The Rose of Tibet

by Lionel Davidson

  Bodies blundered against him in the darkness, and he couldn’t tell which was which.

  ‘Sahib, sahib, his head! Get his head!’

  He clutched in the darkness and found a fur cap and knew the boy did not have one, and at once, vomiting over it, got both hands round underneath it. He found his wrist gripped suddenly in a pair of teeth, very hard, like a dog clamping on a bone. But he managed with the other hand to squelch down with the soggy glove, rubbing it blindly over nose and mouth and dragging backwards so hard that he tumbled underneath himself, the man’s head on top of him. He held the head- straining there for a second, and felt the sudden leap as the knife went in, and presently, under the oozing glove, the now-familiar hawk. The struggle continued for some seconds more, the man strong as an ox and fighting to twist away from the blade, and as he did so Houston released his wrist and pulled the head more cleanly backwards to present a better target for the knife, and felt it tugged this way and that as the boy worked the blade.

  He had to get out from under the new-bleeding neck, and did so, vomiting painfully.

  The boy was gasping beside him in the darkness ‘Sahib, sahib, don’t be sick now. … There is one man more. … Help me, sahib.’

  He was somehow on his knees again, and the glove was somehow in his hand again, and he levered himself up, hearing the boy fumbling for the one man more. He did not have to fumble long, for the man spoke suddenly in the darkness. It was the monk, who should have been first and was now last, and he spoke crisply – quite without fear, academically almost.

  ‘Trulku? Do you hear me, trulku? You know it is not time for me to die? You know there is work before me?’

  Houston did not speak, and nor did the boy, merely turning in the direction of the sound. The monk seemed to be sitting up in his bag, hands outstretched.

  ‘Trulku, do not permit yourself to fall into error. It would be wrong. It would be a sin. You would lose merit. Trulku, allow me to embrace you. …’

  Houston allowed the monk to embrace him, and felt for his face and automatically slapped on the glove and the man went backwards, still embracing him, his face wriggling this way and that under the disgusting gag. The boy’s hand moved Houston to one side, and felt for the throat, and leaned wearily upon it. The knife slipped slowly in. The hawking went on longer than before, the boy not having the energy to make the cut across but merely turning the knife two or three times before pulling it out.

  The monk did not struggle as the soldiers had struggled, but he took longer to die. They sat and heard him.

  Houston was aware that the boy’s hissing had not stopped.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Sahib, I’m hurt. Get a light.’

  ‘Where is the light?’

  ‘Bring wood from the fire.’

  He collected himself up off the floor. He seemed to be doing it for some time. He was reeling in darkness. He was at the cave-mouth; and leaning against it and drawing in great draughts of the moving night air. He thought his eyes were playing him tricks. In the light of the fire, the dead picket seemed to be moving on the body of Little Daughter. He blundered past the man; but as he turned again with a flaring branch, saw that the picket was indeed moving, and watched him with horrified fascination. But the movement had come not from the picket but from Little Daughter; she was twisting below the corpse, groaning again.

  He couldn’t deal with this. He couldn’t cope with it. He reeled back into the cave with the flaring torch and stood swaying with it over the boy, staring at the new complication.

  The boy had a bayonet in his shoulder. It went in at one side and out at the other. He was sitting holding the shoulder and the bayonet, hissing. They gazed at each other dully.

  ‘Sahib, what can be done?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Oh, sahib, what is for the best?’

  He noticed suddenly that the boy was crying.

  ‘It will have to come out.’

  ‘Yes, out, out. Sahib, you do it. Take it out. I can’t.’

  There had been so much to cope with during this endlessly horrible night that Houston had given up thinking. He merely handed the boy the branch, put one fist on the shoulder and the other round the bayonet and pulled. He noticed while he was doing it that the light suddenly flared, and turning his head saw that the monk’s bedding was on fire. The boy had passed out. He had dropped the branch.

