A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush (7 page)

I could not sleep. I tried to read but it was too hot. Outside beyond the shutters the world was dead, sterilized by sun. At a little distance, shimmering in the heat, were the turreted walls of old Farah. I longed to visit it but the prospect of crossing the sizzling intervening no-man’s-land alone was too much. This was the city that Genghis Khan had captured and vainly attempted to knock down in the thirteenth century, that was re-occupied in the eighteenth and finally abandoned voluntarily in the nineteenth, so miserable had life within its walls become.

The sun expired in a haze of dust and the long, terrible day was over. In the early evening we set off. To the left were the jagged peaks of the Siah Band range; there were no trees and no sign of water, but by the roadside wild melons were growing, and we halted to try them but they were without taste. As we grew sticky eating bought melons from Farah, using the bonnet of the vehicle
as a table, two nomad men passed with a camel, followed at a distance of a quarter of a mile by a youngish woman who lurched along in an extremity of fatigue. Neither of the men paid the slightest attention to her but they saluted us cheerfully as they went past.

It seemed impossible for the road to get worse, but it did: vast pot-holes large enough to contain nests of machine-gunners; places where it was washed away as far as the centre, leaving a six-foot drop to ground level; things Hugh called ‘Irish Bridges’, where a torrent had swept right through the road leaving a steep natural step at the bottom; all provided a succession of spine-shattering jolts. Whereas the previous night we had only met two lorries in the hours of darkness, there were now many monster American vehicles loaded with merchandise to the height of a two-storied house, each with its complement of piratical-looking men hanging on the scramble nettings, who jumped off to wedge the wheels on the steep gradients, while the passengers huddled together, making the crossing on foot groaning with apprehension.

Sticky with melon we arrived at a town called Girishk on the Helmand river. There, under a mulberry tree, squatted the proprietor of a
chaie khana
, a long-headed, grey-bearded Pathan, chanting a dirge on the passing of a newly founded civilization, no new thing in this part of the world.

‘There is no light in the bazaar. The Americans brought light when they came to build the great dam’ (the Helmand River Barrage) ‘but when they left they took the machine with them and now there is no more light.

‘There is no more light and I am alone in the desert’ (this was an exaggeration – Girishk has eight thousand inhabitants) ‘with nothing but these tins and a teapot. Once I worked in a German woollen mill but now I am poor; we are all poor.’

This was not the first time we had listened to those sad night intimacies of the tea-house. Nevertheless the old man’s lament was strangely impressive. Perhaps because of the time – the unearthly hour before the dawn; because of the outlandish noises – the cries of shepherds calling to one another in the open country beyond the town and the barking of their dogs, like them, bolstering their courage in the darkness; but most of all because of the place itself – the tea-house that was nothing but a rug under a tree with a fire of yellow scrub to warm it, round which lay sleeping figures wrapped like sarcophagi, with their feet pointing towards the flames. All these, together with the heaps of empty tins that were the proprietor’s inheritance and the giant fleas that invested us immediately we sat down, are not easily forgotten.

We asked him about the dam, that vast scheme of which so much vague ill had been spoken all along the way.

‘It is all salt,’ he moaned, ‘the land below the American Dam. They did not trouble to find out and now the people will eat
namak
(salt) for ever and ever.’

The oil lanterns that were tied to the mulberry trees and which illuminated the street began to flicker and go out one by one. We rose to leave.

‘You will be in Kandahar in two hours,’ he went on. ‘The Americans built the road; they have not taken that away.’

It was as he said. The road was like a billiard table. The following morning we arrived at Kabul and drove down the great ceremonial avenues, newly asphalted, past Russian steamrollers still ironing out the final bumps, to the principal hotel. We were five days late. It was Friday, 5 July. In a month we had driven nearly 5,000 miles. Our journey was about to begin.

It was good to be separated from our motor-car, for which we had conceived a loathing normally reserved for the living, but no sooner were our feet planted on solid earth than difficulties of a ludicrous but nonetheless irksome kind began to pile up around us. The two most memorable were the affair of the Afghan bicyclist and the problem of Hugh’s old cook.

