Chapter VI: The Desert

At 4 A.M. Wrexham, who has the faculty of waking at whatever time he wishes, kicked us out of our blankets and said it was time to move. Outside the tent Firoz was busy with breakfast, while Payindah and Sadiq were roping up the last bundles of kit. The moment we were outside, Payindah rolled up our valises, and then they struck and packed our eighty-pound tent.

We ate a pretty solid meal, for long travelling and campaigning had inured us to food at the small hours, and we wanted to make as long a march as possible that day, when the camels would be at their freshest. Breakfast over, the camels were brought up by Sadiq and a friend picked up in the village, who hung about our camp while we were there.

Then we set to loading the beasts, who were fairly tractable after their long marches, though, of course, in the manner of all camels, they gurgled and snarled incessantly, or blew out pink bladders from their cavernous, ill-smelling mouths while voicing their complaints. There was no trouble over the water camels; it was the miscellaneous collections such as that carried by the ammunition camel which caused us many anxious moments trying to secure the various odd-shaped packets into two compact loads. Fortunately, they were constant ones that would not have to be broken _en route_--at least, we hoped not.

By 5.30 A.M. the last camel stood up finally loaded, Firoz hurriedly attaching two hurricane-lamps and a bundle of kitchen oddments to the peak of the saddle, after the manner of the immemorial East.

It was still dark, but there was a faint, faint glimmer in the east that foreshadowed the coming dawn, and the dark velvet of the starlit sky was beginning to show a tinge of indigo above the far horizon. Away on the outskirts of the village a mournful dog wailed his sorrows to the unheeding dark.

A final inspection of the loads by the aid of a lantern, a last look round our camp-site, and then Wrexham--unanimously appointed Caravan Bashi--gave the order to start.

The first part of our way lay along a little track fringing some fields, the last bits of cultivation on the edge of the desert. Thereafter we were to march by Wrexham’s oil compass. We had reconnoitred the first five or six miles the day before, dead level going, so there was no danger of delay by unforeseen obstacles.

With Wrexham and Firoz at the head of the little string of silent-footed camels, Forsyth and Sadiq in the middle to see that no loads slipped or beasts strayed aside before dawn, and Payindah and myself bringing up the rear, we moved out along the sandy track with no sound save the monotonous tinkling of the leading camel’s bell.

Sadiq’s friend, after embracing Sadiq three times in Eastern fashion, stood at the edge of the camp-site to wish us luck as we went. Then he disappeared in the dark, the last fellow-being we were like to see for the next ten days at the most optimistic computation.

There was a slight check as we neared the end of the fields, from which I guessed that Wrexham was getting his bearings; then the leading camel’s bell rang out again on the chill dawn air, the ghostly great beasts in front of me quickened their pace once more, and we passed out into the desert.

The full dawn saw us just emerging from the last vegetation, odd dried-up thickets and reeds, while in front lay the rolling low sand-dunes that were to be our home for some time to come. The air was cold and still, a blessing for which we were devoutly thankful. The first day we had looked out over the desert there had been a strong northeast wind, which blew great yellow sand-spouts along, blinding us from time to time. But to-day, as if for a favourable omen, hardly a breath stirred, and the blue distances were clear.

At first we passed over ground covered with fine soft dust, here and there splashed with white and grey salt deposits that crackled underfoot, and now and then small terraces of friable clay, last relics of the days when all this area was the bottom of the great inland sea. Then, after an hour or so, we got into low sand-ridges, the high-water mark of the restless ocean, which stretched before us on three sides as far as the eye could reach.

A little farther and we were well out of our depth--to continue the simile of the sea--in ridges and ridges of sand from ten to fifteen feet high, like the breakers along a coast, swelling up gently from the direction of the prevailing northeast wind, and steeper-faced--sometimes almost concave at the top--on the south and west where we approached them, for all the world like waves about to break and solidified in the process.

All day we travelled hour after plodding hour through this trackless sea of fine greyish sand. The last of the scanty vegetation had been left behind when we made our midday halt, not a blade of grass, not a tamarisk, nothing but sand, utterly void of life. The sun beat down on to the sand, and the glare was blinding, but even at midday the heat was not oppressive. We were thankful for our coloured glasses, and even the two Punjabis were glad to put on those we had brought for them, much as they had jested at the idea at first.

