Soldiering on to Everest

Lt-Gen Baljit Singh (retd) 

“They were men, the likes of which we will never know again...... collect butterflies in the dawn, paint watercolours in late morning, discuss  Keats and Shelley over lunch and still be prepared  to assault the flanks of Everest or indeed the German  frontlines, by dusk”.  — Dave Wade in the Foreword. 

The biographer observes that “it was a statistical miracle” for Edward Felix Norton (EFN) to have survived World War I. But even EFN’s climb to the highest on Everest in 1922, even higher in 1924 and his advice to Col John Hunt that culminated in summiting the Everest, an year before his demise, was equally miraculous. 

EFN’s military career began after graduating from the Military Academy, Woolwich, and posting to the R Battery, Royal Horse Artillery (RHA) at Meerut, in 1902. For most part of the next 10 years, he would professionally profit immensely from the Indian Army’s frequent skirmishes with the North West Frontier tribes along the restive Durand Line. 

A year later, Major Norton would graduate from the Staff College, Camberley , and proceed to France to lead his R Battery, RHA, from the very first battle at Aisne in 1914 on to Marne, Ypres, Loos, Cambrai, Somme, Arras and onward to the last German spring offensive of 1918. His unflagging performance found recognition through conferment of the DSO, an MC and Mentioned in Dispatches for gallantry, thrice. After World War I ended, it was a natural choice to post EFN to the Staff College, as an instructor till 1921. 

Sometime in February-March 1922, EFN set sail for India once again, but this time as a climbing member of the First British Everest Expedition. On May 19, 1922, George Mallory, Howard Sommervell and EFN reached 26,985 feet height when bad weather forced a retreat. 

The British returned to the Everest in 1924 and EFN would assume leadership from the ailing Brigadier Bruce. The second attempt by this expedition was launched by EFN and Sommervell on June 4, 1924. Unfortunately, Sommervell’s choking cough so incapacitated him that placing him under the shelter of a rock-spur, EFN proceeded on an incredible solo climb of Everest.

EFN’s record of getting to 28,126 ft, without the use of oxygen, wouldn’t be bettered till 1978. But even in Everest fall-out, there was a personal gain for was EFN — his marriage with Joyce, daughter of William Pasteur, a well-known physician throughout Europe and a house-hold name among Alpine climbers. 

Outside his family, there was not a word about EFN as a talented painter. The world learnt from Joyce during the Alpine Club dinner only in 1991 that EFN had carried a small sketch book on each Everest expedition and executed a few hundred, on-the-spot paintings. Shortly prior to Pearl Harbour, EFN was appointed Lieut Governor and C-in-C, Hongkong, where he earned fresh laurels but had an accidental, near fatal fall which necessitated his evacuation to India. He recouped sufficiently but retired on health grounds in 1942, with the acting rank of a Lieut Gen. Back in England, he would now gracefully oversee the affairs of his beloved R H A, as their Colonel Commandant from 1947 to 1951. 

The life story of this impressive and intriguing man, Norton of Everest, makes for an engrossing read.