Chapter Twenty -In Memoriam October 1924

I marvel yet that in the dark days of the summer and early autumn when we were still coping with fresh grief and beginning to measure our loss in full, that it was Ruth who understood better than any of us – Ruth who had made the supreme sacrifice! – how the world shared in our grief and the obligations which we who knew George and Sandy had to those unknown persons vaguely termed ‘the public’ or ‘posterity’. I was greatly impressed with this thought as I watched her answer correspondence from Westbrook, her father’s house in Godalming, to which she and the children had moved in August. Condolences were pouring in also to the offices of the Royal Geographical Society and the Alpine Club, but also to the Climbers’ Club, to Geoffrey, to Charterhouse School, to Magdalene College, and to the Times; letters from as far away as America and New Zealand, Burma and China, from all manner of people not remotely connected with climbing. The events of 8 June 1924 had touched a deep chord in the human spirit – not simply in the untimely loss of two brave men, but in the loss of two extraordinary lights in the world – and the resonance of that chord wanted public expression, and found expression, in the national memorial service offered at St.Paul’s on the morning of Friday 17 October.

There had been services in Birkenhead, and at Oxford and Cambridge, but I had not attended any of them, not being able to get away. The service at Merton was held only days after the news came; that at Magdalene a few days later; and that in Birkenhead was the next week.
On the Thursday afternoon I went down to London on the train and stayed overnight with Celia Newbolt and her husband Sir Ralph Furse, much to Owen’s outrage and disgust, for I could easily have gone to town with him in the morning and spared him an extra night ‘alone’ managing the children, but the truth was that I needed the time away from him. There was to be a joint meeting at the Albert Hall in the evening of the Alpine Club and the Royal Geographical Society with all available Expedition members present; as it was the first time in years that I had attended a meeting, I wanted to be in top form, which I should not be had I to listen to Owen’s nastiness on the train. I also had a sense of unfinished mourning; the proper forms had not been observed, and here was the opportunity to do right by George and Sandy.

This sense – a public admission that they were really dead – was the hardest part of the day, as I stood before the pier glass in Celia’s room in my unrelieved funereal black. I am ashamed to have broken down and cried before her, but the wash of emotion was so strong that I could not keep it back. I was suddenly conscious of being very angry indeed, at the press for making George a headline item only when he was dead, because of how he died! Angry too with the other Expedition members; those unspeakable men! They could have saved him if they’d had the guts, but they hadn’t! I was shaking and sobbing and ranting goodness knew what, spilling all manner of the heart’s secrets.



Celia was a brick about it, coming from her dressing table to put her arm about me.
‘There now,’ she said with gentle firmness. ‘Steady on! It will be all right.’ She shook me a little, fiercely. ‘We’ll manage!’ I was considerably taller than she, and her little show was so comical at the one hand that it snapped me out of my melancholy fit. I wiped my eyes with the back of one hand, snuffling disgracefully, but firmly in grip of myself again.
‘Yes, we shall,’ I agreed stoutly. ‘I…I want to get this straight. It wasn’t the mountains’ fault – I don’t feel that. George used to say –’ I paused, looking at her, wondering if I should mention his inmost feeling to her, then figured that on today of all days it would be acceptable, ‘used to say that however high a price the mountains might exact from you, you would always remain in their debt… It is true you know, for people like him…’ my mind swam with a thousand mountain memories, ‘... for people like me.’
‘I know,’ Celia said gently, with patient accepting understanding. ‘Come,’ she entreated at last, ‘let’s fix your face.’

It was a brilliant clear windy morning. As we stepped from the car I thought how mild was this wind compared to that at 29,000 feet. There were crowds of people lining the street, and as Celia and I went up the steps I felt a throb for them that they were not able to cram inside. We passed over our invitations from the Committee and walked up the long aisle to the right side of the choir nave where Ruth and Geoffrey were waiting. Ruth had specifically asked that I sit with her. Geoffrey was so kind when we arrived. Poor Geoffrey, he looked so haggard, no more the dashing impresario of old. He clasped my hand in both of his.
‘It is good to see you, my dear,’ he said with emotion, shaking my hand a little. ‘It is good to see old friends.’ Dear little Ruth was brave, stoic and kind as she always had been to me. She kept her feelings so sternly marshalled behind that shy sweetness of hers that if one were not very observant it might have been said that she suffered little today. But there were small signs to give the lie; she smiled a little, wistfully.
‘Mary Anne, I’m so glad you’ve come,’ she murmured, and her voice quavered for a bare second. I could only nod, so moved was I by her immense courage. So it went, with Geoffrey at her left and me at her right, he holding her hand all the while. Her sister Marjorie was rather put out at being in the next row and kept giving me dagger glances whenever I turned my head in her direction, but there was simply not room for everyone; George’s parents were first in the row, then the Irvines, and Ruth had asked. Even Celia had to sit elsewhere behind us.

The apse was bare. No flower-draped coffins rested before the altar, only masses of pure white flowers in stony urns; the cold snows of mountain fastness they seemed to me. It was an awful thought for it brought back too many mountain days. The Cathedral was hung in purple and gold, but I had no writer’s eye for beauty or pageantry that day, not even when we all rose for the late arrival of the Royal party: the King, old Queen Mother, the Prince of Wales and the Dukes of York and Athlone. Even a Royal presence could not make this anything less than a very personal event.

The Dean officiated, giving the lessons, but the Bishop of Chester, who had been present at Birkenhead when poor Herbert Mallory officiated at the memorial there, gave the Address. Dr. Paget’s lovely discourse was later quoted in the Times and in the RGS and AC journals. After greeting the Royal Family, the Mallory and Irvine families, lords ladies and gentlemen, he commenced with lines from the 84th Psalm: ‘Happy are those whose hearts are set on the pilgrims' way…. They will climb from height to height, and the God of gods will reveal himself…’ I could not speak to Sandy’s experience – I had only my dreams to rely on there and acknowledged that they could be faulty – but I knew that revelation had been George’s experience on mountains. I clutched Ruth’s hand tightly as His Eminence went on:

‘Many no doubt know what stands for these words in the Latin version of the Psalms; a version used even more largely than ours, and more familiar in its beauty to a vast number of fellow-Christians – Ascensiones in corde suo disposuit: He has ascents in his heart; or, as we would phrase it, He has his heart set on ascents.

‘It meant for the Psalmist no steep or dangerous climb. It meant at most a long and tedious journey, the sort of thing that is a venturesome undertaking to a quiet soul who lives at a far distance from the Temple and the City of God. Bu it led him upwards, it led him to the place he wished to reach. Whether in memory or anticipation, the road was dear to him. He had set his heart upon it: he loved the upward path. It was fixed in his affection. Ascensiones in corde suo disposuit.

