Treachery in Tibet (28 page)

Alice paused and moved slowly to a stall kept by an elderly woman with a face like a wrinkled Pekingese dog. She was presiding over trays containing meatballs fried in what looked like onions and herbs, with what appeared to be local black bread at the side. Delicious …

The woman gave a wrinkled smile and spoke to her quickly. Alice
pointed to the meatballs and, opening her mouth and pointing inside with a finger, made a negative sign, shaking her head from side to side, in what she hoped was a universal gesture indicating that she was dumb. Immediately, the woman snarled and shook her head vigorously and waved her away.

Alice then tried to smile and offered a few rupees in her hand. Immediately, the woman’s manner changed. She looked up sharply but Alice kept her head down. The old woman then extended a finger and turned one of the rupees over, fastidiously. Then she grabbed all of the coins and thrust them into her apron pocket. For a terrible moment, Alice thought that that would be the end of the matter, but, still scowling, the woman scooped up some of the meatballs, loaded them onto a piece of the bread, put them onto what appeared to be a sheet of almost parchment-like paper, thrust them at Alice and then waved her away.

Gratefully, Alice grabbed the steaming bundle and did her best to melt into the passing crowd, eating the delicious half sandwich as she went. It was, she assured herself, probably the best meal she had ever had.

It had, however, been bought at a cost, for she had drawn attention to herself. Inquisitive faces now peered into hers, noticing her grey eyes, the fragments of brown hair that escaped from under her scarf and the un-oriental set of her face. Several of the men spoke to her, but she shook her head and scurried on, head bent, feeling like some figure from the lurid novels of the late Mr Dickens.

Soon, conscious of the gazes she was drawing, she turned off abruptly into a side street and, prompted by the spices contained in the meatballs, she realised that she was now as thirsty as she had been
hungry. Blessedly, there to her right a little trickle of water was issuing from a tap in the wall of a more substantial house and dropping invitingly into an ornamental bowl. Tossing aside her grease-stained paper, Alice bent her head and sucked in the water. For a moment, she let it run over her face and then rubbed it into her face.

It was then that her head was pulled back and she looked up into the black eyes of a tall man, dressed in a colour-washed blue smock. Alice’s heart fell. Oh no! A Khampa!

The warrior snarled something at her. Alice immediately produced her dumb woman gestures, but the man stepped back and seized her blanket and pulled it away from her. He then stripped her of her makeshift skirt, revealing her once smart, elegantly flared riding breeches and her riding boots. Then he struck her smartly across the face and called back over his shoulder.

Immediately, two more Khampas appeared, running. Still reeling from the blow, Alice fumbled for her automatic but it was too late. Her hands were seized and a cord immediately produced and wound tightly around her wrists. The men were grinning and talking excitedly. Alice realised with a deep sense of foreboding that her freedom had ended. She had been sought and now had been found.

If she had been a subject of some small curiosity before, now she became an object of derision as she was pulled backwards through the streets by the Khampas, who had attached a longer piece of rope to the cord around her wrists. How had they traced her? Ah, of course. The rupees! This must still be a Khampa-controlled area of Lhasa, with the inhabitants completely under the sway of and fearing these brutal warriors. Alice realised that the tears were flowing. The vendor of the meatballs must have betrayed her. Treachery in Tibet
again! She felt impotently but fiercely angry. To have got so far and then been recaptured!

Then she held up her head as she skipped backwards, her calves aching, as she was roughly pulled through the crowd. She still had her handgun. Well, if this was the end, she was determined to bring down some of her captors with her – particularly General Kemphis Jong. Somehow, she felt a little better at the thought.

They turned a corner and, with a sickening sense of familiarity, Alice realised that they were now in the narrow street which housed the jail – and, she now remembered the interpreter telling her, the house of the General himself. She recalled the cries of the little man and the sight of his body swinging from the cross-beam in the jail and her heart sank.

The house of General Jong seemed unimposing from the outside, but once through the door, Alice realised that it was the residence of a man of importance. Fine rugs, probably from Afghanistan, were strewn across the floor and low divans lined the walls. She strained her neck to find some images of the ubiquitous Buddha, but there were none. Did this mean that this General in the Tibetan army was a heathen? Probably. The thought did nothing to cheer her up.

