Seven Years in Tibet
Heinrich Harrer
Translated from the German by Richard Graves
With an Introduction by Peter Fleming

Contents

Message from the Dalai Lama

Introduction by Peter Fleming

Preface

Map

1 Internment

2 Escape

3 Into Tibet

4 The Village of Happiness

5 On the Move

6 The Worst Trek of All

7 The Forbidden City

8 Calm Waters

9 Asylum Granted

10 Life in Lhasa - I

11 Life in Lhasa - II

12 An Attempted Coup d’Etat

13 Commissions from the Government

14 Tibet Prepares for Trouble

15 Tutor to the Dalai Lama

16 Tibet is Invaded

17 I Leave Tibet

Epilogue

P. S. Ideas, interviews & features …

About the Author

Other Books by Heinrich Harrer

Credits

Copyright

About the Publisher

THE DALAI LAMA

MESSAGE

Heinrich Harrer and I first met because he and my elder brother, Lobsang Samten, had become good friends and even got up to mischief together. Eventually, I asked him to come and see me on the pretext that he could help me work on the generator for my movie projector. We too soon became good friends.

Now, as we both grow older, we remember those happy days we spent together in a happy country. Harrer was one of the few people living in Lhasa in the twilight years of Tibetan freedom, able to photograph people and scenes from all walks of life. These photographs form a valuable record of Tibet as it was and I am glad that they are being exhibited, so that others may witness the contentment that was ours.

It is a sign of genuine friendship that it does not change, come what may. Once you get to know each other, you retain your friendship and help each other for the rest of your lives. Harrer has always been such a friend to Tibet. His most important contribution to our cause, his book, Seven Years in Tibet, introduced hundreds of thousands of people to my country. Even today, he is still active in the struggle for Tibetans’ right to freedom and we are grateful to him for it.

Introduction

FOR the British, and indeed I think for most Europeans, Tibet has during the last fifty years held a growing and a particular fascination. In 1904 Younghusband, in a campaign scarcely matched in the annals of war either for its administrative difficulties or for the combination of audacity and humanity with which it was conducted, marched to Lhasa and subdued Tibet. The Tibetans, whose persistent intransigence upon an Imperial frontier had at length provoked our incursion, were granted the most chivalrous of terms; and on the remote, mysterious plateau—silhouetted for a time in sharp, painstaking relief by the dispatches which trickled back over the passes from the handful of correspondents with Younghusband’s expedition—a veil once more descended.

It was a thick veil, and it did not get much thinner as the years went by. The end of the nineteenth century found Europe’s eyes turning towards Asia. The geographical challenge of Africa had been, in its essentials, met, and on that continent the political problems, save in South Africa, appeared in those days to be soluble only in the chanceries of European capitals. In Asia, by contrast, imponderable and exotic forces were on the move. Russia’s conquests in Central Asia had fulfilled what was believed to be only the first phase of her territorial ambitions; in the minds of Lord Curzon and of Kipling her attempts to probe with reconnaissance parties the mountain barrier which separated her armies from India produced apprehensions which the event proved to be disproportionate.

But here again Asia came into the picture; for while Younghusband—bringing artillery into action, for the first and so far the last time in history, at 17,000 feet above sea-level—was defeating the Tibetans, the Japanese, with much less of apology in their manner, were defeating the Russians in Manchuria. And only three years earlier, in the Boxer Rebellion, an international expedition had raised the siege of the Legation Quarter in Peking.

Tibet did no more then than she had before, or has since, to gratify Europe’s curiosities about Asia. She continued, increasingly, to stimulate them; the extent to which she reciprocated them was minimal. Once four Tibetan boys (in the pages which follow you will meet briefly the only survivor of a sensible experiment which the Tibetans never got around to repeating) were sent to be educated at Rugby; and until the Chinese Communist forces took the country over in 1950 the sons of noblemen quite often went to school in India, learning (among other things) the English language. Europe would gladly have welcomed Tibetans, as she has welcomed travellers and students from every other Asiatic country; but whereas—broadly speaking—Europe wants like anything to go to Tibet, Tibet has never evinced the slightest desire to go to Europe.

She has moreover made it as difficult as possible for Europeans, or indeed for any non-Tibetans, to set foot on Tibetan territory, however impeccable their credentials. The veil of secrecy, or perhaps rather of exclusiveness, which was lifted by Younghusband and then so tantalisingly dropped again, has in the last fifty years been effectively penetrated by very few, and of these it is safe to say that not one attained to the remarkable position which the author of this book, towards the end of his five years’ residence in Lhasa, found himself occupying in the entourage of the young Dalai Lama.

The European traveller is accustomed to seeing Asia, or anyhow the backwoods of Asia, from above. By that I mean that, although at times his situation may be precarious and his resources slender, the European is generally a good deal better off than the primitive people through whose territory he is passing. He possesses things which they do not—money and firearms, soap and medicines, tents and tin-openers; he has, moreover, in another part of the planet a Government which, should he get into trouble, will try to get him out of it. So the foreigner tends to ride upon the high though not very reliable horse of privilege, and to view the backwoods and their denizens from above.

