The Moth and the Mountain

by Ed Caesar

  Ruttledge expedition: Everest 1933, by Hugh Ruttledge, 37.

  The Moth’s rudder required delicacy: In 2018, I flew a Tiger Moth made by de Havilland only a few years after Wilson’s Gipsy Moth, and I, too, battled with the controls.

  does not mention Wilson: Wilson’s absence may simply be a function of Batten’s unrevelatory prose. The memoirs that she wrote allow only brief cameos for significant men in her life, including those who funded her flying addiction, and those who fell in love with her. Fiona Kidman, author of The Infinite Air, was kind enough to share around twenty pages of an unpublished memoir by Batten called Luck and the Record Breaker, concerning her days at Stag Lane.

  neither promise materialized: This information was contained in a letter from Barbara Gardiner to Peter Meier-Hüsing, April 9, 2002.

  Sir Frederick Tymms: Sir Frederick Tymms was probably the most important figure in the development of civil aviation in Britain. He was nicknamed the Flying Civil Servant.

  CHAPTER 8: HE IS NOT REPEAT NOT TO PROCEED

  to “my dear Len”: In another letter, written on the same day, Wilson seems to have had a rethink about the terms of the deal and offers Len a chance to make money “on a ten per cent basis.” This apparent contradiction does not appear to have been resolved before Wilson flew.

  journalist from Reuters: The newspapers of the time often refer to Reuters as “the Reuter agency,” but it’s also sometimes known as Reuter’s or Reuters. I’ve styled it in the modern way, to avoid confusion.

  Francesco de Pinedo: De Pinedo died a few months after Wilson dropped in on his comrades, after a botched takeoff in New York; his funeral took place at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York, with American airmen flying overhead in tribute.

  Air Armada: Balbo himself led the Air Armada: twenty-four seaplanes that flew a round-trip from Italy to America, via Amsterdam, Derry, Reykjavík, Cartwright, Shediac, and Montreal. The Armada, which began their journey five weeks after Wilson landed in Pisa, arrived on Lake Michigan in time for the 1933 World’s Fair in Chicago and were greeted as heroes. The Chicago city authorities even renamed Seventh Street as Balbo Drive. The New York Times reported that a million people then saw the Armada off from Chicago, bound for New York, where the airmen were granted a ticker-tape parade seen by hundreds of thousands and were festooned with honors. There were Fascist salutes in the streets of New York. According to the New York Times, Balbo also told Mayor John O’Brien, “In my country, we have four thousand aviators who believe that life is a useless gift of God if they find no pleasure in risking it every day for something better for all.”

  “Was just thinking how nice”: NB the date on the letter should read May 25, 1933, if it was sent from Catania, but maybe Wilson dated the letter on the previous day, when he was writing to both Evanses. Or maybe it’s a simple mistake.

  Captain Bill Lancaster: Bill Lancaster had an astonishingly interesting life, worthy of a much-longer account. He fell in love with a beautiful woman named “Chubbie” Miller while on a five-month flight to Australia in 1928. In 1932, he was arrested for the murder of Hayden Clarke, an American writer who had become Miller’s lover while Lancaster was looking for flying work in Mexico. Lancaster was eventually acquitted by a jury in Miami, and the following year he attempted to rescue his reputation by setting the London–Cape Town speed record in an Avro Avian. Chronically sleep-deprived, he crashed in the Sahara. He was only found twenty-nine years later, by a French army patrol. His body was under the wing of his upturned plane. Lancaster’s logbook and diary showed he had survived for eight days after the crash before dying.

  the northerly route: In 1933, the more northerly route had been deemed “uninsurable” due to the poor state of the airfields in the Balkans. This may have pushed Wilson into the southerly route. The Automobile Association, which got his permit sorted for Cairo, would probably have suggested it.

  crawling with British soldiers: This is an odd period in Egyptian political life. In 1921, the country had ceased to be a British protectorate, but British influence in Egypt was still significant, and the British continued to control Suez and other regions. British soldiers and officials were in every major town.

  “Sorry, old man”: This exchange is recorded in Roberts, I’ll Climb Mount Everest Alone.

