peace after toil, port after stormy seas, I wondered aloud what would happen about the telegram we were to have called for.

cat

"Take your things into the after-cabin, my poor Don," I suggested.

My hot drinks were soon going, for the foc's 'le and ourselves-only the Don was late, as usual.

"I'll go and see which of his garments he's lost," said Jack, "and he can cover any deficiencies with his bathtowel."

It was soon obvious why the Don had found dressing difficult. After I had changed, Jack had hauled up the boards in the after-cabin to get some extra chain that was stowed there, and had not had time to replace them. The Don, poor dear, never thought of doing so, but had accepted the state of my cabin with unquestioning resignation, and had tried to dress striding over the cavernous hole like a miniature Colossus! Poor dear! He drops enough things about, even when there is a floor to catch them; but with a deep damp bilge between his feet, the wonder is he ever got clothed at all.

"The inhabitants of that lonely house will be more intrigued than ever," I said. Sandy grinned.

66

'They will," he said, positively smacking his lips. "For I made it sound as mysterious as I could, just to make it more interesting for them, and the nice old girl I arranged it with positively blinked with excitement when I said we would send a man for the answer; 'but not till after dark!

"How could you be such an idiot, Sandy?" I exclaimed.

"Well, it would have been after dark before we sent, you know. And I do think it was only decent to give them something for their trouble, and I couldn't tip her, you know. It will keep them happy for days."

I have often wondered how long the good ladies kept that telegram, and whether they then opened it, or communicated with the police. What a horrid anticlimax to one's first real detective adventure to find the "probable weather for some specified days long past!

Though we never got the telegram, we certainly got the

1924.]

21

WALTAIR I remember as a red country; the laterite rock glowed like blood, or fire, in the sun. Chumbi was white, and my translation from one to the other was sudden and magical. At Waltair the air in the veranda by the sea was warm and still; the air of the Chumbi Valley was far from warm, and anything but still. A gale blew, and the thermometer had fallen several degrees below zero. Yet though I arrived comfortably tired and insufficiently protected from the cold, I found the climate exhilarating. These transformations are in themselves warming. Besides, the tidal blood of youth is responsive to the moonshine of romance.

I had only one full day and a part of another to collect my kit in Calcutta. U., whom I was racing, left Sealdah in the same train with me. I had the same unfair advantage over him as I had over the greenticket man. I knew him, but he did not know me. His valise and yak-dans were indiscreetly labelled. "The Tibet Mission, via Siliguri," invited confidence, which, I am afraid, I basely betrayed; and worse, in return for my betrayal my magnanimous friend heaped coals of fire on my head. I looked at his yak-dans on the

I

rack, and asked him if he was going to Lhasa. He smiled dubiously. It might come to that, he said, if the Tibetan diplomatists were stiff-necked enough. And it seemed most unlikely that the spooks and oracles they consulted would instil any reason into them. Being young and deficient in sympathetic imagination, prayed for their continued unenlightenment. I hoped their gods would not remove these poor devils' blinkers. Thus we might get to Lhasa, pushing them backwards step by step as they fought us with their black magic, mediaval weapons, and blank fire of incantations. Youth set on adventure is as cruel as an animal. I hoped there would be war.

I felt in an expansive and communicative mood. My companion and I were kindred spirits, and we were drawn to one another. I wanted to tell him that I was going to Tibet too, but that would have removed the hope, which was becoming more and more shadowy, of getting there first. The important thing was to discover if he had got his pass.

pose it is easy enough to get leave if you know any one on the staff." He smiled at my ingenuous optimism, as if I were a camel whose objective was the eye of a needle. Half the Indian army were trying to get on the show, he explained. They were cutting down the staff personnel most stringently. It wasn't going to be a picnic. And where was the transport coming from? There were no roads for wheels, and a baggage animal eats up the load on its back in nine days. Only three correspondents were to be attached to the Mission. I learnt that the weightiest of them was already in Sikkim, staying at the Residency at Gantok, and studying the military and political situation from the best authorities. He was not likely to move just yet, but when he did get started there would be nothing more to be said. He was an extraordinarily erudite and picturesque writer; he could be exhaustive without being exhausting, and he had a knack of using all the best words. And there was another correspondent a dark horse. Here he mentioned my name and 'The Megaphone.' But this other fellow had not started. He patted the breast pocket of his khaki jacket which contained his pass.

the road. The mail we were travelling by carried tomorrow's post, so that would be no good. I should have to wait for it until four o'clock on the afternoon of the following day. It was difficult to conceal my depression.

