Fearless on Everest: The Quest for Sandy Irvine (32 page)

That evening they heard a rumour that the general was better and that he and Hingston were hoping to join them further along the march.  This rumour turned out to be untrue and Karma Paul, one of the expedition interpreters caught them up and gave them details of the general’s trip back to Darjeeling on a stretcher,  ‘evidently his appearance having been the source of rumour last night amongst the last yak men to leave Tinki’.  As they set off from Chiblung for Jikyop the landscape changed again.  The sand was white with salt and heavy as they walked down a waterlogged gorge, heavy going for the yaks but evocative for the men who caught the smell of seaweed in their nostrils and it carried their thoughts far away from Tibet.  In a brief, nostalgic moment Sandy wondered how his family were spending Easter back home.  

Sandy’s first view of Mount Everest.  This photograph was among those which I found in the trunk in 2000

Two days later he and Mallory climbed a small hill behind their camp at Jikyop and gained their first, clear view of Everest.  They examined the south and east side of the final pyramid very carefully through binoculars, discussing possible routes and sites for camps.  It was a thrilling moment for Sandy and although they were still some sixty miles from it ‘the whole mountain, or what of it we could see, gave the impression of tremendous bulk’. It was from here that he took the photograph of Everest that he sent back to his sister Evelyn.  That afternoon he was back struggling with the oxygen apparatus with renewed vigour.  He had already dismissed two designs and was on to Mark III when he was called to dinner where the climbers were allotted to their summit parties.  He noted in his diary: 

Odell and Geoff (Bruce) to pitch Camp V
Norton and Somervell – 1st non-ox climb
Mallory and Self – 1st ox climb
Odell, Geoff, Hazard and Beetham – reserve
I’m awfully glad that I’m with Mallory in the first lot, but I wish ever so much that it was a non-ox attempt.’

The die had been cast and Sandy’s hopes fulfilled.  He must have felt pretty confident of his ability to perform on the mountain if he considered he would be happier climbing without oxygen, or perhaps it was just that he knew what the others perhaps did not, that the ‘infernal’ apparatus was hideously unreliable and could not be guaranteed to work, even with his major rebuilds.  On the other hand he told Odell later that if the mountain was worth climbing it was worth doing without the use of adventitious aids.  After dinner Sandy returned to his tent and worked until late into the night, while the others were sleeping, on Mark IV. ‘Only defect, no pressure gauge.’  To Lilian he wrote the next day: 

I have provisionally been chosen to do the first Oxygen climb with Mallory.  Norton & Somervell doing Non Ox. on same day.  It will be great fun if we all 4 get to the top at the same time!  I say provisionally because I don’t know that I will be fit at 26,500 ft yet (our kicking off camp). The Non Ox start a day earlier from the North Col stopping at 25,500 & 27,300 while we stop only at 26,500.  This gives 3 camps as refuges on the way down in case of exhaustion or bad weather.  The weather has behaved in a most peculiar manner so far – no one knows if it is a good sign or not.

He added ‘It will be a great triumph if my impromptu ox.ap. gets to the top, I hope it does … If we reach the top it will be probably May 17th ’. This date was immediately entered into Willie Irvine’s 1924 pocket diary and later revised, on the basis of the Times dispatches, to 23 May 1924 when Willie noted ‘Top of the Hill ACI’.

The following afternoon, immediately after arriving in camp, he took to his tent surrounded, as usual, by his tools.  With a brief interruption for dinner and a drink of whisky he worked again until after midnight.  His diary entry is extremely succinct for 22 April but he notes with some satisfaction ‘3 chota pegs  of Scotch put new inspiration into me at dinner tonight.  Have just completed and designed Mark V ox.ap.  Very tired.’ Such labour on behalf of the expedition was surely beyond the call of duty but it was not in his character to give up until he had finally solved a problem, however much of his time and energy it took up.  I suspect on this occasion that his election to the oxygen climbing party put as much inspiration into him as the three measures of Scotch.   

