The Pulse of Danger
- -
- 100%
- +
‘Who told you that?’
He grinned. ‘My last girl.’
‘I wish Mummy was still alive to meet you. She would have absolutely adored you. But you and Daddy should get on. You have something in common.’
‘You mean he has an overdraft, too?’
She laughed. ‘I wouldn’t know about that, da-ahling. No, he really is like you. He’s frightfully interested in flowers. He grows roses.’
He looked as if he was about to swear, then suddenly he laughed and slapped her on the rump. ‘Love, the last thing I ever want to do is raise bloody roses. I collect plants, not grow them. A lot of botanists do like to grow things, but not me. I’m like the obstetrician who doesn’t like to be surrounded by kids.’
‘Oh,’ she said, linking her hands behind his neck, ‘I was hoping we’d have lots of kids. We could start now.’
Two days later he had introduced her to climbing and she took to it as if she had been born on a mountain. He was an expert climber and had been invited to lead several mountaineering expeditions. But always he had found excuses and in the end he had not been asked to join a climbing team even as a member. He knew he had been branded with a reputation for stand-offishness, a climber who considered himself too good to climb with others. He had let the libel stand because it was better than broadcasting the truth. As time had gone on he had wondered if Eve had ever begun to suspect the truth.
He feared leadership. All his life, even as a boy at school, he had been big and confident-looking: a born leader, everyone had said. He had been captain of the school cricket and rugger teams in his last year and they had been the most disastrous seasons in the school’s history; but no one had blamed him and instead had commiserated with him on the poor material he had been given. At university he had been elected captain of the rugger team and the only two matches the team had won had been when he was out of action through injury. Again no one had blamed him, but by then he had come to know the truth about himself.
Still he had been plagued by people wanting to elect him a leader. Or, what was just as bad, wanting to dispute his title to leadership. It never seemed to matter to them that he had never been known to nominate himself for any leader’s job: they took it for granted that he was in the running and began attacking him sometimes even before his name was mentioned. They were invariably small men: the Big Bastard, as he knew he was called, was always fair game for small men. Sometimes he had wished a big man would dispute his title to leader: he couldn’t bring himself to throw a punch or two at the small men, even if they had attacked him in pairs. So he had retreated farther and farther, never committing himself to any expedition larger than this current one, comfortable in the thought that in such circumstances he was not called upon to be responsible for any man’s life. In small groups such as this each man was accountable for himself and indeed resented that it should be otherwise. Leadership of such an expedition often entailed no more than being responsible for the cost and the day-to-day running of the camp.
But he had regretted missing the opportunity to climb with some of the top mountaineering teams. Hunt had passed him over for the Everest ascent the year before, and his omission from other teams had been conspicuous to those who knew of his ability. He regretted the reputation he had and it worried him. He did not like arrogance in others and it disturbed him to know he was branded with the same sin.
He had also been worried when Eve had insisted she was going to accompany him on the trip to Ruwenzori, wondering if he would have the patience to tolerate her when he was immersed in his work; but she had proved more help than hindrance, and from then on he had never thought of making a trip without her. Her father had died a year after their marriage, leaving her without any close relatives and a fortune that came from shipping and mining. The first fact had bound her closer to him, the second was a barrier that kept pushing itself between them. He was depressed, weighed down by his wife’s wealth, a form of slavery dreamed of by most men who don’t know the value of their freedom.
But now, as it so often did, his depression suddenly lifted. Up ahead he saw the gooral working its way along the steep slope above him. Everything else now dropped out of his mind. He stopped, turning slowly as the gooral, still unaware of him, moved with unhurried and uncanny agility among the rocks and trees on the precipitous slope of the hill. It was no use going up there after it: the gooral would stop, look at him curiously, then be gone out of sight while he was still trying to find a foothold on the hillside. He had learned long ago never act like a goat to catch a goat. He would have to be patient, hope that the animal would come down closer within range. He started up the hill, all his concentration focused on the grey moving shape above him, his ears only half-hearing the other sounds here in the gorge: the hissing rumble of the racing river, the soft explosion of a pheasant taking off from a bush close by, the rattle of falling stones disturbed by the gooral as it bounded from one spot to another.
It worked its way above and past him, began moving back down the gorge towards the camp. He turned and began to follow it, keeping to the track and the cover of the trees. Sometimes it would disappear behind a screen of trees or bushes, and a moment later it would come into view again, still moving down towards the camp. It was lower down the hill now and he could see that it was a male and a big one. Both male and female gooral had horns and often it was difficult to tell which was which. But Marquis had remarkably good eyesight and on this beast he could see the thicker horns and the way they diverged outwards, the mark of the male.
