Reminiscences – The Navy Lark Up the Khyber – 2

Way back on 13 March 2014 I blogged the first excerpt from an article featured in the book Under the Queen’s Colours (Voices from the Forces 1952-2012) by Penny Legg (2012). Rather belatedly, here is a second excerpt, which ties in nicely with more recent blogs. That blog can be read here

This was written in 1969, shortly after the events, when I was twenty-one, a long, long time ago!

***

Shortly afterwards, we left and separated for our adopted abodes.

            Mary’s house was virtually identical in construction to the one we’d just left.

            Briefly, we talked and I tasted my first Pakistani beer – an expensive one-litre bottle. Apparently, there was a shortage of bottles at the time. Cold from the fridge. “By jove, I needed that!”

            Relaxing for a few minutes, I met the two young girls of the family, Debbie and Carol – evidently at the inquisitive age and quite unabashed. Freckles swamped them both, inherited from their mother.

            Then I discovered that each household had a servant who cooked, cleaned and shopped. While his wage was small by UK standards, he was nevertheless the best-paid member of his family. I found servants an embarrassment.

            Before the beer had a chance to cool me down, we left the house and headed for the nearby swimming pool. On the way, just round the block, I learned that the elegant still-new bungalows at the entrance to the pool were planned to be demolished. The British lease had expired on the land and the government wouldn’t agree to renewal. Hence the erection of New Site. It seemed a shame, and I wondered how many homeless might make ample use of them.

            On nearing the pool I was warned that the water might not be too clean. There was a water shortage, so the water couldn’t be changed. Mary explained that the Community wasn’t allowed a swimming pool, though the merciless heat tended to justify one. We were going to swim in the static water tank. This tank was mandatory for fire-prevention. My surprise was complete on seeing the well appointed pool. It had to be the best static water tank in existence!

            The round of swimming and drinking and sun soaking ended about 1pm and we again split up and walked back with our respective hosts for lunch. I was already appreciating that time was of the essence on this visit. The programme our hosts had prepared was so tight and exhaustive and we had a lot of ground to cover – literally – in a weekend.

            At 2.15pm we were deposited in a mini-bus and Bernie’s own car, and took off for the hills. Our target was the summit of the nearest height in these parts – Murree – about 4,000 feet high.

            Our journey took us along dirt roads. There was a definite shortage of road signs. Braking to avoid a collision, Bernie explained between invective that drivers here didn’t need a licence or take a test and were dangerous.

            To begin with, the mini-bus was quite comfortable, but as we progressed the jogging was insistent and the heat oppressive. Sweat became uncomfortable. The windblast through the open window was too warm and didn’t refresh or dry us at all. Clothes were soon stained and clinging. Still, minor discomforts aside, we enjoyed the trip.

            We passed a number of British residences festooned with cyclamen and the odd banyan – a member of the mulberry family, reputedly sacred. The name is said to be derived from bunya, a corruption of a Bengali word for a native grain-dealer, for originally merchants sold their wares under banyans.

            The few mosques we saw suggested the Persian origin of the Moslem conquerors.

            As we drove on I reflected that we really needed much more than a weekend to take in this place – and a great deal longer to get to know the area, its people and customs. First impressions may never be enough, but they had to suffice.

            It was soon apparent that we were motoring toward an agricultural belt of land. Three quarters of the population were occupied with agriculture. Verdant slopes beckoned, solidifying from out of the myrtle haze.

            “We’ve seen little evidence of the millions of pounds injected into the country by countries such as Australia, Canada, Britain and the States,” I commented.

            “Apart from the development going on in and around Islamabad with its Pindi road linkup, you’ll see very little in your short stay,” Bernie answered. “Some years ago the capital of Karachi was transferred to Islamabad. From the ground the development may look haphazard. But I’ve seen aerial photos of the whole area – and it’s all set out in a workable plan. Islamabad is a completely new city – and already new ministries have moved in. Some areas still need constructing, so for the time being Pindi is the interim capital. When it’s finished, it should really look something.”

            “That’s news to us – moving the capital.”

