by John Buchan
The night was spent on a tiny patch of grass under the cliffs, while their meal was of girdle cakes made with the newly bought barley, and some of the last of their tea. “A cheerful spot,” says Captain Blacker, “but better, at any rate, than the trenches before La Bassée in February 1915.”
Next day they still climbed, and at midday found more relics of the enemy, a copper kettle, a cauldron, and a goatskin full of butter, which had apparently been too heavy to carry. Then they crossed a very lofty snow-pass, and before them saw the steep ranges of the Kuen-lun. Down one ridge and up another they went, still following the track, and at one stopping-place they found a dead quail and a straw cage. This proved that there was at least one Pathan in the gang, for it is the Pathan’s endearing habit to carry tame birds in the folds of his raiment.
They were now in a perfectly desolate upland without grass or water or fuel, and their food was rapidly failing. They had one and a half day’s rations in hand, consisting only of barley flour and a very little tea and sugar. A lucky shot by Captain Blacker at a young burhal the day before had given them some meat, but this was all they had had for a week. The country, too, was becoming desperately rocky. If the Pamirs was the roof of the world, it seemed to Captain Blacker that he was now climbing among the chimney-pots. Sometimes on the summit of a pass they had to dig a way for the ponies with hands and bayonets. The ponies, too, began to die.
At last, after several days’ severe labour, they descended from the heights to gentler elevations, and found Kirghiz encampments, where they could get fresh barley and now and then a sheep. They were on the lower foot-hills of the Kuen-lun now, and were looking again at fields and crops. They were able also to acquire fresh horses. Up a long valley they went, still finding traces of the enemy’s bivouacs. They had to stop sometimes to mend their footgear with yak’s hide; and they had now and then a piece of luck, as when they came to the house of a certain Kirghiz Beg, who lent them guides. Once again they had mountains to cross, lower passes but rockier, and breaking down into deep gorges. Often they marched fifteen hours in a day.
At last they reached a village where they had intelligence of the enemy. They learned that the gang were only forty-eight hours ahead, which meant that they had gained five or six days on them in the last eight. The destination was clearly Yarkand, and there was always a risk of losing them in that city. Here, too, the trail gave out, for the sheep and goats of the villagers had smothered it, so they had to hire a guide.
But the way he led them showed no tracks. They could only push on and hope to cut the trail again from the eastward. After crossing a pass of 15,000 feet they came to a narrow valley, which led them to the river Pokhpu, running north and south. No vestige of a trail, however, could be found on its banks, so they forded the stream and ascended a gorge upon the other side. This took them over a 15,000 feet ridge and down into another valley and then into another. It ended in a gigantic chasm, where in the moonlight a huge excrescence of rock showed exactly like an ace of spades. Captain Blacker took this for a good omen; but there was still a fourth pass to cross, and at four in the morning the expedition flung itself down, utterly exhausted, in a waterless valley called after the Angel Gabriel. In that single day’s march they had climbed up and down something like 30,000 feet, from seven o’clock of one morning to four o’clock of the next.
The ace of spades had not misled them, for soon after they started they met an old Kirghiz — a Hadji by his green turban. He was rather taken aback by the sight of them, but said he had been sent by a Chinese mandarin to meet a certain guest. This made Captain Blacker suspicious, so he boldly answered that he was the guest in question. The old Hadji was added to the party, and conducted them to the village of Kokyar, where they had at last a reasonable meal.
At midnight again they were off, after five hours’ sleep, marching north-eastward by the compass, and hoping to get back on the trail they had lost. Presently they were among the sand-dunes of a desert, and then among the irrigation channels of the lower Raskam River. It was midnight when they found themselves in the latter labyrinth; so Captain Blacker ordered the Hadji to find some one without delay who would show him the way out. It was an unfortunate step, for it landed them in a leper-house. There was nothing for it but to march on through the night, and in the small hours of the next morning they were within sight of Yarkand.
There, early in the afternoon, the expedition, now lean, weather-beaten, and tattered to the last degree, stood outside the ancient walls of Yarkand. One of the Guides entered the city, disguised, to find an acquaintance, from whom he heard to his delight that a party of wild-looking strangers had entered the streets eighteen hours before. Indeed, the man knew where they were. They were now in the Sarai Badakshan. Captain Blacker had not ridden hard for a fortnight among the wildest mountains on earth to stand on ceremony in any town. His sixteen men cantered down the alleys of Yarkand, and presently flung open the gates of the Sarai.
There the quarry was found. Every hand in the Sarai went up without delay when its inmates heard the challenge, and saw behind the gleaming bayonets the sixteen gaunt, wolfish faces of their pursuers.
Captain Blacker has told this story in his excellent book On Secret Patrol in High Asia (John Murray), one of the best narratives of adventure published in recent years.
EPILOGUE — ON RE-READING THE STORIES
(For which the Author is not responsible.)
