Treachery in Tibet (24 page)

‘Well thank you, anyway,’ Alice called and thirstily took deep draughts of the milk and began eating the porridge with the wooden spoon provided.

Food and drink brought hope and she lay back in the straw and closed her eyes. The strain of the last hour or so quickly introduced sleep. She did not know how long she slept – her wristwatch she had carefully removed and left with her spare clothing in Chang Li’s house – and it was quite dark when she awoke. But what was it that woke her?

A faint voice was calling something from far away and he or she was repeating it. She stood under the window and strained to hear it. Luckily, whoever was calling was approaching and the voice grew slightly louder but it was clear that the person calling was doing so at little above a whisper. Then it called from under the window: ‘Memsahib, are you in there?’

Alice almost screamed in delight. ‘Yes, Sunil. I am here.’ Then, her eyes on the door, she lowered her voice. ‘Can you hear me?’

‘Oh yes, miss. I hear you. I am so glad to find you.’

‘Oh, Sunil, I am so glad you have. I never doubted you. I presume this is a prison I am in?’

‘Yes. Nasty place, I think. Have they hurt you?’

‘A little, but not much. I can survive. What time is it?’

‘I am not sure. Time when most people are asleep, I think. This busy street so I can only come after dark, when people do not walk it. I did not see where you turn earlier. So I have been walking up many streets and calling up to windows.’

‘You, my dear Sunil, are a jewel. Now, tell me, was it your uncle who betrayed me to the Khampas?’

For a moment, there was no reply. Then Sunil’s voice was even lower. ‘Yes, memsahib. I am sorry. He frightened of Khampa general who is local governor where he lives. He no longer my uncle …’ his voice tailed away.

‘Sunil, I am so sorry. I should never have put him and you in this position. Now, listen. I have to decide what to do. Have they taken all my things?’

‘Yes. They know who you are, I think.’

‘Did they take my Webley revolver and your rifle?’

‘They take your revolver, but not,’ his voice lifted a tone, ‘my rifle.’

‘Good. Now if you go to the room where I slept, in the corner near the window, I lifted a piece of floorboard and hid in there a small handgun I had bought at the India border before we set out. With it I hid a small box containing six rounds of ammunition for it. I doubt if the soldiers would have found it. Do you think you could bring it here tomorrow night at roughly this time, tie a line to it, throw it up through the bars and lower it down to me so you don’t make a noise without anyone seeing our hearing?’

‘Oh, I do that for you, I am sure.’

‘Good boy. Do your uncle and aunt know you have been looking for me?’

‘I don’t know. I not been there since you been taken. I spend time looking for you.’

Alice felt the tears come again at the boy’s loyalty, but she stifled them. ‘Good. I am most grateful. Now go back to them and don’t say that you have found me. Just say that you have spent the time looking. Do not upset your uncle, because it might be bad for you. When you come back tomorrow night, hopefully, I will have made a plan. Is that clear?’

‘Yes, memsahib.’

‘Thank you again for being such a brave and resourceful boy. You will be rewarded, I promise you.’

‘I don’t need reward. I get you out of there. You will see.’

‘I am sure. Now go. Thank you once more and be very careful.’

‘Yes, miss. Goodnight.’

‘Goodnight, Sunil.’

Alice blew her nose, slumped back onto the straw and wiped away the incipient tears. What a great asset this Tibetan youth had turned out to be – and what an unthinking fool she had been to put him in danger and to expect that his uncle would have helped this strange woman from an invading force!

Now, she must think what to do. Thank goodness she had had the foresight to buy the little French handgun to back up the great clumsy Webley revolver! She had no idea of how it could be used in the prison, but it was small enough to be hidden on her person and, if the worst came to the worst, particularly if something horrible – rape or torture – threatened, she could use it to shoot her way out of the prison. But now, she must think of what to do with Sunil. He must not be placed in further danger. Sleep would help, she knew. So she lay down and closed her eyes.

