Survivor: The Autobiography

by Lewis, Jon E.

  Tuesday, 28 May 1861 Left the blacks’ camp, and proceeded up the creek; obtained some mussels near where Landa died, and halted for breakfast. Still feel very unwell.

  Wednesday, 29 May Started at seven a.m., and went on to the duckholes, where we breakfasted coming down. Halted there at 9.30 a.m. for a feed, and then moved on. At the stones saw a lot of crows quarrelling about something near the water; found it to be a large fish, of which they had eaten a considerable portion. As it was quite fresh and good, I decided the quarrel by taking it with me. It proved a most valuable addition to my otherwise scanty supper of nardoo porridge. This evening I camped very comfortably in a mia-mia, about eleven miles from the depot. The night was very cold, although not entirely cloudless.

  Thursday, 30 May 1861 Reached the depot this morning at eleven a.m.; no traces of anyone except blacks having been here since we left. Deposited some journals and a notice of our present condition. Started back in the afternoon, and camped at the first waterhole. Last night, being cloudy, was unusually warm and pleasant.

  Friday, 31 May 1861 Decamped at 7.30 a.m., having first breakfasted; passed between the sandhills at nine a.m., and reached the blanket mia-mias at 10.40 a.m.; from there proceeded on to the rocks, where I arrived at 1.30 p.m., having delayed about half an hour on the road in gathering some portulac. It had been a fine morning, but the sky now became overcast, and threatened to set in for steady rain; and as I felt very weak and tired, I only moved on about a mile further, and camped in a sheltered gully under some bushes.

  Saturday, 1 June 1861 Started at 7.45 a.m.; passed the duckholes at ten a.m. and my second camp up, at two p.m., having rested in the meantime about forty-five minutes. Thought to have reached the blacks’ camp, or at least where Landa was bogged, but found myself altogether too weak and exhausted; in fact, had extreme difficulty in getting across the numerous little gullies, and was at last obliged to camp from sheer fatigue.

  Sunday, 2 June 1861 Started at half past six, thinking to breakfast at the blacks’ camp below Landa’s grave. Found myself very much fagged, and did not arrive at their camp until ten a.m., and then found myself disappointed as to a good breakfast, the camp being deserted. Having rested awhile and eaten a few fishbones, I moved down the creek, hoping by a late march to be able to reach our own camp; but I soon found, from my extreme weakness, that that would be out of the question. A certain amount of good luck, however, still stuck to me, for on going along by a large waterhole I was so fortunate as to find a large fish, about a pound and a half in weight, which was just being choked by another which it had tried to swallow, but which had stuck in its throat. I soon had a fire lit, and both of the fish cooked and eaten: the large one was in good condition. Moving on again after my late breakfast, I passed Camp No. 67 of the journey to Carpentaria, and camped for the night under some polygonum bushes.

  Monday, 3 June 1861 Started at seven o’clock, and keeping on the south bank of the creek was rather encouraged at about three miles by the sound of numerous crows ahead; presently fancied I could see smoke, and was shortly afterwards set at my ease by hearing a cooey from Pitchery, who stood on the opposite bank, and directed me round the lower end of the waterhole, continually repeating his assurance of abundance of fish and bread. Having with some considerable difficulty managed to ascend the sandy path that led to the camp, I was conducted by the chief to a fire where a large pile of fish were just being cooked in the most approved style. These I imagined to be for the general consumption of the half-dozen natives gathered around, but it turned out that they had already had their breakfast. I was expected to dispose of this lot – a task which, to my own astonishment, I soon accomplished, keeping two or three blacks pretty steadily at work extracting the bones for me. The fish being disposed of, next came a supply of nardoo cake and water until I was so full as to be unable to eat any more; when Pitchery, allowing me a short time to recover myself, fetched a large bowl of the raw nardoo flour mixed to a thin paste, a most insinuating article, and one that they appear to esteem a great delicacy. I was then invited to stop the night there, but this I declined, and proceeded on my way home.

  Tuesday, 4 June 1861 Started for the blacks’ camp intending to test the practicability of living with them, and to see what I could learn as to their ways and manners.

