The Long Walk

by Slavomir Rawicz

  ‘What is so precious about these bowls?’ I asked our host.

  ‘Do you know,’ he replied, ‘that a man will sometimes trade two yaks for one of those?’

  ‘But why are they so precious?’

  ‘Because they just cannot be made in these mountain districts. They are fashioned with great skill from a special kind of hardwood which does not crack. Age increases their polish and their value. One of the reasons they are kept in linen bags is that the cloth improves the shine by constant rubbing against the wood.’

  The men drank tea from their bowls and when they had finished the bowls were taken away and washed. Although they all looked alike to me, each man knew his own, and they were affectionately stowed away in their linen bags before the pipes were brought out and the tobacco handed round. Smoke was puffed out in great clouds and the Circassian was kept busy translating the busy talk between us and the neighbours. In this community he was obviously of great eminence, much respected for his gift of tongues and knowledge of matters of the big world outside the valley. He was human enough to enjoy his role, but carried it off with dignity and modesty.

  As the place warmed up, the lice began to stir from their hideouts in our clothes. My body began to itch and so did my conscience. Out of the corner of my eye I saw the others reaching inside their fufaikas for a furtive scratch. I sidled over to the Circassian and spoke quietly.

  ‘I think my friends and I should sleep outside tonight. We have picked up a lot of lice on our travels and can’t get rid of them.’

  He laid a hand lightly on my shoulder. ‘Please set your mind at rest. Lice are no strangers to us. Tonight you all sleep under my roof.’

  The others asked me what the talk had been about. I retailed it to them. They smiled their relief. It seemed I had not been the only one to have worried about our uninvited camp-followers.

  The neighbours bade us goodnight and went their way. They went like men who have had a rare and enjoyable evening. I could imagine that we had provided them with material for many a reminiscent talk to brighten their uneventful lives. We had told them only a fraction of what they must have wanted to know, but they would have fun filling in the blanks. Many of their questions had been about Kolemenos. This fair-haired big man from another world intrigued them mightily. We told them he came from a Western country near the sea. Kolemenos added the word Latvia, but it meant nothing to them.

  We slept in bunks — our first night under a roof since our escape. How the family disposed themselves for the night I do not know. There was some makeshift arrangement behind the stone partition for the Circassian and his wife but I think the children must have been taken in by other villagers. For the first time I felt able to relax. I had a glorious, warm feeling of complete safety. I slept a deep, refreshing, untensed sleep and only half-woke at the urging of the rising sun. They let us lie on until the day was a few hours old. The household had long been astir and two of the younger children were peering in at us as we sat up in our beds. They ran out and I heard them chattering to their father.

  Our benefactor came in with some squares of thick homespun linen over his arm. ‘Perhaps you gentlemen would like to wash?’ he inquired with a smile.

  ‘This is real hotel service,’ Zaro joked. ‘Just lead us to the bathroom.’

  The Circassian joined in the laugh. ‘It is at the end of the village — nice, clean, flowing water.’

  We went down to the stream. The morning air was sharp but we stripped to the waist, immersed our heads in the water, gasped, splashed and rubbed vigorously. We were tempted to wash our jackets and fur waistcoats but decided that we should have to wait too long for them to dry. We felt fine and chuckled at some spontaneous clowning by Zaro on the way back. The inevitable following of curious children enjoyed his antics even more.

  We were given more meat, more oaten cakes, more tea. Then it was time to go.

  ‘When you come back this way,’ said the Circassian earnestly, ‘do not forget this house. It will always be a home to you.’

  The American answered, ‘Thank you. You have been very kind and generous to us.’

  I said, ‘Will you please thank your wife for all she has done for us.’

  He turned to me. ‘I won’t do that. She would not understand your thanks. But I will think of something to say to her that will please her.’

  He spoke to her and her face broke into a great smile. She went away and returned with a wooden platter piled with flat oaten cakes, handed them to her husband and spoke to him.

