Chapter V: The Jumping-Off Line

I shall not lengthen out an already long record by describing our journey from Calcutta, where we did much of our fitting out, up to Kashmir, on over the passes to Yarkand, and thence round the north of the Tarim Desert. Nor shall I describe the high passes of the snow-line, nor the precipitous cliff roads and the overhanging _paris_, nor the grey snow-fed torrents we traversed. The journey was full of interest and incident, and we met all kinds of strange peoples. Ladakhis, in heavy duffle clothes, Chinese merchants in high felt boots, Khirgiz men in big mushroom hats, and Khirgiz women in tall white head-dresses recalling pictures of Plantagenet days, long caravans of shaggy camels, droves of fat-tailed sheep--such were our acquaintances as we wound along day after brief day and week after long week on our little mountain ponies or on foot over the towering heights. Nor is there space to describe our adventures with officious Chinese Ambans, who were over-punctilious in the matter of passports, and who had to be pacified in various ways.

Sufficient has already been written by various writers concerning these well-known highways, and this aims at being a record of adventure rather than a guide-book. In any case, beyond Aksu I have altered the names and localities and the compass bearings pretty considerably. Having made a few discoveries, we are not inclined to give them away. Recent happenings have altered our ideas on the commercial value of book, photo, and lecture rights, and for the moment, anyway, we have no desire to indicate our footsteps too closely to others who might wish to follow.

So, saving for the fact that we passed within measurable distance of Hami on our way into the Gobi Desert beyond it, this record will not give any particularly valuable data.

It was the end of November when we met in the Gymkhana at Karachi; it was late September of the following year that at last saw us at our starting-place, the tiny village Wrexham had visited on his first trip. The particular point from where I am now taking up the story is vivid in my memory, because it was the day after we had lost our cook. He had long been a thorn in our sides, more particularly in Wrexham’s, who ran our messing arrangements. Still he had some ideas of the preparation of food in a form more or less consumable by Europeans.

Whether he was tired of long marches, or whether he was afraid of going too far toward China, or whether he considered that Wrexham was too knowledgeable a person for an “honest” Ladakhi to get rich on, and that more profitable pickings could be got with some passably ignorant sahib whose business was the securing of record heads in the mountains, one or two of which folk we had met on our journey up, I can’t say.

Anyway, the day we left Aksu (he had drawn the balance of his pay the day before under the pretext of remitting it home through some Indian money-lenders who had cashed cheques for us) he just was not. Wrexham rode back to Aksu to see if he could be found, but failed to discover any traces of him. The man had just vanished. Doubtless he had joined some passing caravan or else hidden with some acquaintance in Aksu. This put us in rather a quandary, for we did not relish the idea of living for the future on purely native food.

And that was the point where we first realized the extraordinary value of that Admirable Crichton, Firoz Khan, Punjabi Mohammedan, of the Salt Range, ex-sapper and miner and devoted slave of Wrexham. He had served on three fronts, finally cutting his name, to follow Wrexham as body-servant and orderly and general master of the household to Central Asia in 1919.

Possibly in India pride of race would have prevented him offering his services, but here in the wastes of Kashgaria, among a people who know not caste, the old Hindu traditions which tend to hamper the Mussulman in India fell from him completely.

We were rather despondently making our evening meal off tinned stuffs requiring no cooking which Payindah Khan, my ex-sepoy orderly and present body-servant, had laid out for us. Payindah had learnt the art of waiting at table in East Africa, when most of our Indian servants had faded away into hospital. When I sent in my papers Payindah had demanded to be taken along wherever I was going, to superintend my “household,” as he called my odd servants and grooms.

Wounded in France, again in East Africa, again in Palestine, the last time pretty badly, he was a Punjabi Mussulman of the old type pre-war soldier. Uneducated yeoman farmer, whose knowledge of letters amounted to a painful slow scrawl which purported to be his signature, and a rapid and accurate but utterly incomprehensible method of doing accounts which saved me a good deal monthly on the bills my following produced, he was gifted with a quick mother-wit and a shrewd skill in judging men that was worth all the cheap board-school type of education that we are trying to thrust on unwilling India at the request of the babu politician.

He was a childless man, wifeless, too, since the ’flu year, and for some reason had not married again. I asked him one day who was going to inherit his land in Salt Range if he didn’t marry, and he told me that his nephew, a fine strapping lad who had been in my company during the war, would take it on, and there were two smaller editions at home waiting to get big enough to join the regiment and let the nephew go back to their land.

Fighting stock were Payindah’s folk. Of the five brothers three were buried on different fronts. Another--crippled from a shell wound--helped the old white-bearded grandfather, with the string of early frontier campaign ribbons, to run the family acres in the Salt Range that their folk had held since time immemorial.

However, I was really talking about Firoz.

After we had finished our meal, and Payindah was clearing away, Firoz came and started on the subject of the cook.

He lamented that he had not had the presence of mind to tie the low-born, self-styled Mussulman--might his face be blackened for all time--to a camel-saddle that night after he had drawn his money. After a lot of talk he got down to the real business--namely, that, until we could get a decent cook, he would feed us, and appealed to Payindah for support in the suggestion.

