Grace Hardie

by Anne Melville

  It was with one of these gangs that Gordon’s mule train came face to face. His shooting guns were stowed away, and the muleteers carried only knives. In the brief skirmish which followed Gordon was hurled off the path and down the mountainside because he was in the company of Tibetans. But when the men of the nearest Tibetan village came rushing to the scene, he was left where he lay because he was a foreigner. Only after many hours of pain and cold was he rescued by two of his own guides. Finding him unconscious, they strapped him between two poles and took him to a remote monastery with a reputation for healing.

  At least a year had passed since then, and his broken bones had somehow knitted together. To the Tibetans, time was of no importance. They had no clocks, and no wireless to make contact with the outside world. As for a calendar – at the monastery’s high altitude the year was divided by the June monsoon between a four-month season of extreme cold and an eight-month season which was even colder. Gordon could only guess how long he had lain delirious. Keeping track of the days since his return to full consciousness, he reckoned it must now be about August 1915.

  The year – if it was a year – brought him close to despair. The monks gave him a bed on which to lie and food to keep him alive, but only the most rudimentary medical treatment. The toughness of his mind and body pulled him through. He was still alive – but to what purpose? No locks and bars were needed to hold him, for the murderous terrain served as his chains. Without guides and the means of making a fire he could not hope to survive in the open. This tiny cell which, like everything else in the monastery, smelt of the rancid butter which the Tibetans used for food, drink and body-cleansing, incarcerated him as securely as any prison.

  At their only meeting the chief lama refused to accept the explanation that a foreigner had come only to look for new plants, and took it for granted that he was a spy. A request for instructions on how to deal with him had been sent to Lhasa, but none had arrived; and Gordon’s repeated demands that his presence should be notified to the senior British official there had apparently been ignored.

  So there was nothing for it but to make and keep his body fit, ready to snatch at any opportunity for escape which came his way. Painfully he had brought his legs back into use and spent three hours a day doing exercises to strengthen them. Even when divided into twenty-minute sessions, this was as much as he could manage, for the monastery stood fifteen thousand feet above sea level and every exertion left him panting for breath.

  At first, as he rested between exercises, he allowed himself one luxury: that of recalling his home and family. But as time passed, memories of those he loved brought only anguish. He could imagine Lucy’s anxiety turning to fear as days and months went by without news. Had she by now given up hope, believing herself to be a widow? No, she would still be praying for his safety, and making enquiries about his last known movements. But her search would be in China. Even if she were to extend it to Tibet she would be given no information.

  He could think of her only as weeping, and so tried not to think of her at all. He ought never to have left her. He had abandoned his business, deserted his children, behaved disgracefully from every point of view. If he ever returned to England … but he had almost ceased to believe that such a day would come. The only way to keep himself sane was to continue the regular stretching of his muscles. Left, right, left, right, left, right.

  A monk appeared at the door of the cell with a bowl of yak butter tea. Two years earlier such a sour and greasy drink would have brought a grimace of disgust to Gordon’s face, but now he accepted its warmth gratefully. The bearer was one of the younger monks, a cheerful fellow who enjoyed correcting the foreigner’s mistakes in conversation and acting out explanations of his own words. It had not occurred to any of the monks that Gordon was deliberately improving his own grasp of their language in the hope of escaping one day and making his way across country.

  Today there was startling news. He was to be moved to a disused storehouse at the bottom of the building. The monastery was constructed vertically on a mountainside, with staircases instead of corridors linking the rooms. This did not sound a change for the better – indeed, it carried a hint of the oubliette in a castle. It was apparently necessary for him to be kept out of sight whilst some kind of official visitation took place. It was in his own interests to hide, he was assured; but he saw the situation differently. Had his opportunity come at last? Take me to see the head lama!’ he demanded.

  He anticipated a battle of wills, but found himself being led to the great room.

  Awaiting him, the head lama sat on a raised platform, flanked by six senior lamas at a lower level. Two younger men in the corners behind him turned the huge prayer wheels which were believed to send millions of invocations up to heaven with each rotation. This was to be a kind of trial, Gordon realized uneasily.

  He was accused, not for the first time, of spying. What other purpose could a foreigner have for coming into the country? The lamas ought to have turned him away when he was carried in. But it was against their religion to kill. Gordon understood the unspoken words – they had expected him to die without their help.

  By surviving, he presented them with a problem. For the first time he learned for a fact what he had always suspected. No one in Lhasa, whether Tibetan or British, had been told of his existence. He was a shameful secret, and now they feared exposure. They were not hard men, and by living as their guest Gordon had established a claim on their continued hospitality. They ought to cast him out to die. But if he would promise to remain hidden during the imminent visit of a special messenger from the Dalai Lama, they would receive him back in their midst when the visitor left.

  Gordon felt his head – his whole body – swelling like a balloon about to burst with a mixture of hope and panic. This was his chance, and probably his last chance. Keeping his body still and his language unemphatic, because to show emotion would be to invite contempt, he began to speak with words as correct and formal as he could manage.

