Paths of Glory

George felt confident that this was not a conversation Guy would be having with his father, despite the fact that he had also only managed to scrape a third. He concluded that it was not the moment to tell Papa that if he was lucky enough to be among those selected to join Geoffrey Young’s climbing party in the Alps, he would be making an excursion to Italy that summer.

Unlike Guy, George had been mortified to be awarded a third. However, Mr. Benson had assured him that he had been a borderline case for a second, and added that if he were to work a little harder during the next two years, that would be the class he should attain when he sat his finals—and if he was willing to make sacrifices, he might even secure a first.

George began to consider what sacrifices Mr. Benson might have in mind. He had, after all, been elected to the committee of the Fabian Society, where he had dined with George Bernard Shaw and Ramsay MacDonald. He regularly spent evenings with Rupert Brooke, Lytton Strachey, Geoffrey and John Maynard Keynes, and Ka Cox, all of whom Mr. Benson thoroughly approved of. He’d even played the Pope in Brooke’s production of Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus—although George would have been the first to admit that the reviews had not been all that flattering. He had also begun a thesis on Boswell, which he hoped might in time be published. But all of this had been secondary to his efforts to be elected to the Alpine Club. Did Mr. Benson expect him to sacrifice everything in order to gain the coveted first?

CHAPTER TEN

GEORGE MALLORY HAD never climbed with anyone he considered his equal. That was until he met George Finch.

During the Michaelmas vacation, George had traveled to Wales to join Geoffrey Young for one of the Cambridge Mountaineering Club meets at Pen-y-Pass. Each day, Young would select the teams for the morning climb, and George quickly came to respect Odell and Somervell, who were not only excellent company, but were able to keep pace with him when they tackled the more demanding climbs.

On Thursday morning, George was paired with Finch for the ridge climb over Crib Goch, Crib-y-Ddysgl, Snowdon, and Lliwedd. As the two men clambered up and down Snowdon, often having to scramble on their hands and knees, George became painfully aware that the young Australian wouldn’t rest until everyone else had been left in his wake.

“It’s not a competition,” said George, once the rest of the climbers had all fallen behind.

“Oh yes it is,” said Finch, not slackening his pace. “Haven’t you noticed that Young has only invited two people to this meet who aren’t at Oxford or Cambridge?” He paused to draw breath before spitting out, “And the other one is a woman.”

“I hadn’t noticed,” admitted George.

“If I’m to have any hope of being invited to join Young in the Alps this summer,” snapped Finch, “I’ll have to leave him in no doubt who’s the best climber of all the would-be applicants.”

?

?Is that right?” said George as he quickened his pace and overtook his first rival.

By the time they swung around the Snowdon Horseshoe, Finch was back by his side. Both men were breathing heavily as they almost jogged down the hill. George slackened his pace, allowing Finch to overtake him just as the Pen-y-Pass hotel came into sight.

“You’re good, Mallory, but are you good enough?” said Finch after George had ordered two pints of bitter. They were on their second pint before Odell and Somervell joined them.

In Cornwall a few months later the two rivals honed their rock-climbing skills, and whenever Young was asked to choose who he thought was the better climber, he was unwilling to respond. However, George accepted that once they stepped onto the slopes of the Italian Alps in the summer, Young would have to decide which of them would accompany him in the Courmayeur Valley for the challenging assault on Mont Blanc.

Among the other climbers who regularly attended those trips to Wales and Cornwall was one George wanted to spend more time with. Her name was Cottie Sanders. The daughter of a wealthy industrialist, she could have undoubtedly taken her place at Cambridge had her mother considered it a proper activity for a young lady. George, Guy, and Cottie regularly made up a three for the morning climb, but once they’d had lunch together on the lower slopes, Young would insist that George leave them and join Finch, Somervell, and Odell for the more demanding afternoon climbs.

Cottie could not have been described as beautiful in the conventional sense, but George had rarely enjoyed a woman’s company more. She was just an inch over five feet, and if she possessed a pleasing figure, she disguised it determinedly beneath layers of jumpers and jodhpurs. Her freckled face and curly brown hair gave the impression of a tomboy. But that wasn’t what had attracted George to her.

George’s father often referred to “inner beauty” in his morning sermons, and George had just as often silently scoffed at the idea from his place in the front pew. But that was before he met Cottie. He failed, however, to notice that her eyes always lit up when she was with him. And when Guy asked her if she was in love with George, she simply said, “Isn’t everybody?”

Whenever Guy raised the subject with his friend, George always replied that he did not think of Cottie as anything more than a friend.

“What’s your opinion of George Finch?” asked Cottie one day when they sat down for lunch on top of a rock.

“Why do you ask?” said George, removing a sandwich from its grease-proof paper wrapping.

“My father once told me that only politicians are expected to answer a question with a question.”

George smiled. “I admit Finch is a damned fine climber, but he can be a bit much if you have to spend all day with him.”

“Ten minutes was quite enough for me,” said Cottie.

“What do you mean?” asked George as he lit his pipe.

“Once we were out of sight of everybody, he tried to kiss me.”

“Perhaps he’s fallen in love with you,” said George, trying to make light of it.

“I don’t think so, George,” she said. “I’m not exactly his type.”

“But he must find you attractive if he wanted to kiss you?”