Treachery in Tibet

by John Wilcox

  Somehow, horse and rider reached clearer ground and Fonthill realised that the cleft had opened out and he became aware that he was thundering by two large images that had been carved in semi-relief on a giant boulder and painted in scarlet and gold leaf, before he was among the retreating Tibetans. He fired his revolver into the mob, with no apparent result, and caught a glimpse of what appeared to be two Tibetan generals trying to rally their troops. But all of the Mounted Infantry were now among them and, although the horsemen were completely outnumbered by the running men, the Tibetans had lost all desire to fight and the arrival of the cavalry increased their panic.

  Simon suddenly felt a revulsion at firing at men who showed no intention of defending themselves and he allowed his pony to slow to a walk and push its way along among the fleeing crowd. He saw that many of the Tibetans were now attempting to escape into a narrow valley that came in from the left, but it offered them no succour, for the Gurkhas who had cleared the sangars had now descended into it. He drew in his breath, expecting the sepoys to open fire, so creating another massacre, but it seemed that they, too, had had enough of the killing and the little men now began rounding up the Tibetans, like shepherds with sheep.

  He became aware that Jenkins was at his side. ‘Good bit of gallopin’ that, bach sir,’ said the grinning Welshman. ‘You’re gettin’ better at this lark.’

  ‘Well, I don’t want to make a habit of it. Rough ground that. Let’s get our men to re-form. I don’t want them to go on needlessly shooting. It looks as though the day is ours.’

  And so it was. Fonthill found Ottley and the mounted men joined with the Gurkha infantry in pushing the defeated Tibetans into compliant groups and stacking their weapons into heaps. Once again, Simon searched through the rifles and muskets, finding a preponderance of the latter and only three rifles that seemed to have been made outside Tibet – and they were British.

  By now, Macdonald and Younghusband had arrived with the main force and the latter ordered that the prisoners should be set to breaking up their weaponry. This the Tibetans did with glee, crashing their muskets against rocks and jumping up and down on the stocks to break them.

  Fonthill rode up to where O’Connor was supervising the destruction. ‘It looks as though the poor devils had nothing much to fight with,’ he observed. ‘No wonder they didn’t hit us as we rounded that bend.’

  The Captain nodded. ‘Most of this lot are just poor peasants,’ he said. ‘They tell me that they were ordered to fight by those chaps,’ he indicated a number of monks in red robes, who were looking on truculently as the weapons were destroyed. ‘If they didn’t they were told that their houses would be burnt down and their families taken from them. No wonder they are laughing.’

  Most of the Tibetans were allowed to continue their retreat and about a hundred were taken as prisoners. A rough count later that day found that some 150 of the enemy had been killed and wounded, with the wounded once again being given every care and their wounds bound, much to their relief and delight. The only casualties among Macdonald’s force were among Fonthill’s Mounted Infantry, where three of his Sikhs had been wounded in that charge amongst the rocks.

  Later that day, Simon found Alice. She had completed her report and, with the ever-faithful Sunil, was sitting drinking tea.

  ‘At least, it wasn’t a massacre this time,’ he said, squatting beside the pair.

  His wife grimaced. ‘No, but I don’t believe that figure of 150 casualties among the Tibetans. I am more or less sure that it did not contain the number who were killed when our guns and the Gurkhas fired on the sangars. We have not been back up there to count, so I have put in a figure of an estimated 200.’

  ‘Hmmm. Well that won’t please Younghusband and Macdonald, for sure.’

  ‘I don’t damn well care.’ Alice put down her cup. ‘Simon, this is a ridiculous war, if that is what you can call it. The Tibetans themselves don’t want to fight, that seems certain, so why don’t we camp our bloody great army somewhere half decent and send a message to Lhasa saying that we won’t advance further if the lamas will undertake to send their top men to parley with us about our so-called grievances?’

  Simon grimaced. ‘The trouble with that is that we just can’t believe a word these monks say. If we stopped now, they would let us sit there for months and do nothing – just as they did earlier at Khamba Jong. Younghusband wouldn’t consider that for a second. What he really wants is to press on to Lhasa.’

