The ex-army Bedford truck was old and battered, but driver Jack Neatherway was an experienced mechanic. He was familiar with every nut and bolt of the ancient vehicle and carried all sorts of spares and tools for every emergency. Since the party had left Kathmandu a month earlier, he had twice done major repairs on the side of the road – in Jaipur the rear suspension needed to be replaced, and on the way up to the Khyber Pass from Peshawar, the water pump had packed in. The twenty-one passengers were used to seeing Jack, arms covered with black grease, on his back beneath the vehicle.
The party had left Kathmandu on a three month overland journey to London organised by Overtrek Tours, a U.K. based company. From Kathmandu, they had travelled westwards to Pokhara, then south into northern India, visiting Varanasi, Agra, Delhi and Jaipur, into Punjab and Kashmir, where they had spent a week on a houseboat on the lake at Srinagar; then southwards again to Amritsar, and into Pakistan. They were now in Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan. Their journey would later take them to Iran, Turkey, Greece, Yugoslavia, and across Europe to the Channel crossing at Ostend.
The year was 1976. This was before the Russian invasion of Afghanistan, before the fall of the Shah of Iran, and before the breaking-up of Yugoslavia.
The company travelled frugally, sitting in the back of the truck on two benches, one down either side, their few belongings stored underneath the bench in lockers. They bought most of the food from local markets and took turns to do the cooking. Occasionally they stayed at a proper campsite and managed to get a shower and the use of a toilet, but more often than not they stopped at some convenient spot by a river and made do with Mother Nature’s facilities. This was no luxury tour.
The group of travellers consisted of an American, five Brits, four New Zealanders, nine Australians and two Canadians. There were three married couples, but otherwise they had all been strangers before starting their journey. They came from all walks of life – a teacher, a lawyer, three nurses, a secretary, an army sergeant on leave, and some were unemployed or going on their OE – but they all shared a love of adventure and an interest in other cultures.
They had come to trust Jack, their driver, mechanic, guide and friend. He drove the truck well, though a little fast at times over bumpy and often unsealed roads. Jack was an Englishman, about thirty five years old, a slight man with a black beard and glasses. He had been suffering from dysentery since they had left Amritsar and he had lost a lot of weight. Two trips to local doctors had proved fruitless. One had prescribed enterovioform, a substance that is banned in the Western world because it can cause blindness; and the other had given him some nondescript brown tablets. Both medicines had done him no good at all.
The party had just spent three days in Kabul. This was before the Russian invasion, and it was still possible to buy woollen socks or gloves at a bargain price from the street vendors in Chicken Street. Before setting off on the road to Kandahar, they decided to take a detour for a few days into the beautiful mountains of the Hindu Kush. They set off from Kabul in the early hours of the morning and made good progress travelling northwards to the town of Charikar. However, after turning towards the west into a steep-sided valley leading to the mountains, the road soon deteriorated and was full of ruts and potholes. Nevertheless, Jack was experienced at negotiating these, and they climbed rapidly without too much discomfort. In the back of the truck there was plenty of breeze, but the dust from the road made conditions rather unpleasant at times.
They camped for the night by the banks of a small river. They didn’t try to erect their tents on the rocky terrain, but they were used to sleeping rough on the ground, and the open air was preferable to being shut up in a stuffy tent. They didn’t seem to be worried about wild animals or thieves; they had become accustomed to this way of life.
Each member of the party had a job to do, working in groups on a roster basis. One group started preparing the food for cooking, while a second group fetched water from the river and a third group went in search of firewood. Within minutes an open fire was roaring and a pot of stew was bubbling. After the meal, a fourth group took their turn to wash the plates and pots. Then there was time for a swim in the river and relaxation.
Jack wasn’t feeling too well that evening. His untreated sickness came and went. Some days he felt quite fit and well, but on other occasions he was weak and his stomach felt inflated and sore – a sort of sinking feeling. An occasional belch, which tasted acidic, helped to relieve the discomfort. Jack was lying down inside the cab without his glasses on when one of the passengers came to speak to him.
“Who’s there?” Jack asked. “I can’t see too well without my glasses.”
“It’s me, Ralph,” the other replied. Ralph wondered why Jack had not recognised him. There was plenty of light inside the cab and he should have been easily recognisable, even without glasses. Maybe Jack’s sickness had impaired his vision.
“How are you, Jack? Not too good by the looks of you.”
Jack nodded.
“I’ve got some medicine that may help,” said Ralph. “Before I left Aussie, my father gave me a selection of these homeopathic remedies – supposed to be one to cure any type of sickness. Look, this one’s for diarrhoea. Why don’t you try it?”
Jack reluctantly accepted the tablets and promised to give them a go. But he was sceptical of any kind of magic cure.