It was otherwise with Herr Harrer. When in 1943 he made a third and successful attempt to escape from an internment camp at Dehra-Dun and headed for Tibet, he was seeing Asia from below. He travelled on foot, carried his few possessions on his back and slept on the ground in the open. He was a fugitive, with no status, no papers and very limited funds. For a well-found expedition to follow his circuitous winter route across the Changthang plateau and down to Lhasa would have been a creditable feat; as performed by Harrer and his companion Aufschnaiter the journey was an astonishing tour de force. When they reached Lhasa they were penniless and in rags.

Though there was no shred of justification for their presence in the Tibetan capital, they met with great kindness there, and the various subterfuges which they had practised upon officials along the route aroused merriment rather than indignation. They had nevertheless every reason to expect to be expelled from the country, and although the war was now over Harrer assumed, on rather slender grounds, that expulsion would mean their reinternment in India. He spoke by now fairly fluent Tibetan, though with a country accent which amused the sophisticates of Lhasa, and he never ceased to entreat permission to stay where he was and to do useful work for the Government.

I have not met Herr Harrer, but from the pages which follow he emerges as a sensible, unassuming and very brave man, with simple tastes and solid standards. It is clear that from the first the Tibetans liked him, and it must, I think, have been his integrity of character which led the authorities to connive at, if never formally to authorise, his five years’ sojourn in Lhasa. During this period he rose—always, it would seem, because of the confidence he inspired rather than because he angled for preferment—from being a destitute and alien vagabond to a well-rewarded post as tutor and confidant of the young Dalai Lama. Of this fourteen-year-old potentate Harrer, who was certainly closer to him than any foreigner (with the possible exception of Sir Charles Bell) has been to any of his predecessors, gives a fascinating and sympathetic account. When the Chinese Communists invaded Tibet in 1950 Harrer’s parting from this lonely, able and affectionate youth was clearly a wrench to both of them.

It is unlikely that their conquerors will be able to alter the Tibetan character, so curiously compounded of mysticism and jollity, of shrewdness and superstition, of tolerance and strict convention; but the ancient, ramshackle structure of Tibetan society, over which the Dalai Lama in his successive incarnations presides, is full of flaws and anachronisms and will scarcely survive in its traditional form the ideological stresses to which it is now being subjected. It is the luckiest of chances that Herr Harrer should have had, and should have made such admirable use of, the opportunity to study on intimate terms a people with whom the West is now denied even the vestigial contacts which it had before. The story of what he did and what he saw equals in strangeness Mr. Heyerdahl’s account of his voyage on the Kon-Tiki; and it is told, I am happy to say, in the same sort of simple, unpretentious style.

PETER FLEMING

Preface

ALL our dreams begin in youth. As a child I found the achievements of the heroes of our day far more inspiring than book-learning. The men who went out to explore new lands or with toil and self-sacrifice fitted themselves to become champions in the field of sport, the conquerors of the great peaks—to imitate such men was the goal of my ambition.

But I lacked the advice and guidance of experienced counsellors and so wasted many years before I realised that one must not pursue several aims at the same time. I had tried my hand at various forms of sport without achieving the success which might have satisfied me. So at last I determined to concentrate in the two that I had always loved for their close association with nature—ski-ing and mountain-climbing.

I had spent most of my childhood in the Alps and had occupied most of my time out of school climbing in summer and ski-running in winter. My ambition was spurred on by small successes and in 1936 I succeeded after severe training in gaining a place in the Austrian Olympic Team. A year later I was the winner of the Downhill Race in the World Students’ Championships.

In these contests I experienced the joy of speed and the glorious satisfaction of a victory into which one has put all that one has. But victory over human rivals and the public recognition of success did not satisfy me. I began to feel that the only worthwhile ambition was to measure my strength against the mountains. So for whole months together I practised on rock and ice until I became so fit that no precipice seemed to me unconquerable. But I had my troubles to contend with and had to pay for my experience. Once I fell 170 feet and it was only by a miracle that I did not lose my life—and of course lesser mishaps were constantly occurring.

Return to life at the university always meant a big wrench. But I ought not to complain; I had opportunities for studying all sorts of works on mountaineering and travel, and as I read these books there grew in my mind, out of a complex of vague desires, the ambition to realise the dream of all climbers—to take part in an expedition in the Himalayas.

But how dared an unknown youngster like myself toy with such ambitious dreams? Why, to get to the Himalayas one had either to be very rich or to belong to the nation whose sons at that time still had the chance of being sent to India on service. For a man who was neither British nor wealthy there was only one way. One had to make use of one of those rare opportunities open even to outsiders and do something which made it impossible for one’s claims to be passed over. But what performance would put one in this class? Every Alpine peak has long ago been climbed, even the worst ridges and rockfaces have yielded to the incredible skill and daring of mountaineers. But stay! There was still one unconquered precipice—the highest and most dangerous of all—the north wall of the Eiger.

This 6,700 feet of sheer rockface had never been climbed to the top. All attempts had failed and many men had lost their lives in the attempt. A cluster of legends had gathered round this monstrous mountain wall, and at last the Swiss Government had forbidden Alpinists to climb on it.

