The Prince mounted the three steps of his throne and sat down, smiling at the bowing courtiers, and took the sceptre from its guardian.
Farid stepped forward.
‘May the Lord’s shadow never become less! I beg permission to introduce our guests.’
The Prince inclined his head.
‘Magnetic pole of the Earth. The Lady Noor Sharifi, Agha-i Adam Durany, Shaghali Captain Azambai.’
The Prince handed his sceptre back to the courtier and stepped down from his throne. ‘Welcome. Approach.’
He held out his hand to each in turn.
The captain, recalling a passage from the Classics, spoke for them all: ‘Rendering homage to the Presence of the Monarch is an honour for his slaves.’
Just as Adam realized, with dismay, that they had not performed the nazaria, the ceremony of offering gold and precious jewels or sweet spices and perfumes to the potentate, he saw that Farid had not forgotten. He lifted a piece of red velvet from an inlaid brass tray carried by a splendidly dressed servant and revealed three large gold coins, ashrafis, and some silver boxes, such as are used for amber, incense and the like. In accordance with custom, the Prince touched each object in turn, signifying acceptance.
He led the three to the curtains behind the throne. They passed through, into a kiosk build of cedar-wood and fretted with geometrical patterns, where three sofas were ranged before a low table loaded with an astonishing variety of dishes.
‘You have come far?’ said the Prince, taking up a leg of spiced chicken and smearing it with yoghurt.
‘From Paghman,’ said Noor, adding, just in time, and just in case, ‘Majesty.’
‘My name is Rajab,’ said the Prince, ‘and you may call me that.’
‘Hearing is obeying,’ said the captain, to set the tone; ‘but, Jalalat, Majesty, we are in the habit of calling people by their proper titles. You will forgive us if we relapse into that habit.’
‘All right, then,’ said the Prince, obviously pleased, ‘if you persist in these archaic ways down there in Paghman.’
‘Thank you, Hazrat, your Presence.’
‘Are the Russians giving you much trouble?’
‘Quite a lot.’
‘Durany, you bear a famous name. Are you getting rid of the invaders?’
‘Hazrat, we are doing our best. That is why we are here.’
‘Indeed?’ Prince Rajab looked at Adam sharply.
‘With your permission, I can explain, Living Prince.’
‘Explain, Agha.’
Adam told him, briefly, about the war and the purpose of the Sher-Qala Commando.
‘Well, my friend, you’re halfway there already. You will have trouble with the glaciers to the north, since you can’t use the icefree road that the Rouss have seized. But I don’t see why you shouldn’t manage it. Stranger things have been done.’
‘Thank you.’
‘I can help you, too.’
Adam said, ‘Any help is in the cause of the nation.’
‘It is my duty, as you are reminding me, young man,’ said the Prince. He added softly, almost as if he was speaking to himself, rhyming the lines, ‘Let them not say, “We went to Rajab and he sent us away.’”
Suddenly he looked up. ‘Yes, you need help. Do you know how to make smokeless fires, so that you don’t get seen by the enemy?’
Adam and the others shook their heads. Such an art might be useful, Adam thought, but what about supplies, money, weapons?
The Prince looked at him, excitedly. It was obviously something he was very interested in. ‘Then you shall learn. As a matter of fact, not many people do know about it. Here’s what you do:
‘Cut your wood – bamboo is the best – into very small pieces and then into thin strips. Slice these strips into shavings, which must be carefully dried. Light a pile of the shavings. As soon as it is flaring well, put charcoal, piece by piece, on top. When you’ve got this going, it will burn without any smoke for many hours. You can use such a fire for cooking and for keeping yourself warm.’
He sat back with a smile of great satisfaction. The secret had been imparted.
‘Pakiza, perfect,’ said Adam; ‘I’d often heard of the smokeless fires which the mountain bandits used, but nobody ever seemed to know exactly how they were built.’
