Treachery in Tibet

by John Wilcox

  She was still struggling – and realising that her eye was closing from the force of the blow – when a coterie of Khampas, led, of course, by the giant figure of the General, long sword clanking from his belt, swept into the room.

  The big man came and stood quite close to her, his eyes running up and down her body. Alice realised that they were almost certainly the blackest and coldest she had ever seen. His face was quite expressionless but slowly, with finger and thumb, he examined the swelling under the right eye. With infinite care, he then pressed it hard with his thumb, extracting a cry of pain from Alice.

  ‘Oh, you bastard,’ she exclaimed through clenched teeth. She drew back one booted foot and kicked hard at the General’s shins, connecting just above one ankle.

  Now it was his turn to double up in pain and he swung his hand and struck her hard across the cheek, sending her brain reeling. Holding his shin, he growled an order and Alice was seized by two of the guards and bundled forward out of the room, along a dimly lit corridor into another, larger room, more, in fact, of a chamber, for there was very little furniture in it, not that Alice could take much note, for her head was still singing from the force of the blow. The General was a big, powerful man and he had hit her hard.

  But now she sucked in her breath. Clearly there was more pain to come, for she glimpsed a kind of crucifix attached to the far wall. It had cords attached to the ends of the crosspieces and also to the bottom of the vertical wooden post. She closed her eyes as she was bundled across to it and silently began to pray: ‘Oh God, please make it quick and don’t let me suffer too long …’

  Her wrists were untied and, just as she thought she could make a bid to extract the pistol from her pocket, her arms were pushed against the crosspieces of the crucifix and her wrists tied to their ends. Her ankles were similarly bound to the vertical post.

  Alice kept her eyes firmly closed and waited for the pain to start. She was startled, then, when a heavily accented voice spoke to her in English. ‘Madam, you are going to be asked some questions. It would be best for you to answer them honestly.’

  She opened her eyes and realised that she was being addressed by what appeared to be a monk, dressed in a roughly woven, grey habit, the hood of which was thrown back to reveal a face, completely Oriental in appearance, with high cheekbones, a large forehead and slit-like eyes that blinked at her, expressionlessly, from behind round-framed spectacles.

  Alice moistened her lips. ‘Who are you?’ she asked.

  ‘It does not matter who I am, madam, I am here to interpret for General Jong. We shall ask you questions. I warn you that if you do not reply honestly pain will be inflicted upon you.’

  The monk spoke with a cold imperturbability that sent a chill through Alice’s heart. At his side stood the General, looming over the interpreter, his black eyes gleaming, behind them loomed two of the Khampas, knives in their hands. Knives! Were they to be the torturers? Could she appeal to this man of God – or at least, Bhudda?

  ‘Are you a lama?’ she asked.

  ‘No. I am merely a monk who has learnt your tongue. I repeat, it does not matter who I am.’

  ‘Oh, but it does, I assure you. The last man who interpreted between me and the General was killed by him. I saw his body hanging in the jail. This man has no time for humble interpreters, it seems.’

  For the first time the shaft seemed to have hit home, for the eyebrows behind the wire frames of the spectacles rose slightly. He cleared his throat. ‘I am not aware of that and I do not believe you. Now—’

  Alice interrupted. ‘Am I to be tortured, then?’

  ‘Pain will be inflicted if you do not answer honestly.’

  ‘You are a man of God. Your Bhudda did not preach that harm should be done to unarmed, innocent people.’

  ‘Madam. You know nothing of the preaching of our lord. You have already killed two of our soldiers, so you are not unarmed or innocent. The Governor here is anxious to know why you are here and who sent you. He has a responsibility to defend this city against the unbelievers who are approaching it. Just answer without lying and you will not be harmed.’

  At this point, the General growled and interjected. The monk nodded impassively. ‘Governor say that his patience is becoming exhausted. You answer now. Why you here?’

