The Road to Samarcand

by Patrick O'Brian

  They rode up fast, and the falcon rose from its prey. Chingiz, without drawing rein, leaned from his saddle and picked up the partridge: he smoothed its feathers and passed it to Derrick. It was a fine cock bird, beautifully marked and plump.

  The falcon hovered above their heads, staring from side to side. Chingiz whistled, called and held up his arm; the fierce bird floated gently down and sat there preening until Chingiz slipped the hood over its head.

  Derrick looked at it with admiration; he felt the ill-temper draining out of him, and he was sure that next time he had a shot he would do better. They rode on until they came to a little dip in the plain. “You stay there,” said Chingiz, “and I will go there.” He made a sweeping motion with his arm.

  Derrick stood in the hollow and watched Chingiz gallop out in a wide curve: then he understood that Chingiz meant to drive the birds over him. He crouched in the hollow, with his gun ready. His pony stood grazing twenty yards behind him. He watched one covey rise and go away in the wrong direction, and then he saw Chingiz rise in his stirrups and wave his arm. The partridges rose almost at his feet—Derrick saw his pony shy—and came straight towards the hollow. Derrick picked his birds carefully, picked them with the greatest care as they veered away in easy shot to his left; he waited, waited, and then pressed the trigger. Nothing happened. He had forgotten the unfamiliar safety-catch on the new gun. The partridges saw him, rose again with a sudden whirr and vanished over the plain.

  He was still staring after them when Chingiz rejoined him. Derrick gave him a forced smile, and before Chingiz could say anything he handed him the gun, with the safety-catch off, and ran over to his pony, shouting that he would see if he could drive some birds over the hollow for Chingiz to try for.

  Derrick rode out: the plain was full of birds; they were so very rarely shot here that they were not at all shy, but it was some time before he started a covey that went in the right direction. However, he did succeed in the end, although he was rather far from the hidden dip. He watched the birds go. They stopped whirring and glided on and on towards the hollow; but they did not quite clear it. They pitched just this side of it, landed and regrouped. They were walking about, quite calm and unconcerned, within five yards of Chingiz as he crouched there. He waited until they were well bunched together and then blazed both barrels right down the middle of them. Only two birds flew away: the remaining nine lay slaughtered on the ground.

  “Good shot?” said Chingiz, as Derrick returned.

  “It was the most unsporting thing I have ever seen in my life,” said Derrick in English; but Chingiz understood very well from the tone of his voice that he was angry. Chingiz shrugged his shoulders, let the gun fall carelessly and walked over to the partridges. He threw them one by one over to Derrick, counting them as they came. Suddenly Derrick let them drop. “Why should I carry them?” he asked, with an ugly oath he had learnt at sea. “You murdered them, so you might as well carry them.”

  Chingiz turned a baleful look upon him. “What is the matter?” he asked.

  Derrick searched for a Mongol word that might mean unsporting, but he could not think of one, and the best he could do was to use some expressions that he had heard in the serai. He was not sure of their meaning, but he was pretty sure that they were unpleasant, and he was not surprised to see Chingiz frowning heavily.

  Derrick was already feeling rather sorry that he had let his bad temper get the better of him, but when he saw Chingiz give his new gun a contemptuous kick as he stalked past it, he could not resist saying still another word, which for all he knew was ruder still. It was hardly out of his mouth before the Mongol was on him, hitting right and left and kicking for his stomach. Derrick stopped him with a short jab to the nose and they backed away. Chingiz drew his knife with one lightning movement, hesitated for a second, struck it into the ground, and came in again. Derrick was ready for him and let out a straight left which stopped him short, and then a swinging right to the ear. The Mongol had no sort of guard, and for a moment it was easy to keep him at a distance, smashing in a quick succession of blows. One caught him on the point of his jaw and he fell flat on his back: he lay there for a second, spitting blood, and then he was up. Derrick never knew what hit him, but he had a vague impression of being gripped by both ears while his head was battered against the ground like the hammer of an alarm clock. At some time, too, a head or a knee had hit him in the stomach, and teeth had met in his forearm; but that was all lost in the swirl of darkness, and when he came slowly out of it he had a faint notion of having been run over by a steam-roller.

