab that is like a marble on an ice rink – Norton remarked on them when he arrived in camp. Adrenaline and instinct and pounding heart and I grab the rock below me and somehow, somehow, I hold myself, and I have fallen perhaps six feet, my body's length, and I'm not falling any more. But then I feel a sharp jerk and George has now fallen, I have pulled him off. He is falling, and I'm scrabbling to get a proper hold of the rope and trying to hold myself on the awful sloping ground at the same time, waiting for a tug to pull me off, and then I realise that the rope has broken George is falling and sliding free. He is uttering a strangled cry – several, as he gets bumped and bounced, getting the wind knocked out of him. It's a terrible cry.



George:
It is a shock to the mind, quickening me from my stupor in one shocking moment. I was alive to every bit of rock in that long long slide, for so it seemed to me. My mind was ablaze in colour. I knew it was the end of me. There was nothing I could do, yet still I tried by old instinct. No thought of Ruth or prayers for whatever lay beyond. No time. Only colour, and a high singing hiss that broadened into something like the mad clanging of a fire bell in the night. ‘With these my ears/ that listen for the sound of lakes asleep/ and love the larger rumour from the deep/ the eternal hears: For all the beauty that this life can give/ lives only while I live/ and with the light my hurried vision lends/ all beauty ends…’

Sandy:
It's not yet completely dark – twilight is still lingering about the edges of the western sky – and I can see him sliding to a stop, moving a little, then not moving. Looking down the fall-line, he is down the face and to my left to the west. I call and there is no answer. No words can describe my horror, fear and guilt, and never have I felt so alone. I call and call and he is still. I am weeping and I scrabble down, desperately, somehow, sliding a little, somehow not falling clean, and it takes so long. I arrive at George's still body. I weep openly and feel the deepest despair it is possible for a soul to know. I am only 22; I have not known the war. I am not prepared for this. Now I need to be a man and I have had no preparation. I have no idea whatsoever what to do.

I sit with him, but rapidly become very cold and it is growing darker. He is twisted slightly, tangled in the rope and horribly broken-looking. Out of the grief and the shock comes a clear idea that slowly but firmly takes root: I have to recover the camera and bring it home for the others, those pictures of George at the summit, triumphant; he would wish that. To atone for what I have done – for I have killed my friend, I have killed this greatest of men, I have done this – I can at the very least return the camera to the expedition and the world.

I roll George over and dig out the camera, and then roll him back. I tuck the camera away and it is now almost totally dark. I cannot bring myself to leave my friend but I must. I slowly slip and slide – for I am now empty and spent – towards where I now think the camp is, to the east, but I really have no idea; I have lost my bearings in the panic and shock of when George fell. I know which way generally is east but I don't know how high I am. My mind is a screaming turmoil; I feel I have nowhere to go. I stop and perch uncomfortably on a sloping rock. I can't go on. I cannot cope with this problem of such terrific proportion. I have no idea how to do. At the one, I have killed my friend; I have killed my great friend. He achieved his life's ambition and I helped him and we have the pictures to show it; George would have wanted it, and I have to ensure that the camera is returned to the world. I am charged with this. The camera must be returned.

But I cannot return – I have killed my friend. Sandy Irvine, the man who killed George Mallory. I cannot forever be the man who killed George Mallory, and who needed to be helped so ignominiously up the Second Step, who was never man enough or strong enough to be there; the shame of it! It should have been Odell – none of this would have happened if it had been Odell. I feel total shame and guilt and desperation. All mixed up – it was my fault, it wasn't my fault, it was my fault...
It was my fault.

I can no longer conceive of returning to the party, all eyes upon me, Norton's kindly hand on my shoulder, saying the right thing, thinking another. I can't return, but I must, but I can't, but I must.... But I can't, I can't.

Out of the desperate tangle of confusion, fatigue, grief and despair and incipient hypothermia, I sit down and can no longer move. I determine now that I will die, because my friend is dead and I can no longer face the world with my honour intact – but the world must know. It is clear, no emotion now, a decision has been made. I feel nothing; it is the perfect solution. And perfect rest, for now I can at long last stop, and sleep. I crawl to a small nook which accommodates me and curl up cold against the icy night, close to where I think the camp is. I have the camera. They will find my body in the morning. They will never know what happened, the error I made. But they will know that George has reached the summit.