Mother Goddess of the World

XII

We had a long and restless night of it, because it’s harder than hell to sleep at that altitude. Sleepiness seems to go right out of the mental repertoire, and when it does arrive, you fall into what is called Cheyne-Stokes breathing. Your body keeps getting fooled concerning how much oxygen it’s getting, so you hyperventilate for a while and then stop breathing entirely, for up to a minute at a time. This is not a comforting pattern if it is going on in a sleeping person lying next to you; Freds for instance really got into it, and I kept waking up completely during some really long silences, worrying that he had died. He apparently felt the same way about me, but didn’t have my patience, so that if I ever did fall asleep I was usually jerked back to consciousness by Freds tugging on my arm, saying “George, damn it, breathe! Breathe!”

But the next day dawned clear and windless once again, and after breakfasting and marveling at the view we headed along the top of the Black Band.

Our route was unusual, perhaps unique. The Black Band, harder than the layers of rock above and below it, sticks out from the generally smooth slope of the face, in a crumbly rampart. So in effect we had a sort of road to walk on. Although it was uneven and busted up, it was still twenty feet wide in places, and an easier place for a traverse couldn’t be imagined. There were potential campsites all over it.

Of course usually when people are at twenty-eight thousand feet on Everest, they’re interested in getting either higher or lower pretty quick. Since this rampway was level and didn’t facilitate any route whatsoever, it wasn’t much traveled. We might have been the first on it, since Freds said that Kunga Norbu had only looked down on it from above.

So we walked this high road, and made our search. Freds knocked a rock off the edge, and we watched it bounce down toward the Rongbuk Glacier until it became invisible, though we could still hear it. After that we trod a little more carefully. Still, it wasn’t long before we had traversed the face and were looking down the huge clean chute of the Great Couloir. Here the rampart ended, and to continue the traverse to the fabled North Ridge, where Mallory and Irvine were last seen, would have been ugly work. Besides, that wasn’t where Kunga Norbu had seen the body.

“We must have missed it,” Freds said. “Let’s spread out side to side, and check every little nook and cranny on the way back.” So we did, taking it very slowly, and ranging out to the edge of the rampart as far as we dared.

We were about halfway back to the Hornbein Couloir when Laure found it. He called out, and we approached.

“Well dog my cats,” Freds said, looking astonished.

The body was wedged in a crack, chest deep in a hard pack of snow. He was on his side, and curled over so that he was level with the rock on each side of the crack. His clothing was frayed, and rotting away on him; it looked like knit wool. The kind of thing you’d wear golfing in Scotland. His eyes were closed, and under a fraying hood his skin looked papery. Sixty years out in sun and storm, but always in below-freezing air, had preserved him strangely. I had the odd feeling that he was only sleeping, and might wake and stand.

Freds knelt beside him and dug in the snow a bit. “Look here—he’s roped up, but the rope broke.”

He held up an inch or two of unraveled rope—natural fibers, horribly thin—it made me shudder to see it. “Such primitive gear!” I cried.

Freds nodded briefly. “They were nuts. I don’t think he’s got an oxygen pack on either. They had it available, but he didn’t like to use it.” He shook his head. “They probably fell together. Stepped through a cornice maybe. Then fell down to here, and this one jammed in the crack while the other one went over the edge, and the rope broke.”

“So the other one is down in the glacier,” I said.

Freds nodded slowly. “And look—” He pointed above. “We’re almost directly under the summit. So they must have made the top. Or fallen when damned close to it.” He shook his head. “And wearing nothing but a jacket like that! Amazing.”

“So they made it,” I breathed.

“Well, maybe. Looks like it, anyway. So… which one is this?”

I shook my head. “I can’t tell. Early twenties, or mid-thirties?”

Uneasily we looked at the mummified features.

“Thirties,” Laure said. “Not young.”

Freds nodded. “I agree.”

“So it’s Mallory,” I said.

“Hmph.” Freds stood and stepped back. “Well, that’s that. The mystery solved.” He looked at us, spoke briefly with Kunga Norbu. “He must be under snow most years. But let’s hide him under rock, for the Brits.”

This was easier said than done. All we needed were stones to lay over him, as he was tucked down in the crack. But we quickly found that loose stones of any size were not plentiful; they had been blown off. So we had to work in pairs, and pick up big flat plates that were heavy enough to hold against the winds.

We were still collecting these when Freds suddenly jerked back and sat behind an outcropping of the rampart. “Hey, the Brits are over there on the West Ridge! They’re almost level with us!”

“Arnold can’t be far behind,” I said.

“We’ve still got an hour’s work here,” Freds exclaimed. “Here—Laure, listen—go back to our campsite and pack our stuff, will you? Then go meet the Brits and tell them to slow down. Got that?”

“Slow down,” Laure repeated.

“Exactly. Explain we found Mallory and they should avoid this area. Give us time. You stay with them, go back down with them. George and Kunga and I will follow you guys down, and we’ll meet you at Gorak Shep.”

Gorak Shep? That seemed farther down than necessary.

Laure nodded. “Slow down, go back, we meet you Gorak Shep.”

“You got it, buddy. See you down there.”

Laure nodded and was off.

“Okay,” Freds said. “Let’s get this guy covered.”

We built a low wall around him, and then used the biggest plate of all as a keystone to cover his face. It took all three of us to pick it up, and we staggered around to get it into position without disturbing him; it really knocked the wind out of us.

When we were done the body was covered, and most of the time snow would cover our burial cairn, and it would be just one lump among thousands. So he was hidden. “Shouldn’t we say something?” Freds asked. “You know, an epitaph or whatever?”

“Hey, Kunga’s the tulku,” I said. “Tell him to do it.”

Freds spoke to Kunga. In his snow goggles I could see little images of Kunga, looking like a Martian. Quite a change in gear since old Mallory!

Kunga Norbu stood at the end of our cairn and stuck out his mittened hands; he spoke in Tibetan for a while.

Afterward Freds translated for me. “Spirit of Chomolungma, Mother Goddess of the World, we’re here to bury the body of George Leigh Mallory, the first person to climb your sacred slopes. He was a climber with a lot of heart and he always went for it, and we love him for that—he showed very purely something that we all treasure in ourselves. I’d like to add that it’s also clear from his clothing and gear that he was a total loon to be up here at all, and I in particular want to salute that quality as well. So here we are, four disciples of your holy spirit, and we take this moment to honor that spirit here and in us, and everywhere in the world.” Kunga bowed his head, and Freds and I followed suit, and we were silent; and all we heard was the wind, whistling over the Mother Goddess into Tibet.