So, German? No problem. I’d been chattering away to Apa in that tongue for ages already – but then he wanted me to read and write it, too. I jibbed. ‘But Apa, what’s the point? Languages are for speaking.’
Apa’s response had been to borrow a copy of ‘Indische Gletscherfahrten; Reisen und Erlebnisse im Himalaya’, from Mr Oakley, the missionary at Almora. This weighty tome had been written by a chap called Dr Boeckh, who two years before my birth had made an expedition over the remote Girthi gorges between Almora and Garhwal. Since poor old Dr B.’s previous experience of climbing had all been in the Alps he knew virtually nothing about travelling in India, let alone in the Himalayas, and he got into some hilarious muddles – well, hilarious to me, but I don’t think he laughed all that much when he arrived at Milam with his bag of gold coins and discovered they were useless, because the Bhotias only dealt with silver ones!
Anyway, Apa read me some fascinating snippets from this volume, just enough to whet my appetite – and then informed me that if I wanted to know what happened next I’d have to read it for myself. So, with frequent reference to dictionary, grammar book and Apa – especially the latter – I did. And in the process learnt to read German. Clever old Apa.
But his ingenuity produced one unexpected side-effect – I conceived a burning ambition to retrace Dr B.’s footsteps. Which was not terribly convenient, since this area hadn’t even been properly mapped – Dr B. having been too busy arguing with his porters to do anything useful like that!
Apa, being Apa, said yes – the trip could be my thirteenth birthday present. But, he added, since it would be my expedition, I had to organize it all myself – thus converting an already good present into an absolutely brilliant one. I set about my task with gusto.
After all, I was following in the family tradition by mounting an expedition. My grandmother, Fanny Gunn, had been an ethnologist before she met and married my grandfather Courtney. She’d travelled all over the world studying the way people lived in different places, like China and Africa. She’d even written a book about it – two massive volumes called ‘Variety and Diversity in Humankind.’ So now I intended to follow her example – except not quite, since there wasn’t actually anybody living in the Girthi Gorges.
I planned for us to travel light – we generally did compared with other British officials when on tour – but you never travel that light in India, especially not in Kumaon, where everything has to be carried. Up to Milam we could use the regular relays of coolies, along with some sure-footed Bhotia pack-ponies – who can walk along a two-foot wide path over a precipice without a qualm. But when crossing the Girthi river gorges we wouldn’t even have proper paths for most of the way, so I opted for a mixture of porters and goats. Sheep and goats are what the Bhotias use to carry their goods over the passes to Tibet – they wear small saddle-bags on their backs and can take loads of about twenty-four pounds apiece – so they would carry our food supply, and be able to cope with the scrambling better than ponies. They have another advantage over ponies – after eating their loads we could then eat the goats – you don’t eat ponies, they’re too expensive. Though I wanted to avoid eating any goats either, if possible, since they could be sold when we reached Malari, on the other side. So I told Apa he’d have to take one of his guns, and shoot some bharal or a tahr. (They’re the wild sheep and goats you get high up in the Himalayas).
Not that Apa would have considered going anywhere without a gun, in any case. Guns mean fresh meat, for food – and even more important, there’s always the risk of bears and leopards. Bears are the most dangerous, because even though Himalayan black bears aren’t especially aggressive they can’t see or hear very well, so if you round a spur on a narrow path and a bear is coming the other way it panics, rears up on its hind legs and starts clawing pieces out of you – usually out of your face.
So Apa’s double-barrelled, 12 bore Paradox – which is called that because it’s a combination of rifle and shot gun – was an inevitable part of our expedition equipment, and my preparations involved making bullets for it. That’s why shot and ball guns have been so popular in out-of-the-way areas of India. Bullet moulds are provided, and it’s like cigarettes – if you can’t buy ammunition, then you roll your own. In point of fact you could buy bullets in Almora, but Apa said, if it was my expedition…! So we got out the lead and black powder and spent a purposeful evening with the bullet moulds and cartridge re-loading equipment. Practical science lessons.