She was taken to a small room that had few furnishings and left standing, with one warrior to guard her, while the other left, presumably to find the General. The man grinned and approached her, put his face close to hers and began fingering her breasts. Alice slowly drew back her head and then quickly crashed her forehead onto his nose. The soldier staggered back and then hit her with his fist, sending her reeling back against the wall. But he did not approach her again.

‘Yes,’ hissed Alice. ‘Don’t you dare do that again.’ She attempted
to wriggle her wrists free of her bonds, but the cord was too tightly bound. If only she could get one hand free and reach the little automatic in her pocket …!

She was still struggling – and realising that her eye was closing from the force of the blow – when a coterie of Khampas, led, of course, by the giant figure of the General, long sword clanking from his belt, swept into the room.

The big man came and stood quite close to her, his eyes running up and down her body. Alice realised that they were almost certainly the blackest and coldest she had ever seen. His face was quite expressionless but slowly, with finger and thumb, he examined the swelling under the right eye. With infinite care, he then pressed it hard with his thumb, extracting a cry of pain from Alice.

‘Oh, you bastard,’ she exclaimed through clenched teeth. She drew back one booted foot and kicked hard at the General’s shins, connecting just above one ankle.

Now it was his turn to double up in pain and he swung his hand and struck her hard across the cheek, sending her brain reeling. Holding his shin, he growled an order and Alice was seized by two of the guards and bundled forward out of the room, along a dimly lit corridor into another, larger room, more, in fact, of a chamber, for there was very little furniture in it, not that Alice could take much note, for her head was still singing from the force of the blow. The General was a big, powerful man and he had hit her hard.

But now she sucked in her breath. Clearly there was more pain to come, for she glimpsed a kind of crucifix attached to the far wall. It had cords attached to the ends of the crosspieces and also to the bottom of the vertical wooden post. She closed her eyes as she was
bundled across to it and silently began to pray: ‘Oh God, please make it quick and don’t let me suffer too long …’

Her wrists were untied and, just as she thought she could make a bid to extract the pistol from her pocket, her arms were pushed against the crosspieces of the crucifix and her wrists tied to their ends. Her ankles were similarly bound to the vertical post.

Alice kept her eyes firmly closed and waited for the pain to start. She was startled, then, when a heavily accented voice spoke to her in English. ‘Madam, you are going to be asked some questions. It would be best for you to answer them honestly.’

She opened her eyes and realised that she was being addressed by what appeared to be a monk, dressed in a roughly woven, grey habit, the hood of which was thrown back to reveal a face, completely Oriental in appearance, with high cheekbones, a large forehead and slit-like eyes that blinked at her, expressionlessly, from behind round-framed spectacles.

Alice moistened her lips. ‘Who are you?’ she asked.

‘It does not matter who I am, madam, I am here to interpret for General Jong. We shall ask you questions. I warn you that if you do not reply honestly pain will be inflicted upon you.’

The monk spoke with a cold imperturbability that sent a chill through Alice’s heart. At his side stood the General, looming over the interpreter, his black eyes gleaming, behind them loomed two of the Khampas, knives in their hands. Knives! Were they to be the torturers? Could she appeal to this man of God – or at least, Bhudda?

‘Are you a lama?’ she asked.

‘No. I am merely a monk who has learnt your tongue. I repeat, it does not matter who I am.’

‘Oh, but it does, I assure you. The last man who interpreted between me and the General was killed by him. I saw his body hanging in the jail. This man has no time for humble interpreters, it seems.’

For the first time the shaft seemed to have hit home, for the eyebrows behind the wire frames of the spectacles rose slightly. He cleared his throat. ‘I am not aware of that and I do not believe you. Now—’

Alice interrupted. ‘Am I to be tortured, then?’

‘Pain will be inflicted if you do not answer honestly.’

‘You are a man of God. Your Bhudda did not preach that harm should be done to unarmed, innocent people.’

‘Madam. You know nothing of the preaching of our lord. You have already killed two of our soldiers, so you are not unarmed or innocent. The Governor here is anxious to know why you are here and who sent you. He has a responsibility to defend this city against the unbelievers who are approaching it. Just answer without lying and you will not be harmed.’

