Fearless on Everest: The Quest for Sandy Irvine (25 page)

A dinner in honour of the four ‘North Country’ members of the expedition was given at the Wayfarer’s Club on Friday 28 February at the Exchange Club in Fenwick Street in Liverpoo..  Sandy sat next to Carl Saunders, a member of the Alpine Club, and discussed at length the forthcoming expedition.  Saunders was impressed by his modesty, courage, vigour and good sense, as he later wrote to Willie, and had looked forward to Sandy being elected as a member of the Alpine Club on his return so that he could get to know him better.  Both Sandy and Mallory’s fathers attended the dinner as guests of honour and the team was sent on its way with great hopes pinned on their success.  The local press had made much of the fact that Sandy and Mallory were both Birkenhead men and had already been fantasizing about the possibility of the two of them standing on the summit of the world together.  The
Liverpool Post
had published the names of the 1924 expedition members on 11 January 1924 and ran the headline: ‘MOUNT EVEREST EXPEDITION – TWO BIRKENHEAD MEN IN THE PARTY’.  In the minds of the Liverpool press at least, the names of George Mallory and Sandy Irvine were already linked.

The following day Mallory, Hazard, Beetham and Sandy posed for photographs leaning uncomfortably against a life-boat wearing light suits and deck shoes on board the SS
California
, somewhat dazzled by the interest their presence had aroused.  The quayside was thronging with well-wishers and members of the press.  One journalist from the
Daily Graphic
caught Sandy’s attention and asked him how he felt about climbing Everest.  ‘It is the duty of the Alpine Club to climb as near as it can to Heaven!’ he exclaimed with boyish thrill.

George Mallory and Sandy Irvine on board the SS California, 29 February 1924

The Irvine and Mallory families turned out
en masse
for the send-off, caught up in the excitement and commotion. Tur stood on the dock beside his mother and brother, and muttered prophetically; ‘Well, that’s the last we’ll see of him.’  He was rounded on by Alec who told him abruptly to hold his counsel, but the words had been uttered.

Sandy had been overwhelmed with advice and good wishes from friends and family. Everyone felt involved in his adventure and they all felt enormous confidence in his ability to climb the mountain, even though there were at least seven other men who were far more experienced than he was in mountaineering. To all of them it was a matter of great personal pride that Sandy had been selected for the expedition and they were to follow its progress enthusiastically in the
Times
dispatches.  Lilian handed her son an envelope as he embarked containing a letter in which she expressed her hopes for Sandy’s success.  She also permitted herself to give him a good deal of advice and to encourage him to live up to his reputation and not to let the family down.   He was not unaware of these high expectations and in his first letter from the
California
, written the day after they sailed he wrote to Lilian thanking her for her letter and promising to ‘try & live up to it’.

The
California
was a 10,000 ton steamship belonging to the Anchor Line Company, based in Glasgow.  A large majority of the crew were Glaswegians and there was some mirth on account of the accent which rendered them incomprehensible to a number of the passengers.  The Master of the Ship was James Blackie, to whom the expedition members had a letter of introduction.

They finally set sail on the evening of 29 February after several hours of delay. Sandy’s first letter was written at the end of their second day on the ship bound for Bombay.  He told Lilian about the delays they experienced leaving Liverpool, where the ship was held up for several hours until the harbour master succeeded in finding enough tugs to tow them out of harbour in the strong cross-wind.  That night was very rough but once they reached open sea the following day the wind dropped and weather was calm; ‘It has been fairly mill-pondish so far nevertheless the breakfast room was almost empty & the decks are strewn with very miserable looking people.  We will be in the middle of the Bay tonight so I hope we don’t have an expensive dinner.’ Mallory reported at the same juncture that the sea was rough, so perhaps Sandy was comparing it with the stormy experiences he had had
en route
for Spitsbergen.

