Year Of The Tiger

by Jack Higgins

  “For the kind of money he’s being paid, he doesn’t need to be happy,” Chavasse said. “On the other hand, he had a hell of a war. Probably worried about taking the hitcher to the well too often.”

  “And you, Paul.” Ferguson glanced sideways at him. “What about you?”

  “You should know better than to ask a question like that,” Chavasse said. “I go where the Bureau sends me. This is just another job as far as I’m concerned. Perhaps a little tougher than most, but that’s all.”

  “But doesn’t the thought of going in there worry you?” Ferguson persisted.

  “Sure it does.” Chavasse grinned. “If it didn’t, I wouldn’t go.”

  Ferguson turned the car off the highway and they followed a dirt road for several miles. They were moving up through the lowlands, climbing high into grassy meadows, when suddenly they topped a small rise and saw twenty or thirty tents below, beside a small stream.

  It was a peaceful scene, with the smoke of the cooking fires rising straight in the calm air. Several women stood knee-deep in the stream washing clothing, their long woollen shubas tucked into their belts, and barefooted children played a noisy game of hide-and-seek.

  The tents were typically Tibetan and consisted of yak skins sewn together and stretched over a round wickerwork frame which was surrounded by a low wall of stones or turves.

  The camp had a primitive, quiet charm, and Chavasse smiled as a young boy noticed their approach and called to his friends. A moment later, the whole pack of them surged forward, calling excitedly to their mothers down at the stream.

  The women looked up, shading their eyes against the sun, and at that moment a horseman galloped over the crest of a hill fifty or sixty yards away, scattering a group of grazing yaks, and rode down into the camp.

  He wore a long, wide-sleeved robe and sheepskin shuba which left his chest bare to the waist, and knee-length boots of untanned hide that had been dyed green. His hair was coiled into plaits on either side and covered by a conical sheepskin hat. There was a large silver ring in his left ear.

  He reined in his small Tibetan horse, dismounted and came towards them, a strangely medieval figure. He was tall and muscular, and his deeply tanned face was not in the least oriental. His high cheekbones and aquiline nose gave him a definitely aristocratic air and the children, who quickly parted to let him through, ducked their heads in respect as he passed.

  “Joro,” Ferguson said. “This is Mr. Chavasse.”

  The Tibetan held out his hand. “I am glad you are here,” he said simply.

  Chavasse was impressed. Joro’s English was excellent, but there was more to it than that. He was a man who would have stood out in any company. He looked intelligent and tough, every inch a leader – not at all the sort of man who would run away from a fight. Chavasse was intrigued.

  They walked a little way out of the camp and sat down on a grassy bank. Chavasse offered Joro a cigarette, which he accepted, and took one himself. As he gave the Tibetan a light, he said, “Ferguson tells me you’re willing to return to Tibet and to help me as much as you can. Why?”

  “For two reasons,” Joro said. “Because Mr. Ferguson has told me that you were one of those who helped the Dalai Lama to escape, and because you wish to help Dr. Hoffner.”

  “But why did you leave Tibet in the first place? Were you in trouble?”

  Joro shook his head. “I was not a suspected person, if that’s what you mean. No, Mr. Chavasse. My people are brave, but we can’t fight the Chinese with broadswords and muskets. We need modern rifles and machine guns. I came through the Pangong Tso Pass with gold in the lining of my shuba. I came to buy arms, and Mr. Ferguson has arranged this for me.”

  “You’ll be taking them in with you,” Ferguson said. “It’s all fixed up. Some rifles and ammunition, a couple of submachine guns and a box of grenades. It’s all I could manage. We’ve just come from Kerensky. He wants to fly to Leh this afternoon. Is that all right with you?”

  Joro nodded. “I see no reason for delay if Mr. Chavasse is ready.”

  “If the weather is good, Kerensky wants to try for Rudok tonight,” Chavasse said, “so we haven’t got much time. You’d better fill me in on a few things. What’s the general state of affairs in western Tibet?”

