by John Masters
Jagbir said, ‘The officers by the lake have got their binoculars out. They’re looking this way.’
Six fresh squadrons spread out in a long line and advanced slowly. Robin said, ‘Come on! Don’t waste time returning their fire. We ought to beat them up this slope.’ They scrambled to their feet and began to climb. After a hundred yards, and two hundred feet up, the first bullets arrived. They dived into a steep gully and climbed faster. Sometimes they would be in full view for a minute, and then the bullets poured in, but always after a pause. Their clothes blended with the hill, and they made difficult targets as they appeared and disappeared on the mountain. Glancing over his shoulder, Robin saw that a couple of Mongol squadrons were struggling up the hill on horseback behind them, but losing distance. The fire came from other soldiers shooting from horseback, halted, at the edge of the plain.
They stumbled over the crest, and Robin thought he could move no more. The muscles of his legs had bound together and would not obey his will. A quick look to the left, and he saw that the climbing squadrons could not have turned this way; there was no sign of them.
Jagbir said, ‘As hard as you can go now, sahib,’ and pushed him sharply in the back. Rhythmic pains stabbed his thighs, but he began to move. After twenty seconds he was going as fast as he could, already faster than he had ever before run down such a hill as this. But Jagbir--Robin counted the seconds wildly in his head as he ran, and at a hundred Jagbir reached the horses. He himself ran like an athlete used to the mountains, his eyes searching the slope below him for a place to put his flying feet, then another, then another--faster. Jagbir leaned forward over the drop and sprinted as though on the flat; Jagbir fell like a boulder, like a rifleman of the Gurkha Brigade.
When Robin reached the horses more than five minutes later, the Mongols still had not showed on the Crestline. ‘Which way?’
‘Right. The way we came. Fewer of them about,’ he gasped, scrambling into the saddle.
They slithered down the loose shale on the horses’ rumps, sometimes a hundred feet at a time. The gorge walls closed in, and they had to pick their way down pace by pace. By now the two squadrons the woman had despatched southward down the valley would be at the gap where the stream came out. Certainly they would turn up it. There was a chance they’d miss the inflow of this draw--not much. They knew what they were looking for, they had a sense of ground as good as Jagbir’s. They’d come on up the draw.
After three-quarters of an hour Robin could stand the strain no longer. At every second, at every forward step, around every rock and comer, he expected to see the leading Mongols. ‘We’ve got to leave the ponies.’ He reined in and slid shakily to the ground. ‘Up the hill!’ He pointed to the east, the side away from the main valley.
‘The other side, sahib. They won’t expect it.’
Robin did not argue. Trust to instinct, Jagbir’s instinct. He remembered the ants’ nest. They grabbed their food sacks off the saddles, turned the ponies’ heads and beat them soundly on the quarter. In fright the ponies scrambled a few yards back up the draw, then stopped. ‘They won’t go any farther,’ Jagbir snapped. ‘Quickly, sahib!’
Jagbir led up the western ridge, which separated them from the main valley. Jagbir first heard the clash and clatter of the Mongol horsemen. He motioned sharply with his hand, and the two of them lay down like hares in form, pressing close against the hillside. The cavalcade passed up the draw two hundred feet below them. Robin counted--one squadron, a hundred men, withy sticks poking up like lances athwart their backs, carbines rattling in the buckets. Two squadrons had set out southward from the lake. The other must be waiting at the foot of the draw, near the gap.
As soon as the Mongols passed, Jagbir began to climb again. They had made another five hundred feet when they heard two shots fired in rapid succession from the draw, a pause, then another two. Jagbir threw over his shoulder, ‘They’ve found our ponies. We’ve got to find a hole. That woman might have warned them--guessed what we’d do.’ Fifteen minutes later Robin pointed. ‘How about that?’ A low, cliff-like rock-face interrupted the uneven roll of the slope. A waste of shale fell away below it, and there were holes and small caves at its base.
‘Too obvious, sahib. We must find a place in the open, the sort of place no one looks at. Down a bit. We’re too near the top.’
