“Why not start with Ruth. Did you get the chance to visit her when you were last on leave?”
“Yes. I dropped in to The Holt on my way back to Dover.”
“And how is she?” asked George, trying not to sound impatient.
“As beautiful as ever, and seems to have fully recovered.”
“Fully recovered?” said George anxiously.
“Following the birth of your second child,” said Young.
“My second child?” said George.
“You mean to say that nobody’s told you that you’re the proud father of…” He paused. “I think it was a girl.”
George offered up a silent prayer to a God he didn’t believe in. “And how is she?” he demanded.
“Seemed fine to me,” said Young. “But then, to be honest, I can never tell one baby from another.”
“What color are her eyes?”
“I’ve no idea, old chap.”
“And is her hair fair or dark?”
“Sort of in between, I think, although I could be wrong.”
“You’re hopeless. Has Ruth decided on a name?”
“I had a ghastly feeling you might ask me that.”
“Could it be Elizabeth?”
“I don’t think so. More unusual than that. It will come to me in a moment.”
George burst out laughing. “Spoken like a true bachelor.”
“Well, you’ll find out for yourself soon enough,” said Young, “because the doc tells me he’s sending you home. Just make sure you don’t come back. You’ve done more than enough to salve your conscience, and there’s certainly no need to shorten the odds against you.”
George thought about a dead corporal who would have agreed with Young.
“What other news?” asked George.
“Some good, some bad—mostly bad I’m afraid.” George remained silent while Young tried to compose himself. “Rupert Brooke died at Lemnos while on his way to Gallipoli—even before he reached some foreign field.”
George pursed his lips. He’d kept a book of Brooke’s poetry in his knapsack, and had assumed that once the war was over he must surely produce some memorable verse. George didn’t interrupt as he waited for other names to be added to the inevitable list of dead. One he dreaded most.
“Siegfried Herford bought it at Ypres, poor devil; it took him three days to die.” Young sighed. “If a man like that has to die before his time, it shouldn’t be on some muddy field in no man’s land, but on the summit of a great mountain he’s just conquered.”
“And Somervell?” George dared to ask.
“He’s had to witness some of the worst atrocities this war could throw at a man, poor fellow. Being a front-line surgeon can’t be much fun, but he never complains.”
“Odell?”
“Wounded three times. The War Office finally got the message and sent him back to Cambridge, but only after his old college had offered him a fellowship. Someone up there has at last worked out that we’re going to need our finest minds once this mess has been sorted out.”
“And Finch? I’ll bet he found himself some cushy number taking care of nurses.”
“Far from it,” said Young. “He volunteered to head up a bomb disposal unit, so his chances of survival are even less than the boys at the Front. He’s had several offers of a safe job in Whitehall, but he always turns them down—it’s almost as if he wants to die.”
“No,” said George, “he doesn’t want to die. Finch is one of those rare individuals who doesn’t believe anyone or anything can kill him. Remember him singing ‘Waltzing Matilda’ on Mont Blanc?”
Young chuckled. “And to cap it all, they’re going to give him an MBE.”
“Good heavens,” laughed George, “nothing will stop him now.”
“Unless you do,” said Young quietly, “once that ankle of yours is healed. My bet is that you two will still be the first to stand on the top of the world.”
“With you, as usual, a pace ahead of us.”
“I’m afraid that will no longer be possible, old boy.”
“Why not? You’re still a young man.”
“True,” said Young. “But it might not prove quite that easy, with one of these.” He pulled up his left trouser leg to reveal an artificial limb.
“I’m so sorry,” said George, shocked. “I had no idea.”
“Don’t worry about it, old fellow,” said Young. “I’m just thankful to be alive. However, once this war is over there are no prizes for guessing who I’ll be recommending to the Everest Committee as climbing leader.”
Ruth was sitting by the window in the drawing room when a khaki-colored car drove through the front gates. She couldn’t make out who was behind the wheel, apart from the fact that he or she was in uniform.
Ruth was already outside by the time the young woman driver stepped out of the car and opened the back door. The first thing to emerge was a pair of crutches, followed by a pair of legs, followed by her husband. Ruth dashed down the steps and threw her arms around him. She kissed him as if it were the first time, which brought back memories of a sleeping compartment in the train home from Venice. The driver stood to attention, looking slightly embarrassed.
“Thank you, Corporal,” said George with a grin. She saluted, climbed back into the car, and drove off.
Ruth eventually let go of George, but only because he refused to allow her to help him up the steps and into the house. As she walked beside him into the drawing room, George demanded, “Where’s my little girl?”
“She’s in the nursery with Clare and nanny. I’ll go and fetch them.”
“What’s her name?” George called after her, but Ruth was already halfway up the stairs.
George propelled himself into the drawing room and fell into a chair by the window. He didn’t remember a chair being there before, and wondered why it was facing outward. He looked at the English countryside that he loved so much, reminded once again of just how lucky he was to be alive. Brooke, Herford, Wainwright, Carter minor, Davies, Perkins…
His thoughts were interrupted by cries that he heard long before he set eyes on his second daughter. George heaved himself up as Ruth and Nanny Mallory entered the room with his two daughters. He hugged Clare for some time before taking the little bundle in his arms.
