Caravans: A Novel of Afghanistan by James A. Michener

Author:James A. Michener
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Tags: Mystery, Romance, Historical Fiction, Action & Adventure, Family Saga, Contemporary Fiction, Thriller & Suspense, United States, Sagas, Suspense, Historical, Crime, Genre Fiction, Thriller, Literature & Fiction
ISBN: 0449213803
Publisher: Dial Press Trade Paperback
Published: 2014-02-18T08:00:00+00:00

I have this day ordered the American irrigation engineer John Pritchard to be transported to the hospital in Kandahar, so that medical attention unavailable here may be given his badly infected left leg.

Mark Miller

United States Embassy

Kabul, Afghanistan

Feeling sick at what I had done, I handed Nazrullah the directive. He read it twice, showed it to Stiglitz and Nur Muhammad, and folded it carefully. “We’ll leave in ten minutes, sleep at the edge of the desert and start our crossing as soon as we can negotiate that bad approach.”

He had overlooked one fact. John Pritchard refused to leave his post until his water-level records were collected. “That’s why I came here,” he said. “If they want to build that dam, they’ll need these records.” To my surprise, Dr. Stiglitz supported him.

“A scientist should keep records,” the German said.

So I was led by a guide to a spot two miles down the Helmand, where John Pritchard had been collecting the data on which Nazrullah would build his dam. More significantly, perhaps, Pritchard’s word would form the basis for riparian treaties between Afghanistan and Persia, who had threatened war over the river. We found a small shed, boiling hot, some water gauges, a sheaf of irreplaceable records. The guide warned me in Pashto to watch the steps leading to the shed, for it was here that Pritchard had broken his leg; and as I stood in this lonely shack, this veritable end of the world where the temperature was daily above a hundred and thirty, I thought of all the careless speeches made in Congress about the cookie-pushers of the State Department, those striped-pants boys who haunt afternoon teas, and I wished that some of the arrogant speakers could have seen the work that John Pritchard had accomplished for our nation and for Afghanistan.

“Was Pritchard a good man?” I asked the guide. It was a kind of judgment he had not previously been asked to make, and he was confused. Finally he said brightly, “Yes, he could handle a gun with skill.”

I was to ride with Nazrullah in his jeep, while Nur and Stiglitz supervised loading Pritchard in the back of theirs. As they did so the German said heartily, “If I ever saw a man with a good chance to get across the desert, it’s this one.”

“We’ll make it!” the engineer called as we set forth, and it became my duty when we stopped to pour as much water as possible over the stricken man, thus keeping his temperature down, but before we had traveled far he became partially delirious and asked that I ride with him, as he wished to speak of America.

Thus we rode past the brooding, empty buildings of The City, and in the cooler evening his fever abated and we talked. He was from Fort Collins, Colorado, and had spent each autumn hunting in the Rockies. He was, he admitted, a fairly good rifle shot and had bagged elk, bear and mountain goats. He had a low opinion of the latter and felt they did more harm than good.

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