  He was lying on his back, staring at the sky: for a moment he did not move, and then, between him and the sky he saw Chingiz, standing over him with his long knife in his hand.

  “Better?” asked Chingiz.

  Derrick did not reply, but gathered himself to spring.

  Chingiz shook his head and smiled. He waved his head, said something in Mongol and pointed to Derrick’s arm. Derrick looked, and saw that his sleeve was already rolled up: Chingiz squatted down, squeezed Derrick’s arm so that the veins stood out and made as if to cut one gently with his knife.

  “No,” said Derrick, getting to his feet. “I’m better now.” He understood, with immense relief, that Chingiz had meant to let some blood, as the Mongols did for horses, so that he should recover; but still, he did not much care for the operation.

  “Better?” asked Chingiz again.

  “Yes, quite better, thank you very much,” said Derrick, and after a moment he said, “I’m sorry.” He was, indeed: he felt ashamed of himself, and he knew that he had got what he deserved. He had got a good deal, he discovered: his left eye was already so swollen that he could hardly see out of it, and it was swelling still; his ears felt as if they had been wrenched off and roughly sewn on again, and he had parted company with one of his eye-teeth. Furthermore, there was no hair left at all over quite a large area of his scalp.

  He was feeling his head when he caught Chingiz’s eye, and laughed. He pointed to the gap in his teeth, and Chingiz showed his ear, now swollen to the size of a muffin, and standing out at right angles to his head. They were both in very bad shape: Derrick lent Chingiz his handkerchief for his bloody nose, and Chingiz held his cold knife-blade against Derrick’s purple eye; they patched one another up as well as they could, and walked slowly over to the unmoved ponies. Suddenly Derrick noticed that although Chingiz had brought the gun, he had left the partridges. Derrick ran back for them, meaning to show that he had been in the wrong, but Chingiz was there before him, and as they bent to gather the birds they cracked their heads together with such force that Derrick went over again, half stunned. This really amused Chingiz, and almost for the first time Derrick heard him laugh; he stood there rubbing his head, wheezing and doubled up with laughter, pointing first to his own head, then to Derrick’s and then to the partridges. Derrick was sure that it was very funny, but for the moment his head was so battered and reeling with the shock that he could not see the point of the joke.

  As they rode slowly back, Derrick tried to explain why it was so dreadful to shoot sitting birds, but Chingiz could not understand.

  “You want to eat them?” he asked.

  “Yes,” said Derrick.

  “So you kill them?”

  “Yes,” said Derrick, “but not on the ground.”

  “Why not?” asked Chingiz, amazed, “it is easier, and you kill more. So you eat more, and waste no powder.”

  Derrick tried again, and finally Chingiz jumped to the conclusion that it was something to do with Derrick’s religion. He knew that Christians did many strange things, and he was sure that this business about the birds must be one of Derrick’s taboos. In that case, everything was quite understandable: he at once offered to throw the partridges away, and it was with some difficulty that Derrick prevented him.

  They were late back, and the expedition was already under way, with only a few of the more difficult camels still to load: everybody was busy, and
Derrick was able to pass off the appearance of his face with the tale of having fallen off his horse. Chang, who had been forbidden to come—he was no sort of a gun-dog yet—welcomed him ecstatically, and immediately seemed to suspect Chingiz, but none of the others took any notice except Li Han who, in the course of the afternoon, said, “Horsemanship more difficult than seamanship, it seems?”

  Derrick grunted. It was wounding to be thought a bad horseman, particularly by a sea-cook. Derrick prided himself on being a fairly good rider.

  “Ay reckon you fall off almighty hard, eh?” said Olaf, peering curiously into his visage. “Maybe Ay learn you a thing or two about staying aboard a horse.” Olaf was sitting, or reclining, sideways on a strange blueish mare that had been selected for him, as being mild almost to the point of imbecility. “First,” said Olaf, “Ay master the animal with the power of the human eye . . .”