  He was grateful for the care that had saved his life, he told his judges, and grateful too for the hospitality which had induced in him such a favourable view of their religion. He would not wish them to be blamed for sheltering a foreigner. He was not a spy, as he had often assured them, and his only wish was to leave the country which he had entered by accident, due to the error of his guides. To hide in a building which might be searched by the Dalai Lama’s emissary would be to invite retribution on the whole community.

  With the greatest respect, therefore, he requested that he should be provided with a guide to escort him to the Chinese border. In return he would promise never to re-enter Tibet and never to reveal where he had spent the last year.

  A hand waved. Gordon felt himself being pulled backwards out of the room. He was taken back to his cell and noticed that for the first time one of the monks was stationed outside it as a guard. The night which followed was one of the longest of his life – but not in hours. For long before it was light next morning two young monks entered his cell. When he saw what they were holding, his excitement was so great that he felt sick and light-headed. One of them held out a travelling coat and boots, and the other was carrying a heavy pack. He was free!

  For fourteen days the three men travelled together eastward through the mountain passes. Although Gordon had worked so hard to strengthen his muscles, the fractured bones in his legs, imperfectly mended, made his gait awkward and the balance of his body insecure. More than once he was saved from a fall only by the rope which his companions tied around his waist for safety. So there was uncertainty as well as elation in his spirits when at noon on the fifteenth day he was told that he had reached the boundary of Tibetan territory and must continue now on his own. Three days’ walking would bring him to the nearest Chinese village.

  Could he manage it alone without falling? How would he be greeted by the Chinese, who hated foreigners and showed their distrust with a fierce cruelty? Well, only time would tell. There had been m
oments in the past fourteen days when he had wondered whether his escorts had secret instructions to push him to his death. But instead they had held him steady and saved his life. It must mean that his luck had changed at last.

  He listened carefully as they indicated the general direction in which he must travel and pointed out the pass for which he should aim – for there was still one more spine of bleak mountains blocking any signs of habitation from his view. They checked that his pack contained sufficient rations, the flint and steel to start a fire, and a tiny tent of skins for protection against the worst of the weather. Then, putting out their tongues in a last gesture of friendliness, they turned back, leaving him alone.

  That night, down in the first valley, he settled himself to sleep in the posture he had learned from the Tibetans – a crawling position, so that only his elbows and knees touched the icy ground. A blanket thrown completely over him warmed him with his own trapped breath. How Lucy and he had laughed when, on their honeymoon trip, they first noticed their guides sleeping in such a ridiculous posture, like a flock of grazing sheep. It was a mark of Gordon’s relief that he could allow himself to think of Lucy once more. His lovely wife, whom he would never leave again.

  The children, too. Jay would be still a schoolboy, but Grace, released from the schoolroom, must have grown into a young woman. Eighteen years old: old enough to start thinking of marriage. Once again Gordon shook his head in shame that he had abandoned his family so irresponsibly. A young woman needed a father to guard her.

  About the business he felt less guilty. Frank was a steady, hard-working young man with an orderly mind. One day he would own The House of Hardie, and it could do him nothing but good to experience responsibility. Philip too would not have suffered from his father’s absence. By now he would have taken his degree and found employment suited to his academic achievements. But the twins – yes, he should have been on hand to help the twins as they made the difficult transition from boyhood to adult life.

  How old would they be now? If this was 1915, as he thought, Kenneth and David would at about this time be celebrating their twenty-first birthdays. They would have hoped at least for a message from their father. His silence would surely have convinced the family even more strongly that he must be dead.

  During his months in Tibet, Gordon had studied the extraordinary way in which the people of that country used their mental powers to control their bodies. After days of incessant rain in which no dry wood could be found, he had once watched one of his guides stuff his clothes with damp kindling. Using the art of thumo reskiang the man had by extreme concentration raised his body temperature so high that within three hours the grass and twigs were dry. Anything is possible when the mind is directed clearly on a single object, he had explained gravely.

  The lesson had not been forgotten. Crouched on hands and knees and shrouded in a blanket on the remote boundary of China, Gordon Hardie concentrated his mind on one thought, willing his message to travel thousands of miles around the world to Greystones.

  ‘Happy birthday, Kenneth. Happy birthday, David.’

  Chapter Six

  ‘Oh, we don’t want to lose you, but we think you ought to go.’

  On the stage of the music hall a young woman wearing male evening dress twirled her cane before pointing it – sometimes like a gun and sometimes as a telescope – at any man in the audience who was not in uniform. A dozen pretty girls in flounced skirts swayed and twirled and swung their legs as they shouted the chorus. ‘For your King and your Country need you so.’ Throwing out their arms, they invited the audience to join in. Soon the auditorium reverberated with the sound of singing, kept in time by stamping feet and clapping hands.

