No sign of Mallory and Irvine

9th June 1924

Odell arrived at Camp IV at 6.45 p.m. where he was welcomed by Hazard who supplied him with large quantities of soup and tea. Together they scanned the mountain for any sight of light from a torch or distress flare but nothing was to be seen. The next morning they scanned the upper mountain and the two camps for any sign of life or movement but nothing was seen. At midday Odell decided that he would search both camps himself and before he left he arranged a code of blanket signals with Hazard so that they could communicate to some extent if necessary. 

This was a fixed arrangement of sleeping bags which would be laid out against the snow in the daylight. They reached Camp V and saw that it had  not been touched or occupied. They spent the night there, and on the morning of June 10 the porters went down to Camp IV and Odell went to VI: when he finally arrived there, he found the tent closed up, exactly as he had left it two days earlier. He set out along the probable route that Sandy and Mallory had taken to make what search he could in the limited time available. After two hours, he gave up and made the signal of sleeping bags in the snow, a T-shape for 'No trace can be found, Given up hope, Awaiting orders'.