13 Tiger Adventure (15 page)

‘Well,’ he said, ‘you can go with us if you will really buckle down and help get the specimens we are after.’

‘Now you’re talking,’ said Vic. ‘I knew you couldn’t get along without me.’

Hal turned to the shopkeeper. Tit him out with everything,’ he said. ‘I’ll pay for it.’

This was done. Then the man behind the counter said, The mayor sends word he would like to see you. His house is the big one on the left as you go down the street.’

The mayor’s house was made of mud with sticks embedded in it. The roof was covered with animal skins all sewn together to keep out the rain and snow.

The mayor was very cordial. ‘How do you enjoy the Himalayas - the highest mountains in the world? You will have tea with me - is it not so?’

‘That will please us very much.’ said Hal.

Tea was brought. It was strange stuff, but Hal and Roger drank it. Vic took one taste and that was all.

‘You don’t like it?’ asked the mayor.

‘It’s rank,’ said Vic. Politeness was not one of his charms.

Hal was admiring the mud walls. They are very good to keep out the cold.’ he said. ‘Boards would have cracks between them. These walls are all solid - not a breath of wind can get in through them. May I ask what you use on the roof?’

‘It is made of animal skins, all stitched together - jackal, gazelle, blue bear, otter, musk deer, wildcat, and ibex.’

‘For the love of Pete!’ exclaimed Vic.

‘I beg your pardon?’ said the mayor. ‘Who is this Pete?’

‘Just a friend of his.’ Hal said, trying to smooth things over.

Vic leaped up, screaming. He had been sitting on the ground since there were no chairs. He itched in a hundred places at once.

‘Ah.’ said the mayor, ‘you have been sitting on my private ant-hill. We produce our own ants because there is nothing that gives a pudding a better taste than a few of those peppery ants. Just remove your clothes, my friend, and we shall remove the ants.’

There was nothing for it but Vic must take off all his clothes and the mayor personally picked off the ants that were feasting on the boy’s soft flesh, and put them carefully in a bottle to be used to pep up the next meal.

‘Now you see,’ said the mayor, ‘they did warm you up a bit, didn’t they? Even an ant has its virtues. We are Buddhists and believe that all things work together for good, even these humble little ants. By the way, I hope you have not come up the mountain to kill our animals.’

‘Your men must have killed a lot of them to get enough skins to make a roof,’ said Vic.

‘No, my boy,’ said the mayor, ‘these skins are all from animals that have died in the snow.’

Hal said, ‘You ask whether we are here to kill animals. We never kill animals - we take them alive for zoos in the United States and elsewhere. There they are well cared for and survive longer than they would in the wild where there are so many men with guns.’

‘Excellent,’ said the mayor. ‘You are as good as a Buddhist. Would you like to see the monastery? It is just over the hill.’

move or reach for a gun. Finally we blew the great copper horns and the Yeti disappeared. By the way, we have some very good relics of Yeti and will sell them if you care to have them.’

‘Not just now, thank you,’ said Hal. ‘We wonder if you can put us up for the night? We leave early tomorrow morning to go up the mountain.’

‘Make yourselves at home,’ said the head lama, If you don’t mind sleeping on the floor.’

The boys went to the monastery. The lamas, or priests, received them cordially. Hal asked them about the Yeti. Did they believe in them or not?

‘Of course we believe in them,’ said the head lama. ‘A few days ago at the time of evening prayer the Yeti came snuffling round the building and tried to enter through a window. We were all terrified. We clashed our ceremonial cymbals and they went howling away into the night sounding like humans in great pain.’

‘Was that the only visit you have had by Yeti?’ Hal asked.

‘No, they came again recently. We were settling to sleep one night when we were startled by the sound of footsteps. We looked out the window and there was a Yeti with a head as large as a bush and two flaming eyes. Not one of us dared

The floor was hard, and they were glad to rise soon after dawn. The head lama was already up.

‘Have you said your prayers?’ he asked.

‘No,’ said Hal.

‘You may use that wheel in the corner.’

How could you use a wheel for prayer?

‘Perhaps you do not know how to pray with a wheel,’ said the lama. ‘Let me explain.’

