The Assault on Mount Everest, 1922

by C. G. Bruce

Summit of Mount Everest from the highest point of the first climb, 26,983 feet, 21st May, 1922.

Happily inspired by our “medical comfort,” I announced that I would take the lead. Norton and I changed places on the rope. I optimistically supposed that I should find an easier way down by a continuous snow-slope to the West of the ridge. Somervell, also moved by inspiration, suggested that he should remain behind to make a sketch and hurry down our tracks to catch us up later. He says that I found it difficult to understand that he would only require a few minutes, and that I replied irritably. I can hardly believe that my tone just then was anything but suave, but I have no doubt I was glad to have him with us to be our sheet-anchor, and particularly so a little later, for we were in difficulties almost at once. We found more snow on this new line, as I had supposed; but it was not to our liking; it lay not on a continuous slope, but covering a series of slabs and only too ready to slide off. We were obliged to work back to the ridge itself and follow it down in our morning’s tracks.

At 4 p.m. we reached our camp, where Morshead was waiting. He was feeling perfectly well, he reported, and ready to come down with us to Camp IV. After collecting a few of our possessions which we did not wish to abandon to the uncertain future, we roped up once more to continue our descent. So far our pace going down had been highly satisfactory. In the Alps one usually expects to descend on easy ground twice as fast as one would go up. But we had divided our time of ascent by 4, and in an hour and a half had come down 2,000 feet. Under normal conditions at lower altitudes even this pace would be considered slow; it would not be an exceptionally fast pace for going up these slopes; and yet the image that stays in my memory is of a party coming down quite fast. It is evident that the whole standard of speed is altered. On the ascent, too, I had the sensation of moving about twice as fast as we actually were. I imagine that the whole of life was scaled down, as it were, that we were living both physically and mentally at half, or less than half, the normal rate. However that may be, we had now to descend only 2,000 feet to Camp IV, and with more than three hours’ daylight left we supposed we should have no difficulty in reaching our tents before dark.

Meditating after the event about the whole of our performance this day, I have often wondered how we should have appeared at various stages to an unfatigued and competent observer. No doubt he would have noted with some misgiving the gradually diminishing pace of the party as it crawled upwards; but he would have been satisfied, I think, that each man had control of his limbs and a sure balance, and as we were moving along together over ground where the rope will very easily be caught under the points of projecting rocks and thereby cause inconvenience and delay while it is unhitched, this observer, watching the rope, would have noticed that in fact it almost never was caught up. The party at all events were “keeping their form” to the extent of managing the rope as it ought to be managed. For a moment when they were in difficulties after turning back, he might have thought them rather shaky; but even here they were able to pull themselves together and proceed with proper attention and care. Whether he would have noticed any difference when they started off again I cannot say. A certain impetus of concentration, a gathering of mental and physical energy, a reserve called up from who knows where when they turned to face the descent, had perhaps spent its force; and though the party was a stage nearer to the end of the journey, it was also a stage nearer to exhaustion and to that state where carelessness so readily slips in unperceived. It may be supposed we were a degree less alert, all the more because we foresaw no difficulty; we had not exercised the imagination to figure difficulties on the descent, and we now came upon them unexpectedly.

The fresh snow fallen during the night had so altered appearances that we could not be certain, as we traversed back towards the ridge again, that we were exactly following the line by which we had approached our camp the day before. My impression is that we went too low and missed it. We were soon working along broken ground above a broad snow slope. Fresh snow had to be cleared away alike from protruding rocks where we wished to put our feet and from the old snow where we must cut steps. It was not a difficult place and yet not easy, as the slope below us was dangerous and yet not very steep, not steep enough to be really alarming or specially to warn the climber that a slip may be fatal. It was an occasion when the need for care and attention was greater than obviously appeared, just the sort to catch a tired party off their guard. Perhaps the steps were cut too hastily, or in one way and another were taking small risks that we would not usually take. The whole party would not necessarily have been in grave danger because one man lost his footing. But we were unprepared. When the third man slipped the last man was moving, and was at once pulled off his balance. The second in the party, though he must have checked these two, could not hold them. In a moment the three of them were slipping down and gathering speed on a slope where nothing would stop them until they reached the plateau of the East Rongbuk Glacier, 3,500 feet below. The leader for some reason had become anxious about the party a minute or two earlier, and though he too was moving when the slip occurred and could see nothing of what went on behind him, he was on the alert; warned now by unusual sounds that something was wrong, he at once struck the pick of his axe into the snow, and hitched the rope round the head of it. Standing securely his position was good, and while holding the rope in his right hand beyond the hitch, he was able to press with the other on the shaft of the axe, his whole weight leaning towards the slope so as to hold the pick of the axe into the snow. Even so it would be almost impossible to check the combined momentum of three men at once. In ninety-nine cases out of a hundred either the belay will give or the rope will break. In the still moment of suspense before the matter must be put to the test nothing further could be done to prevent a disaster one way or the other. The rope suddenly tightened and tugged at the axe-head. It gave a little as it gripped the metal like a hawser on a bollard. The pick did not budge. Then the rope came taut between the moving figures, and the rope showed what it was worth. From one of the bodies which had slid and now was stopped proceeded an utterance, not in the best taste, reproaching his fate, because he must now start going up hill again when he should have been descending. The danger had passed. The weight of three men had not come upon the rope with a single jerk. The two lengths between the three as they slipped down were presumably not stretched tight, and the second man had been checked directly below the leader before the other two. Probably he also did something to check those below him, for he was partly held up by projecting rocks and almost at once recovered his footing. We were soon secure again on the mountain-side, and—not the least surprising fact—no one had been hurt.