‘Far different from that easy pilgrimage is the Challenge of the heights which has drawn into closest fellowship many of those who are here today. A great unanimity gives intense significance to your assembling in the House of God. For the lovers of heights are a brotherhood more intimate, more closely united, more affectionately disposed to one another than almost any other group of men. It is as natural as it is beautiful that before your great meeting this evening you should meet here to remember, as in God’s presence, those whose names are written in your Records in letters of gold.

‘It is not for us timid pedestrians to pretend that we understand your love of the heights. But even if from a distance and from some miserably lower level we have looked from afar upon the mountains, or known the silence of the snowfields, and the widening vision, and the exhilarating keenness of the air, and the perfect azure of the skies (and you are good enough to believe that even the humblest may breath the Spirit of the Mountains), can anyone wonder at the fascination those mountains have for the real climber, that you so set in your hearts the love of the heights? Ascensiones in corde suo disposuit . Might this not almost be the motto of the Alpine Club?’

He went on to say that it was only because both George and Sandy came from Cheshire that he had been asked to speak. He had spoken to the families and got from them some notion of who George and Sandy were. ‘I wish,’ he said, ‘that you could have been with us at Birkenhead, where, nearer home, an assembly not less significant, though it may have been less august than this, tried to show its love for them and theirs.

‘And as we read what was so lovingly written with all the eloquence of its reserve, it is not difficult to see in it the presage of what was to follow at Winchester and Shrewsbury, at Cambridge and Oxford, in the Alps and in Spitsbergen, and at last on Mount Everest. It was the same Leigh-Mallory who veiled the grace and brilliance of his leadership under the impenetrable cloak of his modesty; who when something like disaster occurred insisted on claiming responsibility for it, and when an incredible presence of mind on his part saved the lives of others never let us know that it was he; who reminded us that in a matter like this we are all comrades! Yes, and the same Andrew Irvine who, with all his brilliant, his amazing, his premature attainments as a climber, would laugh as he set himself to the humblest task, or use the splendour of his giant strength to bear the burdens of other men.

‘Ascensiones in corde suo disposuit. Was it only love of high mountains that was set in hearts like these? No, but rather that with the love of the mountains was the ascent of spiritual attitudes, splendid peaks of courage and unselfishness and cheerfulness, such as are reached not necessarily by the sure-footed and clear-headed, but always by the compassionate, the brotherly, and the pure in heart.

‘For indeed the record of Mount Everest may well help men, if not to feel the mystery of the mountain, yet surely to enter more deeply, more reverently, into the spirit of the mountaineer.’
He thanked the Expedition for its good work, its great achievements, for the marvellous accounts and marvellous pictures, but added that it was the human record, and human document that spoke most clearly. He concluded:

‘George Mallory, Andrew Irvine, lovely and pleasant in their lives, in death were not divided… But that last ascent, with the beautiful mystery of its great Enigma, stands for more than an heroic effort to climb a mountain, even though it be the highest in the world – Sic itur ad astra. Think of it how you will: as the ascent by which a kingly spirit goes up to the House of the Lord; as the ascent through death to endless life; as the ascent by which men of clean hands and pure hearts ascend into the hill of the Lord and rise up in His Holy Place; as the way He went who said, “I go to prepare a place for you, that where I am ye may be also”. For “lofty designs must end in like effects. Loftily lying, leave them – still loftier than the world suspects, living and dying.” For they indeed go from strength to strength, who have set their hearts on the heights.’

It was thus a moving and meaningful service, even if one called God by other names than Jehovah, if divinity were Beauty and Art and Reason and the pure cold grace of the mountains. The Bishop, thankfully, understood this, and gave to George and Sandy what belonged to them, and to the rest of the world what comforts they could understand. Ruth was pleased with the ‘beautiful service’ as she kept calling it in an extremely touching, grateful way as people filed past afterward to pay their respects. She was such an angel herself, so calm and sweet, with a quiet dignity that moved everyone. If she had ever seemed something of a nonentity to acquaintances of George’s, a mere lovely appendage, she most certainly was not now; she impressed everyone with her shining grace, the grace that had always been there and which was the touchstone of George’s life.

After nearly three hours, at last I filed out behind Geoffrey, who had Ruth firmly and kindly in hand for the rest of the day. He and Len would look after her. I spent the afternoon and early evening with Celia and Ralph Furse. I was very grateful for the pitcher of gin and tonic that was produced in the cosy back parlour immediately we got in. After the trials of the morning I had need of a stiff drink, as I had not done well in the car on the drive back, feeling overwhelmed and nervous and suddenly very lonely indeed for George; it had sunk in at last that he was really gone and I felt quite desolate. But Celia was kind and the lovely surroundings were a kind of antidote to my mood. The parlour was beautifully done up and tidy, looking out onto a well-kept garden in its last autumn flowering. It was very good, a relief, to talk with Celia about climbing and poetry and not have to bother about Court gossip or any other number of such topics I had no interest in that society ladies discussed. When Ralph came in, before I went up to change for the AC meeting, I heard about his latest reading material, a mystery novel, which naturally interested me at once, so I had the basic story from him and by then was feeling bold and cheerful enough to admit that I was writing a book myself, and he immediately enquired the topic. I looked across at Celia, who was standing by the window, with her beautiful curling reddish hair all backlit like a Pre-Raphaelite Madonna’s.
‘Ruth has asked me to write a little book about George,’ I admitted. The words did not hurt. For the first time it was not an endless ache.

Celia had the most peculiar expression, of dawning understanding, and I remembered suddenly the similar moment at Pen-y-Pass at Christmas in 1913 when she had stood by the fireplace when George and I came in from our climb and Owen was so sour at seeing us, flushed and happy together. She knew that, after all this time I was still in love with him.
‘Oh I say,’ she murmured. She had not forgotten the Alps in the summer of 1913. But she didn’t know about 1921, and Grania.

‘How extraordinary!’ Ralph exclaimed, oblivious to the undercurrent. ‘How jolly for you!’ He came round the chair and sat eagerly on the low table before me. ‘Have you got very far writing?’
‘A hundred fifty pages or thereabout,’ I said, smiling a little. ‘It’s mostly a psychological study of him as a mountaineer, as a person. Why he climbed mountains, how he thought, how he was unique. I haven’t got to the sheer biography yet, although I have notes from Ruth and Geoffrey and others. That’s the easy part. Anyone may know that…. What I’ve done thus far is what I know personally.’
‘Which is considerable,’ Celia said emphatically.
‘Thank you.’
‘Have you a publisher?’ Ralph continued.
I could laugh at this. ‘I haven’t thought that far yet! I still need to finish the book!’
‘I’d go with Arnold’s,’ he said decisively. ‘They’ll take it. They’ve done all the expedition books and it would be a feather in their cap.’
‘I know,’ I mused. It was not so far beyond my thinking, even at the moment, for all the polite lie.