Jagbir turned and hurried down across the face of the ridge. ‘Here. Lie on your rifle. No reflection from metal.’ The hillside where he stopped and crouched was uneven, but no more. Higher up were the shale and the cliff and the caves and many tumbled boulders. Fifty feet above the cliff the irregular, notched skyline ran from north to south across their view. The sky was pale and clear, the light a filtered, flawless distillation of pearl. But on the slope immediately around them were only small, sharp pebbles. Robin lay down dumbly; there was no cover here. Jagbir darted around on hands and knees, heaped the stones this way and that, sank to his stomach, and disappeared. Looking hard from fifteen feet off, Robin could make him out, but he knew that if he had been a searcher he would never have bothered to come this close. He’d have been sure he could see anyone on this slope from the top of the hill. Jagbir got up and fashioned another form for him, and he lay down in it. Jagbir’s head faced north, Robin’s south. Their feet were three yards apart. If the light was not too good when the Mongols came, there was a chance. That depended whether they first searched this or the other side of the draw.
Soon they heard shouts on the opposite hillside, and Robin muttered, ‘Listen! Can we move on?’
‘No. Lie still. There’s one squadron unaccounted for.’ Robin remembered then. That second hundred men might be on the crest above them, or working along the hill, or--worst of all--scattered around everywhere, silently watching and waiting.
The heat went out of the sun’s rays. The sun sank, and immediately Robin heard the far tinkle of stones on their own hill. The sounds approached, moving down from the north. That was bad. It meant that the squadron to the south had not moved and was still blocking their escape in that direction. This was the first lot coming, having returned from the opposite hill--or another squadron altogether. The Mongols shouted to one another. They were mounted still. Even on this steep slope they would not be separated from their horses. Robin buried his face in the gritty soil and tried to stop his breathing.
A horse’s hoof slithered on the shale above him. A nasal shout rang over his head. They passed by, above and below.
Long after, still breathless, he heard them moving about to the north. Jagbir muttered in a penetrating whisper, ‘More to the north--waiting, half a mile along the ridge.’
Robin heard the woman’s clear, rich voice on the crest. She called to someone in Russian. Every minute the darkness crept up closer to them out of the gorge below. When it was quite dark Jagbir slithered around and put his head close. ‘She might make them search it all again, if she can get them off their horses. But I think she’s telling them to make a cordon.’
That was sense, from her point of view. At night the man who stays holds the advantage over the man who moves. But he and Jagbir had to move. To-morrow there’d be no hiding here from five thousand men. Sounds in the dark told that the squadrons were moving up, the cordon thickening. Jagbir said, ‘We’ve got to do it now.’
They crept up the hill; they lifted their feet carefully and placed them down carefully, but little stones fell away and trickled down the slope. A sentry showed in silhouette against the paler, star-powdered sky. The woman, very close, spat an angry word. They could not see her. The sentry grumbled, moved off the skyline towards them, and squatted down on his heels. The woman had ordered them all off their horses. Robin could just pick out the shape of the sentry who had moved, because he knew exactly where he was.
Jagbir rose and climbed diagonally up, to the right of the sentry. A minute, and Robin saw him against the skyline. In shape and clothes, except for the withy stick, he was a Mongol, and he stood where the sentry had been standing.
Jagbir’s arm jerked. A stone clattered on the hill away to the left. The sentry started to his feet, and Jagbir’s knife flashed. Robin ran up the hill. The woman’s passionate contralto sprang out across the valleys, and Robin, as he ran, thought of their camp near the Karshi River and of the song she had sung.
Jagbir answered her, his voice taking on the exact guttural pitch that Robin would remember, from the debauch in Andijan, to his last day. The words were half-swallowed Gurkhali, but the voice was Mongol. Robin thought of the little yapping dogs that had so upset Old Alma’s horse outside Kabul and struggled faster up the hill.
The woman spoke again, doubt in her tone. She must have been saying, ‘What did you say? I can’t understand,’ but Jagbir kept moving, not running but moving fast. Robin joined him, and it was dark. As they crossed the Crestline the woman yelled an urgent order. A flash of orange fire split the darkness, Jagbir muttered ‘Missed the bitch!’ and they began to run.
Jagbir yelled, ‘Atlar?’
