‘Have your doubts increased since you began to look into the evidence?’
‘They’ve certainly become more insistent.’
‘Because you’re worrying more about the unresolved ones – this is all it is. As I understand it, there is ample evidence that this man went to Tibet, and that he came back from Tibet. All you’re unable to check is what he did in between.’
‘That’s all.’
‘Well. That doesn’t seem to me,’ said Father Harris with a sharp look, ‘a good enough reason to doubt him. Every point you’ve been able to check shows that his account is a reliable one. If somebody had told you six months ago that an obscure schoolteacher had gone into Tibet and come out again with injuries that necessitated the loss of an arm, and with his material circumstances apparently greatly changed, wouldn’t that have aroused your interest? It did arouse your interest.’
‘Unfortunately.’
‘Never mind about that,’ said Father Harris. ‘The trouble with you is you’re getting blasé. You’re dazzled by wonders. You want more and more of them. First things first. You were interested enough to want to publish the book. Why prevent this American publisher from doing the same?’
‘Because we know a bit more about it now.’
‘I’m sure you’re doing this to annoy me,’ Father Harris said. ‘Well, I’m not going to be drawn. There is no point of scruple or conscience here. Quite the reverse. … How many dollars did you say?’
I told him how many dollars.
‘Heavens above!’ said Father Harris mildly. ‘What use couldn’t I put that to? Never mind. The scholars will benefit. As your co-trustee, I say take the money. It’s rather more than you put up, but then they’re getting rather more for it by this time, aren’t they?’
‘What about my doubts?’
‘Very obtuse ones,’ said Father Harris firmly, ‘which you are holding in the face of rather more numerous proofs than I am accustomed to considering. God and the logic of events will I am sure shortly set them at rest.’
Whether due to God, the logic of events, or Father Harris himself, my doubts began from that moment to disperse. A certain slap-happy hilarity set in. As publisher I had bought, as co-trustee sold, and as agent now began to collect commissions on, Mr Oliphant’s notebooks; the two latter activities rapidly becoming extensive. Coincidently, and as though a portent of Father Harris’s promised heavenly approval, confirmatory matter began to flow in.
From Portland Place, London, came a letter from the Chinese Chargé d’Affaires. He said briefly that he understood we had information relating to certain well-known valuables stolen from the Tibetan Autonomous Region during a period of ‘separatist activities’. On the instructions of his ‘Authorities in Peking’ he had to point out that since our two governments were in friendly relations with each other, our correct course was to place this information at his disposal, and that any other course would be not only incorrect and unfriendly but would lay us open to the charge of compounding a felony.
‘Hello. How did they get on to that?’
‘Very rum,’ Underwood said.
‘I expect we’ll find out in good time.’
We found out from Dr Shankar Lal Roy.
I write (he wrote) to advise you that you may hear from the Chinese Diplomatic Service – there is no need for alarm on this score. I am having to pursue inquiries with some of our people in Tibet. Some are ‘doubles’ working with the Chinese Intelligence Service, and to get information it is frequently necessary to give some – of a harmless and checkable kind. If you do hear it will be useful to confirm, without disclosing anything, that you have in fact some information relating to the Yamdring treasure. … I will write more fully later.
Dr Roy was as good as his word. An inundation of ten and twelve-page single-spaced letters began to arrive, which Underwood summarized as under:
Duke of Ganzing: left Tibet on ticket-of-leave at invitation of India Maha Bodhi Society which organized official world celebrations for 2,500th anniversary of the Buddha’s enlightenment in 1956. Dalai Lama, heads of several monasteries, and hundreds of other lay figures also attended. No Yamdring dignitaries appeared, although invited. All religious figures returned, but 70 temporal ones did not. In 1957 these people offered amnesty by Chinese and also promised good jobs in government; almost all, including duke, then returned.