As usual his letter contained instructions to his mother about his personal effects which he appears to have left scattered all over the house in Birkenhead.  A suitcase he had borrowed from an Oxford friend would need to be sent back, cleaned and emptied (‘I’ve left some bits of primus in it!’) and his grandfather’s hymn book, which he’d left on the billiard table he asked her to hide until his return.  It evidently contained anecdotes and tunes, probably irreverent, that he didn’t wish his grandfather to see by mistake.  James Irvine was in his ninetieth year but he still exerted a very strong influence over the whole family and had taken Sandy aside before he sailed to give him some advice and warn him what to expect.  In his typically dry style Sandy points out that what his grandfather had led him to expect on the boat turned out in fact to be the very opposite.  ‘He said I would hardly be on the boat before people would start singing hymns – people look more like a burial service than singing!’

The Mount Everest Committee had booked two first-class cabins on the boat and although Mallory had suggested to Baldrey that he and Sandy might share a cabin as they were both leaving from Liverpool, Sandy ended up sharing with Benthley Beetham and by the spin of a coin got the coveted bottom berth.  Never able to resist tinkering he told his mother that he had pulled the plug on their WC and it had not stopped running which, in his opinion, saved a lot of trouble but had been causing the crew endless headaches as they could not work out how to turn it off.  ‘Practically the whole of the ships crew have been in to try & stop it but none of them thought of turning off the tap just above!!’

The dining arrangements on the ship had also been prearranged and Sandy was at a table with Mallory while Beetham and Hazard were sitting together at another table.   Dinner was a formal meal for which they were expected to dress in dinner jackets but with the concession that soft collar rather than starched collar shirts were acceptable.  The seating plan was not changed until the ship arrived in Port Said, so they had plenty of time to get to know the other diners at their table.  Two days into the journey Mallory wrote to Ruth giving his impressions of his fellow travellers.  Beetham he found good-humoured and unselfish, ‘I expect he’ll be very useful altogether.’  Of Sandy he wrote: ‘sensible & not at all highly strung he’ll be one to depend on, for everything perhaps except conversation’. If Mallory thought Sandy was short on conversation after just two days at sea, Sandy was equally candid about him, writing ‘Mallory is far too energetic for so early in the voyage – he was up and dressed before I had even finished my morning tea & apple.’

When Sandy first met Mallory is a question that has vexed many of us for a very long time.  I cannot believe he would have written a comment like that to his mother if he had not already at least made Mallory’s acquaintance and talked of him to her.  Try as I might I have not found anything that would indicate they had ever seen each other before the dinner at the Wayfarer’s Club.  Nevertheless, when I was looking through Sandy’s correspondence with Unna and I came across a reference in which it was suggested that Mallory and Hazard should visit the Royal Geographical Society to see the oxygen apparatus.  Although there’s no proof, I suggest Sandy met Mallory on one of his visits to London which coincided with the meeting Unna was keen to set up.

Mallory’s remark about Sandy has been widely published in the accounts of the 1924 expedition and has been used further to underline the fact that Sandy was inarticulate and lacking in intellectual strength.  The latter claim contains some truth, but his lack of conversation, initially at least, would have been on account of his shyness. Mallory wrote to Ruth about the people at the table early on in the voyage:

Next to me at the head of the table is a gentlemanly looking colonel with whom I don’t expect to converse in any very interesting way and opposite are a youngish army doctor & his wife, good, enterprising, hard sort of people – hard I mean in the good sense -; she is Canadian by birth & doesn’t love Canadians which is a mercy.  Mrs Solly’s friends, the Lennoxes (you’ll remember he’s in the Indian survey) seem pleasant people too.  Anyway here we are all learning each other’s languages, a process which may have gone some useful distance by the time we reach Bombay; then we shall go our separate ways and I shall never see any of this group again.

Poor Sandy.  It is hardly surprising that he felt uncomfortable at dinner. There was no one his age at the table and almost certainly no one who shared his interests.

