‘What do you call that fire-maker?’ asked the patriarch.
‘The Russians give it the name chakhalo-bakhalo in some places,’ I told him.
The sound tickled him. He repeated it twice. I puffed happily at my cigarette, the Mongol leader at his cigar. As the glowing end crept towards the middle he moved the knotted reed band along ahead of it. We finished our smokes standing in the group there beside the road. It was time to break up.
Our host thrust his right hand down to the level of his left hip, withdrew it and bent his ear down to the object he was holding. I craned forward. He was holding a watch, a big silver watch, attached by a short length of heavy silver chain to his belt. He was immediately aware of our interest. We all crowded round and he allowed me to hold it and examine it. It was an old key-winder, made in Russia, and might have been fifty years old. Certainly it was a pre-Revolution product. In flowing Russian script on the watch face was the name of its maker and by some odd quirk of memory the name has always remained with me. It was Pavel Bure — some Czarist craftsman probably long dead.
‘When the Russians were fighting each other,’ the old gentleman explained, ‘some of them ran away to my country many years ago.’ It explained not only the possession of the watch — a gift, a payment for services or an article of exchange — but also his ability to speak Russian.
We parted with many expressions of felicitation for our respective journeys and many kind wishes for the continuing health of our feet. It was perhaps our most interesting encounter in Mongolia but we were to find that all these people, whatever their station in life, had those typical qualities of courtesy, complete trust, generosity and hospitality. The help we received was according to the means of the giver, but that help was always cheerfully given. Another delightful quality was their naive and frank curiosity. Unfortunately, the language barrier ruled out conversation with the people we subsequently met, although we became adept at putting over simple ideas by gesture, talking the while in our own languages because it was easier and less embarrassing than employing only silent mime.
When the caravan had disappeared from view we whipped out the Red Star. There was little news in it, but we read every line because it was the first newspaper we had seen since those sheets, six months and more old, which were issued back in the camp for cigarette making. It did not tell us what we were most anxious to discover, the eventuality confidently forecast from the beginning by every prisoner I ever met in Russian hands — whether Russia and Germany were at war. There were some dull internal political items, the aftermath of May Day celebrations and the usual promises by industry and agriculture to exceed their production targets. One odd paragraph, which seemed to dispose of the idea of an immediate clash between the two great Continental powers, recorded the dispatch of a big consignment of wheat to the Germans.
Having read the paper we tore it up and shared it out, using each piece to wrap the apportioned tobacco cut in chunks with the knife. We travelled on over undulating country until we met a stream about seven o’clock in the evening, where we camped, set a fire going against the night cold, ate a meal and enjoyed luxury, smoking and yarning together.
By the end of our first fortnight in Mongolia our methods of advance had been modified from those employed in Siberia. No longer was it necessary to post night sentries. The urge to keep on the move persisted; it had become a habit of our existence. But we were not now bedevilled by fears of imminent recapture, we could make contact with the people of the country, we could ask for food or work for food. We did long day marches from the cool hour before dawn until the late evening setting of the sun, but we had adopted the hot country custom of resting in shelter for the two hours of fiercest heat at midday.
The country ahead presented a prospect of a series of round-topped low hills which we skirted when we could and surmounted when we had to. Some of the hills were clothed in heather, which always grew more profusely on the northern slopes. There were few trees except near the villages and the waterways but hardier bushy vegetation — among which I recognized a type of berberis with juicy, oval red fruit, and the wild rose — was fairly widespread. The population was sparse and the villages, sited near water, were widely separated. A very small part of the vast land through which we travelled was cultivated.
Our first thought on reaching the crest of a hill was always to look for the next river. This Outer Mongolian journey was in essence a succession of forced marches through great heat from water to water. Streams and rivers meant solace for the feet, water to slake thirst, water to bathe in. The navigable waterways, too, brought us food on a few occasions, and the incidents, not unnaturally, remain in my mind.
The first time we struck lucky was when we came across a laden sampan held fast on a mudbank. The boatman jabbed first one side and then the other with his bamboo pole, but though he heaved and grunted the craft only swung a little across the current and remained fixed. Kolemenos said ‘Let’s give him a hand,’ so we waded out to the boat ten yards or so from the bank. Kristina watched from the grass as the Chinese handed us a spare bamboo. We rammed the pole under the bows and started levering, while the boatman thrust away above us with his own pole. After a few minutes of pleasantly hard work we got her off. The Chinese was delighted. His cargo was melons, nearly the size of footballs. As the sampan glided off he bombarded us with the fruit.
Between us and the bank on which Kristina waited as we splashed happily ashore was a belt of a few yards of thick mud marking the limit of the river in the rainy season. The top was patterned with deep cracks where the sun had formed a drying crust, but underneath was squelching grey-brown mud which came up to the calf. Zaro had just thrown Kristina a melon and was standing laughing in the mud when he suddenly let out a yell. We called out to ask him what was the matter, but before he answered I felt a wriggling movement under my own feet. I bent down and groped. Twice the thing eluded me after I thought I had a good grip and then I found the head and gills and hoisted it, lashing violently about my hand and wrist, into the sunlight. It was nearly a foot long, round and thick-bodied, superficially like an eel. I recognized it as a species of loach which the Russians call viyuni.
‘Can you eat it?’ the American asked. ‘Yes,’ I said.
That started a hilarious half-hour of mudlarking, at the end of which we were ready for a distinctly unusual evening meal. Like eels, they were tenacious of life and we had to cut off the heads before we could prepare them for cooking. We washed the slime off in the river and found them to be a velvety jet black. We roasted them on hot stones and while I cannot remember exactly their taste, I do remember that it could not be mistaken either for fish or eel. The word we used at the time to describe the taste was ‘sweet’. The flesh was hard-packed and filling.
The rare meal was rounded off with succulent melon slices. Marchinkovas had the brainwave of taking two hollowed-out halves of melon to use as gourds for drinking. The idea was good but in practice did not work out. As the skin dried it cracked. He threw the two halves away next day.
15. Life Among the Friendly Mongols
MAINTAINING A schedule of around twenty miles a day hard slogging for days on end made us welcome an occasional break. These days when we eased off were never wasted. One reason for stopping a few hours was to repair and remake worn-out moccasins and tend cut and swollen feet. The other reason was the necessity of earning our food — we could not always expect to be handed food out of charity.