‘Out of date,’ Michaelson said gustily, signalling for another round. ‘You know what he means by that? My face doesn’t fit round here any more. Maybe none of our white faces will fit soon. The bloody Indians have their own government now… .’
Houston said nothing, waiting for Michaelson to take himself off.
‘There’s no government behind me, sport. I’m just bloody old Michaelson who’s been giving them a living for thirty years. Even my teamsters are leaving. Your friend Ringling – a bloody family I’ve kept for years.’
‘Where’s he going?’
‘Christ knows. Climbing, he says. Won’t be able to oblige me for the next two trips. My oath!’
‘You’d take him on again, would you?’
‘You’ve got it wrong, sport,’ Michaelson said with morbid hilarity. ‘I don’t take people on any more. They take me on. Ah, it’s time I left this sodding place… . Just let me get my hands on a bit of money, and watch me!’
‘Well… . I should be packing myself.’
‘One for the road,’ Michaelson said.
It was after nine before he was rid of him, and his head was swimming. He went up to his room, collected his papers, passport and flight return ticket and tied them with string and brown paper. He addressed the parcel to himself at the Great Eastern in Calcutta, and wrote ‘registered post’ on top, and paused.
It looked a bit on the slim side. More bulk was needed to provide a reason why he should not be carrying it with him; so he untied the parcel and included a suit and odds and ends until he was satisfied. He wondered what else he might have overlooked, and cursed Michaelson for befuddling his wits when he needed them most.
He had promised Ringling a hundred pounds for the trip. He thought in view of the changed circumstances he had better make it a hundred and fifty, and unlocked the case and took out the larger notes. He went downstairs with the parcel and the suitcase of money, and told them to lock up the case overnight. He sealed the parcel with hot wax at the reception desk and left it there for posting next day.
‘I’m going back to Calcutta tomorrow,’ he told the clerk. ‘I’d like the bill made up tonight.’
‘Yes, sahib.’
‘And an early shake in the morning. I want to catch the seven-thirty bus for Gielle-Khola.’
His voice was showing a tendency to boom, and he thought he might be overdoing it, but the clerk seemed to notice nothing out of the ordinary.
‘Seven-thirty, sahib. Gielle-Khola.’
‘That’s it,’ Houston said; and went out to tell the boy.
CHAPTER FOUR
1
THE first stop from Kalimpong to Gielle-Khola is at the village of Gelong, some six and a half miles away. It is a small, pleasant spot on the east bank of the Teesta river, less hilly than Kalimpong and for that reason the site of the polo ground and country club of the former European Sporting Society. There is a comfortable rest house and a smattering of summer bungalows. Houston got off here.
He sat on the seat by the bus stop and smoked a cigarette until the bus had gone. He had slept badly, and he felt weary and hopeless. The idea of walking into Tibet struck him, as he sat with his suitcase and raincoat in the warm and brilliant morning, as more preposterous than ever. He waited till the alighting passengers had dispersed, and threw away his cigarette and followed in the direction the bus had taken.
He walked across the river bridge to where the main road forked, left for Gielle-Khola and right for Darjeeling. He turned right. After twenty minutes he was sweating in the hot and spicy morning. A few people in the fields looked curiously at him as he passed with his suitcase and raincoat. He looked sombrely back.
He spotted the line of telegraph poles marching off over the hills to Sikkim on the right, and presently the rough track that ran alongside. He turned up this and a few hundred yards farther spied the hut. It was built of logs and had a corrugated tin roof; a little rusting enamelled plate said it belonged to the Department of Posts and Telegraphs. He sat down beside the hut in the shade of a tree and waited.
Ringling appeared after about an hour, riding one bicycle and propelling another. He had a haversack on his back and a large bundle tied to one of the bicycles.
‘All well, sahib?’ he said, grinning as he dismounted.
‘Yes. You’re quick,’ Houston said.
‘The market was empty.’
‘Did you manage to get everything?’