Prince Rajab scanned the faces of his listeners, one after another. Noor wondered whether his interest in trifles was a pose, a usual one among the many aristocrats who had visited her father’s house in the old days. It was said that such people behaved like this to avoid committing themselves when pressed. After all, a prince was not supposed to refuse anything to anyone: his only defence might be to retreat into eccentricity. ‘His Highness is having one of his turns,’ might then be his salvation; or ‘He can’t concentrate for a moment, you know. His father was just the same.’ Peasants, too, she remembered, practised the retreat into near-imbecility as a form of self-protection. She’d even seen it done in Italy.
‘Friends, I told you about the fire because I am superstitious. I believe that when something comes into one’s mind it has to be said, as it may originate from a higher level of the mind.’
Rajab looked around, as if expecting an answer. Nobody could think of anything to say. The Prince frowned. ‘Where was I? Oh yes, we live in a time when many changes are taking place, when each must do what he or she can, when effort is effort, but such things as knowledge, equipment, gold even, are forms of effort, concentrated power, like the power locked in petrol …’ He called for tea and stroked a long-haired white cat with blue eyes, which had appeared from nowhere and was rubbing itself against him.
To the captain he said, ‘This is the Jihad-i-Muqaddas, the Sacred Struggle. I cannot spare any men, because we have to prepare for when, God forbid, the Russians try to come here. But it is written that those who help and equip the Muhjahidin in a just war are equal to those who actually engage in that war. You can have anything from me. I have horses and pack-animals, gold and weapons, even agents in Turkestan.’
‘God bless you, sir,’ said Azambai.
‘That’s settled, then,’ said Prince Rajab. The Prince rose, to show that the audience was over, and the travellers were led to their sumptuous quarters, for the afternoon siesta.
5 Kara Dagh is Icebound
The Great Pass
JULY 14
‘Trust in God – but make sure that you tie your camel, too!’ Living Prince Rajab embraced the travellers warmly, as he escorted them next day to the caravan trail beside the mulberry meadows.
‘And go in safety to your next halting-place.’
The quotation from the Sayings of the Prophet was especially appropriate, Adam thought, as he gingerly mounted the small and skittish Bactrian camel which Rajab had given him. This was his first time on such an animal; but at dawn on the high plateau he already felt warm, sitting between its double humps.
Azambai preferred the job of caravan-master, after the ‘aristocratic courtesies’, as he called them. Being born in the Soviet Union, even if one was of noble descent, did not exactly give one a taste for the mixed blessings of a court. Hospitality there might be, but there was also an air of sophistication that he found unsettling. He preferred the directness of the Nuristanis, who weren’t at all affected by the castle’s pomp, or the behaviour of the Afghan soldiers, who had their own, more direct, ways and conversation. After all, he was a professional military man.
The Prince sent a guide, Razan (‘Resolute’) Khan, with the company. Razan was a wrestler, specializing in the ancient form of the sport popular with the Central Asians. Its exponents covered themselves with olive oil, flapped their arms like birds when approaching their match, and had to be able to perform a complicated dance as well.
Razan was bulky, but very muscular, short and barrel-chested like many Hindu Kush mountaineers, and he spoke several of the many languages of Afghanistan. He also carried a heavy leather bag, containing big gold coins of the minting of the old Bokhara am
irs, from which he paid, at every halt, for all the expenses of the party.
The Eagle was hardly in a position to object: but when he did demur, more for the look of it than for any other reason, Razan grunted. ‘The Prince could not have guests paying for anything while they were still in his country.’
There were more serais and teahouses on the road, as they travelled through the area which was now more Turkic than Persian. Here, at several thousand feet, the neat, vine-covered wooden buildings offered shade, refreshment and conversation of a kind which, in other countries, would have spoken of extreme refinement.
The road, if that was the right name for it, still passed through gorges, skirted ravines with foaming rivers rushing through them, and meandered between fields of oats and barley, clover grown for fodder and wild turnips. In some of the villages, people made baskets and leather goods, cloth and silverware. They sold these items to merchants, travelling in caravans, who passed this way once or twice a year, trading salt, trinkets, and manufactured goods from northern Turkestan.