  ‘She wants you to take them with you,’ he told us. We shared them out gratefully.

  There was one other parting gift — a fine fleece from the man, handed over with the wish that it might be used to make new footwear or repair our worn moccasins. We never did use it for that purpose, but later it made us half-a-dozen pairs of excellent mittens to shield our hands from the mountain cold.

  He walked with us out of the village, pointed out our way. For the only time in our travels we received specific and detailed instructions of our route.

  ‘Some of the tracks you will follow will not be easy to find,’ he warned. ‘Don’t look for them at your feet; look ahead into the distance — they show up quite clearly then.’

  He described landmarks we were to seek. The first was to be a crown-shaped mountain about four days distant and we were to take a path which would lead us over the saddle between the two north-facing points of the ‘crown’. From the heights we were to set course for a peak shaped like a sugar-loaf, which we would find to be deceptively far away. It might take us two weeks to reach it, he thought. More than that he could not from here tell us accurately, but eventually we should reach a road leading to Lhasa which at some point forked east to the city and south-west to the villages of the Himalayan foothills.

  We left him there, a little knot of children at his heels. When we turned round he made a most un-Mongolian gesture — he waved his arm to us. The last we saw of him was a figure still waving a farewell.

  Marchinkovas spoke for us all when he said, ‘These people make me feel very humble. They do a lot to wipe out bitter memories of other people who have lost their respect for humanity.’

  For a few days we were on the look-out for Chinese troops, but we met no one and saw no one. We disciplined ourselves not to touch our oatcakes until the third day — we had three each — and then we spread out the eating of them as an iron ration. Our track was clearly marked and the way was not too hard. There were plenty of small bushy trees something like the dwarf junipers of Siberia which burned brightly and gave out good heat. At the end of the fourth day we camped at the foot of the crown-shaped mountain and started our climb at first light the next day. The ascent was long but not difficult and the crossing occupied us two days.

  It had been fully a week since our last real meal when we came across a mixed herd of sheep and goats and found the two houses of the Tibetans who owned them. The day was warm and brightly sunny after the freezing temperatures of the heights. There were scattered bushes of a species of wild rose, attracting the eye with gay blooms of yellow and red and white.

  The house into which we were taken by the Tibetan herdsman was in the same style as that of the Circassian but smaller and not so well equipped. But the courtesy and the hospitality was of the same impeccable standard. The family consisted of the man and his wife in their middle thirties, a woman of about 25 who could have been the wife’s sister, and four children whose ages ranged from about 5 to 16. We were given milk to drink on arrival and later two massive meals of goatmeat. By signs we were urged to spend the night and willingly accepted the offer. The whole family turned out to bow their farewells in the morning.

  After about an hour’s walking Marchinkovas stopped to examine his moccasins and found the rocky going had worn a hole through one of the soles. We all sat down with him and had a mending session. All our shoes were in a bad state. Some of the repairs involved almost complete remaking.

  The explic
it directions of the Circassian led us unerringly to the looming bulk of the sugar-loaf mountain and over it. The crossing would have been easier for me had not my old leg wound just above the ankle started to break open. I made a bandage by cutting a length of the rough material from the top of my sack, but the wound remained sore and painful to touch.

  For a well-accoutred tourist or explorer the country would have presented a picture of inspiring grandeur, range after range thrown up in some primeval convulsion of the earth’s crust. To us it was a country besetting our escape route with obstacles. Our suffering feet were the arbiters of judgment and Tibet was cruel to them. There were nights when in the dancing lights of a blazing fire I could have slept soundly, but my feet, punished on a rocky climb, kept me awake, throbbing, aching and protesting at the burden put upon them. Pulses of pain reminded me, too, of the spite of a German grenade fragment which I had not felt at the time it thudded home.

