The importance of breathing hard and deeply had impressed itself upon us again and again. I had come to think of my own practice as a very definite and conscious performance adopted to suit the occasion. The principles were always the same—to time the breathing regularly to fit the step, and to use not merely the upper part of the lungs, but the full capacity of the breathing apparatus, expanding and contracting not the chest only, but also the diaphragm, and this not occasionally but with every breath whenever the body was required to work at high pressure. Probably no one who has not tried it would guess how difficult it is to acquire an unconscious habit of deep breathing. It was easy enough to set the machine going in the right fashion; it was another task to keep it running. The moment attention to their performance was relaxed, the lungs too would begin to relax their efforts, and often I woke from some day-dream with a feeling of undue fatigue, to find the cause of my lassitude only in the lungs' laziness. The best chance of keeping them up to their work, I found, was to impose a rhythm primarily upon the lungs and swing the legs in time with it.
The practice employed for walking uphill under normal conditions is exactly contrary, in that case the rhythm is consciously imposed on the legs and the rest of the body takes care of itself.
During the various expeditions of our reconnaissance I came to employ two distinct methods of working the legs with the lungs. As soon as conscious breathing was necessary it was my custom deliberately to inhale on one step and exhale on the next. Later, at a higher elevation, or when the expenditure of muscular energy became more exhausting, I would both inhale and exhale for each step, in either case timing the first movement of lifting the leg to synchronise with the beginning, so to speak, of the breathing-stroke. On this occasion as we pushed our way up towards Lhakpa La I adopted a variation of this second method, a third stage, pausing a minute or so for the most furious sort of breathing after a series of steps, forty or thirty or twenty, as the strength ebbed, in order to gain potential energy for the next spasm of lifting efforts. Never before had our lungs been tested quite so severely. It was well for us that these final slopes were no steeper. It was difficult and tiring enough as it was to prevent the rackets sliding, though without them we could not possibly have advanced in such snow. But happily the consequences of a slip were not likely to be serious. We were able to struggle on without regarding dangers, half-dazed with the heat and the glare and with mere fatigue, occasionally encouraged by a glimpse of the skyline above us, a clean edge of snow where the angle set back to the pass, more often enveloped in the scorching mist which made with the snow a continuous whiteness, so that the smooth slope, even so near as where the foot must be placed next, was usually indistinguishable. We had proceeded a considerable distance and I was satisfied with our progress, when the leader broke the monotony; he was seen to hesitate in the act of stepping up, to topple over and fall headlong downwards. This time he had guessed wrong; his foot had hit unexpectedly against the steepening slope. Somehow he had passed in extreme fatigue from the physical state of stable equilibrium; he had become such a man as you may “knock down with a feather,” and this little misadventure had upset his balance. Mere surprise gave him strength to stop his slide. He raised himself, disgusted, to his feet again and after sundry gruntings the party went on.
Some little way further up Major Morshead, who was walking last in the party, with one brief exclamation to tell us what he intended, quietly untied the rope and remained where he was in his steps, unable to go further.
At length we found ourselves on flatter ground; the pass was still invisible, how far ahead of us we could not guess. Unexpectedly we came upon the brink of a crevasse. We worked round it, vaguely wondering whether after all our pains we were to meet with many troubles of this sort. And then after a few more steps we were visibly on some edge of things; we had reached the col itself.
Some twenty minutes later, as we sat on the snow gazing most intently at all that lay about us, Bullock and I were surprised by a shout. A moment later Major Morshead rejoined us, to the great rejoicing of all three.
It was about 1.15 p.m. when the first two of us had reached Lhakpa La; the clouds, which had been earlier only a thin veil, rent occasionally to give us clear glimpses, had thickened perceptibly during the last hour, so that we had now no hope of a clear view. In a sense, despite our early start from a high camp, we were too late. Little was to be seen above our level. The slopes of Everest away on our left were visible only where they impinged upon the glacier. But we were not actually in cloud on the col. The South-facing rocks of Changtse presented their profile, steep and jagged, an imposing spectacle so far up as we could see; between them and Everest we looked down on a broad bay, the smooth surface of which was only occasionally broken by large crevasses. The descent to it from where we were could also be seen well enough, and we judged it perfectly simple and not much more than 800 feet.[12] The East ridge of Changtse had no existence for us; we looked across at what presumably were the splayed-out slopes supporting it. Below them was a narrow glacier (it grew when we crossed it to broader dimensions), shaping its course somewhat to the West of North, joined after losing its white snow-covering by another and cleaner glacier coming steeply down from the left, then apparently bending with this confluent to the right, and finally lost to view. We could see no more; the mountain sides, which must hem it in on the North, remained completely hidden, and for all we had seen the exit of this glacier was still a mystery.
Another great question remained unsolved. We had been able to make out the way across the head of the glacier towards the wall under Chang La; and the way was easy enough. But the wall itself, in spite of some fleeting glimpses and partial revelations, we had never really seen. We conjectured its height should be 500 feet or little more; and it was probably steep. It had been impossible to found an opinion as to whether the col were accessible. Nevertheless, I held an opinion, however flimsy the foundations. I had seen the rim of the col from both sides, and knew that above it on either hand were unserrated edges. When we added to whatever chances might be offered by the whole extent of the wall, which was considerable, the possibilities of finding a way to the col by the slopes of Everest to the South or by those of Changtse to the North, I felt we had enough in our favour. I was prepared, so to speak, to bet my bottom dollar that a way could be found, and was resolved that before we turned homewards this year we must get up from the East. When I thought of the 4,000 feet on the other side, the length combined with the difficulties, the distance that would necessarily separate us there from any convenient base and all the limitations in our strength, I could have no reasonable doubt that here to the East lay the best chance of success.