‘Have you told the AC?’ Celia asked suddenly.
I looked up from lighting a cigarette. ‘No,’ I admitted, not without a quaver. ‘I was thinking of doing so this evening.’
‘Just so,’ she agreed. ‘The Ladies’ Club stands behind you!’ She grinned. ‘At least in the person of one representative….’ She came over, hugging her arms about the sleeves of her jumper, her eyes dancing. ‘Oh, Cottie, it is splendid! Who but you? Who but you? Darling,’ she said, turning to Ralph, ‘do you remember my saying to Len that first year what a pity it was these two did not write a book?’
‘I do,’ Ralph murmured. ‘So this is the next best thing.’
I smiled. Only climbing folk ever called Eleanor ‘Len’ in my hearing. I was seized with happiness; it was good to be home.
‘Yes, I think so,’ I agreed, tapping ash from my cigarette into the dish. ‘And it has made him close, writing, closer than we have been in years,’ I admitted this much but no further. ‘I hope the public think so as well.’
‘They can’t help but to do,’ Celia decided emphatically.

When we were upstairs again, sitting on the bed in her room while she put on the finishing touches, I was emboldened to tell her about my dream, the first one, before George and Sandy went up. I did not tell her about George’s presence or the subsequent dreams that had revealed their last days and Sandy’s whole nature to me. Nevertheless, by the end of my little speech, Celia was wide-eyed with amazement.
‘I’ve never heard of such a vivid dream!’ she exclaimed. ‘It must be real, it simply must be! And you told Ruth?’
“I couldn’t not do,’ I admitted a tad dryly. ‘They had their own dreams before he went out.’
‘But those might have been fear!’
I nodded. ‘I’m sure they were fear.’ I gazed into the distance back into the headquarters of the camp. Tonight I would find out how true a dream it was, if it was. ‘But fear is often nature’s harbinger…’ I took a breath, and ventured a little now, ‘In the end, I don’t believe he was afraid…. I don’t fancy George dying afraid on a mountain.’ I smiled a little, ruefully. ‘Angry, perhaps, but not afraid… Celia do you remember how he used to swear at a tricky pitch?’ I was thinking of the slab climb he made on Lliwedd, up the sheer face where there were no holds at all, and an overhang at the top. ‘When all of us thought the route impossible, to him it was merely an annoyance.’ That got us laughing, and brought George near. Oh it was good to laugh! Good to know, despite today’s final memorial, that he was never really gone. O, for the warm joy of that presence! ‘Gone’ was merely an illusion of the temporal mind.

Every member of the Alpine Club and the Geographical Society must have heard the clarion call of this great joint meeting, for the Albert Hall’s five-thousand seats were filled and them some. Latecomers crowded in the aisles and at the back like flocks of pigeons in Trafalgar Square. On the stage were rows of seats and a lectern before a huge screen with one of Noel’s breath-taking photographs of the mountain; the same one George had used as a map in my dream, but a different one to that in his study at home that he had pored over before going out. It got my attention, but I could only nudged Celia and murmur in an undertone, ‘That’s the map!’ She looked at me quizzically, but I could not explain there. The rest of our group arrived, and we all stood to greetings all round: Len, Ruth, and Geoffrey; David Pye; Bullock; Marsh; Trevelyan; Toddhunter; Strickland; it was like old times, and I felt my spirit expand again for the first time in years.

Presently, the Expedition came out – everyone but Somervell, who was still in India, was present. I caught myself looking for George and Sandy. It was so queer not to see them among the others! I scanned the familiar faces anxiously and saw quite mixed emotions carefully quashed. In broad terms the expedition might have been termed a success, but the awful loss – as in ’22 – meant that it was very bad form indeed to celebrate. I was gripped with a kind of nervousness, for apart from the dreams I had and a few second-hand conversations since June, George’s letters were the only news I had of the expedition and I was as keen to hear the details as anyone present. I glanced at Ruth to my left as she sat beside Len. How would she take what was revealed of George’s last hours? …But surely she must have heard before this from Norton and others, so tonight’s lecture would be a formality for her. Her expression was placid and alert, full of peace; it brought tears to my eyes, for – however briefly or imperfectly – she had reached a place many of us could not yet do.

Ronaldshay of the RGS stepped onto the stage, and of a body the audience rose to its feet with polite applause. He was a tall man, nearly as tall as Norton, with the raw-boned look of the ardent geologist about him; ginger-haired, with great moustaches, and the manner of an academic.
‘Good evening, good evening,’ he said, acknowledging the tribute. ‘Please, be seated.’ After a moment he commenced:
‘Many of you who are present to-night were able to attend the beautiful Memorial Service held at St. Paul’s this morning to the memory of Mallory and Irvine. Those who were prevented from doing so will wish to join in the tribute of admiration, affection, and respect which was then paid to the memory of these two men whose dauntless spirits refused to be bound by the fetters of their earthly bodies, and in that refusal found a glorious release.

‘“We expect no mercy from Everest,” declared Mallory after the climbers had been driven from Camp III for the second time by abnormal weather. They received no mercy, and they died.’ He paused here at a murmur that went through the crowd at the bald statement. ‘But not, surely, in vain; for in dying they showed that the upward aspiring spirit of man, which will sacrifice all in its pursuit of an ideal, is a living and compelling force in determining the conduct of the individual, and equally therefore in shaping the destiny of the human race. I shall move no formal resolution of condolence –’ here he looked up the rows seeking Ruth’s benediction –‘but will ask you to pay your tribute of respect in silence by rising in your places.’

Thus, in an eerie utter silence, the multitude arose and three full minutes of utter stillness – charged with such feeling for some of us! – went round the room. I wondered in my heart whether the sacrifice were worth it, for the ‘spirit of man’, for the pursuit of an ideal, for the destiny of human kind. It was not worth the loss to me, certainly not to Ruth and the children, nor to the Irvines, nor to any of our little group, nor to the members of the Expedition. I knew full certain it was not worth the loss of life to George and Sandy – to Sandy especially! To whom then, I could not help asking myself with asperity, was the sacrifice worthwhile? To Science? To Mountaineering? To the ‘glaxo-loving public’, posterity, whatever that was? I recalled Dr. Paget’s words of the morning about the human dimension, and thought of the vast hordes of the dead in the war, of all the climbers we knew who had died on mountains. The human dimension. I could not be noble, and be satisfied with platitudes. I looked up to find Geoffrey’s eyes on me; his too were full of tears. In his gaze I found mirrored memories of splendid days that would never come again. We had each loved and lost so many since those far-off days, were tempered by the loss as we had been exultant in the love. But which bore the greater weight? At this moment I did not trust myself to answer.