We covered eighteen miles that day, and camped in a little valley among the dunes, where by good fortune we found some dried-up tamarisk roots, which gave us a good fire, for the evening temperature fell fast once the sun was down, and we were glad enough to slip into our _poshtins_ once more. The heat absorbed by the sand in the day radiates off at an immense pace after dusk, if one can talk about that period of the day, almost non-existent in sand countries.

After our evening meal that night, we decided--as we had previously arranged--to tell the men something about our destination. We began with the two Punjabis.

“Listen, Payindah and Firoz,” began Wrexham, “to an old tale of my father’s grandfather’s brother, who was once in the army of John Company Bahadur. He left the army and came up here travelling, even as I have done, and he came by the same road into this very desert.

“After many days he found in its very heart high hills with snow mountains, and at the gate of the hills he found an old fort and outside that a dead man. And the dead man was white, even as I or as Lake sahib or as Forsyth sahib.

“But when he wished to enter the hills the two men with him became afraid, so that he had to return across the desert, and the water he had was finished, and first his camels and then his men died. And he himself all but died. And not wishing to tell the people here aught of his discovery until he should have searched more, he said nothing but returned to Hind, to his brother who commanded a regiment; and there he also died.

“Now, we three desire much to see these hills, for, as you know, the sahibs consider greatly the finding of strange lands and of strange peoples.

“And of these hills and of the people who must live in them because of the white man my great-grandfather’s brother saw, there is nothing known either to the people living around the desert or even to the sahibs who have travelled in this part.

“But it may be that my great-grandfather’s brother dreamt this thing, or it may be that he was out of his senses with fever. If so we shall have a long hard journey for nothing, and we also may come to die of thirst, even as his men did.

“Or if we get there, we may find that the people are as the Mahsuds or Wazirs of the Punjab border, and we may be attacked and perhaps slain.

“Now, all this we have told you that, before it is too late, you may yet say whether you will come with us or not. For it is not the custom of the sahibs to take men into danger unless those men be willing.

“If you consider that you would rather return to the Punjab, you shall have money and papers, and shall go back to-morrow. But we are determined to go on and see what there is to be seen. We have said nothing to any man till now, because had it been known others might have followed, and we do not wish any one to find this land until we have seen it with our own eyes.”

Without hesitation Payindah replied:

“For ten years have I followed Lake sahib, since he was a _chota_ sahib in the regiment. I have fought with him in three campaigns, and do I leave his service now that he goes into a new country? If God has decreed that we be swallowed by the sands or die of thirst or perchance be slain--well, we shall, whether we go on or whether we go back.”

“And so say I,” chimed in Firoz. “For twelve years have I been with sahibs, and for seven years have I served Wrexham sahib, and whither he goes, there go I, too, till he casts me out. _We_ are not like the men who went with his great-uncle, doubtless sons of Hindustan from Delhi or elsewhere such as were found in Jan Kampni’s[3] regiments, or perchance knaves such as the Ladakhi cook. We be Awans of the Punjab, Payindah and I, and as for there being Mahsuds or such in these hills that the sahib’s great-uncle saw, _we_ have spoken with Mahsuds and Wazirs--aye, with Mohmands also, and they did not talk too loudly. Do I not speak truth, Payindah?”

“Without doubt. Rememberest also certain Germani in Farance the day thy sahib got that love token on his cheek. They were bigger than Mahsuds, and we were but a few among many. But they fell down very quickly when we spoke to them with bayonets, not knowing their foul talk. And my bayonet was already broken, I recall.”

“It was as thou sayest. That Germani sergeant had a stout breast-bone. Wrexham sahib says that his people thirst after seeing new lands. But, as the sahibs know, we of the Punjab are not children to play about the house-door always. We also like seeing new lands. My own grandfather went up into Tibet with a sahib not long after the Mutiny.” Firoz broke off his string of reminiscences. “Whither the sahibs go, thither we also come.”

With Sadiq it was not quite so easy. He feared the desert not a little, but the promise of extra baksheesh finally allayed his fears. Also, the prospect of finding new places which might have treasure--the dream of so many of his folk--was perhaps alluring. Anyway, after pondering a bit, he said he would come.

Next morning we started early again, and made good progress once more, though by now the dunes were growing in height, up to twenty-five to thirty-five feet. We remarked that both to right and left they seemed higher still, but that may only have been the effect of looking out to the horizon. That day we made sixteen miles, for the higher dunes exacted their toll in the day’s march, although actually the pace did not seem much slower.