  Houston continued pulling out the bayonet. He dragged the boy out of the cave. He went back in, and put the fire out. He looked about him with the burning branch, and found a knapsack, and emptied it, and picked out a first-aid kit. There was a tin of field dressings, some tubes of ointment, a plastic envelope of powder. He could not read the Chinese lettering, but he opened the envelope and sniffed and thought it was sulphonamide. He went outside again. He bared the boy’s shoulder and wiped away the blood and poured the powder on. Bandages. He had forgotten bandages. He went back in the cave again at a shambling trot and sorted through the knapsack. No bandages. Something else instead of bandages. He held up the branch and saw the four dead men grinning at him as they presented their torn throats for inspection, and without thinking, at once began to pull the monk out of his bag. He stripped his robe off and took it out and tore it and began binding the boy. The boy opened his eyes and watched him.

  ‘How does it feel?’

  ‘Thank you. Thank you, sahib.’

  ‘Little Daughter is alive,’ he said.

  ‘There is a man on Little Daughter, sahib. Take him off.’

  He took the man off.

  ‘The Mother shouldn’t see Little Daughter with a man on her.’

  ‘All right, he’s off now.’

  ‘Help me, sahib.’

  ‘What do you want?’

  ‘We need the horse. We must have it.’

  ‘All right, I’ll get it.’

  ‘I’ll take it food. Give me the mule’s food, sahib. There’s a sack of it in there. I’ll go with the mule. We haven’t got very long.’

  He got the food and put the boy on the mule. He didn’t like the look of him. There was something wrong with his face. He had not quite answered any of his questions. It was almost as if he had not heard them. He seemed to be just holding himself in.

  ‘Collect all the food, sahib, and the sleeping bags. Get it all together. And the Mother, and the bales.’

  ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘And the medical supplies, whatever they have. Don’t waste time, sahib. We’ll move right away.’

  He knew he shouldn’t let him go, but there was so much in this nightmare for him still to cope with that he did let him. He watched the slumped figure bob-bobbing along the track, and turned and went back up the rope to the cave. He let the abbess down, and one of the bales after her, and waited for her to untie it so that he could lower the other one. She didn’t untie it, and he saw presently why. She was sitting by the camp fire cradling Little Daughter in her arms. He didn’t disturb her, and she remained like that, silently cradling and kissing the large pallid face. Little Daughter must have died then, for when the boy came back she merely laid her down and passed a hand over her face, murmuring a prayer.

  There was no time for dismemberment, but she would not eave without making the few obligatory mutilations; so Houston gave her his knife and turned his head while she made them, for he thought he had seen enough of mutilation for one night.

  They left immediately after.

  All this was on the night of 23 November. It was eight days after the party had left Yamdring, and two since Houston had gone over the cliff with the girl. He didn’t know what had happened to the other members of the party, and was so dazed by his privations that he didn’t care.

  Something else happened before they left the camp. The girl left Houston’s knife on the ground. It was the silver one with his name on it that he had carried since the age of 14. He forgot to ask her for it back, and it thus remained beside the body of Little Daughter until the Chinese fo
und it when they brought up the mules. It was an oversight that Houston was later to pay for very dearly.

  2

  They kept going all night, the girl on the horse, the boy on the mule, Houston on his two flat feet. His sores came alive as he walked, and he greeted them like old friends, for they seemed to provide his only contact with reality. He could not believe that he had gone through the fantastic incidents in the cave. Somebody else seemed to have gone through them. He seemed to have been watching this other person, and he seemed to be still watching him, from a pace or two ahead, looking back and observing the flat-footed figure approaching him with the horse and the mule and the two sleeping riders. There was a connexion between him and this dogged person, and he worked soberly to preserve it, checking off the regular signals that passed between them from thighs and neck and ankles.

  The boy sat up suddenly after a couple of hours as if some internal alarm clock had gone off.

  ‘What time is it, sahib?’

