THIRTY In which
FOR A CHANGE, NOTHING UNFORTUNATE BEFALLS OUR PROTAGONISTS
When Charles rejoined the crew, he had also resumed his journal entries.
Tuesday, September 29
Fifty-four days gone; forty-six remaining. Early this morning, we left the post road and crossed the border into Manchuria. Though there is a large Russian presence in the province and the landscape is much the same as in Siberia—rolling grassland broken by the occasional river valley—the moment we entered a town it was clear that we were in China.
The houses are better built and more ornate, decorated with porcelain figures and carved dragons. The signs hanging on the shops are painted with Chinese symbols. The streets are filled with small carriage-like vehicles pulled by humans, not horses. There are no women to be seen. The men wear loose smocks of white or blue, and their faces are mostly hairless; even their heads are shaved, save for a single long braid that hangs down their backs or is curled into a sort of bun.
Strangely, they display no curiosity at all about the Flash. It’s as though the whole notion of a motorized car is so alien to them, they do not even acknowledge its existence. The people and the town seem more prosperous than those in Russia, but they lack three things upon which we have come to rely—railroads, a telegraph system, and a source of kerosene.
To my astonishment, Fogg has consented to stop at a roadside inn for refreshments. Unfortunately, the tea here is, if possible, even more vile than that given us by the Russian soldiers. The wheaten bread, however, is quite edible—which, in a way, is rather a pity; if they had that pine-bark stuff, we could have used it for fuel.
As it was, the motorists were forced to burn tree bark and dead limbs in the firebox. It was hard to keep the steam pressure constant, and their speed suffered because of it. Still, in only two days they traveled the five hundred miles from Valdivostok to the sizable city of Kharbin, where they could sleep without fear of being attacked by bandits.
Harry began to suspect that the outlaw situation had been somewhat overstated. Because Japan threatened to take over Manchuria, the Russians had strengthened their military might in the province. The troops of mounted Cossacks that patrolled the roads did more than just keep the bandits at bay; when the Flash bogged down fording a stream, they pulled it free. Harry didn’t have the heart to refuse their offer of food and drink, though he and his companions suffered for it.
A day west of Kharbin the travelers encountered a range of mountains, but they weren’t much of a challenge compared with the Rockies or the Sierras. By the third of October they were back in Siberia, where they resumed travel on the post road, with its familiar telegraph poles and its black-and-white verst markers.
From time to time they passed a large heap of stones with a tree limb sticking from it, decorated with strips of ribbon and paper that fluttered in the breeze. The purpose of these baffled the companions. Just before they reached Tchita, the mystery was solved when they encountered a caravan of Buryats, the nomadic herders who had occupied the area for centuries.
The group consisted of perhaps a dozen blue-clad men on horseback, four wagons, and several hundred head of cattle. As they passed one of the stone piles, a horseman stopped, said a brief prayer, and tied a strip of yellow cloth to the tree branches. “It’s a shrine,” said Charles. “Buddhists, I expect.”
“My goodness!” whispered Elizabeth. “I just realized that half those horsemen are actually women. And they’re riding astride their mounts, not sidesaddle. In some ways they’re more civilized than we are.”
Tchita, the capital of the province, was an attractive city with a good supply of kerosene and even a passable hotel where Charles took a room for the night. Harry and Johnny shared a stable with the motorcar. Though Elizabeth chose the relative luxury of the hotel, she did not mention the fact in her dispatch, not wanting to seem less than intrepid.
Tchita, Siberia, October 5
Over a meal in the dining room of the Hotel Grand, we learned from a French-speaking fellow diner that the majority of Tchita’s residents are convicted criminals, but not of the desperate sort. No, their only crime was that they dared to speak out against the Czarist government or against the Church. As punishment, they were exiled here. Since many of these men and women are well educated and skilled, they have made the town into something of a cultural oasis in the midst of the desolate steppes.
Not all the “criminals” sent here are religious or political dissidents, of course. The more dangerous convicts are put to work in the gold mines —except for the ones who escape, and apparently there have been thousands. A fair number of these varnaks, as they are called, have made their way back to Europe, armed with passports that are either forged or taken from some unlucky citizen, along with his life.
Not all escapees are so clever or so lucky. After enduring a month or two of the Siberian winter, some give themselves up; others die before they have the chance. A few actually manage to survive in the wild by hunting or trapping—or preying upon townsfolk and travelers. (This reporter, for one, would have been just as happy not knowing that latter piece of information.) Since the greater part of the Russian army is stationed in Manchuria, protecting it from invasion by the Japanese, there are not nearly enough soldiers in Siberia to keep these rogue varnaks in check.
In the days that followed, though the intrepid young motorists kept their rifles and revolver at the ready, they saw no sign of bandits. And, though the skin of an enormous Siberian tiger had decorated the wall of the Grand Hotel’s dining room, the travelers spotted no wildlife more threatening than a small pack of wolves, which kept its distance from the smoke-belching machine.
The steppes gave way to forested hills and valleys with scattered farms. Four days west of Tchita, they topped a rise and found stretched out below them a lake so blue that it hurt the eyes and so extensive that they could not see the upper end of it. “Lake Baikal,” Charles informed them.
“And I expect you have some fascinating facts about it to share with us,” said Elizabeth drily.
“As a matter of fact, I do. It is the world’s deepest lake, and one of the largest. According to the guidebook, it is longer than the whole of England. It is also the only freshwater lake in the world where seals can be found.”
“Really?” said Elizabeth. “That actually is rather fascinating. Do you mind if I include it in my next dispatch?”
Johnny pointed toward the middle of the lake. “There’s a ferry.”
“If we take that,” said Harry, “it’ll save us a good deal of driving.”
To his frustration, they missed the ferry by minutes; the next wasn’t due for eight hours. They set up a temporary camp and, purchasing a salmon from a local fisherman, cooked an unusually sumptuous supper that included fried potatoes and the remains of a spice cake they had bought in Tchita.
After the meal, Harry had a long nap. When, at four in the morning, they finally reached the far bank of Lake Baikal, he was chipper and cheerful and ready to set off again. The temperature was near-freezing, but once they raised the rain hood and fired up the boiler, it became so cozy inside the car that everyone except Harry dozed off.
Just outside Irkutsk, the right front wheel of the Flash dropped into a large sinkhole, unseen in the faint light of the acetylene lamps. The shock rattled Harry’s teeth. The passengers groaned and stirred. “What was that?” muttered Johnny.
“Oh, nothing much.” Harry backed up and detoured around the spot. “Just the world’s deepest hole. Deeper than all of England, in point of fact.”
“Any damage?”
“No, no, everything’s fine. Go back to sleep.”
A few minutes later, Harry heard a faint but alarming clunk from beneath the car, then another. But when several miles went by and the sound didn’t recur, he shrugged and dismissed it. Probably just a stone caught in the wheel, he thought.
If Charles and Elizabeth had been awake when they reached Irkutsk, they would surely have requested a brief layover for food and freshening up. But since they were dead to the world, Harry drove through without stopping, relishing the fact that he had put one over on them.
It was not the wisest thing he might have done. In fact, in Harry’s long history of impulsive, ill-advised actions, this would take its place among those he regretted most.