Treachery in Tibet (4 page)

Sunil leant down and plucked a leaf and used it to wipe his cheeks. ‘We go back now, sahib?’ he asked.

Fonthill shook his head. ‘Afraid not, Sunil.’ A thought occurred to him. ‘Have you any idea what language these people speak?’

‘Yes sahib. It is like Hindustani but different. Also like Tibetan, which I speak. But I understand them. I hear what they say when they shout at us. “Give us your money …”’

‘Good. I want to go on to their village. Do you think you can find it?’

‘Think so. More difficult to follow only three but I think they hurry now, they are frightened, so easier to see the way they go.’

‘Good man. It will be a risk to enter the village when we find it, so I will still need you to come in with me, with the rifle. Then we must find the headman and talk, if you will translate for me. Pick up these chaps’ knives and take them with you, for they will serve a purpose. Come on, now. I don’t fancy staying out overnight.’

Sunil gathered up the three knives, cut a thong from the throat of one of the dead Nagas and tied them to his own belt, and the two began once more pushing their way through the undergrowth. Very shortly they struck another, clearly defined track through the trees and even Simon could see that it was well trammelled. After they had walked down the track for perhaps half an hour, Sunil tilted back his head and sniffed the air again.

‘Village near, sahib,’ he said. ‘I think there are many of them. We must be careful.’

‘Good.’ Simon breathed heavily. ‘Now,’ he gestured to the rifle, ‘work the bolt and enter a round into the chamber, as I showed you. Yes. Now take off the safety catch. Good. If you have to fire, for God’s sake miss me – and then slide the bolt again to put another bullet up the spout, as we say.’ He smiled, although he felt far from confident. ‘I do not wish to kill anyone else today, only to warn them. Now, give me the knives and follow me. No need to be quiet. I want them to know we are coming.’

The two men, with Fonthill leading, revolver in hand, now strode ahead until the trail broadened out into a clearing, containing primitive huts made of bamboo and straw. In the centre of the clearing the ashes of a large fire were glowing. Simon stood for a moment, surveying the scene. There was no sign of any inhabitants. He cleared his throat, jerked his head to ensure that Sunil was following and strode into the centre.

There, he stood for a moment and then fired a shot into the air. The noise resounded back from the surrounding trees as though an artillery shell had dropped into the ashes of the fire. He turned to Sunil. ‘Shout, and tell them we mean no harm. We have killed three of their people already, but we do not wish to kill more. We wish only to talk to the headman.’

The boy nodded and began talking. ‘Louder,’ commanded Fonthill, ‘so that they can all hear. They’re all out there somewhere.’

Sunil finished and silence fell on the clearing. There was no movement from the surrounding wood.

‘If the headman does not appear by the time I have counted five,’
said Simon, ‘tell them I shall burn all their huts and follow them and kill all their women and children. Count in Hindi. Translate the numbers as I call.’

Calmly, Fonthill selected a cartridge from his pocket, spun the chambers of the revolver and inserted it into the empty chamber, all as Sunil spoke. As silence fell again, Simon put the revolver back into its holster and called, ‘One.’

Sunil repeated it, loudly, in a voice that cracked slightly.

‘Two.’ Still no movement from the forest.

‘Three.’ At this, a man materialised slowly from amongst the trees. He was naked, except for a wisp of loincloth. His hair was grey and a wispy beard clung to his chin.

‘Ask if he is the headman.’

‘Yes, sahib, he says he is.’

‘Good. Tell him I mean him no harm and that is why I have put my revolver back into its holster. But it can be drawn quickly if we are attacked.’

Sunil translated. The chief’s eyes remained fixed on Simon’s.

‘Good. Now tell him I want all of the villagers to come back into the clearing. They should put their weapons on the ground when they do so.’

Simon could see that the boy was now perspiring and his hand shaking. But he spoke out loudly and with seeming confidence. The headman turned and shouted something.

Slowly, men, and then women and some children, began appearing from among the trees. Some of the men carried bows and arrows and these were reluctantly lowered to the ground, followed by the long knives that all seemed to carry. Eventually, the three men in the middle were completely surrounded.