Maths came next. I had to calculate daily food consumption, multiply it by likely distance travelled, add the estimated weight of luggage, and then divide the total according to the carrying capacity of porters and goats. The goats would feed themselves on the way, but that took time – so now I had to enter into the equation hours lost each day through grazing, and then add up the extra days’ travel, calculate the increased consumption required as a result – and then turn all the pounds into seers and maunds … (2 pounds = 1 seer, and 40 seers = 1 maund – I’m never likely to forget that!) Gosh, did Apa enjoy watching me struggle through all those self-inflicted maths lessons.
And this was before we’d even started on the geography – for which I was relying on Pandit Kishan Singh, Rai Bahadur. He was one of the great Pandits, who’d crossed secretly into Tibet to carry out the big Trigonometrical Survey. He was long retired then, and living at Munsiari, in the Johar valley. He’d been born at Milam, like me – and when he said he’d like to come with us on my expedition I was extremely honoured – and also very hopeful that on the way he’d tell me what it had been like travelling round Tibet in disguise, with a price on his head. The Tibetans had not been at all keen on being surveyed – especially not by someone acting on behalf of the British Government of India.
Another friend of Apa’s was to come with us, too – Sirhan Sears. I’d called him that from when I was a baby – I suppose because I’d heard our servants addressing him as ‘Sears Sahib’. Apa always called him Peter. Sirhan Sears’ family had originally come from England, but they’d settled in India, where he’d been born and brought up. He lived with his sister in Naini Tal and ran a business there, and another in the town of Almora, but he was best-known for his big game hunting. When he applied to me, as leader, for permission to come with us, I was thrilled and flattered – but I still bartered for lessons in imitating tiger calls in return – you learn the art of bargaining very young, in India!
It was years later before I realised that Apa had pre-arranged our two guests. We were going into uninhabited and potentially dangerous country, where there was always the possibility of an accident – and he’d wanted to ensure that for my sake two men he utterly trusted were with us – in case the accident was to him. But he never let me realise that at the time; Apa put a very high value on a person’s independence – even when that person was still only twelve.
It was the same with all the preparations. Obviously I made mistakes. The minor ones he left me to discover on the ground, but if he saw I’d made a major blunder he’d give me a discreet hint. ‘Yes, Eve, I agree absolutely that camp beds are an unnecessary weight – mackintosh sheets are so much lighter, and a perfectly adequate protection against any melting snow that tries to leak into the tents.’ True, they would be – but only if I’d remembered to pack those sheets in the first place, which I hadn’t. I hastily added them to my list – while remaining completely confident that I was in charge.
Indeed, such was my confidence that my original plan had been to take in Tibet, too. Not all of it – even I’d had to admit that would have taken rather longer than the time available. No, just a quick strike twenty-five miles over the British border to visit the tented summer city of Gyanema, where the Bhotias did their trading, then back and over the Girthi Gorges in the footsteps of Dr Boeckh. Unfortunately the weather let me down. Since the snows had melted unusually late that year, Apa vetoed my planned diversion, because we were due in Naini Tal by mid—July to start rehearsing for ‘The Gondoliers.’ By that summer I’d grow
n tall enough to sing in the chorus, and Apa was playing the Duke of Plaza Toro. I argued, of course – I always argued, but on this Apa was inflexible. ‘We’ve given our word, Eve,’ he said, ‘And a promise once given must not be broken.’ Reluctantly I agreed.
This was not just Apa’s code, but that of Almora, too: a contract made was a contract kept. In other respects the codes of Apa and Almora were more divergent – over the matter of telling the truth, for instance. Apa saw a clear distinction between truth and lies; I sided with those who dwelt in the courtyards and bazaars of the town of Almora, who traversed a wide no-man’s land between the two extremes. A statement would not exactly be a lie – there was always a kernel of truth in it somewhere – but if the listener failed to spot that kernel, then it really was their own look-out. So despite all Apa’s efforts, I became practised in the delicate art of flirting with the truth – and a very useful art I’ve found it, too.