I

A correspondent's life is a hard one. My first sacrifice was my breakfast. Early in the morning we reached Siliguri, the terminus of the broadgauge line, and now the base camp for the Tibet Expedition. Here we descended. had half an hour to wait for the little mountain train to Darjeeling, and while U. breakfasted, I made myself unpopular by disturbing the repose of the Base Commandant. The hectic things he had to say about the state of the transport on the road from Siliguri heartened me a great deal. U., who I knew was counting on the S. & T. for a mount, would be lucky if he raised a skinny, sore-backed, spavined bazaar tat. This discounted his thirty-six hours start. I wired to Jones at Darjeeling-it was like old times-to lay me out a dak, so that when I did get going I should find a fresh horse between the fiftieth and sixtieth mile-from the base at Siliguri, that is to say. It was here that I should have to show my pass. But, horrible thought! U. would pass the horse on the road before I started. What if he pinched it, or sent the sais back! Nothing would be easier. The sais would hold out a

Was I not familiar with the ruses and stratagems of war correspondents ? Had I not devoured their histories at X. Now I was one of the gang myself, but not half Machiavellian or unscrupulous enough. U. was probably a desperate fellow. I ought to have drugged him in the train. And I ought to have wired to Jones under a feigned name. A horse for Tau at the fifty-fifth mile! That would give the whole show away, if nothing worse came of it. Now what would Tau do in U.'s place if he encountered that ticketed providential horse ? I began to feel that I should never be a credit to 'The Daily Megaphone.' However, I still had a dog's chance. Jones had a good stable. And I pictured U. flogging his wretched sorebacked tat along; he would be lucky if he squeezed four miles an hour out of it.

The mail was late, of course, on my second afternoon in Darjeeling. I waited at the post-office for the registered packet. At five I retrieved it, and started for Tibet on a strong sure-footed Bhutia pony that could trot downhill. We had 8000 feet of downhill before we joined the line of communications at the Teesta Bridge. It was a bright, frosty, moonlight night snow on the branches, and ice on the road. But we were soon out of the frost. The road, and the forest smells, and the dripping lichen

familiar. I slept a few hours at the bungalow of a planter, an old friend, but started again before it was light, and found my second horse waiting me in the Teesta Valley. After fifteen miles on the flat, luck threw me in the path of another old crony, a forest officer. He gave me breakfast and lent me his Beluchi mare, a fleet beast, which had carried me many times before. And so to Rungpo, where I found my third and last mount, and halted for lunch. I learnt that U. had slept there, and left in the morning after breakfast. He had now only five hours' start of me, but he knew I was behind. As I had feared, the sais of my third horse had been trying to find some one who would answer to the name of Tau. But U. was too honest. I smile now when I think of my kind and scrupulous friend, and my base suspicions of him. War correspondents are not all thugs. In fact I have never met that resourceful daredevil bandit of my dreams, the composite of Macheath and Machiavelli.

At Rungli, the next stage, I had gained three hours on U. He had rested by the way. He and his mount, I gathered, were extremely exhausted. He had managed to raise a horse of kinds at Siliguri, a chestnut waler of of about 15 hands. "They both look tucked up," the S. & T. man at Rungli told me. "I have lent him my tent at Lingtam for the

night. You will find him there. Twelve miles up the road." I did not believe the transport officer, though doubtless he spoke in good faith. The road would be thick with U.'s confederates, conscious or otherwise. He would naturally sow rumour in his track. However, I dared not take any chances, so I waited on the road outside until it was dark. The village was very still as I passed through, and there were only one or two lights. My horse made a tremendous clatter on the cobbled stones. I thought I could distinguish suspiciously elusive figures moving in the shadows-U.'s watchmen, no doubt. I half-expected U. to spring out on me from his hiding-place. He would at least leave a spy on the road. I waited a quarter of a mile outside the village and listened, Not a sound of pursuit. I believed U. had gone on. But the roar of the torrent would have drowned the sound of hoofs. After that I remember zigzagging up the khud for an eternity in the dark forest beside a boisterous stream, leading my horse, for I had ridden him to a standstill.

It had been pitch-dark for hours when I reached Sedongchen, the next stage, at 7000 feet. Here I found another supply dump, and a Gurkha officer whom I knew. U. had not passed, he told me. "I've something here you'll probably be glad to take off my hands," he added, when I explained to

him the nature of my errand and the necessity for expedition. And he led me to the stable. It was a fine upstanding mule, the property of an officer who had been invalided down to the plains, and had left it with the Gurkha man to sell. It was exactly what I wanted. I knew the road up to the Jalap-la, an ascent of 7000 feet, mostly a stone ladder. I bought the mule on the spot. It was now nearly midnight, and the Gurkha officer persuaded me to turn in. 'Have a good sleep,” he said. 'When the other fellow comes along I'll keep him hanging round until after lunch. You will be half-way to Chumbi by then." But I could not sleep a wink. I lay awake listening for sounds on the road. I thought that I heard dislodged stones and a horse whinnying. I was convinced that U. was on the road again, and passing Sedongchen. At two in the morning I could endure it no longer. I got up, saddled the mule, and started up the hill without saying goodbye to my host. But the mule made enough noise to awaken the dead. I saw a candle lighted in the rest-house, and then my host's head at the window. He flung after me his valedictory objurgations, his summary of my particular form of derangement. I found this abuse cheering. In the next few weeks I was to hear many varieties and repetitions of it, for I had entered upon the most importunate of professions.