The Road to Samarcand

by Patrick O'Brian

  The clatter of hooves in the courtyard made him pause for an instant, cocking his head to the sound. Derrick heaved with all his force, arching his back in a last violent effort, but instantly the man pinned him again, and whipped back the knife. Then he stiffened, half rose and spun away from Derrick. The knife flew in a long curve to the middle of the serai, and the man fell, drumming with his hand upon the beaten ground.

  Chingiz wiped his knife carefully on a wisp of straw and then pulled Derrick to his feet. Derrick stood, swayed and fell flat on his face.

  When he came round, Chingiz was squatting beside him, holding a bowl of water. Chang stood on the other side of him, growling like thunder. Chingiz held up Derrick’s head and put the bowl to his mouth: Chang bared his teeth; he was not sure of the Mongol, and if Chingiz made one false move, Chang would be at his throat.

  “Shut up, Chang,” said Derrick, weakly, between his gulps. Then he stood up, shook himself, and found that he was still all in one piece. He grinned palely at Chingiz, tried hard to remember the Mongol for thanks, failed, and held out his right hand. Chingiz looked at it with some surprise, hesitantly advanced his own, and was astonished to find it gripped and firmly shaken up and down.

  Derrick averted his eyes from the huddled form beyond him and reached for Chang’s scruff. He hauled the dog forward, put his paw into Chingiz’s hand and said, “Listen, Chang. Listen. This is Chingiz. Chingiz. Do you understand? He has saved my life, and you do not growl at him, ever. Good Chingiz. You understand?” Chang was not a fool: he knew what Derrick meant, and he looked at Chingiz with a new expression, barked twice and licked his hand.

  They walked out of the square into the box-like rooms where Chingiz and his brothers stayed. Derrick’s wits were coming back, and with them what little Mongol he knew. He tried to thank Chingiz many times, but Chingiz would have none of it. They sat drinking out of the jar of koumiss—the Tartar’s fermented mare’s milk—and with that inside him Derrick felt twice the man. He listened attentively while Chingiz, with many repetitions, misunderstandings and false interpretations, explained to him that the men were common serai thieves, notorious men from Yarkand. “Thief,” he kept repeating, drawing the edge of his left hand over the wrist of his right, and suddenly Derrick understood why the man who had attacked him had only had one hand.

  Then they talked of many other things. Chingiz said a great deal that was incomprehensible, but the upshot of it was that everybody in the serai was away because of the races, and that he himself had only come back because he had left his money behind.

  “I am glad you came back,” said Derrick, and when Chingiz understood at length what he meant, Derrick saw his expressionless face suddenly dissolve into an open and very pleasant grin

  Later Chingiz fixed Derrick with a meaning look and said, “Sullivan?”

  Derrick hoped violently that Chingiz meant what he seemed to mean—that Sullivan should not be told. He had very much wanted to suggest it to the young Mongol, but he had not liked to. He shook his head, smiling, and said, “Much better not to tell him. He might stop me going about—you know how it is?”

  Chingiz understood this first go, and replied, “Yes, much better. Old men are difficult. Hulagu and Kubilai are often difficult although I am a man.” He held up his fingers to show his age. “Not a boy,” he said firmly.

  Derrick pointed to himself, and held up the same number of fingers. He was surprised, for he had thought Chingiz much older than himself, but they were both very pleased with the discovery, and when they parted in the evening they shook hands like old friends.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  OLAF LOOKED discontentedly at the train of animals. The expedition was ready to start, and a line of packhorses, Mongolian ponies and camels stood waiting in the serai. “Those ain’t camels,” he said to Derrick. “They got two humps.”

  The tall, hairy beasts stared contemptuously about them, craning their necks from side to side.

  “They are camels all right,” said Derrick, mounting his beautiful chestnut pony—a gift from Chingiz—“You lead them with a string. The other sort are dromedaries.”

  “Ay don’t know nothing about dromedaries,” replied Olaf, “but Ay ban’t going to have nothing at all to do with these here vicious monsters. They ban’t natural. Ay reckon Ay can steer a horse with a nice mild temper; but camels with two humps—cor stone the crows.”

  Li Han hurried into the square, carrying a last bundle to tie to his already groaning sumpter-horse.

  “You look gloomy, Li Han,” said Derrick.

  “Gloomy is understatement,” answered Li Han, with a hollow laugh. “Whole being is pervaded with funeral melancholy.”

  “What ban biting you, then?” asked Olaf.

  “Have consulted most learned and expensive astrologers in entire city,” said Li Han, wringing his hands and dropping his bundle, “and unanimous prognostication is utterly lugubrious. The soothsayers, the casters of the sacred sticks, the diviners of fêng-shui and the readers of the auspices all cry with one voice that journeys commenced today must meet ill-fortune and encounter physical violence. All types of esteemed seers and prophets say the same, alas, alas.”

  “You don’t believe all that rot, do you, Li Han?” asked Derrick, who believed at least half of it himself, in spite of being a missionary’s child—one cannot go to sea and be brought up in China without superstition soaking in through one’s skin.