At last my preparations were complete (I thought so, anyway – Apa still had one or two more hints to drop!) Apa’s leave fell due, and we set off from Almora town to walk the 104 miles to Milam. 104 miles might seem a long way for a twelve-year old to walk, but I’d been doing it all my life.
No, I’m flirting with the truth, again. My first three years were spent moving between Almora and the terai – the wide belt of jungle at the foot of the hills. It was there I met the tiger. I’m rather proud of that being my first memory. At least, I always tell people that that was my first memory, though it’s not quite true, because I do have an awareness of something that must have been earlier – but it’s not a memory of anything happening, rather of just being there.
I was riding in the ringal basket high on Apa’s back. I don’t even remember what I saw – I just have these two simple memories – one was of the contrast between the feel of Apa’s soft hair and the smoothness of his small bald patch as, gurgling with pleasure at my game, I tipped his hat forward yet again. And the other memory was of a woman’s voice laughing as I did it, and calling to me, ‘Kismacska!’ Kitten. Just that one word, but it’s a Magyar word, so I know my mother must have spoken it. And by the time I met the tiger, she was dead.
You get loads of tigers in the terai, though there aren’t many around Almora because it’s up in the hills, so those you do get have generally been driven out from better hunting territory below, or have come across the Kali river from Nepal. If they’re old, or been wounded, or have come off worst in a set-to with a porcupine, then they sometimes turn man-eater, and have to be hunted.
Sirhan Sears had shot one the year before, and taken a photograph of me standing beside it, holding our light shot gun. Apa had taught me to shoot with that, though I still preferred using my throwstick – that way if you missed there was no loud bang to frighten all the other birds away.
The man-eater before that one Apa had shot with his Express rifle – it was considered part of a forest officer’s job. I didn’t have a photo of that tiger, though Apa had given me the luck bones. Otherwise he would only kill what we needed to eat. Apa was very firm on this, since to him there were only two valid reasons for shooting animals – for food or in defence of human life. The second reason included shooting rabid jackals – the town of Almora was infested with jackals, and you had to watch out for any that had gone mad. That was why I’d never been allowed to have a dog. Pet dogs got bitten, went mad, turned on their owners – then it was off all the way to the Pasteur Institute at Kasauli for fourteen days of extremely painful injections into the stomach – if you were lucky and got there in time. If you’d been bitten in the face or head, as tended to happen to children, you didn’t stand much chance even then.
So we all kept a wary eye out for jackals – and scorpions, and snakes, and lepers – leprosy was very common all over the district of Almora. In fact, despite its uncharted nature and precipitous slopes you could argue that the trip from Milam to Malari over the Girthi gorges would be a lot safer than just staying at home and catching cholera.
So, there we were at Milam, awaiting the arrival of Sirhan Sears, who’d been delayed by business, and Pandit Kishan Singh, who was coming up with him from Munsiari. We could have waited at Munsiari too, but I’d been keen to push on over the last thirty miles and five thousand feet to see my birthplace. Having seen it, I was now keen to leave it again, off on the road to the Untadhura pass—’Oh Apa – if only it were tomorrow…!’
To which, as always, he replied, ‘Live for the day, Eve – and enjoy every single minute of it!’
So I did. I rushed up and down the streets between the houses – I was flirting with the truth again earlier, when I called them huts. Some are two-storey, and they’re all strongly built; they have to be to survive the winter snows, which can be twelve feet deep some years. Milam is only inhabited for the five summer months – the rest of the year the Bhotias live in their winter homes, much lower down the valley. Those stone buildings in Milam are laid out on a most efficient grid system, with courtyards behind the houses where the women set up their narrow looms and weave and sing and chatter and laugh. I sang and chattered and laughed with them – and they even let me have a go at throwing the shuttle – and the muddle I got into with it gave them the opportunity for even more laughter. Though what they found funniest of all was my wearing breeches – Apa and I had an agreement, when we were above five thousand feet, I could wear my boy’s clothing without having a skirt over the top.
I met up with him again before lunch, after he’d spent the whole morning discussing the state of trade with the patwari (the headman). Then the headmaster arrived to invite us to inspect his school, where the children in turn inspected my strange red hair (well, orange, to be honest), and even odder freckles.