No doubt that was the adventure I was looking for. If I broke through the virgin defences of the North Wall, I would have a legitimate right, as it were, to be selected for an expedition to the Himalayas. I brooded long over the idea of attempting this almost hopeless feat. How in 1938 I succeeded with my friends Fritz Kasparek, Anderl Heckmaier and Wiggerl Vörg in climbing the dreaded wall has been described in several books.

After this adventure I spent the autumn in continuing my training with the hope always in my mind that I would be invited to join in the Nanga Parbat expedition planned for the summer of 1939. It seemed as though I would have to go on hoping, for winter came and nothing happened. Others were selected to reconnoitre the fateful mountain in Kashmir. And so nothing was left for me but to sign, with a heavy heart, a contract to take part in a ski-film.

Rehearsals were well advanced when I was suddenly called to the telephone. It was the long-desired summons to take part in the Himalaya Expedition which was starting in four days. I had no need to reflect. I broke my contract without an instant’s hesitation, travelled home to Graz, spent a day in packing my things, and on the following day was en route for Antwerp with Peter Aufschnaiter, the leader of the German Nanga Parbat expedition, Lutz Chicken and Hans Lobenhoffer, the other members of the group.

Up to that time there had been four attempts to climb this 25,000-foot mountain. All had failed. They had cost many lives, and so it had been decided to look for a new way up. That was to be our job and the attack on the peak was planned for the following year.

On this expedition to Nanga Parbat I succumbed to the magic of the Himalayas. The beauty of these gigantic mountains, the immensity of the lands on which they look down, the strangeness of the people of India—all these worked on my mind like a spell.

Since then many years have passed, but I have never been able to cut loose from Asia. How all this came about, and what it led to, I shall try to describe in this book, and as I have no experience as an author I shall content myself with the unadorned facts.

HEINRICH HARRER

Map

1. Internment

Outbreak of war and our imprisonment—Dehra-Dun—I join up with Marchese—Escape—Marchese embraces me—We march by night and ride by day—Trout and cigarettes—The Ganges and Pilgrims’ Road—Recaptured—I escape once more, alone—Again recaptured.

BY the end of August 1939 we had completed our reconnaissance. We had actually found a new way up the mountain and were now waiting in Karachi for the freighter which was to take us back to Europe. Our ship was long overdue and the war-clouds were growing ever denser. Chicken, Lobenhoffer and I accordingly made up our minds to extricate ourselves from the net which the secret police had already begun to lay for us and to slip away—wherever we found an opening. Only Aufschnaiter was for staying in Karachi. He had fought in the first world war and could not believe in a second.

The rest of us planned to break through to Persia and find our way home from there. We had no difficulty in shaking off the man who was shadowing us, and after crossing a few hundred miles of desert in our ramshackle car we managed to reach Las Bela, a little principality to the north-west of Karachi. But there fate overtook us and we suddenly found ourselves taken in charge by eight soldiers, on the grounds that we needed personal protection. We were in fact under arrest, although Germany and the British Commonwealth were not yet at war.

Soon we were back with our trusty escort in Karachi, where we found Peter Aufschnaiter. Two days later England did declare war on Germany. After that everything went like clockwork. A few minutes after the declaration of war, twenty-five Indian soldiers armed to the teeth marched into a restaurant garden where we were sitting, to fetch us away. We drove in a police car to an already prepared prison-camp fenced with barbed wire. But that turned out to be merely a transit camp, and a fortnight later we were transferred to the great internment camp at Ahmednagar near Bombay. There we were quartered in crowded tents and huts in the midst of a babel of conflicting opinions and excited talk. “No,” I thought, “this atmosphere is too different from the sunlit, lonely heights of the Himalayas. This is no life for freedom-loving men.” So I began to get busy looking for ways and means of escape.

Of course I was not the only one planning to get away. With the help of like-minded companions I collected compasses, money and maps which had been smuggled past the controls. We even managed to get hold of leather gloves and a barbed-wire-cutter, the loss of which from the stores provoked a strict but fruitless investigation.

As we all believed that the war would soon be over, we kept postponing our plans for escape. But one day we were suddenly moved to another camp. We were loaded on to a convoy of lorries en route for Deolali. Eighteen of us internees sat in each lorry with a single Indian soldier to guard us. The sentry’s rifle was made fast to his belt with a chain, so that no one could snatch it away. At the head and at the tail of the column was a truck full of soldiers.

While we were in the camp at Ahmednagar Lobenhoffer and I had determined to make a getaway before being transferred to a new camp, where fresh difficulties might endanger our chances of escape. So now we took our seats at the back end of a lorry. Luckily for us the road was full of curves and we were often enveloped in thick clouds of dust—we saw that this gave us a chance of jumping off unnoticed and vanishing into the jungle. We did not expect the guard in the lorry to spot us as he was obviously occupied in watching the lorry in front. He only occasionally looked round at us. One way and another it did not seem to us that it would be too difficult to escape and we postponed an attempt until the latest possible moment, intending to get across into a neutral Portuguese enclave situated very near the route of our convoy.