Very shortly after, situation worsened in Tibet. General Chang Kuo-hua, commander of Chinese Liberation Army, signed order of the day calling for ‘constant vigilance against the subversive activities of imperialist elements and the rebellious activities of separatists’. His efforts approved by Peking Radio, which commented, ‘The People’s Liberation Army has the responsibility to suppress revolts and will certainly join hands with all patriotic Tibetan citizens in dealing firm and telling blows to rebellious elements.’
That blows not telling enough shown by subsequent wide scale revolt. Tibetans set up revolutionary movement called Mi-Mang Tsong-Du – People’s Committee Against Chinese Communism. Chinese eventually lost patience, decided to drop puppet government and set up in its place Preparatory Committee for Proposed Tibetan Autonomous Region. Also moved in three million Chinese males and embarked upon policy of Pacification by Impregnation.
Every sizeable village billeted and forcible mating begun with all spinsters and women whose husbands taken away. Programme called ‘Han-isation’. Apparently well organized and conducted on methodical lines, each ‘district’ or ‘region’ heavily garrisoned and patrols and pickets out on hilltops to keep area clear of ‘bandit attacks’ while operation completed. Army doctors followed up on schedule to make pregnancy tests, and when majority successful, troops moved on to next area. Tibetans fond of babies, anybody’s babies, and in most areas plan seems to have worked very well.
By 28 March 1959 Peking announced rebellion over and ‘Tibetan Autonomous Region in full exercise of its powers’. Few days before this, 17 March, Dalai Lama had fled to India. He reported to International Commission of Jurists that Chinese were sterilizing Tibetan males, had killed 65,000 of them and had destroyed 1,000 monasteries. Huge numbers of monks put on to road building work, in the proportion of (in English round figures) 15,300 to each 140-mile section. Several thousand miles of roads being built.
Policy, he said, to degrade religion as unifying force for Tibetans and humiliate religious leaders. Buddha himself described as ‘reactionary element’ in ‘their vulgar propaganda’. Monastery treasure taken over by State or simply looted. …
Governor of Hodzo: Chinese report that he was tried 1951, sentenced to 15 years. No information on wives, but children photographed in Chinese propaganda sheet ‘happily joining hands with young comrades to build a steel smelter in the grounds of their Peking Academy.’
Abbot of Yamdring: ‘died of over-eating’ (Chinese report, April 1952 – evidently euphemism for poisoning); incarnation recognized January 1958 (Mi-Mang Tsong-Du report, March 1959).
Abbess of Yamdring: no information. Dr Roy investigating.
Deputy Abbot and other dignitaries: no news, but monastery apparently still functioning (March 1959).
Yamdring Treasure: MMTD report, March 1959, ‘Chinese operations still continuing to find residue of treasure, presumed to have been cached on route — to —.’
There was also a scholarly outline of the history and traditions of Yamdring with a detailed description of the ceremonies; no item of which departed in any way from Houston’s own account. Since many of the details, particularly those concerning the Second Festival of the Monkey, had only recently, according to Dr Roy, come to light, this seemed to be a decided gain.
None of it, of course, was conclusive – but it certainly helped.
‘It helps?’ said Father Harris. ‘I would describe you, Davidson, as a bit of a caution. Prepare your presses. Start writing some of those splendid advertisements. What are you waiting for?’
‘For news of Sheila Wolferston, Da Costa and Houston. …
Unless we can shed light on –’
‘News will come and light will be shed,’ said Father Harris confidently. ‘I have an instinct about it.’
That his instinct was justified was soon evident, but whether the news brought light or darkness was less easy to decide.
