The Hunt for Mount Everest by Craig Storti

Author:Craig Storti [Storti, Craig]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781529331561
Google: XNPlDwAAQBAJ
Amazon: B088WGNMNM
Published: 2021-04-15T00:00:00+00:00

5

‘A party of Sahibs are coming’

I heard that permission had just been given to Bell to go to Lhasa to see the Dalai Lama … This alters the situation considerably. I then saw Dobbs and asked him whether he could not wire to Bell to tell him, if he foresaw a favourable opportunity, to ask the Dalai Lama for permission for the Everest Scheme.

Charles Kenneth Howard-Bury

FRANCIS YOUNGHUSBAND WAS a man on a mission. The war was over; England had suffered appalling losses; the nation’s spirit was broken. England needed a reason to believe in herself again. And Francis Younghusband knew just where to find it: in a full-scale, all-British assault on Mount Everest.

As usual, the problem was the government of India, that is, British bureaucrats out in India or in the Foreign Office in Whitehall with responsibilities for the subcontinent. True to form they were worried about ‘the bigger picture’, all manner of geopolitical considerations, including exquisite Chinese and Russian sensitivities that mere explorers and mountain climbers couldn’t possibly be expected to understand. In the circumstances, Younghusband’s strategy was simple: he would transform the idea of an all-out attempt on Everest into as big a part of the bigger picture as he possibly could. And for that he needed John Noel and his photos.

Younghusband understood the power of those pictures; it was not so much that they proved anything in themselves or even made the case for an expedition, but they were something new, many of them quite spectacular, especially the ones borrowed from Alexander Kellas, and used in the right way they would generate a great deal of publicity, which might just force the government to act. Hence, Noel was invited to give a presentation to the Royal Geographical Society on the evening of 19 March 1919 – and to bring along his pictures.

Younghusband also realised that the swashbuckling Noel was somewhat lacking in the gravitas required to impress senior British politicians. Consequently, on that March night when Noel stunned the Royal Geographical Society with these first-of-their-kind photos, Younghusband seeded the audience with the right people, those establishment decision-makers who would be needed to do the heavy lifting in the discussion to follow Noel’s presentation.

Aeolian Hall was full that night, with society members and a large number of newspaper reporters, as RGS president Sir Thomas Holdich rose to introduce Noel. Stepping to the podium Noel led with a brief, thirty-second prologue, striking just the right note with a touching tribute to one of the RGS’s own. ‘It cannot be long’, he began, ‘before the culminating summit of the world is visited, and its ridges, valleys and glaciers are mapped and photographed.’ This would already have been done, Noel continued, ‘but for the war and the lamented death of General Rawling, for whom this piece of exploration [was] his life’s ambition. May it yet be accomplished in his memory.’1 Whereupon Noel’s audience rose in a prolonged standing ovation. After the audience was seated, the lights went down, save for a

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