  “Very different from the rest of the country. The Chinese have built a road to link Gartok and Yarkand through the disputed territory of the Aksai Chin Plateau, which they claim from India, but there is little traffic. The area is the most sparsely populated part of Tibet, and they only control the villages and towns, and not all of those.”

  “So there’s been some local resistance?”

  Joro smiled faintly. “Most of my people are herdsmen who move constantly with their flocks, hard mountaineers who do not take kindly to Chinese brutality. What would you expect?”

  “I thought that as Buddhists, the Tibetans were generally against any kind of violence?” Ferguson remarked.

  “That was true once,” Joro said grimly, “but then the Reds came to butcher our young men and defile our women. Before the Lord Buddha brought the way of peace to us, we Tibetans were warriors. The Chinese have made us warriors again.”

  “He’s right,” Chavasse told Ferguson. “When I was in the south, even the monks were fighting.”

  “That is so,” Joro said. “Near Rudok at the monastery of Yalung Gompa we shall find many friends. The monks will help us in any way they can.”

  “Now tell me about Hoffner,” Chavasse said. “What shape was he in when you last saw him?”

  “He had been very ill. That was why I went to see him. I told him I intended to visit Kashmir and he asked me to take the letter for him.”

  “He’s not closely guarded then?”

  Joro shook his head. “He is allowed to continue living in his old house at Changu, which is an ancient walled town of perhaps five thousand people. The Chinese commandant for the entire area lives there, Colonel Li.”

  “And Hoffner is confined to his house?”

  “He occasionally walked in the streets, but he is forbidden to leave the town.” Joro shrugged. “They don’t bother to guard him closely, if that’s what you want to know. Where would he go, a frail old man?”

  “That means we can probably work something out without too much difficulty,” Chavasse said. “After all, we’ll only have to get him from Changu to this landing ground you’ve found near Rudok, and then Kerensky can take over.”

  “There may be difficulties you have not foreseen,” Juro said. “For instance, there is Hoffner’s housekeeper. She may prove awkward. She was not there on the last occasion I saw Hoffner, but I believe she is still with him, and I don’t trust her.”

  “Why not?” Chavasse asked.

  “For the best of all possible reasons,” Joro told him. “She is Chinese – or rather her mother was. Her father was Russian, which is as bad. Her name is Katya Stranoff. She had been travelling with her father from Sinkiang to Lhasa, and he died on the way.”

  “And Hoffner took her in?”

  Joro nodded. “It is his great fault that he must always help others, no matter what the cost to himself.”

  Chavasse thought about it for a moment, a frown on his face. Finally he said, “What it comes down to is this: You don’t trust her, but you’ve nothing concrete to go on. For all we know, she may be perfectly harmless?”

  “That is so,” Joro said reluctantly.

  “Then we’ll have to take a chance on her. When we get to the monastery, you’ll have to go to Changu anyway to spy out the land for me. But we can sort all that out later.”

  Ferguson got to his feet. “If that’s all for the moment, we’d better be getting back to Srinagar. I’ve got plenty to arrange before that plane takes off, and you could use the time to catch up on a little sleep, Paul.”

  Chavasse nodded. “That’s the best idea you’ve had yet.” He smiled and shook hands with Joro. “Until this afternoon then.”

  They left him sitting on t
he grassy bank and walked back through the camp to the car. As they drove away, Ferguson said, “What did you think of him?”

  “He was everything you said he was and then some. I couldn’t have wished for a better companion.”

  “I must say that after listening to what he had to say, the whole thing looks as if it might be rather easier than I thought,” Ferguson said. “Of course there’s this woman he mentioned, but she’s probably harmless.”

  “Probably,” Chavasse agreed, and sighed.

  There always seemed to be a woman around somewhere, and this one was the unknown quantity with a vengeance. However, time would tell. He eased himself into a comfortable position in the seat, tilted his hat forward and closed his eyes.

  5

  It had stopped raining and a white band of moonlight sprawled across the bed. Chavasse lay in that half-world between sleeping and waking and stared up through the gloom at the ceiling.

