The ship rolled slightly under him, raising a chorus of metallic clangs and creaks from nearby lifeboats and chains. Ignoring the clamour, he pulled out his diary from the pocket of his dinner jacket. The bold dates at the top of the pages were barely visible in the gathering darkness. He leaned farther over the railing to catch some of the light reflecting off the water. He counted down the days. Two more nights. Then the Indian subcontinent, the baked heat of it, the blaze of exotic chaos before they disappeared off the map. He wanted it to burn the salt, the smell of fish and algae from his nostrils. The ocean air was too thick and heavy. It clung to him, clogged up his lungs.
“Am I interrupting?”
George glanced up. “Not at all,” he said, as Sandy Irvine stepped to the railing beside him. George closed up his diary, trying to remember what he had written about Sandy in his letter to Ruth. Probably some remark about the boy’s bulk, the sheer size of him. Our attempt at a superman, he remembered. He slipped the diary back into his pocket, removed his cigarettes, and offered one to Sandy, who shook his head and leaned forward against the rail. Behind them, the dining room was ablaze with light as waiters cleared tables and joked with one another, louder than when there were diners present.
“Missed you at the shuffleboard contest this afternoon,” Sandy said.
“Not really my game.”
“I won.”
Of course you did, George thought as Sandy described the closeness of the match. He suspected physical challenges came easily to the boy. Sandy was the largest member of the entire team – not the tallest, but he seemed stronger than any of the other climbers.
“Sandy’s the Committee’s attempt to inject some young blood into the expedition,” Teddy Norton, the expedition leader, had explained months ago when George questioned the boy’s inclusion. “To balance out our, shall we say, experience.” Teddy had raised an eyebrow as he said the word.
“They think brute strength is the way to go, then?” George had responded. “You and I both know it takes more than muscle to get to the summit. And he doesn’t look like much of a climber. He’s too big. With too much weight to carry up an incline.”
“You imagined someone more like you, I suspect,” Teddy had teased.
But the best climbers were built like him. And Teddy, George thought. Long and thin, with a good reach.
Now, next to Sandy on the deck, George pulled himself up to his full height and ran a hand through his hair, stretched out the muscles in his back. Still, if the boy could continue to sharpen his skills, he might be of some use higher up on the mountain.
“Have you been practising the knots I showed you?” he asked now.
“I know those knots already.”
“You’ll want the practise, believe me. When your fingers are frozen and your brain is fizzing away and suffocating, you’ll pray your body remembers what it needs to all on its own. Practise.”
“I have climbed before. In Spitsbergen with Odell. I wasn’t bad at it. Quite good, even.”
Of course he was. “Sandy, this won’t be like anything you’ve ever done before. God, we could all die a dozen times before we even get to the mountain – malaria, wild animals, a fall down a cliff face. And then there’s the mountain itself.” He sounded as if he was back in front of the classroom at Charterhouse, the bored faces of his students glaring up at him.
He inhaled and tried again. “There’s just no way to know how you’ll respond. Not at those altitudes. Twenty-nine thousand feet. That’s much higher than even the Camels fly. And those pilots, they’d pass out without their oxygen masks. My brother, Trafford, was a pilot. He loved flying. But he told me he thought he was going to die the first few times he went up. From the vertigo and nausea. That’s what it’s like on Everest all the time. Like the most terrible influenza you’ve ever had. Like something horrible is sitting on your chest, ripping at it. Everything just hurts. Your joints, your bones, your skin even. And the only way to end it is to climb the bloody mountain.”
“So.” Sandy turned to stare at him dead in the eye. His were striking, a flat blue colour. Almost too pale, like light reflecting off stagnant water. “Tell me again why we’re going?” He reached over and punched George lightly in the shoulder, more a push than a punch. Then he smiled and his face opened with it and his eyes weren’t flat anymore; they deepened, the colour shifting. “Just joking,” he said. “I wouldn’t be anywhere else.” He turned back to the expanse of water before them.