            “Well, Karachi isn’t very attractive, you know. Ask anyone. Uncomfortable, crowded. Smelly, even. While up here, it’s admirable. The air’s fresher. Less overcrowding, the land’s fertile. There may be political or economic reasons behind the move, but I’ll wager they’re set on coming up here because they like it.”

            “Flying up, everything looked so barren. Yet there’s quite a lot of vegetation here.”

            “Yes. Leastways, around this area – the valley. The most beautiful gardens can be found up in Peshawar. You’ll be flying there tomorrow.”

            “Just before we get to the Khyber Pass?” I’d read the hectic itinerary.

            “That’s right. As for the country itself, in the beginning it was wholly agricultural. And it’s still one of the world’s largest producers of raw cotton and jute.” As an afterthought, he added, “There’s also plenty of large sources of hydroelectric power in the hills.”

            At last we motored into the mottled shade of trees dotted in the foothills of Murree. Palms and date trees overshadowed us. Roadside stalls of citrus fruits on the one hand, leather-merchants and wickerwork basket sellers on the other. We pulled in at the fork in the road, near a few buildings with straw rooftops and shops on either side. All were open stalls and doorways. Mineral drinks piled high and cooled in buckets of water standing in the shade. Batches of fruit had a dull patina. Flies were unusually scarce. The vegetables were apparently very cheap and in good condition.

            The local people were friendly, jostling for our money, seeking precedence over their competitors. Even up here the language barrier didn’t seem insurmountable. Pidgin English is probably the most universally used language of all.

            Once back in the vehicle, the road wound as it rose, and the gears got lower. In parts, the road seemed dangerously narrow.

We climbed and climbed in the heat.

The engine rasped and growled.

We’d cleared the tops of the tallest trees and the incline was anywhere between one in five or six, curving and winding all the time.

Up ahead, two overloaded lorries strained in first gear under immense loads, their radiators hissing fronds of steam.

Reaching a rare almost even stretch, we stopped.

Stretching my legs, I noticed a group of three women and two little boys coming down the road towards us. The boys asked for some rupees while the women walked by, eyes peeking darkly over their chadors, carrying vegetables and bread in wooden bowls on their heads.

As they dwindled off round the bend below, we stared out and down, at tall fir trees and uneven hills covered in vegetation that spanned away into the distance. The heat-haze was increasing. Just below and to our left fell away slopes cultivated in steps. An unusually deep ochre-brown earth lay well hoed on these broad steps. Underbrush and yellowed grass filled the foreground. The few bushes were an insipid green, the sky empty.  

 Cultivated steps of land...

We moved on, but only for a short while. Bernie’s car dropped behind our mini-bus and halted. It had overheated. They stopped on a bend in the track and we could keep them in view as we continued to ascend.

While waiting for them to cool off and restart, we drew in at the side of a rock fountain where a faint trickle of water dribbled into a makeshift wooden trough. On the road’s edge, perched precariously on a slight overhand, I noticed an inhabited hut. This was obviously a regular stopping place. The shack offered shade. I felt that it resembled the teahouse or chaikhana I’d read about. The ancient patron of the place kindly proffered some liquid of green and murky consistency that I surmised to be tea. It was warm and almost painfully strong; it didn’t so much attack the palate as devastate it.

A lorry overtook the others. Then at last they started up again. The motors shattered the silence of the place; the air seemed filled with man’s harshness.

As we came out of the shade of the old shack, the lorry was slowly approaching. The driver’s mate squatted on the front mudguard. The bonnet was open and he held a can of water, splashing the engine, which steamed immediately. The lorry pulled in by the fountain as Bernie joined us with the others.

Then we were on our way again.

When we arrived at the mountaintop village, the first thing we noticed was the ease in temperature and the marked freshness in the air. I felt suddenly very refreshed after the hot and heady ordeal of the climb.

The Murree road ascended further but a short way down a left-hand fork we espied wooden buildings with verandas and carpets slung out the latticed windows. As we drew to a halt just beyond this fork, a ragamuffin youngster who spoke almost impeccable English ran up and offered to guard our vehicles while we stayed. Without further ado, he was hired.