  ‘Well, one thing is for sure. It looks as though Curzon was quite wrong about a Russian presence in Lhasa and about them supplying arms to the Tibetans. There’s been no evidence of that at all.’

  Fonthill nodded. ‘You’re right about that, my love.’

  Alice put her head in her hands and reflected for a moment. ‘Do you know,’ she said eventually, ‘I am getting really tired of riding with this damned army and standing by while it slaughters Tibetans.’ She looked up. ‘I wish to God I could do something to stop it all.’

  Simon put a hand on her shoulder. ‘You are doing your best by merely reporting what is happening. And no one can do that better. Your reporting must surely be having an affect back home.’

  She nodded glumly. ‘Up to a point. There have been questions asked in the House, of course, and a debate is promised.’ She pulled a scrap of paper from within her blouse. ‘This is a cable from my editor. He has sent me a caption from a cartoon by Punch, published just after the Guru massacre. It says: “We are sorry to learn that the recent sudden and treacherous attack by the Tibetans on our men at Guru seriously injured the photographs that the officers were taking.”’ She threw down the cable. ‘That’s what it has come down to. Fat commentators back home making fun of all this killing. It is disgraceful.’

  Tears began to trickle down her cheeks and she blew her nose violently. Simon pulled her to him.

  ‘I agree,’ he said. ‘But look at it this way. These two defeats that the Tibetans have suffered must surely have had some effect in Lhasa. I can’t see them standing up to us again. And there is one more thing. At the moment, Younghusband doesn’t have permission to push on to Lhasa. The resistance we’ve met may have changed the government’s mind on that point and they may well now allow him to continue his advance to the capital. Once there, it will all be over.’

  Alice regarded her husband steadily. ‘There’s a lot of ifs and buts there, darling,’ she muttered. ‘And there is one other development.’ She picked up the cable. ‘Curzon has left India for home. He is not well, I understand, and has gone home on leave. What that means I don’t know.’ She sighed. ‘All I know is that we are stuck up here in these damned mountains surrounded by dead bodies.’ She shuddered. ‘And it is damned cold.’

  That night, clutching each other in their tent, Fonthill and his wife made love for the first time since the advance had begun. It was not the most satisfactory lovemaking of their matrimonial life but it made them both feel much, much better.

  The expedition left what had already become known as Red Idol Gorge as quickly as it could and marched on towards what was its official destination, the town of Gyantse, the third most important in Tibet. The route was slightly and most rewardingly downhill, for Gyantse was said to be lower in altitude, at 13,000 feet, than Tuna and the column debouched onto the Gyantse Valley on 11th April. The terrain now presented a most fertile and delightful vista to eyes smarting from the grey grit and granite of Guru and Kangmar. Dotted with trees and neat buildings of white-washed stone, clustered amongst groves and well-cultivated fields, the valley was, in fact, a fertile plain, through which the River Nyang danced and glistened in the sunlight. But every eye was drawn to a dominating feature rising from the middle of the plain, like Gibraltar emerging from the western Mediterranean. This was a white fort, set about 500 feet high atop a dark rock: the citadel of Gyantse, blocking the way north to Lhasa.

  Its appearance was summarised, as usual, by Jenkins. ‘Bloody ’ell,’ he muttered to Fonthill. ‘If the
General wants to attack that, ’e can do it without me. I ain’t climbin’ that, look you.’

  Indeed, it looked a formidable obstacle. As the column wound its way towards it from the south it appeared to be virtually impregnable, with the rock sides rising sheer. Near-to, however, it became plain that the fort itself was set on the southern edge of a ridge that ran north and south down the centre of the plain for about a mile and a half, with the ridge descending towards the north. Behind the fort was an ancient and famous monastery, Palkor Chode, the ‘Illustrious Circle of the Religious Residence’, and sprawled at its foot was a warrenlike town, capable of housing at least 1,000 inhabitants.

  The column camped on the banks of the river, less than two miles from the fort. From there, Fonthill examined the citadel with care through his field glasses. ‘This is certainly not going to be easy,’ he confided to Ottley and Jenkins. ‘If the fort is manned, then I don’t really see how we can take it, because we have no siege artillery and the garrison probably outnumber us, anyway.’

