BACK TO INDIA
Thereafter, like the man in the sycamore tree, we made haste to come
down. Sixteen days later the column left Lhassa. A few functions
intervened, such as the formal release of our prisoners and the bestowal
of money in charity on the poor of Lhassa. I missed these functions,
having been sent on ahead to the Tsangpo, where preparations for the
return crossing were now afoot. The column at length arrived at the
river. We crossed this time at Parte, where a certain single channel of
moderate breadth, but very deep and therefore not very swift, served our
purposes far better than the double channel at Chaksam. The Sappers and
Miners and coolis had made all things ready, towing the two heavy ferry
boats up many miles of swift current, and rigging up the mysterious
engineering paraphernalia which were needed to swing us across, our
crossing hanging truly and literally by a thread--a thread of thin wire.
Wire, at once the lightest and strongest commodity of its kind, had
since our last crossing been sent up to us, in great quantities, and was
largely used to replace the now rotten rope that had previously been
chiefly employed. A great ferry boat, bearing twenty mules, to which was
attached a string of skin boats laden with stores, to which again were
attached a brace or so of mules swimming in the water, would be swung
across that still swift current, suspended from but one or two thin
wires.
The speed of the crossing exceeded all hopes. It was accomplished in
about forty-eight hours. From South Parte we marched, over a pass that
was new to us, straight into Pete-jong. At the top of that pass facing
southwards we found a wall, which had obviously been built by the
Tibetans in the belief that on our march upwards we would cross the
ridge by this route. It was a well-conceived fortification, and might
have given us considerable trouble.
From Parte Ferry to Gyantse we marched in two columns. Thinking the
crossing of the ferry might occupy several days, and in order to be
prepared for all emergencies such as any possible ebullitions of
hostility that might delay our march, we had laid in at the ferry and
the posts on the way to Gyantse a stock of supplies which now proved
larger than our needs, while our spare transport was only sufficient to
carry on a portion of the surplus.
I accompanied the second column and had the pleasant duty of making away
with this surplus. To one whose purse has always been slender, and whose
nature is correspondingly extravagant, there can be nothing more
agreeable than to dispose in a free-handed way of large amounts of
Government property. One enjoys all the delights of extravagance with
none of its bitter aftertaste. Of course, even from the strictly
economical view, it was far the best policy to make away with these
surpluses where they stood. The total value of the stores so made away
with, though amounting to a large sum, was far less than, for instance,
would have been the cost of retaining the force in the country until
they had consumed them.
The British troops were all with this column, but there were several
native units as well. One arrived at a post and found it full of many
good things that could not be carried on. Restrained only by fear of
filling the troops to a tension beyond what the medical officers thought
desirable, one accosted commanding officers, and asked with one's best
shop-walker's manner what they would like to-day. A few hundredweight of
jam and pickles would be doled out for the asking, or, in the case of
native troops, similar quantities of tea and ghi and goor. The coolis
were my best customers. The amount of tea and goor they took away and
consumed with benefit to themselves was surprising. They worked all the
better for it and marched into Gyantse carrying record loads.
The stores still left over at each place were solemnly presented to the
local peasants who came up, and, regarding the affair as a huge joke,
went away laden with bundles selected at random from, as it were, a huge
bran-pie. Rum was withheld from them, but I should have liked to see the
effect of their consumption of some of the things they got, as, for
instance, of an unsuspecting draught of neat lime-juice, or a mouthful
of chillies.
So on we marched over that stiff pass into Pete-jong, along Lake Palti
shining in this clear-set wintry weather with its true turquoise
colours, past Nagartse and up through the barren gorge that leads to the
summit of the Karo-La, down the Karo-La regretfully, doubting whether
we should ever reach such heights again, into the Ralung plain, and down
the long glen to Gyantse.
Our appearance in those days was not spick and span. We were very much
out at elbows, the breeches of both soldiers and followers were
frequently patched with odd bits of Tibetan woollen cloth, or even in
some cases with bits of the gunny of gunny bags. I have known the red
cloth of the typical lama's robe adapted to these purposes. With wear it
turns into a cherry colour. My own orderly, who was fitted out with a
complete pair of continuations of this cloth, looked in the distance
like a trooper of the 11th Hussars (the overalls of that regiment being
famous for that colour).
More curious still were the additions to the wardrobe in the shape of
blankets and sentries' cloaks, which we brought from Lhassa, the woollen
goods of that town being warm and serviceable, but rather outlandish.
The sentries' cloaks were merely oblong pieces of cloth with a hole in
the centre, through which the sentry put his head, and of all sorts of
colours--quite enough in themselves to frighten the nocturnal miscreant.
