Читать книгу The Road to Samarcand - Patrick O’Brian - Страница 6

‘Samarcand,’ said Derrick. ‘Do you know where it is, Olaf?’

‘Samarcand? That ain’t no port,’ replied Olaf. ‘But I heard of it. Samarcand, that’s where the Old Man left his fingers. It’s somewhere inland.’

‘Was that where it happened?’ asked Derrick. His uncle lacked two fingers of his left hand, and Derrick had never been able to get him to say how it had come about. ‘How did he come to lose them, Olaf?’

‘Oh, Ay don’t know,’ said Olaf, evasively. ‘Didn’t he tell you?’

‘No. I asked him, but getting a yarn out of Uncle Terry is like trying to open an oyster with a bent pin. Were you there, or did he tell you about it?’

‘No. Ay hear about it some place or other. And don’t you let on, eh? Or the Old Man would break my neck.’

‘Samarcand?’ said Li Han. ‘It is beyond utmost limits of Sinkiang, in the barbarous regions. Why you ask, please?’

‘I’m going there.’

‘In company of learned Professor?’

‘Yes.’

‘What felicity,’ said Li Han. ‘In pursuit of learning would traverse the Outer Wastes with singing heart.’

‘I’ll be pursuing learning, all right. Samarcand is the first stop on the way to school, and the Professor said that he would initiate me into the delights of Greek during the long, peaceful days between here and there. And Mr Ross will go on teaching me trigonometry and navigation.’ But in spite of these drawbacks, Derrick was boiling with excitement at the thought of the expedition.

‘Mr Ross going too?’ asked Li Han.

‘Yes, and my uncle.’

‘What felicity,’ repeated Li Han, in a thoughtful tone.

‘Then they lay up the Wanderer, eh?’ said Olaf. ‘Maybe Ay better ship with Knut Lavrenssen in the Varanger. She ban laying at Pei-Ho.’ He spoke regretfully.

‘Why don’t you come too?’ suggested Derrick. ‘Men have to be fed, even in barbarian regions, Li Han.’

Li Han smiled, bowed, and rubbed his hands. ‘Wretched sea-cook too humble to ask,’ he said, ‘but would voluntarily dispense with wages for privilege of accompanying worthy philosopher – and juvenile seafaring friend,’ he added, bowing to Derrick.

‘I’ll ask for you,’ said Derrick.

Li Han grinned and bowed repeatedly. ‘Suggest wily approach,’ he said, in an agitated voice that betrayed his extreme eagerness. ‘Perhaps gifts of red silk, piece of first-chop jade? Sumptuous repast for learned Professor, and question popped with dish of rice-birds? Will devote entire savings to purchase of same.’

‘What could Ay do?’ asked Olaf, disconsolately. ‘Ay ban no good by land.’

‘You can ride horses and camels, can’t you?’

‘Horses, eh?’ Olaf scratched his head. ‘They steer by a tiller to the head-piece for’ard, ain’t it? But camels, no. Ay reckon camels is out. Ay had a camel once, with a hump.’

‘You had a camel, Olaf?’

‘Sure Ay had a camel. One camel with one hump. A hump like that …’ he sketched a mountain in the air with his finger.

‘How did you come by it?’

‘Well, it was peculiar, see? We was in Port Said – Ay was shipped aboard a Panamanian tanker then – and Ay went ashore to get me a drink. Ay was thirsty, because it was hot, see? Ay reckon it was the sun that done it, or maybe the night air. Or maybe it was the tinned crab, but anyways, Ay wake up on the quay with no clothes on and a camel. One camel. Leastways, there was a rope in my hand, and when Ay haul on it, Ay find this camel the other end. So Ay coax the camel aboard the tanker and go to sleep. Oh, they was joyful to find my camel in the morning. It bit the mate in five places. It clomb into the bridge. It fouled the steering-gear. Then it bit the master in the calf, although he was a Portuguee. Ay had to pay a coal-black Jew from the Yemen four piastres and a Straits dollar to take it off at Bahrein, but even then the master, he put me off at Muscat. Marooned me, see? And Ay sat on the shore without my dunnage waiting for a ship three months. No, Ay don’t want nothing to do with no camels.’

