by John Masters
CHAPTER 22
In the morning they got up and began to move. Robin walked with Muralev and ordered Jagbir to ride the one sick pony. Jagbir’s face was stony with despair as he obeyed, because it was Muralev’s horse, but he had no choice; for the first two days he was too weak to walk. His face was greeny-grey, and at night he shivered in a low fever, but the bandages smelled sweet and his hand was healing cleanly.
They pushed on south and came in four days to the next mountain wall. On the other side of it lay the Taghdumbash Pamir. Two passes, the Chichiklik and the Yangi, which were several miles apart, crossed the range. The travellers camped beside the trail until a party of Kirghiz came up, bound in the opposite direction. Muralev tried without success to buy two more ponies from them, but they sold him some food. Robin said, ‘Ask them what’s happening on the Taghdumbash. Tell them we hear strange rumours.’ The leader of the Kirghiz beat his gloved hands together and spoke in short torrents of strange words. There was much activity over the border--he jerked his head towards Russian territory. The Chinese soldiers heard rumours and counter-rumours; they thought the Russians were going to attack them; they stayed inside their forts--the Kirghiz huddled dramatically into his coat and peered right and left--and they had no courage left even to pester travellers.
‘Are there any soldiers on the pass here?’ Muralev jerked his chin at the mountains ahead.
None on the Chichiklik--the Kirghiz had come over that. The Chinese never bothered to guard the Yangi. It was a difficult route and longer than the Chichiklik.
The party of Kirghiz rode on. Robin said, ‘We’d better use the Yangi. Are you coming over with us?’
‘Yes, if you’ll let me.’
‘Then?’
‘The Tsaidam, by way of the Takla Makan. I told you.’
‘Will you be there if I come looking for you later?’
‘Perhaps.’
Jagbir interrupted them. ‘It’s time to go.’
Later Jagbir said to Robin, ‘Is the woman, his wife, hunting us, sahib?’ Robin nodded. Jagbir spoke in Gurkhali, which Muralev did not understand. Sometimes as he rode Jagbir would tap his chest where the wallet was concealed, and at night he always refused to sleep next to Muralev for fear it would be stolen back from him. He said now, ‘Why should we not hunt her instead? She will expect us on the trail. She will be in ambush near it. Let us hunt her as if she were one of the big-horned sheep.’
‘We don’t know whether she’ll be on the Yangi or the Chichiklik. She’ll have men with her.’
‘Her men will be on both passes. Not more than two or three on each, though. They’ll find it hard to hide the horses up there.’
‘What does he say?’ Muralev asked.
Robin told him. Muralev said, ‘She understands that and will be ready for it. She will welcome it. It is a game. But I cannot hunt her.’
‘Of course not. None of us can hunt really. We’re too weak.’
Late in the evening they camped on a long slope where thin grass bound the shale together and snow lay between all the stones. Jagbir moaned in his sleep during the early part of the night. The bitter wind sharpened before dawn, and then none of them slept. In the morning Muralev’s pony lay dead in the lee of the shelter. Robin stood wordlessly over it, thinking of the road ahead and Jagbir’s hand. As he stood, the rifleman came to him and said, ‘It is better, sahib. Now we have to avoid the pass.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I was going to say it yesterday but I was too tired. Now I am stronger. We have no hope of getting over the pass. She will be there. We must climb around it even if it takes us two days. A Pun’s legs are better than any horse’s.’
Robin told Muralev what Jagbir said, and Muralev pulled his ear doubtfully. At last, after scanning the mountains ahead, he said, ‘He’s right. If we have to go on foot, let us use the freedom of movement it gives us.’
They divided the food. Robin begged Jagbir to abandon his rifle, but he would not. They faced the mountain, carrying two days’ food, the clothes they stood up in, the dead horse’s saddle blanket, which Robin rolled and slung across his shoulders, and the rifle.
Five hours later they breasted the latest in a backbreaking series of ridges which had taken them up, in slow giant’s steps, well above the level of the Yangi Pass. More ridges rose ahead, one behind the other, all running generally east and west across their front. The Yangi lay somewhere to their left front--perhaps at the foot of the next ridge ahead of them. A fresh wind blew from the east, and a cold, brilliant sun shone down out of a pale sky. As they paused to rest Jagbir pointed suddenly. ‘There! On the next ridge.’