  Houston–Mount Everest flight: Lucy, Lady Houston was a complicated, eccentric, and unlikable figure. She had been a dancer and an actress as a young woman. She married into a fortune. When her third husband, Lord Houston, died in 1926, Lucy became England’s second-richest woman. She used her money to sponsor various activities and causes that interested her. One was aviation. Her sponsorship of the Houston–Mount Everest flight was part of her desire to project British power in her overseas dominions. As an elderly woman, her views grew increasingly right-wing, and she became an admirer of Hitler and Mussolini. She died in 1936.

  flew it in two days, with stops: Roberts writes that Wilson stopped at Gadda; there is seemingly no airfield called Gadda on the route. In the second half of a poem he later wrote to Enid, Wilson describes stopping at Rutbah. It was the traditional stop-off on this route, and Wilson had studied previous trips to India and Australia. Wilson wrote in the second half of his poem ‘Mauvey an’ Me’:“If hell’s as hot as Rutbah, I’ll tell you joyfully, I’ll take no more wrong turnings. It’s the other place for me.”

  buildings around the landing strip: Background on the Bahrein airfield is included in a history of Imperial Airways: Beyond the Blue Horizon, by Alexander Frater.

  new Imperial Airways airfield: The first car in Gwadar arrived in 1933. It belonged to the Imperial Airways agent, and it caused a rumpus. Ibid., 143.

  Gwadar was a protectorate: Technically, Gwadar was a colony state of the sultan of Muscat and Oman, but in reality it was another little British protectorate on the edge of India, with an Imperial Airways landing strip.

  the edge of Persia: What Wilson didn’t realize was that, shortly after his departure from Bahrein, his permission to land in Persia was confirmed, after an exchange of cables between British officers in the Gulf, who had tired of chasing him. Wilson could have landed in Persian territory at his leisure, without fear of arrest. The British staff in the region expended serious cable money and man-hours over the next few months, cooking up ways to stop future adventurers from using their airports; after Wilson’s stunt, they closed the Gulf route to private aviators.

  CHAPTER 9: ADVENTURE PERSONIFIED

  not prepared to repeat it at present: In the India Office archives, some marginalia is scrawled on a copied memo from 1933: “This man played some odd pranks on the way out.”

  British envoy to Nepal: It’s a shame that Sir Clendon Daukes, the British envoy to Nepal, never met Maurice Wilson. They had much in common. Daukes was an old soldier of the York and Lancaster regiment who had served in the First World War. He was an accomplished linguist, who spoke fluent French, German, Urdu, and Pashto. He was also a daring adventurer. On leave in 1903, he traveled overland from northern Persia to the English Channel—an extraordinary journey at the time. The Journal of the Royal Central Asian Society carries a wonderful obituary of Daukes, from 1948: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03068374808731282?journalCode=raaf19.

  persuaded the Irish hotelier: Roberts, I’ll Climb Mount Everest Alone, 76.

  guarded it around the clock: A later cable from an Indian official to the Nepali envoy will note that Wilson appeared not to be taking the government’s prohibitions seriously, hence “the aeroplane was placed under police guard.”

  Indian newspaper correspondent: The name of the newspaper is not recorded in Roberts’s notes, passed on by Meier-Hüsing.

  “The weather, as always, had the last word”: Ruttledge, Everest 1933, 195.

  perhaps social justice: Wilson himself used the word coolie, which was in wide circulation. It complicates the picture of him as someone with a more modern and equitable view of race relations. Certainly, in his actions, he showed much
more care toward indigenous people than the average English settler.

  arms deal between the two countries: Davis, Into the Silence, 127.

  McGovern’s book: To Lhasa in Disguise, by William Montgomery McGovern (Long Riders’ Guild Press, 2017; first published, New York: Century, 1924). We know from official British correspondence regarding Wilson that McGovern’s story was compared to Wilson’s.

  He met a man named Karma Paul: The spelling of Karma Paul varies. Wilson spells the name Kharma Paul or Kharma Pal in letters home.

  He was quite young: The Assault on Mount Everest, 1922, by Brigadier-General Charles Bruce (London: Edward Arnold, 1923).

  You know I haven’t a girl-friend: In the same letter, Wilson tells Enid, “if Len brings his worldly wise wisdom into the arena of our little confidential chats, why, you’re just the one to sock him on the nose without any fear of retaliation. Or you might even burn the soup, or dish up his steak tough and cold: anyway there’s more ways than one of bringing a man to heel…” The tone of this suggestion seems playful. There can be no doubt that Len Evans at some level acceded to or even encouraged his wife’s relationship with Wilson.