Before Derrick knew anything about it, it had been settled. The Professor spread out the map. ‘This, then,’ he said, making a dotted line with his pencil, ‘is our proposed route. We follow the Old Silk Road through the Gobi, travel north of Kunlun range, skirting Tibet, north of the Karakoram and the Pamirs, and so to Samarcand. Of course, we shall make several detours on the way, as there is a mass of untouched archaeological material waiting to be discovered. Imagine the importance of the Buddhist frescoes that the elder Ssu-ma describes, or the repository of jade objects mentioned by the Pandit Rajasthana … dear me, it makes me feel quite pale to think of it.’

‘I am afraid you will have to go south of the Kara Nor,’ said Sullivan, looking at the map. ‘There is a huge swamp that is not shown on the map – the whole region is very badly mapped – and that will mean an extra three days. But that is better than getting stuck in the middle.’

‘How glad I am,’ said the Professor, eagerly correcting the line. ‘How glad I am to have the benefit of your advice. I am new to this part of the world, you know, and if I were to have to make all the practical arrangements I should probably be unsuccessful. Besides, it would leave me very little time for archaeological work. But are you sure that you can spare the time and the energy? I am more than happy to avail myself of your kindness, for my knowledge of such things as transport is largely theoretical, but I do not wish to impose myself upon you.’

‘Oh, we will be able to manage that side of it quite easily, don’t you think, Ross?’

‘Aye. So long as there will be none of this modern business – caterpillar tractors, wireless and an army of porters. If we travel as the Mongols have travelled these thousand years and more, we’ll get there twice as soon and at a hundredth part of the cost.’

‘I quite agree with you, Mr Ross,’ said Professor Ayrton. ‘It would be much better in every way. I can almost picture myself riding forth like Genghis Khan and the Golden Horde already, making the steppe tremble under my horse’s feet.’

‘There is one thing that I think I should mention, Professor,’ said Sullivan, ‘and that is that this route leads through some very troubled country. The war-lords are always at it hammer and tongs on the Mongolian border, and farther on there might be all kinds of trouble with all manner of people who are having little private wars.’

‘Oh, yes,’ replied the Professor, ‘I have read about it; but surely a peaceful scientific expedition has nothing to fear? The Chinese of my acquaintance are all intensely civilised; in fact, the whole nation seems to me to be most advanced, and I am sure that their influence will make the journey safe for us. And I have all the necessary papers.’

‘Well …’ said Sullivan, and Ross said, ‘Humph,’ but the Professor was far away already, thinking of the discoveries that he would make in that archaeological paradise.

As Ross and Sullivan walked back to the ship, Sullivan said, ‘I wonder what kind of an idea Ayrton has of the Astin Tagh? Do you think he imagines a Chinese war-lord sits around sipping tea and composing verses to the T’ang Emperors?’

‘I’m sure he does. He should not be let out alone.’

After a while Sullivan said, ‘It would be very hard travelling for a man of his age, quite apart from the likelihood of trouble on the way. I believe he thinks it’s going to be a kind of picnic, or a country walk where you look for jade images instead of birds’ nests. I don’t know that we should not stop him.’

‘We couldn’t stop him without tying him up,’ said Ross. ‘If we don’t go with him he’ll go by himself, taking Derrick with him. Or else he’ll pick up one of these rascally White Russians, who’ll have his throat cut the first day they are out alone in the Shamo Desert. No, we’ll get him through safe enough. D’ye not remember how we got that little old Frenchman out of Urga?’

‘Yes. That was a close call. I wonder if old Hulagu Khan is still in the Town of the Red Knight? We could do worse than get one or two of his men.’

‘I was thinking of that too. They are good fighters, those Kokonor Mongols.’

‘Then I was wondering about Derrick. But perhaps I am making too much of it altogether. He’s a tough lad, and anyhow a Mongol boy is reckoned a man at his age.’

