‘You like it?’
‘Not strong enough. I shall have a cognac, then I shall have a Worthington, then perhaps another cognac, then perhaps I shall be more gay.’
More soberly with the Foreign Office, who had to obtain permission from the Ambassador at Kabul for Hugh to visit Afghanistan. I was interviewed by a representative of the Asian Desk in the sombre room full of hair sofas and broken umbrellas reserved for persons like myself, intruders from the outside world without credentials. We faced each other across a large mahogany table. Like all such encounters it was not a success.
‘We have sent the Ambassador a long cable.’
‘But that was a month ago.’
‘It is not as simple as you think.’ Without undue subtlety he managed to convey that I never thought at all. ‘You can hardly blame us if you leave a request of this kind until the last moment, besides, there is nothing to stop you going to Afghanistan, the cable only refers to Carless.’
‘Grr.’
With the Autumn Collection. It was now the second week in May. I was leaving in a fortnight. To add to my troubles I now received a letter from Hugh. It was extremely alarming. I read it to Hyde-Clarke.
‘These three climbs will certainly be a good second-class mountaineering achievement. But we shall almost certainly need with us an experienced climber.’
‘I thought you said he was an experienced climber.’
‘So I did. Do listen!
‘“What about Adam Arnold Brown who is now in India as a head of a public school at Begumpet?”‘ Here Hyde-Clarke chuckled.
‘He was head of the Outward Bound Mountaineering School in Eskdale, and has done a good deal of Alpine climbing. He and I were at Trinity Hall together. I have sent him a cable asking him to join us in Kabul by air for a five-week assault on three 20,000 feet peaks but he may be on leave. His address in London is V/C (WRATH) W.C. 1.’
‘Very appropriate, but what a terrifying cable to receive.’
‘That’s only the beginning. Listen to this.
‘It is just possible that he may not be able to come. In which case we must try elsewhere. In my opinion the companion we need should not only have climbing ability and leadership but round out our party’s versatility by bringing different qualities, adding them to ours.’
‘It sounds like the formula for some deadly gas.’
‘Will you listen! This isn’t funny to 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 furniture from the drawing-room to make room for the equipment and stores. Our three-piece suite was standing in the garden under a tarpaulin. The drawing-room looked like