“There are plenty like her, Christopher, plenty. They breed like rabbits, these Asiatics. You can have as many as you like once this is all over. The best, the very best, I swear. Lovely women, I guarantee it. Just don’t let this one get to you. Try to behave like a professional for once. It’s part of their way of life here, they expect it. You can’t stop it. They’ll kill you if you try to interfere. So just stay out of it.”
Christopher hit him harder than he had ever hit anyone. The blow caught Winterpole full on the jaw and sent him sprawling back on to the floor. Christopher started to get to his feet, but Winterpole, groaning from the blow, somehow managed to twist round and make a grab for Christopher’s legs, toppling him.
That was when the guard made his mistake. He moved across to separate the struggling men, using his right hand while he held his rifle awkwardly in the other. Perhaps he thought he was invulnerable since he carried the gun. Perhaps he imagined the combatants were more interested in one another than in him. On both counts, he was wrong.
As the guard reached for Winterpole, Christopher lunged for his left arm, swinging it back hard against the shoulder. He heard a bone give with a snap and the guard scream in pain. The rifle dropped from paralysed fingers. The guard had sufficient presence of mind to throw himself round on Christopher as he scrabbled on the floor for the weapon. But Christopher was impatient now and out of control.
As the guard rounded on him, he heard a scream outside, a woman’s scream. Instinctively, he recoiled from his opponent’s grip, straightened, and lunged upwards with his knee, catching the man hard in the groin.
Christopher reached for the abandoned Mannlicher. It had been rendered clumsy by the long bayonet at its end. He heard Chindamani cry out again, a tight scream followed by a sob. They were hurting her. Without pausing, he turned and made for the entrance.
“Christopher!”
It was Winterpole, shouting urgently.
“He’s got a pistol, Christopher! I can’t get to him!”
The guard had struggled to his feet in spite of the pain and was fumbling with a pistol in his side-holster.
Christopher swung round. The man held the pistol in his right hand, trembling. He was swaying, dizzy with pain, unable to take aim. Christopher did not want to fire it would bring attention in his direction too soon. He swung the rifle round, feeling it move like a spear in his hand. Men had fought a war with weapons like this, in cold trenches, over rusted wire, yet he had never so much as handled one before. He felt primitive, a sort of god, cold metal in his hands. The man had steadied and was pointing the pistol at his chest. It was heavy, black and diabolical.
Christopher lunged, images of parade grounds in his mind. He had seen men stabbing bags of straw, shouting as they did so. The revolver fired, a sudden light, and a sound of roaring filling the world. He felt the rifle grow heavy, felt something cumbrous move at the end of the long spike, felt the rifle jerk in his hands, heard the revolver fire again, felt himself fall forward into the heaviness.
The bayonet twisted and there was a sound of screaming.
Christopher realized he had closed his eyes. He opened them and saw the guard beside him, vomiting blood, rearing against the long spike in his stomach like a fish made passionate against death on the angler’s gaff. He closed his eyes again and turned the blade once more, drawing away, empty, entranced, striving to escape the tearing of flesh. There was a softer cry and a silence and a pulling away, and suddenly he was adrift in the supremacy of life over death.
“There is no death. There is no death,” he kept repeating, but he opened his eyes and saw the guard on the floor, entering another world. The bullets had not touched Christopher. He was unhurt, but blood from the guard had splashed on his hands and the bayonet he held was dark and wet.
“You bloody fool!” screeched Winterpole from his corner of the tent.
“You’ve ruined us!”
Christopher ignored him and ran out, clutching the rifle.
A fire had been brought back to life about twenty yards away, a red fire that threw tremendous sparks out to tease the darkness. A semicircle of men stood near it, their faces lit like carnival masks, inflamed and bestial. They were cheering as though watching a cockfight. They seemed not to have heard the gunshots, or perhaps they had decided mutually to ignore them in order to concentrate on more immediate concerns.