A few days later Professor Ayrton came aboard the Wanderer, and they sailed north along the coast to Tientsin. The voyage was uneventful, with prosperous winds, and the Professor, who had never sailed in anything but a liner before, came to understand their love for the schooner. He watched them for hours at a time, and he asked innumerable questions. Derrick noticed that he never asked the same thing twice, but each time he received a plain, clear answer he listened attentively, nodded his head, and stowed it away into his extraordinary memory, a memory that had never failed at any intellectual task but that of mastering what he fondly imagined to be the idiom of America.

Among other things he astonished them by an adequate, if hardly colloquial, command of literary Chinese, and when Sullivan asked him where he had learnt this most difficult of languages, he replied, ‘No, I have never been in China before. My life has been very cloistered – from college to museum and back again – but I have been looking forward to this expedition for years, and I thought it wise to make a few preparations.’

‘You must have the gift of tongues, Professor: managing the Chinese tones is beyond most Europeans, unless they are born to it.’

‘Och, it runs in the family,’ said Ross. ‘Did you never hear young Derrick talking Malay, or using the string of Swedish oaths he has picked up from Olaf?’

‘Talking of preparations,’ said Sullivan, ‘did you ever think of learning to shoot, Professor? It is a very wild part of the world, you know.’

‘Shoot? Dear me, I had never thought of that. But I imagine that there will always be some practised person at hand who will be able to shoot all that is necessary for food.’

‘Food? Oh, yes. I was thinking … but it’s of no importance,’ said Sullivan.

At Tientsin they berthed the Wanderer, laying her up in a mud-berth in the charge of an ancient ship-keeper whose family had done nothing but keep ships in that particular piece of mud since the time of the Ming emperors. The Malays were paid off, but Li Han and Olaf remained through the days of preparing the ship for her long repose in the mud. They grew more and more despondent as the preparations neared their end, and Derrick remembered uneasily that he had promised to ask whether they could go along with the expedition. He could not very well forget it, because Li Han kept reminding him, either by strong hints or else by unexpected delicacies, a shark’s fin, an unusually large sea-slug or a basket of loquats, all of which were intended to spur him on. One day as he was passing the Professor’s cabin he suddenly plucked up courage and went in. The Professor was reading: he looked up at Derrick and pushed his spectacles on to his forehead.

‘I hope I am not interrupting you, sir,’ said Derrick.

‘Not at all, not at all,’ placing a small stone seal on the page to mark his place. ‘No, no, not in the least. What were you saying?’

‘I hadn’t said anything, sir.’

‘Then you had better begin, you know. We cannot carry on a conversation if you will not say anything.’

‘I was thinking of saying –’

‘But, my dear boy, do you not see that such a dialogue would lead to no useful result? We should sit gazing at one another indefinitely. However, now that you are here, let me read you a most interesting account of Shin Mei’s travels in the Gobi – he was Ssu-ma’s grandson, you know.’

‘But, Professor –’

‘Ah, yes, I know. You are going to say that this has no bearing on the matter. But you are mistaken. It is about the Mongolian fashion of beginning a conversation. Listen …’

Half an hour later Derrick was still listening.

‘There, you see?’ said the Professor at last. ‘Is it not extraordinary that just as I reached that point you should have come in with the intention of beginning a conversation too? Tell me, what was it to be about?’

‘I was going to ask if Li Han and Olaf could come on the expedition. Li Han is a very good cook, and he says he would come without any pay for the privilege of cooking for a – for a worthy philosophical scholar. Those were the words he used. But he hasn’t the nerve to ask. And Olaf is very keen, too. He is a wonderful seaman. Please could they come, sir?’

‘Olaf is the very large person with a voice like a bull in pain, is he not?’

‘Yes, that’s him.’

‘That is he, Derrick. And Li Han is the cook. Did he cook our dinner when first I came aboard the Wanderer, and all the wonderful meals since?’

‘Yes, sir. And he can read and write English as well as I can.’

‘Really, as well as that?’

Derrick went red. ‘No, I mean – but really, he is very clever. He told me what archaeology was right away, when I asked him.’

‘Did he, indeed? Do you remember his definition?’

‘He said it was disinterment of ancient fragments.’

The Professor smiled. ‘Well, upon my word,’ he said, ‘an erudite sea-cook – and such a cook, too. Hotcha,’ he added, after some thought.