The main street of the town ran on to the left, sloping downwards. The whole country seemed to be built on slopes. On the right, a brick wall and trees, the hill rising higher behind them. To our left, houses, shacks, emporia, and stalls. Alleyways sank between many of the buildings. Fascinated, I glimpsed through from our pathway. In the far distance, blue vapour of mountains, in the foreground trees in full bloom. Plantations on the slopes of timber trees, palms, bamboo and bananas. The sun kissed a stretch of tea fields. Each alley measured about ten feet in width, with jalousied windows narrow and opened wide, verandas adorned with bougainvillaea. The stalls sold everything, anything: Burmese teak, worthless trinkets, Indian sal wood, American comics, Coke and party hats. I’d seen monkeys in the markets of Mombasa, but there were none here; maybe they were hidden away as they were considered sacred.

All the houses were built-up, the kerbs high where they existed, probably to allow for torrents in the gutter during the rainy season. Everywhere seemed to be steps, steps and more steps.

Old people looked ancient; while the young seemed older than their years, guile shining in their dark eyes.

Halfway down the street we came across an old English church. I was disappointed that time didn’t allow us to get closer; apparently, it was unused. It seemed out of place. Green-painted fences, traditional arched entrance, dun-coloured brick pillars, and a square tower, with vivid green trees. It could have been a typical English scene, but for the life going on around it. A couple of Muslims strolled by; along the churchyard wall stalls and soapboxes harboured reclining locals.

Murree & church

  

Returning to the vehicles, we were confronted by a man and his white stallion. Apart from scarred hocks and muzzle, the animal seemed well cared for and a fine specimen. We declined to mount and ride him, though the sum asked wasn’t particularly extortionate.

Tackling a dusty rise, we passed an unfortunate man who waged a losing battle with leprosy.

Another ten minutes of driving and the vehicles couldn’t go any further, as the track petered out. Only horse – that stallion? – goat, mule or shanks’ pony could negotiate the rest. We elected the latter.

As I walked up to the peak of Murree, I was struck by homesickness. The air, its freshness and tang, the cool breeze sifting through so-English seeming boughs, the blades of moist grass and stalks of weeds catching at my ankles, the song of birds in the fully-clothed treetops – all seemed so evocative of England. A gorgeous multi-coloured butterfly passed us. I thought of the colony builders who probably never saw their home country again, of those now working out here two or three years before going home. I wondered how they combated homesickness. Maybe by coming up here, almost the real thing?  [In all my travels since, I’ve never experienced homesickness again, and have now  live in Spain for 12 years].

Although we found it unusual for anyone to live up here, we soon appreciated their motivation. In the summer, it’s cooler. And in the winter most migrate to the lower slopes because the town and the peak are covered in snow.

Now it was time to get back. We had a long way to go and the delay with the car on the climb hadn’t helped. The evening meal and cocktail party would be waiting. So we clambered down to the vehicles.

Gradually, as we drove down, the change in temperature affected us. We set out refreshed and cool and soon donned our humid cloak of exhaustion. But we couldn’t sleep, for it was felt we’d be missing sights we’d never glimpse again.

We arrived back about 7pm. I then met Mary’s husband, Beau, freshly changed after work. He had a stocky build and powerful dark eyes and a sense of humour. His literary nickname was probably given to him when he was in the Navy.

A shower, the evening meal, and then we were out again. A short drive round to the Military Adviser’s residence for cocktails on the lawn.

I chatted with my charming hosts and discussed the declaration of Martial Law hereabouts and its negative effects on the community.

Our evening continued until 2am. The hours were beginning to tell. And, besides, tomorrow’s schedule had to be maintained: destination – the Khyber Pass.

To be continued…

Reminiscenses - The Navy Lark up the Khyber

THE NAVY LARK UP THE KHYBER

 

Nik Morton

 

Our dilapidated bus trundled along at five in the morning. Sleep stubbornly clung to my eyes. We were leaving our ship HMS Zulu behind, alongside at Karachi. The ship was only in for the weekend. Eight of us were fortunate enough to be invited up-country by the Diplomatic Corps.

