me.
‘Perhaps he would be a Welsh miner, or a biologist, or a young Scots doctor. Someone from quite another background, bringing another point of view …’
‘For the first time,’ said Hyde-Clarke, ‘I’m beginning to be just a little bit jealous. I’d love to listen to you all lying on top of one another in one of those inadequate little tents, seeing one another’s points of view.’
‘Why don’t you come too? I don’t see why Hugh should be the only one to invite his friends.
‘All proper expeditions seem to have a faithful administrative officer, who toils through the night to get everyone and everything off from London on time and then is forgotten.’
‘I like the part about being forgotten.’
‘I know how busy you must be but couldn’t you find one?’
‘With a ginger moustache and a foul pipe …’
‘Captain Foulenough?’
‘Why don’t you write to Beachcomber?’
We pursued this fantasy happily for some time.
‘“Have you approached the Everest Foundation? They are there to assist small parties such as ours.”’
‘Not quite like yours, I should have thought,’ said Hyde-Clarke. ‘I should try the Oxford Group. Ring up Brown’s Hotel.’
I received only one more letter before Hugh left Rio.
If you want to take a Folboat you could make the passage down the Kabul River from Jalalabad, through the frontier gorge in Mahsud Territory, just north of the Khyber, past Peshawar and Nowshera to Attock where the waters of the Kabul and Indus rivers flow together through a magnificent defile. There on the cliffs Jelal ud Din, the young ruler of Bokhara and Samarqand, made a last stand against the Mongol hordes and, having lost the day, galloped his horse over the cliffs, which as far as I can remember are 150 feet high, swam the river, went to Delhi and carved out another kingdom.
----
1. Fortunately this was merely a plaisanterie .
CHAPTER THREE
Birth of a Mountain Climber
When Hugh arrived from New York ten days later I went to meet him at London Airport. Sitting in those sheds on the north side which still, twelve years after the war, gave the incoming traveller the feeling that he was entering a beleaguered fortress, I wondered what surprises he had in store for me.
His first words after we had greeted one another were to ask if there was any news from Arnold Brown.
‘Not a thing.’
‘That’s bad,’ he said.
‘It’s not so disastrous. After all, you have done some climbing. I’ll soon pick it up. We’ll just have to be careful.’
He looked pale. I put it down to the journey. Then he said: ‘You know I’ve never done any real climbing.’
It took me some time to assimilate this.
‘But all that stuff about the mountain. You and Dreesen …’
‘Well, that was more or less a reconnaissance.’
‘But all this gear. How did you know what to order?’
‘I’ve been doing a lot of reading.’
‘But you said you had porters.’
‘Not porters – drivers. It’s not like the Himalayas. There aren’t any “tigers” in Afghanistan. No one knows anything about mountaineering.’
There was a long silence as we drove down the Great West Road.
‘Perhaps we should postpone it for a year,’ he said.
‘Ha-ha. I’ve just given up my job!’
Hugh stuck out his jaw. Normally a determined-looking man, the effect was almost overwhelming.
‘There’s nothing for it,’ he said. ‘We must have some lessons.’
Wanda and I were leaving England for Istanbul on 1 June. Hugh and I had just four days to learn about climbing.
The following night after some brisk telephoning we left for Wales to learn about climbing, in the brand new station wagon Hugh had ordered by post from South America. He had gone to Brighton to fetch it. Painted in light tropical colours it had proved to be rather conspicuous in Hammersmith. Soon it had been covered with swarms of little boys and girls whose mothers stood with folded arms silently regarding it.
We had removed all the