  On the other side of the sugar-loaf we found a stretch of country which presented comparatively easy travel. In the distance, throwing back the sun’s rays we saw a lake about four miles in circumference. With visions of bathing and refreshing ourselves in its inviting waters, we hastened towards it. I tore my moccasins off and dipped both feet in. The cool water stung. Zaro cupped some of it in his two hands and took it to his lips. A second later he was spluttering and spitting it back. The water was salt, more strongly impregnated with salt than the sea, stiff with the stuff. I let my feet soak but I did not attempt to drink. We moved on to look for fresh water but after a few hours my ankle became so sore that I stopped to examine it. The wound was festering and I became racked with worry that it might halt me altogether.

  Before the day was out we reached a fast-flowing river, chuckling over its stony bed. Here we drank and washed ourselves. The water raised goose pimples on our skins but the sun dried us and we felt better. Paluchowicz advised me to soak and rub my hessian bandage before replacing it about my ankle. I did as he said and hoped for the best.

  We had deviated a couple of miles off our course to reach this river, which flowed, as far as we could judge, directly from north to south. For several days we followed it along. It made for easier travelling along fairly flat ground and we avoided the probing cold of the higher altitudes. In the end it turned on a sharp bend to the west and we swam it so as not to be diverted off our southerly course. My ankle was less troublesome, the skin showed signs of healing and the discharge from the wound had almost stopped.

  We were in great need of food again and made detours if we thought a greener valley might support flocks and people. Marchinkovas had trod on a sharp spur of rock and was limping. We knew that we had to find somewhere to eat and to rest for a day.

  20. Five By-Pass Lhasa

  THE WEEKS dragged on, October made way for November, the days were cool and the nights were freezing. Over long stretches of country too barren to support even sheep and goats we sometimes went for four and five days without food. There were bleak, mist-enveloped mornings when I felt leadenly dispirited, drained of energy and reluctant to flog my weary body into movement. We all had our bad days in turn. The meals we were so generously given were massive but we lacked fresh green-stuff. The result was that we continued to be ravaged by scurvy. But we counted ourselves fortunate that no member of the party suffered a major breakdown in health and the march went on. We swam turbulent rivers when we had to. We negotiated formidable-looking peaks which turned out on closer acquaintance to offer surprisingly little difficulty; we struggled over innocent-looking hills which perversely offered precipitous resistance to our advance.

  Marchinkovas one night started a discussion on the advisability of pressing on right through to the Himalayas. He thought we should consider going to Lhasa or some other city where we could live for a time and build up strength for the last stage. He was mildly supported by Paluchowicz. The rest of us were against wasting time. I was afraid such temporizing might soften the hard core of our resolution. The months had built up a compulsive migrant force in us, a rigid, driving habit of movement, and I wanted no interference with it until we had reached the final and complete safety of India.

  The American put up the practical consideration that we might not find ourselves so warmly welcomed by the officialdom of a big city as we had been by the country people. There might be awkward questions, demands that we should produce papers.

  Marchinkovas was not insistent on his idea. He had thrown it in to sound out opinion and was quite content with the outcome. It had not been a suggestion born of any sense of defeatism. Marchinkovas was as convinced of eventual success as the rest of us. We could not afford to think of failure.

  It was about this time that we found a use for the strong wire loops we had brought with us out of the desert. We found our way blocked where the track over a hill had been broken away by a fall of rock. To get round we had to face the climber’s hazard of an overhang surmounted by a sharp spur. We made a ten-foot length of plaited thongs, tied it firmly to Kolemenos’s loop and had him from his superior height try to lasso the tip of the rock spur. It took a dozen throws before the wire settled over. Then, gradually, Kolemenos put the strain of his still considerable weight on the rope. It held firm. Zaro, as one of the lighter members, volunteered to go up first. He climbed with great care, not trusting absolutely to the rope but making use of what slight hand- and foot-holds there were. With Zaro tending the anchored end, we all made it quite easily, Kolemenos climbing last.

  There was a well-spaced-out succession of unremarkable villages and hamlets, alike in their simple architecture and in the full measure of hospitality they accorded us. They presented no feature by which I can remember them individually. But there was one we found at this time that stands out sharp in the memory because of a most unlikely encounter.