Rather incautiously, but with the best of intentions, Hugh had suggested in one of his letters from South America that we should take with us one of the local inhabitants in order to impart what he called ‘an Afghan flavour’ to our climb, his idea being that it would, if nothing else, convince the authorities of our good intentions. But then he appeared to have forgotten about it – and so had I. Unfortunately he had incorporated his suggestion in the letter he wrote to the Foreign Office when he applied for permission to be allowed to make the journey, but without specifying any particular sort of companion.

On the afternoon of our arrival, suitably clothed, washed and shaved, we presented ourselves to the Afghan Foreign Ministry. There, in the Protocol Department, we met the young hopes of
the Afghan Foreign Service, elegant, intelligent young men who treated us with a courtesy, consideration and lack of curiosity superior to that shown by our own side when we had proposed our expedition. The difficulties that had appeared insuperable in London seemed to diminish when dealing with these splendid fellows. Hugh was so overcome with enthusiasm that he, unwisely I thought, raised the subject of an Afghan climber.

‘We should, of course, be delighted if someone nominated by you would like to accompany us.’

‘My dear chap,’ said Abdul Ali, ‘if you take my advice you will forget about it. You are only likely to land yourself with some fellow who will bore you stupid in a couple of days. Besides, no one here knows the first thing about climbing.’

‘I only mention it because I wrote officially.’

‘I should think no more about it if I were you.’

‘What about coming yourself?’ He seemed an excellent companion. We really meant it.

‘Unfortunately, we are extremely busy with the arrangements for the visit of the Pakistan Minister, otherwise I should be delighted.’

He invited us to a splendid tea. Afghanistan is a man’s country, so that it was our host who hovered behind a battery of silver teapots, hot water, cream and milk jugs, handing out dainty sandwiches. Afterwards he spoke of his hunting experiences in some detail, and I fell into a coma from which I emerged refreshed and confident. But the next day brought bad omens.

As a result of our long drive we were extremely unfit. Our three days in Wales had worked wonders with us, like one of those courses in physical culture on which you make a muscle-bound colossus of yourself in next to no time simply by pressing one hand hard against the other. But our fitness, like my knowledge of Urdu during the war, had been acquired swiftly in exceptional circumstances; now, equally rapidly, it had melted away.

‘We must do some climbing,’ said Hugh, as we reeled off to bed that evening after returning from a gramophone recital at one of the Embassies. ‘Ropework, that’s what we need. Mir Samir’s a terrific mountain.’

I was as apprehensive as he was about our appalling condition. It may have been something to do with the altitude but we were finding it almost impossible to keep awake. At the recital, like the rest of the audience, we had both slept solidly through the entire performance. I had woken up with my head nestling on the bosom of a jolly female Turk to find her husband glowering at me; there are other dangers in Afghanistan besides tribal warfare.

Then I remembered Hugh’s last letter from South America. ‘Acclimatization should be no great problem,’ he had written. ‘The Turcoman’s Throne (15,447) just above Kabul can be climbed in a day and we should probably spend a couple of days up there before setting out in earnest.’ But now that the need for acclimatization had become acute, Hugh changed his mind.

‘We’ll climb Legation Hill,’ he said. ‘I’ll set the alarm for five. We’d better wear our windproof suits.’ And fell asleep.

The British Embassy lies beyond the town. Built at the express order of Lord Curzon to be the finest Embassy in Asia, it is strategically situated so far from the bazaars that none but the most heavily subsidized mob would dream of attacking it. Above the compound there is a small hill, perhaps a thousand feet high, up which young secretaries pelt in gym shoes after a heavy night. This is Legation Hill. In the early morning we set out to scale it, laden with heavy boots and all the impedimenta of our assumed trade.

As we marched out of the front gate of the Embassy, roped together and in our windproof suits, the guards saluted.

‘They remember me,’ said Hugh, returning it with satisfaction. ‘Wonderfully faithful fellows, these Pakistanis.’

‘If you made a practice of this sort of thing while you were here, they’d have to be absolutely ga-ga not to.’