I suppose we must all have felt rather shaken by an incident which came so near to being a catastrophe. But a party will not necessarily be less competent or climb worse on that account. At all events we had received a warning and now proceeded with the utmost caution, moving one at a time over the snow-covered ledges. It was slow work. This little distance which with fair conditions could easily be traversed in a quarter of an hour must have taken us about five times as long. However, when we reached the ridge and again looked down the snow where we had come up the day before, though it was clear enough we must waste no time, we did not feel greatly pressed. Our old tracks were, of course, covered, and we looked about for a way to avoid this slope; but it seemed better to go down by the way we knew, and we were soon busy chipping steps. It was a grim necessity at this hour of the day. I felt one might almost have slipped down checking himself with the axe. We were distinctly tempted. But after all, we were not playing with this mountain; it might be playing with us. There was a clear risk, and we were not compelled to accept it. We must keep on slowly cutting our steps. The long toil was shared among us until the slope eased off and we had nothing more to fear. We looked down to the North Col below us. No difficulty could stop our descent. We had still an hour of daylight. After all, with ordinary good fortune, we should be back in our tents before dark.

I had been aware for some time that Morshead, though he was going steadily and well, was more tired than the rest of us. His long halt at our high camp can have done him little good. He had not recovered. His strength had just served to keep him up where it was urgently necessary that he should preserve his balance; but it was now exhausted; he had quite come to the end of his resources, and at best he could move downwards a few steps at a time. It was difficult to see what could be done for him. There were places where we might sit down and rest, and we should be obliged not only to stop often for two or three minutes, but also to stay occasionally for perhaps ten minutes or a quarter of an hour. Anything like a longer halt must be avoided if possible, as the air was already cold, and an exhausted man would be particularly sensitive. Probably a longer rest would not have helped him, and we proceeded as best we could, so as to avoid delay as much as possible. One of us, and it was usually Norton, gave Morshead the support of his shoulder and an arm round his waist, while I went first, to pick out exactly the most convenient line, and Somervell was our rearguard in any steeper place. So we crawled down the mountain-side in the gathering darkness, until as I looked back from a few yards ahead my companions were distinguishable only as vague forms silhouetted against the snow. There were long hours before us yet, and they would be hours of darkness. Occasionally the flicker of lightning from distant clouds away to the West reminded us that the present calm might sometime be disturbed. Perhaps below on the col, or it might be sooner, the old unfriendly wind would meet us once again. For the present it was fortunate that the way was easy; the great thing was to keep on the snow, and we found that the edge of rocks by which we had come up, and where it was now so much more difficult to get along, could be avoided almost everywhere. With the same edge of stones to guide us, we could not miss our way, and were still stumbling on in the dark without a lantern when we reached the North Col. But we had a lantern with us, and a candle too, in Somervell’s rucksack, and we should now require a light. I was reminded once again of the most merciful circumstance, for the air was still so calm that even with matches of a Japanese brand, continually execrated among us, we had no difficulty in lighting our candle.

Two hundred yards, or little more in a direct line, now separated us from our tents, with the promise of safety, repose, and warmth in our soft eiderdown bags. Looking back, I never can make out how we came to spend so long in reaching them. We had but to go along the broken saddle of snow and ice where our tracks lay, and then drop down to our camp on the shelf. But the tracks were concealed, and not to be found; crevasses lay under the snow waiting for us. With nothing to guide us, we must proceed cautiously, and once among the confusing shapes of white walls and terraces and monticules and corridors, it was the easiest thing in the world to lose our way. Somervell, who had covered the ground once each way more often than any of us, held the helm, so to speak, against a sea of conflicting opinions. Even he, now our leader, was not always right, and we had more than once to come back along our tracks and take a cast in another direction. To avoid the possible trouble or disaster of having two men at once in a crevasse, we were obliged to keep our intervals on the ropes, so that Morshead had now to take care of himself. Perhaps the lower altitude had already begun to tell, for he was stronger now, and came along much better than was to be expected. At length we reached a recognisable landmark, a cliff of ice about 15 feet high, where we had jumped down over a crevasse on our first visit here in order to avoid a disagreeable long step over another crevasse on an alternative route. I was very glad we had come this way rather than the other, for though, looking down at the dimly lit space of snow which was to receive us, I boggled a little at the idea of this leap, the landing-place was sure to be soft, and it would be easy not to miss it.