Fonthill nodded approval and looked around him. He swallowed hard. If any archers remained in the woods unseen and released their arrows, then he and Sunil were dead men. It was a risk he had to take.

‘Very well.’ He addressed the chief. ‘Earlier today six of the men from your village attacked the men on my plantation. Then, they attacked us as we followed their trail.’ Slowly, he untied the three knives hanging from his belt and, dramatically, one by one, he hurled them into the ground, blades first, so that they stood quivering.

‘These,’ he continued when the translation had been made, ‘are the knives of three of those men. They are now all dead and their bodies lie back there in the forest, left for the wild dogs to eat them.’

He pointed back down the trail histrionically and a low murmur rose from the villagers. Some of the women began weeping.

The headman lifted his hand and spoke briefly.

‘He say that men not come from this village,’ said Sunil.

‘That is a lie, for we followed their track to this village.’ Fonthill let the words sink in then continued. ‘We did not wish to kill these three men but they attacked us so they had to die.’ Simon gestured to Sunil’s rifle and drew out his own revolver from its holster and held it aloft. ‘We have the weapons to kill all of you now, today, if we wished. But we do not wish.’

A sigh arose from the circle.

‘I have come here,’ he continued, ‘to warn you all that any further attacks on my plantation will mean that I shall call the troops from Darjeeling and we will crash through this forest and kill every one of you and destroy your village. The power of the White Queen in England is as strong as the heat of the sun and it spreads as wide.’

Another murmur arose from the villagers.

‘Now,’ continued Fonthill, addressing the headman. ‘I want two things from you. Firstly, I want an assurance that no more attacks will be made on my plantation. Secondly, I want the money that was taken from my workers returned and put at my feet now. The three men who survived the attack will not be punished, this time. If that happens, we will go in peace.’

The headman remained impassive, standing perfectly still, and Simon thought for a moment that his bluff had failed. What if this village was
not
the home of the thieves – and what if the chief gave a signal for a sudden attack to be launched on him and Sunil? They would be engulfed almost before they could fire a shot. He held his breath and willed himself not to withdraw the revolver that he had placed back in its holster. His thoughts flashed momentarily to Alice. Alice so far away. How would she know what had happened to him? What a way to be parted, after risking death together for so long!

Then the headman slowly turned, raised his hand and spoke a few words. Nothing happened for a moment, then three men broke out from the periphery and sullenly approached Fonthill, their heads down. They stood before him and fumbled in their breechcloths before throwing three bundles of rupee notes at his feet. Then they turned and resumed their places.

‘Pick these up, please Sunil,’ commanded Simon.

As the boy did so, awkwardly, for he still retained his rifle which he kept trained on the crowd, the sun peeped out from behind a cloud and the little clearing was illuminated with its rays, as though a signal had been given from the heavens.

‘Good,’ said Simon. ‘Now, Chief, I want your word and then we
will shake hands on it, as white men do, so that the promise must be solemnly kept.’

Sunil translated and the headman spoke slowly and clearly.

‘He promise,’ said the boy.

‘Splendid. Now we shake.’ He extended his hand and the man frowned. ‘Explain what he must do to keep his oath,’ Fonthill called to Sunil.

The youth did so and the two men shook hands, Simon crushing that of the chief in his own. Then he drew out his revolver, raised it in the air, fired it as though to seal the bargain and replaced it in its holster. As the echoes died down, he nodded to Sunil to go first and walked, without a backward glance, out of the clearing.

‘Now, sahib, do we run?’ asked the boy, once they were well down the trail.

‘No. We walk a little way and then hide amongst the trees, just to make sure that we are not being followed.’ He grinned and puffed out his cheeks. ‘Then we go like hell back home – although I think I am too old to run, thank you very much.’

Suni gave a returning grin. ‘The sahib was very brave there, in village,’ he said. ‘I think they too frightened to follow.’