  This was too much. “I didn’t really fall off,” Derrick burst out.

  “A rough-house, eh?”

  “Yes.”

  “You ain’t ban mixing it with that Mongol?”

  “Yes.”

  “Sadie Mack! You ban lucky to be alive, Ay reckon. You want three-inch steel plate all round you before you start mixing it with those guys.”

  “I knew it,” said Li Han. “I knew it. Soothsayers were correct. Physical violence now commencing.” He shuddered.

  THEY TRAVELLED ON for many days, holding their westward course towards the Gobi. In time they came back into cultivated agricultural land, with many fields and villages; but it was plain that an army had passed through the countryside, and that there had been fighting. There were many burnt houses on their road, and once they went through an entire village, a large village, that was no more than a smouldering heap of ashes.

  The Chinese peasants had mostly fled, and those few who remained hid from them. It was difficult to get any sort of information until they came to the walled town of Chien Wu, which was untouched: they went straight to the great Buddhist monastery of Chien Wu, and there they learnt that the army of the rebel leader, Shun Chi, had marched through not long before, pillaging and burning on their way to Liao-Meng, beyond the low hills on the western horizon.

  “I don’t like this,” said Sullivan. “Shun Chi is a blood-thirsty brute, with unpleasant ideas about foreigners. He strung up three French missionaries not so long ago: but that was in Fan Ling, far away to the south. He has no right to be up here at all.”

  “We had better get in touch with Hsien Lu,” said Ross. “He will give us an escort through Liao-Meng and on to the Old Silk Road.”

  “Yes. That’s the thing to do. We had better go ourselves: I would not like to trust to a messenger, and there is no point in taking the whole expedition until we have got our escort. There is no telling what lies between here and the Liao-Meng hills.”

  In the morning they spoke of it to the Professor, pointing out that he would be quite safe behind the strong walls of Chien Wu.

  “Safe?” said the Professor. “From what? Oh, yes, these bandits and so on. You are quite right, I am sure; though really I apprehend very little danger from them myself—the Chinese are a very highly civilised race. Why, only yesterday evening the abbot of this delightful monastery had a long chat with me, and he spoke most intelligently about the archaeological significance of some stelae that are to be seen in a near-by village. I am sure that there can be little danger, particularly for foreigners, who are not concerned with their political differences; but go by all means, if it will make you any easier in your minds. After all, we must take every precaution for the boy’s sake.”

  “Tell me, Professor, did you not notice the burnt-out village the other day?”

  “It was not a mere antiquarian interest,” said the Professor, still thinking of his stelae, “the abbot was keenly aware of the importance of what he describes as the obvious Hellenic influence, so unexpected at such a date—but you were speaking of the village. Yes, I did notice it. Most unfortunate: most unfortunate. It was probably the effect of carelessness with matches, or the end of a cigarette. I remember a colleague of mine in St. Petersburg who set fire to his waste-paper basket by carelessly throwing an un-extinguished cigarette into it. The fire communicated itself to the papers on his desk and thence to his beard, which was badly singed: indeed, he was obliged to reduce it to no more than a goatee, whereas before it had reached to his waist—a great comfort, he assured me, in the Russian winter. However, these unfortunate people are no doubt being cared for by the proper authorities: perhaps there is a subscription to which we might contribute.”

  “You saw nothing else?”

  “No. I think not. Oh, you are referring to the small temple on our right. Yes, I noticed that. Was there anything of particular interest there?”

  Sullivan was referring to the corpses in the village, but he said, “Oh well. . . . No, I don’t think it was an important temple. But if you don’t mind, Professor, I would rather you put off going to look at your stelae until we come back with the escort.”

  Ross and Sullivan left at noon, well armed and mounted: they took Hulagu and Kubilai with them, and they said that if they found the Tu-chun in his capital, as they expected, they would be back in five days with the escort.

