Where the Indus is Young (21 page)

Then off we went again, steeply up and up, with the Shyok returning to view far below and Gwali’s wide white valley stretching away behind us. From that top we could see the next two miles of track curving level around a complex of mountains, before rising for the short, severe climb to the true pass. Now only a few clouds remained, over the Khardung La, and the sun felt almost warm. A
thousand feet below us the Shyok was looped like a green satin ribbon around the base of an isolated rock-mountain whose summit was lower than our track, and directly above us
golden-brown
crags glowed richly against a dark blue sky. Hallam moved cautiously through knee-deep snow, aware of black ice beneath the new fall, and I decided to picnic on the pass. For him the descent would be even more difficult than the ascent and best coped with after barley.

Our own lunch of hard-boiled eggs and chapattis was demolished in five minutes and for the next half an hour, while Hallam
methodically
munched, we marched to and fro across the level, circular bowl of the Khardung La. On that exposed height it was far too cold to remain immobile for an instant. All around were snow-peaks, some obscured by fast-moving clouds which also obscured the sun. We could see nothing beyond those peaks and were enfolded by the peace of high places – that indefinable, incomparable quiet which at once soothes and excites as nothing else can do.

For the next hour we were slithering down slopes that even without snow and ice would have taxed Hallam’s agility. Before us lay another fiercely desolate chaos of shattered rock, turbulent water and brilliant snow, dominated by the peaks from which we were descending. Here the Shyok again loops and swirls wildly, in its efforts to find a way through the dark tangle of angular mountains, and we tried in vain to discern the continuation of our track. ‘Which way next?’ makes a good guessing game in these parts; irrespective of the direction of one’s ultimate destination, the track can turn at any time towards any point of the compass.

Below the pass lies another populated oasis but we saw only two people – a cheerful young woman with baby on back, leading a lame goat, and an ancient little man with a long wispy beard who was vaguely shovelling earth on to the track at the foot of the mountain. Looking at him, and then at the barrier we had just crossed, he appeared to be engaged on some mythological task rather than on a routine PWD job. Many yak and dzo were out for their midday airing, ever hopefully sniffing the thick snow and whisking their great bushy tails irritably at the negative results.

Then our track climbed a cliff-face to switchback spectacularly beside the river for a few miles. The noon sun had wrought havoc here and even Hallam slipped twice. On one of my numerous falls I came down awkwardly and twisted my knee, but not seriously.

Back on the wide valley floor we enjoyed a few miles of easy going through level, neatly planted orchards. Beyond the Shyok to the north-east a side-valley was dominated by improbably symmetrical twin peaks, their gleaming triangular summits rising superbly above a jumble of lesser mountains. As usual the ranges beside the river were comparatively low and too sheer to be more than dusted with snow; their red-grey-brown ruggedness had an intoxicating beauty as they reflected the golden sunlight. I often looked back, too, at the mountains we had just crossed: the western sky was filled with their wild, shining magnificence.

At about 2.30 a piercingly cold gale sprang up, mercifully behind us. It powerfully swept the dry, fine snow into drifts and then shaped them – like a restless, invisible sculptor – into countless ever-changing, elegantly-curved mounds.

Where the Shyok swings south we climbed high above the
riverbed
and the surface again became hideously treacherous. Rachel cheerfully remarked, ‘If Hallam slipped over the edge here we’d both be drowned. Would you try to rescue me or would that be a waste of time?’ The other day’s terrifying experience has not spoiled her nerve for these perilous paths, as I greatly feared it would. Perhaps when I treated her so unsympathetically afterwards I did the right thing for the wrong reason.

Around the shoulder of this mountain we were sheltered from the gale and looking up the Khapalu Valley, which is some ten miles long, a mile wide and 8,500 feet above sea-level. At its head stands an overwhelming array of dazzling, sword-sharp peaks and this
afternoon
the valley floor was a flawless sheet of white, broken only by the several channels into which the Shyok divides during winter. Towards sunset the high cliffs on the far side of the valley were reflected in the Shyok and it became like a roll of shot-silk flung across the snow, its swift rippling surface dark gold with strange glints of carmine.