“Fair hair and blue eyes,” he said.
“I thought you already knew that,” said Ruth. “Didn’t you get my letters?”
“Sadly not. Only your messenger, Geoffrey Young, who just about remembered that it was a girl, and certainly couldn’t recall her name.”
“That’s funny,” said Ruth, “because I asked him if he’d be godfather, and he agreed.”
“So you don’t know her name, Daddy?” said Clare, jumping up and down.
“No, I don’t,” said George. “Is it Elizabeth?”
“No, Daddy, don’t be silly. It’s Beridge,” said Clare, laughing.
More unusual than that, said George to himself, recalling Geoffrey Young’s words.
After only a few moments in George’s arms, Beridge began howling, and nanny quickly took charge of her. The child obviously didn’t appreciate being held by a strange man.
“Let’s have half a dozen more,” said George, taking Ruth in his arms once nanny had taken Clare and Beridge back to the nursery.
“Behave yourself, George,” teased Ruth. “Try to remember that you’re no longer on the front line with your troops.”
“Some of the finest men I’ve ever known,” said George sadly.
Ruth smiled. “Will you miss them?”
“Not half as much as I’ve missed you.”
“So now you’re back, my darling, what’s the first thing you’d like to do?”
George thought about Private Matthews’s response when he’d been asked the same question. He smiled to himself, realizing that there wasn’t a great deal of difference between an officer and a private soldier.
He bent down and began to untie his shoelace.
Selecting the Team
1921
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 22ND, 1921
WHEN GEORGE CAME down to breakfast that morning, nobody spoke.
“What’s going on?” he asked as he took his place at the head of the table between his two daughters.
“I know,” said Clare, “but Mummy told me not to tell you.”
“What about Beridge?” said George.
“Don’t be silly, Daddy, you know Beridge can’t read.”
“Read?” said George, looking at Clare more closely. “Sherlock Holmes would have told us that read was the first clue.”
“Who’s Sherlock Holmes?” demanded Clare.
“A great detective,” said George. “He would have looked around the room to see what there was to read. Now, could this secret possibly be in the newspaper?”
“Yes,” said Clare, clapping her hands. “And Mummy says it’s something you’ve wanted all your life.”
“Another clue,” said George, picking up that morning’s Times, which was open at page eleven. He smiled the moment he saw the headline. “Your mother is quite right.”
“Read the story, Daddy, read the story.”
“MP Nancy Astor has made a speech in the House of Commons on women’s rights.” George looked up at Ruth and said, “I only wish I was having breakfast with your father this morning.”
“Perhaps,” said Ruth, “but Sherlock Holmes would tell you that you’re wasting your time. Mrs. Astor’s speech is nothing more than a red herring.”
George began to turn the page. Ruth smiled when she saw his hand begin to tremble. She hadn’t seen that look on his face since…
“Read the story, Daddy.”
George dutifully obeyed. “‘Sir Francis Younghusband,’” he began, “‘announced last night that the Royal Geographical Society will be joining forces with the Alpine Club to form an Everest Committee, of which he will be the chairman, with Mr. Geoffrey Young as his deputy.’” He looked up to see Ruth smiling at him.
“Keep on reading, Daddy, keep on reading.”
“‘The committee’s first task will be to select a party of climbers who will make the first assault on Mount Everest.’”
George looked up again. Ruth was still smiling. He quickly returned to the article before Clare could admonish him again. “‘Our correspondent understands that among the names being canvassed for climbing leader are Mr. George Mallory, a schoolmaster at Charterhouse, and Mr. George Finch, an Australian scientist, currently lecturing at Imperial College, London.’”
“But no one’s been in touch with me,” said George.
Ruth was still smiling as she handed him an envelope that had arrived in the morning post, bearing the Royal Geographical Society’s crest on the back. “Elementary, my dear Watson,” she said.
“Who’s Watson?” demanded Clare.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
NONE OF THE five men seated around the table particularly liked each other, but that was not their purpose. They had all been chosen as members of the Everest Committee for different reasons.
The chairman, Sir Francis Younghusband, had been closer to Everest than any of them, forty miles, when he had been entrusted to negotiate terms with the Dalai Lama for the expedition’s safe crossing of the border into Tibet; the exact words had been spelled out in a treaty signed earlier that year by Lord Curzon, the Foreign Secretary. Sir Francis sat bolt upright at the head of the table, his feet not quite touching the floor, as he stood barely five foot one. His thick, wavy gray hair and lined forehead give him an air of authority that was rarely questioned.
On his left sat Arthur Hinks, the secretary of the committee, whose primary purpose was to protect the reputation of the RGS, which he represented and which paid his annual stipend. His forehead was not yet lined, and the few tufts of hair left on his otherwise bald head were not yet gray. On the table in front of him were several files, and a newly acquired minute book. Some wags claimed that he wrote up the minutes of a meeting the day before it took place, so he could be certain that everything went as planned. No one would have suggested as much to his face.