  After a while, he glanced at his watch. It was almost eleven o’clock. He lay back against the pillow for a moment longer, his body wet with perspiration, and then lifted the blankets aside and slipped out of bed. He quickly dried his body on a towel and dressed, pulling a thick, woollen sweater over his head before opening the window and stepping out onto the terrace.

  The flat-roofed houses of Leh straggled down to the Indus below; the immense walls of the gorge were dark shadows against the sky. It was peaceful and quiet, the only sound a dog barking somewhere across the river, his voice a muted bell in the night.

  Chavasse lit a cigarette, his hands cupped against the wind. As he flicked away the match, a bank of cloud rolled away from the moon and the countryside was bathed in a hard white light. The night sky was incredibly beautiful, with stars strung away to the horizon, where the mountain lifted uneasily to meet them.

  He inhaled the freshness of the earth, wet after the rain, and wondered why everything couldn’t be as simple and uncomplicated as this. You only had to stand and look at it and it cost you nothing except a little time and it gave so much.

  And then a small wind touched him coldly on the cheek, sending a wave of greyness through him, reminding him that half an hour’s flying time away through the darkness was the border. The wind called to him as it moaned across the rooftops, and he turned and went inside.

  The hotel was wrapped in quiet and as he went downstairs, a blast of hot, stale air met him from the small hall where an ancient fan creaked uselessly in the ceiling, hardly causing a movement in the atmosphere.

  The Hindu night clerk was asleep at his desk, head propped between his hands, and Chavasse moved softly past him and went into the bar.

  Kerensky sat at a table by the window, a napkin tucked under his chin. He was the only customer, and a waiter hovered nearby and watched with awe as the Pole steadily demolished the large roasted chicken on his plate.

  Chavasse went behind the bar, poured himself a large Scotch and added ice water. As he crossed to where Kerensky sat, the Pole looked up and grinned.

  “Ah, there you are. I was just going to have you wakened. What about something to eat?”

  Chavasse shook his head. “Nothing for me, thanks.”

  “How do you feel?” Kerensky asked.

  “Fine.” Chavasse stood at the window and looked out across the terrace into the moonlight. “It’s certainly the right night for it.”

  “Couldn’t have been better.” Kerensky chuckled. “In this moonlight, I can fly through the passes with no trouble, and that was always the most dangerous part of the operation. It’s going to be a piece of cake.”

  “I hope you’re right,” Chavasse said.

  “But I always am. During the war I flew over one hundred operations. Every time something bad happened, I felt lousy beforehand. Through my grandmother on my mother’s side, I have Gypsy blood. I always know, I assure you, and tonight I feel good.”

  He leaned over and poured vodka into Chavasse’s empty glass. “Drink up and we’ll go to the airstrip. I sent Joro up there an hour ago with my local man.”

  Chavasse looked down into his glass, a slight frown on his face. Somewhere in his being, a primitive instinct, perhaps that slight mystical element common to all ancient races and inherited from his Breton ancestors, told him that it was no good. In spite of what Kerensky said, it was no good!

  Accepting that fact, he was taken possession of by a strange fatalistic calm. He raised his glass and smiled and took the vodka down in one easy swallow.

  “I’m ready when you are,” he said.

  The airstrip was half a mile outside Leh on a flat plain beside the river. It was not an official stopping place for any of the big airlines and had been constructed by the R.A.F. as an emergency strip during the war.

  There was one prefabricated concrete hangar still painted in the grey-green camouflage of wartime, and rainwater dripped steadily through its sagging roof as they went inside.

  The plane squatted in the middle of the hangar, the scarlet and silver of its fuselage gleaming in the light thrown out by two hurricane lamps suspended from the rafters. Jagbar, Kerensky’s mechanic, was sitting at the controls, a look of intense concentration on his face as he listened to the sound of the engine. Joro was sitting beside him.

  Jagbar jumped down to the ground and Joro followed him. “How does it sound?” Kerensky said.

  Jagbar grinned, exposing stained and decaying teeth. “Perfect, sahib.”

  “And fuel?”

  “I’ve filled her to capacity, including the emergency tank.”