On the way Wrexham looked in vain for the place where he had found the dead man. The continually shifting sand-dunes left no chance of locating any spot not marked by some definite permanent feature, such as a clump of dead trees. By now the man’s bones or his mummified body were doubtless buried under the sands, perhaps to show up again centuries hence.

That night we looked out from a high dune--nearly fifty feet it must have been--over our route of next day, and saw that the dunes ahead were bigger than those we had crossed so far, and the sky, which had hitherto been cloudless, showed windy streakings to the northeast.

“Harder going to-morrow, I think,” said Wrexham, pointing to the wind-clouds on the horizon.

Sure enough, next morning at dawn a strong northeast wind was blowing, and everything was smothered in sand. Our tea was full of it, our food was gritty with it, and our hair and our clothes ran sand.

The dunes were higher now; fifty to sixty feet was about the average, and still we had the impression that our route was lower than the surrounding country. We covered only thirteen miles that day owing to the wind, the sand devils, and the heavier going and higher dunes. Our faces were masks of sand and perspiration, and we looked out with sand-reddened eyes under sand-whitened eyebrows.

That night we had to give the camels, who were showing signs of fatigue, a small water ration from our precious store. While we were watering them, Sadiq came up to suggest our turning back the next day. There could be no ruins in this wilderness of sand, he said, and there was not a vestige of a sign of any hills. But, if we would go back, he knew a man who had found really first-class ruins, and if we wanted mountains--well, there were lashings of them quite close to the trade route. Finding us obdurate, he gave up his endeavours, but I could see that he was convinced that all sanity had departed from us, and was doubtless entreating Allah to turn us back soon.

“To-morrow evening, anyway, we ought to get the first view of the snow, provided that the air clears a bit,” said Wrexham, as we sat in the stuffy tent with the flies laced up, trying to eat food that was not more than one third sand.

“If there _is_ any snow in the world,” said Forsyth, whose eyes seemed to have suffered more than ours from the driving gritty wind. “I had an idea that the dust of Mespot was the last word, but it’s only toilet powder compared to this article.”

He ruefully scraped the top of his _chupatti_, hoping to get below the outer layers of sand.

The following morning the wind was less, but it freshened again later. The dunes were now great billows sloping up to seventy and eighty feet, and taxed the camels severely. Still we pushed on, struggling hour after hour, through the heavy loose sand among the little spumes and fountains that danced and tossed on the brinks of the dunes where the cutting wind beat into our faces. When we halted that evening, after doing thirteen miles, the wind was perhaps a little less, but all around the horizon was veiled and grey with sand.

Next day the going was as bad--dunes up to nearly one hundred feet in places--and the wind stronger, while about midday the father and mother of all dust-storms came on, one of the kind that makes you think it’s midnight in Hades. For an hour we sat huddled up in the lee of a dune, a circle of dumb men and dumb beasts, under the biting lash of a sand-laden wind that seemed to flow past like some torrent of grit. The two Punjabis had swathed their faces in the ends of their _pagris_, and the rest of us buried ours as well as we could in the big collars of our _poshtins_.

It passed at last, but it was another hour ere we thought it was worth going on. Nine miles was all we made that day, and some of the dunes must have been over one hundred and twenty feet high.

The camels were showing clearly their weariness and lack of water, as they swayed along slowly, with lack-lustre eyes, dragging gait, and heavy breathing through distended nostrils. That night again we had to give them some more of our precious water, and it became clear that, unless we could get some definite proof of hills in front within the next thirty-six hours there could be no question of going on.

“Perhaps we shall get a fine day to-morrow,” said the ever-optimistic Wrexham. “I want to see the snow the diary talks about.”

“If ever I see snow or water again, I shall go and lie in them and refuse to move again till all the sand I’ve absorbed these last forty-eight hours is washed right out of my system,” snorted Forsyth, bathing his sore eyes in half a teacupful of water.

“Well, I hope you’ll see some to-morrow, though it will be a bit far off for bathing. It’s still absolutely hidden by sand to-night.”

Next day the wind had dropped, though a heavy dust haze still hung in the air. Like the previous day, the dunes were great high slopes, anything from eighty to one hundred feet. But the cessation of the wind made going easier, and the thinning atmosphere made us hopeful of a glimpse of the promised hills.

