Nicolas saunters towards him to have a better look and to spare himself from shouting. ‘Nicolas Notovitch, Novaya Gazeta and the Chicago Herald.’ As he reaches into his breast pocket, he sees Younghusband stiffen in the saddle. What he pulls out is a hip flask. ‘Cognac,’ Nicolas says, turning the little vessel so its sides catch the sunlight. He offers it to the Englishman.

‘After you,’ says Younghusband. He’s young, perhaps twenty-five, a bluff adventurer type who isn’t cunning enough to conceal his unease.

‘To Her Majesty’s health,’ Nicolas proposes, takes a sip, and offers the flask to the Englishman, who accepts it, but doesn’t raise it to his lips.

‘I had you for a Frenchman,’ he says.

‘I live in Paris,’ says Nicolas, ‘but, as must be evident to you, I am a Russian subject.’

‘Well,’ says Younghusband, ‘to the Tsar, then’, and turning his head away slightly he touches the flask to his lips and lowers it without swallowing. Nicolas finds himself offended by the half-heartedness of the Englishman’s attempt at civility.

Younghusband dismounts. He is wiry, big-boned, a nervous red setter of a man, with a young dog’s restlessness and anxious curiosity. He gestures at some bulky objects on one of Notovitch’s ponies.

‘You map-making? That a theodolite?’

‘No, Captain Younghusband. It’s photographic equipment. My editors tell me that our readers have a vast appetite for images of exotic locations. We journalists are slaves to the public taste. And as for you, what is the purpose of your expedition?’

‘I’m on Her Majesty’s business,’ says the Englishman. Then, aware how curt he sounds, he elaborates a little. ‘I’m adventuring. Bit of a passion of mine. I started in Peking.’

‘You’ve come from China?’ The distances involved are so huge that it’s impossible not to be impressed. Younghusband concedes he has with a false show of modesty. ‘Then the spirit of Drake and Raleigh is not dead,’ Nicolas suggests.

‘No, and never shall be, I hope,’ says the Englishman, with the pomposity that Nicolas has come to recognise as that nation’s birthright. He graciously accedes to the wish with a nod.

One of Nicolas’s Pashtun guides chooses this pause to break into the conversation. He’s wondering how long they expect to stay here.

Nicolas asks him if there’s water nearby. The guide indicates a thorn tree half a mile away on the valley floor. Nicolas tells him to head there and make camp.

‘You speak the lingo?’ says Younghusband in surprise.

‘My Pashto is no more than workable,’ insists Nicolas, ‘my Balti poor, and my Ladakhi practically non-existent. I’ve told my man to make camp by that spring. I would be honoured if you would be my guest tonight.’

‘What spring? The charts don’t show a spring,’ says Younghusband, unfolding his map.