The Everest Story by Tim Vicary. Part 4
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Chapter five
Saving the porters – 1924
The British climbers returned in April 1924. This time they planned to succeed. Edward Norton was the chief climber in the group of twelve men, and they had 150 Tibetan porters, both men and women, to help them. From Base Camp the porters carried equipment up to Camps 1 and 2 on the Rongbuk and East Rongbuk Glaciers. One woman carried her two-year-old child on top of an 18 kilogram load from 5,300 metres to 6,000 metres. Then she carried her child back down, and offered to go up again!
The next part was harder. On a cold, stormy day, Mallory, Irvine and two other climbers set out with twenty porters to carry equipment from Base Camp to Camp 3, but the weather was terrible. A strong wind blew down off the mountain, straight into their faces. The ice on the glacier was as clear and hard as glass. There were not enough tents at Camp 2, so some of the porters slept outside. Next morning they went on to Camp 3, but here it was even colder than before. That night the temperature fell to -29 degrees. The strong icy wind blew into the tents all night, so everyone – inside the tents – was covered with snow.
The storm blew for two more days. Many of the porters lay in their tents, not caring about life or death. At last the storm ended and they all went down to Base Camp to rest. Three men were seriously ill; another had bad frostbite on both feet.
The porters were unhappy and afraid. ‘The mountain is angry,’ they said. ‘It will kill us.’ So on 15 May all the climbers and porters went down the valley to the Rongbuk Monastery, where the chief monk said prayers for them. Next day the wind had gone, and the sky was clear and blue.
The climbers returned to Camp 3. Then they started to climb up the steep ice wall to the North Col, to make Camp 4. And once again, things went wrong.
The ice was covered with new snow after the storm. There were many crevasses – deep holes in the ice – which were difficult to see under the snow. This was the place where seven porters had died in 1922. This time four people set out – Mallory, Norton, Odell, and Lakpa Tsering. They climbed carefully, cutting steps in the snow. They crossed several deep crevasses. Then, just below the North Col, they came to a steep slope about 100 metres high. It was a dangerous place. The slope was covered with new soft snow. At the foot of the slope was a wall of ice, falling hundreds of metres to the valley below.
Mallory climbed slowly up the slope, while Norton and Odell held him from below on a rope. After half an hour they reached the top, and found a place for Camp 4.
But all the climbers were tired. On the way down the snow suddenly collapsed under Mallory’s feet and he fell into a crevasse. Only his ice axe, across the top of the crevasse, saved him. No one had seen him fall. He looked up, at the sky, then down, into the deep blue hole below him. One mistake here could mean death. Very slowly and carefully, he pulled his tired body up the ice wall and out onto the snow.
When the climbers got back to Camp 3 they were all exhausted. Their heads ached, and they coughed all night in the thin, cold air.
Next day, three more climbers – Somervell, Irvine, and Hazard – and twelve porters climbed the snow slope to Camp 4. Somervell and Irvine came down, leaving Hazard behind with the porters. That night it snowed heavily, and the temperature fell to -31 degrees. The exhausted porters shivered in their tents. All next day Norton, in Camp 3, waited for them to come down. At last, he saw them coming – black dots on the snow. But only eight porters and Hazard arrived at Camp 3. Four porters had turned back, afraid that they would fall.
So now four porters were alone at Camp 4. And more and more snow was falling, making the steep slope more dangerous than ever. Without help from the climbers, the porters would die.
All the climbers were tired and ill. Mallory and Somervell had bad throats and were coughing badly. It snowed heavily all night. But next morning Norton, Mallory, and Somervell climbed slowly up towards Camp 4. It was difficult, dangerous work. They reached the snow slope, and called out to the porters above them in words like these.
‘Are you alive?’ the climbers asked. ‘Can you walk?’
‘Yes sir,’ a porter answered. ‘But we’re afraid. It’s too dangerous. If we slip, we’ll fall, and die!’
‘If you stay there, you’ll die of cold,’ Norton said. ‘Wait there – we’re coming to get you.’
Very carefully, Somervell climbed across the steep slope, towards the four porters. He had a rope round his waist. Mallory and Norton held the rope from below, to keep Somervell safe. But when he was five metres away from the porters, Somervell reached the end of the rope.
‘What do I do now?’ he thought. ‘We have no more rope, and it will soon be dark.’
‘Come across!’ he called out to the porters. ‘It’s not far. Carefully, one at a time.’
The first two porters reached Somervell safely. Then they climbed past him, holding the rope, towards Norton and Mallory. Somervell looked at the last two porters.
‘Come on,’ he said. ‘It’s not difficult. One at a time.’
But the porters were afraid, and both started together. A second later they slipped and fell. They slid past Somervell down the slope, towards the valley thousands of metres below. But then, a few metres from the edge of the slope, they stopped.
‘Don’t move,’ Somervell said. ‘Just wait for me.’
He drove his ice axe deep into the snow. He untied the rope from his waist, and passed it round the head of the ice axe. Then, holding his end of the rope with one hand, Somervell climbed down until he could just reach the men with his other hand. He pulled up the first man, then the second. They climbed along the rope to Mallory and Norton. Somervell tied the rope round his waist again, and climbed back after them.
Even now they were not safe. It was nearly dark, and a long way above Camp 3. One of the porters, Namgya, could not use his hands, because he had bad frostbite. But at last they reached Camp 3, where two more climbers, Noel and Odell, were waiting with warm food.
All the climbers were exhausted. Mallory and Somervell could not stop coughing, and Norton’s feet hurt badly. Helping the four porters had made them very, very tired. And they were nowhere near the summit of Everest.
Slowly they went down to Camp 1. They needed time to rest, and to decide what to do next.