And so it proved. The two stayed crouching in the undergrowth, just long enough to finish the sandwiches they had brought. Then, as swiftly as the trail permitted, they strode back down the hill towards the plantation and safety, reaching it just as twilight was turning the mountain tops to the east a soft pink. It had, reflected Simon, been a long and demanding day.

The next morning, Duleep reported that the wounded man had been treated and seemed no worse for the experience, although
Fonthill ordered that he should do no work for the next two days. The men were all summoned to gather in the field and Simon, with a beaming Sunil at his side, addressed them.

He explained what had happened, praising Sunil for killing one of the Nagas, and then called forward all those who had lost their wages. He then solemnly reimbursed each man from the rupees they had recovered, insisting that each man count his money carefully. No man reported that he had been short-changed.

Grateful for this, for it reflected the honesty of each man, he then announced that Sunil henceforth would no longer work in the fields but would be promoted, with an increase in his wages, to stand guard and patrol the edge of the forest with the Lee Metford, with which he was now such an expert marksman, as a shield against further attacks. This brought expressions of approval from all of the workforce.

Back in the bungalow, Simon realised that he would have to write a report on the incident to the local magistrate. Men, even plantation owners, could not go around shooting natives without tendering a full explanation.

He was halfway through the task, when a runner appeared from the nearest settlement and telegraph point, carrying a telegram and a letter for him. The, telegram, of course, was from Alice. He tore it open and read:

He grinned and then frowned. News? What could that be? Well, clearly, he would have to wait and see. Then he turned to the letter. It
was, he noted, posted in Johannesburg, South Africa, and addressed in green ink in an untutored but vaguely familiar hand. Someone, perhaps, he had fought with – or even against – in the war?

He tore it open and his eyes went to the signature at the bottom. What he saw made the grin return to his face but it disappeared as he began to read. It ran:

Nandi! His thoughts flew back twenty-six years and conjured up the picture of a small, oval face, the colour of
café au lait,
with black eyes that sparkled as they looked up at him as they sat beside a dam in Zululand. She had been the daughter of an Irishman, himself then a native
induna
or chief, and a Zulu woman of noble birth, living on King Cetshwayo’s land just before the madness that became the Anglo-Zulu war broke out. Nandi, with her small white teeth and pert little breasts – she had revealed them to him with shameless
innocence – had given evidence at his court martial and been the main cause of him being found not guilty. Nandi, the unspoken love of Jenkins’s life, who had bought the Welshman happiness when they had found her again, as a hapless widow, and been forced to burn down her farm on the veldt. Now dead.

He fumbled, brought out a less-than-clean handkerchief and blew his nose roughly. It seemed hard to believe. He read 352’s letter again and sought the date. The Welshman, who had only learnt to read and write under army tuition when they served together in the 24th, had not dated it, of course. Simon slowly put down the paper. Jenkins was ‘missarable’. Well, the misery extended to his old comrade, for he too had been briefly in love with the little half-caste before Alice had come firmly into his life. But 352 had stayed unspokenly faithful to Nandi throughout the years, although they had not met again, except for a brief interlude near the Mozambique border, until the last war had brought them together. Fonthill shook his head. What rotten luck to have stayed true for so long and then have only less than two years together! He stirred himself. He must cable Jenkins immediately – and send him the money for the passage from Durban to Bombay, for the little man would have no idea how much a voyage like this would cost.

He dipped pen into ink and printed out a cable – luckily Jenkins had had the sense to put his address at the top of his letter. It said that a hundred guineas would be awaiting him
post restante
at the central post office in Durban, that he was to cable from there the date of his arrival at Bombay and that Simon would be waiting for him there to take him overland to Assam. (This was vital, for the Welshman, although brave as a buffalo, a fine horseman and an even better shot,
had no sense of direction and could well have ended in Madras or, even worse, Kabul. Fonthill could only pray that Jenkins would be able to find his own way to Durban.) He then printed a second cable to his bank in Cape Town, instructing them to transfer the money, and sent a boy to fetch Duleep. The cables were too important to trust to anyone else.