At this point, the General growled and interjected. The monk nodded impassively. ‘Governor say that his patience is becoming exhausted. You answer now. Why you here?’

Alice sighed. ‘I have already told the General that I am the wife of a general in the British army that is approaching Lhasa now. I am also a correspondent for a leading British newspaper. I have been reporting on the invasion and have grown tired of witnessing your army – most of it comprising ordinary peasants, as far as I can see – being killed by the superior firepower and discipline of the British soldiers. I came here of my own volition to plead with your government not to oppose the British army any further and to sit down with Colonel
Younghusband, the leader of the political mission, and negotiate with him …’

‘Wait. I translate.’

He did so and his words produced a torrent of vituperation from Jong, who stamped his foot, leant forward and tore open Alice’s blouse. He then wrenched away her brassiere, revealing her left breast.

The monk seemed completely unfazed. ‘General say,’ he continued, ‘you lie. Why should you, a woman, think you could have any influence on holy men who rule our country? He think you come here, in some sort of disguise to spy on Tibetan military … ahh … dispositions for your army. Your generals think woman would not be suspected by us of doing such thing, so you slip into city unnoticed.’

Alice shook her head. ‘That is not true …’

Without waiting for the translation, General Jong shouted an order. One of the Khampas stepped forward, knife in hand. He waved the blade under Alice’s face and she shrank back and closed her eyes. A sharp, agonising pain swept through her as the blade was inserted into the lower part of her breast and, involuntarily, she screamed.

As though from afar, she heard the interpreter murmur, ‘He cut off all your breast if you don’t tell truth …’

Then, from even further away, as she bit her lip, awaiting a greater pain, she heard a distant but familiar voice cry, ‘Alice, Alice, we are coming …’

She opened her eyes and saw the door crash open and Simon, sword in hand, rush through, followed by a limping Jenkins, Sunil, rifle in hand, and a handful of Gurkhas, kukris gleaming in the dim light.

Fonthill’s jaw dropped and momentarily he stopped, for Jong had
leapt forward, thrusting both the interpreter and the knife-wielding Khampa aside. Drawing his sword, the General thrust the tip to Alice’s throat and shouted something at the interpreter.

The monk quickly licked his lips and said, ‘General say, he kill woman if you come nearer. He prepared to die but will take your wife with him if one man takes step nearer.’

Sunil lifted his rifle. ‘I shoot him, sahib,’ he said.

‘No. No. You might hit Alice.’

Perspiration was now trickling down General Jong’s face. Without taking his eyes off Fonthill, he said something to the interpreter. ‘He ask,’ translated the monk, ‘if you are British general who is married to this woman?’

Ignoring the question, Simon, still standing near the door, his sabre in his hand, called in a broken voice: ‘Alice, you are bleeding. What have they done to you?’

Alice tried to force a smile. ‘Just a little cut, my love. You seem to have arrived just in time. Be careful. This man is a monster. You’d better answer him.’

‘Yes,’ Fonthill called out. ‘I am her husband. And if you hurt a hair of her head I shall kill you.’

At this, the General nodded, as though contemplating his course of action. Then he answered, via the interpreter: ‘I am not afraid to die. You have more men here than I have, but my guards will arrive soon. I sent them after you—’

Simon, his brain racing, interrupted: ‘They will not come. We lured thirty Khampas who had followed us into the courtyard of your prison and my men killed them all.’ He nodded over his shoulder. ‘You can see that these kukris are still bloodstained. Put down your
sword. Let my wife go and I promise no harm will come to you, but you will be tried by the British for what you have done.’

Jong’s eyes widened. Then he smiled. ‘You sound as though you are a great warrior,’ he said. ‘I have heard of you and what your cavalry have done in your invasion of this country.’ He lifted his sword point away from Alice’s throat, pointed it briefly towards Fonthill, then returned it.

‘You are a general,’ he continued. ‘I am a general. You have a sword, I have a sword. In my part of Tibet, general’s fight, we don’t just leave it to our soldiers. If you want your wife to live, then you fight me, with your sword, here and now. If I win, your men let me go. If you win, I don’t care. I die anyway. Are you man enough to fight for your woman, General?’