‘Hotcha, sir?’

‘Yes. Hotcha. It is an expression that denotes vehement approval.’

‘Then they can come? Oh, gee, Professor, thanks a lot.’

‘Come? Where?’

‘Why, to Samarcand, with us.’

‘Oh, yes. Of course. You refer to the expedition. I remember now: you mentioned it before. But, my dear boy, that has nothing to do with me, has it? You must suggest your plan to Mr Ross, or to your uncle. I am sure that he will be delighted. But before you go, let me read you a fascinating passage that I chanced upon this morning.’ He hunted through the pages and up and down the close-packed columns of Chinese print, but before he could find his place Ross and Sullivan came in.

‘Ah, here you are,’ said Professor Ayrton. ‘We were just talking about you. Derrick was asking me whether we should not take some of your crew along, and I proposed that he should refer the question to you.’

‘He was, was he?’ said Sullivan. ‘Derrick, perhaps you will have the kindness to wait for me in the saloon.’

As Derrick passed the galley Li Han popped his head out and asked, ‘Bad news?’ Derrick nodded, and rapidly outlined the situation. Li Han passed him a small mat, saying, ‘Provision against wrath to come.’

The wrath came, very quickly, and a great deal of it. Sullivan was a big man, with red hair and blue eyes; but when he was angry he seemed to be a great deal taller, his hair blazed, and his eyes emitted sparks that were very disagreeable to behold. He picked Derrick up by the shoulder with one hand, held him there for some time on a level with his face, then put him down and said quietly, ‘Listen to me, young fellow. Suppose an ordinary seaman were to go to the owner and say, “My dear sir, don’t you think it would be an excellent idea if the main to’garns’l were struck? It is blowing rather hard.” And then if he were to go to the captain or the mate and say, “Mr Mate, the owner would like the main to’garns’l struck,” what do you think the mate would say? If I were the mate, the man wouldn’t walk for a week, if he ever walked at all: but in your case, young fellow, I think I can promise you that you won’t sit down for a week.’

Afterwards, he said: ‘It may comfort you to know that we were going to take Olaf and Li Han anyway: you can go and tell them, if you like.’

Li Han greeted him with an anxious face. ‘Soothing embrocation?’ he said. ‘A little Tiger Balm? A cup of nourishing tea? Repose the weary frame in this chair.’

‘Thank you, Li Han, but I think I’ll stand up for the moment. You’re coming, and so is Olaf. And I heard them say that we shall start for Peking on Thursday morning.’

Sullivan and Ross had a strange knack of knowing people in the most unlikely places: Derrick had almost ceased to be astonished when his uncle was greeted with open arms by odd-looking men of all races and colours – there had been the Portuguese monk in Macao, the Dyak chieftain on the Limpong river, the enormously wealthy Armenian merchant in Canton, the one-eyed Ibn Batuta navigating his Arab dhow through the Hainan Strait – but here in Peking he was astonished once more, for instead of leading him to some walled-in, many-courted Chinese house, his uncle stopped at a neat, trim villa that would have looked perfectly in place in the suburbs of Lausanne, but which looked wildly incongruous in the shadow of a pagoda and surrounded on all sides by the upward-curving tiles and dragon-trimmed roofs of its Chinese neighbours. It was a Swiss boarding-house, and Sullivan walked in as if he had known it all his life. It stood just under the walls of the Inner City of Peking, the Tartar City, but once you were inside you found it hard to believe that you were in China at all. Everything, from the meals to the eiderdowns and the shining brass bedsteads, was entirely European. Li Han was immensely impressed, and Derrick suspected him of burning joss sticks in front of the steel-engraving of President McKinley that adorned his room; but this he was never able to prove.