She awoke when the cell door was opened and thrown back with a clang. It was clearly quite late in the morning, for light was streaming through the high window and it illuminated the striking figure that entered and strode towards her. He was very tall – perhaps 6ft 3 ins – and he stood, hands on hips, glowering down on her as she struggled to her feet. The man wore his hair long, so that it fell about his shoulders and down his back, black as a raven’s wing. His face was Mongoloid, with narrow, slit eyes, and he effected a mandarin moustache that hung down either side of a cruel, firmly set mouth. He was dressed in a simple tunic
that reached down to the top of his leather boots and a woollen cloak, woven finely with gold thread at the edges, hung from his shoulders.

Behind him were two of the Khampa warriors who had brought her to the jail and a small, thin, elderly Tibetan wearing pince-nez spectacles perched precariously on the end of his nose.

The big man turned and grunted something to the scholarly figure.

The small man cleared his throat and addressed Alice. ‘I shall interpret, madam,’ he said, in precise, clear English. ‘You are either Mrs Alice Fonthill or Miss Alice Griffth. Which is it?’

‘I am both.’ Alice spoke loudly. She felt intimidated by the delegation – particularly by the big man – but she was determined not to show it.

The interpreter shot a quick, uneasy glance at the big man. ‘Madam. You can’t be both. Which are you?’

‘I repeat, I am both. I am married to Brigadier Simon Fonthill, who is serving with the British column, now approaching Lhasa, so in my private life I am Mrs Fonthill. But I am also a newspaper correspondent, reporting on the … er … invasion of Tibet for
The Morning Post,
London for which I write under my maiden name, Alice Griffith. This situation is not unusual in Europe, I assure you.’

The interpreter adjusted his spectacles and translated for the benefit of the big man, who was obviously a Khampa of some seniority.

The latter frowned and fixed Alice with a glare that seemed to light up his black eyes. Then he spoke, without taking his eyes off her.

‘This is General Kemphis Jong,’ the little man interpreted, ‘he is general in charge of the Khampas in Tibetan army and also governor
of this area of Lhasa and surrounding country. He know of your Fonthill. Your man commands British cavalry and has killed many Tibetans.’

Alice swallowed hard. They had obviously gone through her belongings and found the notes that Simon had scribbled to her when away earlier in the campaign. It seemed that Fonthill had become rather notorious in the eyes of the Khampas.

‘My husband is a general in the British army,’ she said, ‘as your governor is in the Tibetan army. He is merely doing his duty. Soldiers are paid to fight. Your general knows that.’

The General grunted when the translation was made. Then, suddenly, without warning, he struck Alice with the back of his hand, sending her sprawling onto the straw. He towered over her and shouted something.

‘He say,’ translated the little man, his eyes wide now behind his glasses, ‘that you here to answer questions, not to argue. You show respect or you will be hurt. Women do not answer back in Tibet.’

Alice remained lying on the straw, her face white. ‘And men of honour do not strike women in England,’ she said defiantly, staring up at the General.

It was clear that the interpreter considered for a moment ameliorating her response, for he paused while he sought for appropriate words, but the Khampa shouted at him to translate and the scholar gulped and did as he was told.

‘Ah.’ The General looked down at her and then barked a command to his Khampas. Immediately, they bent down and dragged her upright, pulling her hands high above her head. Then they frogmarched her to the wall underneath the window and
bound her hands together above her head with a rope. One of the soldiers bent down and linked his fingers together, so that the other could step into them and, reaching up, pushed one end of the rope through one of the bars in the window. Then, together, they hauled on the end so that Alice was stretched high against the wall, her toes barely touching the floor.

She groaned, involuntarily, as her arms felt as though they had been pulled from their sockets and closed her eyes, dreading what was to come.

She felt her breeches being undone and roughly pulled down and then one of the Khampas roughly forced her legs apart and pushed his hand between them, wrenching upwards with his fingers. She screeched in pain and the man stepped back.

The interpreter intervened and spoke quickly, obviously now of his own accord. ‘Madam,’ he said, ‘these men are rough barbarians from the east, even the General. They are not like ordinary Tibetans. Please do not antagonise him, or they hurt you. Tell him now that you are sorry.’

‘Tell him to go to hell,’ hissed Alice between clenched teeth and the little man immediately translated – but obviously not her words, for the General grunted and nodded his head. She was allowed to remain hanging, though.