The people, slant-eyed and broad-faced, brought out bowls of mare’s milk, pieces of embroidered felt, bunches of wild parsnips, mountain garlic, and beautiful gaddi sheep, whose ewes lambed twice a year. The travellers drank tea with salt instead of sugar, to replace the saline in their blood, which they had lost in the exertions of the mountain trail. Noor passed many an hour – stolen from her rest time – learning the precise way to soak the delicious bread in the tangy tea, to milk sheep and goats, in trying on wild-cat jackets, bargaining for strange jewellery or deerskin boots. One did not really need money, for the people delighted in barter, and would consider anything as a possible article of trade. Even if one bought nothing, bargaining was expected. ‘Later, if God wills,’ brought smiles. Adam tried, once or twice, to say ‘I am at war, I don’t buy trinkets.’ It didn’t work. The area seemed utterly isolated from the war.
At Cedar Gorge, a village perched on the escarpment of the southern Hindu Kush, the village chief pointed with pride to the rolling meadows and flower gardens, but warned Adam of the dangers of the climb that was before him.
‘To escape the Rouss, you will have to take the ancient way, directly north from here,’ he said, ‘but that means that you could easily lose your way if there are too many landslides, ice avalanches, even. I do not recommend it, sir.’
They could read the problem, written by nature into the very landscape. They could see the cedar and oak forests, about two thousand metres above. Then, further up the mountain, the tall pines began, and continued, becoming sparser, to a height where perpetual ice was visible. Just below this wound the road, round and round, gaining a few feet every hundred yards, up to the great pass: no more than a cleft between two blue-white glaciers, the gateway through the Hindu Kush, the road to Turkestan.
Here, at Cedar Gorge, they were not much more than sixty kilometres to the west of the Russian north-south road, which was constantly patrolled by Soviet aircraft, to keep it clear of ‘bandits’. For the first time since they had escaped from the Kohistan foothills, they saw, as well as heard, Russian helicopters, the big ones, Mi-24s, on reconnaissance.
‘Nobody has come through the pass for the past two weeks,’ said the village chief. ‘That worries me, because traders always want to come here at this time of year, and we generally get one caravan, sometimes two, big and small, every week.’
‘So you think the high pass may be blocked?’ Adam asked him.
‘Either that, or else one of the smaller ravines, through which the road passes, is impassable, on the northern side. You cannot tell from here.’ He shielded his eyes against the glare, and looked towards the looming mountain.
‘Well,’ said the captain, ‘we have already done our share of clearing rocks from the road wherever we found them, thus far. Perhaps someone coming the other way will do the same for us.’
They set off as soon as the sun was warm enough, saying goodbye to the once taciturn Razan, who now bear-hugged everyone and seemed genuinely sorry to see them go. When the caravan was a hundred yards up the incline they were to follow, Adam looked back and saw Razan still standing there, beside his beautiful Indarabi horse, flapping his arms up and down: the ancient victory signal of the great wrestlers of the mountains.
The south face of the mountain had no villages, but there were, here and there, rough resthouses of undressed stone, with wooden doors, into which people and animals crowded as soon as the sun went down.
The drop in temperature was rapid and frightening. One moment the travellers were savouring the last rays of the sun; the next, it seemed, they were huddling deeper into their furs. Shivering, they coaxed their animals, who always themselves wanted to shelter as soon as it became as cold as this. Upwards they climbed to reach the miserable – but yet unutterably welcome – hovels which would save them from freezing to death. And this was summertime.
‘Haraka, haraka – on, on.’ The chant was almost continuous now. Above 2,500 metres, eight thousand feet high, the road was too slippery to give the animals any foothold. The sun, which warmed them just enough to make the daytime journey endurable, also affected the icy ground underfoot, making it so glassy that the horses’ hooves often could not get a proper grip. Their grooms claimed that, at this height, only yaks could climb higher.
