Growing wild at the foot of the ridge against which the place nestled were clumps of blossoming azalea which attracted a variety of gaudy-hued butterflies. A couple of specimens among them were the largest and most beautiful butterflies I have ever seen and we stopped to look at them. Zaro made a half-hearted attempt to catch one, but little Kristina begged him not to. We made our camp in the shade of half-a-dozen small trees which from a few hundred yards away had looked like young oaks but which were, I think, camphor trees.
Thereafter vegetation became scarcer until only heather clung to the hillsides. We were heading into the desert, the extent and character of which we did not know. Had we been fully fore-warned of its formidable terrors, we might have made more prudent preparations. The word Gobi was just a word to us. We hardly discussed it. The sun rose on our left hand in the morning and we kept moving restlessly on until it sank on our right.
The last human activity I remember featured two Chinese fishermen between the willow-shaded banks of a river the water of which ran cool and clear over a pebbly bed. We had reached the river at midday, appropriately enough, and first saw the fishermen an hour or so after our arrival. One walked on our side, the other near the far bank, sometimes up to their waists in the stream, at other times barely managing to keep their chins above water. Each carried a long bamboo stave in one hand while the other hand was occupied in hauling on two ropes slung over the shoulders. They went forward with the current. The performance was new to all of us, so we stepped into the shallows for a close look as they drew up to us.
The pair had a net stretched out between them across the river. It consisted of two wings each about twenty yards long joined in the middle to a trap, wide-mouthed and roughly five feet square tapering almost to a point as it trailed out behind. The whole length of net and bag was buoyed along the top by oval floats of light wood. The device did not give the fish population much chance of survival. The Chinese vigorously beat at the water with their sticks, driving the fish out of the vegetation along the banks, and the only ones to escape were those which leapt over the top of the net. We were lucky that they chose to stop at the point where we stood. The fisherman on the far side crossed over to his partner, using his length of net to close the mouth of the bag. As they came together in the shallows I saw that the bottom of the net was weighted at intervals with stones and the tapering end of the bag was held down with a smooth rock. The ropes the men were holding were attached to top and bottom of the net and rove through the complete length.
One man now took over all four rope ends while the other waded out to take hold of a big floating cigar of a thing made of lengths of bamboo which had been twisting and turning lazily downstream well behind the net. This, we discovered, was the mobile storage tank for the catch. It had a square flap tied in position over the broadest part. Through the hole went the pick of the catch.
We made signs to indicate we would like to help. The Chinese seemed to be willing. Caught in the meshes of the net were dozens of small fish. One of the fishermen took hold of one and pulled it through by the head. He threw it wriggling on to the bank. He looked at us and pointed to the net. We followed his example, clearing the net of fish, bits of wood, grass and leaves.
The Chinese hauled the net bag with its shining, wriggling harvest of fish, just clear of the water. Skilfully and rapidly they removed the bigger ones one by one and slipped them into the floating bamboo chamber. When they had finished there were two stone of fine, medium and small fish left which they indicated we could have. Normally, I hope, these would have gone back to re-stock the stream. Some escaped through our unpractised fingers, but most were landed flopping and gasping on the grass above the water line. The Chinese ran their net out again and went on to fish the next stretch.
Here was more food than we could eat in many days, so we decided to eat what we needed there and then and dry the rest in the sun on flat stones to take with us. While Kolemenos chopped the heads off, holding his axe near the blade, I gutted them and the others, in turn, took them to the water to wash them. Kristina and Zaro got a fire going and a thin flat stone was cleaned to act as a hotplate. Soon there was the savoury smell of grilling fresh fish. There were about five varieties in the catch, among which I recognized perch by its characteristic spiny back.
Fish drying was a novel occupation for us, but we had often seen the finished product and now tried to achieve the same result. The gutted fish was opened flat and the spine removed. Then in relays we partially smoked and dried them round the fire. It took several hours and it was agreed we must stay the night and complete the job. Throughout the next morning the fish were laid out under the heat of the sun while we flapped with our fufaikas to keep the flies away. When we judged the process complete, we shared them out and stowed them away in our bags. Later we had reason to bless the success of the operation. We were to carry the last of this food into the Gobi Desert with us.
Not so pleasant was the experience of a day or two later. The time was afternoon when the hot sun in a vast blue sky was beginning its long decline to the west. Marchinkovas pointed out a couple of miles ahead a great brown moving cloud and asked what it could be. Not one of us could enlighten him. There was no doubt it was moving and I thought it might be a dust storm, except that the air was barely agitated by the lightest of breezes. This thing was covering ground rapidly, getting larger and larger as we looked.
‘It’s a locust swarm,’ Mister Smith called out suddenly. ‘It’s no good walking into it. We’d better stop here.’
We sat down on the hard-baked earth, slipping our jackets on and covering our heads with our food sacks. The glare of the sun was blotted out as the locust myriads reached us. We turned our backs to them and huddled down. The sound as they struck our clothes was audible. They were all over us, around us and above us. The air was alive with the throbbing hum of their beating wings.
‘Thank God they can’t eat us,’ said Zaro.
‘I wouldn’t be too sure about that,’ answered the American. ‘They’ll eat almost anything.’
Kristina turned a worried-looking face to him. ‘I am only joking, child,’ he reassured her.
It took at least two hours for the swarm to pass over us. The sun shone through again and the casualties of the great migration littered the ground about us. Some were moving, others appeared to be dead. We shook them in dozens from our clothes. They had found their way into our pockets, up our sleeves, inside our trouser legs. One consolation was that they had not got into our food sacks with their precious small store of dried fish.
To relate time and distance has been the greatest of my difficulties in recording the story of this bid for freedom. Particularly is this so concerning the passage through Mongolia, where we had no common speech with the inhabitants and where, even if we were given the names of rivers, villages or other landmarks, there was no means of setting the sounds down to help the memory in later years. But I believe our progress through inhabited Outer Mongolia to the wastes of Inner Mongolia occupied us from six to eight weeks.