The Pulse of Danger. Jon Cleary
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suddenly smiled; he was not going to stoke up an antagonism that was pointless. Occasionally, very occasionally, he regretted the arrogance he had inherited: it was a birthmark that was not always acceptable in all circles. ‘Forgive my myopia, old chap, but I’ve never been able to see Australians as princes. You might have made the grade in medieval times, but you were a little late for that.’
Marquis shook his head in wonder. ‘You must have been a pain in the neck to the British Raj, Colonel. Did they ever gaol you princes?’
‘Hardly, old chap,’ said Singh, and looked horrified at the thought.
‘A pity,’ said Marquis. ‘Well, what can I do for you?’
‘I shall be on my way first thing in the morning with our friend.’ He nodded up towards the kitchen tent where Li Bu-fang, his hands still bound, sat at the table surveying the camp activity like an early spectator waiting for the main event to begin. Tsering came out of the tent and appeared to snarl at him; but the Chinese turned away with all the disdain of an old mandarin. ‘Could you give me enough food for five days for the two of us?’
‘Five days?’
Singh smiled without opening his lips, another grimace, but this time not caused by any attitude of Marquis. ‘If we are not over the mountains in five days, old chap, then we’ll be dead somewhere up there in the snow.’
The Indian’s fatalism took what remained of the antagonism out of Marquis. He had never feared death, but he had never had to contemplate it as coldly as Singh was now doing. Suddenly he was aware of it; the air for a moment was chillingly still. He looked up towards the mountains. The last of the westering sun, already gone from this narrow valley, caught the high peaks, turning them to jagged burnished shields against the darkening eastern sky. The wind had begun to turn from the south even since this morning: a mile of wind-torn snow lay like a brass sword across the sunlit sky, stretching due west from the highest peak. ‘I don’t fancy your chances, Colonel.’
Singh shrugged. ‘What other way is there? If I went the easy way, down to Thimbu, the Bhutanese might let me go on through to India. Then again they might not. They might just throw me into prison and forget all about me. They certainly wouldn’t allow me to take my prisoner with me. The last thing they want at this moment is to be accused by the Chinese of taking sides.’
Marquis nodded. ‘I guess you’re right. But I don’t know if I can give you all the food you’re asking for. We’re short as it is—’
‘You can’t refuse Colonel Singh.’ Eve, unobserved by either man, had come down from her tent. ‘He needs the food more than we do, Jack.’
Marquis wondered if Indian princes hit their wives when the latter interfered in their husbands’ affairs; but that would be a full-time job, with sixty spouses all lined up for a marital clout. He didn’t voice the question. It was obvious that Singh was as much on Eve’s side as she was on his. I’m up against the British Raj, Marquis thought; now I know how Gandhi felt. ‘Love, I don’t dispute his need. But that will cut our own stay short—’
‘You could send Chungma and Tashi back to get supplies for us.’
He grinned, admiring her strategy: the war colleges of the world had never known what they had missed when they refused to admit women. ‘It would take too long. And I’d be without two men just when I need them most. My wife is in a hurry to leave here, Colonel.’
‘I don’t blame her, old man. It must be a lonely life up here for a woman. And uncomfortable.’
‘I don’t blame her, either,’ said Marquis, suddenly trapped into admitting what he had felt for some weeks. But he felt more than just concern for her discomfort. All at once he knew she was in danger; everyone in camp was in danger, but all his concern at this moment was for her. He looked at her and, not wanting to frighten her, disguised his anxiety with a wink. She smiled at him, a little puzzled by his sudden change of attitude, but said nothing.
Marquis turned back to Singh. ‘I’ll give you the food, Colonel. And some blankets and a pup tent.’
Singh bowed his head slightly. His look of arrogant amusement suddenly went and at once he seemed to take on a new dignity. ‘There is something I did not tell you before – a reason why I must get back to India—’ He hesitated, as if wondering whether he should go ahead; then he reached into his battle tunic and took out some papers. ‘I found these in the post where’ – he faltered a moment – ‘where I lost the last of my men. A dying Chinese was trying to burn them. I killed him and took them from him. Then the general appeared out of nowhere and we had quite a bash, just the two of us.’ He touched the dried cut above his eye. ‘He seemed terribly keen that I should not read these papers. Do you read Chinese?’ Marquis and Eve shook their heads. ‘Neither do I. At Oxford I read English History. Not an awfully useful subject for this part of the world. I should have taken languages.’
‘What do you reckon they are?’ Marquis nodded at the papers.
‘I don’t know. But if the general thought they were so important, they could be battle orders or something along those lines. Whatever they are, he thought them important enough to try and kill me for them.’
‘I’m no soldier, as I told you, but why should valuable papers be kept in a forward post? Aren’t those sort of things kept well behind the lines?’
‘That’s the idea, old chap. But somehow it never seems to work. You would be surprised at the number of mistakes our side made in World War Two. And don’t forget, our friend up there is a general – it was probably one of his staff whom I caught trying to burn them. If these papers are important, I’m very happy to know that the Chinese can be just as incompetent as we. It gives one hope.’
Marquis looked up towards Li Bu-fang, who was staring down at them, his face as blank as one of the rocks that studded the bank behind him. He had the look of a man who possessed more than hope; he was a man who had faith: he wore it like another badge of rank. He turned his head and looked down the valley again. The bastard is so confident, Marquis thought; and looked down the valley himself, but saw nothing to shake his own confidence. But I’m not confident, he told himself, I’m worried; and tried to borrow some of the Chinese inscrutability.
‘If those papers are important,’ he said, ‘the Chow hasn’t yet finished with trying to kill you.’
‘No,’ said Singh. ‘But I haven’t given up the idea of killing him, either.’
‘Just don’t do it in my camp,’ said Marquis, and left Eve and Singh and went up to the porters’ tents. Nimchu saw him coming and came a few steps to met him. ‘Nimchu, I want Chungma to leave now for Sham Dzong. He’s to buy enough rice and tsampa to last us for a week, and get back here as soon as he can.’
‘Chungma is only one man, sahib. He will not be able to carry so much food himself.’
‘I know that!’ Marquis snapped, and was at once regretful of his sharpness; there was no need to work off his worry on Nimchu. He smiled, trying to take the edge off his voice: ‘Get him to hire two more porters, Nimchu, bring them back with him. We’ll need them anyway, to help us carry out the collection. Tell him to get moving at once. If he takes his finger out, he can make four or five miles before dark. I want him back in three days at the outside.’
Nimchu nodded, then shouted orders in his own language. Chungma, the youngest of the porters, short, squat, moving always in quick jerky movements like a boxer waiting for an opponent to make a move, showed no surprise at the sudden journey he had to make. He grinned cheerfully and ducked into his tent to collect what he would take with him. Marquis knew that most Bhutanese, for all their country’s isolation, were gregarious and he had noticed that over the past few weeks the porters had begun to ask when they would be returning to Thimbu. He was sure that Chungma would find a diversion or two in the three days that he would be gone.
Nimchu watched Chungma disappear into the tent, then he turned back to Marquis. He was the oldest of the porters, somewhere in his early forties,