As we tottered up the winding track, dripping with perspiration, tripping over the rope, our ice-axes clinking mockingly on the unfriendly soil, I was filled with gloomy forebodings. My legs felt like putty. I had a splitting headache and my tongue was covered with a thick unwholesome rime. It took us twenty-five minutes to reach the top.

‘Archie used to do it in ten,’ said Hugh, as panting and feeling sick, we sprawled on the summit, pretending to admire the extensive view of the suburbs of Kabul spread out below us.

‘He must be a superman.’

‘Not at all. He had to leave the Foreign Service because he drank too much.’

In low spirits we descended for breakfast.

‘We’re certainly going to need those days on the Turcoman’s Throne.’

‘I’m afraid there’s not going to be time. We shall have to limber up on the glaciers of Mir Samir. There’s plenty of scope there.’

Back at the Protocol Department Abdul Ali looked serious.

‘Your permissions have come through.’

‘That’s wonderful. It’s very quick.’

‘I’m glad that you’re pleased. But there’s something else. A man has been chosen to accompany you.’

‘But you said you thought we would be better advised to go alone.’

‘I know. It’s most curious. It’s nothing to do with us here. None of us know anything about it. It came from someone outside our Department, and on the highest level. Until yesterday it was in the hands of the Ministry of Defence.’

‘Ah,’ said Hugh, with a return of satisfaction. ‘It must be the
Nuristani I hoped for from the Army. I did mention him in my letter to the Ambassador. Just the man we want.’

‘He isn’t a Nuristani,’ said Abdul Ali. ‘I only wish for your sake he was. The thing’s out of the hands of the Defence Ministry. They’ve passed it to the Olympic Committee. This man’s just come back from riding round the world on a bicycle. He’s never been on a mountain in his life.’

Quite soon, summoned by telephone, the candidate appeared. He was a large, muscular man with a lot of black hair laced with brilliantine, like something out of a Tarzan film. His appearance belied his character, which was retiring. It was true about riding round the world on a bicycle. He had performed this feat on a massive roadster of the sort issued to policemen, carrying with him 150 lb. of baggage. It was difficult to imagine him on the Simplon Pass but he had undoubtedly been there. Against my will I found myself conducting a sort of viva voce examination of this formidable being.

‘Have you had any previous climbing experience?’

‘None at all,’ he said and my heart warmed to him. ‘But I did run in the ten thousand metres in the Asian Games,’ he added modestly.

‘I see.’

Like all similar interviews this one was not a success, owing to the complete lack of qualifications of the interviewer.

‘How did you come to apply for this? It’s going to be very arduous.’ I glared horribly, trying to discourage him.

‘I didn’t apply. The Olympic Committee only told me that I was going this morning.’

‘I see.’

‘Don’t keep on saying that,’ Hugh hissed in my ear. ‘You make it sound like the B.B.C.’

‘Are you keen to come on this trip?’

‘If you wish me to come I shall come.’

Hugh was just about to say yes when I kicked him violently under the table.

‘Everything is a little complicated at the moment. We’ll let you know in the morning.’

‘Of course, we shall have to take him,’ said Hugh as soon as he had gone.

‘But why? He doesn’t want to go. You heard what he said, he’s been ordered to. It’s going to be bad enough with two of us knowing nothing; with one more it’ll be suicide.’

‘You don’t seem to realize that because the Government has selected him, we
must
take him. If we don’t they’ll be very offended.’

‘But even the Protocol think we’d be better alone. You heard what Abdul Ali said.’

‘That was before he knew about this man. You don’t understand these people at all. A thing like this might have a very bad effect on Anglo-Afghan relations.’

I looked at Hugh closely when he said this but he was quite serious. Here it was again breaking the surface, that massive but elusive entity, the Foreign Office Mind, like an iceberg with most of its bulk hidden below the surface but equally menacing. Hugh had no more wish to take the cyclist than the cyclist had to come with us, but he was not able to see that the machinery that had produced him could be put in reverse. For two hours I argued with him. It was in vain.

‘Sometimes I don’t think you have any sense of moral responsibility at all,’ he said after a particularly heated exchange. ‘This man has virtually been given to us by Protocol.’