I. THE FLIGHT TO VARENNES
1. Recall the events in France between 1789 and 1791.
2. The episode of the Queen’s wrong turning gave Thomas Carlyle material for a stirring paragraph in his French Revolution. Here it is: —
Alas! and the false Chambermaid has warned Gouvion that she thinks the Royal Family will fly this very night; and Gouvion, distrusting his own glazed eyes, has sent express for Lafayette; and Lafayette’s Carriage, flaring with lights, rolls this moment through the inner Arch of the Carrousel, — where a Lady shaded in broad gypsy-hat, and leaning on the arm of a servant, also of the Runner or Courier sort, stands aside to let it pass, and has even the whim to touch a spoke of it with her badine, — light little magic rod which she calls badine, such as the Beautiful then wore. The flare of Lafayette’s Carriage rolls past: all is found quiet in the Court-of-Princes; sentries at their post; Majesties’ Apartments closed in smooth rest. Your false Chambermaid must have been mistaken? Watch thou, Gouvion, with Argus’ vigilance; for, of a truth, treachery is within these walls.
But where is the Lady that stood aside in gypsy-hat and touched the wheel-spoke with her badine? O Reader, that Lady that touched the wheel-spoke was the Queen of France! She has issued safe through that inner Arch, into the Carrousel itself; but not into the Rue de l’Echelle. Flurried by the rattle and rencounter, she took the right hand, not the left; neither she nor her Courier knows Paris; he indeed is no Courier, but a loyal stupid ci-devant Bodyguard disguised as one. They are off, quite wrong, over the Pont Royal and River; roaming disconsolate in the Rue du Bac; far from the Glass-coachman, who still waits.
3. Make a sketch-map showing the places mentioned in this story.
4. Which do you consider the most dramatic moment of this story, and which is the best pen-picture?
5. Justify (or criticize) the sentence on page 22: “It was the crisis of the French monarchy.”
6. What might have happened if the royal party had escaped?
7. Note the simplicity of the telling of this story.
8. Read “Drouet’s Ride” and “Mr. Barr’s Annoyance” in The Eye-Witness, by Hilaire Belloc.
II. THE RAILWAY RAID IN GEORGIA
1. Note the following facts: —
The American Civil War began in 1861 and lasted until 1865, and it is often spoken of as the War of Secession. The two parties were the Federals and the Confederates, the former being, generally speaking, the people of the Northern States, and the latter those of the Southern States. In the Southern States negro slaves were still employed on the
cotton and sugar plantations, and the people of the Northern States objected to slavery being permitted within the American territories. The dispute went on for a long time before actual fighting commenced, and the Southerners proposed that they should form a separate Confederacy, in which the employment of negro slaves should be permitted. They wished to “secede” from the Union, and the Northerners objected to this.
The chief figure in the war on the Federal side was Abraham Lincoln, who became President. He did all he could to prevent war, and pleaded earnestly with the Southerners to “save the Union.” But the dispute came to blows in April 1861, when the Confederates attacked Fort Sumter in the harbour of Charleston city in South Carolina. Lincoln made an appeal for fighting men, and some five million Northerners volunteered for active service.
The Confederates were, however, better prepared for the coming fight, and had better military leaders, and at the battle of Bull Run, near Washington, the Federals were beaten, while Lincoln found it difficult to prevent the occupation of the capital by the Southern troops. It was at the battle of Bull Run that Jackson, the Confederate leader, gained his nickname of Stonewall. His leader, General Lee, called out to his men, “Look at Jackson’s brigade standing like a stone wall!”
After a time the Northerners found a capable leader in General Ulysses Grant, and the war went on with varying fortune. There was a battle of six days’ duration at Chancellorsville, which ended in the repulse of the Federals. Stonewall Jackson was mortally wounded in this fight. A few days later he died. “Pass the infantry to the front,” he called out with his dying breath. “Tell Major Hawks—” He lay for a few minutes and then added quietly, “Let us cross over the river and rest under the shade of the trees.”
At Gettysburg, in July 1863, Lee was derisively defeated by General Mead, to the great joy of the Northerners. The struggle dragged on for two years longer, until Lee surrendered to General Grant in April 1865.
2. Trace the movement of this story on a map of the United States.
3. Which paragraph on page 28 gives the subject of this story?
4. Which names on page 32 are as important in the story as that of Andrews?
5. Which do you consider the crisis of the tale? Which are the most anxious moments?
6. Why did Andrews’ exploit fail?
III. THE ESCAPE OF KING CHARLES AFTER WORCESTER
1. Draw a sketch-map to include the places mentioned in this story.
2. Why does the writer change from the past to the present tense at the foot of page 47?
3. What are the critical points in this story?
4. Would this story make a good play, or a film?
5. Dramatize two of the conversational portions.
6. Is it correct to describe the hero as “King”?
IV. FROM PRETORIA TO THE SEA
1. Prepare a sketch-map, inserting names, as you read the story for the second time.
2. Write a paragraph comparing Churchill’s escape with that of King Charles.
3. Make a sketch showing Churchill’s actual escape.
4. Which men named in the story would the fugitives be most delighted to meet?
5. What are the tensest moments of this story?
V. THE ESCAPE OF PRINCE CHARLES EDWARD
1. Which sentence on page 81 gives the reason for the pursuit of Prince Charles after the Jacobite rising had been utterly broken?