The successful completion of Mark V and a musical accompaniment at breakfast the following morning left Sandy feeling very cheerful for the march to Shekar Dzong.  ‘The tunes were quite the pleasantest I’ve heard yet, and they kept time with their little diabolo shaped drums very well.  After breakfast the local George Roby gave a performance for Noel’s cinema.’ This beggar musician, with his gnarled hands and toothless smile, posed for a photograph for Sandy and the result is a delightful portrait of the cheerful old man.  Sandy took a number of photographs on trek of the Tibetans and was particularly interested in the dress the women wore.  He made a beautiful study of one woman, a curvaceous middle-aged lady in full costume and with a magnificent head-dress which he described in his usual somewhat irreverent manner to one of his Oxford tutors, Geoffrey Mure.  ‘I like the Tibetan women’s permanent head dress – a great kind of frame – specially constructed so that they only ever lie on their backs!  The men must be weaklings if they can’t look after their own interest without such artificial devices!’

Tibetan musician photographed by Sandy

The trek to Shekar Dzong was short and uneventful.  They arrived below the village at midday to find that a camping place in a walled garden had been acquired for them by MacDonald.  That afternoon, whilst busy working on the oxygen apparatus, Sandy realized he had become something of a local attraction and found himself surrounded by Tibetans staring at him.  He jumped up and chased them ‘with a loudly hissing cylinder of oxygen.  I’ve never seen men run so fast – they must have thought it was the devil coming out!’ Thereafter Norton arranged for a sentry at the entrance to the garden to ensure the privacy of the party from prying locals, which could at times become a considerable burden.

Sandy with his Mark V oxygen apparatus at Shekar Dzong

The latest oxygen apparatus design was tested on the rocks below the Dzong by Mallory, Somervell, Odell and Sandy and seemed to be an improvement on previous trials.  ‘They all seemed very pleased with it and there is nothing to go wrong and nothing to hamper climbing or to break if you slip’, Sandy wrote to Lilian.  Norton reported on the trials in his dispatch to the Times

After the usual checking of stores and routine work, we finished with a trial trip of the oxygen apparatus on the steep rocks of a fine pyramid, on which stands the Dzong and the monastery.  This was intended to test the relative merits of the apparatus as originally constructed and sent from England and an adaptation designed by the fertile genius of Mr. Irvine.  The adaptation, besides eliminating certain leaks and mechanical defects which had developed during the transit from home, lightens and simplifies the apparatus, and, most important of all, does away with the vulnerable portions carried on the climber’s chest, and so frees him to tackle rocks with less Agag-like delicacy than formerly.  Even so, at the elevation of Shekar Dzong (14,500 ft.) we found the rocks were much more easily climbed without the apparatus.

Shekar Dzong

The fortress of Shekar was prized by Tibetan travellers of the past as a sort of wonder of the world.  The Dzong, as the fort is called, is a large secular building that towers above the monastery of Shekar and is joined to it by a perilously steep wall. The buildings were destroyed during the Cultural Revolution, but in 1924 they were still standing and their magnificence did not fail to impress expedition members. From the very top of the Dzong it was possible to gain a view of Everest, rising inexorably above the neighbouring peaks.  Here the Tibetans brought incense and other offerings to Chomolungma, as ‘she stretches out her white arms on both sides, a goddess in the form of stone and ice’.  Sandy and Shebbeare spent the following morning climbing to the top of the fortress to get a view of the mountain.  After that they visited the monastery and presented the Chief Lama with two polished half-oxygen cylinders.  ‘They made two fine gongs of different tones.  We also told him there was a devil inside whose breath would kindle a spark – we showed him on incense.’  Despite the introduction of a devil into his monastery, the Chief Lama made them very welcome and allowed them to spend as much time as they wanted in the temple.  Sandy’s interest in the temple was genuine and he was deeply impressed by the statues, the hangings and the devotional offerings.  He was also amused by the meeting of different cultures, as he related to Lilian a few days later.

Grandfather will never own me as a grandson again because I bowed down before a colossal Buddha about 20 ft high with an altar covered with most brilliant jewels.  I had to make great pretence to worship in order to get a photograph from a camera concealed in my coat as I had to give a 70 sec. exposure in the very dim light of the holy of holies – my devotions had to be very prolonged!! Some of the hangings in the temple were perfectly beautiful & the ornaments & offering bowls spotlessly clean – the only clean things in the whole of Tibet. I enjoyed myself enormously in the monastery at Shekar.  I think they rather regarded us as Buddha or devils.

The photographs he took did indeed come out and they were among the collection sent back to Evelyn and which came to light in May 2000.