‘Well, if he was given to us by Protocol, give him back by Protocol. Perhaps he hasn’t got any boots.’

‘That’s an idea,’ said Hugh, unexpectedly. ‘He couldn’t come if he didn’t have any boots.’

Although it was late he went to telephone. Soon he was back.

‘He hasn’t got any boots.’

‘Then he can’t come.’

‘But I telephoned Abdul Ali and he’s promised to do his best to get some. He’ll let us know in the morning. He’s going to try the Army. I said we’d try the Embassy.’

‘You are an ass.’

‘It’s all right, he’s got very small feet. There’s no one with feet like that in the whole compound.’

‘How do you know?’

‘If you’d lived in the compound for a couple of years you get to know the size of everything.’

The next morning Abdul Ali telephoned.

‘I’m afraid there is not a pair of boots to fit our friend in the whole of Kabul.’

‘Could you lend him a pair yourself? He’s about your size.’

I could have strangled Hugh at this moment.

‘Unfortunately I only have two pairs and I shall be using them myself on a hunting trip quite soon.’

‘I am extremely sorry that he won’t be able to come. Please convey our regrets to him and my thanks to the Olympic Committee.’

‘For a man who has only been in the Foreign Service since the war I must say you’ve made remarkable progress,’ I said as Hugh replaced the receiver. ‘You’re almost inhuman.’

He considered this for a moment before replying.

‘Yes, I think on the whole the training is excellent,’ he said with a smile.

Even more far-reaching in its effects on the welfare of our expedition was the business of Ghulam Naabi, Hugh’s old cook, who had accompanied him on his previous ventures into the interior
and had been present at the abortive attempt to scale the mountain.

All the way from Istanbul, a lean period of abstinence from food,
chez Carless
, I had been upheld in spirit, if nothing else, by a continual flow of reminiscence about Ghulam Naabi; his prodigious appetite that would at least, I thought, ensure the regular supply of victuals that had up to now been denied me; his resourcefulness that enabled him in a rather oblique way to overcome the everyday disasters of the road; the ludicrous misadventures that befell him and which would probably provide us with an inexhaustible supply of anecdote. All gave promise of a sympathetic, fallible character who would lend a certain humanity to the rather austere project on which we were embarking, and be a far more rewarding companion than the young biologist with whom I had been threatened at one stage of our planning but to whom, mercifully, no further reference had been made.

Even Dreesen, the companion of Hugh’s earlier journey whom I had from the outset regarded as a semi-mythical character but who had eventually materialized in the guise of United States Consul at Tabriz in north-western Persia, had spoken well of him, as we sat on the Consular terrace in the gloaming, drinking
Perrier Jouet
, and recovering from the horrors of our passage through Anatolia.

‘If Hugh takes Ghulam Naabi you’ll have some chance of survival,’ he said when Hugh was out of earshot. ‘If not, God help you.’

I asked him why. These were the early days before Hugh had endeavoured to destroy us with infected food.

‘The man’s a fiend. He never eats. I got so hungry on that mountain I thought I’d die. He doesn’t seem to realize you can’t go charging about at seventeen thousand feet on an empty stomach.’

My heart warmed to Dreesen, but he continued:

‘That’s one of the reasons we’re having champagne this evening. I’m celebrating too; because I’m not going.’

He had been joking but nevertheless I had felt a certain chill of apprehension. If this lean, husky individual who had crossed the Karakorams on foot, had felt the strain, what was it going to be like for me, relatively enfeebled by years in the dress business?

One of Hugh’s first acts on arriving in Kabul was to summon Ghulam Naabi.

‘He’s working for an Australian,’ he explained. ‘But I think he should come on the preliminary reconnaissance before we set off. Besides, he’ll be very useful when we choose our Tajik drivers.’

‘But this man he’s working for. What’s he going to say if you take his cook away from him?’

‘It’s only for a month,’ Hugh said, as if this was some extenuation for robbing a man of his cook. ‘Besides he’s an Australian.’

‘What’s that got to do with it? It doesn’t seem to make it any more legitimate to me.’