  Alice sighed. ‘I have already told the General that I am the wife of a general in the British army that is approaching Lhasa now. I am also a correspondent for a leading British newspaper. I have been reporting on the invasion and have grown tired of witnessing your army – most of it comprising ordinary peasants, as far as I can see – being killed by the superior firepower and discipline of the British soldiers. I came here of my own volition to plead with your government not to oppose the British army any further and to sit down with Colonel Younghusband, the leader of the political mission, and negotiate with him …’

  ‘Wait. I translate.’

  He did so and his words produced a torrent of vituperation from Jong, who stamped his foot, leant forward and tore open Alice’s blouse. He then wrenched away her brassiere, revealing her left breast.

  The monk seemed completely unfazed. ‘General say,’ he continued, ‘you lie. Why should you, a woman, think you could have any influence on holy men who rule our country? He think you come here, in some sort of disguise to spy on Tibetan military … ahh … dispositions for your army. Your generals think woman would not be suspected by us of doing such thing, so you slip into city unnoticed.’

  Alice shook her head. ‘That is not true …’

  Without waiting for the translation, General Jong shouted an order. One of the Khampas stepped forward, knife in hand. He waved the blade under Alice’s face and she shrank back and closed her eyes. A sharp, agonising pain swept through her as the blade was inserted into the lower part of her breast and, involuntarily, she screamed.

  As though from afar, she heard the interpreter murmur, ‘He cut off all your breast if you don’t tell truth …’

  Then, from even further away, as she bit her lip, awaiting a greater pain, she heard a distant but familiar voice cry, ‘Alice, Alice, we are coming …’

  She opened her eyes and saw the door crash open and Simon, sword in hand, rush through, followed by a limping Jenkins, Sunil, rifle in hand, and a handful of Gurkhas, kukris gleaming in the dim light.

  Fonthill’s jaw dropped and momentarily he stopped, for Jong had leapt forward, thrusting both the interpreter and the knife-wielding Khampa aside. Drawing his sword, the General thrust the tip to Alice’s throat and shouted something at the interpreter.

  The monk quickly licked his lips and said, ‘General say, he kill woman if you come nearer. He prepared to die but will take your wife with him if one man takes step nearer.’

  Sunil lifted his rifle. ‘I shoot him, sahib,’ he said.

  ‘No. No. You might hit Alice.’

  Perspiration was now trickling down General Jong’s face. Without taking his eyes off Fonthill, he said something to the interpreter. ‘He ask,’ translated the monk, ‘if you are British general who is married to this woman?’

  Ignoring the question, Simon, still standing near the door, his sabre in his hand, called in a broken voice: ‘Alice, you are bleeding. What have they done to you?’

  Alice tried to force a smile. ‘Just a little cut, my love. You seem to have arrived just in time. Be careful. This man is a monster. You’d better answer him.’

  ‘Yes,’ Fonthill called out. ‘I am her husband. And if you hurt a hair of her head I shall kill you.’

  At this, the General nodded, as though contemplating his course of action. Then he answered, via the interpreter: ‘I am not afraid to die. You have more men here than I have, but my guards will arrive soon. I sent them after you—’

  Simon, his brain racing, interrupted: ‘They will not come. We lured thirty Khampas who had followed us into the courtyard of your prison and my men killed them all.’ He nodded over his shoulder. ‘You can see that these kukris are still
bloodstained. Put down your sword. Let my wife go and I promise no harm will come to you, but you will be tried by the British for what you have done.’

  Jong’s eyes widened. Then he smiled. ‘You sound as though you are a great warrior,’ he said. ‘I have heard of you and what your cavalry have done in your invasion of this country.’ He lifted his sword point away from Alice’s throat, pointed it briefly towards Fonthill, then returned it.

  ‘You are a general,’ he continued. ‘I am a general. You have a sword, I have a sword. In my part of Tibet, general’s fight, we don’t just leave it to our soldiers. If you want your wife to live, then you fight me, with your sword, here and now. If I win, your men let me go. If you win, I don’t care. I die anyway. Are you man enough to fight for your woman, General?’

  The last sentence was spat out scornfully.

  A silence fell on the room. It was broken by Alice. ‘Don’t do it, Simon,’ she called. ‘He is a brute. Don’t fight him,’

  ‘She’s right,’ said Jenkins. ‘’E’s bigger than you, bach sir. Let me take ’im on. ’E’s more my size.’

