War of The Worlds

"Into the Silence: The Great War, Mallory, and the Conquest of Everest" greatly benefits from Wade Davis' thorough research and attention to detail. But it's how he frames this work as a redemptive tale of England in post-World War I that makes it not only an impressive work of scholarship, but also a mesmerizing story of the human spirit.

The British Empire was reeling from the horrible costs of World War I, a conflict so devastating that one woman said, "By the end of 1916, every boy I had ever danced with was dead." National pride had been wounded before the war when British teams failed to be the first to arrive at the North or South Pole.

In this context, it made perfect sense for England to rally behind another quest. Much like the United States made being the first on the moon an imperative, Britain wanted one of their own to be the first atop the world's highest peak, Mt. Everest.

"There's no question that for an empire of explorers to have lost the race to the North and South poles, Everest emerged as a symbol of national and imperial aspirations," says Wade Davis, author of "Into the Silence: The Great War, Mallory, and the Conquest of Everest." "I think you can argue, in the wake of the war, it became the symbol of a regeneration of a people."

Davis, who holds the title of National Geographic explorer-in-residence, spent 12 years researching and writing the book. Just after he started, Conrad Anker, one of the most accomplished of contemporary mountaineers, discovered George Mallory's body on the north face of the mountain. A flurry of books about Mallory, some rushed to print, were published. Davis offered to give back his advance for "Into the Silence," but was told to take his time. The result is not only a thorough examination of Mallory's determined advances on Everest, but also insight into the psyche of post-war England.

After the horrific battles of the Great War — including the Somme and Passchendaele — many of the men who fought for Great Britain sought another outlet to test their manhood. The three attempts to conquer Everest in 1921, 1922 and 1924 were dominated by mountaineers with military backgrounds. As such, the language used to describe the mountaineers and their quest was colored by military verbiage and terms.

"In a sense, the boys who had gone through the war were forever differentiated from those who just sat by," Davis says. "The boys who sat on the sidelines used the language of war to describe mountaineering. But those who had been through the war took the notion to a whole other level, where they were prepared to accept a degree of risk that would have been unimaginable before the war."

Of the men who took up the mantle of Everest to bring glory to Great Britain, George Mallory was the most accomplished mountaineer. Mallory came to personify British attempts to scale Everest in the same way that John Glenn and Neil Armstrong became emblematic of the U.S. space program. When it came time to plan the third expedition to climb Everest, Mallory was hesitant to join the team. He acquiesced, Davis writes, in part because, "After all he had endured and invested in the quest, it was inconceivable that Mallory would not be there at the end."

It was a fatal decision. In early June 1924, Mallory and fellow mountaineer Sandy Irvine were spotted by their colleague Noel Odell, who wrote, "There was a sudden clearing of the atmosphere and the entire summit ridge and final peak of Everest were unveiled." He spied two moving black spots, which were Mallory and Irvine. They then disappeared, "enveloped in a cloud once more."

Odell would descend his perch thinking that his colleagues had triumphed. But they were never heard from again. In 1953, Sir Edmund Hillary, a New Zealander, would become the first to reach the summit, and Mallory became a historical footnote, more or less forgotten outside of England.

In 1999, Mallory's body was found by Anker during the Mallory and Irvine Research Expedition, comprised of mostly American climbers who were traveling with filmmakers from the BBC and PBS. Controversy flared again: Had Mallory reached the summit?

Anker, going against the prevailing thought of his colleagues, felt certain that Mallory fell short. But he did allow for another scenario: If there had been heavy snowfall, there might have been a "cone" of snow covering the most difficult pitches of rock. Mallory and Irvine might have been the first men to see the world from Everest's peak.

"There was a huge amount of snow on the mountain that year, so it does leave open the possibility (that Mallory and Irvine succeeded)," Davis says. "The fascinating thing is, if that had been the case, it reinforces what Odell said that he saw: Them moving at a determined fashion and speed up the slope and up the northeast ridge."