‘Everything,’ Ringling said, and leaned the bicycles against the hut and opened the padlock.
Once, months before, Ringling had come upon a telegraph linesman lying in the road; he had a broken leg. The man had given Ringling his key and asked him to run to the hut to telephone for help. Ringling had done this, and had also seen the man safely to hospital. The linesman had forgotten to ask him for the key back, and Ringling for his part had not offered it. He had since experimented with several huts belonging to the Department of Posts and Telegraphs and had found that the key opened them all.
Houston followed him into the hut and watched as Ringling untied the bundle. There were several sets of clothes inside. The boy took out a pair of khaki shorts and a dirty olive bush jacket, and shut the door for Houston to change into them. He undressed awkwardly, stumbling about between coils of wire and crates of insulators in the cramped and airless space. Before dressing, he opened his suitcase and distributed the money between them; there were a hundred pounds each in small rupee notes. He stuffed his own share in a body belt.
The boy repacked the bundle and retied it on the back of the bicycle, while Houston walked cautiously up and down the track in his new footwear; a pair of old brown officer’s boots that were, Ringling said, in common use among the Sherpas. They returned to the hut together to tidy up; and both were thus aware at the same moment of the next, and quite unforeseen, problem. They stared at each other. There had been no provision for the disposal of the suitcase or the discarded clothing.
Houston cursed Michaelson again. He said, ‘Now what?’
The problem was not an easy one. They could not bury the suitcase and clothing; for as Ringling pointed out someone might find the place and alert the police. They could not burn them, for the smoke would be seen, and the operation would in any case take too long.
They decided in the end on a slight change of plan. Ringling knew of another track that would take them in the desired direction; it branched off the main road half-way to Darjeeling. He would leave Houston to wait at this point while he rode into town and deposited the suitcase in the Left Luggage Office at the station. Although the diversion would cost them the best part of two hours, it had certain advantages, for the new track was less hilly and they might even be able to gain something in terms of mileage on the day.
This, accordingly, is what they did.
(Houston never reclaimed his case, which sat quietly awaiting him in the Darjeeling Left Luggage Office for the next four years; it ultimately fetched, with its contents, fifty- five rupees in a sale of lost property in May 1954.)
They reached the Sikkim border soon after one o’clock, and dismounted and walked along parallel with it for some time. Apart from an occasional sign in two languages there was no indication that this was the frontier. The boy was somewhat nervous, however; he said observers were stationed in the hills. Houston thought he saw an occasional flash of glasses from high up in the green mounds, and was prepared to believe him. He had begun, despite his trepidation, to enjoy himself. They were wheeling the bicycles through a lush and rolling pasture; the fields sparkled with little wild flowers and their scent hung heavily on the air. They had cycled slowly, for Ringling had warned him not to extend himself too much. All the same he could feel the effect of the unusual exercise. He was sweating slightly, and glad of the liberating shorts and the light, short-sleeved bush jacket. He was also very hungry, with an appetite he had not had for weeks; the boy had said they would stop to eat in Sikkim.
Ringling had been picking a large posy of flowers, for t
he benefit of any observer, but when they came to the timber he got rid of them. He did this in a curious and touching way that Houston was later to recall in very different circumstances. A little stream bisected the wood, and the boy knelt by it and cupped his hand in the water and sprinkled a few drops on his head and on the flowers; then he cast them into the stream. They were carried quickly away.
Houston did not ask the reason for this performance, and the boy did not offer one. He merely got on his bicycle and rode across the stream.
‘We can eat now, sahib,’ he said at the other side.
‘Is this Sikkim?’
‘Yes. No more India, sahib.’
Houston looked at his watch and saw it was a quarter to two. So with only the smallest of ceremonies he had crossed his first frontier. The date was 18 April 1950, and he was not due to recross it again for a long time.