As they rested on the third day out of Cedar Gorge, the insistence of the grooms became impossible to resist. Threatened with firearms, they would not budge. Adam refused to pay them, but they only answered that they would rather have nothing than die by falling off a cliff.
Shahrdar Haidar, who had come this way to join The Eagle after the death of Captain Juma, swore that he had been with caravans which had managed to cover even worse ground than this. Everyone found it hard to believe him. In the end, the hired men and their animals were paid off. Shouldering their forty-eight pound packs, stripped of luxuries and unnecessary weight, the guerrillas struggled on. Unaccustomed to walking, it took them two more days to get into good enough condition to make any real progress.
Here and there, mercifully, and to their great surprise, the trail was clear. Something, and nobody could work out what, perhaps underground hot springs, made the path icefree for quite long stretches of the way. Sometimes, therefore, they were able to make good progress.
Nevertheless, it seemed as if they had been on the road for months, years even. In fact, by then it had been only eleven days.
They got through the high pass safely enough. It was like something from a film about exploration in the region of the North Pole. The pass itself, formed by a fissure between two mountains, was nothing more than a cleft with peaks on either side, peaks of ice, with ice underfoot, ice ahead, everywhere the blue glare of ultraviolet glinting from a thousand ice-faces.
There was no sign of any other caravan, or of an icefall which would have blocked the road. Once or twice they found great humps, making the road like a switchback, undulating for miles. These were caused by avalanches which had been partly cleared or had half melted, making it just possible, with great effort, to climb up the small hill and slide down the other side, ready for the next, inevitable mound.
Beyond the pass they had expected to see a scene like the one from which they had come, the pines shading down to the cedars, then the oaks, and then perhaps smiling valleys and pastures, herds of goats and sheep, villages and friendly faces.
In fact, all that they could see, with the trail winding away into the distance, was a deep fissure, without snow or ice, a gouge like the brown of an iced cake showing through the frosting, running for some hundred yards, until it ran out – at another wall of ice.
That was why there were no caravans, no travellers. The road was blocked.
When they reached the wall, Adam and the captain at once realized that this was not something that they, that anyone, could clear away. There had been an ice-fall: not just an avalanche, but the subsidence of a small, partially melting, glacier. Or even, perhaps, a small earthquake.
A piece of ice, solid and weighing thousands of tons, had slid down from a plateau above, and shattered into the cleft through which the road formerly went. Then it had re-frozen.
There was no doubt about it: they had a mountain to cross. ‘This,’ said Haidar, ‘is Kara Dagh, the Black Mountain. It is snow and ice on the other side, too. The only good thing we can say about the situation is that this is the last barrier between us and Turkestan. If we get over it, we shall have reached some sort of safety.’
On more close inspection, the ice-encrusted walls on either side of the ice-fall were neither sheer nor completely solid. Here and there one could see what looked like goat-tracks. Perhaps later in the summer, say by late August, it might even be possible to traverse it without too much difficulty. So, although possible now, it would be very difficult indeed. And they were too heavily laden.
They would have to abandon their arms.
Sorrowfully, they collected their weapons and ammunition, piled them in stacks and covered them with snow. This lightened each man’s load by more than thirty pounds. Estimating that the crossing should take two days at the most, they shed all food except what they would need for that time. They kept, too, grease, a kettle and butane gaslamp, and a few medicines, for each group of five. Then they started the climb.
They had reckoned without the absence of shelter huts, and the fact that some of the party were better climbers, younger, in better physical condition, than others. They had no climbing gear, no ropes, no proper boots. None of them had any experience of mountaineering. In that first day they reached the top of a peak, to find that it led nowhere. As night fell the sixty huddled together, keeping one another just warm enough to survive, their faces covered with blankets, breathing painfully and dozing fitfully in the thin air.
The next day, seeing a path below, they split into four parties to test the ground, since the ice was often cracked, with fissures covered, in places, by only a thin layer of crushed ice. It was as if the whole mountain was surfaced with an ice whose brittleness was of an unusual order.