Daily Times

We resumed our trek again with me ushered in the lead by the guide. In a short while, maybe half an hour, we hit the crest and stopped a few yards below the crest for a final briefing by the guide who was now whispering in every ear individually. As we were running a quiet check and very deliberately pulling our safety catches back, a youngster crept up to the crest unnoticed, saw the flock of sheep and could not control himself, “Sir, urial there,” he shouted.

That shout startled the pack and they bolted like bullets disappearing down the other slope in seconds. The guide’s anger was uncontrollable. I had to intervene and cool his temper, gave a pep talk to the offending officer and to the rest and discussed the next best option with the guide. His plan was to descend into the next gorge that took a detour around a small plateau in the mountains. This flock will climb up to the plateau for their morning grazing by sunrise and mingle with the sheep kept there by a shepherd. We had to be there and in place, well before sunrise. We had exactly four hours of darkness and an unknown distance to cover. Resuming our trek, we followed religiously whatever the guide said. This time he was a little more considerate as he would order a short pause almost every one hour. My feeling was that we had probably more time and less distance to cover. It was a beautiful starlit night with the galaxy glittering in all its majesty in the sky. I had hardly seen a clearer sky and breathed cleaner more refreshing air than that before. There was a whiff of pine scent in the gentle breeze.

Soon we were struggling up a steep and narrow goat trail through thick underbrush and tall pine trees to a place that loomed like a huge, flat plateau. That was the little pasture that our guide had talked about. It was still very dark but the plateau was silhouetted against the star-studded sky like a fortress. As we stepped over the flat top, the guide carefully placed us in our firing positions on the edge of an open space that turned out to be a disused field. I was on a spot closer to the edge of the precipice and the guide planted himself next to me. He had told the party that they must wait to hear a shot from us before they open up and that they must not fire in any other direction except to the front. That meant I was to be the first one to fire. The tabletop plateau was windswept and our sweat-soaked shirts had begun to freeze .We draped our capes around our bodies and soon began to fight involuntary sleep.

I must have dozed off, because a nudge from the guide seemed to have awakened me. He had placed a finger on his lips gesturing me to be quiet. It was false dawn and the guide felt the urials were already below in the gorge. I removed my cape, flexed my finger muscles a bit, pulled the safety catch back and sat in ambush. Just as the first feeble rays of the sun filtered through the pines in the translucent haze of shallow mist, the leading urial appeared with his magnificent curved horns becoming visible first. It was a fully grown powerful male that looked regal in its silhouette against the quivering sunrays. He paused for a second on the edge and then began to cross the empty field. The guide held my shoulder firmly, as the others began to follow the lead male. They were five in total. As the lead urial came into range, the guide released his grip on my shoulder, a signal for me to shoot. I had him already in my gun swing, took careful aim and fired both barrels in quick succession. Then the firing began and it was over in minutes. We had bagged two, the big male and one more. Our night’s toil paid off very well.

Shortly a commotion followed and then an elderly but powerfully built local emerged from the bushes on the other end of the empty field. He probably knew the guide as they met warmly. We were introduced, the bag praised and invited over for a cup of tea to his shack on the other end of the fields, in fact the plateau. It was not much, maybe a kilometre by half all told. He kept a small herd of sheep and goats there and raised corn and wheat crops enough to last till the next season. Once in a month or so he would go down to Jalalpur for his provisions or to sell a pair of his animals. He was happy that we intercepted the mischievous urials as they were a peculiar nuisance to him. Not only would they graze on his crop but also spoil his ewes and therefore their breeding. This unusual hill shepherd radiated a strange calm and harmony with nature around him. He brewed tea for us in a dented black kettle over pinewood chips and dried needles’ fire with goat milk. The mesmerising smell of the pinewood smoke mixed with the morning mist and the rich pungent brew were simply out of this world. He looked happy where he was and with whatever he had. Pathetic little it was but he was perfectly at peace with himself.

(Concluded)

The writer is a retired brigadier of the Pakistan Army. He can be reached at clay.potter@hotmail.com