A voice answered from below and to the right. They changed direction and in the darkness hurtled down on the voice. By the time Robin arrived the Mongol who had been left in charge of one of the groups of ten horses had died under the knife, the reins of two horses were cut, and Jagbir was in the saddle. Robin jumped up, and together they rode furiously down the slope. The hillside flashed into life around them. Rifle fire pinpointed the ridge, hundreds of men yelled, everywhere horses galloped and men ran.
In the plain they turned left and rode hard until the horses could run no more. They knew they were pursued, but the pursuit was far behind. They slowed to a trot and did not attempt to rush the valley’s southern exit but turned west, crossed over, and climbed out where they had seen the horde exercising on the day before.
After that it was a hunt. They moved by side valleys and across forbidding, untrodden ridges. Twice they saw Mongols and twice avoided them. They dropped down at last over a high pass into the Farghana, feeling their way by night. There were men coming up in the dark who spoke to each other in a guttural tongue, and they knew whose mind had sent those men to this pass at this hour. The next night they crossed the Farghana plain, and the next climbed alone all night by the stars, and the next day rode all day under a hot sun across a dry plateau. The next day they slept, and in the night rode into China. Then they had to find food because their own food bags and the bags that had been on the horses were emptied, and they began to search for a Kirghiz encampment. Near the middle of the afternoon they saw three small yurts on the plain in the distance, and in the middle of the three a larger one such as were used by the tradesmen who went out to buy and sell among the Kirghiz.
They rode into the circle of yurts. The usual huge black dogs ran out at them to snap and snarl at their horses’ heels. Robin opened his mouth to call a greeting. A man came out of the big yurt and walked slowly forward. Jagbir whipped up his rifle.
CHAPTER 21
Muralev was unarmed, and even as Jagbir’s rifle flew to the aim Robin thought, At last! Jagbir tried to steady his sights while his pony danced and kicked at the dogs. Muralev stood still, the sun flashing from his spectacles. Two Kirghiz women ran out of one of the small yurts to shriek at the dogs, then paused and stared at the three men.
Robin put out his arm. ‘No.’
Jagbir slowly brought the butt of the rifle to rest on his thigh, keeping his finger on the trigger and his eyes fixed hungrily on Muralev.
The time for pretence was past. Robin said in English, ‘Muralev, if you try and harm us I won’t be able to prevent Jagbir from killing you.’ He could feel the surge of Jagbir’s long-held, long-nourished hope.
Muralev said, ‘I don’t want to harm you. Don’t you know that?’ His English was slow but good. His shy smile broadened.
He pulled at the lobe of his right ear and twisted his head. ‘We might say, sir, that we are prisoners of each other.’
‘You are unarmed.’
‘Yes. The Kirghiz are my friends, though. You would not get far. Well, let us call ourselves each other’s guests. Come in and rest.’
‘No, thank you. We want provisions. Are there any?’
‘Come in. There’s no one.’ He swept back the felt flap at the entrance of the big yurt. The women had re-entered their own yurt. Jagbir said, seeing Muralev’s gesture, ‘Don’t go in, sahib. Let us get provisions, then make him walk five miles out with us, and there kill him.’
Muralev stood at the entrance to the big yurt, his hands behind his back, his feet enormous in the Kirghiz boots. He said, ‘He is a good man. Greetings there, Jagbir--or Turfan--how are you?’ He added the last words in the kind of Turki Jagbir had spoken when they last met. Jagbir’s face remained implacable, and Muralev said to Robin, ‘He’s not really a Hazara, is he?’
‘No.’
Jagbir broke in roughly. ‘Food, grain. Where are they?’
Muralev waved at the yurt behind him. ‘Help yourself.’ Jagbir dismounted, leaving the pony standing, pushed his rifle forward, and entered the yurt. While he loaded the ponies with small sacks, Muralev raised his eyes, blinked twice, and said, ‘May I come with you?’
Robin did not believe the other understood the meaning of the English words he had used. He said, ‘What? Come with us?’
Muralev nodded, and Robin muttered, ‘Where to? I don’t understand. Your wife--?’
Muralev said, ‘We have been married for ten years. We have been lovers--I suppose’--this last after a long pause. ‘She will shortly be pursuing me with cavalry, if she has not already set out. I have left her and I have deserted the service of the Czar. She pursues me because she loves me. She is sure that I am only overwrought, that I need only rest and affection. She pursues me also as a servant of our government, whose secrets I hold.’