At last the moment came. We jumped off and I ran twenty yards off the road and threw myself down in a little hollow behind a bush. Then to my horror the whole convoy stopped—I heard whistles and shooting and then, seeing the guard running over to the far side of the road, I had no doubt what had happened. Lobenhoffer must have been discovered and as he was carrying our rucksack with all our gear, there was nothing for me to do but to give up my hopes of escape as well. Fortunately I succeeded, in the confusion, in getting back into my seat without being noticed by any of the soldiers. Only my comrades knew that I had got away and naturally they said nothing.

Then I saw Lobenhoffer: he was standing with his hands up facing a line of bayonets. I felt broken with the deadly disappointment of our failure. But my friend was really not to blame for it. He was carrying our heavy rucksack in his hand when he jumped off, and it seems that it made a clatter which was heard by the guard; so he was caught before he could gain the shelter of the jungle. We learned from this adventure a bitter but useful lesson, namely that in any combined plan of escape each of the escapers must carry all that he needed with him.

In the same year we were moved once more to another camp. This time we were conveyed by rail to the greatest P.O.W. camp in India, a few miles outside the town of Dehra-Dun. Above Dehra-Dun was the hill-station of Mussoorie, the summer residence of the British and rich Indians. Our camp consisted of seven great sections each surrounded by a double fence of barbed wire. The whole camp was enclosed by two more lines of wire entanglement, between which patrols were constantly on the move.

The conditions of our new camp altered the whole situation for us. As long as we were down below in the plain, we always aimed to escape into one of the neutral Portuguese territories. Up here, we had the Himalayas right in front of us. How attractive to a mountaineer was the thought of winning through to Tibet over the passes. As a final goal one thought of the Japanese lines in Burma or China.

Plans for escape in these conditions and with these objectives needed the most careful preparation. By now we had given up hope of a speedy ending to the war, and so there was nothing for it—if we wished to get away—but to organise systematically. Flight through the thickly populated regions of India was out of the question; for that one would need plenty of money and a perfect knowledge of English—and I had neither. So it is easy to imagine that my preference was for the empty spaces of Tibet. And I thought of being on the Himalayas—and felt that even if my plan failed, it would be worth having a spell of freedom in the high mountains.

I now set to work to learn a little Hindustani, Tibetan and Japanese; and devoured all sorts of travel books on Asia, which I found in the library, especially those dealing with the districts on my prospective route. I made extracts from these works and took copies of the most important maps. Peter Aufschnaiter, who had also landed in Dehra-Dun, had various books and maps dealing with expeditions in Asia. He worked at these with tireless energy and put all his notes and sketches at my disposal. I copied all of these in duplicate, keeping one copy to take with me when I escaped and the other as a reserve in case the originals were lost.

It was just as important for me, in view of the route by which I proposed to escape, to keep myself physically as fit as possible. So every day I devoted hours to exercising in the open air, indifferent alike to bad and good weather, while at night I used to lie out and study the habits of the guards.

My chief worry was that I had too little money; for although I had sold everything I could do without, my savings were quite insufficient to provide for the necessaries of life in Tibet, let alone for the bribes and presents which are the commonplaces of life in Asia. Nevertheless I went on working systematically at my plan and received help from some friends, who themselves had no intention of escaping.

I had originally intended to escape alone in order not to be hampered by a companion, which might have prejudiced my chances. But one day my friend Rolf Magener told me that an Italian general had the same intentions as myself. I had previously heard of this man, and so one night Magener and I climbed through the wire fence into the neighbouring wing in which forty Italian generals were housed. My future companion was named Marchese and was in outward appearance a typical Italian. He was something over forty years of age, slim of figure with agreeable manners and distinctly well-dressed; I was particularly impressed by his physique. At the outset we had difficulties in understanding one another. He spoke no German and I no Italian. We both knew only a minimum of English, so we conversed, with the help of a friend, in halting French. Marchese told me about the war in Abyssinia, and of an earlier attempt he had made to escape from a P.O.W. camp.

Fortunately for him he received the pay of a British general and money was no problem. He was able to procure for our flight things which I could never have obtained. What he needed was a partner familiar with the Himalayas—so we very soon joined forces on the basis that I should be responsible for all the planning, and he for the money and equipment.

Several times every week I used to crawl out to discuss details with Marchese, and by practice became an expert in penetrating barbed wire. Of course there were various possibilities for the escape but the one that seemed to me the most promising was based on one important fact—that every eighty yards along the “chicken-run” enclosing the whole camp was a steep, straw-thatched roof that had been put up to protect the sentries against the tropical sun. If we could climb over one of these roofs we should have crossed the two lines of barbed wire at a single bound. In May 1943 we had completed all our preparations. Money, provisions, compass, watches, shoes and a small mountaineer’s tent were all ready.

One night we decided to make the attempt. I climbed as usual through the fence into Marchese’s wing. There I found a ladder ready, which we had grabbed and hidden after a small fire in the camp. We leaned it against the wall of a hut and waited in the shadow. It was nearly midnight and in ten minutes the guard would change. The sentries, waiting to come off duty, walked slackly up and down. A few minutes passed until they reached the point where we wanted them. Just then the moon came up over the tops of the tea-plantation.