By the midday halt the sky was pretty clear all round, save in the one direction we wanted to see, and there, instead of our hills, was a heavy bank of cloud. Wrexham and I sat down despondently on the high dune up which we had climbed while Payindah was getting out some food, and looked out with our glasses at the distant clouds. We scanned each little bit of the bank, seeking in vain for the white glint of snow.

Suddenly Wrexham gripped my shoulder.

“Look there, Harry! Just in the middle of that dark bit like a camel’s hump. Isn’t that something white?”

“Which one?”

He pointed, but I couldn’t make out anything.

Then he laid the telescope on it and bade me look.

I looked through the glass, and there, sure enough, just below the dark cloud showed a faint whiteness that might be cloud or might be--could it be?--the longed-for snow.

The cloud-bank was slowly changing in shape from moment to moment. The big dark cloud that Wrexham had indicated was slowly moving to one side. But the white patch seemed not to shift. Then for a fleeting instant it showed clear, a sharp point of blue-veined white that could be no cloud.

“I think you’re right, John,” I said as I sat up. “Look!”

He glued his eye to the telescope, gave a whoop, hurriedly fished out his compass, and laid it on the line of the telescope.

“See,” he said, “bearing of fifty-six degrees. We’re not far out, old man, and if that’s not snow, then I’ve never seen it.”

We shouted at the top of our voices to Forsyth below, “Snow! _Snow!_ SNOW!”

He came up the slope as fast as the sand would let him, and got just a glimpse before the clouds veiled it again, a faint, tiny peak like a distant pearl in the dark mass of clouds. Then the heavy masses veiled it once more, and it disappeared from our gaze.

One more entry of the old diary was verified. We felt almost reckless now, though there must be many marches ahead, and our fatigue fell from us like a wet blanket as we glissaded down the sand-slope among the men. The two Punjabis seemed to take it as all in the day’s work. Doubtless if we expected snow ahead, there would be snow. They were of the pre-war type, with a prodigious belief in anything their sahibs said.

In a short while the wind had sprung up again, and we travelled on over the same high wind-tossed dunes of yellow grey sand. As much of the sky as was visible showed broken wisps of cloud. I remarked on this to Wrexham, and wondered whether there was any chance of rain. Such rainy season as there is in the desert was practically finished.

We were just going up the highest dune we had yet struck, a toilsome effort, when the question of rain arose. As we got to the top, Wrexham stopped and looked ahead. The wind had dropped a little once more.

“What’s that?” he said, pointing; “it looks like rock.”

I looked in the direction he indicated, and there, about a mile ahead, what seemed to be a low hillock of rock, dark in colour, broke the monotony of the grey landscape.

“_Is_ rock, I think,” said I. “If so, it will be a pleasant change to camping on sand.”

“Seems as if we must have got on to the line the great-great-uncle followed on his way back.”

“It’s quaint finding an outcrop like that in the middle of the desert. I suppose it must be a peak in the buried strata that joins the hills on either side. Let’s go on and see what it is.”

Pushing ahead, we climbed to the top of the rocky hill, and to our amazement found a sort of rock basin perhaps three hundred yards long by fifty to sixty yards broad with jagged edges of limestone. It looked for all the world what it probably was, the top of a long ridge which had either broken through the earth at some prehistoric period, or else been gradually silted up on all sides as the sand encroached. It stood perhaps one hundred feet above the tops of the highest dunes, and on a clear day must have been a fine vantage point.

“A few hours’ heavy rain would make that into a good thing in lakes,” I said.

“Yes,” replied Wrexham; “you can see there has been water upon occasion. Look at that thin layer of clay in the middle with the cracks in it. I vote we camp here to-night. We can’t do much more to-day, and this is better than settling down in the sand. We shall be out of the worst of it at this height, and if by any chance there is rain we stand more chance of collecting some than among the sand-dunes. Not that I have much hopes, because the rainfall in these parts at this time of year is about two hundredths of an inch in the month.”

The camels had halted at the foot of the hill, so we shouted down to Forsyth to bring them up, and presently we were all busy setting up camp for the night except Wrexham, who went wandering round the rocky basin. I wondered what he was doing, and when presently I saw him sitting down with a notebook I went up and asked him what he was at.