Into this tremulous void stepped Charlie Bruce – General the Hon. C. G. Bruce, I should say rather – but I cannot think of him as anything but ‘dear old Charlie Bruce.’ On this solemn occasion he was rigged out properly in an afternoon suit and soft shirt, his hair a mere film with macassar. Through his spectacles he squinted as us for a moment, harrumphed, and began:

‘I find that I am down to follow the President of the Royal Geographical society in both my capacity as President of the Alpine Club and as the original leader of this year’s Expedition. As President of the Alpine Club I consider myself free to offer my warmest congratulations and to express my admiration to Colonel Norton and to the members of the Expedition, for his wonderful leadership, and to all for the heroic efforts which they all made. I must also express on the part of the Alpine Club the deep sorrow felt for the loss of two gallant members of our expedition who made their sacrifice in the most terrific effort of all mountaineering history. They were two magnificent personalities, and have the finest cenotaph in the world, and are worthy of that splendid monument –’

Dear words, but painful! Everest as cenotaph, and their worthiness to be so memorialised, were hardly compensation for their loss to us.

He continued, echoing what I knew from George’s letters: ‘We marched in two parties in order not to overcrowd the guest-houses on our route, and collected in the beginning of April in Yatung. Certain arrangements had to be made there but the party and its entire stores were gathered in Phari by April 5th.’ There was some bother with the local authorities, contravening orders by the Dalai Lama himself to make easy their passage, but a threatened telegram to the Prime Minister in Lhasa soon sorted it all out. By the time they reach Tuna, the General was having problems with his heart, so had to turn over the command to Teddy Norton, of whom he said,
‘Disappointing as this step was, it was partially made up to me by the personality of my successor, for no finer or more inspiring leader could have been found, and this is borne out in the manner in which he dealt with the immense difficulties and hardships occasioned by the terrible conditions met with this year.’

This perked up my ears. Had George and Sandy been benighted on their climb? In answer to this thought, the General went on, ‘One word about the weather. All through May there was a wave of cold and wet weather over the whole of the Western and Central Himalayas, brought by strong winds from the west, and giving in the Punjab and North-West Provinces almost the lowest temperatures ever experienced for that time of year. The storms and winds had nothing to do with the monsoon, which itself was favourable, in that it was about a week later in arriving in the Eastern Himalaya than is usual. This condition was a thorough bit of bad luck, and very unusual. I think it will be seen that at the time of the final effort on Everest the weather was extremely favourable, which was probably due to the slight delay in the monsoon.’

This news, coinciding exactly with my dreams, was both reassuring and alarming; at the one, it was proof that they were all-too-real, and gave the instant understanding that had the monsoon come as expected, George and Sandy would never have made their last climb, and would perhaps be sitting with the others just now…. I could just imagine George’s regret at not having had another, proper whack at the mountain. But would he have regretted turning his back on it forever?

The General commended the porters’ good work, especially those who climbed high – up to 27,000 feet to stock the last camp– and then continued with an admonition meant to encourage the next band hardy enough to attempt to climb Everest:
‘It is perfectly clear that the summit of Everest can be reached – certainly with oxygen, and in all probability without it – for there is no doubt that the very severe conditions experienced before the weather cleared up left the members of the Expedition less fit than they otherwise would have been.

‘We have quite clearly increased the standard of expectation. Who would have thought four years ago that men could climb without oxygen to over 28,000 feet? Who would have thought that three ascents between 25,000 feet and 27,000 feet would have been accomplished inside the same week by the same climber?’ – he meant Odell here, who had gone searching for George and Sandy –‘And who, again, could possibly have forecast that men were to be found who could possibly carry loads to a height of 27,000 feet?’

Yes, I thought, but but but they are dead and there is no bringing them back and no replacement for George on this earth. I should have been inured by this time to death in the mountains, to death in general, during the war, but one never becomes inured when the lost ones are dear friends or brothers, with whom one has laughed and climbed and shared the secret soul of the mountain peaks.

The General gave way to dear Teddy Norton, whose face had a few more lines and whose eyes were shadowed, but who was yet possessed of the same wonderful dry wit as ever. My heart went out to him, especially when he began to speak:
‘I feel that an account of the expedition which omits some description of the members is a sadly colourless business. I should like to be able to make these men real flesh and blood to you instead of mere lay figures. Unfortunately the time available is too short for me to hope to do this, even had I the talent, and I must content myself with a very brief introduction.

‘I have the uncomfortable feeling that as I go on, you will conceal a smile at what you may term a mutual admiration society. I would be the last to suggest that we were a party of little tin saints –’ This raised a laugh, from the audience and the Expedition members onstage, and Norton held up a hand with the ghost of a smile – ‘but it is a matter of common knowledge that expeditions involving some hardship have a way of bringing out the best that is in every man and of obscuring his faults.’ This was a polite lie, of which I suspected Norton was fully aware, but the occasion warranted no otherwise, as he eluded when he continued: ‘In this lies the greatest virtue of such enterprises. It is not my business to-night to talk of the faults.’

He went on then, to talk of each of the expedition members in turn.
‘When General Bruce went sick we sustained a loss which – irreparable as the loss of such a leader must be to any expedition – was doubly so in an exceptional year. For it was just in the conditions which we met this year that General Bruce’s well-known influence over our Himalayan personnel might have made so great a difference.... The very name of Bruce is a charm to conjure with all along the Himalaya, but more particularly in and around Nepal. He it was who, by his treatment of the people of the country great and small, consolidated the permanent way across Tibet which a Mount Everest Expedition now follows so comfortably.’ Comfortable was not the word George and others had used, but I supposed he meant that they were not set upon by bandits and other such hazards. ‘... I think everyone will agree with me when I say that the first task of an Everest expedition is to get to Mount Everest. So I speak next of the man who virtually took us across Tibet to the mountain, and well up its slopes to the higher glacier camps.

‘Without Geoffrey Bruce’s previous experience and sound advice we should often have been sadly at a loss on our journey to Base Camp.... First and foremost it was Geoffrey Bruce who ran our porters: he it was who disciplined them, who attended to their wants and comforts, and who put heart into them when they were down on their luck.... I think that if our porters were asked to sum him up their verdict would be: “Captain Sahib is a hard man – but a just. Skrimshanking and malingering are useless with him, and he has an unaccountable lack of sympathy with the common failings of mankind; perhaps he is a teetotaller.’ This raised a laugh from the Expedition as it was Geoffrey who had put tea in the whisky bottle on the First of April as a joke. ‘But he knows us and understands us and our language; when we are really in trouble, he is the man to go to. Further, he will not demand of us anything he is not prepared to do himself....’