Behind them, through the open window of the captain’s salon, George could hear the clink of glasses, the laughter and chatter of their other teammates – the expedition leader, Edward “Teddy” Norton, along with the team doctor, Howard Somervell, and the naturalist Noel Odell. The three of them, along with George and Sandy, would make up the climbing team. There were two more men awaiting them in Bombay – Shebbeare and Hazard – soldiers attached to the local Gurkha regiments who knew the Tibetan languages and customs (more so even than Teddy) and would serve as their translators and guides.
Every so often, the pop and flash of John Noel’s camera strobed across the deck, punctuating the distant murmur of conversation. George couldn’t make out any of the words but he could imagine easily enough what was being said. He was already tired of the same old conversations – provisions, oxygen, strategy. And Teddy’s waffling. Somervell’s condescension. Odell’s insistence that he knew what was best.
“Look at that,” Sandy said, pointing to the black water roiling in the wake. A green phosphorescence bloomed just beneath the surface of the water where the California had passed.
“It’s algae,” George said, watching the glowing trail stretch out behind the ship.
“Incredible.” Sandy’s voice, hushed now, slipped in with the murmur of the engines deep inside the ship. “Odell told me about this green glow once, on the way to Spitsbergen. We went out on deck every night, but I never saw anything. So strange. Reminds me of the Northern Lights we saw once we arrived in Greenland.”
“Mmmm.” George leaned over the railing to get a closer look. Cool air rose up from the ocean eighty feet below. He’d never seen the Northern Lights, but this colour was too heavy, too viscous to be thought of as light. It reminded him of the seeping gases in the trenches, in the shell-holes of no-man’s-land. It moved the same way, wet and congealing as it rolled and gathered in pockets, thicker, heavier than the medium it travelled in. He remembered how the gas crept towards you, like it knew where you were. Stalked you. His throat tightened; he could smell the rubber of the gas masks. George straightened up and inhaled deeply into his lungs: salt, oil, the tobacco burning in his hand.
He shook his head free of the memory and took another drag from his cigarette. Sandy would be too young to remember much of the war. “How old did you say you were, Sandy?”
Sandy bristled next to him. “Twenty-one. I know what you’re thinking, but I’m ready for this. Maybe, as you’ve said, Everest is different, but Spitsbergen wasn’t easy. God, the cold there. The snow would melt inside our boots, down our collars, so it was impossible to stay dry. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. But it was incredible – to feel like what I was doing mattered, that people were counting on it. Like this does. Don’t you feel that too? We have to succeed. We have to. Everyone’s counting on us.”
There was a sharp laugh from down the deck. A woman, her laugh too forced. Clearly her companion wasn’t the least bit funny, though she wanted him to think he was. George flicked his cigarette out to sea.
“That’s what my mum thinks too,” Sandy went on. “That I’m too young. She’s worried I’m going to get myself killed. ‘Haven’t enough boys already died?’ she said. I told her I’d be fine. But she stopped speaking to me before I left. She hugged me goodbye, but wouldn’t say anything to me.” Sandy grasped at the railing, then shoved himself away, as if willing the ship to hurry up. As if he could will the outcome of the expedition from here. “But when we succeed,” Sandy continued, “when we climb E
verest, then she’ll understand why it had to be done.”
George glanced over at Sandy. The boy really believed they couldn’t fail.
“They grow out of it,” George said. “Mothers.” He stuffed his hands in his pockets. “Mine doesn’t worry much anymore. ‘But I do wonder about you,’ she says, and I like the idea of her wondering.” His father, though. He would have preferred Sandy’s mother’s silence to his own father’s over-loud opinions.
The two men grew quiet as a couple passed by them, leaning close together, voices low and intimate. Sandy watched after them and didn’t speak again until the sound of their footsteps had faded. “I suppose one gets used to it eventually. Being so far away?”
How to answer that? Clearly Sandy was looking for some kind of reassurance, but George wasn’t sure he could give it. “No, you don’t,” he said finally. “Or at least I never have.” Even now he felt torn. Part of him hated being separated from Ruth and the children. And another part hated himself for being so damn sentimental. It was weak. Still, there was the luxury of freedom this far from home. He felt different away from Ruth, away from everyday life, and he was never quite sure which person he was, which he wanted to be.
