Back at the camping place in the Chamar after our failure on the mountain both Hugh and myself would have welcomed the attentions of the administrative officer, who to me had seemed such a figure of fun when Hugh had proposed his inclusion in the expedition. We would also have welcomed a cook and supplies of invalid food, meat essences, biscuits and thin soups, instead of the robust fare which was all we had to look forward to. I was glad to notice that even Hugh was becoming tired of Irish stew; but I still wondered what we should have lived on if I hadn’t insisted on bringing the compo. rations.
The need for the administrative officer made itself particularly apparent when it came to discussing the next part of our journey with the drivers: instead of having a well-earned rest, Hugh was forced to spend half the night persuading them to accompany us into Nuristan.
Against the journey Abdul Ghiyas and Badar Khan had advanced every possible objection: that the way was impossible for the horses; that the inhabitants were idolatrous unbelievers who would murder us all; that we had no written permission to enter the country; and that if we did manage to reach it there would be no food for man or beast. Only Shir Muhammad, that unpredictable man, said nothing. In some ways he was much more Citizen of the World than the others; perhaps, too, he thought himself the equal of any Nuristani he was likely to encounter.
Finally, after the argument had gone on for some hours and still showed no sign of coming to a satisfactory conclusion, Hugh lost his temper.
‘Go back then!’ he said. ‘Go back to Jangalak and tell your people that Newby Seb and I have gone to Nuristan alone – and that you let us go alone! They will call you women.’
As soon as he had said this it was abundantly clear that both Abdul Ghiyas and Badar Khan were prepared to let us do just this very thing. Hugh was forced to try a more subtle approach.
‘… that you would not come with us to Nuristan because the way is hard and because you are faint-hearted I can perhaps forgive, but that you should call the Nuristanis who are your brothers “idolatrous unbelievers”, they who have only recently been converted to Islam and need your prayers – Sunnites like yourselves, and probably better ones – that is another matter.’
Here Hugh paused, glaring frightfully. After allowing his words to sink in he resumed: ‘When I return from Nuristan (masterly stroke) I shall demand audience of General Ubaidullah Khan and tell him what you said about “idolatrous unbelievers”. General Ubaidullah Khan is a man of importance and,’ Hugh added with the final touch of genius, ‘he is also a Nuristani.’
The effect of this was remarkable. At once all opposition ceased. Before we finally fell asleep long after midnight I asked Hugh who General Ubaidullah Khan was.
‘So far as I know,’ he said, ‘he doesn’t exist. I just invented him; but I think he’s going to be a very useful man to know.’
At five o’clock the following morning the valley was full of white cloud. Whereas waking on the ibex ledge had been like coming-to from an operation, waking to find oneself wrapped in cloud was like being dead and in heaven.
After Shir Muhammad and Badar Khan had done up our buttons and laced our boots, just when the main body of the expedition was moving off, I went to try to photograph the aylaq and, if possible, the occupants. I would not have considered doing so for a moment, if the girls who lived in the bothy with the cardinal had not betrayed such a lively interest in our affairs. But all the previous afternoon, when neither Hugh nor I had been fit to take any active interest in anything, they had stood on the roof unveiled, laughing and shrieking, even waving at us; in fact behaving in a fashion that would have been unthinkable at a lower altitude and in a less remote place. But, as I expected, when I reached the aylaq there was no sign of anybody.
Taking a photograph with a complex modern camera when one’s hands are done up in bandages is like trying to eat asparagus with boxing gloves on. As I struggled with the apparatus Abdul Ghiyas intervened – in fact he emerged from the bothy to do so.
‘Seb, it is a bad thing,’ he said sombrely, ‘it is against the religion.’
In the face of such opposition, I abandoned the attempt to photograph even the pile of stones that was the aylaq and after saying good-bye to the cardinal, who had come to the door with Abdul Ghiyas, together we followed the others who had already set off in the direction of the Chamar Pass.