By that time we were down to river level, amongst Bara’s poplars, willows and fruit-trees. Most of the houses are high above the track though one large group of dwellings stands beside it; many Balti settlements should really be described as scatterings of hamlets, rather than villages. Only one man was visible, driving two black dzo across the whiteness from the river, and when I called out to ask if there was a ‘
chota
hotel’ he came hurrying towards us. He was elderly and bare-footed, wearing a tattered
shalwar-kameez
under a
once-fashionable
scarlet lady’s coat. His big grin revealed crooked, broken teeth. In response to my question he indicated a small building standing on its own amidst apple-trees and I at first mistook this for a Rest House. Red-coat delightedly appropriated us, leading Hallam into the orchard, tethering him to a tree and helping me to unload. When he pointed to a half-open door I entered the building and recognised an abandoned school, put up before the keen young Pakistani government had learned that school-buildings solve nobody’s educational problems. If the doors and windows were ever glazed all the glass has long since been removed and the roof leaks so badly that one-third of the earth floor is at present under water. The Urdu alphabet is still faintly legible on a wall-blackboard – the only item of furniture.

‘I don’t think this is a very suitable floor to sleep on,’ said Rachel, who has never before been known to complain of sleeping
accommodation
. I could not but agree, so I hinted to Red-coat that a charpoy would be acceptable. He nodded vigorously and hurried off into the dusk, taking Hallam with him to a stable.

Our arrival had transformed the deserted village into a seething mass of men and boys; it seemed incredible that so many people could erupt from so few houses. As they milled around the little schoolhouse, jockeying for the best vantage points, they created such an excited hubbub that Rachel and I had to converse in shouts. The deep snow on the pass had got into my boots so I quickly unpacked the stove, bared my agonisingly cold feet and sat on the food-sack to thaw my toes and dry my saturated socks. Meanwhile Rachel was crouching in a corner beside a candle as completely absorbed in
William the Fourth
as though she were sitting by the
fire in her own home. The adaptability of the very young never ceases to astonish me. Often these days I have occasion to bless her abnormally small appetite. After riding eighteen rough miles through crisp mountain air most children would not unreasonably demand food, but she looks first for printed matter.

My toes had just thawed when a hush fell on the mob outside. Then a tall, very thin old man appeared in the doorway, wrapped in a ragged blanket and holding up a lantern which showed him to be toothless, with deep-set, beady, kindly eyes and an unmistakable air of authority. He said that a windowless, leaking schoolroom was no fit place for Bara’s guests to be entertained and directed a bevy of lads to carry our half-unpacked belongings to his home. As we followed him through the orchard the whole juvenile population cheered and sang and wolf-whistled deafeningly. Never anywhere else have I caused such good-humoured turmoil.

In pitch darkness we stumbled through a labyrinth of narrow passages between dwellings, crossed a short footbridge of unsteady tree-trunks over a frozen nullah, and groped our way through still narrower passages, uneven with humps of old snow and full of the warm smells and sounds of livestock. Then I bent my head to pass through a low doorway into a stable where our unfamiliar scent made invisible dzo snort nervously. A wobbly ladder led to the roof of the stable, off which two doors opened into the kitchen and living-room. We are now installed in the latter apartment, which is about ten feet by twelve and unfurnished except for a high wooden cupboard along one wall. All evening I felt
too
hot, as the pampered stove was augmented by dozens of men, women and children crowding in to see us. The small unglazed window is sealed with sheets of a Japanese newspaper and one wall is decorated with advertisements from
Time
and
The Observer
colour supplement. How cosmopolitan can you get … A few strips of filthy matting on the mud floor add to the warmth and the stone walls are over three feet thick; even now (11.45 p.m.) the air remains warm though the stove has been out for a couple of hours.

Rachel was soon asleep on the floor, after a supper of two
hard-boiled
eggs, and an hour later I was given four small chapattis and
an enamel soup-plate of very hot curry gravy. Our host, the
Headman
of Bara, is a charming old gentleman whose thoughtfulness and graciousness could serve as an example to many more fortunate men. This family’s poverty is extreme. A nine-year-old grandson with a hacking cough wears only a frayed blue cotton shirt, of European provenance, which reaches almost to his ankles, and everybody seems in some way diseased.