  “In words of immortal Duck of Bacon,” cried Li Han, trying in spite of his agitation to tie the bundle to the unwilling horse, “there are more things in heaven and earth, esteemed Horatio, than are dreamed of in your philosophy.”

  “Who ban this Horatio?” asked Olaf, curiously.

  “Could we but cause the Old Man to delay,” moaned Li Han, taking no notice, “to procrastinate, to sit in silent contemplation of the Temple of Heaven for a day. No hope, alas, alas.”

  “Never mind, Li Han,” said Derrick, “think of the face you will gain in the Professor’s company.”

  “Yes, immense face will be gained. But doubt whether biggest face in Asia is of much use with no head behind it. I deplore violence, especially physical violence to the person.”

  “He ban gotten cold feet,” said Olaf, with a snort of laughter that made the camels start.

  “You mustn’t be a coward,” said Derrick.

  “Have been most timid of cowards from day of birth,” replied Li Han, without shame, “and this is an inauspicious day.”

  “No it ain’t,” said Olaf, “it ban Thursday.”

  Ross and Sullivan came out, followed by Professor Ayrton, who was muttering about his lost spectacles.

  “All shipshape?” asked Sullivan, running his eye over the beasts. “Derrick, go and give Hulagu a shout, will you? Professor, they’re on your forehead.”

  “Forehead? Oh, yes, the spectacles. Why, so they are. Thank you very much.” For forty years Professor Ayrton had been losing his spectacles on his forehead, and for forty years he had been intensely surprised and grateful to find them there.

  The three Mongols, mounted and armed, with two of their men to mind the camels, took their places, and when Li Han had lighted eleven Chinese crackers to ward off the demons of the road, the expedition moved off. They wound through the streets of Peking, a strange procession in strange surroundings, but in that city they passed unnoticed. At length they came out of Peking, and in the clear light of the early morning they went away towards the north, as straight as they could go for the Great Wall of China.

  For day after day they marched along the ancient road, spanned here and there with triumphal arches to commemorate emperors dead these many hundred years. They passed through cultivated country, with the sorghum standing high on either side, and sometimes they met with other caravans coming down from the north, who told them the news of the road. Then, on the fourth day, they came in sight of the Great Wall, stretching like a ribbon away across the rolling country farther than the keenest eye could reach
, a wall with innumerable towers; and on the fifth day they passed through the Hsiung Gate, a great dark tunnel through the wall, guarded by four enormous towers that were already ancient two thousand years ago.

  Soon the country changed: they travelled over vast plains of thin, wiry grass, and Derrick saw, for the first time, the black yurts, the felt tents of the Mongols who grazed their herds on the rolling steppe. Li Han saw them and shuddered, for now he knew that he was in the land of the barbarians against whom his ancestors had built the wall.

  On and on they marched, starting before the first light and going on through the long and dusty day. They were making a great detour round the north-western provinces of China, and Sullivan explained it to Derrick as they pored over the maps one evening, while the camp-fires of the Mongols twinkled against the dark horizon.

  “Here, you see,” he said, pointing at the map, “is a part of the world which a peaceful scientific expedition must avoid if it wants to go on being peaceful, scientific and an expedition. There are seven or eight different war-lords knocking sparks out of one another all over this area, so we have got to go round and strike the Old Silk Road to Sinkiang here,” he pointed with his pencil.

  “Won’t this lead us through Hsien Lu’s province, Uncle?” asked Derrick, studying the map.

  “Who has been telling you about Hsien Lu?”

  “I heard about him in the serai,” replied Derrick. “He’s the bandit who rules over Liao-Meng, isn’t he?”

  “Well, in point of fact he is the Tu-chun appointed by the government—the war-lord or military governor or whatever you like to call him. But it’s as near as makes no difference to being a bandit. He is the sole ruler of Liao-Meng for all practical purposes, and what he says goes, whatever the central government may think. But we don’t have to worry about him. Mr. Ross knew him fairly well at one time, and they say his country is quiet now. Anyhow, it will save three weeks going through Liao-Meng, and we haven’t all the time in the world.”

  “How did you come to know him, Mr. Ross?” asked Derrick.

  “If you question your elders,” said Ross, “you will end on the gallows. But perhaps for once I will gratify your curiosity. I first had the pleasure of beholding Hsien Lu’s face in a bar in Cheringpitti, after I had picked two Malays and a Japanese off it.”

  “What were they doing on Hsien Lu’s face, sir?”

  “I did not think to ask them, but I suppose they were trying to improve it in some way. It was a very plain face, as I remember it.”

  “Please would you tell me about it from the beginning?” Derrick saw that for once Ross was in a yarn-telling mood, and he was determined to profit by it—it was so rare that the opportunity was not to be lost.