  ‘Three o’clock.’

  ‘We’re still on the track?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Stop now, sahib. Stop.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Help me down. We must muffle the hooves. We are coming to the nomad camp. The soldiers are there.’

  He helped the boy down, and they muffled the hooves with strips torn from their clothing, and he helped him up again and trudged on.

  What followed struck Houston in later years as in a way even less believable than the incidents in the cave, and indeed he often wondered if it had really happened, or if he had not himself fallen asleep as he walked and merely dreamed it.

  The nomads were camped on an area the size of Salisbury Plain. They were camped with their tents and their cattle in a series of low-walled enclosures like sheep-pens; and the soldiers were camped with them. For miles on every side, the camp fires gleamed; the plain seemed to be populated as far as he could see. It was encircled entirely by mountains; a vast amphitheatre that shone in the light of the moon like some enormous stage set. Houston thought that he could see every detail of it as plainly as if it had been day: the clusters of tents, the pickets at their fires, cattle stirring behind walls, and even, standing by themselves, the two helicopters, like giant spiders upon the plain.

  It seemed to Houston that he simply walked through the middle of this encampment. He had had an idea earlier that nothing could ever frighten him again; but he knew then it was wrong, for as he walked between the enclosures his hair stood on end. He had the fantastic notion that some spell had been cast on the men and animals who seemed to peer at them from both sides; that they had all of them petrified in the moonlight; or that he himself with his companions had been rendered invisible. He turned to see if the boy was aware of it, too, and saw, incredibly, that he was asleep again; and that the abbess was asleep, and that the horse and the mule seemed to be asleep also; and could not be sure in the drugging moonlight that he was not himself fast asleep.

  Nobody checked them. No dog came to investigate. Like ghosts they passed silently through the camp, and by half past five had reached the mountains at the other side. The moon was still out. Houston kept on. The moon went half an hour later, but he still kept on; for he knew that if he stopped he would simply fall down. He had lost contact with his sores. He seemed to have lost contact with everything. There seemed to be no reason why he should not keep on in this way for ever.

  He was aware that the boy was awake again.

  ‘What time, sahib?’

  ‘I can’t see.’

  ‘The moon has gone. How long since we left the plain?’

  Houston didn’t answer at all this time; for as he had feared, once stopped all his strength had gone. He found himself inexplicably grasping the horse’s leg, and having to reach up to do so.

  ‘Sahib, sahib, hold on. Don’t sleep yet, sahib. I can’t carry you.’

  The boy was beside him, and he was smiling up into his face, telling him that he was far from being asleep, very far; and then he was asleep, and knew that he was, and tried to stop it buzzing for a moment to hear what the boy was saying. Something about his legs; that he should do something with his legs. But he couldn’t find the legs, they had gone now, left him, positively would not be found; and he had to give up trying, had to open to the imperative buzzing, and he opened, and the buzz flew in, and sat upon his ear, and it buzzed.

  It was day when he awoke. It was half past three. He looked at his watch and wound it. The abbess was there. The boy was there. The mule and the horse were there. All present. He tried to stir himself to get up, but could not stir himself. He was not sleepy; merely full of an immense lassitude. He looked about him and saw it was not a cave, but a big overhang; the first place the boy must have found. It was a dangerous place. It was too dangerous a place for them to stay. He fell asleep thinking how dangerous it was.

  They stayed another day in this dangerous place. Neither the boy nor the horse would wake on the first. Houston tried, and couldn’t wake them. He opened the boy’s bandages and found the wound soft and yellow. He poured on another powder. That left two, for the soldiers had had four between them. They had also had a brick of tea and one of butter, a little sack of tsampa and another of rice, eighteen tablets of meat extract and four small wads of dried strip-meat.

  Houston and the girl ate in the evening.

  Later they slept again.

  Ringling woke the second day, but the horse still slept. It slept lying down with its eyes closed. Houston tried kicking it for a few minutes.