By now the clouds had rolled away and as we crossed the Chamar river the water danced and sparkled in the sunlight. Although the water was extremely shallow, the drivers made a great business of fording it. They were being forced to go to Nuristan against their wills and they were not going to make it easy for us to get there.
Beyond the stream the trail was difficult to follow, only showing itself where the rock was scratched and by an occasional footprint in the patches of earth where a strange plant grew, with a furry cap on it like a mauve bearskin.
As we went on the signs became fainter and I began to be anxious. Finally they became so indistinct that it required an act of faith to recognize them at all; and we were left plodding over an expanse of black rock exactly the same as the rest of the hillside. In front of us the mountain that divided us from Nuristan rose up like a wall topped with spikes. It seemed impossible that we could find a way up it, let alone with the horses.
‘Do you think this is the right way?’ I asked Hugh, who was striding doggedly towards the foot of the cliff.
‘I hope so. If we make a bog of it the first time and don’t hit the track to the top, the men will give up.’
All of a sudden we came on a small pile of horse droppings. It was as if under different circumstances we had found a bag of gold.
‘That’s encouraging,’ Hugh said, as Shir Muhammad whisked them into a bag which he carried for the purpose. ‘If only there were more of them. If only they weren’t so old.’
We came to a muddy green lake. Around the edge of it there were footmarks showing the usual impressions of motor tyres. There were chips of wood lying about. Whoever owned the feet had been whittling a stick. We were back on the road.
We began to climb in earnest. The sun was high and the heat was awful; it beat down on the leaden rocks and reflected back at us in a dull glare.
The track went up the mountain-side in steps, a series of sharp diagonals marked here and there by cairns formed by two or three stones piled on top of one another. The horses hated it; they shied, lurched forward a few steps, then slipped back with their hooves screeching. All the time Abdul Ghiyas and Badar Khan were talking to them in undertones. I wondered what they were saying; perhaps they were telling them to take it easy. Abdul Ghiyas was beginning to look triumphant. Shir Muhammad did nothing. The fate of the expedition hung in the balance.
‘If the horses can’t do it, there’s only one thing to do. Unload them and hump the stuff over ourselves.’
Fortunately at the very moment that Hugh made this inhuman proposal Badar Khan raised a cry of ibex, pointing high up the mountain that rose a thousand feet above us.
‘Bozi kuhi, there he goes!’
‘There he goes, the bozi kuhi!’ from Shir Muhammad.
‘Ah, the bozi kuhi!’ said Abdul Ghiyas.
All three of them were shielding their eyes against the glare and moving their fingers from right to left following the bozi kuhi.
All I could see was acres and acres of black rock.
‘There he is,’ said Hugh. He pointed a bandaged hand at the mountain; with his incipient beard he looked like a minor prophet.
‘Can you really see him?’
‘I think so. Yes. Now I can. There.’ He took my finger and guided it. I could still see nothing.
‘There!’
‘Where?’
‘There! No, not there! There! You must be blind!’
At last I lost patience.
‘There he goes,’ I said. ‘I can see him now.’
‘He’s not moving,’ said Hugh.
‘I can see two bozi kuhi,’ said Shir Muhammad.
In the excitement of seeing the ibex, the air of torpor that hung like a cloud over our little party was dispelled. Thumping and bellowing, the drivers urged the wretched horses round the hairpins and up the slabs. Subsequently there were many halts whilst we pushed and pulled, but at least there was no longer any question of unloading them and carrying the gear bit by bit a thousand feet to the top – a prospect that was almost impossible to contemplate in our present condition. In just over two and a half hours from the aylaq we reached the top and halted in the shade just below the col itself. It was an extremely high pass. Without the aneroid it was impossible to be sure but, by a comparison with heights we already knew on Mir Samir, it must have been between 16,000 and 16,500 feet. Mir Samir itself was about three miles distant as the crow flies and we could see the whole south side of the mountain right up to the head of the Chamar Valley. We could see the ibex ledge where our camp had been, the Castle buttress and the whole of the east ridge. For the first time we really understood how very close we had been to getting to the top.