Somewhere down the deck a door opened and closed, releasing strains of music. Beside him, Sandy picked up the tune, humming a moment before trailing off, as if he hadn’t noticed he was doing it.
Ruth did that, hummed fragments of songs or tunes she made up without realizing. She laughed when he pointed it out to her. “I wasn’t humming,” she’d tease. “You’re hearing things.” Dear God, but he missed her.
“Still, I’m glad to be here.” Sandy seemed to rush his words, as if his concern over his family might have been misunderstood. “I mean, I’m glad you picked me for the expedition.”
“It wasn’t really my decision,” he said and felt Sandy retreat somewhat beside him. He hadn’t meant it like that. “Odell’s a good man. Proved himself before on big mountains and he’s a first-rate naturalist too. He’s brought home at least a dozen new species of plants. This time it seems he’s hoping for fossils. His recommendation would have been taken very seriously. Obviously it was.” He went on. “Odell wants to prove that Everest was once at the bottom of the ocean. Imagine that.” George stared out over the rolling water moving away and away. Tried to imagine the depth of it. As deep as Everest was high. “Ridiculous, really.”
“What does it matter?”
“Exactly.”
“All that matters is that it’s there.”
He looked sidelong at Sandy, who smiled, teasing him with his own flippant quotation. “I haven’t heard that one before,” George said.
“Couldn’t resist.” Sandy stared up at the night sky, the shapes of foreign constellations. The damp air settled on him, and the faintest dusting of salt water coated his lapels. Backlit by the night sky, Sandy made a handsome shadow. A fresh burst of talk came from behind them, followed by staccato laughter. It sounded like Somervell. Sandy turned towards the sound now. “Shall we rejoin them?”
“You go ahead. I have some letters I’d like to get written. Besides, it’ll just be the same old conversations.”
“If you’re sure.” Before he moved away, Sandy peered over the railing again. “It’s gone.” There was disappointment in his voice.
For a moment, George wasn’t sure what Sandy meant, then he noticed a fresh darkness in the water, deeper than it had been a few minutes ago. The algae had disappeared, the green behind them had faded away; all that was left was the black boil of the ocean.
“I’ll let you know what you missed.” Sandy paused a moment, as if expecting something, before walking towards the salon.
George knew that Sandy had been watching him, measuring him. What did he see? An old man? Thirty-seven wasn’t so old. He was strong, in good shape. A perfect specimen for the expedition, his medical report had read. Sure the others were fit. They had to be. None of them were slouches. Though Odell was much too weedy. There wasn’t much there for the mountain to rip off him. But Sandy. Sandy looked stronger than any of them.
George turned back to face the ocean and watched the waves, peak after peak, as far as he could see.
THE PORT AT BOMBAY was overwhelming. George had tried to describe the chaos of it to him, but still it was more than Sandy could have expected.
It didn’t help that he’d slept only fitfully as they waited for landfall. Between his nerves and the wash of sounds that came from the city, he’d woken up again and again. It’s almost like Christmas morning, he’d written to Marjory in the middle of the night, using his torch, until Odell in the bunk below had thudded on the underside of Sandy’s bed and muttered at him to go the hell to sleep.
When dawn finally arrived, it was a relief. Now Sandy stood on the deck, stunned to silence by the port. After the long days at sea, even the air was different, no longer scoured clean by ocean winds. Here the air was thick in his nose and lungs. He could taste it – diesel and something frying, rotten fish and the stinking detritus of the harbour. From high above he watched the scurry and swirl of men in white suits and kurtas, their heads covered in reddish turbans or tan pith helmets. Scattered among them were women in jewel-coloured saris – greens and pinks no Englishwoman would wear. A sea of people all blurred by the heat.
