The Rose of Tibet by Lionel Davidson Page B

from the river, and boiled it on a small spirit stove. He opened a tin of meat and laid out the sleeping bags. He broughtmore water in a collapsible rubber bucket and offered it to Houston.
    ‘You wash now, sahib. You’ll feel better.’
    ‘I couldn’t feel any worse.’
    ‘Tomorrow will be easier. We go slowly.’
    ‘Whereabouts are we?’
    ‘Thirty miles across the border. Well into Sikkim. It’s been a good day, sahib. Tomorrow we go into Nepal.’
    Houston washed and ate and smoked a cigarette and presently did feel very much better. He got into his sleeping bag and looked up at the diamond bright stars and an extraordinary sense of well-being came over him. He smiled in the darkness, astonished at his achievement. Riding a bicycle, he had made measurable progress on the map of the Himalayas. When he closed his eyes he could see every mile of it, the great green valley that they had gone down and up; the rivers; the tiers of rolling hills they had pedalled so slowly across. A good day, the boy had said; not so bad for a man who was in no condition for this sort of thing.
    He had a conviction at that moment that he was going to manage it, and breathed deeply of the sharp air, intoxicated with the vision of himself lying there in the enormous emptiness of the hills with the universe swinging all around, and of the further, mysterious places he could reach by going on like this, spending himself a little bit at a time.
    He heard a soft snore from the other sleeping bag, and eased himself more blissfully into his own. His arms still twitched from the strain of the rope across the river, and the bones of his backside were bruised from the saddle. Houston moved gently on them; honourable scars, he thought.
    That was the first night.
3
    Ringling roused him at five the next morning, and he got up immediately. He had already been half awake; despite his intense fatigue he had slept only fitfully. It was grey and misty, the grass wet, the water, fifty yards away, invisible. He washed in the bucket and rinsed out his mouth, and they breakfasted on the remainder of the meat and a few rings of dried apple.
    The boy packed everything while Houston attended to the needs of nature and by half past five they were awheel again. His backside was acutely tender and every inch of his frame seemed to creak, but once he had settled himself in position, he got on well enough. There was a certain fascination in bicycling through the mist at this hour in this high place; as last night, he was keenly aware of his geographical location and hungry to pile on mileage. He was also eager to see what kind of country they were in. They had climbed steadily since leaving the river valley, and he thought they were climbing now; he had become so accustomed to the pressure on the pedals that he could not tell precisely.
    ‘How high up are we, Ringling?’
    ‘About eight thousand feet, sahib. How did you sleep?’
    ‘Not too well. Why?’
    He thought the boy looked a shade moody, but he only said, ‘We don’t go so far today. When the mist rises you’ll see mountains, sahib. Arnalang on the right and Kanchenjunga ahead.’
    ‘Kanchenjunga,’ Houston said with satisfaction. ‘How far into Nepal are we going?’
    ‘Only ten miles today.’
    ‘You’re not bothered about being seen so near the border?’
    ‘Not up here, sahib. People come and go from Sikkim to Nepal. Getting in from India is the problem.’
    The mist began lifting at nine o’clock, but so slowly that Houston was disappointed by what he saw. The mountains were a vague jumble of hazy white peaks, with the slightly higher peak of Kanchenjunga. By eleven, however, the mist had lifted entirely. The sun shone from a high blue sky, and the hazy teeth of the mountains became sharp; first white, then pink, then gold, then white again. Houston’s heart sang, watching these fantastic ramparts, as they cycled slowly towards them.
    They were riding uphill on springy turf, but frequently