‘What is it? What do you see?’ The ground fell away two thousand feet from where they stood into a narrow gorge, then rose as steeply to the next ridge, which seemed a little higher than theirs.
‘Something moved.’ Jagbir shut his eyes, reopened them quickly, and after a second whispered, ‘It is a big sheep, by the tablet rock jutting out of the snow. Right opposite. Right on the crest.’
Muralev peered and muttered, ‘I’ll never see it without my glasses.’
Robin said, ‘I’ve got it. Ovis poli. The biggest horns I’ve ever seen. Well, we’d better get on.’
Jagbir said, ‘The ram can see the other side of that ridge. The wind’s blowing from left to right--to him from the Yangi. Something’s happening down there. Look at him!’
‘Which way is he looking?’
‘The other way. Quickly but carefully, sahib--down!’ They hurried cautiously down the forward slope of their ridge. After a hundred feet a false crest had risen below the great ram’s position to hide him from their sight. They stepped quickly then, and in less than forty minutes reached the bottom, struggled across a waste of boulders and through huge piles of drifted snow, bore right, and began to climb. After a thousand feet the angle of the slope eased, and fifteen minutes later Jagbir saw the ram. He was on the ridge crest still, a couple of hundred yards to their left, upwind. They intended to cross the ridge well downwind of him.
They climbed another hundred feet. Then Jagbir and Robin saw the ram throw up his head and stand alert, his right profile to them. They froze where they stood. The ram stared down the other side of the ridge, tossed his head twice, turned, and dropped below the Crestline on their side, He had put himself out of sight of any enemy on the far side.
He trotted along towards them. Robin thought: It might be an animal that has disturbed him. More likely a man--a man or men, men and a woman, coming up the other face of the ridge.
The snow lay in huge patches along the slope. The tablet rock where they had first seen the ram appeared to be the highest point within sight, certainly the highest point within rifle range. It was a great slab of black granite that stood up like a tombstone. Beyond, the ridge fell irregularly for a space and then dropped down out of sight to the Yangi Pass.
The ram slowed to a walk and moved back towards the Crestline. Jagbir whispered, ‘He can’t get the scent properly this side. He’ll go up until he does.’
Because they were below him the ram put himself athwart their skyline before he reached the actual crest of the ridge. He stood still, his head raised, his powerful neck and thick shoulders holding the weight of his gnarled horns. He stood a full minute, then tossed his head and again trotted fast towards them. Fifty yards off he saw them, changed direction with a convulsive jerk, and galloped full tilt down the slope.
Jagbir scrambled to his feet. ‘They must’ve seen us a couple of hours ago. They’re trying to get to the top first. Hurry!’
Robin grated his teeth as he climbed. He only wanted to slip past and go on his way. The woman was making him a hunter, a hound in the pack, following Jagbir. But he had no choice. They could not stay, they could not retreat, they could only get there first and shoot first.
Jagbir drove up the hill towards the tablet rock. Muralev stood still. Robin said, ‘We’ve got to--I’m sorry. Jagbir’s life depends--’ Then he struggled a
fter Jagbir. Muralev sat down slowly on the mountainside, his back to the crest, and stared out across the frozen sunlit ocean of rock and ice and snow.
Robin thrust with his right leg, lifted the left, thrust, lifted, thrust. The tablet rock loomed larger and blacker and more violently tilted above him. Stones flew out, clinking, from under his boots, then it was crunching snow, then rock, rock and snow.
‘I--can--hear--them.’
Jagbir flung the words over his shoulder, poured all his force into his thighs, and sprang up and up. His rifle bounced on his right shoulder, his right hand holding it by the grip behind the trigger guard, his finger loosely alongside the trigger.
When Robin still had forty feet to go Jagbir burst over the skyline to the right of the tablet rock. The wind caught the skirts of his coat and blew them out, he brought his left arm up and his right hand down, the rifle barrel crashed to rest in the crook of his left elbow, his head dropped, his shoulder jerked. The shot boomed out over the tremendous chasms on either hand. He crouched against the tablet rock, reloaded, raised the rifle, and fired again.