  Ottley nodded. ‘And for once,’ he said, ‘this is no job for the Mounted Infantry.’

  Immediately, however, the fort gates were seen to be opened and through them came a colourful group of mounted delegates, trotting towards the camp, obviously with no aggressive intentions.

  They were led by the jongpen, or commandant of the fort, and by Mo, a Chinese general, who was said to be an emissary of the amban, the resident Chinese agent in Lhasa, and whom Younghusband had met during previous abortive negotiations. The latter, with Macdonald, received them within the camp, O’Connor once again acting as interpreter. Fonthill, Ottley, some of the other British officers and the press corps, including Alice, crowded round to listen.

  The jongpen was a smiling, round-faced and stout Tibetan with a submissive air who regretted that he was unable to hand over the fort because he was under strict orders from Lhasa to defend it to the death. Alas, he confided that he could not do that either, because most of the garrison had fled to the north when the British approached. He was, he said, in a difficult position, but he could not open the gates, for to do so would mean that all his family and his belongings would be seized by the lamas in the capital. Could not, perhaps, the British solve his problem by simply passing by and ignoring the fort?

  Equally courteously, Younghusband explained that this would not be possible and that, if the gates were not opened by 8 a.m. the following morning, artillery would be brought up and the gates blasted open. Still smiling, but insisting that he was unable to accommodate the British, much as he would like to, the jongpen and his party rode back to the citadel.

  The next morning, the guns were brought up laboriously within range of the fort. It was not until just before eight o’clock that the great doors were opened and, under the rueful gaze of the jongpen and his Chinese colleagues, two companies of the 32nd Sikh Pioneers marched into the citadel. Fonthill and Alice slipped into the fort on their tail and watched as the Union Jack was hoisted on the ramparts, to cheers from the soldiers watching below.

  Exploring the warren of corridors within the empty fortress, they were astonished to find one huge chamber stacked full of barley, later found to contain thirty-six tons, and another horrendously packed with the severed heads of men, women and children.

  Holding her nose, Alice staggered out. ‘I thought the Buddhist code forbade the taking of human life,’ she gasped. ‘What the hell was that about?’

  Simon shook his head. ‘I have no idea. But it’s clear that these monks run a very different show to those in India. I just don’t understand this very strange country.’

  Leaving the fort, the two walked through the labyrinthine streets of the township beneath the monastery. Here, they met another surprise. In seeming disregard of the fact that a hostile army was camped on their doorstep, the inhabitants were going about their normal business, without sign of fear or hostility: hundreds of men in cherry-coloured coats riding lean ponies, less well-dressed women chattering away and carrying children slung on their backs, and lines of donkeys, laden with grain or fodder, plodding along in single file. Below the main entrance to the monastery a thriving market was being held.

  Here booths straddled the road and pavements, laden with carpets and saddle rugs, for which Alice had heard that the town was famous, as well as tea, tobacco, sugar, cotton cloth, matches, pipes, tumblers, kerosene oil and foodstuffs, including pork, fresh vegetables and barley beer.

  ‘Hmmm,’ mused Simon, ‘better keep Jenkins away from here.’

  Alice frowned. ‘This place is so different from anything else we have seen so far,’ she said. ‘There is an abundance here that we’ve not glimpsed before. Is it because it’s set in this fertile plain, with a much more pleasant climate, or what?’

  ‘Don’t know. Could be because of the fortress. It’s important because it guards the entrance to the main interior of Tibet, the road to Lhasa and so on.’

  ‘Well, as you said, Tibet is full of surprises.’

  The next morning, Macdonald decided to move the camp away from the fort and the town, some 1,000 yards to a hamlet by the river, where water was freely available and where a Tibetan nobleman had set up a residence years before. The manor house, called Chang Lo, still stood and was surrounded by a few rustic dwellings.