Once they were installed, Ross and Sullivan were busy most of the day with the preparations for the journey, Professor Ayrton spent nearly all his time in the library of a Chinese archaeological society, where he was an honoured guest, and Olaf disappeared into one of the disreputable haunts which sailors always manage to find; Li Han was actively engaged in learning the correct Mandarin dialect of Peking, for he was from Foochow, and he could hardly make himself understood here in the north; so Derrick explored Peking on his own. He would close the green front door behind him, walk down the three whitened steps, and he would instantly find himself in another world, the noisy, smelly world of China, with its hordes of blue-clad people, coolies carrying great loads on a long bamboo pole, barbers operating in the street, dignified citizens being carried past in covered chairs, old men going to fly their kites in the open spaces and young men with little bamboo bird-cages in their hands, walking to air their birds. He would go a few hundred yards through these people, turn to the left through the enormous gate-house, and find himself in a different world again, the world of the Tartar City. Here in the great serais and market-places there were far-wandering Persians and Arabs, Mongols of every tribe, Turkis, Uzbegs, Manchus, Tibetans with their fierce mastiffs, as big as Chang, and obviously of the same original breed. There was a continual roar of voices in a hundred languages and dialects, and here a Chinese looked almost as foreign as Derrick did himself: but there were so many strange figures, from the green-turbaned hadjis from Shiraz to the fur-clad Siberians and the Koreans with their white top-hats, that nobody took any notice of him, and he could wander about at his ease. Here, for the first time, he saw the hairy, two-humped camels of Central Asia, the shaggy, nimble ponies of the Kara Altai and the Kirghiz Steppe, and here, for the first time, he saw the Tartars drinking the fermented milk of their mares. His uncle had given him a list of the most important Mongol words, and as he walked about he both memorised them and tried to hear them as they should be said, in the conversation that surrounded him on every side.

But soon the first excitement of discovery died down, and although he had Chang with him all the time, he began to feel lonely, and to long for a companion: he was very glad, therefore, when after their usual prim and orderly breakfast, his uncle said that he had a journey in front of him, and that Derrick could come.

There was an ancient and disreputable Ford outside the boarding-house, and with some surprise Derrick saw his uncle crank it and climb into the driving seat. It seemed a strange vehicle to carry them through the crowded streets of Peking and of the Tartar City. But after a few minutes Derrick noticed with delight that his uncle was unsure of himself for once. At the wheel of the Wanderer and in any other place where Derrick had ever seen him, he had been calm, competent and almost infallible; but now he betrayed a strong tendency to take advantage of every changing breeze and to tack up the street in a zig-zag calculated to strike terror into the mind of the beholder. He had some difficulty with the gears, too, and he appeared to have only two speeds, either a boiling crawl at five miles an hour, or a hair-raising dash at sixty-five or more. At the first speed they raised bitter complaints from the bottled-up traffic behind them, and at the second they scattered the pedestrians like chaff before a hurricane. They left a wake of furious oaths behind them, but by extraordinarily good luck no corpses.

‘That’s better,’ said Sullivan, in a voice hoarse with replying to the compliments that had been addressed to him throughout Peking. They were well out of the city now, speeding along the empty road to the north. ‘That’s much better now,’ he repeated, mopping his brow. He peered down at his feet. ‘This one is the brake,’ he said, pointing it out to Derrick. ‘And this one …’ he was saying as the car left the road and cut a huge swathe through the tall millet that was growing alongside. Derrick ducked under the windscreen: he felt the car give a violent bound as it leapt the ditch and regained the road without stopping, and he raised his head to hear his uncle continue, ‘… is the accelerator. When I press it, we go faster.’ He pressed it, and the keen air whistled past the car in a rising shriek.

‘What happens if you take your foot off, Uncle?’ bellowed Derrick, as the car began to rock violently from side to side.

‘Nothing, apparently,’ said his uncle, peering down again. ‘It’s always the same with these contraptions. First they won’t go, and then they won’t stop.’

‘Perhaps if you were to try the other foot?’ suggested Derrick, clinging to his seat.

‘Now I don’t want any advice on driving a car,’ said Sullivan, testily. ‘I happen to be a very good driver – not like those inconsiderate road-hogs in Peking.’

‘There’s a sail ahead,’ said Derrick, after ten miles of the road had flown by. There was, indeed. A heavily laden wheelbarrow with its high rattan sail was creeping slowly along the middle of the road a quarter of a mile away.

‘I can see it, can’t I?’ said Sullivan, experimenting with various levers.