The crest of the ridge now immediately above our heads was like a harbour breakwater built by convict labour, a wild confusion of loose blocks heaped one on top of the other. The way through it was narrow, like the neck of a bottle, so that it was only by pushing and shoving that the horses were popped through to the other side like corks.
‘Kotal-i-Chamar,’ said the drivers.
It was the col; we were beyond the great divide; we were in Nuristan.
One more step and we would have fallen straight into it. We were huddled together, men and animals, on the edge of a cliff at the head of a desolate valley that stretched away downhill, a wilderness of bleak, brown scree with here and there a drift of dirty, speckled snow, until it was lost in haze. The mountains that rose above it to the north and east now concealed the fields of snow and ice we had seen from Mir Samir and were a uniform khaki brown. It was all a little disappointing.
The first part of the descent needed two men to each horse; one to lead, the other with a tight grip on the tail to brake hard at the bends; but once we were off the ridge Hugh and I pressed on alone.
For an hour and a half we followed the valley down and down. All the time it grew hotter; a little vegetation began to appear, pin-cushions of tough grass. Finally we came out into a deep valley that ran north and south, at right angles to our own. It was green and open with a river running through it and on the meadow grass cows, sheep and horses grazed placidly. Standing alone in the green sward was a solitary aylaq, a bothy and some stone cattle pens open to the sky. It seemed deserted; in the whole valley there was no sign of anyone.
After the miles of scree we had descended the grass was like a carpet into which our feet sank; after the still airlessness of the upper valley the breeze that blew was as refreshing as a cool drink. Apart from the sighing of the wind and the sound of the river, a huge silence hung over the place.
Men and horses were far behind. Feeling slightly nervous we began to cross towards the aylaq.
We were a hundred yards from it when there was a shout and we saw our first Nuristanis.
They came pouring out of the bothy and raced over the grass towards us at a tremendous pace, dozens of them. It seemed impossible that such a small building could have contained so many men. As they came bounding up they gave an extraordinary impression of being out of the past. They were all extraordinary because they were all different, no two alike. They were tall and short, light-skinned and dark-skinned, brown-eyed and grey-eyed; some, with long straight noses, might have passed for Serbs or Croats; others, with flashing eyes, hooked noses and black hair, might have been Jews. There were men like gypsies with a lock of hair brought forward in ringlets on either side of the forehead. There were men with great bushy beards and moustaches that made them look like Arctic explorers. There were others like early Mormons with a fuzz of beard round their faces but without moustaches. Some of the tallest (well over six feet), broken-nosed, clean-shaven giants, were like guardsmen in a painting by Kennington. Those who were hatless had cropped hair and the younger ones, especially those with rudimentary beards, looked as strange and dated as the existentialists of St Germain des Prés; while those whose beards were still in embryo were as contemporary as the clients of a Café Espresso and would have been accepted as such without question almost anywhere in the Western World.
They were extraordinary and their clothes were extraordinary too. All but those who were bare-headed wore the same flat Chitrali cap that Hugh had worn ever since we had left Kabul, only theirs were larger and more floppy, and the colour of porridge. Worn on the back of the head the effect was Chaucerian.
They wore drab brown, collarless shirts, like the Army issue, and over them loose waistcoats or else a sort of surcoat – a waistcoat without buttons. Their trousers were brown homespun, like baggy unbuckled plus-fours. They reached to the middle of the calf and flapped loosely as their wearers pounded up the meadow. They seemed to wear some kind of loose puttee around the lower leg, and some of the younger men wore coloured scarves knotted loosely around their necks. All were barefooted.
‘It’s like being back in the Middle Ages.’
It was the only coherent remark Hugh had time for. The next moment they were on us, uttering strange cries. Before we knew what was happening we were being borne towards the aylaq with our feet barely touching the ground, each the centre of a mob, like distinguished visitors to a university.