  Wednesday, 5 June 1861 Remained with the blacks. Light rain during the greater part of the night, and more or less throughout the day in showers. Wind blowing in squalls from south.

  Thursday, 6 June 1861 Returned to our own camp: found that Mr Burke and King had been well supplied with fish by the blacks. Made preparation for shifting our camp nearer theirs on the morrow.

  Friday, 7 June 1861 Started in the afternoon for the blacks’ camp with such things as we could take; found ourselves all very weak in spite of the abundant supply of fish that we have lately had. I myself, could scarcely get along, although carrying the lightest swag, only about thirty pounds. Found that the blacks had decamped, so determined on proceeding tomorrow up to the next camp, near the nardoo field.

  Saturday, 8 June 1861 With the greatest fatigue and difficulty we reached the nardoo camp. No blacks, greatly to our disappointment; took possession of their best mia-mia and rested for the remainder of the day.

  Sunday, 9 June 1861 King and I proceeded to collect nardoo, leaving Mr Burke at home.

  Monday, 10 June 1861 Mr Burke and King collecting nardoo; self at home too weak to go out; was fortunate enough to shoot a crow.

  Tuesday, 11 June 1861 King out for nardoo; Mr Burke up the creek to look for the blacks.

  Wednesday, 12 June 1861 King out collecting nardoo; Mr Burke and I at home pounding and cleaning. I still feel myself, if anything, weaker in the legs, although the nardoo appears to be more thoroughly digested.

  Thursday, 13 June 1861 Mr Burke and King out for nardoo; self weaker than ever; scarcely able to go to the waterhole for water.

  Friday, 14 June 1861 Night alternately clear and cloudy; no wind; beautifully mild for the time of year; in the morning some heavy clouds on the horizon. King out for nardoo; brought in a good supply. Mr Burke and I at home, pounding and cleaning seed. I feel weaker than ever, and both Mr B. and King are beginning to feel very unsteady in the legs.

  Saturday, 15 June 1861 Night clear, calm, and cold; morning very fine, with a light breath of air from NE. King out for nardoo; brought in a fine supply. Mr Burke and I pounding and cleaning; he finds himself getting very weak, and I am not a bit stronger.

  Sunday, 16 June 1861 We finished up the remains of the camel Rajah yesterday, for dinner; King was fortunate enough to shoot a crow this morning.

  The rain kept all hands in, pounding and cleaning seed during the morning. The weather cleared up towards the middle of the day, and a brisk breeze sprang up in the south, lasting till near sunset, but rather irregular in its force. Distant thunder was audible to westward and southward frequently during the afternoon.

  Monday, 17 June 1861 Night very boisterous and stormy; northerly wind blowing in squalls, and heavy showers of rain, with thunder in the north and west. King out in the afternoon for nardoo.

  Tuesday, 18 June 1861 Exceedingly cold night; sky clear, slight breeze, very chilly and changeable; very heavy dew, warmer towards noon.

  Wednesday, 19 June 1861 About eight o’clock a strong southerly wind sprung up, which enabled King to blow the dust out of our nardoo seed, but made me too weak to render him any assistance.

  Thursday, 20th June, 1861 Night and morning very cold, sky clear. I am completely reduced by the effects of the cold and starvation. King gone out for nardoo; Mr Burke at home pounding seed; he finds himself getting very weak in the legs. King holds out by far the best; the food seems to agree with him pretty well.

  Finding the sun come out pretty warm towards noon, I took a sponging all over; but it seemed to do little good beyond the cleaning effects, for my weakness is so great that I could not do it with proper expedition.

  I cannot understand this nardoo
at all – it certainly will not agree with me in any form; we are now reduced to it alone, and we manage to consume from four to five pounds per day between us; it appears to be quite indigestible, and cannot possibly be sufficiently nutritious to sustain life by itself.

  Friday, 21 June 1861 Last night was cold and clear, winding up with a strong wind from NE in the morning. I feel much weaker than ever and can scarcely crawl out of the mia-mia. Unless relief comes in some form or other, I cannot possibly last more than a fortnight.