“Without doubt, sahibs,” said Payindah, “Firoz is a cook of the best after the manner of our folk. It is better that the sahibs should eat decent Punjabi food cleanly cooked by a person of repute than shorten their days by that which one of these half heathen--such as might be got for a price in the bazaars--would prepare.”

“Even so,” chorused Firoz; “and although I know not the ‘side dishes’ and the ‘first-carses’ of the sahibs, still I can cook good _pillaus_ and _kababs_ such as the sahibs have in mess sometimes. Also my _chupattis_ will be far better than the bread that son of perdition used to make, such that Wrexham sahib once broke a knife cutting it.”

This last remark was true, and the resultant disturbance may have been one of the causes of the cook’s going.

Anyway, we heartily agreed that a turn of Punjabi cuisine by Firoz could not be worse and might be far better than what we had suffered at our late cook’s hands. And so it proved once we had broken him of the habit of smothering things in oil.

This disappearance of the cook was in one way a blessing, as it was one less mouth for our expedition across the desert. We were anxious not to take any of the local people with us, since, if we found anything worth having, we wished rather to keep the knowledge to ourselves. We had bought our own camels at Yarkand so as to render us independent. The only local man we kept on continuously was a Turki camel-driver. Since the country we were going into was quite unknown, there was nothing to be gained from the knowledge the local people possessed. Hence we had simply hired extra men for a few stages at a time, replacing them by others as we went along.

The one exception, the camel-driver, a man who had accompanied Wrexham in 1919, Sadiq by name, was passably honest and trustworthy, and seemed to be a wanderer with no particular relatives. He had, however, sufficient local standing to serve to keep us in touch with the countryside on our way up from Yarkand, and was extremely useful in looking after the camels and the hired men. Both Firoz and Payindah had a good knowledge of the beasts, Firoz having learnt much about them in Palestine, where he had been transport lance _naik_ of his unit.

For our journey across the desert we had reduced our kit to a minimum.

The main question was water, and for that we had brought special tanks from India of galvanized iron, holding seventeen gallons apiece, two full tanks making the camel-load. We had four camel-loads of water, making one hundred and thirty-six gallons in all, which, considering men alone, would give us rather over five gallons a day for the seven of us for twenty-five days. If we did not find the hills old John Wrexham had written about, we ought to be able to make our way back all right, since the consumption of food and water would automatically lighten the loads of the camels, and heavier stores could be shifted off the other beasts, who by that time would be pretty tucked up.

Still, I don’t think any of us feared not finding the hills and the stream or water of sorts. We were all thoroughly convinced that the story was true. The coincidence of Wrexham finding the dead man in the desert tallied too much with the account in his great-great-uncle’s diary for the original story to be an invention. Our main preoccupation was how to get into the country, and the kind of reception we were likely to get. We had also arranged to start with one camel-load of full rations for men, which should last us three weeks easily, or a month if we were very careful, and about one and a half camel-loads of grain and oil for camels, giving starvation ration for about the same period. We were chancing our arm over the matter of food for the camels, and they could not possibly stay anything like that period without water; but within five days of starting we could count on ascertaining whether or not there was any snow mountain in the distance, and if so we could safely risk giving part of our water to the camels. If nothing whatever was seen after six days, we should, of course, have to consider the question of returning.

One camel carried our personal baggage, a very limited amount for each, our books, maps, survey instruments, and so on. Another carried ammunition, of which we brought a fair amount. We might, if we got into the country alive, have to fight, and we all agreed that ammunition was a _sine qua non_. To save complications in the matter we had standardized our armament. There were five .303 rifles, one for each of us, and one each for the two Punjabis. These we carried ourselves. We had two thousand rounds of ammunition, a liberal allowance for eventualities.

Wrexham, Forsyth, and I each had a forty-five automatic Colt pistol with one hundred and fifty rounds apiece. And on the ammunition camel we had a twelve-bore gun with some three hundred cartridges for shooting for the pot. The rest of the camel’s load was made up of a small tool outfit for Wrexham, who, unlike many sappers, was a man of his hands, and never better pleased than when doing odd jobs, and a goodly medical outfit for Forsyth, as we had agreed at Karachi.

The ninth camel carried climbing gear, ropes, and the like, oddments of camp kit, and an eighty-pound tent, with nearly a half-load of rations for the camels.

Lastly, we had one spare beast which could be used for riding at a pinch if any of us fell sick, but was primarily intended to replace any casualty. All ten were very carefully picked animals, and we had got them into the best of condition against the hardships they would have to face once we struck out into the desert.

We had decided to leave the road at Wrexham’s village and march by compass on a bearing, of fifty-two degrees. Old John Wrexham said he went due northeast (forty-five degrees), and then had had to go right-handed for nearly two days before he reached the valley. On the assumption that his records were accurate, the bearing of fifty-two would bring us to the hills about a day’s march from the valley. On the other hand, if--as was likely in view of his troubles coming back--the distance was more than he had estimated on the outward journey, it would put us closer still to the valley, perhaps within a mile or two.

