The Abominable: A Novel

“What’s that?” I asked.

“Sandy Irvine’s note that Mallory had left the photograph of his wife, Ruth, in a beautiful place. And that they were both—Irvine and Mallory—very proud. It sounds like a modest summit claim to me.”

“Or perhaps Mallory left Ruth’s photograph at their highest point below the summit,” said Reggie. “Their turnaround point…when they decided they had to retreat or really be trapped by darkness. The view from anywhere up above the Second Step would be beautiful.”

“We’ll never know,” I said.

The Deacon looked at me. “Unless we try the two-summit traverse,” he said. “And find Ruth’s photo on the higher, North Summit up there.”

No one spoke for a while after that. I realized that we were all standing with our hands folded, as if praying for Sandy Irvine. We were certainly giving him that moment of silent respect I mentioned earlier.

“I’m sorry that the damned ravens got at his face,” I said suddenly.

“They did not on this side of his face,” said Dr. Pasang. He pulled his two layers of mittens off and pointed a thinly gloved finger to the strange translucent strips hanging from the right side of poor Irvine’s face. “This is peeling from a terrible sunburn when he was alive,” said Pasang. “That—especially with the oxygen mask digging into his raw and sunburned flesh—must have been terribly painful in his last few days and hours of life.”

“Irvine wouldn’t have complained,” Reggie said flatly.

The Deacon blinked. “I’d almost forgotten that you met him last year at your plantation near Darjeeling.”

Reggie nodded. “He seemed to be a marvelous young man. I warmed to him much more than I did to George Mallory.” She pointed toward his shoulder carryall and oversized Norfolk jacket pockets. “We should see what he’s carrying.”

“Please pardon us, Mr. Irvine,” said the Deacon. And with that he opened the flap of the gas mask carryall and started removing things.

As with Mallory, there were personal things—tins of throat lozenges, some papers, the same strap-on bit of leather to attach his oxygen mask—but there was also a small but heavy little camera.

“I do believe that this is George Mallory’s Kodak Vest Pocket camera,” said the Deacon.

“It is,” said Reggie. “He was showing it to Lady Lytton and Hermione’s brother, Tony Knebworth, at my bon voyage dinner at Bromley plantation the night before they left last March—a year ago March.”

“Let’s all put our goggles back on,” said the Deacon. “This snow’s bright.” He handed the Kodak Vest Pocket camera around saying only, “Please don’t drop it.”

The camera was small and black and not much larger than a tin of sardines. It would have slipped easily into one of either man’s oversized shirt pockets, but for some reason Irvine had chosen to carry it in his canvas carryall instead. J.C., bolder than I with historical artifacts, unfolded the little camera by pulling out the bellows that was attached to hinged and folding metal X’s. The mechanism opened easily, just as if it had not just suffered a summer monsoon and endless winter and hard spring at 28,000 feet on Mount Everest.

There was no viewfinder. To take a photograph, one held the expanded camera at chest level and peered down at a very, very small prism. The shutter release was one tiny lever. Mechanically, the Kodak Vest Pocket camera could not have been much simpler or more foolproof.

Still holding the camera to his chest, J.C. took a step back and uphill from all five of us—five including Sandy Irvine’s corpse. “The image is upside down.” Then he said, “Everyone say fromage.”

The Deacon started to say “Don’t, we—” but J.C. had already clicked the shutter.

“It works,” said Jean-Claude. “The Kodak Company should be commended. Perhaps I shall write them an advertisement recommendation.”

“How can you joke at a moment like this?” asked Reggie. Her voice was soft, but J.C. hung his head like a reprimanded child. None of us wanted to fall out of Lady Bromley-Montfort’s favor.

“If there was an image on that frame of film,” the Deacon said tiredly, “you may have just double-exposed it and ruined it.”

“No,” said Jean-Claude, pulling his goggles back in place. “I saw the little flange for advancing the film and advanced it before taking your group portrait. Fascinating that the mechanism hasn’t frozen.” He looked at the Deacon steadily. “If this is Mallory’s camera, why did Monsieur Irvine have it in his bag? Or did each man carry a Kodak Vest Pocket camera?”

“According to Norton and John Noel,” said the Deacon, “only George Mallory had a Vest Pocket Kodak. Irvine was supposed to have taken a couple of cameras with him from Camp Four those last two days, including one of Noel’s miniature cine cameras, but he doesn’t have any others in his pockets or messenger bag.”

The Deacon shook his head gloomily—the presence of Sandy Irvine’s body seemed to have oppressed him deeply, even though he’d never met the man—but then he brightened and looked up, moving his goggled gaze from one of us to the next. “Remember what Pasang said way below? When one wants his portrait taken with a Kodak, what does one do?” He seemed happy, almost giddy.

“Hand it to someone else to take the photo!” Reggie answered quickly. (More quickly, I noticed, than my mind was working, even fortified as it was now by English air.)

“If they reached the summit,” piped up J.C., “then Mallory would almost certainly have snapped a photo of Irvine, then handed the little camera to Irvine to take a snap of him. Irvine might have then put it in his own carryall. It makes sense.”

“We have to keep this camera,” said the Deacon.

“If we keep the camera,” said Reggie, “then we must take this final note from Sandy Irvine as well, send it to his mother and family.”

“We shall,” said the Deacon. “But only if we don’t find Cousin Percival and Meyer and their…whatever it is…and have to keep this expedition secret for a while. But you take the notebook, Lady Bromley-Montfort. If we survive the next few days and are allowed to talk about this expedition when it’s over, then I—hell, everyone—will want to know if Mallory and Irvine reached the summit of Everest last year.”

“Here, Jake,” said the Deacon. “I’ll keep Irvine’s notebook. You carry the camera. I would bet anything that in it are the exposed negatives that will answer all our questions about whether Mallory and Irvine summited last year.”

“Why me?” I said. For some reason the thought of carrying Mallory’s camera around bothered me, as if it were a great weight.

“Because you have the smallest load and because I think you just may survive this climb,” said the Deacon.

16.

In truth, I never thought we’d make it to the North East Ridge of Everest at 28,000 feet, but when I’d fantasized stepping onto it anyway, I’d always imagined the three of us shaking hands solemnly or slapping each other on the back fraternally or perhaps just staring out at the view of the world from one of the highest places in the world.

As it turned out, we were all too exhausted to move when we actually reached the ridge, and when we did finally move, it was for Jean-Claude to stagger to a nearby rock, tug down his oxygen mask, and tidily vomit. Pasang just stared out to the south as if something awaited him there. When we’d rested and inhaled more English air set at the high 2.2-liter flow, the Deacon, Reggie, and I used our binoculars to scan the lower slopes, looking for the Germans who were working so hard to catch us and kill us.

“There they are,” I said finally, pointing. “All five of them. Just climbing toward the exit cracks above the Yellow Band about three hundred feet northwest of our Camp Six. They’ll be up on our ridge in another thirty minutes.

“See them?” I asked.

“Oui.”