Free Pilgrim Son: A Personal Odyssey by John Masters Page B

was seven months gone in her pregnancy, and again we faced the backbreaking job of packing up all our belongings, this time with no idea where we were going. Again, Barbara's mother offered to let us live with her in Claygate until our plans were firm, and we gratefully accepted. My visits to London grew more frequent, more urgent, more dead-endish. Then Bill Dodds said, 'Come to America'.
    It was a simple remark but, spoken by an American, it was like a master-key quietly pressed into my hand. I had driven across the United States in 1938, and had loved it. The wide skies of the west had exhilarated me, the sense of opportunity and freedom lifted me out of myself. I had been offered three jobs on that trip, not to mention two young ladies as prospective wives. Only the call of the 4th Gurkhas and the imminent prospect of war had brought me back. Why had I not thought of it before now? A score of memories echoed Why? I remembered the second night of Oklahoma! at Drury Lane, the sheer impact of the man walking alone through the sunlit corn singing 'Oh what a beautiful morning', and at the end the English audience and the American actors almost physically fusing together in a general passion of love. I thought of H. L. Mencken. A country had to be great to distil such wonderful vitriol in its writers — and survive. And Leonard Ross. I would be a new Hyman Kaplan, with a British accent.
    Barbara said, 'I don't know anything about America except what you've told me, but if you want to go, I'm happy. I'm not happy here.'
    Bill Dodds asked the U.S. Military Attache in London to get me a copy of the New York Times so that I could see what sort of jobs were available. The man sent a full Sunday edition, which weighed some 12 lb. and contained perhaps 450 pages in 8 sections. Days later I emerged from the Classified Section (40 pages) in squinting despair. Channel wire tubing salesman, experienced. Cigar and tobacco jobber. Packing engineer. Moon Hopkins No. 7800 bkpr pkge. Prod desgr ME massprod. I didn't understand a word of it. Ah, here was something more like: INTERESTING friendly full or spare time work your own neighbourhood, Represent well known women's wear. High comma. Interesting indeed, I thought. Selling panties door to door. Why not try them on, madame? I looked back up at the head of the column. Sales Help Wanted — Female. There's always a snag somewhere.
    I restated the position. America, and only America, filled every specification of our object. But what in the name of God was I going to do there?
    Why, follow David Niven's advice, just go, find out, and do it.
    I had a headache. I wished fervently that I was on the D.S. at Quetta instead of Camberley, so that when the course ended we could go on trek in Kashmir, or Assam. Barbara with a pony. Mountains... The wild gleam by then almost permanent in my eyes became wilder. I liked mountains, Barbara liked mountains. Every right-thinking person liked mountains. The Himalayas were the most beautiful mountain mass on earth, and so vast that they could contain all the others and not notice them. I knew a lot about the mechanics of Himalayan travel. Americans were fervid travellers. Why should I not take expeditions of Americans into the Himalayas? For a consideration, of course. It was perfect. The more I thought about it the more it fitted in with everything we wanted.
    I began to work out the details as though the devil and Roddy McLeod were at my heels. Staff tables, finance, clothing, gathering at U.S rendezvous, air transport to India, transport from airport to roadhead, accommodation, insurance, details of Himalayan route, fishing and game licences, pack animals or porters, cooks, catering, medical... I wrote to the firms in India which ran Himalayan treks, and fishing trips. I spoke to the sales departments of K.L.M. and B.O.A.C. about group fares, commissions, baggage rates. I went to India House and saw Arthur (Anand) Lall, a deputy to the High Commissioner, who