‘I only meant perhaps it would be a good thing to slow down – so as not to startle the man, and to give him time to get out of the way.’

‘Nonsense. There’s plenty of room on his windward side. You can give a toot on the siren, if you like.’

Sullivan rushed down upon the wheelbarrow with a fixed, set expression: Derrick hooted and then closed his eyes. But the crash never came: there was only an enraged bellow that died rapidly away behind them, and when Derrick opened his eyes again he saw that the countryside was passing at a more normal speed.

‘I’ve got the hang of the thing now,’ said Sullivan, in a pleased voice. ‘This one is the accelerator. The other one controls the lights, or the heating, or something. Very unusual car, this: not the rig I am used to at all.’

They passed a temple, and Sullivan turned round to look at it. ‘Luff, luff,’ shrieked Derrick, as the car headed straight for a high stone wall.

‘I was going to luff,’ said Sullivan, wrenching the indestructible car back on to the road, ‘and if you don’t pipe down, Derrick, you’ll find yourself overboard before you can say knife.’

The fields had given way to open grassland, and in the distance there appeared a ruined triumphal arch. With an unholy crash of gears Sullivan plunged off the road and the car bounded over the dried-up turf towards the arch.

‘Did you hear me change down?’ he said. ‘I knew I would master the old musical box before long.’

As they hurtled towards the arch he said mildly, ‘This brake doesn’t seem to be holding. Just try that lever in the middle, will you?’

Derrick heaved upon it with all his force; his head crashed violently against the dashboard, and the car came to a shuddering stop, its nose one inch from the arch.

‘Very neatly docked, though I say it myself,’ said Sullivan, getting out.

They waited by the slowly cooling car in the shade of the arch, and presently they saw a distant plume of dust in the north. It came nearer, and soon Derrick could make out the three horsemen who were approaching them. The drumming of hooves on the hard earth came nearer and nearer, and in another minute the three Mongol ponies dashed up. Their riders pulled them to a dead stop and leapt to the ground: they were short, squat Mongols, with bowed legs and high-cheekboned faces. They were no taller than Derrick, and once off their horses they looked strangely incomplete. All three were armed with rifles slung over their backs and long knives in their belts: they wore bandoliers criss-crossed over their chests, and they walked awkwardly in their long felt boots as they came over to salute Sullivan. Sullivan answered them with a flow of guttural words, and the leader handed him a piece of red silk, a brace of partridges and a small object closely wrapped. Sullivan turned to the car, brought a box from under the seat, and gave the Mongols a piece of red silk, three automatic pistols and a charm in the shape of a bronze horse.

The presents having been exchanged, the Mongols lit a fire in the lee of the ruined arch and began to prepare a meal. Speaking quietly to Derrick, Sullivan said, ‘These are the three sons of Hulagu Khan, the chief of the Kokonor Mongols. I sent to ask his help for transport animals, and perhaps for a tribesman or two, if he could spare them. Now he has sent his three sons with orders to do everything they can to help, in memory of a good turn that I did him long ago. It’s a way they have in these parts, and a very good way, too. I’ll introduce you, but remember that they don’t like a young man – and you’re a man by their reckoning – to talk unless he is spoken to.’

He spoke to the Mongols, obviously explaining who Derrick was, and then he said to Derrick. ‘This is young Hulagu, this is Chingiz, and this is Kubilai.’ The Mongols, hearing their names, bowed each in turn to Derrick, and Derrick bowed back, wondering what was going on behind their impassive, expressionless faces. The eldest broke a piece of bread, dipped it in salt and handed it to Derrick.

‘Don’t say anything,’ murmured Sullivan. ‘Bite it clean in half and give it back.’

Derrick did so; the Mongols gave a hint of a smile and divided the remaining piece among themselves. Then there was a silence until their fire had blazed away to glowing embers: one of the Mongols went back to the tethered horses, took some strips of dried horse-flesh from under the deep saddle, impaled them on the long iron skewers that he carried threaded in his felt boot and burnt them roughly on each side over the fire. He handed them round, and Sullivan whispered, ‘It would be a good thing if you could eat your piece in seven bites.’