            A few fears were voiced over the wisdom of our heading for the airport. This concern had grown from the alarming incidents reported in the press. It was Friday, June 20, 1969 – not long after the cricket uprisings. And airport shootings were still going on. Jokes seemed to dispel our fears. I didn’t fancy getting shot when only ten days away from my twenty-first birthday.

            We passed new houses, mansions compared with others, many old shacks still in evidence, and the roads and pathways were quite primitive. Everywhere had the flavour of a newly colonised place, barring the odd twentieth century intrusion of advertisement hoardings. Oxen and rickety old carts rumbled past, men and youths pedalled bicycles with bare feet. Out of another world, office blocks gleamed glassy-eyed.

            The pervasive aroma, compounded of sickly-sweet spices and body effluent, hovered even that early in the day; but I soon became inured to it.

            Arrived at the airport, we were pleased to see no machine-gun posts and no mobsters. It seemed like a normal medium-sized air terminal.

            For the short time in the lounge, we supped over-sweet coffee. A cleaner swept the linoleum floor with a brush made of leaves, depositing more leaves than collecting dust. A monstrous woman entered, her sari half-concealing an airport uniform adorned with badges or medals: I had doubts as to her flying abilities. One of the pilots sauntered in with an unmistakable bottle of brandy in his hip pocket: I hoped he wasn’t flying high with us onboard. And lastly, an ashtray that was simply that – a massive brass circular tray full of ash with a couple of fag ends dotted about its black-speckled grey surface.

            Then the tannoy system broadcast, “Flight 300Y” with an exquisite oriental accent.

            “That’s us!”

            It was my first time in an airplane. The experience of boarding was new, to be captured, but also disappointing in a way. I’d always fancied flying in a smaller craft than this. It was a Trident 1-E, capable of seating eighty-six. The PIA air stewardess wore the airline’s modern semi-traditional uniform. She dutifully issued everyone with the inevitable boiled sweet and ensured all passengers were comfortable. One anomaly was the life jacket under my seat: the only water this plane was likely to cross was the Indus.

            Then, at 7.20am, the jets heated up and went through their reverberating paces, rose to a roar then a banshee wail. The great bulk strained at its leash, the rear of the aircraft seemed to tug on acceleration and we were suddenly speeding down the runway.

            One second, earth hammered beneath us and the next, it was dropping away at an incredible dizzying rate. Hedges shrank into snakes of grass; trees became miniscule bushes, houses collapsed into matchboxes. Everywhere I looked – yellow muddy brown waste with odd interspersions of un-English green.

            The slight queasiness in my stomach was more through anticipation than with climbing into the clouds. It was transient, anyway, and I was pleased that at least I wasn’t airsick.

            It was our first real glimpse of Pakistan. Most of us knew of its relatively recent history. An Islamic Republic and self-governing member of the Commonwealth since August 5, 1947, it was created from those parts of the Indian sub-continent that had a predominantly Moslem population. “Both East and West Pakistan each constitute a province under a governor,” intoned the airhostess throatily. (However, from July 1, 1970 this single province of West Pakistan was dismembered into the four provinces that it originally comprised: Sind, Baluchistan, Punjab and North West Frontier Province.)

            Apparently the name “Pakistan” was invented in 1933 by Rahmat Ali for the northwestern Moslem areas and was taken from Punjab, Afghan (North West Frontier Province), Kashmir and Baluchistan.

            Karachi squats and overflows on the north of the Indus delta, and stands shyly on a backwater opening south on the east-west stretch of coastline that marks a sharp change in the shoreline’s direction between Cape Monze and the delta. To the west it is screened from the sea by the rocky point at Manora, cemented to the mainland by a sandspit. The Manora headland provides the city with a natural barrier as protection from monsoon storms. Toward the land – desert. And to the north, a hilly thirsty landscape, the limestone spurs of the Kirthar Range breaking down southwards into sandy wastes. Now we were passing over these monotonous expanses of recent alluvium riddled by creeks. To the seaward, we were told, lay mangrove swamps; the land below seemed largely incapable of supporting life.