Norton spoke of Geoffrey’s straining his heart in carrying heavy porter’s loads into camp at 25,000 feet, putting himself out of the running as George’s climbing partner. Then he went on to Howard Somervell,
‘To my mind Somervell shares with Mallory the distinction of having been one of the mountain’s two most formidable antagonists.... His holidays in the Alps have always taken the form of climbing one first-class peak per fine day for weeks on end. This year his going power high up was seriously affected by a very bad cough and sore throat – the “high altitude throat” which attacked so many. But Somervell has – as had Mallory – a moral reserve on which he draws to make good any physical disabilities, so that it hardly matters whether he is fit or not....’
I knew from his letters that George did not consider himself fit at the last, physically, and I remembered the dream I had, that his heart had troubled him, unbeknownst to anyone, at the last. The thought that he might have died anyway, whether high on the mountain or not, was chilling. I remembered his last episode with his heart, during the last expedition, then in the war, and the one before that, when he was in hospital for a week.

‘...Odell shared one characteristic with Somervell,’ Teddy was saying. ‘He acclimatised slowly. We did not in time this year draw what may well be the logical inference – that is this, as in other matters, slow is sure. Certain it is that these two slow acclimatisers have achieved more with less physical deterioration than any one else in our brief record of really high climbing.... Odell’s reputation as a mountaineer and an explorer is known to most of you. Being also a scientist and a mechanic, he shared with Irvine the labours and responsibilities of the oxygen apparatus besides organising the important department of high altitude cooking with Primus or Meta stoves.... It was the famous firm of Odell and Irvine which gave so fine a display of the most unselfish team work in a year when team work was a salient feature. I refer to the way in which they created the role of supporter on the North Col.

‘Having experienced to the full the meaning of such support, I speak with feeling.’ Norton paused here, and looked across at Odell. ‘On its way up the mountain, each party was welcomed by the Old Firm, its tents were allotted, it was fed, waited on, and served in every way. I leave you to guess how these attentions were redoubled when the same climbers returned somewhat worse for wear after going high, and the supporters met them with lights and drinks well on the Everest side of the North Col and took complete charge of the weary party –’ he paused again, and his handsome stoic face worked a little before going on. The grief of that awful day was raw yet, it was clear to see. ‘Odell alone has carried out the last and hardest task of a supporter – the forlorn-hope search for a party... fatally ... overdue.... Pardon me...’ he faltered and turned to Odell with a look, so nakedly moved and grateful, thanking him by his Christian name, that a collective murmur went up in the massive crowd. He turned back then towards us and went on, more calmly:

‘If the performance of these duties denied him his chance of the top it gave him another opportunity: it gave him the opportunity of beating all records for continuous climbing at really high altitudes. For in addition to the three previous trips from Number Three Camp to the North Col... he in ten days did this same climb three times, and went from Camp Four, once to 25,000 feet and twice to 27,000 feet. The astonishing thing about this performance is that he finished up very little the worse for his exertions.’

He praised Bentley Beetham, and John de Vere Hazard, saying of the latter, ‘when, heartily sick of the squalor and discomfort of high altitude tents and feeding, we left Base Camp for our little holiday among the trees and flowers of the Rongshahr valley, Hazard volunteered to lead a survey party back to the ice and snow of the West Rongbuk glacier, of which the reconnaissance was regarded as a task of some importance. Undeterred by the breaking of the monsoon the day after he started, he successfully carried out this operation and we owe the results achieved to his hardihood, for – with the exception of Beetham, whose photographic skills were needed in the Rongshahr – no one else would have volunteered for a prolonging of conditions of which we had had more than enough.’

He went on to Hingston, the doctor: ‘As a naturalist, he probably enjoyed the whole expedition even more than any of us; and when I tell you that his collections include some ten thousand specimens it will give you some idea of his industry and keenness. Every stone in Tibet was to him a potential gold-mine, for under it might lurk something really fascinating – such as a tick.’ This too, raised a laugh from the Expedition, and the audience, and Hingston shifted good-naturedly in his chair. ‘But it was characteristic,’ Teddy went on when the laughter subsided, his voice growing emotional again, ‘of his all round efficiency that he once escorted a blind man down some 2000 feet of formidable ice-cliffs, snow slopes, and glacier between the North Col and Number Three Camp, placing his every footstep and holding him up in complete security in a style that would have done credit to an Alpine guide. That man was myself, I hasten to add, gone snow-blind high on the mountain.’


We had heard the bare bones of that dramatic tale in the newspaper despatches, but the intimacy of it – the sheer necessity of comradeship and teamwork in that dangerous landscape was now present to us all. I thought of George and Sandy, high on the mountain, alone, at night, with no comrades to help them .... Images from dreams flashed before my eyes, and, overcome with grief, I buried my face in my hand. Beside me, gently, Ruth slipped her free hand in mine. She knew what I was thinking. Oh, how she must have thought it too! I couldn’t bear to look at her, or would lose my composure entirely, so pressed her hand and stared down at the stage through blinding tears.

Norton was praising John Noel, whose report on his secret 1913 expedition to Tibet in disguise had begun this whole adventure:
‘The name of Noel is as familiar to most of you as his work... The results of his most assiduous labours and of his organising ability speak for themselves ... and his arrangements were so detailed and perfect that he was often able to supply us with equipment or man power when these were most welcome. Even now I cannot think of his little tins of potted meat without emotion –’ Captain Noel was smiling benignly at this, benignly on those days of howling wind and being stuck in tents at Camp Three, days not fit for man or beast. ‘ – From the loan of a magnesium flare as a distress signal to an offer to act as supporter up to any height there was nothing he was not ready to do for the furtherance of our schemes. As he is entirely unaffected by cold and hardship –’ there was rueful, comradely laughter from the Expedition at this – ‘and he has a happy gift of hitting it off with the hill-men, he was a most valuable member of the party, apart from his technical skill in his own department.’
There was a moment of silent communication between the two men, wordless as the recollection of such shared hardships must be, before Teddy turned back to the lectern and his notes, his face suddenly gone pale, and quiet. He was silent for a long time before looking up, and a hush fell on the assembly. We all knew of whom he was about to speak.

‘In two years Mallory and I have spent many weeks together in a small tent; we were friends, and if you share a tent with a friend you get to know him very intimately...’ he faltered a bit, and tears glinted in his eyes at the memory of his friend.

At length he continued, his voice a little hoarse and rough from emotion, before gathering strength and calm again. ‘Mallory had an ideal figure for a mountaineer, but it would have made little difference had he been of an inferior build – so entirely did his spirit dominate the flesh; of him might have been written the lines
If you can form your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will that says to them ‘Hold on.’

‘A fire burnt in him, and it made him one of the two most formidable antagonists Everest ever had... no one knows better than I do how for several months this year he devoted his whole mind and will to this object.’ He looked out over the crowd. ‘At the same those who suggest that he may have taken chances to achieve success in his last climb misrepresent him. For equally strong as his will to conquer was his sense of responsibility as a leader of a party, and I know that he was prepared – nay, determined – to turn back however near the summit if it could not be reached in time to return safely.’
That was to Tom Longstaff, Hinks, Farrar, and others who had callously suggested that George was somewhat mad at the last, obsessed with getting to the summit at all costs, even at the cost of lives.