Robin said slowly, ‘You’ve--deserted? You are coming over to us?’ He did not want to believe it. It would solve so many problems--all except the greatest--but it would be wrong.
Muralev shook his head. Jagbir said harshly, ‘Ready now, sahib. Shall I make him walk?’
‘Wait.’
Muralev, with a glance at Jagbir, continued, ‘I am deserting, but I am not joining you. That would be one degree worse than what I was doing before. I feel for my country as much as you do for yours. You understand why I’m going, don’t you? I can’t carry the loads they set on me. One morning in Andijan when a cold wind blew down from the pamir I knew I had to go. I told her.’ He kicked the ground aimlessly with the toe of his boot, and Robin saw tears in his eyes. ‘She cried and cajoled and swore. I might have given in. She could have broken me for good then, I was so weak. But word came that you had been there in Andijan and that you’d left. So it was her duty to go. She went. When she had gone, like a whirlwind of love and fear and anger, I went. She rode west, I east.’
Robin listened with growing recognition. Muralev loved his wife and his country, but he had to go. There had been a temporary, patched-up solution--Muralev’s applying himself to this particular work--but it had not lasted.
Jagbir remounted his pony and sat with the rifle ready on his thigh. One of the dogs crept out and licked the backs of Muralev’s boots. Muralev put his hand down absently to fondle its head. ‘So you see, she is coming for both of us now. And I am going the same way as you, at least for a time--south and east.’
Robin said, ‘We’re going south-east. Your people control the country to the west. She can deploy big forces there to catch us, and use whatever telegraphs you’ve had built, but she daren’t bring more than a dozen cavalrymen over on to the Chinese side.’ It never crossed his mind to disbelieve Muralev. They had reached the level of truth, and all the words he heard from Muralev’s lips were truth.
Muralev said, ‘I am going to the Tsaidam first. And you to India?’
‘India.’ Robin thought of India, of Anne, of the babies, looked again at the pamir around him, and added, ‘I suppose.’
Muralev walked away to catch a hobbled pony grazing clos
e by. Robin told Jagbir that Muralev would be coming with them and explained why. Jagbir asked where Muralev was going and, when he was told, thought for a minute and said, ‘He ought to stay with his wife and his raj. He’s running away.’
Robin answered angrily, ‘Perhaps. But he’s coming with us.’
When the pony was loaded Muralev went into the black tent and came out with a thick leather wallet in his hand. The wallet had a small brass lock. He stowed it into his offside saddlebag. Jagbir whispered, ’See that?’ Robin nodded. He saw it, but it was not important.
Muralev mounted. From horseback he spoke briefly with one of the women, who had come out to make butter in a crude churn. Then he shook the reins and walked over to Robin.
Robin took a deep breath. Happiness flooded in like draughts of ice-cold champagne. It was not a steadily mounting sense of well-being but a series of unaccountable lifts, each one more exhilarating than the last. The pamir rolled away in front and behind, to the right and to the left. A blue lake sparkled in the vivid distance. All deception had gone, truth reigned, his task was done. He had seen the horses in the north and the meadows where they fed. He had seen the men who would ride the horses and the men who would direct the course of the riders. He had seen the horses and the riders rehearsing for their assault on the mountains. When their day dawned the hordes would darken this pamir where his pony now plodded southward. They would force by thousands into the passes, leaving their dead, swirling on in thousands still. They were going to come over this northern route.
And it was axiomatic, first, that the Russian heavy forces could not use this route; and second, that the main and subsidiary efforts must be on adjoining routes. These had been his Notes Two and Three that long night of worry in Balkh. If the Mongol cavalry was going to use the northern route, therefore, the main attack must be going in on the central route; and the southern route was the level of deception.
He was happy because he understood all that Lenya Muralev had done from the beginning. She had led him and Jagbir south, every yard of the way. They had felt the leading reins but had not been able to believe in them because she was trying so hard to kill them. And she was trying--to the limit--trusting to his intuition and Jagbir’s endurance that they would, in spite of everything, survive. The poison bottle had been a prop in a charade after all. She had thought they would live through it, and they had.