  Fonthill realised that his lips were dry. He looked round the room. His Gurkhas had now edged through the doorway and were silently extending round the walls. But they were listening intently. If he gave the order they could descend upon the big man in a flash. But there were four Khampas, two of them with drawn knives, who were between the General and them. This would give Jong time to carry out his threat. He had only to flick his wrist and Alice would be dead …

  ‘Let me shoot him, sahib,’ whispered Sunil. ‘This man kill my uncle, my aunt and my cousins.’

  ‘No.’ Simon licked his lips and answered Sunil in a monotone. ‘Do not fire. I will fight him. If he wins, shoot him then. And shoot to kill.’

  ‘Don’t be daft.’ Jenkins’s voice was hoarse. ‘’E looks as though he could be ’andy, like, with that sword. You’re no swordsman, bach. Let me do it.’

  ‘No. I will fight him. He’s probably a year or two older than me and he carries too much weight. I am fitter and I’ve become quite a hand with this sabre recently.’ He addressed the interpreter. ‘Tell the General to step forward and fight me.’

  As the message was translated a grin crossed the Khampa’s face. He beckoned one of his men forward and spoke to him in a low voice. As the General’s sword was lowered, the knife of the soldier replaced it at Alice’s throat.

  ‘Just a precaution,’ explained the interpreter, ‘in case you shoot the General when he step away from woman.’

  ‘Shrewd bugger,’ murmured Jenkins.

  Now the two men faced each other in the centre of the room. Jong looked a formidable figure alongside Fonthill. He was some four or five inches taller than Simon, with a consequent longer reach, and the breadth of his shoulder indicated his strength. His sword, slightly thicker at its point and curved in the Khampas’ fashion, seemed longer and heavier than Fonthill’s sabre. Yet he was certainly corpulent and heavier on his feet.

  ‘Simon, don’t …’ Alice’s voice ended in a sigh as she slumped into a faint.

  It was as though Jong was waiting for her signal, for he immediately stamped forward and launched a series of slashes, horizontal and vertical at Fonthill, swinging his sword in a succession of arcs so swiftly executed that his blade seemed almost a blur.

  ‘Oh blimey,’ muttered Jenkins. ‘’E’s done this before, all right.’

  Somehow, however, Simon survived the attack, ducking and parrying and moving his feet like a dancer.

  ‘Bloody good, bach,’ Jenkins called out.

  But the Tibetan was undaunted. He returned to the attack, hacking and swinging, as though the heavy sword was thistledown in his hand. Simon had no recourse but to back away, defending desperately and making no attempt at a riposte. The Khampa soldiers shouted encouragement.

  It was clear, however, that the energy expended in this series of fierce attacks was taking its toll on the big man. His face was now shining with perspiration and, under its moustache, his mouth was open, gulping down air. Simon seized the opportunity and, feinting to the head, launched a low thrust at his opponent’s midriff, grazing the man’s side and tearing his tunic.

  At this, the Gurkhas all raised a cheer and shouted encouragement in Gurkhali to their man.

  ‘Bloody ’ell,’ grunted Jenkins, ‘it’s like a bloody football match.’

  ‘Let me shoot him,’ cried Sunil again. ‘I kill him easy.’

  ‘No, lad. Leave him be. Don’t shoot him till you ’ave to. I think the Colonel might just do this.’

  The cut to his side seemed to galvanise Jong with new energy and he renewed his assault, stamping his feet flatly to the floor as he thumped forward with a new series of attacks. It seemed inevitable that his great strength and the force of his blows would bring the Khampa success in the end, for Fonthill was finding it increasingly difficult to ward off the blows. It was no surprise, then, that the big man drew blood when Simon was only able to divert one huge downward sweep away from his head and onto his left upper arm, the Tibetan’s blade slicing through the jacket and cutting into flesh.

  Simon was forced to cry out and the General’s mouth extended into a wolfish grin as he leapt in for the kill. As he raised his sword, however, Fonthill’s point, delivered in a classic low, forward lunge, took him in his left shoulder and it was the Tibetan’s turn to gasp in pain as he staggered back.