The first item came from Calcutta. Dr Roy wrote:
Abbess of Yamdring: still, I am afraid, nothing certain to add. Mi-Mang Tsong-Du agents in the Chinese Foreign Section IV (a) – Movement Control, Transfer Section – report troop movements, evidently to quell disturbances, in Hodzo province last September (1959). Since Hodzo Dzong is itself garrisoned and apparently quiet (my letter 29 March) and the only other sizeable centre is Yamdring, we may conclude that trouble has broken out there. In this connexion it will be as well to cite an allegedly old prophecy that the Abbess would vacate her eighteenth body (i.e. die) in the sixth month of Earth-Pig (September 1959). Whether a disturbance broke out because the inhabitants were trying to avert this fate, or whether because it had actually occurred. …
The next news came from Tobago. I had been having a bit of trouble with Joshua Gundala, O.B.E., who despite his promise to keep me informed, had not even replied to my two further letters. I had therefore shown the correspondence to Oliver Gooch, on whose advice I had written telling Mr Gundala that unless we heard from him by 30 April 1960, we would insert a displayed inquiry in the Trinidad Guardian putting forward all the information at our disposal including the anonymous letter whose contents had already been communicated to him.
Mr Gundala did not wait for 30 April. He wrote by return:
I thank you for your letter of 10 April but am unable to understand all the agitation. It is not as if Mr Houston was a man of normal habits. I hear he has gone away before for many months without warning. And with regard to lunkies, this is a piece of scandalous nonsense. No reliable witness has ever seen a shark of any kind near Rum Bay. If anywhere, they are at the other side of the island where unscrupulous rivals are jealous of my success. Rum Bay is a beautiful site, ideal for retired people – safer even than Montego Bay and far less spoilt. These stories of lunkies are put about by ignorant fishermen who do it only to get new nets from the government. Do you wonder that the Tobago Times will not publish such silly gossip?
With regard to Mr Houston, the facts are as follows:
His houseboy states that last September he became very restless, walking about all night, etc. He went once to Scarborough (and perhaps while there bought himself a ticket either to Venezuela, Trinidad or the other islands – it is very easily done). One day Mr Houston gave a month’s wages to the house staff, cook, gardener, and the boy himself, and the next morning was absent from breakfast. The boy found his shoes on the beach as if he had gone for a bathe. This was unusual because with only one arm he would never bathe by himself but always with the boy. The boy informed the police constable at Rum Bay D.C.
I saw the p.c.’s report, and in it the boy states he could not remember whether the shoes had been left on the beach from the previous day, which sometimes happened. The p.c. questioned the local taxi service, bus drivers, etc., but nobody remembered picking up Mr Houston either the previous night or in the morning. (In any case he could have walked to Wilmington, two miles away, where there is a choice of three buses to Scarborough. The p.c. did not pursue his inquiries there, and by the time a reporter of the Tobago Times did so, nobody could remember. Nevertheless, I am confident this is what he must have done.)
Bearing in mind that Mr Houston never went bathing by himself, that no reports of drowning have come to light, that he paid off his house staff, and he has gone away in this way before, you will see it is very premature to jump to hasty conclusions.
As I have already promised to keep you informed and as I am quite sure that either I, as realtor, or our Tobago Times news service will be the first to hear anything, I hope you will not find it necessary to insert this inquiry in the Trinidad Guardian which will serve only to raise groundless fears and cast grave aspersions which might reluctantly have to be answered in other ways.
‘What do you think?’
‘I think the lunkies have been busy,’ Oliver Gooch said.
‘I wonder if Oliphant could have known this?’
‘How could he?’
‘I don’t mean specifically the lunkies. But he might have worked out the Earth-Pig business and guessed something like this would happen. There was a funny sort of look about him when he told me the story first.’
‘Well, what do you want to do about it?’
‘You think Houston is definitely dead?’
‘What do you think?’
‘I think we’ve had it.’
‘Yes.’
4
‘You think we’ve what?’ Father Harris said.
5
‘To me,’ T.L. said, ‘the situation is completely crazy. You say Harris won’t agree to pay back the advances and that as co-trustee he still means to try and get the book published – elsewhere if necessary. How can he do that?’
‘He can’t, without my approval.’
‘So meanwhile the stuff lies here.’
‘Yes. We’re in a state of deadlock.’
‘And your idea is what?’
