Free Coronation Everest by Jan Morris Page B

the expedition’s pool, I took to feeding with them. At night we ate in the big tent, in semi-darkness, helped only by the flickering light of a lamp. In the morning we carried our eggs into the sharp sunshine, to sit on boxes and eat off packing-cases, watched by the tailless rats. These were the early stages of the venture, and almost everyone was then assembled at Base Camp. The first reconnaissance team had penetrated the wilderness of the icefall and the route up it was now being marked, day by day, with small red flags. Next, when the way had been prepared with the necessary ropes, steps and bridges, the sturdy Sherpas would begin taking stores to establish staging camps higher on the mountain.
    Though I had worked at the inventory in Katmandu, it was now brought home to me much more forcibly that climbing Everest was largely a matter of logistics. Scattered around us on the moraine was an extraordinary collection of things, all beautifully crated in boxes stamped with the words: ‘British Mount Everest Expedition, 1953’. There was everything here from a sporting rifle to a pair of shoe-laces, the whole mass overshadowed by the innumerable oxygen cylinders which lay stacked in neat piles in a corner. Success on Everest depended upon getting the right amount of all this stuff at the right time to the right place on the mountain, together with fit and resolute men to use it. On one of my first evenings with the expedition, I mastered this basic truth; for in theshadows of my tent I typed out, for distribution to the climbers, Hunt’s loading tables – an intricate set of figures, dates and weights much more reminiscent, I thought, of Camberley than of Chamonix.
    For the moment these multitudinous supplies were lying in wait, and the climbers were probing and marking the icefall. Next morning I woke to the sound of clattering metal, and looking through the flap of my tent I saw two figures in blue windproofs passing by across the moraine. Michael Ward and George Band were leaving for the icefall. Round their waists were wound their climbing ropes. Goggles were pushed back on their foreheads. Their cheeks were white with glacier cream, above the stubble of their beards; their crampons, not needed until they were in the icefall, were fixed to the tops of their ice-axes, and they clanked as they walked like the armour of knights. Two small squires darted out to shake their hands as they passed by-Sherpas in down clothing, wishing them good luck; and so they clattered away, their voices echoing among the ice pinnacles, until they turned into the labyrinth and were out of sight.
    Soon I would be following them, for I planned to make an early ascent of the icefall; but first I wanted to acquire some more general impression of the shape of the mountain. On the other side of the valley rose Pumori, heavily snow-capped. The lower part of its mass was of bare rock, with the scree of the moraine leading up to it, and it would be easy enough to reach a convenient ledge upon its flank and look across to the mass of Everest. Accordingly Sonam and I set out in the early morning to cross the glacier and climb it. It was a tiring job, for I was still unacclimatized, and the ridge I had chosen as our objective was at about 20,000 feet. The moraine was abore, for it ran in high ridges intersected by slippery shaly gulches; it took a great deal of effort to cross it and begin the upward climb. By the time we were approaching the ridge, towards midday, I was so breathless that I staggered from boulder to boulder helplessly, bending over each big rock to pant my breath back; but at last we sat there, Sonam and I, and leant back to enjoy the view. We had brought some biscuits and jam with us; and from time to time, spreading a biscuit thickly with the confection, we would reach out a hand for a lump of snow, press it into a convenient block, and enjoy a sort of sickly ice-cream sandwich.
    There it stood, this monstrous mountain; for the