Flame of Adventure by Simon Yates

Author:Simon Yates
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781409023999
Publisher: Random House

Chapter Five

Lost in Asia

‘WAKE UP! WAKE up!’

I opened my eyes and looked around the cramped, squalid hotel room. Sean was stirring on a bed nearby. The floor space was covered with our kit. A rusty old fan creaked slowly round on the ceiling above my head. I looked to my side – Mark’s bed was empty. He was standing in the open door looking very worried.

‘Have you seen my money belt?’ he pleaded.

‘Hardly,’ I replied cynically. ‘I’ve been asleep.’

‘It was on my bed before I went for a shower.’

‘Are you sure?’ said Sean.

We quickly arose from our beds and joined Mark in a frantic search. I did not really share his concern, as he had been losing things and then finding them again for the entire length of the expedition. I became so annoyed with the habit while we were climbing that I lent him a lighter only whenever he needed to light the stove, and then demanded its return before he had time to lose it. I expected the money belt to drop from a rucksack, or be found among a pile of clothing. After we had searched everything several times I was not so sure. Sean checked the bathroom and came back into the room shaking his head.

‘It’s been nicked,’ Mark said, slumping on to his bed and burying his face in the palms of his hands.

‘What was in it?’ Sean asked sympathetically.

‘Fucking everything. Passport, air tickets, travellers’ cheques, money. The lot.’

I let out a big sigh. It was every traveller’s worst nightmare. We were due to catch a flight to Nepal in two days’ time.

‘How can it possibly have been stolen?’ I pointed out.

‘I left the door open while I was in the shower.’

Mark stormed out of the room and Sean shrugged at me as if to say, ‘what did he expect?’ On our way into the mountains Mike and Nick had refused to stay in the seedy hotel in the centre of Rawalpindi’s sprawling Rajah Bazaar. Now their decision had been vindicated. We sat in silence as Mark stormed from one room to another, accusing other residents. Then he became involved in a blazing row with the manager. Eventually, he returned to the room.

‘Lend me some money. I’m going to the police station.’

When Mark returned in the evening he looked ashen.

‘You are not going to believe what happened to me.’

We listened while Mark told us his story. He had gone to the main police station in the city to report the theft, but because he was a foreigner he had been referred to the Deputy Police Commissioner. When Mark finally got to see the Commissioner, he was called out on a case and insisted that Mark accompany him. They drove in a police jeep through a labyrinth of back streets and eventually stopped at a small warehouse. Inside, a man was hanging by his neck from a piece of rope around a rafter.

Later, he learned that he could not get new travellers’ cheques issued without a passport, and the airlines would not issue replacement tickets.

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