The General spoke again. ‘He say, why you come to Lhasa with this boy?’

At last, a chance for some sort of dialogue! Alice closed her mind against the pain and the shame of the assault and began talking. ‘I have come without the permission of the British Commander or my husband. I paid the boy to take us here because I want to speak to the
high lamas who control the government of Tibet. I want to plead with them not to oppose the British any more.’

The General spoke again and the scorn was obvious in what he said.

‘He say, you lie and that you are British spy, come to spy out city before British approach it.’

‘That is not true. Would a British general send a woman to do that work?’

She could see that the shaft had struck home and she continued quickly. ‘I have witnessed all of the fighting between the British and their troops and the Tibetan army and seen the slaughter of the Tibetans and reported on it back to my newspaper, which is one of the most important in Britain.’

‘I know of
The Morning Post
and have read it,’ the interpreter said quickly, not without evincing a touch of pride.

‘Then you will know that I criticise the killing by the British. If the British army is opposed again before they reach Lhasa, then there will be even more Tibetans killed. I came to plead with the lamas to allow the army to approach peacefully and to sit down with them in the city to discuss a peace treaty between the two countries, like civilised people.’

She allowed the translation to take place and then continued quickly, before the pain made tears pour down her cheeks. ‘Either way, if I see the lamas or not, if I am killed or violated again, then the British General and my husband will exercise fierce retribution upon the General here and upon the Khampa people. I can promise you that,’ she ended fiercely.

The scholar made the translation at some length and the General
stood listening, hands on his hips, his legs stretched wide. Alice observed him between half-closed eyes, praying that the torture would not be resumed.

The big man remained silent for a while. Then made his reply. ‘He say we leave you here like this for a while, for your impudence,’ translated the scholar. ‘Then we go and get the boy and make him tell us truth. We will return.’ The General nodded curtly, turned on his heels and the quartet stamped out of the cell, the little interpreter looking over his shoulder, blinking behind his spectacles and almost, Alice thought, with tears in his eyes. Then the door clanged shut.

Her first thought was one of relief that the rape that she feared was not to follow – at least not immediately. Then, quickly, came the feeling of impotent shame that she had been violated so rudely and left, hanging now, her toes just touching the ground, but with her jodhpurs and knickers pulled down to her ankles. Now came the pain, renewed.

Her calves and her hamstrings felt that they were being stretched to breaking point as they attempted to take the strain of her weight, and her shoulders, armpits and arms seemed to be on fire. She pushed back her head and gritted her teeth. For God’s sake, she had been strung up for less than five minutes. If the pain was this bad after a few minutes, what would it be like for … what? Hours? How long would they leave her like this and how could she bear it? Then she recalled the General’s words: ‘going to get the boy and make him tell us the truth’.

This time the tears poured down her cheeks as she realised that Sunil – her only hope – was about to be arrested and, no doubt, tortured, all because of her foolishness and arrogance. She sobbed at
the thought and that she would now almost certainly never see Simon again. Unless … Had he got her second note? Surely, he would come after her? Her thoughts raced. But how to find her in this strange, labyrinth of a city? She moaned out loud in despair and pain.

Alice tried to force her aching legs to summon up a little energy to jump to take the strain off her arms, but they did not, could not, respond. She shouted to the jailer in the hope that she could promise him something, anything, if he would cut her down. But her voice echoed back to her from the walls of the cell.

She had no idea how long she had hung in this way, for blessedly, she had slumped into some sort of loss of consciousness, when she heard a voice, speaking very low, saying, ‘Very sorry, madam. Forgive me if I do this.’ And she felt a hand fumbling for her breeches at her ankles.

Opening her eyes, Alice realised that the little interpreter had returned. Immediately she attempted to kick him, but the power was not there. Then she realised that the cell door had been closed and that the little man seemed to be alone.

‘I trying to, ah, adjust your clothing, madam,’ he was saying and he somehow succeeded in pulling her knickers to cover her nudity, then hoisting her breeches to her waist. ‘There,’ he said, buttoning them, ‘it did not please me that they did that to you.’