Robin came slowly, dizzily, to the crest. A man in a long coat and high felt boots, a withy stick across his back, lay on his face in the snow a yard from Jagbir’s feet. A second Mongol sat on the shale thirty yards lower down, holding his knee and groaning. A third man was running crazily down the mountain to the left, towards the Yangi Pass. Robin grabbed up the dead man’s carbine, aimed at the ground in front of the running Mongol, fired, and shouted in Turki, ‘Stop! Drop your rifle! Come here. We’ll not harm you.’ The man obeyed quickly.
The woman stood erect thirty feet down on the steep slope. She looked unwaveringly into the muzzle of Jagbir’s rifle. In her right hand she held her own rifle. Her breath came in long, deep gasps, and dark rings circled her grey eyes. Jagbir said softly, ‘Drop that rifle.’
She glanced then at Robin and let the rifle fall.
‘Come here.’
She climbed up to Robin, a step at a time, and at his feet sank down in the snow. Her gloved fingers began to pick fumblingly at the wool of her coat. She said in English, ‘It was hard luck.’
Robin turned and saw Muralev sitting on the hill where they had left him, looking steadily to the north. He waved his arm and shouted, ‘Come on. It’s all right.’ Muralev turned around, and his sunburned face seemed white, even against the snow. He rose to his feet and began to climb towards them.
The woman had not heard a word. The dead Mongol lay at her feet. She turned him over with her boot and said, ‘The brain. A kind shot. My husband, have you seen him? Have you heard word of him? He--he left me.’ She beat her gloves on her thighs. ‘He is ill, not well.’
Robin said, ‘But didn’t the Kirghiz tell your people he was with us? Weren’t you waiting on the pass near Muztagh Ata?’
She mumbled, ‘I heard nothing. Others went there. I came straight here for you. But my husband, he is not well. Did you say he was--?’
‘He is.’
She heard the crunch of boots in the snow. His head appeared, rising steadily above the crest. He met her eyes, glanced from her to the dead man, and then around at the silent mountains. The wounded Mongol groaned intermittently on the patch of shale; the prisoner sat in gloomy immobility under Jagbir’s rifle.
She rose slowly, colour flooding into her face. She spoke a jerky word in Russian, then a phrase, then a spate of sentences. Muralev answered her, a few quiet words after each outburst. When she fell on her knees Robin turned his head. He did not need to understand Russian to know what they were saying to each other. Perhaps he would have to face this. But Anne was not Lenya. He could only hope she would understand. He stared southward. The Mintaka lay there, under that growing bank of cloud.
When the woman’s voice sharpened he turned again to watch them. She was on her feet. An image of hate filled and distorted her face, but it was not real. It was a weapon she had forged to break Muralev’s will and his desire, so that he would come back to her. When she had used it she would throw it away. She took hold of her husband’s coat and shook him. Turning to Robin, she cried in English, ‘He will betray you as he has betrayed us. He is just a--a weakling, traitor!’
Robin said, ‘He is no traitor, ma’am.’
‘So he says! Believe him? Why is he here then, with you?’
‘He and I are going the same way. That is all.’
But the spurious, self-incited hate overcame her. She faced him furiously, screaming, ‘Go on then, all of you! Get away! You’ve won. Tell your Viceroy that one weak traitor gave you the truth--the truth that was his own child, that he had thought, made, created.’
She ripped off her heavy sheepskin cap, so that the wind bit through the thick blonde hair into her skin. She lowered her voice. ‘And make him see, if you can, the sight it would have been. He should have stood down there, your Viceroy, just down the ridge. He’d have seen the hordes pass, thousand on thousand, starving, freezing, eating the horses, driving on. Genghiz Khan’s horsetail standards fly before them. The hordes pour over the Yangi, over Chichiklik, Mintaka, Baroghil, Karakoram, Muztagh, Babusar, Burzil, Zoji, Baralacha, Lachalang, Rohtang. We could have done it. We would have done it.’
Her eyes were half closed. Robin listened, awed, as her passion fused the words into a double re-creation. This had been her life’s work. This alone had held Muralev to the ground, where her arms could grasp him.
Then Robin saw the meaning of her words. He felt, like changing winds, the slow spread of confusion, doubt, and at last understanding, across his face. He saw her open her eyes and read his face, and then he saw the same emotions moving there, in the same order.