  But neither wound was fatal and the two men now circled each other, their breath coming in great gulps as the blood from their cuts dripped onto the floor. It was clear, however, that the Khampa was now the more tired of the two and it was Fonthill’s turn now to attack and he forced the big man back to the wall in a series of thrusts.

  ‘That’s it, bach,’ shouted Jenkins. ‘The point, not the edge and you’ve got ’im.’

  But Jong was by no means defeated. He had been brought up in the East of Tibet in a wild corner of the country, where the sword and the dagger ruled, unlike the pastoral, passive hinterland, and where he had come up through the ranks of the Khampa army by the force of his strong right arm. Now he summoned up all of his energy and stamped forward again in a new series of heavy swings of his great sword.

  Fonthill was forced to retreat, parrying each blow as best he could until his foot slipped in a slither of blood that marked the centre of the chamber. Down on one knee, he desperately thrust his sword upwards to meet the next swing – and felt the shaft break and the blade shatter under the force of the blow.

  Simon held up his wounded arm in a last form of protection and the giant Tibetan, his sweating face broken in a great grin, lifted up his sword to administer the coup de grâce. It was then that Sunil fired his rifle, the bullet taking the big man in the side of the head and breaking him down in a crash. At almost the same moment, Jenkins whirled and threw his knife in a whirl of flashing steel, so that the blade embedded itself deeply between the shoulder blades of the Khampa who held his knife at Alice’s throat.

  The other two Khampas and the interpreter threw up their hands in submission as the Gurkhas suddenly swept forward, but they were too late to prevent the kukris rising and falling, bringing them, too, to the ground in a grim silence.

  Simon tried to struggle to his feet but slipped again. ‘Alice,’ he cried. ‘See if Alice is all right.’

  But Jenkins was already there, together with Sunil. Tenderly they held the still-unconscious figure as they untied the cords that bound her to the crucifix. She recovered just as they were laying her on the ground.

  ‘Simon,’ she whispered. ‘Is he all right?’

  ‘All right,’ grunted the Welshman hoarsely, his eyes moist. ‘All right? Yes, ’e’s all right. In fact, ’e’s just about the best swordsman since Robin Bloody ’Ood, I’ll tell you.’

  Sunil frowned. ‘Who is this robinbloodyood man, bach?’

  ‘Oh, I’ll tell you later. You go and see to the General. I’ll look after the missus.’

  Within the hour, Si
mon’s wound had been patched up and, with rather more difficulty, the bleeding from the incision in Alice’s breast had been stemmed and she had been bandaged and cold compresses applied to the bruises on her face. She insisted on riding herself, so the horses had been fetched from where they had been left in the prison courtyard, two more ponies had been taken from the General’s stables at the rear of the house for Alice and Sunil to ride and the little party set off down the still-deserted street towards the south-west and the advancing British army.

  Simon decided to leave the bodies as they had fallen in the courtyard and in the General’s house. ‘When people find them,’ he said, ‘let them just believe that a well-deserved nemesis had overtaken them, as a result of all their misdeeds.’

  Their pace was slow but two hours later they met a vastly relieved Captain Ottley, riding at the head of the Mounted Infantry, scouting in advance of the army, and were ushered through to the main body, just as it was preparing to camp for the night before entering Lhasa the next day.

  Younghusband hailed Simon, shortly after Alice had been put to bed under a hastily erected tent. ‘Well done, Fonthill,’ he called. ‘I heard you’d brought your wife back safely. Did you meet any trouble?’

  Simon forced a faint smile. ‘Hardly any really, thank you. Perhaps I may report in the morning?’

  ‘Of course. Good night.’

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Simon, whose wound had proved to be superficial, had dragged his sleeping bag beside Alice’s cot so that he could be with her should she wake during the night. She did so once, shaking and perspiring as the horrors briefly returned, but he leant across and took her hand until she fell back into a deep slumber. Before dawn the next morning, as the bugles sounded reveille, she woke again, much refreshed this time and able to joke about the two black eyes that peered back at her from her hand mirror.