  Time passed pleasantly enough while they were away. Professor Ayrton rejoiced in the company of the abbot, who had a large and important library as well as a collection of rubbings of inscriptions from all over China. Derrick and Chingiz explored the city, which, although it was not very large, had enough in its walls to occupy them for some time; but when some tribesmen rode in from the north and Chingiz recognised a cousin among them, he was obliged to spend the greater part of the day with them, not only from the call of kin, but to hear all the latest news about the steppe, the desert and the northern provinces. So Derrick was left to his own devices: Li Han and Olaf would not let him go with them, for they had been bitten by the gambling fever, and they disappeared early each morning into one of the teahouses near the wall, where they played fan-tan hour after hour. They said he was too young, and that anyhow he had not got enough money. “Besides,” added Li Han, “gambling for lucre is most pernicious, debilitating, nauseous and immoral pursuit, quite unfitting for cousin of worthy and virtuous philosopher.”

  The worthy and virtuous philosopher was fretting about his stelae. “It occurs to me,” he said to Derrick, as he sat after breakfast in the guests’ courtyard of the monastery while a great deep gong boomed inside the temple, “It occurs to me, my dear boy, that your uncle will want us to push on with all speed as soon as he comes back. That will mean that I shall have no time to inspect these stelae. I should be very loth to miss them.”

  “Then why don’t we go and look at them, sir?” said Derrick.

  “An excellent suggestion. But your uncle and Mr. Ross seemed quite concerned about the possibility of danger.”

  “Oh, I’m sure there isn’t much,” replied Derrick confidently. “These friends of Chingiz have all the latest news, and they say that Shun Chi’s army is retreating. It never touched the country to the north of here, and that is the direction of your village, isn’t it? But anyhow, nobody seems to know for sure which army is which, or where either of them are. Most likely both of them are miles away.” Derrick was growing rather tired of being cooped up in Chien Wu, and he welcomed the idea of going out, even if it would only be to see archaeological remains. The Professor needed only the smallest encouragement, so before lunch they left for the village with a monk to guide them and Li Han to prepare their rice.

  The ride was delightful: for mile after mile the road led through neat, intensely cultivated fields. Tall trees on either hand gave them shade, and there was enough breeze to diminish the strong heat of the sun, but not enough to raise the dust.

  “I am afraid your uncle has been over-anxious,” said the Professor. “What could be more peaceful than this?”

  They came to the village, and the monk led them to a small temple, built o
n the site of a much larger and more ancient building. He showed the Professor several great slabs of stone, some upright and some fallen, but all carved and covered with half-erased inscriptions. Professor Ayrton was entranced: he took innumerable photographs and rubbings, eagerly explaining the dismal objects to Derrick, who listened dutifully for half an hour, with as much show of interest as he could manage. Fortunately lunch came quite soon: it was perhaps the worst meal that Li Han had ever cooked, for he had been trying to hear the Professor and attend to his work at the same time. But they were hungry after their ride, and the soggy rice vanished from their bowls: by the time they were sitting in the shade and sipping their tea it was no more than an unpleasant memory. The Professor was in fine form, and Li Han listened spell-bound to his remarks on the stelae and on archaeology in general: once, as the afternoon wore on, Derrick suggested that they ought to be going back; he whispered it to Li Han, but the sea-cook turned upon him with such a venomous “Shshsh” that he abandoned the idea and dozed against the wall.

  They were at last preparing to return to the monastery when there was a trampling of feet, and a company of soldiers marched into the courtyard. Some were dressed in a ragged blue uniform, and some still had their peasants’ clothes upon their backs; most carried rifles of various kinds, and at their head was an officer who wore the tattered remnants of a Western uniform and carried two revolvers, as well as a sword. He stared hard at them for a moment, and then came forward to demand, in a loud, hectoring voice, what their business was and who they were. The Professor answered him mildly, and the officer at once assumed a more bullying tone. Professor Ayrton showed his passport, his permit from the Central Government and several letters of recommendation. The officer pretended to be able to read them—Derrick noticed that he held them upside down—and snapped, “Come with me. You are under arrest.”