  Kerensky nodded and patted the side of the plane. “Fly well for me, angel,” he crooned in Polish, and turned to Chavasse. “I’m ready when you are.”

  Chavasse looked at the Tibetan and smiled. “I’ll have my disguise now, such as it is.”

  Joro nodded and pulled a bundle out of the plane. It contained a brown woollen robe, a sheepskin shuba and cap and a pair of Tibetan boots in untanned hide.

  Chavasse changed quickly and turned to Kerensky. “Will I do?”

  The Pole nodded. “At a distance, no one would look at you twice, but remember to keep that face covered. It’s as Gallic as a packet of Gauloises or the Pigalle on a Saturday night. Distinctly out of keeping with the Tibetan steppes.”

  Chavasse grinned. “I’ll try to remember that.”

  He and Joro climbed into the plane first, and then Kerensky slipped into the pilot’s seat. He opened the map and turned to Joro.

  “You’re sure about that border patrol?”

  The Tibetan nodded confidently. “They are supposed to patrol daily to the Pangong Tso Pass, but lately it has been unsafe for them to do so. There are only ten men and a sergeant. They stay pretty close to Rudok.”

  Kerensky leaned down to Jagbar. “Look for me in about two hours.”

  The mechanic nodded and pulled the chocks away; Kerensky taxied slowly out of the hangar and turned into the wind. A moment later, the end of the airstrip was rushing to meet them. He pulled the stick back and the plane lifted into the gorge, rock walls flashing by on either side.

  The mountains rose to meet them, gigantic and awe-inspiring, and they climbed higher and swung in a gentle curve that carried them between twin peaks and into another pass.

  The rock walls were uncomfortably close, and Chavasse turned away hurriedly and looked for something to do. Joro was sitting with one of the submachine guns on his knee, carefully loading spare clips from a box of ammunition.

  Chavasse took out his own weapon, a Walther, and checked its action – not that a handgun would be of much use to him if he ran into real trouble. He slipped it back into the soft leather holster at his hip and reached for the other submachine gun.

  Within half an hour, they seemed lost in a landscape so barren, it might have been the moon. Great snow-covered peaks towered on every side and Kerensky, handling the plane with genius, moved through a maze that seemed to have no ending. Beyond the peaks, the stars were like diamond chips set in a black velvet cushion, brighter
than Chavasse had ever known.

  On several occasions, they dropped in air pockets. Once, as they curved from one pass into another, Chavasse could have sworn that their right wingtip touched the rock wall, but they flew on, Kerensky’s great hands steady on the controls.

  Suddenly, they skimmed over the shoulder of a mountain and three hundred feet below, a lake glittered in the moonlight.

  “Pangong Tso!” Joro shouted above the roar of the engine.

  The great pass lifted to meet them. Kerensky eased back the stick slightly, but as the plane rose, so did the frozen earth beneath.

  Chavasse held his breath and waited for the crash, but it didn’t come. With fifty feet to spare, they were over the hump and flashing between rock walls on one side and a glacier on the other.

  Beneath them, a dark plateau rolled away into the distance as far as the eye could see. Kerensky turned and smiled in the dim light thrown out by the instrument panel. “Thought you might like to know we’re now over Tibet,” he shouted. “I’m altering course slightly to bypass Rudok. No sense in advertising.”

  The plane banked sharply to the east and then resumed level flight. The view was spectacular as the rolling steppes stretched away to the horizon. Here and there, hollows and valleys lay dark and forbidding, thrown into relief by the white moonlight, which picked out the higher stretches of ground.

  And then a lake appeared, and a few moments later, another. Joro tapped Kerensky on the shoulder and the Pole nodded and took the plane down.

  The sand flat at the eastern end of the lake gleamed white in the moonlight and Kerensky circled once and started to put the plane’s nose down for a landing. Suddenly he banked sharply and started to climb.

  “What’s wrong?” Chavasse cried.

  “Thought I saw a light down there,” Kerensky said. “Just over the hill from the shore. I’ll go down and take a look.”

  He took the plane round once more, but there was no sign of a light. “What do you think?” he said over his shoulder.