Christopher raced towards them, pulling back the bolt on the rifle, gauging the distance and the positions of the men round the fire. Coming from the darkness across soft ground, he was at an advantage.
There was a cry and the circle parted a fraction.
Through the gap, Christopher could see one of the four men who had come for Chindamani. He crouched above her, half-naked, pawing her breasts, breathing heavily. Christopher stooped, took aim, and fired a single shot that left the man with only half a head.
The camp filled instantly with silence. Only Chindamani’s sobbing could be heard, and the voice of a hunting owl drifting on the darkness.
“Chindamani,” said Christopher calmly. Hysteria would not help them now. A cool head and a steady hand were what was needed.
“Push him aside, stand up, and come here to me,” he told her,
praying they had not disabled her or that fear had not frozen her into immobility.
For what seemed an age, she lay there, sobs racking her, the dead man’s blood wet on her naked skin like a baptism into all that life was really about. The men were unarmed, uncertain of how many guns their former prisoners might have trained on them.
They could not see into the darkness and knew they presented good targets against the light of the fire. Someone shouted in a harsh voice.
Tut that bloody fire out before he shoots somebody else!”
But nobody stirred. No-one wanted to be the one to move and be singled out for the next shot.
She lifted herself slowly, thrusting the dead assailant away from her with loathing.
“Ignore them,” Christopher said.
“They won’t hurt you. Walk towards me slowly.”
She began to move, arranging her torn clothes about her to conceal her nakedness. He willed her to him, steadying her faltering footsteps with words of encouragement. She reached the circle of men and started to walk through.
One man reached out to snatch at her, intending to use her body as a shield for his own escape. Christopher shot him through the throat, a single shot. The others fell back warily. The way lay open for her.
She was at his side, trembling as she touched him. Her hand clutched at his arm fiercely, hurting him, her fingers digging into his flesh. She said nothing. He felt a rage in him that neither the darkness nor the lust of killing could stifle. He would feel it always, from that moment: it would never leave him, though it would lessen in magnitude.
“We’re leaving,” he said.
“The horses are behind us. I’m going to keep these bastards pinned down here: can you get to the horses?”
She nodded, choking back the last of the sobs.
They inched back slowly across the rough ground, heading for the area behind the tents where the horses had been hitched for the night to tent-pegs. The sound of the animals came to them out of the darkness, whinnying softly and stamping their feet, restless on account of the shooting.
“Find two horses you think we can handle,” Christopher instructed her.
“Untie them. Don’t worry about saddles, we’ll have to go bareback. Untie the others as well, but leave one for Winterpole, in case he makes it.”
She slipped away from him, her confidence returning. Someone had thrown water on the fire and he could no longer see clearly what was happening in the camp.
A voice came out of the darkness, soft and familiar.
“The rifle, Mr. Wylam. Throw it away from you as far as you are able. I am aiming at your back and the range is negligible, so please behave like a reasonable man.”
Christopher stiffened. He recognized the voice:
Rezukhin. A long sigh escaped him. He had forgotten that the general’s tent was next to the temporary paddock. With a groan, he threw his rifle down as ordered, several yards away.
“Christopher! What is it?” Chindamani called from the darkness.
“Stay back!” he shouted.
“Take the nearest horse and ride. Don’t wait for me. Don’t wait for anyone! Just ride as fast as you can!”
“Keep quiet, Mr. Wylam,” Rezukhin’s voice came again.
“But first tell the girl that if she so much as moves a muscle I’ll shoot her where she stands. Is that understood? I can see her perfectly clearly from where I’m standing. And I see very well in the dark, I assure you.”
Christopher called again.
“Stay where you are, Chindamani. Don’t move. He says he’ll shoot you, and I believe he means it. But get ready for a chance to make a break for it.”
He would have to make a chance for her, distract Rezukhin long enough to let her make it to the horse.
“I can’t go without you, Christopher!” she called back.
“I won’t leave you here!”
“You’ve got to! For his sake. For my sake. When the moment comes,” he pleaded.