I had a blurred vision of a heap of ibex horns and a row of distended skins hanging on the wall of the bothy (inside out they looked like long-dead dogs), then I received a terrific crack on the head as we hurtled in through the low opening – we were inside.
The floor was bare earth but on it were spread several very old rugs made of something that looked like felt, with a pattern of black and orange diamonds on them, brought up here to end their days at the aylaq. In the centre of the floor there was a shallow depression in which a dung fire smouldered. Over it, balanced on two rocks, was a cauldron in which some great mess was seething. There was no chimney or opening of any kind and the walls were blackened with smoke.
We were made to sit on the floor and our hosts (for that was what they turned out to be – up to now it had not been apparent what their attitude was) brought in two round wooden pots full of milk which they set before us, together with a couple of large ladles. The pots held about half a gallon each, and seemed to be made from hollowed-out tree-trunks. They were decorated with the same diamond pattern I had noticed on the rugs. Both vessels and cutlery were of heroic proportions, fit for giants.
We were extremely thirsty. Hugh was already dipping into his pot.
‘Do you think it’s all right?’ I asked him. ‘They may have T.B.’
‘Who?’
‘The cows.’
‘If we’re going to get T.B. we’ve already got it,’ he said. ‘Besides, it’s not cows’ milk. I think it’s goats’ and sheep’s mixed.’
The bothy was crammed to the point of suffocation with people all jabbering an unknown tongue. I wondered if it were Bashguli. It was certainly unlike any other language I had ever heard but, as the Colonel’s Grammar was once again somewhere hidden away in the baggage train, there was no way of discovering what it was.
After drinking nearly a quart of icy milk (the pots had just come out of the river), I felt as if I were going to burst. I put down my tree-trunk. Sitting next to me was one of the hairless Espresso boys. He picked up the ladle. ‘Biloogh ow,’ he grunted (at least that was what it sounded like) and began to forcibly feed me as though I were senile.
One of the older, full bearded men, who seemed to have some sort of authority over the mob, addressed Hugh in Persian. Suddenly he pointed to the north.
‘Nikolai!’ he said.
‘Nikolai, Nikolai,’ everyone said.
‘Inghiliz, Inghiliz,’ said Hugh.
‘Nikolai, Nikolai.’
‘Damn it. They think we’re Russians,’ he said. He was very upset.
The halting conversation continued. It appeared that we were the first Europeans ever to come over the Pass.1 The Russians they had heard of; but the British were something new, outside their experience.
We were in the summer pastures of the Ramguli Katirs, a tribe of the Black-robed Siah-Posh. We were still in the Chamar, the valley and river on both sides of the watershed having the same name.
Here in the summer months, men of the tribe lived without their women, looking after the flocks and cattle, making curds and butter to store for the winter and for trade with the outside world and every so often sending down some of their number to the valleys far below with the heavy goatskins I had seen hanging outside – a journey of from one to five days according to the destination – a sort of grim compassionate leave.
All the time this recital was going on we were being ransacked. I could feel inquisitive fingers prying about my person, opening button flaps, groping in my pockets for my handkerchief, scrabbling at my watch-strap.
We had already passed round several packets of cigarettes and a fight had developed for the empty packets. It was the silver paper they wanted. But what they really longed for were binoculars. They loved my camera, until they discovered that it was not a pair of binoculars, but they soon found Hugh’s telescope and took it outside to try it.
In a world that has lost the capacity for wonderment, I found it very agreeable to meet people to whom it was possible to give pleasure so simply. Thinking to ingratiate myself still further with them, I handed over my watch. It was the pride of my heart (I, too, am easily pleased) – a brand-new Rolex that I had got in Geneva on the way out from England and reputed proof against every kind of ill-treatment.
‘Tell the headman,’ I said to Hugh, ‘that it will work under water.’
‘He doesn’t believe it.’
‘All right. Tell him it will even work in that,’ pointing to the cauldron which was giving off steam and gloggling noises.
Hugh told him. The headman said a few words to the young existentialist who had the watch. Before I could stop him he dropped it into the pot.