2. Are there any points of likeness or difference between the adventures of King Charles and Prince Charlie?
3. Can you explain why we are nearly always glad when a hunted person escapes?
4. Re-read the whole story and make a list of those incidents which would make the best pictures for a film. Give a good title to the film.
5. Who are the leading persons in this story? Who are the chief secondary persons?
6. How would you describe the background of the drama?
7. Dramatize two or three of the critical episodes.
VI. TWO AFRICAN JOURNEYS
1. Make a sketch-map to go with this story.
2. Give a good title to the first of these stories.
3. Select the sentence which shows the historic importance of King’s ride.
4. Debate the question of the white man’s right to displace the native.
VII. THE GREAT MONTROSE
1. Study the following historical note: —
Early in 1638 it was decided to revive the National Covenant, which had been originally drawn up in 1557, and had been renewed in the reign of James VI. The nobles met in Edinburgh and signed the Covenant in Greyfriars’ Church on the last day of February. They pledged themselves to maintain Protestantism, and claimed the right to settle their own form of religion without interference from England. The National Covenant was signed in many parts of Scotland as well as in Edinburgh; but it must not be thought that the whole nation was unanimous. There was always an Episcopalian party, strongest in the western Highlands and in the north-east of Scotland. In Aberdeen, for example, men were compelled to sign the Covenant against their will, for the young Earl of Montrose, at the head of an army, insisted on their doing so.
In Edinburgh and the south the Covenanters were very strong, and Charles I. had to agree to permit the meeting of a General Assembly. It met at Glasgow in November 1638, and when the King’s commissioner, the Marquis of Hamilton, found out how determined it was, he dissolved it in the name of the King. The members refused to admit that the King had the right to dissolve a court of the church, and declared that Presbyterianism was to be the established religion of Scotland.
2. Draw a sketch-map to show the flank march described on page 143 and following pages.
3. Why is a figure of General Leslie placed at the end of this story?
4. Why does Montrose gain the reader’s sympathy irrespective of the issues at stake?
5. Which do you consider the least creditable part of Montrose’s exploits?
VIII. THE FLIGHT OF LIEUTENANTS PARER AND McINTOSH ACROSS THE WORLD
1. Draw a sketch-map of the world and mark in the routes mentioned in this story.
2. Think of a good motto for these two airmen.
3. Was their flight really “of no use to any one”?
IX. LORD NITHSDALE’S ESCAPE
1. Study the following historical note: —
Queen Anne died in 1714. The Jacobites, or followers of King James, had hoped that she would recognize her half-brother as James III. of England and VIII. of Scotland. But she died without doing so, and the Elector of Hanover, a great-grandson of James VI. and I., succeeded to the throne without opposition. In the following year the followers of Prince James made their first great effort to put him on the throne. The Earl of Mar raised the standard at Braemar in August 1715, and soon a Jacobite army occupied Perth, and was preparing to march on Stirling and Edinburgh. The Duke of Argyll was sent to meet him, and an indecisive battle was fought at Sheriffmuir, near Dunblane, on November 13th.
Sheriffmuir was really a Hanoverian victory, for Argyll prevented Mar from marching southwards, and compelled him to return to Perth. The Jacobites in the north of England had been easily crushed at Preston about the same time as their Scottish allies were fighting at Sheriffmuir, and when James landed at Peterhead, in December, his cause was already hopeless. He was a brave man, of good private character, and he would have made a better and perhaps a wiser king than his obstinate and cruel father. But he was not the man to give life and enthusiasm to crestfallen and despairing troops, and he fled to France in the beginning of February. Mar escaped with him, but three of the other leaders — Lords Kenmure, Derwentwater, and Nithsdale — were sentenced to death.
2. Which do you consider the most critical moment of this escape?
X. SIR ROBERT CARY’S RIDE TO EDINBURGH
1. Draw a map of the Border to illustrate Cary’s record of service in that region.
2. What was the motive of Cary’s ride? How does it differ from that which prompted other “hurr
ied journeys”?
XI. THE ESCAPE OF PRINCESS CLEMENTINA
1. This story is the basis of A. E. W. Mason’s novel, Clementina.
2. John Sobiesky was elected king of Poland in 1674. In 1683 the Turks attacked Vienna, but were routed by Sobiesky and the Duke of Lorraine at the head of a Polish and German force.
3. Draw a sketch-map to accompany this story. Mark the most critical point of the journey.
XII. ON THE ROOF OF THE WORLD
1. Make a sketch-map to accompany this story.
2. Why are the reader’s sympathies with the hunters in these two stories?
Rearrange the stories of this book in chronological order. Which do you consider the finest story?
LORD MINTO: A MEMOIR
CONTENTS
PREFACE
INTRODUCTORY. THE BORDER ELLIOTS
BOOK I.
CHAPTER 1. BOYHOOD: ETON AND CAMBRIDGE
CHAPTER 2. STRENUOUS IDLENESS
CHAPTER 3. APPRENTICESHIP
CHAPTER 4. CANADA: 1883-85
CHAPTER 5. SOLDIERING AND POLITICS AT HOME
BOOK II.