On Hinks’s left sat Mr. Raeburn, who had once been considered a fine alpinist. But the cigar he held permanently in one hand, and the paunch pressed against the edge of the table, meant that only those with good memories could recall his climbing days.
Opposite him sat Commander Ashcroft, a retired naval officer who always had a snifter with Hinks just before a meeting opened, so that he could be instructed how to cast his vote. He’d reached the rank of commander by never disobeying orders. His weatherbeaten face and white beard would have left even a casual observer in no doubt where he’d spent the majority of his days. On his left, and the chairman’s right, sat a man who had hoped to be the first person to stand on top of the world, until the Germans had put a stop to that.
The grandfather clock at one end of the room chimed six and it pleased Sir Francis that he didn’t have to call for order. After all, the men seated around the table were used to giving and taking orders. “Gentlemen,” he said, “it is an honor for me to open this inaugural meeting of the Everest Committee. Following the success of the expedition that surveyed the outlying regions of the Himalaya last year, our purpose is now to identify a group of climbers who are capable of planting the Union Jack at the summit of the highest mountain on earth. I was recently granted an audience with His Majesty—” Sir Francis glanced up at the portrait of their patron hanging on the wall—“and I assured him that one of his subjects would be the first man to stand on the summit of Everest.”
“Hear, hear,” mumbled Raeburn and Ashcroft in unison.
Sir Francis paused, and looked down at the notes prepared for him by Hinks. “Our first task this evening will be to appoint a leader to take the team we select as far as the foothills of the Himalaya, where he will set up a base camp, probably at around 17,000 feet. Our second duty will be to choose a climbing leader. For some years, gentlemen, I had anticipated that that man would be Mr. Geoffrey Winthrop Young, but due to an injury he sustained in the war, that will sadly not be possible. However, we are still able to call upon his vast experience of and expertise in climbing matters, and warmly welcome him to this committee as deputy chairman.” Young gave a slight bow. “I will now call upon Mr. Hinks to guide us through the agenda for this meeting.”
“Thank you, Mr. Chairman,” said Hinks, touching his mustache. “As you have reminded us, our first duty is to select a leader for the expedition. This must be a man of resolute character and proven leadership ability, preferably with some experience of the Himalaya. He must also be skilled in diplomacy, in case there should be any trouble with the natives.”
“Hear, hear,” said a member of the committee, sounding to Young as if he was coming in on cue.
“Gentlemen,” continued Hinks, “I am in no doubt that we have identified the one man who embodies all these characteristics, namely General Charles Granville Bruce, late of the Fifth Royal Gurkha Rifles. The committee may be interested to know that the General is the youngest son of Lord Aberdare, and was educated at Harrow and Sandhurst.”
Raeburn and Ashcroft immediately responded again with “Hear, hear.”
“I have no hesitation, therefore, in recommending to the committee that we appoint General Bruce as campaign leader, and invite him to join us as a member.”
“That all sounds very satisfactory,” said Younghusband. “Can I assume that the committee is in agreement, and that Bruce is the obvious man for the job?” He glanced around the table, to find that all but one of the committee members were nodding.
“Mr. Chairman,” said Young, “this decision as to who should lead the expedition has been taken by the RGS, and rightly so. However, as I was not privy to the selection process, I am curious to know if any other candidate was considered for the post.”
“Perhaps you would care to answer that query, Mr. Hinks,” s
aid Younghusband.
“Of course, Mr. Chairman,” responded Hinks, placing a pair of half-moon spectacles on the end of his nose. “Several names were put forward for our consideration, but frankly, Young, it quickly became clear that General Bruce was head and shoulders above the rest.”
“I hope that answers your question, Young,” said Sir Francis.
“I hope so too, Mr. Chairman,” said Young.
“Then perhaps the time has come to invite the General to join us,” said Sir Francis.
Hinks coughed.
“Yes, Mr. Hinks?” said Sir Francis. “Have I forgotten something?”
“No, Mr. Chairman,” said Hinks, peering over the top of his spectacles. “But perhaps we should put the matter to a vote before General Bruce is elected as a member of the committee?”
“Yes, of course,” said Sir Francis. “I propose that General Bruce be appointed as leader of the expedition, and be co-opted onto this committee. Will someone please second that motion?” Hinks immediately raised his hand.
“Those in favor?” said Sir Francis.
Four hands shot up.
“Those against?”
No hands were raised.
“Are there any abstentions?”
Young raised his hand.
“Before you make a note in the minutes, Mr. Hinks,” said Younghusband, “don’t you think, Young, that it would be helpful if we were to give General Bruce our unanimous support?”
“In normal circumstances I would agree with you, Mr. Chairman,” said Young. Sir Francis smiled. “However, I feel it would be irresponsible of me to vote for a man I’ve never met, however well qualified he appears to be.”
“So be it,” said Sir Francis. “I declare the motion carried by four votes to none, with one abstention.”
“Shall I ask General Bruce to join us?” said Hinks.
“Yes, please do,” replied Sir Francis.
Hinks rose from his place and a porter immediately jumped up, opened the door at the far end of the room, and stood aside to allow him to enter an ante-room where three men were seated, waiting to be called before the committee.
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