  None of her letters to Wilson survive: Both these letters from Enid to Wilson, and the Cine-Kodak film, are missing. It is reported in E. E. English’s letter of July 1934 that the bundle containing these items was handed to the Bhutias, who then handed them over in Darjeeling to British officials. You must assume they made their way back to Len Evans.

  Ruttledge would later describe Tewang: Ruttledge, Everest 1933, 122.

  CHAPTER 10: ALL PRETTY

  Rongbuk must be one of the highest: Ruttledge, Everest 1933, 98.

  obituary of Charles Warren: Ed Douglas’s obituary of Charles Warren was published in The Guardian in 1999: https://www.theguardian.com/news/1999/apr/19/guardianobituaries.

  One sees across miles of blue seracs: Ruttledge, Everest 1933, 107.

  Photography can give no true picture: Ibid., 111.

  glacier lassitude: An intriguing discussion on the nature and origins of the term glacier lassitude is at https://people.wou.edu/~postonp/everest/GlacierLassitude.html.

  CHAPTER 11: MOORLAND GRASS

  Battle of Neuve Chapelle: Keegan, First World War, 213. A wounded Rajput soldier wrote home from Neuve Chapelle, “This is not war, it is the ending of the world.”

  their only protection from the wet grass: Tempest’s account, in History of the Sixth Battalion, of the First Sixth’s wartime experiences, as well as Victor Wilson’s military and medical records, informs this section.

  “Well, you damned soon will be”: Tempest, History of the Sixth Battalion, 26.

  seven thousand Allied soldiers: The shocking “wastage” statistic comes from Fussell, Great War and Modern Memory.

  French village of Bullecourt: The two attacks on Bullecourt are recorded in a number of places. This is a good overview: http://www.remembrancetrails-northernfrance.com/history/battles/the-two-battles-of-bullecourt-april-and-may-1917.html.

  CHAPTER 12: CHEERIO

  Frederick Williamson: Williamson fought in the First World War, in Mesopotamia, and then in Palestine and India in 1918–19. He became a political officer in Sikkim in 1926 and then consul general to Kashgar in 1927, before returning to Sikkim in 1931. He spoke many languages and traveled widely. In 1933, he married an equally intrepid woman called Margaret. The pair went on wonderful journeys together in Tibet and Bhutan and took more than seventeen hundred photographs, many of which survive. Williamson died suddenly of an illness in 1935. Margaret remembered their time together in a book, Memoirs of a Political Officer’s Wife: In Tibet, Sikkim, and Bhutan, which was first published in London in 1949. His obituary is printed by the Himalayan Club: https://www.himalayanclub.org/hj/08/15/in-memoriam-21/.

  Günter Dyhrenfurth: In 1963, Dyhrenfurth’s son, Norman, led the first American expedition to the summit of Everest.

  when we arrive: In one letter home, Wilson had raised the intriguing prospect of Rinzing traveling back to London with him after the climb on Everest was completed.

  EPILOGUE

  the Evening Standard of London quoted her: Evening Standard, July 18, 1934.

  Later, Shipton and his team: The diaries of fellow members of Shipton’s party show that the climbers were puzzled by what had happened to Wilson in his final days. He had died so close to where his porters were staying, apparently inside his tent, and in easy reach of the food dump. It seemed to several of the 1935 climbers that the Bhutias might simply have abandoned Wilson soon after he made his last attempt on the mountain. But others were more generous to the Bhutias. In his self-published book, Mount Everest: The Reconnaissance 1935 (2005), Tony Astill has helpfully included the party’s reaction to finding Wilson. Shipton writes that Wilson must have been “worn out” and “weakened by the severe weather conditions.” Edmund Wigram wondered whether the fact that Wilson had died so close to where the Bhutias were apparently waiting at Camp III was explained by the weather. “Perhaps the storm was very bad,” he wrote. Dan Bryant, a New Zealander, was profoundly moved by Wilson’s story. He wrote that nobody would ever know what really happened during Wilson’s last days: “the rest is silence and conjecture.”

  James Morris: James Morris would later transition. She became known as Jan Morris. She is now ninety-three years old, and a world-famous travel writer.

  as a memento: This grisly fact was reported by George Martin of Everestnews.com.

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  Alice Diamond and the Forty Elephants, by Brian McDonald (Milo Books, 2015).

  Beyond the Blue Horizon, by Alexander Frater (William Heinemann, 1986).

  Bradford in the Great War, edited by Mike Woods and Tricia Platts (Sutton Publishing, 2007).

  Bradford Pals, by David Raw (Pen & Sword Military, 2005).