The breeze had freshened and was now coming down the gorge, putting him at a disadvantage. He glanced up anxiously when he saw the gooral stop and look down towards him; he froze, wondering if it had caught his scent and was about to take off farther up the hill. He kept absolutely still, remembering the cardinal rule that even some experienced hunters often forgot in their excitement: that a wild animal, having no education in such things, was more times than not unable to distinguish a man at a glance unless the latter betrayed himself by some movement. To the gooral he could be no more than another object among the trees and rocks which surrounded him. Only his scent, if it got to the gooral, would give him away. The gooral would not recognise the scent, but it would be a strange one and he would be warned.
Then the animal bent down, wrenched at a shrub and a moment later, still chewing, moved on. Marquis relaxed, then he too began to move on. He knew now that the gooral could not smell him, despite the fact that the breeze was blowing from behind him. This often happened in these narrow valleys of the Himalayas: the breeze created its own crosscurrents by bouncing off the steep hills and a scent could be lost within a hundred yards.
The gooral was moving slowly down the hillside, and Marquis quickened his pace. The camp would soon be in sight, round the next bend in the valley, and he wanted to get his shot in before the gooral sighted the camp and was possibly frightened by some of the moving figures it would see down there. He was sweating a little with excitement, but his hands were cold from the breeze, which had a rumour of snow on it, and he kept blowing on his right hand, trying to get some flexibility into his trigger finger. The breeze was quickening by the minute, and once he turned his head it caught at his eye, making it water. Autumn was not the best time for hunting in these mountains: the cold fingers, the chill of the metal against the cheek, the wind that watered the eyes, none of it made for easy marksmanship.
The gooral stopped again, its head raised; it gave a hissing whistle, a sign that it was frightened. Then suddenly it bounded down the hill, racing with incredible swiftness ahead of the stones and small rocks disturbed by its progress. The hillside was open here and Marquis had a clear view of the animal as it raced down at right angles to him. Something had frightened the gooral, but there was no time to look for what it was; he raised his gun, tracking a little ahead of the flying gooral, then let go. The shot reverberated around the narrow valley, its echoes dying away quickly as the breeze caught them; the gooral missed its step, then turned a somersault and went plunging down to finish up against a rock just above the path. Marquis felt the thrill that a good shot always gave him. He moved down the path towards the dead gooral, the gun held loosely in one hand, relaxed and happy and forgetful of everything but what he had just done. He would not boast of his shot, but he never denied to himself the pride that he felt. He might have seemed less self-confident if he had talked more about his accomplishments, but at thirty-six a man found it difficult to change the habits and faults of a lifetime. A leopard couldn’t change his spots …
The leopard! He knew now what had frightened the gooral. He turned his head quickly, and the breeze, now a rising wind, sliced at his eyes. His gaze dimmed with tears, but not before he recognised the leopard coming down the hillside in smooth bounding strides that he knew would culminate in a great leap to bring the beast crashing down on him. He whipped up the gun, but even as he did he knew the shot would be useless: he could not see a thing.
Then he felt the bullets rip the air inches above his head and he ducked. The short burst of automatic fire started the valley thundering; again the echoes were snatched away by the wind. But he heard nothing, only felt the thud on the ground as the leopard landed less than a yard from him; his eyes suddenly cleared, and he stepped back as the dying beast reached out for him with a weakly savage paw. He stood on shivering legs, staring down at the leopard as it snarled up at him, coughing angrily in its throat, its jaws working to get at him, its eyes yellow with a fierceness about which its body could do nothing. Then the head dropped and it was dead.
‘Jolly lucky shot, that. I almost blew your head off, instead of hitting him. Just as well you ducked, old man.’
Marquis turned, in control of himself again. On the other side of the river stood an Indian soldier, a Sten gun held loosely in the crook of his arm. Beside him, his hands bound together, was a second soldier, a Chinese.
Chapter Two
‘Is there any way of crossing this river?’ the Indian asked.
Marquis nodded downstream. ‘There’s a bridge down opposite our camp.’
‘Jolly good.’ They had to shout to make themselves heard above the hiss of the water as it boiled past the rocks that tried to block its path. ‘Are you going back there now?’
Marquis looked down at the dead leopard, then at the gooral still wedged in above the rock. He would send Nimchu and a couple of the other porters back for them. The shots would have frightened off any other game that might be about, and the carcasses would be safe for some time. In any case he had to find out what the Indian and the Chinese were doing here.
He walked back along the bank of the river, watching the other two men as they picked their way along the narrow track on the other side. The Chinese walked with his head bent; with his hands tied in front of him he looked like a man deep in meditative prayer. The Indian kept glancing across at Marquis, smiling and nodding like a man throwing silent greetings across a crowded room. Occasionally he prodded the man in front of him with the barrel of his Sten gun, but the Chinese either ignored it or did not feel it. Captor and captive, it was obvious to Marquis even at this distance that they hated each other’s guts.
