Somervell was, by now, undoubtedly the fittest of the climbing members of the expedition, with Mallory a good second. Both had enjoyed some ten days’ rest since their first assault upon Mount Everest and had, therefore, had some chance of recovering from the abnormal strain to which they had been subjected. Medical opinion as to my condition after so brief a respite of only four days was somewhat divided; but in the end I was allowed to join in the third attempt.
On June 3, we left the Base Camp. The party consisted of Wakefield as medical officer, Crawford and, later, Morris as transport officers, with Mallory, Somervell and myself as climbers. Oxygen was to be used, and I was placed in command. It was a great struggle for me to get to Camp I, and I had to realise that the few days’ rest at the Base Camp had been quite inadequate to allow of my recuperation, and that no useful object would be served by my proceeding farther. Snow fell during the night. Next morning, after giving Somervell final detailed instructions regarding the oxygen apparatus, I returned once more to the Base Camp. As Strutt and Longstaff were leaving on the following day to escort the badly frost-bitten Morshead to Darjeeling, I was given, and availed myself of, the opportunity of accompanying them.
The next news I heard of the third attempt upon Mount Everest was gleaned from the columns of a Sunday newspaper, shortly after landing in Dover some six weeks later. I read that an avalanche had destroyed seven of our gallant mountain comrades, the Nepalese porters. This disastrous accident had terminated the third attempt on Mount Everest before even the North Col had been gained.
Mount Everest, the Goddess Mother of the Snows, with all her formidable array of natural defences, had conquered. But the value of reasoned determination, unwavering confidence, really warm and wind-proof clothing and, last but not least, the proven worth of oxygen—weapons to break down the innermost defences of even the highest mountain in the world—are now, perhaps, better understood.
FOOTNOTES:
[16] Swiss abbreviation for “Gertrude.”
[17] By means of theodolite observations made from a single point near the Base Camp, this height has worked out at 26,985 feet. According to Col. S. G. Burrard and H. H. Hayden, A Sketch of the Geography and Geology of the Himalaya Mountains and Tibet, Calcutta, 1907-1909, this height is exceeded by only eight mountain summits, all of which are in the Himalayas.
[18] My action in sending Tejbir back alone has, I believe, been criticised. There is no need to labour the point. I was the responsible person and the sole judge of circumstances, and I acted for what then appeared to me, and subsequently proved to be, the best.
[19] In my previous accounts of the climb, I practically ignored this incident. Recently, however, Dr. Longstaff published in the Alpine Journal an article in which he describes the happening at some length. I believe that the story was related to him by Captain Geoffrey Bruce.