He took them across the room to the prayer-wheel which was about a foot in diameter and was bracketed to the wall.

‘Now this wheel is hollow. Inside it is a parchment on which are written one thousand prayers, each ten words long. All you have to do is turn the wheel once all the way round and you have offered up a thousand prayers. It’s a great improvement on your Western way of saying only one prayer. It’s a thousand times more effective. After you have made your prayers you will join us for breakfast. I think you will enjoy what we have for breakfast. It’s something very special.’

The lama bowed and left the boys to say their prayers.

Hal turned the wheel all the way round.

That’s my thousand,’ he said.

Roger did the same. Vic waited until the other two were not looking. He turned the wheel round twice. That gave him two thousand prayers. Perhaps this would give him good luck all day long.

Almost at once he had bad luck. Sitting down at the breakfast table, which was surrounded by all the lamas, Vic looked suspiciously at the food on the plate before him. It was as black as charcoal. It appeared to be meat of some kind, perhaps the meat of a chicken. That was all right - he liked chicken. He began to pick at it and was astonished to find that it was full of fine bones. No chicken he had ever eaten was so full of little bones.

This must be a very unusual chicken.’ he said as he began to eat.

‘It is something rather better than chicken,’ said the head lama.

‘Well, it is very good,’ Vic admitted.

‘You know what it is, of course,’ said the head lama. It is broiled bat.’

Vic could not believe his ears. ‘Did you say -bat?’

‘Yes,’ said the lama proudly, ‘the big bat, sometimes known as the flying fox because it looks so much like a fox with wings.’

Vic got up and stepped outdoors and they could hear him vomiting. The flying fox flew up through his gullet and out of his mouth. He came back looking weak and white. That’s the most awful thing I ever had in my mouth,’ he said. And a moment before he had said it was very good. That showed he was not shocked by the taste, but only by the word ‘bat’. Other things were offered to him but he refused to eat any more. Hal and Roger ate the bat with gusto. It was really very good food. They judged foods by their taste, not by their names. They had eaten grasshoppers in India, python in Africa, raw fish in Japan, living oysters in America - so why not bat?

Surely no other animal was constructed as this one was. It had such a labyrinth of bones that it seemed to be made of bars, bolts and braces.

But when the dusky flesh was extracted and tasted it was eaten with good appetite. It really was a delicacy, rather gamy, more tender than chicken. Since the ‘flying fox’ eats nothing but fruit its flesh is very tasty.

The cook came in and was pleased that the boys enjoyed their breakfast.

‘I’m glad you like it. I am sorry - we have it only once a week.’ Vic thought that was once too often.

Quite refreshed by their meal of bat meat, yak milk and coarse bread covered with yak butter, the boys were ready to go - except Vic, he of the empty stomach. Outside the door were the nine Sherpas they would take with them. They were loaded with all the equipment that Hal had bought, besides warm woollen blankets, small oil stoves to be used in the tents, and bottles of oxygen in case at high altitudes there was not enough oxygen in the air to supply the lungs. The Sherpas had also bought two sleds, each six feet wide.

‘What are they for?’ Hal asked.

The Sherpa leader replied, ‘If you should want to bring down an animal much too heavy for us to carry, we shall need a sled.’

‘You speak English well.’ said Hal ‘Do all your men speak English?’

They have to know some English because most of the foreigners who come to climb the mountain are British or American and their only language is English.’

So they started up the mountain in search of - wildlife. Vic complained that it was very cold. Temba, the chief Sherpa, said. The colder it is, the safer. All the loose rock is frozen solid by the cold. There is less chance of avalanches. The snow is hard enough to walk on. The snow bridges over crevasses are more likely to be solid. You’ll be in more danger a little later in the morning when the-snow begins to thaw.’

Vic wished he could be back in the monastery a little later in the morning. But there was no chance of that. He must go on.

He marvelled that these Sherpas should work for so little. The head lama had told the boys that the Sherpas worked for twenty-eight dollars a month. How could they live on

that? Hal was paying them more but Temba objected. ‘You’re spoiling them,’ he said.