Arnold Lunn had commented that when Sandy joined them in Műrren it was inordinately difficult to get him to participate in the conversation at dinner.  Once Sandy found his confidence, however, his company was greatly enjoyed by everyone and he had the ability to tell an amusing story well.  He clearly got over his shyness with Mallory but never felt confident to hold his own when discussing great works of literature or philosophical ideas.  He had a very good eye for observation of his fellow men and was able to communicate that with fluency and often humour both verbally and in his letters home.  He was primarily a practical person and when it came to discussing the oxygen equipment he was eloquent and held strong views.

Sandy respected Mallory’s knowledge of mountaineering and particularly his experience on Everest from the two preceding expeditions, and he was enthused by Mallory’s determination to climb to the summit.   In Mallory Sandy found someone who was as focused and determined as he, someone who went all out to achieve his goal and moreover someone who had set himself the highest goal in the world and was resolved to attain it.  The two men had much in common, both from the point of view of their backgrounds but also in their aims and ideals.  Mallory, like Sandy, valued friendship and loyalty very highly.  He was at times impatient and intolerant, something Sandy well understood and a trait he shared.  Above all else, he was physically immensely strong and at least as energetic as Sandy.  People have sought in the past to try and assess why Mallory was drawn to Sandy and why he elected to make the climb to the summit with him rather than one of the other climbers with more experience and there have even been some suggestions of a physical attraction on the part of Mallory.   Peter and Leni Gillman wrote in their biography of Mallory: ‘It is more likely that George saw in Irvine a reflection of his younger self, the enthusiastic, athletic undergraduate, eager for new experiences, determined to live them out.  Through Irvine, George could also act out the counterpoint of his relationship with Geoffrey Young and his other senior mentors, this time with George initiating a younger partner into the ways of mountaineering.’  That assessment is much closer to the mark than any other and there can be no doubt that Sandy adopted Mallory as a role model and went all out to impress him from the outset.  The summit of Everest had became a goal of his own and although it never gnawed away at him as it did Mallory, he nevertheless set his sights no lower than 29,002 feet and he was determined to be chosen for a final assault.

In the meantime Sandy was content to enjoy the journey and to observe his fellow passengers.  The captain in particular amused him. Mallory had arrived on board with a letter of introduction from Hinks addressed to the captain.  The four expedition members were duly summoned and Sandy could not resist a dig. ‘We have to go to the Captain’s with an introduction after lunch – I long to hide his telescope – he never uses it but always rushes in and comes out with telescope under arm & paces the bridge in true nautical style if any one comes to see him.  I suppose it’s to stop people mistaking him for the steward.’

Although Mallory spent a great deal of his time in his cabin learning Hindustani and catching up on his correspondence he did use the ship’s gymnasium with Sandy and wrote to his sister Mary that he had ‘a magnificent body for the job, and he is a very nice fellow'.  Mallory was recognized by several passengers and word soon spread as to who he was and where he was heading.  He found the attention, the questions and the requests for photographs a burden, so he kept himself out of the public eye as far as he could.  Sandy was untroubled by the other passengers and spent most of his time out and about taking part in the deck activities.  He played tennis and participated in the deck competitions about which Mallory was disdainful.  However, Sandy did succeed in getting him to compete in a potato and spoon race in which he had ‘brilliant success & was only knocked out in the final when one potato was really impossible'.

Of the other two men, Beetham and Hazard, Sandy made no mention on the voyage. Beetham was a schoolmaster from Barnard Castle School in Yorkshire.  He was shorter than Sandy by several inches, dark haired and was described by Sandy in mid- May at Everest Base Camp, as looking like ‘a mixture between Judas Iscariot and an apple dumpling’.  Beetham was an agreeable companion and they seem to have got on fine as berth mates, sharing an interest in photography and nature.  Sandy was fascinated by the natural environment and would have enjoyed learning from Beetham about observations of bird life he made from the ship.  Beetham was one of the great hopes for the 1924 expedition and was expected to perform well on Everest.  He and Howard Somervell had spent the summer of 1923 in the Alps when Beetham had distinguished himself by making thirty-five ascents in as many days.  He had also tested the oxygen apparatus designed by Siebe Gorman for the 1924 expedition by carrying it over the Eiger.