  Bradford: Remembering 1914–1918, by Dr. Kathryn Hughes (History Press, 2015).

  Camp Six, by Frank Smythe (Hodder & Stoughton, 1937).

  Climbing Everest: The Complete Writings of George Mallory, by George Mallory (Gibson Square Books, 2012).

  The Contrary Experience: Autobiographies, by Herbert Read, DSO, MC (Faber & Faber, 1963).

  The Crystal Horizon, by Reinhold Messner (published in English by Crowood Press, 1989; first published in Germany in 1982).

  The de Havilland DH.60 Moth, by Stuart McKay (Amberley, 2016).

  Dismembering the Male: Men’s Bodies, Britain and the Great War, by Joanna Bourke (Reaktion Books, 1996).

  “The Ecstasy of Maurice Wilson,” essay in The Believer, by Keir Roper-Caldbeck (2014).

  Everest 1933, by Hugh Ruttledge (Hodder & Stoughton, 1934).

  The First Day on the Somme, 1 July 1916, by Martin Middlebrook (Allen Lane, 1971).

  First over Everest: The Houston–Mount Everest Expedition, 1933, by Air Commodore P. F. M Fellowes, DSO, L. V. Stewart Blacker, OBE, PS., Colonel P. T. Etherton, and Squadron Leader the Marquess of Douglas and Clydesdale, MP (Bodley Head, 1933).

  The First World War, by John Keegan (Hutchinson, 1998).

  The Great War and Modern Memory, by Paul Fussell (Oxford University Press, 1975).

  Harrogate Terriers: The 1/5th (Territorial) Battalion West Yorkshire Regiment in the Great War, by John Sheehan (Pen & Sword Military, 2017).

  History of the Sixth Battalion West Yorkshire Regiment: Volume 1, 1/6th Battalion, by Captain E. V. Tempest, DSO, MC (Percy Lund, Humphries, 1921).

  I’ll Climb Mount Everest Alone, by Dennis Roberts (Faber Finds, 2010; first published by Faber in 1957).

  The Infinite Air: A Novel, Fiona Kidman (Aardvark Bureau, 2016).

  In Flanders Fields, by Leon Wolff (Longmans Green, 1959).

  In Retreat, by Herbert Read, DSO, MC (Hogarth Press, 1925).

  Into the Silence: The Great War, Mallory, and the Conquest of Everest, by Wade Davis (Bodley Head, 2011).

  Jean Batten: The Garbo of the Skies, by Ian Mackersey (Macdonald, 1991).

  The Lonely Sea and
the Sky, by Sir Francis Chichester (Summersdale, 2012; first published by Hodder & Stoughton, 1964).

  Margin Released: A Writer’s Reminiscences and Reflections, by J. B. Priestley (Harper & Row, 1962).

  Maurice Wilson: A Yorkshireman on Everest, by Ruth Hanson (Hayloft, 2008).

  Mount Everest: The Reconnaissance 1935, by Tony Astill (Tony Astill, 2005).

  Passchendaele: A New History, by Nick Lloyd (Viking, 2017).

  Sexual Life in Ancient Greece, by Hans Licht, translated by J. H. Freese (Constable, 1994; first published in Great Britain by G. Routledge and Sons, 1931).

  Shipton & Tilman: The Great Decade of Himalayan Exploration, by Jim Perrin (Arrow Books, 2014).

  Solo: The Great Adventures Alone, edited by Harry Roskolenko (Playboy Press, 1973).

  A Supernatural War: Magic, Divination, and Faith during the First World War, by Owen Davies (Oxford University Press, 2018).

  Undertones of War, by Edmund Blunden (Penguin Classics, 2000: first published by Penguin Books, 1928).

  A War of Nerves: Soldiers and Psychiatrists, 1914–1994, by Ben Shephard (Pimlico, 2002; first published by Jonathan Cape, 2000).

  The Western Front, by Richard Holmes (TV Books, 2000).

  Younghusband: The Last Great Imperial Adventurer, by Patrick French (Penguin, 1994).

  Zero Hour: 100 Years on from the Parapet of the Somme, by Jolyon Fenwick (Profile Books, 2016).

  IMAGE CREDITS

  Page Credit

  32 Courtesy of Derrick Carter

  49 The Wedding of Mary Garden, photograph by Crown Studios (Wellington, NZ), Alexander Turnbull Library (NZ) Ref: 1/1-038629-F