  Here the General produced another surprise. He announced that he was going to take approximately half of his troops – including his only effective artillery, the British-manned ten-pounders – back 150 miles to New Chumbi. This, he explained, was necessary ‘to arrange posts and communications and convoys’. To guard the mission at Chang Lo, he left four companies of 32nd Pioneers, two companies of the 8th Gurkhas, fifty of Fonthill’s Mounted Infantry, the two Maxims, Bubble and Squeak, part of a mule corps and one section of an India field hospital; in all about five hundred men.

  The General by now was clearly a sick man suffering from fevers, although he continued to chain smoke. ‘Sorry I can’t leave you in command, Fonthill,’ he explained, ‘but it has to be a line officer. So Lieutenant Colonel Brander, the CO of the Pioneers, will command. No offence meant, you know.’

  ‘None taken, General. Brander is a good man.’

  ‘Good. I am leaving you Ottley, of course.’ He gave a wintry smile. ‘If I took him back with me he’d give me a hell of a time. I am leaving the fort ungarrisoned. We just don’t have enough men to man both places – and there’s no water up there on that rock. Keep patrolling. We mustn’t be caught napping here, although I must say the natives seem friendly hereabouts.’

  Immediately, Brander set about making Chang Lo more defendable. The main house stood amidst willow trees and was large and spacious, containing a hall where Younghusband could hold his hoped-for meetings with representatives of the Dalai Lama. Some of the outhouses and trees were demolished to yield lines of fire and lines of sharpened stakes, called abattis, knocked into the ground, while a loopholed wall, some 300 yards in circumference, was erected around the main house and the remaining outbuildings. Within it was a large farmhouse, where the troops were housed, which was immediately called the Redoubt.

  Macdonald set off on his long journey back to New Chumbi on 20th April, leaving three weeks rations for the mission, deemed plenty in view of the fact that the Tibetans were now freely trading with the newcomers, even setting up a standing market just outside Chang Lo, to which they brought regular supplies of food stuffs as well as souvenirs of all kinds. The Raj’s Indian rupee, it became clear, was much valued in Tibet.

  Fonthill tried to persuade Alice to return with Macdonald, arguing that nothing much could happen at Gyantse while he was away. She refused, however, stating that to do so would leave her with nothing to write about except, once again, retailing old descriptions of fighting through high, snowbound passes and problems of logistics. ‘Besides which,’ she explained, ‘I am not sure I can trust you and Jenkins in the bazaars of wild Gyantse.’

  Once Macdonald’s column had wound out of sight along the
plain a kind of peaceful serenity descended on Chang Lo. The spring weather was quite mild, the rivers provided reasonable fishing and the plain and the surrounding foothills offered plenty of game. A large Tibetan lady was happily recruited to plant a small garden within the hamlet – she was immediately christened Mrs Wiggs, after a bucolic novel of the day – and once the defences of the little hamlet had been erected, it was only Fonthill and his Mounted Infantry who were left with serious work to do, ranging out every day on patrol.

  ‘How long do you think we shall be stuck here, with nothing but good food to eat and nothing to do but enjoy ourselves?’ demanded Alice of her husband. ‘Do you think there is any chance at all of the Chinese or Tibetans coming here to negotiate with old Y?’

  Simon shrugged. ‘I honestly have no idea. You know that prevarication and procrastination are the Tibetans watchwords. Younghusband keeps receiving letters, I understand, from the Chinese amban in Lhasa, saying that he wishes to travel here to talk but that the lamas won’t provide him with transport. I can’t help feeling that the prospects of a negotiated settlement are as remote now as ever they were.’

  ‘What does Y think?’

  ‘Probably the same, I feel. I believe he has written to the acting viceroy urging that he be allowed to go on from here to Lhasa to force the issue, but that all depends upon how the government back home view things.’ He sighed. ‘Frankly, my love, I think the days of the great British thrusts into strange lands are over. We’ve become a bit of an anachronism, not to mention embarrassment, to Whitehall and the Horse Guards.’

  ‘Quite right, too. We should never have invaded.’

  The days of serenity were broken, however, when intelligence was received at the camp that a Tibetan army was being concentrated less than fifty miles to the east of Gyantse, at a 16,000-feet-high pass called Karo La, on the road to Lhasa. Inevitably, Fonthill and his fifty men were sent to investigate.