‘He says he doesn’t believe you,’ said Hugh.
‘Well, tell him to take it out! I don’t believe it myself.’ By now I was hanging over the thing, frantically fishing with the ladle.
‘It’s no good,’ I said. ‘They’ll have to empty it.’
This time Hugh spoke somewhat more urgently to the headman.
‘He says they don’t want to. It’s their dinner.’
At last somebody hooked it and brought it to the surface, covered with a sort of brown slime. Whatever it was for dinner had an extraordinary nasty appearance. The rescuer held it in the ladle. Though too hot to touch, it was still going. This made an immense impression on everyone, myself included. Unfortunately, it made such an impression on the man himself that he refused to be parted from it and left the bothy.
‘Where’s he going?’
‘He’s going to try it in the river.’
At this moment excited shouts and cries rose from outside. Our drivers had arrived. Everyone rushed out to greet them.
They were a melancholy little group, huddled together at the foot of the rocks, gazing apprehensively towards the bothy in the same way as we had half an hour previously: all except Shir Muhammad who, apparently bored stiff, was looking in the opposite direction.
Only when they were offered tree-trunks full of milk did they relax a little. Even then Abdul Ghiyas refused to allow his men to enter the aylaq.
‘It is better to go on,’ he said. ‘These men are robbers and murderers. We must make our camp far away.’
‘They want us to stay the night,’ Hugh told him. ‘They say there will be dancing and singing.’
But it was no good. He refused absolutely.
‘They are very treacherous men. We shall all be slain whilst we sleep.’ I had never seen him so determined.
‘Perhaps it’s better,’ said Hugh. ‘They want us to unpack all our gear.’
The thought of such a mob let loose among our belongings was too appalling to contemplate. We agreed that it was better to go – and as soon as possible.
When the time came to leave there was no sign of Hugh’s telescope or my watch.
‘I want my telescope,’ Hugh told the headman.
‘What about my watch?’ I asked, when his telescope was finally produced from somewhere round the corner.
‘He says the man who had it has gone away.’
‘Well, tell him that he must bring him back.’
There was a further brief parley.
‘He says the man wants to keep it.’ Somehow Hugh contrived to make this sound a reasonable request.
‘WELL, HE CAN’T! GET IT BACK FOR ME! MAKE AN EFFORT!’
‘It’s you who should make the effort. It’s really too much having to do your work all the time.’
I could have struck him at this moment.
‘Damn it, you can hardly understand the man yourself and you speak fluent Persian. How the devil do you expect me to make him understand anything?’
Just then I saw the man who had taken my watch skulking behind one of the walls of the aylaq. I went round the building the other way and came up behind him, and took hold of his wrists. Although he was without any apparent muscle, he was immensely strong. He radiated a kind of electric energy.
‘Tok-tok,’ I said. At the same time I looked down at my own wrist and nodded my head violently.
He began to laugh. I looked into his eyes; they were strange and mad. He had about him an air of scarcely controlled violence that I had noticed in some of the others inside the hut. An air of being able to commit the most atrocious crimes and then sit down to a hearty meal without giving them a further thought. The man was a homicidal maniac. Perhaps they were all homicidal maniacs.
I saw that his right hand was clenched and I forced it open. Inside was my beautiful watch. He had washed it in the river. It was still going and it continued to do so.
As we left the aylaq three more Nuristanis came running up the valley, moving over the ground in short steps but with unbelievable swiftness. All three had full brown beards, they wore short fringed overcoats of a very dark brown – almost black, perhaps the last vestiges of the glory of the Black-robed Kafirs; on their backs were slung empty pack-frames.
‘They have come up from the Ramgul to take the place of those who will go down with butter tomorrow morning,’ said Abdul Ghiyas
No one said good-bye to us. Some of the Nuristanis had already gone loping up the mountain-side towards the flocks; the rest had retired into the bothy. It was a characteristic of these people that their interest in strangers was exhausted almost as quickly as it was born.
1. I don’t believe this.