The route was so rough that when a northwest convoy got back to Chungking, its trucks needed to be torn apart and rebuilt. They had to be in prime condition for the next trip some months ahead. Repairs on the road were difficult because they had to be performed in the open. One truck returned to Chungking with a break in the chassis behind the cab, which a Chinese blacksmith along the route had repaired with two bolts. The workmen in Chungking had to strip the whole thing down and weld the break together.
Between trips, Dad lived in Chungking and supervised the repair and rebuilding of the trucks. The men worked in every way they could to make the vehicles more comfortable. For instance, Dad built a plywood box in the cab of his truck to hold his small Olivetti typewriter, securing it between the two seats.
Winter in the northwest was brutally cold. The crew had to be up at five in the morning to start the trucks, cranking them up in temperatures that could hit twenty-seven below zero, Fahrenheit, nearly freezing the oil. Some of the trucks were easier to start than others, but the work and the weather were very taxing. Frozen gas can cut a person=s hands. On the trip Dad commanded, Todd Laurie=s cuts became infected, and he had to be left in Lanchow with the China Inland Mission until the convoy returned. (Todd reported that he spent the month ice dancing with the beautiful wives of absent Kuomintang officers.)
After the convoy delivered its medical supplies and left Todd with the CIM, Dad decided to pick up new cargo to make a paying proposition out of the next leg of the trip, to Suzhou. Lanchow was a large city, already surrounded by a good deal of heavy industry. Dad=s chosen cargo was dynamite: the oil fields always needed it, and its danger made hauling it very lucrative. As a precaution (in case his truck exploded), Dad left the convoy=s money in the care of an elderly Lanchow merchant he had befriended, with the agreement that he would pick up it up on the return trip.
The dynamite was loaded onto the trucks with great care, and the convoy set off, driving in a strung-out line to minimize the danger of fire spreading to the other trucks if one had an accident and exploded. It was so cold that Dad gave his sheepskin overcoat to the Chinese lookout on his truck, who, by law, had to sit atop the cargo, and the other drivers followed his example. Fortunately, the four-day journey to Suzhou went smoothly.
The morning after their arrival, they drove out to the Yumen oil wells, where the gasoline drums were filled and loaded back on to the trucks. Before leaving the wells and starting on their return trip, they were invited to a private home for meal, along with three or four Americans. Houses of the oil-well administrators were heated by gas from the wells; Dad remembers this house as the warmest place he had been in since leaving Chungking.
Each truck left the wells carrying twelve fifty-gallon barrels standing upright, along with others held in wooden cradles above the cab. This weight made for very slow travel. It was easy to burn out the motor going up hills; if the motor got hot the driver had to stop and let it cool down.
On the return south, the loaded trucks had to traverse a mountain range between Suchow and Lanchow that rose so slowly that the increase in altitude was almost unnoticeable. To the eye, the terrain looked flat. The drivers knew they were ascending only because they had to change gears; the climb was so gradual that it took an hour to go from top gear to bottom gear. They realized they were descending when their trucks began picking up speed on their own. During the descent, the engines cooled rapidly in the frigid air. To help them run warmer, the men covered the radiator grills with their sheepskin coats.
On the way down, Dad forgot to remove his coat from the grill when the descent ended, and the coat, which was blocking airflow, caused the radiator to boil over.
As convoy commander, Dad was in the last truck, along with Mike Crosfield. The rest of the convoy had driven on, unaware that Dad and Mike had broken down. In order to continue, Dad and Mike had to find water to refill the radiator.
They were in the Gobi Desert, nothing but barren sand and gravel in every direction. The only sign of human habitation was a small yurt about a mile from the road. Dad headed toward it, carrying an empty five-gallon can. Everything was very still, and Dad felt very much alone. When he was within about an eighth of a mile of the yurt, an enormous Tibetan Mastiff, which people in the Gobi kept as guard dogs, came running toward him, growling and raising his hackles. Then, to Dad=s horror, another huge mastiff joined the first. Watching the two dogs race toward him, Dad thought he was done forC there was no one around the yurt to help him or call off the dogs, and he had no weapon but the empty can. Just as the dogs were almost upon him, Dad heard a shrill whistle coming from the direction of the yurt. A small boy, about eight years old, emerged from the yurt and yelled at the dogs, who immediately put their tails between their legs and scurried home. Dad waved goodbye to the boy and turned around and headed back to the truck. He didn=t need the water badly enough to risk the dogs coming at him again.
Still pale and shaking when he got back to the truck, Dad found Mike calmly reading, unaware of the danger Dad had been in. Fortunately, the convoy had turned back and within minutes arrived to help them. They pressed forward and found water shortly afterwards.
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