“Stop babbling!” Rezukhin barked. He was frightened and unsure of what was happening. Was the camp under attack? Had his prisoners allowed a band of Red infiltrators to slip past his guards?
Christopher wondered how good Rezukhin’s aim was at this distance. The range was short, but he sensed that the general had originally been right-handed and that there were limits to how well he could use his left.
“Your men raped her, Rezukhin!” he called out.
“You promised us a safe passage to Urga. You told your boys to keep their hands off us but see what happened when your back was turned.”
“I told you to keep quiet. If my men need a woman, I don’t interfere. They endure enough privations. You have no privileges here, no rights as far as I’m concerned, you and the other man with you are nothing but spies. Which means I can have you taken out and shot.”
“The way you shot those poor bastards in the forest? Without a trial? Judge, jury and executioner all rolled into one? I thought you were a soldier. I thought we were on the same side. But I appear to have been mistaken.”
“This is Mongolia, Mr. Wylam, this is a world apart. We are under martial law here. That law empowers me to condemn a man to death and to have him executed on the spot if the situation demands it. In this place, it is situations that compel us to our actions, not men or their morality.”
Rezukhin steadied the pistol, holding it firmly in line with Christopher’s chest. It was heavy, but his hand did not waver.
“And frankly, Mr. Wylam,” he went on, “I think the present situation calls for action. For condemnation and execution. You have killed at least one of my men, possibly more. You have endangered the lives of my entire unit. You are attempting to escape from military custody. It will be a pleasure to deal with you as you deserve. Come closer. I want to see you.”
“Ka-ris To-feh!”
Chindamani had found the right horse, a small gelding she had ridden since leaving the forest. She slipped its rope and pulled herself on to its smooth back.
“Run!” she cried.
“It’s too dark, he’ll miss you!”
It took Christopher less than a second to decide. He turned and broke into a run, praying he was right about Rezukhin’s aim.
The general swung the barrel of his gun round, panning after Christopher’s running figure. He saw the girl on the horse, anticipated the direction in which the Englishman would run.
Christopher had forgotten the rifle. It lay where he had tossed it, half-hidden by grass, invisible in the darkness. His foot caught on it, twisting his ankle and pitching him forward heavily on to his face.
Rezukhin saw the Englishman fall. He smiled with satisfaction:
Wylam would never make it to the horse now. He glanced forward at the girl sitting on its back, calling desperately to the man on the ground. She would be better out of the way: women only bred discontent, their presence invariably led to brawls and breaches of discipline. Witness tonight’s episode.
He raised the pistol, aimed at her, and fired.
Chindamani dropped from the horse with a startled cry, like a bird plummeting wingless out of the night sky. Rezukhin smiled and walked forward. He might as well finish the Englishman off as well.
Christopher scrabbled for the rifle, but he had lost it again in the darkness. He heard a gun being cocked, a soft click like a small door closing. He looked up to see Rezukhin standing over him, a stunted shadow etched against the sky.
Rezukhin’s finger tightened on the trigger. Christopher caught his breath. He would call her name whatever happened, not even a bullet would deny him that. He closed his eyes. There was a roar and a second roar that followed instantly, like doors slamming in a great temple. He let his breath go urgently, calling into the blackness, against the roaring, calling her name.
There was no pain. He found that strange. Someone was shouting at him. He found that stranger.
“Get up for God’s sake, Christopher! The whole camp will be on our backs in a minute!”
It was Winterpole, leaning over him, helping him to his feet.
“I’m .. .”
“You’re all right, man. The first shot you heard was mine.
Rezukhin’s was aimed somewhere in the direction of Jupiter.”
“Chindamani!”
“She’s all right too. Rezukhin’s shot grazed her arm and made her lose her balance. She’s not much of a horsewoman. Come on, we’ve no time to lose.”
Christopher hear ds shouts from the direction of the main camp.