2
The wood extended quite deeply into Sikkim territory, and the boy stopped several times to consult his compass. They rode slowly and silently on pine cones. But presently the ground began to climb steeply and the trees grew denser. They got off and pushed, in single file.
‘Do you know where you’re going?’ Houston asked after half an hour of this. He was breathing heavily and the sweat was smarting in the creases of his arms and legs.
‘Everything O.K., sahib,’ the boy said, grinning back over his shoulder. ‘Only a small hill. We come to the top soon and ride down. Very nice. You like it.’
It was nearly another half hour before they reached the top; but as Ringling said, it was very nice and Houston liked it. The wood ended abruptly and a broad, smooth hill ran into a river valley. The river was quite two miles away; the turf sloped gently all the way. They coasted down to it, and Houston felt the sweat drying on his body in the cool breeze.
They passed a flock of goats, but no sign of human habitation.
‘Aren’t there any people here?’
‘Yes, people.’
‘Where are they?’
‘Plenty of people, sahib. Even in the wood. We don’t stay long in Sikkim. How you feel now?’
Houston had been aware earlier of the boy’s nervousness; it made him nervous too.
‘I’m all right. Why?’
‘We must cross the river. There are two ways. There is a bridge, but we might meet people, or there is a rope bridge. It’s much quicker, sahib, but the water is high and you are heavier than me. You think you’re strong enough?’
‘I don’t know,’ Houston said, perplexed by these technical considerations. ‘What does it involve?’
‘There are two ropes. You walk along one and hang on to the other with your hands. You hold the bicycle also.’
‘Whatever you think. I’ll give it a try.’
The valley, he saw when they were more than half-way down, was in effect a vast saucer; it sloped longitudinally as well as laterally. The river ran downhill fast. It was surprisingly wide, fifty yards at least across, the water white and foaming. They rode uphill along the bank for a mile or two until the river curved and narrowed sharply; the rope bridge spanned it at this point.
They stopped and dismounted. The boy had to shout in his ear above the roar of the water. ‘Watch me, sahib. If you can’t manage, wave and I’ll come back.’
‘All right.’
‘I’ll take your bundle. It will lighten the weight.’
Houston watched as the boy tied the bundle to his back and picked up the bicycle by the crossbar. With palms still open he grasped the upper rope, shaking it to demonstrate the hold, and then, feeling for the lower one with his feet, began edging sideways across. A few yards from the bank, he seemed to learn forward sharply on the upper rope, and turned to Houston, mouthing and grinning. His feet were lost in the white foam.
Houston did not very much like the look of it, but he nodded and the boy continued across. Half-way, Houston lost him in the boiling spray; but he saw the outline emerging again at the other side, and presently the boy was on the bank, grinning and waving.
Houston took a deep breath and picked up the bike and got moving. The roar of water battering against rock, and the flying spray, confused him. He felt for the lower rope with his feet and kicked both heels hard against it, and edged away.
A few yards out the rope sagged with his weight and his feet were in the water. He hung grimly on to the slimy upper rope, feeling the current strong against his boots, and the next moment was clutching for his life as his legs were rushed from under him. He tilted sharply forward, jack-knifing so violently against the crossbar that the breath was knocked out of his body. He couldn’t feel his legs in the maelstrom. He thought he had lost the lower rope. He kicked frantically, and found it, and hung there for a moment, gasping, at an angle of forty-five degrees between the quivering ropes.
He could see the bicycle wheels directly beneath him, and feel his legs numbing in the icy water. He thought he had better move quickly while he could still hold on to both, and inched his way sideways. A few moments later, he was utterly alone, both banks lost to sight in the white, rushing tumult. He saw then what Ringling had meant about his weight; he seemed to be entirely in the river. The solid wall of water blinded and half drowned him as he lay spreadeagled on the ropes. All his weight was on his arms, and he thought he had better let the bicycle go or he would go himself; but he managed to hang on and presently, in a mindless vacuum, to begin moving again.
Ringling dragged him out at the other side, limp and exhausted, and he collapsed on the turf gasping like a spent fish.
