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I n the 1920s, the British make three attempts to scale Mount Everest, the world’s tallest mountain. The ill-fated third expedition sets out in 1924.
The mountaineers include George Mallory, a gifted climber and veteran of the Somme, Andrew “Sandy” Irvine, at 22 the youngest member of the team, and Noel Odell, a geologist. John Noel is the official photographer. Gurkhas and dozens of Himalayan porters make the effort possible.
In May, bad weather traps them in base camp and their original schedule of being atop Everest by May 17 is becoming untenable.
Things are becoming extreme, and all the more so as yet more porters are dropping out. Without the blessing of the Holy Lama many of them will have nothing to do with venturing into the realms of the heavens above for fear it will become hell on earth.
With some urgency, a messenger is dispatched back to the Rongbuk Monastery with a request that the Holy Lama grant an audience to the entire expedition party – climbers, Gurkhas and porters – and give them his blessing.
The day comes on May 15, and all is put on hold as the entire operation retreats to the monastery. They are ushered into the presence of the Holy Lama, himself, “seated at an altar ... attended by a dozen lesser Lamas”.
The Sahibs* are offered seats on the sides of the court, while the mass of porters stand in front. One by one, starting with the Sahibs, all of them file forward, and ‘[bow as His Holiness] touched each of us upon the head with his silver prayer wheel which he held in his left hand’.
To the porters, the Lama now offers a combination of warning and encouragement. “Great Chomolungma, the Goddess Mother, is guarded by the spirits ... I will intercede with the gods for you. Your turning back brings pleasure to the demons. They have forced you back, and will force you back again.”
Each porter is clearly profoundly touched to have received such a blessing, some however, are shaken by the warning of the demons forcing them back.
One porter, Ang Tsering, will later recall the Lama’s words as: “Disaster lies ahead ... To defile the holy mountain with your presence will enrage the gods and bring calamity on the expedition.”
Some of the Sahibs take it the same way. It is chilling, and all the more so because the monks of this establishment have even done a painting which clearly shows ... what now?
“This extraordinary picture,” mountaineer John Noel will recount, “shows the angered Deity of the Mountain surrounded by weird, wildly dancing demons, white lions, barking dogs and hairy men, and at the foot, speared through and through, lies the naked body of the white man who dared to violate the icebound, tempest-guarded sanctuary of Chomolungma – Goddess Mother of the World.”
In their tent, George Mallory and Sandy Irvine awake at dawn. The weather seems promising, with the sky relatively clear and the wind manageable, though the chill of the mountain pierces their tent and wraps alike.
To sustain them for the day, the usually catch-as-catch-can Mallory has gone to some effort to pack food that will give them strength on high; food that is packed with sugar, such as chocolate and biscuits, lots of butterscotch to suck on, gingernuts to chew on, and some macaroni and sliced ham for lunch. To heat the pot and melt the snow for water, they have a surviving Unna cooker (designed by engineer Percy Unna specifically to burn solid fuel at high altitude) and fuel.
Everything is as it should be. Mallory pats the photograph of his wife, Ruth, that he has carried all this way, to put at the top when he gets there, just as he has – heavens above – promised her.
And, finally packed and ready by seven o’clock, they head towards heaven. Mallory in the lead, his ice-pick regularly thudding down to get a grip, and haul him higher; Irvine, bound by the rope, just behind him. Onwards, Christian soldiers.
The heavens open. That fellow hacking away at the frozen face of Everest, above Camp V, with ice-pick in hand? It is none other than Noel Odell who, having left Camp V nearly five hours before on this “not unduly cold” day, has been pushing towards Camp VI as support for Mallory and Irvine.
The whole way, and most particularly from 8am, he has been looking skywards, hoping for a break in the clouds, hoping to see them, as their schedule had them reaching the summit by mid-morning at the latest. There has been no break, but he remains confident. “The wind being light,” he will recount, “they should have made good progress and unhampered by their intended route along the crest of the north-east shoulder.” At this very moment though, what enduring anxiety Odell has for them has been replaced by another emotion entirely. Exultation!
For, yes, as he has made his way higher, the geologist has been using his ice-pick to swing at promising pieces of rock, in the hope of finding fossils. And here, in the limestone band at about 25,500 feet along the North Ridge, with one tap he sees it. A block of limestone splits, and now before him is the imprint of a fossil, which he recognises as ... ancient marine life, specifically sea lilies, and some kind of molluscs such as grew and abounded on this spot millions of years ago, when Everest was at the bottom of the sea!
It is the kind of find to make a career, and Odell is in no less than “a state of jubilation at finding the first definite fossils on Everest”. He has just made the most exciting discovery of his life to date, completely unaware that something even more exciting is just moments away.
Because in the strange way things can happen, two important events concur at the very instant he comes to the top of a 100-foot crag that he could have skirted but has climbed instead to prove his strength. The mists part, the clouds clear and with “the whole summit ridge and final peak of Everest unveiled” ... he sees something! Could it be? He leans closer in that irrational way humans do, as if two inches will make a difference when looking at objects from vast distances.
Yes! Yes! There they are. “My eyes,” he will ever after recount, “became fixed on one tiny black spot silhouetted on a small snow-crest beneath a rock-step in the ridge. The black spot moved. Another black spot 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 top. The second did likewise. Then the whole fascinating vision vanished, enveloped in cloud once more.”
It is Mallory and Irvine, and they are clearly getting close to the highest point in the world. Odell’s heart sings. For one thing, they’re alive! For another, they’re close to the summit. It is only on reflection that things become a little more troubling.
For, while on the one hand it really is thrilling to confirm they are alive and much higher than anyone has ever been before ... on the other hand ... Well, on the other hand, they are going the wrong way when it comes to their safety, and are clearly a long way behind schedule to get to the summit. “I was surprised above all,” he will recount, “to see them so late as this, namely 12.50, at a point which, if the ‘second rock step’, they should have reached according to Mallory’s schedule by 8am at latest, and if the ‘first rock step’ proportionately earlier.”
At the rate they are going, the best they could hope for is to be at the summit by very late afternoon. But that would be way too late to make it back down again to Camp VI. Their oxygen could not possibly last that long in any case, and they have obviously not taken tents and supplies to camp higher on the mountain. No matter which way he looks at it, their only hope of survival is if they turn around now, and head back to Camp VI immediately.
He keeps watching intently, but there is nothing. It is like they have just disappeared into the clouds or are now climbing “as near as we can to Heaven”, as Irvine had once expressed it.
Mallory and Irvine never return. Mallory’s body is found in 1999 and Irvine’s partial remains in 2024. There is no evidence they ever made it to the summit.
An edited extract from The Race to the Top of the World by Peter FitzSimons p ublished by Hachette Australia. In stores October 27.
* In the era before the skills of Sherpa porters are rightfully acknowledged, the British mountaineers are known by this form of address, which means “master” or “sir”.
