NIGHT RIDE
By PETER FLEMING JUST before dark we had another puncture. We all got out, and Torgney 'drove the • ear slowly,' on a flat tyre, back to a yurt which we had passed half a mile before. The Mongols here were rather less friendly than usual, but they asked us in. We took the wheel off and [orgney and Arashi began to mend the puncture by the fire ; it was too cold to do it outside; Owen and I squatted on dirty skins, and he gossiped with the owner of the yart. I sat silent, wishing that I knew the language.
The women emptied a basket of camel dung into the thud fireplace in the middle Of the'. floor ; always makes a cheerful; -comforting noise as it rattles out of the basket. Then they melted some snow in a big black pot and made. tea. They crumbled' the hard flakes of brick tea over the boiling water and poured in milk and added ,alt: Then it was ladled into tall brass pots standing by the ashes, and served in birchwood boWls. 'The bOwls they, Cleaned by spitting in them and drying them on the sheepskin sleeves with which they also wiped their noses: The tea was very good. Presently the tyre was finished: Now you could see stars through the round hole in the felts which serves as ehinnicV and window ; we had many miles to go, we did • not knoW the Way, and it •was clearly wise to stay where • we were that night. The others wanted to stay ; one journey had already ended disastrously, with the ear in .a 'gully and .a 24-hour fast for us. But I was flIpatient:to get back to Peking, whence I wanted to start cm a long journey on a certain date. ;' and the others were very nice, pretending that they didn't care either way, So 'we' got into the car and started off, with me feeling The night was cold and moonless. Our course lay a little .north, or according to some a little south,• of west. °lir guide was a foolish, aged, syphilitic Mongol, bowed almost in a hoop by disease ; his only technique was to guess, to guess again, and at last to stop and listen for the'barking of dogs. Then he would lnllwv the sound to au encampment and ask the way. It.might have worked all right if there had been more encampments ; there were very few. • I sat in front with Torgney and we steered roughly by the stars. Torgney is a Swede. He drives with great dash, but has only one eye. 'We humped erratically over the iron-hard ground, going very much at. random. Hills Presented themselves, and we climbed up them ; we struggled through tussocks in the hollows. A case of Petrol slipped its moorings on the running' board, but we did not find out about that till later. Presently we had another puncture. We mended it and went on. Our eyes were tired. The radiator, which leaked, boiled madly when we stopped and turned the engine off, The world was silent and empty under the stars. The guide's optimism, which had long ceased to convince,. now ceased even to annoy. We drove on • in a sort' of stupor.
At 3 o'clock in 'the morning, Much to our surprise, we arrived. Our head-lights picked up the low white wall's of the deserted mission station at Gol Chagan ; we let the water out of the radiator and went in. We were too tired to sleep, and for a long time we sat on the wooden Yang, talking and laughing and drinking tea,. When the others went to sleep I read a lot of articles in some old copies of The Atlantic Monthly. The Atlantic Monthly' usually puts you under pretty soon, but in the end I only got about two hours' sleep.
Early next morning we put a pan of hot coals under the car and thaWed the engine. But she was slower than ever starting, and it, was after midday when at last we lashed our luggage on and got away.' We were bound for a SwediSh mission station 40 miles further west. The ear ran beautifully down the naked valley for two miles, but as soon as we began to climb she coughed, spluttered, and stopped. No petrol was getting to the engine. We took the carburettor down and fiddled about with it"; bUt none of us knew anything about ears, and it was painful handling the metal on account. of the cold. We turned the car round and pushed her downhill ; still She would not start. We came to the conclusion that the petrol we had bought in Dolon Nor was mostly water ; so we walked back to Gol Chagan and burgled one of the yurts in which the absent lady missionary kept her stores. We did the actual burgling rather well, but we took the wrong stuff without knowing it ; we took kerosene instead of petrol. Then we walked back to the car, poured the kerosene into the tank, and effectually scotched our chances of escape. It was very perplexing, at the time.
We walked back again to Gol Chagan (it was now almost dark) and got three cows and some rope. The cows almost burst, but in the end we towed the car back inside the compound, let the water out of the radiator, and went indoors.
It was annoying, especially for mc, who was (as usual) in a hurry. The only thing to do was to send a Mongol on a pony to the next mission station and hire their ear. But we had an idea—I forget why—that those missionaries were away on a visit, and I said that I would go with the Mongol ; then, if the missionaries were indeed away, I would be within two days' ride of " Duke " Larson's camp, where I knew I could get a car to take me di.wit to the railway at Kalgan. I felt rather bad about leaving the others potentially marooned for several days, but they agreed that it was a good plan, seeing how pressed I was for time. The Mongol, a very bulbous centaur because of his sheepskins, rode into the compound at two o'clock in the morning. He had a white pony, and led a bay for me. It was very cold. The stirrup-irons would only admit the toes of my felt boots; I was swaddled in a Soviet Army greatcoat, with a fur coat from Barga on top of that, so one could not do much vaulting into the saddle. Snow was falling, stringing obliquely across the ray of Owen's electric torch ; his voice and Torgney's came out of tilt darkness behind it, wishing me good hick. The Mongol kicked his pony in the ribs and we rode out of the com- pound westward.
We took a short cut through the hills, but even so it was over 100 ti, or about :35 miles, to the mission 'station. We did it in seven hours. It was a funny 'ride. Starlight is the most treacherous of lights, and the wild frozen country was all a kind of dark mirage. You could judge no distance, identify no object. We rode fast. Rocks and tufts of scrub were like creatures crouching in our path. As We went swiftly past some seemed to leap at us, sonic to glide swiftly away, some to wriggle into the hard earth and disappear. Nothing was certain, nothing real, except the horse between your legs and the dialing wooden saddle.
Once or twice, when we rode by an encampment, great dogs came tearing through the darkness and bayed us on our way for a mile or so. Otherwise everything was silent, except for the urgent drumming of the horses' hoofs. Sometimes the stars were hidden by clouds, but neither pony stumbled..
1 bad started dog-tired, after two hard days on only two hours' sleep. Before long the world became a. fitful, rushing blur. It was impossible to keep my eyes open. The Mongol must have seen me swaying in the saddle ; he took the head-rope of my pony, and after that it was better. For the rest of the ride I was never more than half awake. It was an effort, in my more conscious moments, to remember what I was doing and, more par.. ticularly, who Hie Mongol was. Sometimes I dreamed; but it was never total oblivion, and the Mongol came into all my dreams. Once he was my house-master at school, and once he was the Councillor of the Soviet Embassy in Peking. In both characters he spoke to me. It was very odd.
When I filially came to it was dawn, and snow •05 falling again. We got off and walked to rest the horses; but my legs were out of control and I stumbled about as if I was drunk. We were in open country now and 011 the main road ; a broad ribbon of deep ruts, made by Os' carts in the summer, wriggled endlessly over the yellow grasslands. Coining out of that unreal night felt like coming out of another world, a world that one would never return to.
At last we sighted the buildings of the mission station. huddled and desolate. The kind Swedes, whom we had visited a week before, were at breakfast. When they hail: got over their surprise 'they told me that they had come back from their visit the day before ; that of course we could- have their car ; that they would go. straight over and tow our own car here. That ride, like most of the things I do, had been to no purpoSe.
But I did not care. Half an hour later I was..olone in 1 small warm room, hung with texts in an obscurely comic language. I had a copy of King Solomon's Mineg, the only secular work on the premises. I lay down. It wig a splendid moment. Now at last one could sleep, deep, sleep. But not just yet ; one more chapter, and it would be sweeter still. One more chapter, one more Rider Haggard had no chance.
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