Above All Things (3 page)

“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 Everest, 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 reached 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.

He pulled up as he reached Somervell, who put down his pipe and newspaper and picked up his stethoscope. Sandy bent at the waist – his lungs heaved and sweat dripped from him onto the marble floor. The air was filled with the scent of the woman who had blessed him earlier, but now the smell was coming from him. He licked at the salt on his lips.

“You really didn’t need to overdo it.” Somervell checked his watch as he pressed the stethoscope against Sandy’s chest.

“You said. Run. Like it was. My last. Eight.”

“All right, well, stand up straight. Breathe normally. I need a base reading. Sea level. Low stress.”

Pressing against the stitch under his ribs, Sandy stood upright and tried to steady his breath, his pulse. Somervell listened and measured. Most of the tables in the courtyard were empty,
except for a few men who sat drinking from highball glasses, ice cubes tinkling. Bright flowers overflowed from pots on the walls, releasing their evening perfume into the air. He’d never stayed in any place this luxurious, even with Marjory, who liked to splash out and meet him in fancy hotels in London.

“Enjoy it now,” George had told him when they’d registered. “It’s all downhill from here.”

“Isn’t it uphill?” he responded, and smiled at his own joke. George had just nodded.

His pulse was dropping quickly. That was good. He’d known these tests were coming. “We want to see what happens to the body at altitude,” Somervell had explained one afternoon on board the
California
. “We’ll test all the way there, all the way back, track the changes. Physical, mental, emotional. All of us.”

“Looks good,” Somervell said now as he pulled the stethoscope away from his ears and jotted something in a notebook. “Good resting rate, good under duress. Mind you, I’d be surprised to see anything different. Keep it up. But now to the real stuff – mental acuity.” Somervell pulled a sheet of paper from a leather portfolio on the table and handed it to him. “You’ve got three minutes.” Somervell hit his stopwatch, sat down, and picked up his newspaper and drink again.

The problems weren’t difficult. Sandy finished them easily, even with the distracting sound of ice clinking in Somervell’s glass and a bird flitting about somewhere, unseen, in the courtyard. “You’ll have to make them tougher, Somes,” he joked, handing the sheet back to Somervell.

“You say that now.” Somervell didn’t look at the answers, but set the sheet aside. “And now? The Bible passage I asked you to learn?”

Sandy recited the passage without fumbling once.

“Right. Thank you, Mr. Irvine.” Somes nodded formally. “That concludes our first round of testing. Congratulations.”

“And? How did I do?”

“It looks like you did just fine. Of course, I’ll have a better idea when I collate all of this data, but you’ve nothing to worry about. As a doctor, I’d say you’re fit for service.”

“Well, not to be too boastful, but I did just come off a good rowing season. And Spitsbergen was a good test.”

“I’ve no doubt it was. You’re a solid specimen.”

“But how’d I do compared to, say, George?”

“Ah. Sorry, Sandy. Doctor–patient confidentiality. Besides, even we old men are in pretty good shape here. But …”

“Yes?”

“Well, your working pulse rate is the lowest. That’s a good sign, I think. Still, it’s damn near impossible to tell how any individual will respond at altitude. Fitness doesn’t seem to have much to do with success up there.” Somervell handed him another sheet of paper, another Bible passage. “Learn this one. I’ll test you again when we get to Darjeeling.”