  Ross stretched, yawned and lit a long cheroot. “We had put the Wanderer into dry-dock,” he began. “And if I remember rightly it was in the year after we had come through Sinkiang with—well, anyhow, it was when your worthy uncle was off on one of his characteristic wild-goose chases, and I was left alone to do all the donkey-work. We were having her copper-bottomed, and it was hot in this perishing mangrove swamp where we were berthed. So one day I walked into Cheringpitti with the intention of taking a little light refreshment in Silva’s bar, the only decent place in the town. As I approached, I heard a violent shindy going on inside; and when I went in I saw that everyone was hiding behind the bar or under the tables. The reason for this, I soon discovered—for I have a very logical mind—was that four men were skirmishing about in the far end of the room, throwing bottles about and shrieking in a very tiresome way. There was no service to be had: I was thirsty, and this vexed me. I thought for a while, and I decided that the only way to be served was to restore order. I got up, and carrying my table by way of a shield I approached the men at the far end. Before I reached them, three of them had got the fourth down in the corner. Well, to cut a long story short, I induced them to leave. The two Malays were easily persuaded: one went through the door—which was closed, by-the-bye—and the other, after I had broken his knife arm, went through the window. But the third one, a little Japanese, had a ju-jitsu hold on the fellow underneath, and although I reasoned with him until my table came to pieces, he would not let go. He was slowly killing the man on the floor, and he was chewing his ear at the same time: I am afraid I had to take him to pieces, more or less, before I could make him stop. Then, when I had finally picked him off and tossed the remains through the window, I saw Hsien Lu’s face for the first time. I raised him gently to his feet by his unchewed ear and asked him whether he wanted any trouble; but he did not. On the contrary, he seemed quite pleased to have got rid of his friends, and after he had had his ear attended to he came and shared a drink with me. I saw a good deal of him while he remained in those parts, and I often heard from him afterwards. When he was chief of the Black Flag bandits in Ho-nan he sent me that pair of chronometers: but now he is Tu-chun of Liao-Meng, a reformed character and a very respectable citizen.”

  “From what I have heard,” said Sullivan, “he’s still a bandit under the skin.”

  “What war-lord is not? But Hsien Lu was always a clean fighter after his own lights, and he always kept his word to me whenever we had any dealings, so I do not feel called upon to judge him too harshly.”

  “But why——” began Derrick.

  “You’ll certainly end on the gallows,” said Ross. “Now it is past midnight, and if you are going out after partridge with Chingiz at dawn you had better turn in.”

  “And if you see Li Han before we are up in the morning,” added Sullivan, “tell him that if he serves up boiled badger again for breakfast I’ll rub it in his hair. He bought seven of them cheap in Peking, and I know there are still three more uneaten. I can’t bear it any longer. Do your best with the partridges, Derrick. There is nothing so good as a cold roast bird—and after these eternal badgers . . .”

  It seemed to Derrick that he had only just closed his eyes when Chingiz was beside him, shaking him awake: the first white streak showed in the eastern sky, and there was hoar-frost on the ground. Their ponies danced in the cold, and Derrick’s chestnut, always a handful, came near to unseating him before he had sent his feet home in the deep, shoe-like Mongol stirrups. He clutched the pommel, felt Chingiz’s eye upon him, and gave the pony a cut with his whip. Away they went, at a full, stretching gallop over the smooth, rolling plain, and there was no sound anywhere under the sky but the drumming of hooves. Derrick turned in his saddle and saw Chingiz just behind him, sitting his pony as if he were in an armchair, with his falcon on his wrist. They reined in to a canter, and rode side by side until they flushed a covey of partridges. They stopped and listened: over to the right another covey was calling. Derrick dismounted, slung his weighted reins over his pony’s head, and loaded his gun, a beautifully balanced sixteen-bore that Sullivan had given him.

  “Let’s walk them up,” he said.

  Chingiz looked puzzled; he shook his head and said, “You go. I have another way.”

  Derrick nodded and began to walk over the thin grass towards the sound; presently he caught sight of the covey, walking about slowly and feeding. They saw him and started to run; he walked more quickly, and flushed them at about fifty yards. He picked two birds on the outside of the covey and cracked right and left at them. He could have sworn that he had hit one at least, but they flew on untouched. On the way back to the ponies he put up another covey. “This time I’ll make sure,” he thought, firing into the brown. A single feather floated down, but the birds whirred on. He was not in the best of tempers when he rejoined Chingiz, and he thought he detected a smile on the Mongol’s face.

  “You should shoot them on the ground,” said Chingiz. Derrick did not reply, except by a grunt. He thought, as he remounted, that Chingiz meant it as a joke, and he did not think that it was very funny.

  They rode for some time, and then, when they sighted another covey Chingiz said, “I will show you our way.” He unhooded his falcon: it stretched its wings and b
linked in the sudden light. Chingiz waited a minute, then he raised his arm, untied the jesses, and the falcon took to the air. It flapped once, then rose with outstretched wings on the wind, higher and higher. Chingiz galloped forward to flush the partridges: they rose with a whirr, so close that Derrick could see the red of their tails. The falcon shot forward, high over the partridges, rose still higher, and then closed its wings and stooped in a great downward curve, faster and faster, with a sound like a rocket. The partridges were gliding ten feet above the ground on stiff, decurved wings: suddenly they were aware of their danger, and they scattered as if the covey had exploded. The falcon, aiming its dive on one bird, altered its direction but a half-stroke of one wing: it was moving so fast that it was a blur in the air. Then there was a burst of feathers from the partridge’s back: the bird hit the ground and bounced as if it had been hurled from the sky, and in a second the falcon was on top of it again.