Someone fired wildly in their direction. It would still be touch and go. He dashed with Winterpole to the horses. Chindamani had remounted her pony and sat clutching its mane. In one hand, she held the leading ropes of two medium-sized mounts.
“Be careful,” she said.
“The shooting has made the horses restless.”
“Let’s get those other horses loose first,” Christopher suggested, uprooting the peg holding the animal next to him. Winterpole followed suit. Closer now, the shouting had grown in volume and violence. A shot rang out and they heard a bullet whistle past.
“Hurry!” Christopher shouted.
Suddenly, a figure appeared out of the darkness, brandishing a sabre and shouting incoherently. Winterpole turned, drew his pistol and fired. The man crumpled, choking loudly.
“Get on with it!” cried Christopher.
The animals were loose now.
“Let’s go!” shouted Winterpole.
But Rezukhin’s soldiers were already on them. A burst of indiscriminate firing came out of the darkness, narrowly missing them, the bullets passing audibly just over their heads.
They took a horse each and mounted. Winterpole raised his pistol and fired four times in quick succession over the heads of the remaining animals. There was a frenzied whinnying and snorting, then they bolted. Their own horses rushed off along with the rest in a thunder of hoofs. Behind them, inarticulate shouts and loud gunfire chased them into the darkness. Someone started firing from their flank.
“Keep your heads down!” shouted Winterpole. But they were racing now, holding desperately to the naked backs of their mounts, feeling the darkness rush past in a roar of horses’ hoofs and frightened snorting.
Slowly, the un ridden horses outdistanced them, and bit by bit their own mounts slowed as the panic left them.
“Are we all together?” shouted Christopher as soon as the pace of their flight had steadied to a canter.
“Chindamani! Are you all right?”
Her voice came back to him, frightened but controlled.
“I’m here, Ka-ris To-feh. I’m all right, don’t worry about me.”
He rode across to her.
“Hold on,” he called to Winterpole.
“I want
to move Chindamani to my horse.” He needed to be beside her, after what had happened.
They stopped and he helped her mount in front of him. They led her horse behind, its rope held in Christopher’s hand.
“Winterpole! What about you?” he shouted once they had got under way again.
Winterpole was fine. He had done his bit. There was no need to apologize now for anything: they were quits.
They rode on at a steady pace. Rezukhin’s men could not catch them now, without horses, in the darkness. But Christopher wished there was more light, that the moon would put in an appearance, however briefly. The sky was thick with clouds, through which not even the faintest glimmer of light escaped. They had no conception of the direction in which they were headed, nor could they easily measure how far they travelled. Time seemed to pass to a different measure, desperately slow and unrelenting. Only the horses were indifferent.
From time to time, one or another would fall into a fitful sleep, only to waken soon after, jolted by a change in the horse’s rhythm or a cry out of the darkness.
For a long time Chindamani did not sleep. Christopher held her about the waist, steadying her against the swaying of the horse, but he sensed that she did not wish to talk. Perhaps she would never be able to discuss the events of that night; but he wanted her to know that he would be there if she wanted to. A few times he felt her body quivering, not from cold though the night was icy but from unwanted memories suddenly crowding in on her.
A little before dawn, he felt her grow more relaxed and realized she had finally fallen into an exhausted sleep. Though desperately fatigued himself, he struggled to keep awake in order to prevent her slipping. The horses were walking now.
Dawn, when it finally came, was torn between splendour and drabness. On the edge of the horizon, directly ahead of them, a pale and insignificant light suddenly erupted in jets of red and gold only to be swallowed up lazily by sordid banks of tattered cloud. It was not a dawn in which to look for auguries. It promised neither peace nor war, but something infinitely more grotesque than either.
With the light, it was possible to make out the sort of country they were in, a barren scrubland, devoid of any interesting features or signs of life. It seemed to stretch behind and ahead of them forever. They were strung out across it, Winterpole far in front, followed by Christopher and Chindamani with their two horses.
The Ninth Buddha Page 37