But most curious sight of all, if one could have looked on from the
outside, would have been the collection of dogs which we brought with
us. The dog that Tommy had left at home was of course the familiar type
of square-jowled sturdy monster, who, by a process of natural selection
and survival of the fittest, has been evolved out of many types, and now
rules supreme in cantonment barracks. His master at Lhassa had consoled
himself with another sort, and it was a touching sight to see great
bearded men sometimes leading, but as often as not carrying, on the
march dainty little lap-dogs, of kinds that resembled the Pomeranian,
the Skye terrier, or the King Charles' spaniel. One or two Tibetan
mastiffs--more like huge Welsh collies than mastiffs--also accompanied
us.
At Gyantse we were halted for a few days, upon one of which the G.O.C.
held his farewell parade, making us a sympathetic speech which will be
remembered by all of us. Then we marched past. My lot was to command a
squad of veterans whose duties for years had been confined to the supply
of the army. We got along somehow, more by innate intelligence than
knowledge of drill, going through various giddy evolutions in no
particular formation and by the shortest cut, and arriving at the
saluting base aided only by the bump of locality. There of course we
braced ourselves and marched past, and turned our eyes sharply to the
right as though we had never left the barrack square.
From Gyantse onwards I was in the first column, and thus missed certain
hardships. It was nice bracing weather. We had cool fine days, at night
twenty degrees of frost and often biting cold winds that took the skin
off the nose and chapped the lips and the lobes of the ear, but were on
the whole salubrious. The same weather was with us all the way, up
through Kangma and the Red Idol gorge to Kalatso, past Dochen and into
the Tuna plain, over the Tang-La, into Phari and down through the Gautsa
glens, where the pine-forests smelt of Indian hill stations, and into
Chumbi. As we reached Chumbi the clouds were gathering.
That night, with the outer fly of my tent taken out of store and erected
over me, I went to bed secure in its extra protection, thinking casually
that it might perhaps rain in the night. In the early morning I was
woken with a crash, and felt a great weight squeezing my whole body, but
leaving my head clear. Striking a light I found the upright tent pole
near my feet broken in two. Looking through a corner of the tent I saw
the ground all covered with snow, and realised that the weight on my
body was the snow that had accumulated on the tent, broken the tent
pole, and fallen upon me. It was six o'clock. My orderly and syce came
to my rescue. They lifted the snow off me and took away my tent pole to
a carpenter to get it mended, while in what space was still left within
the tent I found I could still breathe, and so slept peacefully till in
an hour my tent pole was brought back mended and the tent reconstructed,
and I could get up in comfort.
I had had a very mild experience. Grief of a worse kind had been
widespread through the night, many officers and men losing their only
shelter irretrievably at two or three in the morning. The second column
came in that afternoon rather worn and battered, and the third
column--for from Gyantse we had become three--was snowed up for two
nights at Phari after a terrible march over the Tang-La from Tuna. Their
eventual march into Chumbi was also a severe ordeal. At Chumbi it
remained to await one's day of release. The snow delayed the passage of
the troops hardly at all. Leaving Chumbi in small detachments and using
both the Jalap-La and Natu-La routes, they gradually disappeared. At
length my own turn came. Leaving Chumbi one fine morning, and finding
myself again a passenger, I hastened by double marches to India across
the Natu-La down to Gangtok, through Sikkim, and into Siliguri. Strange
it was to think, as, after that last hot double march from Riang, one
sat under the punkah in Siliguri refreshment room, drinking tumbler
after tumbler of iced ginger-beer, that three days before one had pulled
icicles from one's beard on the top of the Natu-La.
Pleasant to get into the Darjiling mail that night and speed to
Calcutta; pleasant to feel oneself wrapped in the civilisation of the
Indian metropolis; pleasanter still to take train at Howrah, and be
carried up country to the crisp cool autumn of the Panjab and to one's
own fireside.
So the show was over--all over but for its memories, which for my own
part were mainly agreeable. As he lays those memories aside, the
selfish soldier's wish can hardly be other than that on some convenient
date in spring time not too many years distant, ere the person is too
stout and the legs too stiff to relish those high passes, some truculent
grand lama may necessitate and a kind Government organise another summer
trip to Lhassa.
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Transcriber's Note:
The following modifications have been made to the text.
Page 9: gods replaced with goods.
Dismantling a furnished house, packing and warehousing your
household gods, paying your outstanding bills,
Page 24: Missing period inserted after No.
'What-ho, Bill!' said Atkins No 1.
Page 67: Period after FORAGING replaced with colon.
AT GYANTSE: FIGHTING: FORAGING. TIBETAN RELIGIOUS ART
Page 106: Missin period inserted after common.
soon grew quite common At every point
Page 112: PETI-JONG replaced with PETE-JONG.
LAKE PALTI: DRAWING BLANK: PETI-JONG
Page 152: Missing period inserted after troops.
when baking bread for British troops The result, though not
unwholesome,
Last Advertisements Page: Period after ELDER replaced with comma.
London: SMITH, ELDER, & CO., 15 Waterloo Place, S.W.