‘To his organising power, his remarkable gift of concentration, his genius for detail, and his true appreciation of the task before us we owed this year much of our plans and much of our organisation on the mountain.

‘In the Mess he afforded a marked contrast to what he was when actively employed: his temperament was singularly aesthetic and cultured for such a man of action. Impatient by nature, time had taught him a great patience, and this was one of the things that made it so pleasant to work and plan with him.’

Here Teddy paused again, in a moment of deep silence, then spoke haltingly, his voice breaking: ‘Such was Mallory... His death leaves us the poorer... by a loyal friend... a great mountaineer... and a gallant... gentleman.... Godspeed, George,’ he murmured, and the company, that vast multitude, rose to its feet around us, with applause and cheers and outright sobs. It was so terrible and wonderful to witness! The three of us, Geoffrey, Ruth and I, hardly able to stand, rose very late at the last, and Norton, bless him, looked straight up at Ruth when she rose and made a gallant bow to her – in thanks for her irreparable sacrifice.

When all had quietened down again, Norton looked down at his notes and began the last part of his introduction of the men his voice now ringing in the stillness:
‘Irvine was once referred to by General Bruce as “our experiment,” for he was young – twelve years younger than the average age of the party – his mountaineering experience was limited, and he departed from what we considered the true Everest type in being big and strong rather than light and limber.

‘It did not take him long to justify the experiment. If he was young he was a man full grown mentally and physically, and at once took his place with all modesty on equal terms with the rest; if he was an inexperienced climber, he proved one of the fastest of us, and I believe, though I never actually climbed with him, as sure and safe as any. If he was on the heavy side he was strong and active to a degree.

‘Mechanically, he was a genius: from a broken camp chair to the more complicated valves of the oxygen apparatus, nothing came amiss to him. His tent daily assumed the aspect of a fitter’s shop; here until late at night he would be found hard at work on the oxygen apparatus or doing some job for a friend who had long been tucked into his warm blankets. He was always the willing horse.

‘Selected to take part in the first attempt with oxygen, he was, in our revised plans, relegated to a later attempt, giving place to others who were to try first without oxygen; as a result he, with Odell, became a supporter on the North Col. He never even hinted at disappointment, but tackled with unselfish energy and his usual enthusiasm the part of cook or scullion or nurse to a cripple.’

Teddy paused a long moment, gathering his will for the last eulogium:
‘That Irvine was loved by all of us for his cheery unselfishness, his camaraderie, and his manly qualities goes without saying.... It is perhaps more significant that he was loved by the porters, not a word of whose language he could speak.

‘Together these two went up the mountain for the last time: higher than ever man has been before they were last seen – ’ his voice broke again ‘ –– one giving a hand to the other... and then... they were seen no more.

‘Could either have wished for a better... friend to hold his hand... at the crossing into the unknown land beyond?’

There was for fully half a minute the most thunderous silence. We all could see the two on that snowy rock, one handing the other up, every mountaineer’s common experience – a team, a partnership –
Brothers til death, and a windswept grave. Joy of the journey’s ending:
Ye who have climbed to the great white veil, Heard ye the chant? Saw ye the Grail?
Geoffrey’s Grail poem rang in my mind in the silence which was broken only by the furtive sound of distant weeping. He had written it long ago, when he had first met George. It was terrible and perfect.

Slowly, slowly then one by one, the crowd once again rose to its feet with applause, but Teddy Norton had gone, not back to his seat, but off the stage entirely. He came back a few moments later slipping in when Geoffrey Bruce had already taken the lectern, pale, but composed. Of all, except for Odell that night I think his was the hardest job.

Geoffrey Bruce spoke of the journey through Tibet and the establishment of the high camps, of which I knew from letters, then Norton spoke again of his own last climb, with Howard Somervell, which had been so nearly fatal for the one and disastrous for the other. At last, Noel Odell rose, his cheerful blond features at once grave and a little wistful, for he must have known that his was the story all this teeming horde had come to hear: of the last climb of Mallory and Irvine, of which he alone was the sole witness. His manner was personable, precise, and highly informative without in the least being dull. He was an excellent lecturer.

‘Norton has described only too modestly his and Somervell’s remarkable attempt on the summit and their return to the North Col on June 4th, the same day that Mallory and Irvine had come up from Camp III. The latter had climbed the 2000 feet from Camp III to Camp IV in the fast time of two and a half hours, evidently in an endeavour to prove to themselves the efficacy of oxygen. June 5th was spent resting at the North Col camp, Irvine and I re-testing and putting final touches to the oxygen apparatus.

‘A few words may be said on the nature of Camp IV and its surroundings. Perched on an ice-ledge in roughly the same position as the camp in 1922, it had four tents. A high wall of ice rising on the western side gave comforting protection from the prevailing chilly winds from that direction. The ledge was broad enough and long enough to allow comfortable movement all round the tents and leave an ample margin of clear snow for water-supply – a point that concerned me as camp cook. During my eleven days’ residence there I experienced all sorts of weather conditions, not the least remarkable being two days when the sun temperature at midday was 105 degrees Fahrenheit while the air temperature at the same time was only 29 degrees – I shall never forget some of the sunrise effects over the sea of peaks to the east, Chomo Lonzo and Makalu.

‘To reach the actual saddle of the North Col and the foot of the North Ridge of Mount Everest, it had been necessary in 1922 to make a way from the camp ledge towards the North Peak and then back again along the crest of the col. On the occasion of our first reaching site of Camp IV on May 20th, Mallory and I had forced a rather complicated route from the southern edge of the ledge direct up to the col. This route, though a little treacherous from two doubtful snow-bridges, proved to be negotiable until the end.’

Odell cleared his throat, looked out over the mass of humanity and began the crux of his talk: ‘At 8.40 on the morning of June 6th, in brilliant weather, Mallory and Irvine left the North Col Camp for Camp V. They took with them five porters, carrying provisions and reserve oxygen cylinders. They used oxygen, and in the opinion of the porters travelled well. On June 7th, when they were going from Camp V to Camp VI, I went up in support to Camp V with the one porter that was available. Soon after my arrival, Mallory’s four porters arrived from VI, bringing me a message which said that they had used but little oxygen to 27,000 feet, that the weather promised to be perfect for the morrow’s climb, and that he was sorry the cooking stove had rolled down the mountainside just as they were leaving Camp V – which meant a cold supper and breakfast for me.