There we were. It was now or never.

Both the sentries had reached their furthest point from us. I got up from my crouching position and hurried to the fence with the ladder. I laid it against the overhanging top of the fence, climbed up, and cut the wires which had been bunched together to prevent access to the thatch. Marchese pushed the thicket of wires on to one side with a long forked stick, enabling me to slip through on to the roof. It was agreed that the Italian should follow me immediately, while I held the wire apart with my hands: but he did not come. He lingered for a few ghastly seconds, thinking that it was too late and that the guards were already returning—and, indeed, I heard their steps. I left him no time for further reflection but caught him under the arms and pulled him on to the roof. He crept across and dropped heavily down into freedom.

But all this had not happened in dead silence. The watch was alarmed and they started shooting; but as their firing broke the stillness of the night, we were swallowed up by the jungle.

The first thing that Marchese did, in expression of his warm southern temperament, was to embrace and kiss me, though this was hardly the moment to give vent to outbursts of joy. Rockets went up and whistles sounded near us showing that pursuers were on our track. We ran for our lives and moved very fast, using short cuts which I had got to know very well during my outings from the camp. We made little use of the roads and skirted round the few villages we found on our way. At the outset we hardly noticed our packs, but later on they began to feel heavy.

In one of the villages the natives beat their drums and we at once fancied they were sounding the alarm. That was one of the difficulties which anyone brought up among our exclusively white population can hardly imagine. In Asia the “Sahib” invariably travels with an escort of servants and never carries the smallest package himself—what could the natives think, therefore, when they saw two heavily laden Europeans plodding on foot through the countryside!

We decided to march by night, knowing that the Indians are afraid to go through the jungle in darkness on account of the wild beasts. We did not particularly enjoy the prospect ourselves, having often read stories of man-eating tigers and leopards in the newspapers available in the camp.

When day dawned we hid ourselves, exhausted, in a wady and spent the whole day there, sleeping and eating in the burning heat. We only saw one person during the day, a cowherd; fortunately he did not see us. The worst thing was that we each of us had only a single water-bottle, which had to suffice for the whole day. It was no wonder that when evening came, after a day spent in keeping quiet, we could hardly control our nerves. We wanted to get on as quickly as possible, and the nights seemed far too short for our progress. We had to find the shortest way through the Himalayas to Tibet, and that would mean weeks of strenuous marching before we could feel ourselves in safety.

We crossed the first ridge on the evening after our escape. At the top we rested for a while and saw 3,000 feet below us the countless twinkling lights of the internment camp. At 10.15 p.m. the lights all went out together and only the searchlights round the camp gave an idea of its enormous extent.

This was the first time in my life that I really understood what it meant to be free. We enjoyed this glorious feeling and thought with sympathy of the two thousand P.O.W.s forced to live down there behind the wall of wire.

But we had not much time for meditation. We had to find our way down to the valley of the Jumna, which was completely unknown to us. In one of the smaller valleys we walked into a cleft so narrow that we could not get on, and had to wait till morning. The place was so lonely and sheltered that I could without misgiving take the opportunity to dye my blond hair and beard black. I also stained my face and hands with a mixture of permanganate, brown paint, and grease, which produced a dark shade. By this means I acquired some resemblance to an Indian; that was important as we had decided, if we were challenged, to say that we were on a pilgrimage to the sacred Ganges. As for my companion he was dark enough not to be noticeable at a distance. Naturally we did not mean to court close inspection.

On this evening we set out before it was dark, but soon had to rue our haste, for crossing a slope we found ourselves in the presence of a number of peasants planting rice. They were wading half-naked in the muddy water and stared in astonishment at the sight of two men carrying packs on their backs. They pointed to the slope high up on which one could see a village, which seemed to mean that this was the only way out of the ravine. To avoid awkward questions we walked straight on, as fast as possible in the direction indicated. After hours of climbing and descending we at last reached the river Jumna.

Meanwhile night had fallen. Our plan was to follow the course of the Jumna until we reached one of its tributaries, the Aglar, and then to follow this stream till we came to the watershed. It could not be far from there to the Ganges, which would lead us to the great Himalayan chain. Most of our route up to this point had been across country, and only here and there along water courses had we found paths used by fishermen. On this morning Marchese was very much exhausted. I prepared cornflakes for him with sugar and water, and on my insisting he ate a little. Unfortunately the place where we found ourselves was most unsuitable for camping. It was swarming with large ants which bit deeply into one’s skin, and we could not sleep because of them. The day seemed endless.

Towards evening my companion’s restlessness increased and I began to hope that his physical condition might have improved. He, too, was full of confidence that he would be able to cope with the fatigue of the next night. However, soon after midnight, he was through. He simply was not up to the enormous physical effort needed of us. My hard training and condition proved a godsend to us both—I often used to carry his pack strapped over my own. I should say that we had covered our rucksacks with Indian jute sacking to avoid arousing suspicion.