The terrific wind was a problem. It lifted Vic off his feet and laid him down flat on a snowbank. Hal and Roger clung together and their combined weight kept them from blowing away. Only the Sherpas did not notice the wind.

They came to a glacier and without the spikes called crampons on their boots they would have slid all the way back to the village. Frequently they came to a crevasse, a deep crack in the glacier that might go down nearly a hundred feet. If you fell down into it, the shock of landing on the rocks below would probably kill you. In some places there was a bridge of snow over the crevasse, and you could take your life in your hands and try to cross it. Snow did not make a very good bridge. Likely as not it would give way when you were in the middle of it and down you would go. If you happened to be the last in the procession, as Vic usually was, nobody might notice that you had disappeared and you would starve to death or freeze to death with no hope of rescue.

Hal tried to keep an eye on Vic, but it was difficult to look back and walk forward without plunging into a snowbank or dropping into a crevasse.

The sun was hot now, and everything was melting. Vic saw a snow cave. There it would be cool. He stepped into it and expected to catch up with the others a little later.

Yes, it was cool here and he thought he was quite bright to take advantage of it. He was tired of walking. He had no food inside to hold him up. The coolness of this retreat was delicious. He told himself that the others were not as bright as he was. They had passed right by this pleasant cave.

The increasing heat had a natural effect upon the roof of the snow cave. Suddenly the entire roof fell and completely closed the entrance with a bank of snow perhaps five or six feet thick. Now everything was black inside the cave. Vic could see nothing. He lost his sense of direction. He began clawing with his fingers but he was not operating in the right place, Instead of pulling away the snow that barred the entrance, he was wasting his energy on the side of the cave where he could go a hundred feet or more without coming out into the light.

He had been clever to get into the cave, but was not clever enough to get out. He began to get hungry and thirsty. He stuffed snow into his mouth to allay the thirst but there was nothing he could do about hunger. Snow caves are not equipped with cupboards full of food. He wished that he had not been so squeamish about eating bat. Perhaps his refusal to eat would mean his death.

He began to whimper and weep. Men did not whimper and weep, but he was finding out that he was not quite a man. He was very much like a small boy who wanted his mother or an earthquake - but he had hastened his mother’s death, and the earthquake that might have broken open the entrance to his prison did not choose to come at this moment.

Temba was the first to notice that the boy who had been lagging behind could no longer be seen.

‘Sahib.’ he said, ‘where is your brother?’

‘Right here beside me.’ said Hal, indicating Roger.

‘No, I mean your other brother.’

‘Vic Stone? I’m glad to say he is not my brother.’

He looked back along the trail. There was no sign of Vic. Perhaps he has gone back to the village,’ Hal said.

‘No, I have seen him following us. I think he must have had an accident along the way.’

Hal was reluctant to waste time. ‘I suppose we’ll have to go back and see what happened.’

They went back, passed the cave, and continued for a mile.

‘We must have gone by him,’ said Temba. They retraced their steps and came to a place where snow and ice had fallen.

Roger said, That looks funny. It wasn’t that way when we came by here first.’

His keen eyes saved Vic’s life.

A shovel that had been brought along for just such accidents was put to work. After half an hour of digging, a hole was made big enough for a face, and the face that appeared was Vic’s.

‘I thought you’d never come.’ he complained. ‘What’s the idea of leaving me in this hole and walking off without me?’

Temba was surprised by this rudeness but Hal told him, ‘Don’t mind him. That’s just his way.’

Vic continued to rant and rail at those who had saved him while they dug deeply enough so that he could step out of his prison.

‘I want to go back to the village.’ Vic said.

That’s a very good idea.’ said Hal. But Temba advised against it.

‘He would just get lost.’ he said. ‘He’ll have to go on with us.’

There was a sound back in the cave and it was not the voice of Vic. Hal could see away back m the rear a bluish something that moved. It came lumbering out, growling. It was the right moment for Hal’s sleep-gun. He shot one dart and then, because the monster was so large, he shot another. The animal stopped, raised a paw and rubbed it over the spot that had been touched by the darts. He gazed at the men as if wondering what to do next. Then he decided to lie down and think it over. In a few minutes he was fast asleep.