They unpacked their suitcases, thinking about, but not mentioning, the one subject that was on their minds. When they had completed this simple task, George took his wife by the hand and accompanied her down to the dining room. A waiter handed them a large menu, which they studied in silence before ordering.
“George, I was wondering,” began Ruth, “if you had—”
“Yes, my darling?”
Ruth would have completed the sentence if the waiter hadn’t returned carrying two bowls of piping hot tomato soup, which he placed in front of them. She waited until he was out of earshot before she tried again.
“Do you have any idea just how nervous I am, my darling?”
“Not half as nervous as me,” admitted George, not lifting his spoon.
Ruth bowed her head. “George, I think you ought to know—”
“Yes, my darling?” said George, taking her hand.
“I’ve never seen a naked man, let alone—”
“Have I ever told you about my visit to the Moulin Rouge?” asked George, trying to ease the tension.
“Many times,” said Ruth with a smile. “And the only woman you showed any interest in on that occasion was Madame Eiffel, and even she spurned you.”
George laughed, and without another word rose from his place and took his wife by the hand. Ruth smiled as they left the dining room, just hoping that no one would ask why they hadn’t even tasted their soup.
They walked quickly up the three flights of stairs without another word. When they arrived outside their bedroom, George fumbled with the key and finally managed to open the door. As soon as they were inside, he took his wife in his arms. Eventually he released her, took a step back and smiled. He slowly took off his jacket and tie, his eyes never leaving her. Ruth returned his smile, and unbuttoned her dress, allowing it to fall to the floor, revealing a long silk petticoat that fell just below the knees. She pulled it slowly over her head, and once it had joined the dress on the floor, George took her in his arms and kissed her. While she tried to pull off his trousers, he fumbled with the strap of her bra. Once they were both naked, they just stood and stared at each other for a moment before they fell onto the bed. George stroked her long auburn hair while Ruth kissed him gently as they began to explore each other’s bodies. They quickly became aware that there wasn’t anything to be nervous about.
After they had made love, Ruth fell back on the pillow and said, “Now tell me, Mr. Mallory, who you’d rather spend the night with, Chomolungma or me?”
George laughed so loudly that Ruth had to place a hand over his mouth for fear they might be heard in the next room. He held her in his arms until she finally fell into a deep sleep.
George was the first to wake the next morning, and began to kiss Ruth’s breasts until her eyes blinked open. She smiled up at him as he took her in his arms, his hands moving freely over her body. George could only wonder what had happened to the shy girl who couldn’t take a single spoonful of soup the previous evening. After they had made love a second time, they padded furtively down the corridor to the bathroom, where Ruth joined George in the largest bath they’d ever seen. Afterward he sat on the end of the bed, a towel wrapped around his waist, and watched his beautiful wife as she dressed.
Ruth blushed. “You’d better hurry up, George, or we’ll miss breakfast as well.”
“Suits me,” said George.
Ruth smiled, and slowly unbuttoned her dress.
For the next ten days George and Ruth roamed around the Quantocks, often returning to their hotel long after the sun had set. Each day, Ruth continued to quiz George about her rival, trying to understand why Chomolungma had such a hold over him. He was still planning to leave for Tibet early in the new year, which would mean they’d be apart for at least six months.
“How many days and nights do you think it will take you to reach the summit?” she asked as they stood on the top of Lydeard Hill.
“We have no way of knowing,” George admitted. “But Finch is convinced that we’ll have to sleep in smaller and smaller tents as our altitude increases. We might even have to spend the last night at 27,000 feet before we attempt the final assault.”
“But how can you begin to prepare for such an ordeal?” asked Ruth as she looked down from 2,700 feet.
“I have no idea,” said George as they began to stroll back down the hill, hand in hand. “No one knows how the human body will react to altitudes above 22,000 feet, let alone 29,000, where the temperature can be minus forty, and if the wind’s in your face, you have to take ten steps just to advance a few feet. Finch and I once spent three days in a small tent at 15,000 feet, and at one point it became so cold that we ended up in the same sleeping bag, having to cling to each other all night.”
“I’d like to cling to you all night,” Ruth said with a grin, “so that when you leave me, I’ll have a better understanding of what you’re going through.”
“I don’t think you’re quite ready for 29,000 feet, my darling. Even a couple of nights in a small tent on a beach could prove quite a baptism.”
“Are you sure you’re up to it, Mr. Mallory?”
“The last time you asked me that, Mrs. Mallory, I nearly ended up in jail.”
In the nearest town they found a shop that sold camping supplies, and George bought a small canvas tent and a single sleeping bag. After a hearty dinner back at their hotel, they slipped out into the night and drove to the nearest beach. George selected an isolated spot facing the ocean, which offered them little protection from the fierce wind. They began to hammer enough pegs into the sand to be sure that their first home wouldn’t be blown away.
Once they’d secured the tent, anchoring the pegs with stones, Ruth crawled inside while George remained on the beach. Once he’d taken his clothes off, he joined Ruth in the tent and climbed into the sleeping bag, wrapping his arms around his shivering wife. After they’d made love, Ruth didn’t let go of her husband.
