The Road to Samarcand Page 4

  Yet a few hours later, when their dinner was done and they were all sitting in long cane chairs on the verandah, he was talking away to Professor Ayrton as if he had known him all his life. His cousin turned out to be a tall, thin, frail-looking man, far older than Sullivan and Ross, with a face the colour of yellowed parchment and a somewhat Chinese cast of countenance that was accentuated by the large, horn-rimmed spectacles that he wore. If he had been dressed in a robe rather than a very old tweed jacket and a pair of disreputable flannel trousers he might have passed for a north-Chinese scholar. He had a thoroughly benign face that entirely matched his kind way of speaking: he was as unlike a tiger-shark as could be imagined, and he completely won Derrick’s friendship by welcoming Chang, who appeared ten minutes after their arrival, still dripping wet and trailing his broken leash. Chang did not behave as well as Derrick could have wished: the porter tried to keep him out, but was utterly routed; as Chang blundered at full speed down the long verandah he bowled over one waiter and two low tables, and when he reached them it was instantly apparent that he had been swimming in the horribly malodorous waters of the harbour.

  “Never mind, never mind,” cried Professor Ayrton, as Derrick tried to induce Chang to go quietly away. “Let him stay. I should like him to stay very much. He looks a most interesting creature.” He put out his long, thin hand to pat Chang’s head, and with a thrill of horror Derrick thought that Chang would have it off: hitherto no one had touched Chang without bloodshed, except Derrick. But Chang only looked amazed, then rather pleased, and finally he put a large and muddy paw on the Professor’s knee. “You’re a fine fellow,” said Professor Ayrton, addressing the dog and pulling his ears. “You are a—what is the term? A bum pooch. I am sure you are a very swollen guy, and we shall be great budlets.” He turned to Derrick. “I have been learning some Americanisms,” he said, “to make you feel at home.”

  Derrick burst into a wild laugh that he tried to disguise as a cough. “Uncle Terry has been laying for me with a rope’s end if I said so much as okay,” he said, wiping his eyes when he could speak again. “Gee, sir, I certainly never thought I should hear you call Chang a swell guy.”

  “Swollen, my dear boy. Swollen, or perhaps swelled. In the adjectival use we must employ the past participle, must we not?”

  “Yet it seems to me that I have heard the expression swell guy,” observed Ross.

  “Have you indeed? Perhaps it was some local variant—an elision of the terminal -ed? But I am persuaded that the general usage is swollen. I cannot cite the text of my authority at the moment, but I flatter myself that on this question I am an unusually hep cat. There were several American novels in the boat, and on the way over I perused them diligently: there was an American, a most respectable scholar from Harvard, who assured me that I had a greater command of these idioms than he had himself—indeed, that he had never even heard of some of them. It is a fascinating spectacle, don’t you think, Captain Sullivan, this development of a new language? I am no enemy to neologisms, and although I am no philologist it gives me a feeling of intense excitement to see an old language renewed and enriched by countless striking and even poetic expressions. There was an elderly gentlewoman on the boat, from some provincial town in the States—I believe it was Chicago—who referred to the Atlantic, which she had recently traversed, as ‘the herring-pond.’ I was so moved by the noble simplicity of her remark that I noted it down in my diary that evening.”

  “Well, Professor, I must say that it had never struck me quite that way. But you wouldn’t have him chewing gum and addressing you as ‘Hi, Prof,’ surely?”

  “Were the young man to address me as Prof, he would speedily learn the difference between liberty and licence,” said Professor Ayrton. “But as for chewing-gum, for my part I find it a great help to meditation—I almost said to rumination—and an excellent substitute for nicotine. Allow me to offer you a piece.”

  The Professor was a very agreeable relative to find after such dismal forebodings, and Derrick liked him very much; but he was adamant on the need for school. He thoroughly sympathized with Derrick’s longing to go to sea, and he entirely approved of the Wanderer, which he visited for dinner the next day—a dinner that an emperor might have admired, so hard had Li Han and three imported cook-boys laboured in the galley—but although he said nothing definite for quite a long time, Derrick felt sure that he had made up his mind. The Professor was closeted with Ross and Sullivan for days on end, and Derrick began to hope against hope that these long, unusual absences might mean that his uncle was putting up a lively opposition.

  But in the end Derrick was summoned to the presence, and Professor Ayrton addressed him in these words: “My boy, we have been discussing your future, and your uncle, Mr. Ross and I have all come to the same conclusion. We are all agreed that school is necessary.” Sullivan nodded, and the Professor continued, “We feel that although for training in seamanship the Wanderer could hardly be improved upon, yet nevertheless you should not be loosed upon the world without a firm grounding of more general instruction. You may not suppose that a helmsman would steer any the better for being able to decline gubernator, but you are young, and absurd as it may seem to you now, you will find in time that such is the case.”

  Derrick did his best to smile, for he knew that the Professor meant this as a joke to take away the sting of his decision.

  “You will always be able to come back to the Wanderer when it is all over,” said Sullivan.

  “Aye,” said Ross, in a comforting tone, “you’ll come back with a dozen new-fangled modern ways of sinking a ship, and we’ll have them out of you with a rope’s end in a week.”

  “Furthermore,” said the Professor, “I intend, with your uncle’s consent, to gild the pill of education by a suggestion that may be new to you. How would you like to go to the school by way of Samarcand?”

  CHAPTER THREE

  “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 dis
pense 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. . . .”