“Irvine got rid of almost all the pipe work,” continued Jean-Claude, “and radically simplified this flow meter, setting it right at the lower center of the pack so the rig’s balance would be better.”
Without asking permission, J.C. tugged the Sandy Irvine version of the oxygen rig onto his back. “The hose goes over the shoulder now, rather than under the arm and through all those valves and tubes that used to be hanging in the front. Those are gone. The air feed should be better and the climbing should be easier. And it feels lighter.”
“Yes,” said Finch, nodding. “The late Mr. Irvine’s Mark Five version is almost five full pounds lighter than its predecessors, while working much better and being infinitely less awkward.”
Well, I’ll be damned, I thought again.
“Mr. Irvine did most of this redesign while he was still at Oxford,” continued Finch. “He sent all the modification plans to the company manufacturing them—our proud Siebe Gorman—and in almost a year, they made none of the changes he had requested.”
“None?” I repeated.
“None,” said Finch. “They ignored his and the Everest Committee’s orders to make such modifications and shipped precisely the same clumsy, leaking, bulky kits that Richard, Mallory, Bruce, and I had used in nineteen twenty-two. My good friend Noel Odell, who was the last person to see Mallory and Irvine climbing high, told me that when the expedition’s ninety cylinders arrived in Calcutta, fifteen were empty and twenty-four had already leaked so badly that they were useless on the climb. Mr. Irvine told Odell that he, Sandy, had broken one kit just by carefully removing it from its packing case. It was the same thing I found when we reached Base Camp at Mount Everest in ’twenty-two—not one of the ten apparatuses shipped was usable. The soldered joints all leaked, washers had become so dry during the high-desert trip in to the mountain that joints could no longer be made gas-tight, and the majority of the gauges didn’t work. Some of it was fixable—and I fixed what I could—but essentially, the judgment on the Siebe Gorman apparatus is that they were all…junk.”
Jean-Claude removed the Irvine Mark V version and set it on the workbench with a resounding thump. “Then how did Sandy Irvine get this improved version?”
Finch showed his small smile. “He fiddled with it all during the three-hundred-and-fifty-mile march in, then at Base Camp, then at the higher camps, and didn’t quit fiddling and improving it—with the few tools and parts he had—until the morning he and Mallory left Camp Six and disappeared.”
“So I assume we shall be receiving the Irvine Mark Five versions?” Jean-Claude said.
“One further modified to my specifications, yes. And you will be getting them not from Siebe Gorman but, as I said, from Zürcher Werke für wissenschaftliche Präzisionsinstrumente und Geräte.” The smile widened almost imperceptibly. “And I guarantee, gentlemen, that they will be engineered properly and up to and exceeding the late Sandy Irvine’s standards.”
The Deacon stepped forward and touched the Mark V tanks. “George, you said that you had a couple of final modifications of your own that you asked for.”
Finch nodded again. “I asked the Zurich engineers to make the Bergen pack frame, the flow meters, and several other elements of the apparatus out of aluminum”—he pronounced it British style, “aluminium”—“a strong metal derived from bauxite ore. I wish I could have made the oxygen canisters out of this aluminum as well, but facilities did not exist for attaching the proper valves or pressuring aluminum tanks, so the oxygen is still carried in steel canisters. But with three tanks maximum, not four, and the new aluminum components, the overall weight will be significantly lower.”
Finch pulled out yet another oxygen rig. This looked much like Sandy Irvine’s Mark V design but was somehow…different…at the same time.
“How much lower is the weight?” asked the Deacon, running his hand over the aluminum frame.
Finch shrugged, but his pride was obvious. “Down from Siebe Gorman’s thirty-two pounds to just over twenty pounds.”
“And you also did something with the face mask valves,” said the Deacon.
Finch lifted the mask of his Mark VI pack. The mask seemed simpler in design than all the others and more pliable in Finch’s scarred hand. “Instead of glass, I redesigned the breathing/re-breathing mouthpiece valves to be made out of a very high grade of rubber,” he said. “We’ve tested that rubber at altitudes up to and above thirty thousand feet—and in ultra-dry air—and the rubber does not become brittle or leak. I took the liberty of replacing all of the leaking Siebe Gorman gaskets and valves with this higher-quality rubber as well.” Finch looked down, and his voice sounded almost embarrassed or ashamed. “I had no time to test all the new components on a mountain, Richard. I wanted to…I had planned to…I had thought the ridges along the North Face of the Eiger might make for a good test…it is not right that you will find if everything works only once you’re high on Everest…but the fabrication of the new design took so long.…”
The Deacon patted Finch on the back. “Thank you, my friend. I’m sure your tests here in Zurich have ensured that the tanks we ordered will work and not leak as the earlier ones did. Thank you for all your work and advice, George.”
Finch showed his small smile, nodded, and put his hands in his pockets.
The Deacon looked at his watch. “We’d better be off if we’re going to meet our train.”
“I’ll walk with you to the Eisenbahn station,” said George Ingle Finch.
The train was on time, which, of course, is redundant. It was a Swiss train.
The Deacon and I were going back through France to Cherbourg and then to England to continue our preparations. Jean-Claude was returning to Chamonix briefly—mostly to say good-bye to the girl he was planning to marry, was my hunch—and would be joining us in London just before it was time to go to Liverpool and depart for India. On the train from Zurich, we each would be carrying our two leather Gladstone bags filled with the nine compressed eiderdown coats.
As we were preparing to board, Finch—who had been silent during the cold walk to the station—suddenly said, “There is one other thing I should tell you about the reason you are going to Everest…about Lord Percival Bromley, that is.”
We hesitated. The Deacon had one foot up on the lower step of the train car. There was no one behind us. We stood there holding our light valises and listened as steam from the train wrapped us in shifting folds of warm vapor.
“I did see Bromley one other time after I climbed with him years ago,” continued Finch. “He visited me here in Zurich—came to my home—in the spring of nineteen twenty-three. April. He said that he needed to ask me about one aspect of our ’twenty-two expedition…”
Finch seemed to be hunting for words. We waited in silence. Down the platform, the final passengers were boarding the train.
Letting out a breath in a small cloud that mixed with the steam, Finch went on, “It’s rather absurd, actually. Young Bromley wanted me to tell him everything I knew, everything we’d seen or heard, about…well…the Metohkangmi.”
“The yeti critter?” I said, surprised.
Finch managed a final smile. “Yes, Mr. Perry. Jake, I mean. The yeti critter. I told him about the tracks I’d seen high on the Rongbuk Glacier near the North Col, showed him photographs Mallory had taken the year before of the tracks he’d found on nearby Lhakpa La, and related what the lama at Rongbuk Monastery had said about the five yetis they were sure inhabited the upper reaches of the valley. That was all I had to show or tell young Bromley—hardly worth a trip to Zurich from Paris, where he was staying at the time—but he did not seem disappointed. Merely thanked me for my time and the information, finished his tea, and returned to Paris that same afternoon.” The conductor was waving his hands at us, pointing emphatically at his watch.