“You’d leave home to sleep like this, night after night?” she asked in disbelief.
“At minus forty degrees, with air so thin that you may hardly be able to breathe.”
“While hugging another man, Mr. Mallory. You’ve still got a few months to change your mind,” she added wistfully.
Neither of them could remember when they fell asleep, but they would never forget when they woke. George blinked as a flashlight beamed in his eyes. He sat up to find Ruth, her skin now covered in midge bites, still clinging to him.
“If you’d be kind enough to step outside, sir,” said an authoritative voice.
George had to decide whether to be gallant, or leave his wife freezing in the nude. He decided on Sir Galahad, and slowly, so as not to wake Ruth, crawled out of the tent to find two officers from the local constabulary shining their torches directly at his naked body.
“May I ask exactly what you’re up to, sir?” asked the first officer.
George thought about telling them that his wife wanted to know what it would be like to spend a night on Mount Everest, but he settled for, “We’re on our honeymoon, Sergeant, and just wanted to spend a night on the beach.”
“I think you’d better both come down to the station, sir,” said a voice from behind the other torch. “But perhaps you and your wife ought to get dressed first.”
George crawled back into the tent to find Ruth laughing.
“What’s so funny?” he demanded as he slipped his trousers on.
“I did warn you that you’d get arrested.”
A chief inspector, who had been woken in the middle of the night and asked to come down to the station to interview the two suspects, soon found himself apologizing.
“What made you think we were spies?” George asked him.
“You pitched your tent less than a hundred yards from a top-secret naval depot,” said the chief inspector. “I’m sure I don’t have to remind you, sir, that the Prime Minister has asked everyone to be vigilant while we prepare for war.”
CHAPTE
R TWENTY-FIVE
OCTOBER 1914
THE RECEIVED WISDOM had been that the war would all be over by Christmas.
George and Ruth had returned to Godalming after their honeymoon to settle in the house Mr. Turner had given his daughter as a wedding present. The Holt was more than either of them could have asked for, and certainly more than George had expected. Set in ten acres of land, it was a magnificent house with a garden in which Ruth knew she would be spending many happy hours pottering about.
No one could have been in any doubt how much George loved his wife, and Ruth had the glow of a woman who knows she’s cherished. They wanted for nothing, and anyone who saw them together must have considered them a charmed couple, living an idyllic existence. But it was a façade, because George had a conscience.
During the next few months George could only stand by as many of his friends and contemporaries from Cambridge, and even some of the young men he’d taught at Charterhouse, left for the Western Front, never to return, while the only sacrifice he’d made was to put off his proposed trip to Tibet until after the hostilities had ceased. It didn’t help that the friends who visited him at The Holt always seemed to be in uniform. Brooke, Young, Somervell, Odell, Herford, and even Finch dropped in to spend the night before traveling on to France. George often wondered if any of them thought he’d found an easy way out. But even though they never once raised the subject, indeed went out of their way to stress the importance of the work he was doing, he could never be sure. And whenever the headmaster, Mr. Fletcher, read out the names of those Old Carthusians who had sacrificed their lives in the service of their country, it only made him feel more guilty.
George decided to discuss his misgivings with his oldest friend, Guy Bullock, who had returned to London to take up a post at the War Office. Guy tried to reassure him that there could be no greater calling than to teach the next generation of children, who would have to take the place of those who had fallen.
George next sought the counsel of Geoffrey Young, who reminded him that if he did decide to join up, someone else would have to take his place. He also mulled over the never-ending debate with Andrew O’Sullivan, who wasn’t in any doubt that they were doing the right thing by remaining at their posts. Mr. Fletcher was even more adamant, saying that he couldn’t afford to lose someone with George’s experience.
Whenever he raised the subject with Ruth, she left him in no doubt about how she felt. It finally caused their first argument since they’d been married.
George was finding it more and more difficult to sleep at night as he wrestled with his conscience, and Ruth often lay awake too, aware of the dilemma he was going through.
“Are you still awake, my darling?” she whispered one night.
He leaned over and kissed her gently on the lips, before placing an arm around her as she rested her head on his shoulder.
“I’ve been thinking about our future,” George said.
“Bored with me already are you, Mr. Mallory?” she teased. “And to think we’ve only been married for a few months.”
“Terrified of losing you would be nearer the truth,” George said quietly. He felt her body stiffen. “No one knows better than you, my darling, just how guilty I feel about not joining my friends in France.”
“Have any of those friends said anything to make you feel guilty?” she asked.
“No, not one of them,” admitted George. “Which only makes it more telling.”
“But they know you’re serving your country in a different way.”
“No one, my darling, can exempt themselves from their conscience.”
“If you were killed, what would that achieve?”
“Nothing, other than that you’d know I’d done the honorable thing.”
“And I’d be a widow.”
“Along with so many other women married to honorable men.”
“Have any of the staff at Charterhouse joined up?”