‘I’m sorry, sahib. The river is swollen with snow.’
‘Are there any more of them to cross?’
‘Not today… . We should move on quickly, sahib. We can’t stay here.’
Houston got back on his bicycle and they set off again. Having coasted down one side of the valley, they now had to ascend the other. The boy steered a diagonal path to keep the gradient gentle; even so by the time they reached the top Houston felt himself completely done in.
They came out of the valley to an extraordinary spectacle. Beyond, the green hills rose in tiers; gigantic folds of land that dipped and fell as far as the eye could see like some petrified ocean. Houston’s heart sank. It was now five o’clock and they had been going, with only a short break, for six hours. He said, ‘How much farther are we riding today?’
‘A few miles more, sahib.’
‘Because I’m bloody tired. Do you think it’s a good idea to go so hard the first day?’
‘We are still near the frontier, sahib. There are people who could see us and tell the police.’
‘I haven’t seen any all day.’
‘Maybe they see us,’ the boy said, still grinning but shaking his head obstinately. ‘No sense in getting sent back now, sahib.’
‘All right,’ Houston said. There wasn’t much sense in it. He wished the boy would take the grin off his face all the same. He was sick of his continuous cheer and the sight of the small muscular legs pedalling so tirelessly in front of him all day.
The few miles more took another three hours; it was eight o’clock, dark and chill, when they stopped for the night beside a small river. Houston practically fell off the bicycle. He sat sullenly on the turf, every bone in his body aching, while the boy went busily about his tasks. He fetched water for tea from the river, and boiled it on a small spirit stove. He opened a tin of meat and laid out the sleeping bags. He brought more water in a collapsible rubber bucket and offered it to Houston.
‘You wash now, sahib. You’ll feel better.’
‘I couldn’t feel any worse.’
‘Tomorrow will be easier. We go slowly.’
‘Whereabouts are we?’
‘Thirty miles across the border. Well into Sikkim. It’s been a good day, sahib. Tomorrow we go into Nepal.’
Houston washed and ate and smoked a cigarette and presently did feel very much better. He got into his sleeping bag and looked up at the diamond bright stars and an extraordina
ry sense of well-being came over him. He smiled in the darkness, astonished at his achievement. Riding a bicycle, he had made measurable progress on the map of the Himalayas. When he closed his eyes he could see every mile of it, the great green valley that they had gone down and up; the rivers; the tiers of rolling hills they had pedalled so slowly across. A good day, the boy had said; not so bad for a man who was in no condition for this sort of thing.
He had a conviction at that moment that he was going to manage it, and breathed deeply of the sharp air, intoxicated with the vision of himself lying there in the enormous emptiness of the hills with the universe swinging all around, and of the further, mysterious places he could reach by going on like this, spending himself a little bit at a time.
He heard a soft snore from the other sleeping bag, and eased himself more blissfully into his own. His arms still twitched from the strain of the rope across the river, and the bones of his backside were bruised from the saddle. Houston moved gently on them; honourable scars, he thought.
That was the first night.
3
Ringling roused him at five the next morning, and he got up immediately. He had already been half awake; despite his intense fatigue he had slept only fitfully. It was grey and misty, the grass wet, the water, fifty yards away, invisible. He washed in the bucket and rinsed out his mouth, and they breakfasted on the remainder of the meat and a few rings of dried apple.
The boy packed everything while Houston attended to the needs of nature and by half past five they were awheel again. His backside was acutely tender and every inch of his frame seemed to creak, but once he had settled himself in position, he got on well enough. There was a certain fascination in bicycling through the mist at this hour in this high place; as last night, he was keenly aware of his geographical location and hungry to pile on mileage. He was also eager to see what kind of country they were in. They had climbed steadily since leaving the river valley, and he thought they were climbing now; he had become so accustomed to the pressure on the pedals that he could not tell precisely.
The Rose of Tibet Page 8