At Wrexham’s village we filled up with water--we had made up our food loads at the last town and lived on local produce since--and added a little in the way of such fresh vegetables as were procurable. We spent two busy days there, finally fitting out and doing various odd repairs to gear such as are rendered necessary after a long march.

Wrexham, who had now a pretty useful knowledge of Turki, spent most of his time talking to the inhabitants, and asking questions about routes in the desert, and in carefully creating an atmosphere favourable to the reasons he gave for our trip. He announced that we intended travelling on to the next big town, but, instead of following the road, we were going to move parallel to it about two days’ distance into the desert in search of ruined towns, abandoned as the country desiccated and the desert grew.

All the way along we had displayed a keen (and not altogether fictitious) interest in archæology, employing our various halts in visiting old ruins, and here and there buying small antique or pseudo-antique relics.

As a consequence we had no difficulty in making people believe our story, and in any case there was no reason for them to think that we were mad enough to want to strike straight into the unknown and pathless desert to the north. We had not told either the Punjabis or Sadiq what our real destination was, lest they should give it out to all and sundry.

Our final departure was fixed for the 1st October, and we intended to make an early start and carry out as long a march as possible.

We had everything except the barest necessities packed up the night before ready for loading, and held a final inspection of water-tanks and stores before it got dark.

After we had finished our evening meal and the two Punjabis were packing up the last oddments, we three sat out at the entrance of our little tent muffled up in _poshtins_, for the nights were by now pretty cold.

“We’ve reached the jumping-off line, and zero hour’s pretty near,” said Forsyth. “I wonder what we shall find at the far end?”

“Water, I trust,” said Wrexham, the ever practical; “for if we don’t we shall have to turn about and scuttle back double time.”

“I wasn’t thinking of water, you unromantic materialist. I want to know the kind of people we’re going to find. Think of finding a bit of the ancient world still in being. Lord, think of the yarns one would have to tell when one got back home! I’d make a few stuffy professors I know sit up some,” replied the doctor.

“If the local inhabitants are as pleasant-looking as the lady Euphrosine of the picture, I should think you could make even the driest of old inhabitants sit up,” said I. “I wonder whether your passion for ethnology in general would blind you to a keener interest in specific living specimens in that case.”

Our stay in Calcutta had proved to me that Forsyth was far from being averse to the society of fair maidens; in fact, at one time I had serious fears lest the attractions of certain damsels might not prove more potent than that of mythical Greek relics in the heart of Asia.

“Oh, dry up, Harry. You can never get away from your innuendoes about frocks and frills, merely because when I’m in civilization I like to enjoy it.”

“I didn’t make any innuendoes. Your guilty conscience betrays you. Did you leave any address in Calcutta, or leave touching messages about how your thoughts would travel from far sand-buried Khotan, or how sweet certain memories would seem in forgotten Lop Nor?”

I ducked the tobacco-pouch he threw at me, and while he was looking for it resumed in a more serious vein:

“Have you ever worked out, Wrexham, how that fellow you found could have got so far across the desert without water?”

“Yes; I’ve thought about that a good deal. My own idea is that he must have had some with him as a start. If you remember, the old diary refers to the stream running out about a dozen miles. That would give him a start, nearly a day’s march. He might have carried a load of twenty pounds--say two gallons. He carried little else, presumably a little food. Two small skins at a gallon apiece would have lasted him four days, even allowing for his being wounded. That takes him five days out--say, sixty miles. Remember, he was apparently fighting for his life.

“The question is, what did he do after that? My own theory on the point is that he was saved for a time by the rain. You may remember I said--at least I think I told you--that we had had rain on and off for a week. In the diary you remember that my great-great-uncle mentions having noticed some rock outcrops on his way back. Well, they might have hollows in them which would fill up in rain, not necessarily big ones, but things holding a few gallons, like you see in most of the hills about here. A good shower would give him another refill, and so carry him on another thirty miles or so. Probably thereafter there would be no more outcrops, and the last bit he had to do without water, and that--perhaps combined with his wound--is to my mind what finished the poor devil off. Rotten luck pegging out like that only two days short of help.

“That theory, by the way, is one of my reasons for heading a bit more south than the course steered by my great-great-uncle. If there _are_ such rock outcrops, and if we have any more rain such as we had last week, we might get an opportunity of giving the camels a bit more to drink.”

“Quite a sound bit of deduction. It will be interesting to see if we find any little rock-pools or places that could be pools on the way. Well, I see the men have turned in, and I think we might do worse than follow suit. It’s past nine, and we’ve got to be up at four and see the camels loaded and get a meal before we start.”

“I think so, too,” said Forsyth, getting to his feet. “Lord, aren’t the stars extra gorgeous to-night? I wonder if we shall find these people use the old Greek names still?”

“Dunno about that, but I’ll take a bet they still say the same kind of things to the same kind of girls out under the same stars. Human nature’s the one thing that does not change much through the ages. History shows you that, all right.”

“With you, Harry. It’s the one unchanging factor in a very changeable world. However, what about the bed stakes?” Wrexham, a podgy figure in his _poshtin_, knocked the ashes of his pipe out against the heel of his boot and made for his bedding roll.

Ten minutes later we were all rolled up in our blankets, and Forsyth turned down the light.