In the end she knew what she had done. Robin watched her, recognizing in every particular his own misery when Jagbir’s love forced him to open the wallet. Like Muralev then, he stepped forward, meaning to give her comfort. But Jagbir was there first, patting her roughly on the shoulder and saying, ‘Do not cry. It is all over.’
Robin said to him, ‘Did you understand, then?’
Jagbir nodded, still patting her. ‘I understand. I cannot read words, only people. Those papers were to deceive us--to deceive even their own generals until the last minute. The truth--nothing is written of it. It is in her head, and their Emperor’s, and their Jangi Lat’s perhaps--and his. He would have let us go wrong, even though he pretends to be on our side.’
Robin turned away. Jagbir understood and did not understand. The woman’s face was grey and old, her taut body unstrung so that the heavy coat seemed no more than a sheep’s pelt flung carelessly on a scarecrow. Over and over again she muttered, ‘I told them, I told them.’ Jagbir spoke to her, interrupting her, and she answered him, saying in Turki, ‘It is finished. He will go. He will find no peace all his life. And that too I will have to think of all my life.’
Robin said, ‘Jagbir, let us go. Muralev, are you coming down to the horses with us?’ Muralev nodded.
‘Wait, sahib.’ Jagbir walked a few feet away and smashed the Mongols’ carbines and the woman’s rifle. He asked the unwounded prisoner, ‘Atlar, where?’
‘On the pass.’
‘Any more of your men there?’
‘No. Horses picketed, behind black cliff.’
The three of them--Muralev, Jagbir, and Robin--went down the ridge together in silence. No one of them turned to look at the three Mongols of the Horde and the woman crying in the snow.
At the horses Muralev said, ‘We shall meet again.’ He mounted and rode away without looking over his shoulder.
Robin and Jagbir, leading a third horse, passed down in the direction of the Taghdumbash Pamir.
CHAPTER 23
‘Here, haven’t you forgotten this? Doesn’t it go on under the coat?’ Anne held out the canvas sword belt with its dangling straps of black leather.
‘Oh, yes. Thank you.’ He hoisted his jacket and fastened the belt around his waist underneath it. The two black straps, one short, one long, each ending in a stron
g steel clip, hung down his left thigh.
‘Where’s my sword?’
She looked inside the wardrobe but could not see the sword in its place. It usually hung on a nail inside the wardrobe door by one of the rings on its steel scabbard. She walked through the bathroom, opened the outer door, and called, ‘Jagbir!’
Jagbir marched in, carrying the sword balanced flat on his left hand. She saw that the raw wounds where his fingers had been were well healed. He knelt, fastened the dangling clips through the scabbard rings and let the sword fall. The toe of scabbard struck the stone floor with a clank, and the hilt fell forward until the short upper strap brought it up with a jerk. Jagbir eyed the angle at which it hung, muttered, ‘Thik chha’ to himself, and got up.
Robin said, ‘I see you’ve got your stripes up, choro. That’ll cost you a lot of rum when you get back to Manali.’
Jagbir grinned. ‘I don’t mind. They have to drink it with me.’ His round cap of brushed black fur was tilted forward and to the right on his head. His gleaming black chin-strap framed his face in an oval. The light glinted in the paler skin under the shaven stubble of his hair. At the back the long tuft, by which he hoped Krishna would pull him up to heaven when he died, was pushed out of sight under his cap.
Anne stood a little apart from the two men, listening to and half understanding their rapid Gurkhali. She watched the rifleman bring a clean handkerchief out of his pocket and kneel again to wipe unnoticeable dust off her husband’s boots. The little man was square and altogether tightly formed. He had a surprisingly strong face for one so young, and his lips were well curved.
It was the end of January, 1882. Three months ago the two had returned. By then the family group by the lake in Kashmir had long since broken up, so Robin had found her in Peshawar. He was supposed to be on leave still, but most days he worked with Major Hayling. Nothing much seemed to have changed, yet everything was different. Often she found herself holding wordless communion with Jagbir. Their mouths talked of boot polish, metal polish, and rifle oil--but silently, as they spoke, Jagbir standing at attention, she sitting in a chair, they sought each other’s eyes and without words agreed that what must be, must be.