“I can’t speak for my colleagues,” replied George, “but I can speak for Brooke, Young, Bullock, Herford, Somervell, and Finch, who are among the finest men of my generation, and who haven’t hesitated to serve their country.”
“They’ve also made it clear that they understand your position.”
“Perhaps, but they haven’t taken the easy way out.”
“The man who climbed St. Mark’s Basilica could never be accused of taking the easy way out,” protested Ruth.
“But what if that same man failed to join his comrades at the Front when his country was at war?” George took his wife in his arms. “I understand how you feel, my darling, but perhaps—”
“Perhaps it would make a difference, George,” she interrupted, “if I told you I was pregnant?”
This joyful piece of news did delay George from making a decision, but soon after the birth of his daughter, Clare, the feelings of guilt resurfaced. Having a child of his own made him feel an even greater responsibility to the next generation.
George continued to teach as the war dragged on, but if didn’t help that every day he had to pass a recruitment poster on his walk to school, showing a young girl seated on her father’s lap, asking, Daddy, what did YOU do in the Great War?
What would he tell Clare? With each friend George lost, the nightmare revisited him. He had read that even the bravest of men could snap when going over the top and facing gunfire for the first time. George was sitting peacefully in his usual pew in the school chapel when he snapped.
The headmaster rose from his place to lead the morning service. “Let us pray,” he began, “for those Old Carthusians who have made the ultimate sacrifice by laying down their lives for the greater cause. Sadly,” he continued, “I must add two new names to that growing list. Lieutenant Peter Wainwright of the Royal Fusiliers, who died at Loos while leading an attack on an enemy post. Let us remember him.”
“Let us remember him,” repeated the congregation.
George buried his head in his hands and wept silently before the headmaster added the second name.
“Second Lieutenant Simon Carter, who many of us will fondly remember as Carter minor, was killed while serving his country in Mesopotamia. Let us remember him.”
While the rest of the congregation lowered their heads and repeated, “Let us remember him,” George rose from his place, bowed before the altar and marched out of the chapel. He didn’t stop walking until he’d reached Godalming High Street, where he joined a queue of young men standing in line outside the local recruitment office.
“Name?” said the recruiting sergeant when George reached the front of the queue.
“Mallory.”
The sergeant looked him up and down. “You do realize, sir, that under the terms of the new Conscription Act, schoolmasters are exempt from military service?”
George took off his long black gown and mortar board, and threw them in the nearest wastepaper basket.
BOOK THREE
No Man’s Land
1916
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
July 9th, 1916
My darling Ruth,
It was one of the unhappiest days of my life when we parted on that cold, desolate railway station in Godalming. Only being allowed a weekend together after I’d completed my basic training was cruel indeed, but I promise, I will write to you every day.
It was kind of you to leave me with the assurance that you believe I’m doing the right thing, even though your eyes revealed your true feelings.
I joined my regiment at Dover, and bumped into a few old friends. Do you remember Siegfried Herford? What a difficult decision he had to make, having a German father and an English mother.
The following day we set off for in a boat that leaked like a colander and bobbed up and down like a rubber duck. One of the lads suggested it must have been a personal gift from the Kaiser. We spent most of the crossing using our billycans to return gallons of water to the ocean. You will recall from our last trip across the Channel that I’ve never been much o
f a sailor, but I somehow managed not to be sick in front of the men.
We docked at at first light, without much sign of the French taking any part in this war. I joined a couple of brother officers in a café for a hot croissant and some coffee. We met up with some other officers returning from the front, who advised us to enjoy our last meal on a tablecloth (let alone the luxury of a china plate) for several months, and reminded us that we would be sitting in a different sort of dining room in 24 hours’ time.
As usual I can be relied on to forget something, and this time it was your photograph. I’m desperate to see your face again, even if it’s only in black and white, so please send me the snap I took of you on Derden Heights the day before we were arrested. I want to carry it with me all the time.
God knows I miss you, and I don’t begin to understand how one can be surrounded by so many people, so much furious activity and so much deafening noise, and still feel so very lonely. I’m just trying to find another way of saying that I love you, although I know you’d tease me if I were to suggest that you are the only woman in my life. But I already look upon Chomolungma as just an old flame.
Your loving husband,
George
Once George had handed the letter to his regiment’s postal clerk, he hung around waiting for the convoy of trucks to begin its one-way journey to the front line.
In the space of a few miles, the beautiful French countryside of Millet and Monet, with its dappled greens and bright yellows, and sheep and cows grazing in the fields, had been replaced by a far uglier canvas of burned and withered trees, slaughtered horses, roofless houses, and desolate civilians who had become pawns on the chessboard of war.
The convoy rolled relentlessly on, but before George was given the chance to be deafened by the noise, he watched as angry gray and black clouds of sulfurous fumes gathered until they completely masked the sun. They finally came to a halt at a camp three miles behind the front line, which didn’t have a signpost and where the days had been turned into perpetual night. Here, George met a group of men in uniform who wondered if they would be alive in twenty-four hours.