‘I haven’t got one. Unless we could produce Houston we wouldn’t have a leg to stand on in case of trouble. And to try and do the book without him would need so much fiddling we’d never get any reputable scholar to touch it. The fact is, we’ve simply got to get more material. We must turn up — in New Zealand and — in Portugal. We must also in view of the strong presumption of Houston’s death try and get the bank in Zurich to play. Without all this we just don’t have a book.’
‘You don’t think there will be a book?’
‘No. I don’t.’
‘And meanwhile you have contracted with nine publishers including – I hesitate to mention it – ourselves, to produce one within a year.’
‘Yes.’
‘And should therefore tell them the situation and return the advances.’
‘Quite.’
‘Which your co-trustee won’t agree to do.’
‘That’s the situation.’
‘All right,’ T.L. said. ‘I’ve got it now.’
‘Look,’ he said, in the afternoon. ‘Just sit down a minute. And don’t blow your top. I’ve been having a word with Harris. I think there’s something in his idea.’
‘Do you?’
‘Yes. You didn’t mention it to me.’
‘Because it’s simply preposterous. Can’t you imagine the wild, rubbishy job a journalist would make of it?’
‘There are journalists and journalists,’ T.L. said mildly. ‘And anyway, it will need fictionalizing a bit.’
‘It’s out of the question. Look, I’ve spent more time on this than anyone else, and I tell you the situation would be simply impossible.’
‘It looks a good deal more possible to me than it has looked for some time. For one thing, the copyright headache seems to have vanished. You and Harris are now the sole arbiters of what is to be done with this. You’ve got to find some common ground. A great deal of money has already been spent, and I’m not disposed to drop it so easily. Besides, I quite like the story.’
‘I gave certain promises to that old man Oliphant. I told him the job wouldn’t be vulgarized or sensationalized in any way. I mean to keep those promises.’
‘Fine. You’ll be in an excellent position.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘You’ve been telling me how much time you’ve spent with it. I don’t suppose anyone knows the material better than you. Harris agrees with me. He now suggests that since you’re publisher, agent and co-trustee, you might just as well be author into the bargain. For my part,’ T.L. said, lighting up his pipe, ‘you can set it up in type, too, if you want. So. Now you’re the complete one-man band.’
6
That was in April 1960. It took some time to make up my mind, a bit longe
r for the other publishers to make up theirs, longer still to sort out, mentally and on paper, the enormous mass of notes and letters that had accumulated. I began writing in August, at week-ends and in the evenings, and it was July 1961, before the first complicated draft was finished.
Because there was still no definite news of ‘Sheila Wolferston’, ‘Da Costa’ or Houston himself (and still is not – the reader must formulate his own theories) and because these phantoms had been constantly in my mind as I wrote, denying this and underlining that, bringing injunctions and starting actions, in a way that made it impossible for me to assess the readability of the MSS, I sent it first to a couple of readers before showing it to T.L.
One of their comments I quote on the very first page of this book; for T.L.’s (which he gave me first on the telephone and then put in a memo) the reader will have to turn to page 6. He ended his memo:
. … But if you feel so strongly do a little foreword explg the book and its backgd. Also it seems to need a bit of rounding-off. …
A letter had come in from Dr Shankar Lal Roy in that morning’s post, and I turned from the memo and read it again.
I enclose (he wrote) the most recent issue of the Shih Shih Shou Tse (Peking Current Affairs Handbook) which, as you will see from the translation of the item on p. 22. seems to answer one more outstanding point.
The translation, headed Bank Loans, read:
AGRARIAN BANK: 700,000 New Yuan, interest-free, to the Commune of Yamdring (Tibetan Autonomous Region) for seeds, fertilizers and implements. This commune, established at the eager request of the citizens after they had dealt a firm rebuff to local separatists has been very rapidly converted into a lively community by the arrival of Volunteers from the Motherland. One thousand spinsters, formerly unable to find husbands due to reactionary customs and the gangster activities of separatists, are now joyfully married and raising a new generation to assist in the success of the Commune. …
The Rose of Tibet Page 34