The Great Game Redux- Sir John Miffling-Hodgkins’ Khanate of Sibir
My family often urged me to write down my memoirs before I took leave of my senses. This made a certain amount of sense, as the last time I saw them, I was a good 91 years old. Today, however, I am a hale and hearty young man. Difficult to take in, I realize. Allow me to start at the beginning.
I was born at the stroke of midnight on New Year’s Day, 1819, in the small town of Miffling in west Oxbrookshire. My father, a landowner and noble, sent me to Eton and then on to Cambridge, where I passed my forms dutifully, if not exceptionally. Raised to the manor born, it was expected that I would settle in, manage the family affairs, go into Parliament, and generally maintain the decently quiet tradition of the Miffling-Hodgkins name. And, for a time, I met those expectations. However, I always longed to travel, and devoured every travelogue, map, and tale of adventure I could get my hands upon, from Homer to Sir Richard Burton. Finally, on my fortieth birthday, I put my affairs in order, gave over the family businesses to my younger brother, and set out for India. It was a grand adventure! However, it was made somewhat less grand by the fact that I contracted a rather odious tropical disease on my first day off ship. I returned to England, vowing never to travel again; at least, not south.
I settled in to the tasks before me, serving a brace of terms under Gladstone, diving into the family businesses, raising my children. Soon, I had grown old. I had thought the spirit of adventure had died within me. But one day, on my ninetieth birthday, I read of an expedition searching for frozen mammoths in the Siberian wasteland. Suddenly, all my youthful spirit fired within me. Reasonably healthy and indisputably rich, I managed to talk my way onto the expedition, to the great shock and displeasure of my entire clan.
I spent a month or two with my fellow Englishmen riding through Siberia. Everywhere, there were peasants living in indescribable squalor. We were appalled, to say the least. One of the fellows on the expedition mentioned Mackinder’s threory of geopolitics- that Russia’s east, the Heartland of Eurasia, was the key to domination of Asia. I shuddered to think of the Czar’s relentless march into the steppes, and of the grave threat Russia posed to the British possessions in India.
In June of 1908, we found ourselves at our destination- the forests outside a small town named Tunguska. I had gotten separated from the party, and was trotting back to camp on a small pony I had named Bevins. Looking down at my compass and map, I think to this day I would never have noticed what was about to happen had Bevins not whinnied piteously. Dismounting, I patted his neck and noticed him looking skywards. I looked up, and saw the most terrifying spectacle of my life.
A giant ball of fire was descending from the sky directly above me! A whistling began to grow, until it became a deafening roar that shook the very earth. Bevins bolted, but I was too dumbstruck to move. Suddenly, as the tumbling meteor began to break apart, a huge flash of light blinded me. My heart bursting within my chest, I cried out, thinking I was dead. I felt no sudden pain- no burning or limbs flying off or any of the other scenarios that rushed through my head. Instead, the light passed, and I found myself feeling peaceful and calm. “Well, old boy,” I said to myself, “you’ve had adventure and then some. What a smashing way to depart the earth.” Opening my eyes, I was shocked to find this was the literal truth! I was floating above the curvature of the earth, swimming in the ether! The light dimmed and grew, dimmed and grew, and I soon realized that the earth was spinning beneath me at a growing pace, and that the sun was flashing to my right. I had but one thought- that I must be on the ground and away from any further terrifying shocks. I found to my pleasant surprise that I could steer myself by a sort of paddling motion. I began to swim down, trying to time my descent so that I might land on British soil, or failing that, perhaps in one of the Dominions with a decent post. As the earth’s motion continued to gain momentum, though, I found it all I could do merely to stay aimed at dry land. Gritting my teeth, I plowed forward, determined to give this the old school try. I came closer and closer to the whirling earth, and soon found that the gravity of the planet was pulling me in at an ever-increasing speed. As I began my final descent, a final shock became dismayingly obvious- the earth was spinning in the wrong direction! Before I could register this, the earth rushed up, and in a chaos of noise and light, I fainted.
I came to in a snowy pine forest. It was early morning. I stood, and found to my shock that I was completely uninjured! I added it to the list of miracles for the day, and gingerly walked about. As I pondered my next action, I heard singing from the west. I walked.
Emerging from the trees, I found myself face to face with a group of Asiatic men roasting a goat on a spit. As I came into view, they fell into a stunned silence. I cleared my throat.
“I am a subject of the British Crown. I would be most edified if you could direct me to the nearest British consulate.” I was answered only by a distant cricket. Thinking that perhaps I might still be in Siberia, I tried again in Russian. This time, my words had an instant effect. With a single roar, the men leapt up, lashed a rope around me, and trussed me to a mule. Before I could utter a single word of protest, I was being led down a muddy road. I resigned myself to my fate, trusting that nothing about to befall me could be worse- or stranger- than what I had been through. I was about to learn differently.