‘As Nema, my porter, was suffering from mountain sickness I sent him down with the four others to the North Col, and having the tent to myself and a couple of sleeping-bags, I kept sufficiently warm to sleep well that night. Next morning broke clear and not unduly cold. After a breakfast of cereals and a little macaroni and tomatoes, I started my solitary climb to Camp VI, taking with me provisions for that camp in case of need. My plan was to make a rather circuitous route out onto the northern face, to examine the structure of the mountain. Mist soon began to form, and although the wind remained light I found myself immersed now and then in squalls of sleet and light snow. By the glow of light above me I could sometimes see that I was experiencing worse conditions than Mallory and Irvine probably were at their higher altitude.’

For the geologists in the RGS he described the rocks at 25,000 and 26,000 feet, noting the limestone band I had seen in the dreams, as the condition of the rocks there: ‘The general dip of the series is about 30 degrees northward, and since the slope of this face of the mountain about 25,000 feet is about 40 to 45 degrees, the effect is to make a series of overlapping slabs nearly parallel with the slope and presenting a number of little cliff faces often up to fifty feet in height. These slabs are often sprinkled to a varying depth with debrís from above, and when to this is added freshly fallen snow, the labour and toil of climbing at these altitudes may perhaps be imagined. It is not the technical difficulty so much as the awkwardness of a slope usually not quite steep enough to use one’s hands.’
It was all as I had seen. I leaned forward in my seat to hear what Odell would say next, and I think that the others were hardly daring to breathe.

‘At about 26,000 feet I climbed a little crag, which possibly could have been circumvented, but which I decided to tackle direct, more perhaps as a test of my condition than for any other reason. There was perhaps 100 feet of it, and as I reached the top there was a sudden clearing above me and I saw the whole summit ridge and final peak of Everest unveiled. My eyes became fixed on one tiny black spot silhouetted on a small snow crest beneath a rock-step in the ridge; the black dot moved. Another black dot became apparent and moved up the snow to join the other on the crest. The first then approached the great rock-step and shortly emerged at the tops; the second did likewise.’ There was complete silence in that great room.

‘Then the whole fascinating vision vanished, enveloped in cloud once more.... There was but one explanation. It was Mallory and his companion moving, even as I could see a that great distance, with considerable alacrity, realising doubtless that they had none too many hours of daylight to reach the summit from their present position and return to Camp VI by nightfall.... The place on the Ridge referred to is the prominent rock-step at a very short distance from the base of the final pyramid, and it is remarkable that they were so late in reaching this place. According to my understanding of Mallory’s schedule, they should have reached it several hours earlier if they had started from the high camp as anticipated.’ There was a stir in the crowd, but my mind was humming they were not late! they were not late! I could hardly sit still as Odell continued to speak.

‘I could see that they were moving expeditiously, as if to make up for lost time. It is true, that they were moving one at a time over what was apparently but moderately difficult ground –’ Up to the thighs in snow! I thought. This is what I had seen, on that final arête – ‘But one cannot definitely conclude from this that they were roped – an important consideration in any estimate of what befell them. I had seen that there was a considerable quantity of new snow covering some of the upper rocks of the summit ridge, and this may well have caused a delay in the ascent –’ Vindication! ‘– Burdened as they undoubtedly were with the oxygen apparatus, these snow-covered debris-sprinkled slabs may have given much trouble. The oxygen apparatus itself may have needed repair or re-adjustment either before or after they left Camp VI, and so delayed them. Or, both of these factors may have been operative.’

It was all such sheer speculation, poignant and terrible in the face of George and Sandy’s unknown fate, in the face of all the unanswered questions. Odell was trying so hard to come up with a reason that they should have been benighted, and so lost; when we all knew that death on mountains was often the result of something so simple – a small slip, an unseen fray in the rope, un unexpected gust of wind. It was not always full of drama and difficulty. Dreams aside, I could not believe that George would wittingly do something stupid on mountains, he who was so clever and careful of the welfare of others.

Odell described his afternoon, going up to the high camp and being becalmed in a blizzard. In the tent, he remembered that George had left his compass at Camp V, and that, with the blizzard on and possibly driven back by bad weather above, the pair might not be able to see the entrance to the gully that led to the camp, and had no way to find it. So he went out, halooing for them, until he realised, at length, that there was no hope of being heard on the vast stretches of the mountain face. He went back to the tent, and then, at about four o’clock, the storm stopped. The whole North face of the mountain became bathed in sunshine. The upper crags were visible, but he could not see the party. Remembering that George wanted to meet him at Camp IV on the North Col, he decided to leave for that place, doing so at 4.30. By 6.45 he had reached the North Col camp, some 3,700 feet down the mountain. He and Hazard waited all night long for George and Sandy to return, watching for signs of a lantern on the mountain, or signal flares. No men came, and no signs were seen.

The hall was silent as a churchyard while Odell paused and took some water from Hazard, who sat at the end of the row near him. ‘The next morning,’ he continued quietly,’ we scrutinised through field glasses the tiny tents of Camps V and VI, far up above us, in case they had returned late and had not yet started down. But no movement at all could be seen. At noon, I decided to go up to Camp V, and on to VI next day, and I arranged a code of signals with Hazard, who remained on the North Col. Two porters came with me and stayed the night at Camp V, but in the morning I had to send them back to the North Col on account of indisposition. It was a bitterly cold night, and we slept little, if at all.’ He described using one of the oxygen cylinders on his travel up to Camp VI, finding no benefit from it at all. One down for the oxygen camp! It was a little shocking, coming from Odell, who had nominally been in charge of the oxygen apparatus. It threw doubt on the necessity of oxygen even at those lofty heights to someone exceptionally acclimatised as Odell clearly was.

‘On reaching the tent at VI, I found everything as I had left it: the tent had obviously not been touched since I was there two days previously. I dumped the oxygen apparatus, and went in search along the probable route that Mallory and Irvine had taken. There was a bitterly cold west wind, and now and then I had to take shelter behind rocks to restore warmth. After a couple of hours’ search I realised that the chances of finding the missing men were indeed small on such a vast expanse of crags and broken slabs, and that for any more extensive search towards the final pyramid, a further party would have to be organised. I returned only too reluctantly to the tent, and then with considerable exertion dragged the two sleeping bags up a precipitous snow patch plastered on the little crag above the tent. With these sleeping bags against the snow I had arranged with Hazard to signal down to the North Col camp the results of my search.... It needed all my efforts to cut steps out over the snow-slope and then fix the sleeping bags in position, so boisterous was the wind. But fortunately the signal was seen 4000 feet below, though the answering signal I could not make out.... Closing up the tent and leaving its contents as my friends had left them, I glanced up at the mighty summit above me.’ He paused again, as he had done several times in the last few moments, struggling against the feeling evoked by the near memory of those wrenching, desperate days.