  ‘It’s no good, sahib. The horse is sick.’

  ‘What’s to be done?’

  ‘There’s only one thing to be done,’ the boy said in English, looking at the abbess.

  ‘Can you walk?’

  ‘I can walk. We could use the meat, sahib.’

  ‘All right,’ Houston said.

  The boy killed the horse in the late afternoon while the abbess slept, and skinned it, and bound the meat under the lashings of the bales.

  They left as soon as it was dark.

  ‘Chao-li, the boy is in pain. He must have walked two hours. If he wishes, I will walk.’

  ‘Are you in pain?’ Houston said.

  ‘No, sahib, no,’ the boy said. He was hobbling stiffly on the icy path, holding his shoulder. ‘With thanks to the Mother,’ he said. He had not once looked at her, or addressed her directly.

  ‘Does he know where we are?’

  ‘Do you know where we are?’

  ‘Ahead there is a place of wind devils.’

  ‘Must he disturb the wind devils?’

  ‘Is it necessary?’ Houston said. He was tiring of his role as intermediary; but he knew it would be more tiring still to ignore it, for neither of them would speak to the other, except through him.

  ‘There is a hermit hole there,’ the boy said. ‘We could rest in the hole, sahib.’

  ‘Is the hermit known to us?’

  ‘Do we know him?’

  ‘The holy hermit is dead. He died two years ago. Ten of us were sent for from the nearest caravan to witness his funeral. The abbot himself directed the holy hermit’s spirit.’

  ‘Yes, I remember,’ the girl said. ‘I blessed that hermit. It is not wise, Chao-li, to disturb the spirit of the hermit, or the wind devils.’

  ‘It isn’t wise,’ Houston said.

  ‘Sahib, it lies in our path. No one would dare go there. From there it is only six hours to the pass into Chumbi. The pass will soon be blocked, sahib. We must get there quickly.’ ‘Is there no other way he knows, Chao-li?’

  ‘What other route?’ Houston said.

  ‘Sahib, if we leave this track we must go over mountains. I don’t know if we could do it. I don’t know how long it would take. The place of wind devils is the wisest choice.’

  ‘I must see the place,’ the girl said.

  It took several hours to reach. The track narrowed gradually, and suddenly narrowed still further, so that it was barely a
track at all but rather a cleft in the mountains. The wind blew through it at their backs with extraordinary force like some pillow-covered engine shunting them along. It blew steadily, without gusts, in a single high-pitched note, peculiarly wearing on the nerves, and Houston, stumbling along in single file in utter blackness could well see how it might be taken for the malevolent voice of some devil.

  He was quite unprepared, however, for the place of devils itself. The cleft had narrowed so sharply that, to enable the bales, which had jammed against the sides, to be swung round on top of the mule, the abbess had to dismount. She went ahead. A few minutes later they stopped again. The trail had stopped. It had come out to a little clearing, a depression, a mere space of bare rock and ice with a pillar of stones in the centre. The moon could penetrate here, and Houston was glad of it, for if he had not been able with his own eyes to see, he would have thought it full of wild animals. There was a fantastic roaring, a yowling, a moaning; the winds rushing and meeting from similar clefts in the surrounding rock. He thought he could distinguish with clarity the distinctive notes of a dozen mature cats in the row.

  He could see the girl mouthing towards him, but her words were lost in the wind. There was no way round the mule or over it; he crawled on his hands and knees beneath.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Chao-li, the devils are angry!’

  ‘Sahib, they are always angry.’

  ‘Does he know where is the hole?’

  ‘It is below the chorten, sahib – the pile of stones in the centre. The holy hermit’s bones are in the chorten. The floor lifts up and there are steps down.’

  ‘Has he ever heard the devils so angry?’

  ‘Sahib, I have heard them only once. They were just as angry. See, they are not angry with the holy hermit. Not a stone has fallen.’