During the next two nights we wandered up-stream, frequently having to wade through the Aglar when our way along the bank was blocked by jungle or rocks. Once as we were resting in the bed of the stream between two rocky walls, some fishermen came by without noticing us. Another time when we stumbled upon some fishermen whom we could not avoid we asked in our broken Hindustani for some trout. Our disguise seemed to be convincing enough as the men sold us the fish without showing mistrust of us—indeed they cooked them for us—while conversing and smoking those small Indian cigarettes which Europeans find so distasteful. Marchese (who before our getaway had been a great smoker) could not resist the temptation of asking for one—but he had barely taken a couple of puffs when he fell unconscious, as if he had been poleaxed! Luckily he soon recovered and we were able to continue our journey.

Later on we met some peasants carrying butter to the town. We were meanwhile becoming more confident and asked them to sell us some. One of them agreed to do so, but as he ladled the almost melting butter, with his dark, dirty hands, from his pot into ours, we both of us nearly vomited with disgust.

At last the valley broadened out and our way lay through rice and cornfields. It became more and more difficult to find a good hide-out for the daytime. Once we were discovered during the morning and as the peasants kept asking us all manner of indiscreet questions, we packed up our traps and hurried onwards. We had not yet found a new hiding-place when we met eight men who shouted to us to stop. Our luck seemed at last to have deserted us. They asked us innumerable questions and I kept on giving the same answers, namely that we were pilgrims from a distant province. To our great astonishment we seemed somehow to have stood the test, for after a while they let us go on our way. We could hardly believe that we had done with them, and long after we had moved on we thought we heard pursuing footsteps.

That day everything seemed to be bewitched and we had constant upsets. Finally we had to come to the discouraging conclusion that we had indeed crossed a watershed, but were still in the valley of the Jumna—which implied that we were at least two days behind our timetable.

So we had to start climbing again, and soon found ourselves in thick forests of rhododendrons which seemed so completely deserted that we could hope for a quiet day and a chance of a long sleep. But some cow-herds came in sight and we had to move camp and bid farewell to the prospect of a good day’s rest.

During the following nights we marched through comparatively unpopulated country. We learned soon enough, to our sorrow, the reason for the absence of human beings. There was practically no water. We suffered so much from thirst that on one occasion I made a bad mistake which might have had disastrous consequences. Coming across a small pool I threw myself down and without taking any precautions began to drink the water in mighty gulps. The results were awful. It turned out that this was one of those pools in which water-buffaloes are accustomed to wallow in the hot weather, and which contain more mire than water. I had a violent attack of coughing followed by vomiting, and it was long before I recovered from my horrid refreshment.

Soon after this incident we were so overcome by thirst that we simply could not go on and had to lie down, although it was long before dawn. When morning came I climbed down the steep slope alone in search of water, which I found. The next three days and nights were a little better—our path lay through dry fir woods which were so lonely that we seldom met Indians in them, and ran very little risk of discovery.

On the twelfth day of our flight a great moment came. We found ourselves on the banks of the Ganges. The most pious Hindu could not have been more deeply moved by the sight of the sacred stream than we were. We could now follow the pilgrims’ road up the Ganges to its source—and that would greatly lessen the fatigues of our journey, or so we imagined. We decided that, having got so far and so safely by our system of night travel, we would not risk a change, so we continued to lie up by day and move only by night.

In the meantime we were desperately short of provender. Our food was practically exhausted, but although poor Marchese was nothing but skin and bones, he did not give in. I, fortunately, was still feeling comparatively fresh and had a good reserve of strength.

All our hopes were centred on the tea and provision stores which were to be found everywhere along the Pilgrims’ Way. Some of them remained open late into the night, and one could recognise them by their dull glimmering oil-lamps. After attending to my make-up, I walked into the first of these stores which we came to and was driven out with cries of abuse. They clearly took me for a thief. Unpleasant as the experience was, it had one advantage; it was evident that my disguise was convincing.

Arriving at the next store, I walked in holding my money as ostentatiously as possible in my hand. That made a good impression. Then I told the storekeeper that I had to buy provisions for ten people, in order to lend plausibility to an offer to purchase forty pounds of meal, sugar and onions.

The shop-people took more interest in examining my paper-money than in my person, and so after a while I was able to leave the shop with a heavy load of provisions. The next day was a happy one. At last we had enough to eat and the Pilgrims’ Road seemed to us, after our long treks across country, a mere promenade.

But our contentment was short-lived. At our next halt we were disturbed by men in search of wood. They found Marchese lying half-naked because of the great heat. He had grown so thin that one could count his ribs, and he looked very sick indeed. We were of course objects of suspicion, as we were not in the usual pilgrims’ roadhouses. The Indians invited us to go to their farmhouse, but that we didn’t want to do, and used Marchese’s ill-health as an excuse for not going with them. They went away then, but soon were back and it was now clear that they took us for fugitives. They tried to blackmail us by saying that there was an Englishman in the neighbourhood with eight soldiers looking for a couple of escaped prisoners, and that he had promised them a reward for any information they could give him. But they promised to say nothing if we gave them money. I stood firm and insisted that I was a doctor from Kashmir, in proof of which I showed them my medicine chest.

Whether as a result of Marchese’s completely genuine groans or of my play-acting, the Indians vanished again. We spent the next night in continual fear of their return and expected them to come back with an official. However, we were not molested.