It nearly choked Derrick, the raw, warm flesh, but he got it down, and immediately afterwards the Mongols scattered the ashes of their fire, remounted, and stood by while Sullivan attacked the car. Derrick marvelled to see how they controlled the half-wild ponies: they seemed to fit the saddles as though they grew from the horse. Chingiz, the youngest, sat on his madly bucking mount – it had never seen a car in its life, and it was terrified – as though it were no more than a wooden rocking-horse. By something not unlike a miracle the car started at once, and they went back to Peking in a cavalcade.

The next day the Mongols began their active assistance. They stayed in the Ka-Khan serai in the Tartar City, and they sent out word for horses, camels and ponies: the dealers flocked to them; they selected, judged, chaffered with unwearying patience; and at the same time they sent out messages with the caravans all along the route to their friends, warning them to have more beasts ready in due time.

Often when Sullivan was busy he would send Derrick to the serai with some message: he made Derrick repeat it over and over again until he was sure that it would be understood, and although the eldest of the Mongol brothers could make himself quite well understood in Chinese, Sullivan insisted that Derrick should stick to their language through thick and thin. He said it was the only way to learn, and he was right: within a remarkably short time Derrick could understand the gist of much that was said to him, and he could bring back an answer as well as carry a message.

A few days before everything was ready he went down to the Tartar City to tell Hulagu about a small alteration in the plans: but he found the serai deserted except for a few pie-dogs that ran when they saw Chang. It was a horse-racing day, but Derrick had not understood that when they told him some time before. He walked round the great hollow square of the serai, peering into the deeply-roofed verandah that ran clean round it, and looking for someone who could tell him where he might find the sons of the Khan. In the darkness of the stables he saw a dim figure squatting over a saddle-bag, and walking noiselessly over the trodden straw he went into the stable. He had left Chang far over in the other corner, sniffing about on the traces of a Tibetan mastiff. The man’s back was towards Derrick as he crouched over the saddle-bag, and until Derrick spoke he was unaware of his presence. Derrick greeted him in Mongol. The man froze, motionless for a second; then he turned and stared at Derrick without a word. Another man appeared from the shadows, and they both stared at Derrick. Derrick began to feel uneasy: he was beginning to repeat his greeting in Chinese when the first man grunted a word to his companion, and they both hurled themselves on Derrick. Derrick let out a yell and struck out wildly: his fist landed on the first man’s head – it felt like wood – and they fell in a writhing mass, with Derrick underneath. He felt crooked fingers gripping at his throat, and then heard a yell and felt the weight above him diminish as Chang wrenched one of the men off him.

But the other was still on him: Derrick’s head was covered with the black cloth of his kaftan, and through the cloth the strong fingers were pressing deep into his throat. His breath was coming short, and there was a thundering in his ears. He relaxed utterly, went dead under the man’s weight, and then suddenly, with all his force, writhed, brought his knee up into the man’s belly and rolled clear. He could see now, but what he saw was the man coming for him again, with a long knife gleaming in his left hand. Derrick was in a corner: there was no escape, and a fleeting glance showed him that Chang was completely taken up with his enemy. The man came in with a quick, silent, purposeful rush, and Derrick threw himself on his back, kicking up with both his feet. One caught the man in the stomach, but although he was winded he fell squarely on top of Derrick, pinning him down, and although he was gasping for breath he brought his right forearm across Derrick’s throat, pressing with all his weight. Derrick noticed, with a split-second of horror, that he had no right hand – the arm was a stump – but there was no time for horror: Derrick grabbed the man’s left wrist with both his hands and tried to twist the knife away. But the man was too strong by far, and twice he stabbed, driving the keen blade into the ground an inch from Derrick’s head. Derrick tried to bring up his knee again, and the man caught his leg in a wrestler’s lock. Slowly they strove and writhed together, glaring into one another’s faces with inhuman hatred, and then by a quick turn the man wrenched one of Derrick’s hands free and pinned it with his knee. Derrick lashed with his legs, vainly trying to unseat his enemy. But the man held firm, and with a furious backward jerk of his left arm he wrenched his wrist free from Derrick’s remaining grasp.

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.