The writer had an amazing career as nightclub magician, a Unitarian minister, an adventurer and as a versatile film artist who made eight full-length travel adventure films over two decades.

By Dr. John Nicholls Booth

During my years as a narrator, producer and photographer of adventure-tinged travel films, I encountered but one situation in which my life was threatened. It occurred in the middle of the night before I was finally to cross the border high up in the Himalaya Mountains into then tightly-sealed Tibet.

My four Sherpa porters and I had received written permission in Gangtok, Sikkim, to proceed into Tibet as far as Phari Dzong, sometimes labeled the highest city in the world at 15,000 feet.

Now we had reached Lake Changgu, a mile-long mysterious body of water. The terrain around us was bleak with scattered boulders like acreage on the moon. The weather was threatening a storm.

On an elevation overlooking the lake sat a dak bungalow. Years before, British engineers had constructed a series of these small buildings from here into Lhasa, one day’s march apart.

Government travelers were few, but these were a blessing. I had permission to occupy them at nightfall each day. My porters declined to move into the available space, but camped some distance away despite the polar cold.

Ang Bac, my sirda (guide and interpreter), lit two candles and warmed up some food in the rustic fireplace. Outside, a mournful wind was blowing. Oddly, I had—for the first time—bolted shut the door, a providential protection as it turned out.

About 9 o’clock I rolled up in my two blankets, fully dressed to combat the piercing cold. A plain wooden cot took my body. I fell asleep almost immediately.

I woke up gasping for air about three o’clock in the morning. Not a splinter of light entered the room as I had pulled the heavy yak wool curtain shut.

Suddenly, I stiffened. Someone outside was at the window. The stealthiness of the sound made my blood run cold. As quietly as I could I slipped out of the bed and tiptoed to the window. Carefully separating the curtain a crack, I looked into the most hideous face in my memory, only inches away.

In the cold moonlight he was so intent on opening the window that he was unaware of my quick peek.

What could or should I do? I assumed he was a robber after my Indian rupees. My first impulse was to bang on the window and order him away. But he would then wait until I went back asleep and return.

Fortuitously, I determined instead to arouse his superstitious fears, if possible, so he would not be inclined to return. I began to utter a few low hoarse grunts in tom tom rhythm and pounded one foot on the board floor with a faster rhythm, Then I started a wild howling, all of which he could plainly hear outside.

I felt silly, but it was my only hope.

Obviously, the dark bungalow proved the sahib was asleep or had been. An evil spirit must be dominating the interior only a foot or so from him. The effect must have been weird as my idiotic performance continued.

I peeked around the curtain again. The prowler had backed off a little way, staring at the window in confusion. Then be became terror stricken. Suddenly whirling around, he ran off around the corner of the building.

I returned to my bed, my heart pounding heavily. He did not return.

The full import of what could have happened if that husky intruder had succeeded in entering the dark bungalow did not hit me until months later.

Tibet

Theos Bernard, a young American, author of Penthouse of the Gods, describes his earlier visit to Tibet. He was actually attempting a return trek at almost the same time I was going in. At Lake Changgu he had disappeared. His body has never been discovered.

Such happenings at intervals shook the authorities in Lhasa, Tibet’s capital.

After intensive investigating, they concluded that an unbalanced Tibetan in the Changgu region was responsible. A man hostile to any foreigner entering Tibet, via the Nathu la route conveniently passing Changgu could and should be obliterated.

When famous American radio commentator Lowell Thomas and his son trudged through a couple of years after my entry, they were escorted by a visibly-armed Tibetan.

Finally, Lhasa stationed a permanent military garrison at Nathu la, effectively shutting off that caravan route to the interior.

In those years, almost all male Tibetan travelers carried a heavy dagger openly displayed. An unarmed victim would have no chance of surviving a slashing attack.

Theos Bernard was undoubtedly murdered, his body chopped up and eaten by vultures. That could have been my fate.

Lowell Thomas once said that, totally unarmed, I had concocted the most unusual defense in his memory.