With things as they were the days did little to restore our strength, and indeed they laid a greater strain on us than the nights. Not, of course, muscular but nervous strain, as we were in a state of continuous tension. By midday our water-bottles were generally empty and the remainder of the day seemed never-ending. Every evening Marchese marched heroically forward, and in spite of exhaustion caused by loss of weight he could carry on till midnight. After that he had to have two hours’ sleep to enable him to march a stage further. Towards morning we bivouacked, and from our shelter could look down on the great Pilgrims’ Road with its almost unbroken stream of pilgrims. Strangely garbed as they often were, we envied them. Lucky devils! They had no cause to hide from anyone. We had heard in the camp that something like 60,000 pilgrims came this way during the summer months and we readily believed it.

Our next march was a long one but towards midnight we reached Uttar Kashi, the temple town. We soon lost our bearings in the narrow streets, so Marchese sat down with the packs in a dark corner and I set off alone to try and find the way. Through the open doors of the temples one could see lamps burning before the staring idols, and I had often to leap into the shadow to avoid being noticed by monks passing from one holy place to another. It took me more than an hour before I at last found the Pilgrims’ Road again, stretching away on the other side of the town. I knew from the numerous travel books I had read that we should now have to cross the so-called “Inner Line.” This line runs parallel to the true frontier at a distance of something between 60 and 120 miles. Everyone traversing this region, with the exception of normal residents, is supposed to have a pass. As we had none we had to take particular care to avoid police posts and patrols.

The valley up which our way led us became less and less inhabited as we progressed. In the daytime we had no trouble in finding suitable shelters, and I could often leave my hiding-place and go in search of water. Once I even made a small fire and cooked some porridge—the first hot meal we had eaten for a fortnight.

We had already reached a height of nearly 7,000 feet and during the night we often passed camps of Bhutia, the Tibetan traders who in summer carry on their business in southern Tibet and in winter come across into India. Many of them live during the hot weather in little villages situated above the 10,000-foot level, where they grow barley. These camps had a very disagreeable feature in the shape of the powerful and savage Tibetan dogs—a shaggy-coated, middle-sized breed—which we now encountered for the first time.

One night we arrived at one of these Bhutia villages which are only inhabited in summer. It looked very homelike with its shingle and stone-covered roofs. But behind it an unpleasant surprise was awaiting us in the shape of a swiftly running stream which had overflowed its banks and turned the adjacent ground into a swamp. It was absolutely impossible to cross it. At last we gave up trying to find a way over, and determined to wait till day and observe the ground from a shelter, for we could not believe that the Pilgrims’ Road broke off short at this point. To our utmost astonishment, we observed next morning that the procession of pilgrims continued on their way and crossed the water at precisely the spot at which we had spent hours of the night vainly trying to get over. Unfortunately we could not see how they managed it, as trees interrupted our sight of the actual place. But something else equally inexplicable occurred. We observed that later on in the morning the stream of pilgrims stopped. Next evening we tried again to cross at the same place and again found that it was impossible. At last it dawned on me that we had in front of us a burn, fed by melted snow and ice, which carried its highest head of water from noon till late into the night. Early in the morning the water level would be lowest.

It turned out to be as I had guessed. When in the first grey of dawn we stood beside the stream, we saw a primitive bridge of half-submerged tree-trunks. Balancing ourselves carefully we got across to the other side. Unfortunately there were other streams which we had to cross in the same laborious manner. I had just crossed the last of these when Marchese slipped and fell into the water—luckily on top of the trunks, or he would otherwise have been carried away by the torrent. Wet to the skin and completely exhausted he could not be induced to go on. I urged him to move at least into cover, but he just spread out his wet things to dry and started to light a fire. Then for the first time I began to regret that I had not listened to his repeated requests to leave him behind and carry on alone. I had always insisted that since we had started together, we should carry on together.

As we were arguing an Indian stood before us, who after a glance at the various objects of obviously European origin spread out on the ground began to ask us questions. Only then did Marchese realise what danger we were in. He quickly put his things together, but we had hardly gone a couple of steps when we were stopped by another Indian, a distinguished-looking fellow leading a section often strapping soldiers. In perfect English he asked for our passes. We affected not to understand and said we were pilgrims from Kashmir. He thought this over for a moment and then found a solution which spelled finis to our hopes of escape. There were, he said, two Kashmiris in the neighbouring house. If we could make them understand us, we could go on our way. What devilish ill-luck had brought two Kashmiris into the neighbourhood just at that moment? I had only used this “alibi” because it was the most unlikely thing to find Kashmiris in this region.

The two men of whom he spoke were flood-damage experts, who had been called in from Kashmir. As soon as we stood before them we realised that the moment of our unmasking had come. As we had agreed to do in such a case, I began to speak to Marchese in French. Immediately the Indian broke in, speaking also in French, and told us to open our packs. When he saw my English-Tibetan grammar he said we might just as well say who we were. We then admitted that we were escaped prisoners but did not give away our nationality.