“I was just calculating the size of this hollow. It’s a fine natural catchment area, as it slopes inward on every side except just the narrow south end, where it’s broken away. It forms a regular sort of trough. That probably explains why it’s so comparatively free of sand. The only sand that gets in is that blown up high by the wind, and then the prevailing wind sweeps it out at the south end again. If that end was blocked now and it did rain, we could catch enough water to give the camels a decent drink.”

“Then let’s do it,” said I.

“That’s just why I was figuring out the area. I make out that, if the end was blocked, this would give a yield of something like three hundred gallons from a couple of hours’ decent rain. Say two hundred, allowing for what would be sucked up by cracks. It wouldn’t require much of a stop at the end either, since the open part is narrow and the slope very gradual.”

“Well, let’s do it quick. It would make all the difference to the camels if they could get a real drink. They’ve done well so far, but there’s no mistake about it they’re beginning to tire fast.”

We got all hands on to it, and blocked up the end of the long, shallow, trough-like hill with stones mixed with loose sand. Not a very waterproof dam, but it might hold once it got wet.

Then we sat down to wait for the rain. But none came, and at last we retired to bed, uncheered even by another glimpse of the distant snow. The air was still heavy with sand, and, though the little vistas of sky that we could see among the whirling dust were covered with lead-coloured clouds, never a grateful drop fell.

That night we figured out that we should have to push on now, and trust to finding water at the end, or else turn back next day. The water--although it would have been just sufficient for men for the double journey--allowed nothing for the camels, and we had had to give them water, and realized now that they would have to be given more in future. It was three very grave-faced, unshaven men who sat discussing by the light of the hurricane-lamp.

Said Wrexham finally:

“If we start back to-morrow we’ve just the minimum to get us home. If we go on--assuming that we’ve passed the halfway line--we may just get to the hills as we finish our water. Then, if we don’t find it, or if the great-great-uncle’s stream has dried up--we’re done, finished. Apart from water, we’re chancing things a bit over the camels’ grub for getting back.”

He looked at us as though seeking our thoughts, and for a moment or two neither of us spoke. Then I made up my mind.

“Personally I’m for pushing on,” said I; “some of the loads are getting lighter now, and, if any full-load camels show signs of crocking up, we can put the empty tanks on them. There’s certainly snow ahead, and that _must_ mean water, and water will mean grazing for the camels. Also, if we go back now, we’ve given the whole show away.”

“Yes,” put in Forsyth; “and next time we start everybody would know what was up. Even if the Punjabis kept their mouths shut, Sadiq would talk. That snow is not on the map, and the next explorer fellow who came along would be sure to have a shot at it. I’m in favour of our taking the chance of water and going on. Your uncle’s story points to all sorts of things worth finding, and it’s working out truer every day.”

“Yes, most of it seems to have been substantiated now,” said I. “John found a similar kind of man, we’ve seen the snow--unmistakable snow to my mind, though far off; and last, we’ve found one of the peculiar outcrops of rock he mentioned seeing on his return. There are too many coincidences about it for me to want to turn back.” I turned to Wrexham. “I’m all for shoving on, John, and Alec is, too.”

“Then, if you two are for pushing on, that settles it. I’d no ideas of going back myself--I think we’re intended to go on; but, since we are chancing our luck badly over this water question, I thought I ought to find out your ideas first.”

We turned in then, after a last lookout to see if anything could be seen of the sky. The wind was still blowing up sand, but such patches of sky as were visible seemed not quite so cloudy, and here and there a star showed through the murk.

“No luck, I’m afraid,” said I, as I crawled into my valise. “However, it looks clearer, and should be better going to-morrow.”

“I hope the dunes get lower. They ought to, for we must be leaving the middle of the desert now; I figure we’ve done over eighty miles. It was about seventy yesterday, and we did quite twelve to-day. Lord, I’m sleepy! Night, night!” Wrexham curled up into his blankets, and was asleep almost at once, and within five minutes Forsyth’s heavy breathing showed that he, too, had slipped into dreamland.

Tired though I was, it was some little time before I got to sleep that night. I’m not given to pessimistic forebodings, but I could not help wondering, as I lay awake in the dark, whether we were wise in going on. Things look so different when you think them out by yourself in the dark from what they seem in the light in company. However, I do believe in Providence very firmly, and the coincidences we had met and heard of in this quest seemed too marked for me to disbelieve. So, finally pushing my doubts firmly into the background, I fell asleep to the whistling music of the sand-laden wind outside.