  It is a great consolation, at least, in this position of ours, to know that we have done all we could, and that our deaths will rather be the result of the mismanagement of others than of any rash acts of our own. Had we come to grief elsewhere, we could only have blamed ourselves; but here we are returned to Cooper’s Creek, where we had every reason to look for provisions and clothing; and yet we have to die of starvation, in spite of the explicit instructions given by Mr Burke – ‘That the depot party should await our return’; and the strong recommendation to the Committee ‘that we should be followed up by a party from Menindie’.

  Saturday, 22 June 1861 There were a few drops of rain during the night, and in the morning, about nine a.m., there was every prospect of more rain until towards noon, when the sky cleared up for a time.

  Mr Burke and King are out for nardoo; the former returned much fatigued. I am so weak today as to be unable to get on my feet.

  Sunday, 23 June 1861 All hands at home. I am so weak as to be incapable of crawling out of the mia-mia. King holds out well, but Mr Burke finds himself weaker every day.

  Monday, 24 June 1861 A fearful night. At about an hour before sunset, a southerly gale sprung up and continued throughout the greater portion of the night; the cold was intense, and it seemed as if one would be shrivelled up. Towards morning it fortunately lulled a little, but a strong cold breeze continued till near sunset, after which it became perfectly calm.

  King went out for nardoo in spite of the wind, and came in with a good load; but he himself terribly cut up. He says that he can no longer keep up the work, and as he and Mr Burke are both getting rapidly weaker, we have but a slight chance of anything but starvation, unless we can get hold of some blacks.

  Tuesday, 25 June 1861 Night calm, clear, and intensely cold, especially towards morning. Near daybreak, King reported seeing a moon in the east, with a haze of light stretching up from it; he declared it to be quite as large as the moon, and not dim at the edges. I am so weak that any attempt to get a sight of it was out of the question; but I think it must have been Venus in the Zodiacal Light that he saw, with a corona around her.

  Wednesday, 26 June Mr Burke and King remain at home cleaning and pounding seed; they are both getting weaker every day; the cold plays the deuce with us, from the small amount of clothing we have: my wardrobe consists of a wide-awake, a merino shirt, a regatta shirt without sleeves, the remains of a pair of flannel trousers, two pairs of socks in rags, and a waistcoat, of which I have managed to keep the pockets together. The others are no better off. Besides these, we have between us, for bedding, two small camel pads, some horsehair, two or three little bits of rag, and pieces of oilcloth saved from the fire.

  The day turned out nice and warm.

  Thursday, 28 June 1861 Mr Burke and King are preparing to go up the creek in search of the blacks; they will leave me some nardoo, wood, and water, with which I must do the best I can until they return. I think this is almost our only chance. I feel myself, if anything, rather better, but I cannot say stronger: the nardoo is beginning to agree better with me; but without some change I see little chance for any of us. They have both shown great hesitation and reluctance with regard to leaving me, and have repeatedly desired my candid opinion in the matter. I could only repeat, however, that I considered it our only chance, for I could not last long on the nardoo, even if a supply could be kept up.

  Friday, 29 June 1861 Clear, cold night, slight breeze from the east, day beautifully warm and pleasant. Mr Burke suffers greatly from the cold and is getting extremely weak; he and King start tomorrow up the creek to look for the blacks; it is the only chance we have of being saved from starvation. I am weaker than ever, although I have a good appetite and relish the nardoo much; but it seems to give us no nutriment, and the birds here are so shy as not to be got at. Even if we got a good supply of fish, I doubt whether we could do much work on them and the nardoo alone. Nothing now but the greatest good luck can save any of us; and as for myself I may live four or five days if the weather continues warm. My pulse is at forty-eight, and very weak, and my legs and arms are nearly skin and bone. I can only look out, like Mr Micawber, ‘for something to turn up’; starvation on nardoo is by no means very unpleasant, but for the weakness one feels, and the utter inability to move one’s self; for as far as appetite is concerned, it gives the greatest satisfaction.

  (Signed) W. J. WILLS

  Wills’s journal was found lying beside his corpse. Burke also died of starvation. King managed to find an aboriginal band and was eventually rescued.

  Anglo-American travel writer and artist. As part of a journey behind the forbidden borders of Asia, he left Soviet-occupied Afghanistan in 1984 with a mujahedeen jeep convoy for Pakistan.