  The place was so small and so well tucked away, just six close-grouped houses, that we might easily have passed it by had not our route brought us just within sight of a corner of it. We were escorted in by a smiling young Tibetan who seemed to be unduly excited at the discovery that we spoke an unintelligible tongue. He led us with an unusual show of urgency to a group of men standing outside one of the houses. One of them was so much taller than the Tibetans with whom he was speaking that he immediately drew our attention. He turned with the others as we came up and we saw with surprise he was a European. Our escort performed the introductions and we saluted the villagers with bows, which were returned. The European inclined his head slightly. He scrutinized us so long that I began to feel a little uncomfortable.

  This was a man of about seventy whose grey hair still retained traces of the sandy colouring of his youth. He was fully six feet tall and stooped slightly. He looked, despite his age, powerfully framed and well muscled. About him was the air of the man who has lived out of doors for many years; his strong hands and long, intelligent face were deeply tanned. His Tibetan-style clothes were topped by a thick, knee-length sheepskin surcoat, around which was a narrow black leather belt. It was difficult to see the colour of his eyes because the sun glinted off a pair of steel-rimmed spectacles, in themselves oddities in these surroundings. The Tibetans were standing round, looking expectantly from him to us and then back to him again. I thought it time someone broke the ice. I addressed him in Russian. I could almost feel the quickening interest of the local audience.

  The tall man shook his head, paused and spoke — in German. Now Marchinkovas, Kolemenos and Zaro were as well versed in German as I was in Russian and delighted at the chance to exercise their skill. Paluchowicz and I knew enough to follow the conversation but I do not know whether the American could understand. I was struck by the stranger’s reserve. He spoke shortly and crisply, answering questions precisely and volunteering nothing. He told us he was a missionary, a nonconformist, who had come here with a handful of Europeans of the same persuasion. He had been travelling in China and Tibet for nearly fifty years. I think he was either German or Austrian.

  For no
apparent reason he switched to French. Zaro spoke the language extremely well and carried on some talk with him before they reverted to German. The Tibetans were listening in open-mouthed fascination at the flow of strange sounds. I had the strong impression that our new-found acquaintance did not like us. I think probably the cause of it was our appearance — the dirty matted hair, our torn clothes, our complete poverty. It seemed to me that in this and other villages he enjoyed a prestige as a Westerner built up and consolidated over long years. He might well have thought that the advent of six battered European tramps might weaken his reputation with the natives.

  Zaro, who was doing most of the talking on our side, soon sensed that our arrival here was not entirely a pleasure to the stranger. It brought out the imp in Zaro. He answered the missionary’s questions with jaunty insouciance. He described us as ‘a group of cosmopolitan tourists’ and airily evaded an answer to the inquiry of where we had come from.

  He looked frankly unbelieving when Zaro said we were travelling to Lhasa as pilgrims and in a few minutes there had developed an unmistakable atmosphere of mutual distrust. Only the Tibetans were enjoying the exchanges — and they did not understand a word.

  ‘You carry nothing with you. How do you live?’

  Zaro replied, ‘Through the hospitality of the country. The people are very kind, as you must have discovered.’

  ‘But you are not able to eat every day in that manner?’

  ‘We take less than we need,’ said Zaro. ‘There are many days when we pull in our belts. We are used to it.’

  Marchinkovas broke in to ask the missionary where he lived. The man pointed to a mule cropping grass a few yards away. ‘That is my mule. Wherever it stops, that is my home.’

  Our entry into the village was about ten o’clock in the morning. The missionary sat with us while we ate — I remember particularly about this place that we were given rice and I wondered where it had been grown. He talked a little but it was a strained meal. He was puzzled by us and did not know how to tackle us. About three o’clock in the afternoon he announced that he would be moving on. We walked outside with him and he went off on a round of calls at the houses. He saddled his mule and looked round at us as he prepared to depart.