Soon after we were sitting in a comfortable room drinking tea, but all the same I felt bitterly disappointed. This was the eighteenth day of our flight and all our privations and efforts had gone for nothing. The man who had questioned us was the chief of the Forestry Department in the state of Tehri-Garwhal. He had studied forestry in English, French and German schools and knew all three languages well. It was on account of the flood, the worst catastrophe of the kind in the last hundred years, that he had come on an inspection to this region. He smilingly regretted his presence, adding that as ours had been reported to him he was obliged to do his duty.

Today when I think of the concatenation of circumstances which led to our capture, I cannot help feeling that we were victims of something worse than ordinary ill-luck and that we could not have averted our fate. All the same I did not for a minute doubt that I would escape again. Marchese, however, was in a condition of such complete exhaustion that he had given up all idea of another attempt. In a very comradely manner he made over to me the greater part of his money, knowing how short I was. I made good use of an enforced leisure to eat hearty meals, as we had hardly eaten anything for the last few days. The forest-officer’s cook kept us continuously supplied with food, half of which I tucked away in my knapsack. Early in the evening we said we were tired and wanted to sleep. Our bedroom door was locked on the outside and the forest-officer had his bed put on the veranda in front of our window to prevent any attempt at escape that way. However, he was away for a short while and Marchese and I took the opportunity to start a mock quarrel. Marchese took both parts, so to speak, shouting abuse in a high and then a low key, while I swung myself through the window, rucksack and all, on to the forest-officer’s bed, and ran to the end of the veranda. Darkness had fallen, and after waiting a few seconds till the sentries had vanished round the corner of the house, I dropped down twelve feet to the ground below. The soil into which I fell was not hard and I made little noise; in a moment I was up and over the garden wall and had vanished into the pitch-black forest.

I was free!

Everything was quiet. In spite of my excitement I could not help laughing at the thought that Marchese was still abusing me according to plan, while the forest-officer was keeping watch on us from his bed in front of our window.

However, I had to go on and ran, in my haste, into a flock of sheep. Before I could get back a sheepdog fastened on to the seat of my trousers and did not let go till he had bitten a piece out. In my terror I dashed away but found that the road I had chosen was too steep for me and so I had to go back and creep round the sheep till I found another way. Soon after midnight I had to admit that I had again gone wrong. So once more I had to go back a few miles in breathless haste. My aimless wanderings had lost me four hours and the day was already dawning. Turning a corner I caught sight of a bear about twenty yards away. Luckily he shuffled off without seeming to take any notice of me.

When it was fully light I hid myself again, although the country showed no trace of human habitation. I knew that before reaching the Tibetan frontier I should come to a village at the other side of which lay freedom. I marched through the whole of the next night and gradually began to wonder why I had not reached the fateful village. According to my notes it lay on the far bank of the river and was connected with the near side by a bridge. I wondered if I had not already passed it, but consoled myself with the reflection that one could hardly miss a village. So I marched on carefree, even after daylight had come.

That was my undoing. As I came round a heap of boulders, I found myself right under the houses of a village, in front of which stood a swarm of gesticulating people. The place was wrongly indicated on my map and as I had twice lost my way during the night, my pursuers had had time to come up with me. I was at once surrounded and summoned to surrender, after which I was led into a house and offered refreshment.

Here I met for the first time with the real Tibetan nomads, who wander into India with their flocks of sheep and loads of salt and return laden with barley. I was offered Tibetan butter-tea with tsampa, the staple food of these people on which later I lived for years. My first contact with it affected my stomach most disagreeably.

I spent a couple of nights in this village, which was called Nelang, playing vaguely with the idea of another attempt to escape, but I was physically too tired and mentally too despondent to translate my thoughts into action.

The return journey, in comparison with my previous exertions, seemed a pleasure trip. I did not have to carry a pack and was very well looked after. On the way I met Marchese who was staying as a guest with the forest-officer in his private bungalow. I was invited to join them. And what was my astonishment when a few days later two other escaped members of our company in the P.O.W. camp were brought in—Peter Aufschnaiter, my comrade on the Nanga Parbat expedition, and a certain Father Calenberg.

Meanwhile I had begun to occupy my mind with plans for escaping once more. I made friends with an Indian guard who cooked for us and seemed to inspire confidence. I handed him my maps, my compass and my money, as I knew that we should be searched before being readmitted to the camp, and that it would be impossible to smuggle these things in with us. So I told the Indian that I would come again in the following spring and collect my possessions from him. He was to ask for leave in May and wait for me. This he solemnly promised to do. So now we had to go back to the camp and it was only my resolve to get free once more that enabled me to endure the bitterness of my disappointment.

Marchese was still sick and could not walk, so they gave him a horse to ride. We had another agreeable interruption, being entertained on our way by the Maharajah of Tehri-Garwhal, who treated us most hospitably. Then we returned to our barbed-wire entanglements.

The episode of my flight had left a visible mark on my person, which appeared when on the way back I bathed in a warm spring. There I found my hair coming out in handfuls. It appears that the dye I had used for my Indian disguise was deleterious.

As a result of my involuntary depilation and all the fatiguing experiences I had gone through, my comrades in the camp found it hard to recognise me when I arrived.

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