a wide stretch of open water before them. They had left the main party some way to the north while Sullivan tried to find a shorter way through the swamps of Ulan Nor: he had passed this way once with the father of the Mongols, but that was some years ago, and the way through the vast marshy depression, devoid of landmarks, was difficult to find. From the steppe all they had been able to see was a vast fringe of reeds, with winding arms of white water leading through it, and beyond, mud-banks and the surface of the enormous lake. But now that they were in the reeds they could see nothing at all.
Derrick knew that his uncle was a few feet ahead of him, but he could see nothing of him, and if he had not known that Sullivan was steering their course by compass he would have felt lost indeed.
‘We should not have very much farther to go now,’ said Sullivan: his voice was more distant now, farther over to the right, and Derrick pushed strongly through the reeds towards the sound. He was knee-deep in evil-smelling mud, and he knew that if he broke through the tangle of submerged roots he would sink down and never be seen again. It was disagreeable knowledge, and he struggled through as quickly as he could. But before he could reach his uncle there was a sudden prodigious roar, a noise higher than thunder, yet not unlike it: then a second later the sky was darkened, and he heard his uncle shouting, ‘Do you see that?’
Derrick stared up, and there, above the high reeds, were countless thousands of duck, close-packed and rising quickly through the air, which trembled under the beating of their wings. He watched them for a moment, and then scrambled through to join his uncle, who was standing in the ooze on the water’s edge. As Derrick broke through the reeds still another great raft of duck lifted from the farther end of the water, lashing the surface and then sweeping up into the wind to gain height. The first multitude passed over the lake again, still rising and weaving in a close-knit skein, and the second joined it: soon they vanished like a cloud, and on the chill waters of the lake there was nothing but a few floating feathers and a single unmoved diving-bird, something like a grebe, that continued to bob about near the farther shore.
‘Well, here we are,’ said Sullivan. ‘This is the right place, all right: do you see that stake standing in the water there? Old Hulagu Khan’s brother planted it there to guide me years ago, and it is still standing. But I am afraid that the kachak yol – that is what they called this route – is no use to us. We would never get the camels across that in a month of Sundays. It was not so bad when I came this way last: that stake was on dry ground then. The swamp has been filling up. It’s a pity: it would have saved us five days at least.’
‘We shall have to go round the north of the swamp, then?’
‘Yes. Even if we could get the camels through this, there’s worse beyond. No: it’s a nuisance, but it was worth trying, and at least we have got this compensation – we’ll have a few hours of the best duck-shooting in the world before we go back and join the others.’
They forced their way back through the reeds, a long, long path with very heavy going, and returned to the place where they had left the horses and Chang by the black felt tent, the yurt, in which they were to sleep.
Derrick was awake well before the dawn, but his uncle was up before him, already sorting out the ammunition and filling his belt by the light of a small Mongol lamp – their electric torches had given out long before – whose flame hardly flickered, in spite of the wind that was bowing in the wall of the yurt, for the felt let in no air at all. It was a cold night outside, and the hoar-frost showed under the waning moon: the sky was clear, but a strong wind blew from the north-east, and Derrick was glad to be moving.
‘We must get there before the moon goes down,’ said Sullivan, as they set off, ‘or I shall not be able to find the place I have in mind.’
Chang raced in the faint moon-shadow of Derrick’s pony as they rode swiftly over the silvery steppe: they went gently downhill all the way towards the remote, whitened fringe of reeds that hid the lake. Presently the ground became boggy underfoot, and the horses slowed down: Sullivan swung over to the right, aiming for a slight rise in the ground where a few ghostly alders stood bowed against the wind. The horses picked their way with care, but soon their riders’ high boots were splashed with mud. The trees, the only trees they had seen for weeks and weeks, grew nearer, and suddenly the ground was firm again.
‘We’ll leave them here,’ said Sullivan, dismounting and strapping his blankets well over the horse’s back, ‘and we’ll go the rest of the way by foot.’ They tethered the horses and plunged into the reeds. Almost at once they were sheltered from the wind: it sang through the tops of the reeds like a half-gale in the rigging of a ship, but Derrick, well below the top, was soon warmed through and through as he pushed along behind his uncle’s back. He welcomed the warmth, for it had been perishingly cold on the steppe, as it always was at night, even in the height of the summer, but very soon he began to feel that he was warm enough. His boots were heavy and clogged with mud, and he panted with the effort of keeping up with the strong, broad back in front of him: he thrust on and on through the reeds, as hot and sticky now as if he had been running under the noon-day sun. Just when he was beginning to feel that he could not carry his gun any farther, and that he would have to stop and take off his boiling boots, he saw the gleam of water through the thinning reeds ahead: in another moment they were through, and Sullivan already had out his long knife.
‘Hurry up,’ he said. ‘There are no duck down yet, and we have got time to make ourselves a butt.’ He began cutting the reeds in great swathes and laying the bundles criss-cross on the mud: Derrick imitated him, and he was glad to do so, for in a moment the wind had whipped away his heat, now that he was out of the shelter. Using the thinner reeds for rope, they lashed the reeds in bundles to form walls, and in a little while they had a dry and wind-proof little pen. Sullivan planted a few tall reeds round it to screen it from view and then crept in, sat on a bundle of reeds and lit his pipe. It had been getting darker fast as the moon dipped down, and the flare of his match showed all round the butt. ‘There we are,’ he said, in a contented voice, ‘all set up with an hour to spare. They will start flighting a little while before the dawn, and if this wind does not change they will all come up the lake from over there, right across the butt. I hope that animal of yours will be able to retrieve. I suppose you didn’t think to bring any food with you, did you?’
‘No, I didn’t think of it,’ said Derrick. He had not thought about food at all in the hurry and excitement of getting away, but now it occurred to him that he was ravenously hungry.
‘Well, it’s a good thing that somebody thinks of these things,’ said Sullivan, feeling in the bottom of his game-bag and bringing out a parcel. ‘There. That’s cold roast sand-grouse: an emperor could not ask for a better breakfast.’
They ate in silence for some time, and now that he was thoroughly satisfied, warm and comfortable, with his feet buried under Chang, who served as a foot-muff, Derrick began to wonder how he could ask his uncle a question that had been worrying him for some time. Ever since the three of them, the Professor, Ross and Sullivan, had talked to him so strongly about the wrongfulness of war, Derrick had been thinking about what Hsien Lu had told him – about Ross and Sullivan having been pirates in the China Seas. If they had been pirates, Derrick thought (and he knew very well that there were hundreds of pirates on the China coast, some of them with European skippers), then they had no right to talk in that way: unless, of course, it was just a grown-up manner of speech which did not mean anything. Yet it seemed impossible that they should have spoken so sincerely, if they really did not think as the Professor did. And, on the other hand, if they had agreed with him so heartily without believing it … it was difficult to know what to think. But then, of course, Hsien Lu might have been mistaken.
It was a difficult question to ask. He looked across the butt: all he could see was the intermittent glow of his uncle’s pipe as he drew on it. Suddenly he blurted out, ‘Uncle Terry, were you ever a pirate?’
‘A