            Wraithlike, only the air-conditioning humming in our ears, the Trident penetrated the cloud-layer and settled at 25,000 feet.

            A mild lurch or two, signifying turbulence, was our first indication that we were passing over high land. The Sulaiman Hills – known as Takht-I-Suliman, or Solomon’s Throne. The legend of the mountains began when Solomon visited Hindostan to marry Balkis. As they were returning through the air, on a throne supported by genii, the bride implored the bridegroom to let her look back for a few moments on her beloved land. Solomon directed the genii to scoop out a hollow for the throne on the summit of the mountain. The hollow is a cavity some thirty feet square, cut out of the solid rock at the southern extremity of the mountain, and is now a place of pilgrimage for both Hindus and Mohammedans. The shrine is about two miles south of the highest peak. The whole mountain culminates in two points, both over 11,000 feet high.

            We crossed over the Thal desert, for the most part absolutely without vegetation. Also the salt flats of the Indus. Hereabouts, an irrigation project progressed, to colonise the desert.

            The whole area is frequented by hurricane, diseases are numerous and commonplace, the population is far too large, and inevitably famines kill millions.

            The plane’s landing at Chaklala airport was as unimpressive as its take-off – a compliment to the pilot, I guess. We hardly felt a thing, only the sudden thud, slight screech and then constant rumble as we coasted along the runway, vivid hedges leaping by. My first flight was over.

            On leaving the plane, most of us were instantly repelled: the air was unbelievably hot, stifling. It was almost like walking into a solid wall of musty scorching dry heat. And the sun was high, even though only 8.45am. To add to the morning’s brilliance, the white runway glared, reflecting light and heat. I was glad I’d brought my trilby hat.

            We were met at the barrier by one of our hosts, Bernie, accompanied by an official native DS driver. Bernie was deeply tanned, thinning on top. His eyes sparkled and his big teeth shone white: very friendly, sardonically humorous. We loaded up and were driven off in a mini-bus.

            The heat was unbearable, the car seats sticky; with no reasonable shade in the vehicle. Dust from the roads didn’t help, either. We headed for the town centre of Rawalpindi and ultimately Islamabad.

            Passing through Rawalpindi – or Pindi as the colonials called it – a more picaresque aspect of Pakistan life-in-the-street confronted us. The poverty, the urchins, the dilapidation were there. But the colours seemed more gay, the air partly fresher, and the people more mobile. Turning one corner, I was surprised and amused to observe a general store and chemist advertising its drugs and elixirs, capable of healing ten score of diseases and afflictions, from the common cold up to and, amazingly just falling short of, death.

            The bonnet veered up and we motored up a concrete ramp, towards a steadily climbing row of houses. Islamabad New Site – an unromantic name for the place. And at first glance the buildings appeared quite unsightly. Vaguely reminiscent of children’s building blocks, all painted white and browned and mellowed in the oven. Spindly trees tried in vain to either break up or improve the wide concrete pavements. The houses were mostly obscured from the road by large walls where a few plants hung forlornly. The mountain range facing the New Site and rising back of and beyond the near lowlands turned out to be the Hindu Kush.

            Somewhat awkwardly, we trouped in to the house Bernie indicated. We had no idea what to expect and I for one entered with some trepidation.

            Inside, it was simple luxury. Fitted carpets, new spotless blonde wood furniture, variable air-conditioning, every facility and, most pleasantly, a lived-in atmosphere.

            Introductions were soon made. Apart from the presence of Bernie, those already there to meet us were women. Their intentions were quickly made clear. We were to be “farmed” out to those present. Everything was informal and even jocular. The sour-tasting tea and chinwag cleared the air and the ice had cracked if not completely broken for most of us.

            Without any preamble whatsoever, I was “claimed” by Mrs Mary Guest.

            “Surely, though, you’re the host?” I said.

            “Very droll.” She smiled. Her blue eyes shone, cheeks mottled red and healthy.

***

This is the first excerpt from a piece published in Under the Queen's Colours (Voices from the Forces 1952-2012) by Penny Legg (2012) - kindle version here.