Soon after 8.30 our host withdrew, followed by the rest of the family, who first took from the cupboard bedraggled quilts, and bits of goat-skin sewn together, and shreds of blankets. Obviously this room has been sacrificed to us and I only hope the family is warm and comfortable in the kitchen.

As I write I have a major problem on hand – or rather, in bladder. A natural consequence of having drunk several plastic cupfuls (made in China) of salt tea … The snag is that our host has carefully locked us in, obviously imagining that this would make me feel more happy and secure. (Our door cannot be locked from inside.) So there is nothing for it but to unpack our
dechi
, making a mental note to sterilise it before cooking the next meal. Although now I come to think of it, we are none the worse for having drunk some urine one dark morning in Skardu (I had thought I was adding water to our tea).

We were awakened by our Bara host removing a small section of the
Tokyo Times
from the window, to admit a pale glimmer of dawn greyness and a draught of icy air. His daughter-in-law, with a four-month-old
bungo
on her back, brought a tin of glowing embers from the kitchen fire and got our stove going after much persistent blowing, which sent clouds of acrid smoke into the eyes of both mother and baby. Once the sun was up a surprising amount of light – reflected off the snowy slope behind the house – came through that little gap in the
Tokyo Times
. Our bed-tea was sweet and black – none of the family indulged in this luxury – and breakfast was served after a very long interval. It consisted of salt tea, two chapattis and a minute omelette for which our host
apologised, explaining sadly that the women could find only one small egg.

Meanwhile we had been inspected by numerous locals, including a group of twenty-four young women. These came laughing into the room
en masse
and sat packed on the floor with expectant expressions as though they believed we would at any moment start performing strange rites. One unfortunate girl had a large goitre, a badly pock-marked face and a blind eye – this last a rather dreadful sight, though we should be used to it by now as the loss of one or both eyes is such a common Balti affliction. However, most of our visitors were healthy and happy-looking, with rosy cheeks and handsome features. The quality of their silver, turquoise and coral headdresses indicated that these were the élite of Bara and their faces – though not their clothes or their habits – seemed cleaner than the average Balti’s. So many babies were having breakfast that the background noise reminded me of a litter of suckling piglets and Rachel greatly admired the stoicism of those mothers who were nursing hefty toddlers with mouths full of sharp teeth. After the departure of this contingent several little pools were to be seen on the floor so daughter-in-law scattered a few fistfuls of wood-ash as blotting paper.

Then Red-coat arrived and settled down in front of the stove to chat to our host. When another man offered him a cigarette he casually opened the stove, took out a red-hot ember with his bare fingers, leisurely lit his cigarette and dropped the ember back into the fire. ‘Is he a conjurer?’ asked Rachel breathlessly.

While we were breakfasting our host called his wife and asked her to find something. She selected a key from a bunch in her pocket, removed a little padlock from one section of the wall-cupboard and after much rummaging handed a wristwatch to her husband. He carefully handed it to me, plainly expecting me to be able to set it going by some Western magic, and the whole family watched tensely while I examined it. As the spring had gone I was unable to help; what baffled the disappointed owner was the fact that the hands could still be made to go round.

By 10.15 we were on our way, followed by scores of deliriously
cheering youngsters. After a very frosty night progress was slow, up and down the icy mountainsides, with Khapalu’s pale brown orchards and white terraced fields gradually coming into view on our right. This oasis is roughly fan-shaped and climbs 1,000 feet from river level to the base of a semicircular wall of glittering
snow-mountains
. Beyond it the Shyok does another U-turn, having been deflected by a gigantic outcrop of brown rock which rises 2,000 feet above the valley floor. A few miles north-east of this rock one can see the opening of the Hushe Valley, overlooked by a dramatic phalanx of slender, pointed, grey-white peaks. Masherbrum stands at the head of the Hushe Valley and we hope to get as far as Hushe village towards the end of the month, if the track is clear by then.