A thump on his back pulled him back from his thoughts. “You should probably be about something,” George said as he strode down the gangplank into the commotion below. He was right, but Sandy couldn’t tear himself away. Even if he returned to Bombay over and over, the way George had, he knew he would never see it like this first time ever again. Ahead of him was the great Gateway, and behind that the Taj Mahal Hotel with its minarets and turrets. That’s where they were staying. Just for the one night. One last glimpse of luxury, Odell had said, before they pushed out across the countryside and through the provinces, sleeping in train cars and tents.
As Sandy made his way down into the crowd, he spotted Odell bent over a large crate, wiping at the sweat on his brow and swatting away a skinny child who had approached him, hands out. He couldn’t bring himself to ask Odell for an assignment. True, he wouldn’t be here without Odell’s recommendation, but he didn’t want to always be associated with the naturalist. And he didn’t need taking care of. If he stood a chance at the summit, it wouldn’t be with Odell. George would never pair them together – they were the wrong combination of strength and experience. Or lack thereof.
Colonel Norton was coming down the gangway with the purser. I like Norton, Sandy had written to Marjory the previous night. Teddy, as the others call him. He’s the expedition leader. He’s been in the military all his life – spent more time abroad than in England. Apparently he hosts a mean pig-sticking competition out here in the colonies. Though he seems too civilized – too neat – for something that barbaric. Norton seems calm in a way that George (who’s the climbing leader) doesn’t. George is always moving, fidgeting, even when he’s just sitting at his desk. He’s forever picking things up, putting them down. Norton, though, moves more slowly, talks more slowly. He says something once and he says it right.
Sandy made to intercept Norton, dodging around a group of small Indian men, but he was stopped by a petite figure stepping in front of him. “You’re best to keep an eye on anyone getting too close,” Norton had warned before they disembarked. “Especially the children. They’ll beg with one hand and slip the other into your pocket.” Sandy stuffed his own hands into his pockets and stepped aside, shaking his head, trying to remember the Hindi word for no. But the figure continued to block him, and when he looked down he was surprised to find instead of a child a young woman. She was tiny, strangely so, as if cast in miniature, and dressed in white, her head draped with cloth. He wondered if she was a distraction, if someone else might try to pick his pocket now, but she appeared to be alone. She smelled sweet – not of perfume, but of some scent he didn’t recognize. She waved him down and he bent towards her, inhaling her, deeply. She r
eached up and touched the spot between his eyebrows but didn’t meet his eye. Instead she looked at his lips, the angle of bone below his ear. She pressed yellowed palms together and bowed to him.
He bowed back, still towering over her. She held out her hands. He dug in his pockets now for coins, but all he had was English money. He pressed a shilling into her hand and the yellow came off on his fingers, like pollen. She smiled up at him and bowed again, before she moved off to stop another disembarking passenger, who waved her away.
Sandy’s fingers found the spot where she had touched him. Amazing. It was all amazing.
“Sandy?” Odell was waving to him from where he struggled with a few of the larger crates. Beside him were Shebbeare and Hazard, neat in their tropical khakis. The last two members of the expedition had met the California when she docked and come on board armed with customs documents and contracts, details of what train they were to board and when. “Give us a hand?”
Sandy leaned over the crate and with a grunt he and Hazard hoisted it onto the truck. “We’ll take care of this,” Sandy told Odell, as he and Shebbeare bent for the next one.
“Just think,” Shebbeare smiled, “not long now and we’ll be carrying these up a mountain.”
Sandy was breathing hard and sweating as he turned the corner to sprint the last quarter mile to the hotel. Each step jolted his knees, his shins. It wasn’t a long run, but he did try to go all out, even against the stitch in his side, the shortness of breath. “Push yourself like you’re rowing your last eight,” Somervell had told him. “Come back good and spent.”
Even with the stiffness in his legs, he felt strong as he ran through the lobby and towards the lush courtyard where Somervell was waiting for him. And it did feel good to exert himself, to feel his body respond. The four weeks spent on the ship, even using the gymnasium and running the decks, had left him sluggish. That melted away now as his muscles burned back to life.
Above All Things Page 2