  The journey, as we bucked and bumped our way across the desert, was quite back-breaking, but I felt that I could take it pretty uncomplainingly, for after all it would only be another couple of nights, and then . . . Then, goodbye helicopters, MiGs, RPGs and barren desert. Why, in 72 hours’ time I would be relaxing in the swimming pool of a sumptuous hotel.

  My daydreams were abruptly overwhelmed by the sight of another burnt-out Symorgh. It was the fifth wreck we had passed. How many dead, I wondered, just in this little struggle for control of the road. Clearly it was not firmly back in mujahedeen hands.

  We were going to have to travel for a short stretch along the main road that links Kabul and Kandahar, and we had sent scouts ahead to check if it was clear. Now, we pulled over to await their return. It was a tense time, and I found myself having to breathe deeply and regularly to contain my excitement. I did not think I could bear it if they were to return and say ‘Ra band’ – the way is closed.

  ‘When can we expect them?’ I asked one of my companions – a rather better-off young man, who had feigned sickness off and on in the hope of getting me to give him some pills, which I think he took to be like sweets.

  ‘Two hours,’ he said promptly. I decided to expect them in four. In fact, they returned in precisely two hours, and you could tell by their faces what they were going to say.

  ‘Ra band.’

  We spent the rest of that night and the whole of the next day holed up tensely at an oasis, marking time under the shadow of the trees, while the scouts were dispatched yet again to keep an eye on the situation. Restlessly, we once again discussed alternative possibilities. As we did so, Abdul Mohmy, his usual tireless self, went to bake bread for us at a nearby hamlet.

  ‘Could we walk?’ I asked.

  ‘It would take five days – if we could get through.’

  ‘No water,’ said Abdul Rahman. He was more restless than anyone else, and clearly couldn’t relax.

  ‘What’s the matter with him? Is he ill?’ I asked Zahir, my minder.

  ‘I think he must be afraid,’ replied Zahir.

  With two hours of daylight left the scouts returned, this time with the heartening but almost unbelievable news that the road was once again ‘ra azad’. I hoped it would still be so by the time we reached it. We headed off at once.

  We had only just cleared the first hill and begun to travel along a dry river bed when someone near me began to scream,

  ‘Tiare!’

  The panicky word caught on, and soon they were all yelling it, craning for a sight of the sky from the packed jeep. They had spotted a plane.

  The jeep slowed violently, and we struggled to bail out, but there were many unable to jump when the jeep decided to take off at full speed. We were the midd
le jeep. The leader had carried on apparently unaware; the last one had seen the panic ahead and reversed up a hill. Ours had come to a halt some way off and the driver and the mechanic were throwing a tarpaulin over it. We had all rushed up a steep incline and now crouched huddled together, taking refuge in whatever crevice we could find – all, that is, except for one man who had taken off in the other direction – into the open – where, to my total disbelief, he now knelt and proceeded to pray. We strained our ears for the noise of the returning jet, but we must have been just in time to get out of its way, for the sound of its engine faded and finally died.

  Once the danger was over, the whole group settled down to pray – I have to say that I found this vexing, given how urgent our situation was. Our driver seemed to pray for an inordinately long time.

  We caught up with the first jeep. They, too, had heard the plane, and had rounded a bend and pulled up close to the cliff-wall of the valley we had been passing through.

  ‘Thank God for that valley,’ the mechanic said.

  ‘Thank God we weren’t five minutes further along the track,’ said the driver. ‘Then we would have been in open desert.’

  During the long days of marching before Nouzad, I had learned to tell the time by measuring the length of my shadow cast by the sun. Now I tried to teach myself how to get my bearings by the stars. I always kept an eye on where the nearest mountains were, and remembered the location of the last oasis we had visited. This wasn’t easy. We never took a direct route, but were forever weaving around the desert. I was most impressed by our drivers’ uncanny sense of direction, but perhaps the close brush with the aeroplane had disconcerted them more than somewhat, for all at once the three jeeps pulled up together and the drivers announced that they were lost. It was by now dark, and to go on without a guide would have been foolhardy. Luckily, and as always happens in the Afghan desert, other life appeared within a matter of moments, in the form of a tractor and its driver.