After a lunch of dhal and chapattis we went down to explore the river Gori, whose milk-white, glacier-fed waters tumble through the deep gorge far below the village. Then we did some more serious climbing, following the pattern Apa had always insisted upon, ‘Think – test – move – step. Think – test – move …’ I had no fear of heights – I’d grown up with them. On the contrary, I liked heights, I found them exhilarating. I still do.
Back at the camp Apa loaded his Paradox – just with shot, for light game – I hefted my throwsticks, and we went in pursuit of supper. We brought down seven snow pigeons between us; Apa got most of them – he was an ace shot. We left them with Faizullah, Apa’s bearer, who’d agreed to act as cook for the trip. That was something else I took for granted in India – servants.
Then we were off again, to play my favourite game. Apa called, ‘Be a monkey, Eve!’ Lacking any trees I made a series of lunging jumps to the hillside, and went swarming up it, before pausing to inspect my hair for nits. ‘Be a leopard, Eve!’ I leapt high into the air and bounded away. ‘Be a peacock!’ I imagined the heavy weight of my great tail, trailing behind me, then, curving my back, lifted it up and fanned it out and strutted proudly forward, darting my head from side to side … Apa shouted, ‘Be a vulture, Eve!’ I glared at him, then with arms outstretched I ran myself into a gliding swoop and pounced on a sheep’s skull. I didn’t tear any flesh off it, though – the regular vultures had already done that job.
Then, behind me, I heard the sawing growl of a leopard. I spun round and went running towards the sound – Sirhan Sears had arrived.
That evening there was all the excitement of arrivals. Tales of our different journeys were told over the camp fire, and I received my first lesson in tiger calls from Sirhan Sears, followed by initial instruction in the art of disguise from Pandit Kishan Singh.
Reluctantly I went to bed at last – only to be woken in the middle of the night by a barrage of blood-curdling barks. I snapped my head up – and heard Apa’s drowsy voice murmur from the other side of the tent, ‘It’s all right, Eve, it’s only the Bhotia dogs protecting their sheep – probably got wind of a bear. Go back to sleep.’ So I did.
Next morning our porters were officially hired, and all our gear assembled. I hovered o
ver our food supplies as they were packed up. We’d carried up with us dried fruit, tea and spices, and now we added what we’d bought at Milam: atta (wheat flour), tsampa, dhal, sugar, ghee – and even some fresh butter we’d bought from a shepherd up by the glacier – it was a bit hairy because it was stored in an inside-out goatskin, but who cared about that? Much more important, was whether all my calculations had worked out.
I supervised anxiously as each porter’s pack was weighed on the spring balance – no porter’s pack must be heavier than the twenty-five seers laid down in Government regulations. Just suppose I’d got the weight wrong, and my maths textbook had to be left behind at Milam? (Yes, I am joking – the trickiest part of my calculations had been ensuring that there was no room for it in the first place!) Then all at once the goats were being saddled, the man in charge of them shouted that he was ready – and we were off!
Chapter Three
We made a leisurely start; the goats saw to that. But then, on the first day we were only going as far as the camping ground at Dung. Again, because of the goats – Dung was the last place they could graze before the pass. So we set up camp there in the early afternoon and the goats munched away while I did yet more practical science. Under the supervision of Pandit Kishan Singh I established our height above sea level. My thermometer in the kettle told us that boiling point was 187 F – which meant we were about thirteen and a half thousand feet up. The Pandit then taught me how to check that with his aneroid barometer. After struggling with the calculations (you don’t need maths textbooks when you’ve got surveyors with you!) we settled for 13,700 feet. And we were going higher still.
Next day found us toiling through the skeletons of sheep and goats that littered the zig-zag track up to the pass. A very bleak desolate landscape now – the only touch of colour was provided by the orange throat of the bearded vulture hovering hopefully over our sheep. Cheek. I glared up at him. ‘Shall I try and get that vulture with my throwstick, Apa?’
Eve Page 2