The first losses for the team

11th May 1924

Sandy got back at Base Camp on the afternoon of May 11. The descent had also been hard: one of the porters, Tamding, fell on the ice and broke his leg, and at Camp I Sandy found the cobbler, Manbahadur, suffering from hypothermia, and whose feet were frostbitten. Still at Camp I there was also Shamsher, who was unconscious, probably suffering from what today would be called HACE (high altitude cerebral edema).

Hingston and Bruce went up to Camp I to see Shamsher who, they hoped, would have improved with the rest and care he was receiving at Camp I. They were disturbed to hear that his condition had deteriorated overnight and Hingston immediately ordered his evacuation to a lower altitude. Despite their best attempts to carry him carefully to Base Camp, Shamsher died about a mile from the camp without ever regaining consciousness. He was buried in a sheltered spot outside Base Camp.

Typescript copy of letter from Sandy to his friend Peter Lunn (original destroyed in World War II).