The following day, they continued on up the valley towards the town of Bamian. They were travelling at a fair speed when Jack suddenly saw a narrow bridge just a few metres ahead. He braked and the truck swerved dangerously, but he managed to control the vehicle and they continued on their way.
“Sorry about that folks,” said Jack. “I didn’t see that one coming”
Some of the passengers exchanged nervous glances, but most of them trusted Jack’s judgement as a very good driver. Only Ralph had a real cause for concern. Privately he wondered whether Jack had a serious problem with his eyesight.
They arrived at Bamian late in the afternoon. The town of Bamian is dominated to the north side by a sandstone cliff towering over the town. The cliff has a warren of interconnecting caves cut into it with several openings at different points on the cliff face. The caves had been dug out many centuries earlier by Buddhists as a refuge from the invading Moslems who had overrun the country from its western neighbour. Some of the caves are easily accessible to the tourist and, from the openings in the cliff-face, afford excellent views of the town and the surrounding countryside. Also carved into the cliff-face are two huge figures of Buddha, hewn from the sandstone rock by hundreds of followers of the faith all those centuries ago.
They stayed in Bamian for two nights in an unusual accommodation – a sort of courtyard surrounded by a wall with buildings on one side only; almost a fortress it seemed. But there was a place to shower and a toilet, which made it luxurious compared with many of the places where they had stayed.
The following day they travelled to the lakes of Band-e-Amir, returning to Bamian late the same evening. The journey to Band-e-Amir was one of eighty kilometres over very rough roads. Band-e-Amir, sometimes called the eighth wonder of the world, is one of the most starkly beautiful places on Earth. Lakes of azure blue and turquoise green are surrounded by a dry, arid landscape with steep-sided cliffs and outcrops of rock that look as if they are straight out of one of those Western movies shot in Arizona. Waterfalls cascade from some of these lakes which seem to be perched on the cliff top and ready to topple over at any minute. Nearby, nomadic herdsmen can be seen tending their flocks of goats. Most significantly, the area is untouched by western culture. It is stark and beautiful, and the people who dwell there seem to be detached from the twentieth century.
Two days later, as the old Bedford truck wound its way down the valley from Bamian on its return journey to Kabul, not so far away an old Afghani man was on his way to the market at Charikar. The man, whose name was Hasami, lived high up in the mountains with his family, part of a tribe of closely-related Afghanis. They were poor and lived a simple existence, their houses of clay being small, rough and cold. But they lived in a fertile valley and Hasami, like most of his neighbours, was able to grow a few extra vegetables to sell at the market. Hasami had few possessions, but he had one thing of great value – his donkey. He had saved for several months before he had enough to pay for the donkey, which was now accompanying him to Charikar. It was invaluable to him since it could carry five times as much produce as he could easily manage himself.
The journey on foot to Charikar was a long one. It had taken Hasami three days and two nights, mostly over rough mountainous terrain with no roads; but the last few kilometres took him along the highway linking Bamian and Charikar. Hasami and his faithful donkey were nearing the end of their journey. The old man walked alongside the donkey gently humming to himself; with one hand he guided the donkey, and in the other he carried a stick. On his head he wore a turban of dull grey calico, his robes were of the same featureless grey, and he had a grey beard. The donkey was also coloured grey. The two of them were a picture of greyness that blended in with the grey dusty appearance of the road on which they walked. Occasionally, when a truck passed, the dust thrown up by the vehicle obscured the man and beast in a perfect camouflage.
Jack and the company of travellers were also approaching Charikar at this time. Jack was feeling very rough that day and had slept little the night before. He kept the cab window open to allow a slight breeze to give some relief from the stifling heat. The road was also rough, but Jack was confident that he could negotiate the potholes without causing any damage to the vehicle. He was well-practised at this by now, and maintained a good speed. As the vehicle rounded a bend in the road, he saw another truck ahead, and knew that he would soon catch up with it. The truck was a local one, made in India, and painted with a myriad of bright colours.
The old man Hasami was disturbed from his reverie by the sound of a truck approaching from behind. The driver of the brightly-coloured truck sounded his horn, but Hasami was unmoved. He did not acknowledge that these modern vehicles had any more right to be on the road than he and his donkey. The driver swerved around the pair, and continued on his way, his truck leaving them enshrouded in a cloud of dust. Cursing, the old peasant gave the donkey a prod with the stick and continued on his journey.
Seconds later he heard the sound of a second truck approaching from behind. This one did not sound its horn and seemed to be past in an instant. The driver, Jack Neatherway, was suddenly aware of a thud as his truck hit something in the road; a rock maybe, or was it just a pothole? Peering through the gloom, he could see nothing untoward and kept going. But the passengers sitting in the back of the truck saw clearly what had happened. Looking back, as the dust settled, they saw an old peasant man standing over his dead donkey brandishing a stick in their direction, his livelihood shattered by a sick, half-blind, uncaring foreigner.