My family often urged me to write down my memoirs before I took leave of my senses. This made a certain amount of sense, as the last time I saw them, I was a good 91 years old. Today, however, I am a hale and hearty young man. Difficult to take in, I realize. Allow me to start at the beginning.
I was born at the stroke of midnight on New Year’s Day, 1819, in the small town of Miffling in west Oxbrookshire. My father, a landowner and noble, sent me to Eton and then on to Cambridge, where I passed my forms dutifully, if not exceptionally. Raised to the manor born, it was expected that I would settle in, manage the family affairs, go into Parliament, and generally maintain the decently quiet tradition of the Miffling-Hodgkins name. And, for a time, I met those expectations. However, I always longed to travel, and devoured every travelogue, map, and tale of adventure I could get my hands upon, from Homer to Sir Richard Burton. Finally, on my fortieth birthday, I put my affairs in order, gave over the family businesses to my younger brother, and set out for India. It was a grand adventure! However, it was made somewhat less grand by the fact that I contracted a rather odious tropical disease on my first day off ship. I returned to England, vowing never to travel again; at least, not south.
I settled in to the tasks before me, serving a brace of terms under Gladstone, diving into the family businesses, raising my children. Soon, I had grown old. I had thought the spirit of adventure had died within me. But one day, on my ninetieth birthday, I read of an expedition searching for frozen mammoths in the Siberian wasteland. Suddenly, all my youthful spirit fired within me. Reasonably healthy and indisputably rich, I managed to talk my way onto the expedition, to the great shock and displeasure of my entire clan.
I spent a month or two with my fellow Englishmen riding through Siberia. Everywhere, there were peasants living in indescribable squalor. We were appalled, to say the least. One of the fellows on the expedition mentioned Mackinder’s threory of geopolitics- that Russia’s east, the Heartland of Eurasia, was the key to domination of Asia. I shuddered to think of the Czar’s relentless march into the steppes, and of the grave threat Russia posed to the British possessions in India.
In June of 1908, we found ourselves at our destination- the forests outside a small town named Tunguska. I had gotten separated from the party, and was trotting back to camp on a small pony I had named Bevins. Looking down at my compass and map, I think to this day I would never have noticed what was about to happen had Bevins not whinnied piteously. Dismounting, I patted his neck and noticed him looking skywards. I looked up, and saw the most terrifying spectacle of my life.
A giant ball of fire was descending from the sky directly above me! A whistling began to grow, until it became a deafening roar that shook the very earth. Bevins bolted, but I was too dumbstruck to move. Suddenly, as the tumbling meteor began to break apart, a huge flash of light blinded me. My heart bursting within my chest, I cried out, thinking I was dead. I felt no sudden pain- no burning or limbs flying off or any of the other scenarios that rushed through my head. Instead, the light passed, and I found myself feeling peaceful and calm. “Well, old boy,” I said to myself, “you’ve had adventure and then some. What a smashing way to depart the earth.” Opening my eyes, I was shocked to find this was the literal truth! I was floating above the curvature of the earth, swimming in the ether! The light dimmed and grew, dimmed and grew, and I soon realized that the earth was spinning beneath me at a growing pace, and that the sun was flashing to my right. I had but one thought- that I must be on the ground and away from any further terrifying shocks. I found to my pleasant surprise that I could steer myself by a sort of paddling motion. I began to swim down, trying to time my descent so that I might land on British soil, or failing that, perhaps in one of the Dominions with a decent post. As the earth’s motion continued to gain momentum, though, I found it all I could do merely to stay aimed at dry land. Gritting my teeth, I plowed forward, determined to give this the old school try. I came closer and closer to the whirling earth, and soon found that the gravity of the planet was pulling me in at an ever-increasing speed. As I began my final descent, a final shock became dismayingly obvious- the earth was spinning in the wrong direction! Before I could register this, the earth rushed up, and in a chaos of noise and light, I fainted.
I came to in a snowy pine forest. It was early morning. I stood, and found to my shock that I was completely uninjured! I added it to the list of miracles for the day, and gingerly walked about. As I pondered my next action, I heard singing from the west. I walked.
Emerging from the trees, I found myself face to face with a group of Asiatic men roasting a goat on a spit. As I came into view, they fell into a stunned silence. I cleared my throat.
“I am a subject of the British Crown. I would be most edified if you could direct me to the nearest British consulate.” I was answered only by a distant cricket. Thinking that perhaps I might still be in Siberia, I tried again in Russian. This time, my words had an instant effect. With a single roar, the men leapt up, lashed a rope around me, and trussed me to a mule. Before I could utter a single word of protest, I was being led down a muddy road. I resigned myself to my fate, trusting that nothing about to befall me could be worse- or stranger- than what I had been through. I was about to learn differently.