  Kenneth Hardie shifted uneasily in his seat. This was intended to be a merry occasion, part of an exciting week. On Sunday the twins had celebrated their twenty-first birthdays at Greystones. David had learned of success in the last of his law examinations on Monday, and was to be married in London tomorrow. A stag party of the old sort had proved impossible to arrange, since so many of their friends were in France, so the two brothers were content to share a slap-up meal and a visit to Collins Music Hall.

  Until this moment the evening had gone well. But now the chorus girls were streaming off the stage and moving round the audience while the orchestra continued to play the same emotionally stirring music. The girls kissed every man in uniform and flirted with all the male civilians, sitting on their laps as they wheedled promises of immediate visits to the recruiting office out of them. Two rows in front of the Hardie brothers a middle-aged man rose to his feet, his arms stretched upwards as an earnest of his intention to enlist. As his wife, frantic with worry, tried to pull him back into his seat, the audience roared approval.

  ‘Let’s get out of here,’ said Kenneth. They made their way into the street and found it filled with running people. Faintly in the distance could be heard the sound of antiaircraft guns, and the noise increased as the two young men, pausing, stared up at the sky. Over the rooftops of Islington a Zeppelin appeared, looking so much like a huge silver cigar case floating in the sky that it would have seemed ridiculous had the sound of exploding bombs not proved it to be lethal.

  It was perhaps because the music hall’s recruiting song had touched raw nerves that Kenneth and David did not join those who were running to take shelter. Instead they stood their ground to show that they were not alarmed; but their comments revealed different attitudes to the war.

  ‘How can the gunners miss?’ asked David incredulously. ‘Something so large and moving so slowly. If the range of the guns is inadequate, surely it can be improved.’

  ‘But if they hit!’ Kenneth shivered at the picture conjured up by his imagination. ‘Just think of all the men up there falling to earth in flames.’

  ‘If they came to kill, they deserve to be killed,’ David replied briskly. ‘You should keep your sympathy for the English men and women who are lying dead or injured now.’

  ‘Well, I feel that as well, naturally. But the Germans are human beings too. The gunners must have in their minds a picture of men burning all the time they’re firing.’

  ‘Their picture is of their own families, innocent targets. In any case, they’re not likely ever to see their victims.’

  ‘But they must know … David, do women ever give you white feathers?’

  ‘No. I’ve noticed, it’s only men who look half ashamed of themselves who get them. If you walk confidently, like someone who knows that he’s making his own contribution to the war, you don’t get pestered.’

  ‘And do you feel that?’ asked Kenneth. ‘That you’re contributing?’

  ‘If the war ever ends, this country will need qualified professional men to manage it. It’s my opinion that our generals are incompetents. They appeal for more men without having the least idea what use to make of them – except to replace other men who have been unnecessarily killed. I don’t care to see myself as cannon fodder. It would have been foolish to enlist in the middle of my training, and even now that I’ve finished with examinations, I need practical experience. I consider that I’m more use to the country as a qualified solicitor than as an incompetent second-lieutenant.’

  The explosion of another bomb, nearer than the last, made the building around them shudder and checked their conversation for a moment. As they walked briskly westward towards David’s lodgings, Kenneth continued to nag at the subject of enlistment.

  ‘Three white feathers I was given today,’ he said. ‘The pleasure these women take … I’m determined not to go. But it seems likely that there will be conscription sooner or later. Ever since we all had to register, people have been talking. I had a letter from a recruiting officer this week, David. “I am only waiting the word to call up every man of eligible age and, as you see, I have you on my list.” There was a lot more about how much worse it would be for me if I waited to be fetched instead of enlisting voluntarily.’

  ‘He had no legal authority to write su
ch a letter,’ said David bluntly. ‘If you don’t want to join the army, then my advice to you would be to get married. You’re right to believe that conscription must come. But the government has pledged that no married man will be forced to enlist until the whole pool of unmarried men has been absorbed.’

  Kenneth was tempted to reply that he was too young to marry, that he could not afford to keep a wife, and that he had not yet met any girl with whom he would want to spend his life. But instead, he looked aghast at his brother.

  ‘David! That’s not why you’re marrying Sheila!’

  ‘Of course not.’ David had known his fiancée for two years and, as the daughter of the senior partner in his law firm, she was an eminently suitable match for an ambitious man. ‘Although,’ he added more honestly, ‘since we were already engaged it seemed a good reason for not delaying the wedding. In normal circumstances I suppose we might have waited until I was older. So as from tomorrow I shall have a wife dependent on me, as well as a mother and a family business.’

  ‘Mother! You can hardly claim –’

  ‘Can I not?’ David spoke with unusual vigour as he turned to face his twin. ‘Father has gone off and left her unprotected. After so long a silence, we must begin to fear that he may be dead. Certainly he’s not at hand to manage affairs. He expected Frank to take his place as head of the family. Frank and Philip have the noblest of reasons for leaving home; but the effect is that she’s left with all the responsibility of running Greystones without the support of either her husband or her eldest sons. There must be one member of the family ready to give advice and practical help.’