‘It seemed to look down with cold indifference on me, and howl derision in wind gusts at my petition to yield up its secrets... the mystery of my friends.’ He paused a long time here, then said earnestly, ‘If it were indeed the sacred ground of Chomo-lungma – Goddess Mother of the Mountains – had we violated it? Was I now violating it? And yet, as I gazed again, there seemed to be something... alluring... in that towering presence. I was almost fascinated.... I realised that no mere mountaineer alone could but be fascinated; that he who approaches close must ever be led on, and oblivious of all obstacles seek to reach that most sacred and highest place of all.’

There it was! He HAD George’s experience, all I had seen. Somehow this truth had transmitted itself to Odell. He knew. Was it some communication from George also, as I had had? I only knew that tears were running unheeded and unstoppable down my face. Insofar as I could discover, mine had been true dreams. Odell went on, inexorably. It was so painful to hear, but necessary:
‘It seemed that my friends must have been thus enchanted also: for why else should they tarry? In an effort to suppress my feelings, I turned my gaze downwards to the North Col far below, and I remembered that other of my companions would be anxiously awaiting my return, eager to hear what tidings I carried.’ He paused again, looking out over the sea of faces.

‘Alone and in meditation I slowly commenced my long descent. But it was no place for silent contemplation, for buffeted by storm-blasts that seemed to pierce one through, it needed all my attention and calculation to negotiate safely the exposed slabs of the ridge and prevent a slip on their debris-sprinkled surfaces.... Arrived at the North Col camp, I was pleased to find a note from Norton and to discover that I had anticipated his wishes that I should return to Camp IV and not prolong my search on the mountain, seeing that the monsoon seemed likely to break at any moment.’ So they had packed up their supplies and leaving the tents standing, he, Hazard and the porters made their long trek down the mountain to Camp III on the glacier, and finally, to Base camp, some twelve miles from Everest.

‘I have already mentioned the possible reasons why Mallory and Irvine appeared so late in reaching the point at which they were last seen, at an altitude which Hazard later determined to be about 28,230 feet, and I must now very briefly speculate on the probable causes of their failure to return.’ Odell paused and cleared his throat, drinking some water before assuming as neutral a tone as he could do. I leaned forward in my seat, for here, here, was the crux of it all.

‘They had about 800 feet to surmount to reach the top, and if no particularly difficult obstacle presented itself on the final pyramid they should have got there about 3 to 3.30. This would be three or four hours late, according to my understanding of Mallory’s schedule, and hence, they would find it almost impossible to reach Camp VI before nightfall, allowing for five or six hours for the return. But at the same time, it must be remembered that there was a moon, though it rose rather late, and that evening it was fine and the mountain clear of mist as far as could be seen. In spite of this, they may have missed the way and failed to find Camp VI and in their overwrought condition sought shelter till daylight – a danger that Mallory, experienced mountaineer that he was, would be only too aware of, but find himself powerless to resist: sleep at that altitude and in that degree of cold would almost certainly prove fatal.’

Ruth started here, to my shock, as I was so engrossed in the picture Odell was creating and in its correspondence to what I had seen in the dreams. I looked at her quickly. She was pale and looked rather distressed – holding one hand in the other very tightly in her lap. But she did not cry or look as if she were about to faint. I put my hand over both of hers, and she turned suddenly, like one who had been woken from an intense dream, and looked a bit confused, as if she didn’t know me. I patted her hand – it was all I could do! And listened to the rest of Odell’s story:

‘The other possibility is that they met their death by falling.’ I started shaking at this, deep in the muscles and couldn’t stop the whole while he was speaking. ‘This implies that they were roped together, which need not be inferred from their observed movements when last seen. It is difficult for one who knew the skill and experience of George Mallory on all kinds and conditions of mountain ground, to believe that he fell. Of Sandy Irvine, it can be said that, though altogether less experienced than Mallory, he had shown himself to be a natural adept and able to move safely and easily on rock and ice. Such had been my experience of him in Spitsbergen, Norway, and on our home mountains. They were hampered of course by the oxygen apparatus – a very serious load for climbing with – as Mallory had mentioned in his last note to me. But, could such a pair fall, and where technically the climbing appeared easy? Experts have done so, under stress of circumstances or exhaustion.’

He paused here, and looked sadly at his notes. ‘It has been suggested by some on the Mount Everest Committee that the oxygen apparatus failed and thereby rendered them powerless to return. I cannot believe this, for from my own personal experience, to be deprived of oxygen – at any rate when one has not been using it freely – does not prevent one from continuing, and, least of all, getting down from the mountain. Mallory in his last note to me said they were using little oxygen, and that they hoped to take only two cylinders each from Camp VI.

‘Hence, I incline to the view first expressed, that they met their death by being benighted. I know that Mallory had stated he would take no risks in any attempt on the final peak; but in action the desire to overcome, the craving for victory, may have been too strong for him. The knowledge of his proved powers of endurance, and those of his companion, may have urged him to make a bold bid for the summit.’ He looked up here and surveyed the crowd for familiar Alpine faces.

‘Who of us that has wrestled with some Alpine giant in the teeth of a gale or in a race with the darkness, could hold back when such a triumph, such a victory, is within our grasp? The question remains, “Has Mount Everest been climbed?” it must be left unanswered, for there is no evidence. But bearing in mind all the circumstances that I have set out above, and considering their position when last seen, I myself feel it is very probable that Mallory and Irvine succeeded. And at that I must leave it.’

He spoke a little longer of the matter of the oxygen debate, but I wasn’t listening. Odell thought they had made it. Did Norton, did Noel? Did Hazard, did Beetham? Did Howard? All those who had known George and his climbing prowess on the mountain – they must have some idea. I had to know what they thought, know if the dreams I had were true ones. It was, suddenly, so vitally important. Not to know whether Mount Everest had been climbed – for I hardly cared about that, truth to tell. But to know the validity of communication by dreams from the dead. Twenty years ago Francis Younghusband had put this idea in my mind, and now I was living its truth, with the one person of any in all the world who could have accomplished it – George. I had to know.

I turned to Ruth and Geoffrey.
‘I know they made it,’ Geoffrey said in his smooth voice before I could even open my mouth. He looked at me keenly, and then Ruth. ‘It doesn’t make up for the loss,’ he told her, ‘but it means something: It means that all that he was and lived for was not in vain.’
Ruth nodded solemnly, pensive, and said nothing, but I leapt on Geoffrey’s remark.
‘Why do you think it?’
He smiled a little, the ghost of his old self for a moment. ‘I’ll tell you later, dear. I remember a few things about our Galahad.’
‘Oh Geoffrey!’ Ruth murmured, her face so wistful, so full of hope and pain. It was the first time she had shown any grief that long day, and I could scarcely run on in the face of it. Explorations would have to wait.

But another thunderclap waited just round the door, one that would put all such notions from my mind for a very long time.