Before they reached the camp, Eve, Nimchu and three of the porters had come up the track to meet them. ‘What’s the matter? I heard the shots—’ Then Eve looked across the river and saw the two strangers as they came round an outcrop of rock. She saw the Sten gun carried by the Indian, and she looked quickly at Marquis to see if he had been wounded. ‘Did he shoot at you?’
He shook his head, warmed by her concern for him. He took the hand she had put out to him, and quickly told her what had happened. He spoke to the porters, telling them to collect the dead beasts; then, still hand in hand with Eve, he continued on towards the camp. She kept glancing across towards the two men opposite, and Marquis saw the Indian smile at her and incline his head in a slight bow. The Chinese remained uninterested.
‘Who are they?’ He could feel the tightness of her fingers on his. ‘The shorter one’s Chinese, isn’t he?’
‘I think so. He’s too big for a Bhutanese or a Sherpa.’ He looked across at the baggy grey uniform and the cap with ear-flaps that the man wore. ‘I’ve never seen a Chinese uniform before. If he’s a Red, he’s out of his territory. So’s the Indian, for that matter.’
‘What about the Indian? He looks pretty pleased with himself.’
‘Maybe he’s just glad to see us.’
‘Are you glad to see him?’
He didn’t answer that, just pressed her fingers. They came into the camp and walked down to the end of the bridge to wait for the two strangers as they crossed it. The Chinese slipped once or twice as the narrow catwalk swayed beneath him and, with his hands tied together, had trouble in keeping his balance; but the Indian made no attempt to help him, just paused and watched as if he would be pleased to see the Chinese topple over on to the rocks and be swept away by the rushing cataract. Then, wet from the spray flung up from below the bridge, they were clambering up the bank and Marquis and Eve advanced to meet them. The Indian slung his Sten gun over one shoulder, saluted Eve and put out his hand to Marquis.
‘Awfully pleased to meet you.’ His accent was high and fluting, a northern Indian provinces accent overlaid with an Oxford exaggeration that was now out of date. It suggested a languid world that was also gone: tea at four, Ascot hats in a Delhi garden, polo, gossip, and a shoving match among the rajahs to see who could stand closest to the British Raj. But the hand the Indian put out was not languid: the fingers were almost as strong as Marquis’s own. ‘I am Lieutenant-Colonel Dalpat Singh, Indian Army. This is General Li Bu-fang, Chinese Army.’ His black eyes gleamed with amusement. ‘The wrong Chinese Army, I’m afraid. He’s not one of Chiang Kai-shek’s chaps, are you, old man?’ He looked at the Chinese, who turned his head away and stared down the valley. Singh looked back at Marquis and Eve. ‘Chinese politeness died out with Communism. It’s always the way when one allows the masses to take over.’
Marquis, a paid-up member of the masses, ignored the Indian’s remark and introduced himself and Eve. ‘You’re out of your territory, aren’t you, Colonel?’
‘Oh, indeed we are. Both of us.’ He looked at the Chinese again, but the latter still remained detached from them, continuing to stare down the valley as if waiting patiently for someone to come. For a moment a flush of temper stained the Indian’s face, then he shrugged and smiled. He was a handsome man, tall and well-built, his jowls and waist perhaps a little soft and thick for a soldier in the field. He wore thick woollen khaki battle-dress with his badges of rank woven on the shoulder-straps, and a chocolate-brown turban that was stained with blood from a dried cut above his right eye. The eyes themselves were black and amused, almost mocking: they would have seen the human in Indra, the god who drank ambrosia for no other reason but to get drunk. But now, too, they were tired eyes: the Indian had almost reached the point of exhaustion where he would begin to mock himself. ‘I wonder if we might have a cup of tea? We haven’t had a bite to eat since yesterday at noon.’
Marquis led them up to the camp, and soon Tsering brought them tea, tsampa cakes, honey and fruit. At first it looked as if the Chinese would refuse to eat; then he seemed to make up his mind that it was pointless to starve himself to death. He sat down at the rough table opposite Singh and awkwardly, with his hands still bound, began to eat. The Indian himself was obviously famished and had begun to eat as soon as the food was put in front of him.
While they ate, Marquis and Eve left them alone. Nimchu and the other porters had now returned to camp with the leopard and the gooral. Tsering came out of his kitchen tent with a long knife that he sharpened on a stone. He stopped once, to look up at the Chinese general; he ran the blade along his thumb, then looked at Nimchu. The latter shook his head; and Tsering shrugged like a disappointed man. Then he set to work on the two carcasses, skinning them with the practised hand of a man who had been doing this since he was a child. As he slit the throat of the leopard, he glanced once more up at the Chinese; he grinned and committed murder by proxy. Nimchu and the other porters had cast curious, hostile glances up at the two strangers outside the kitchen tent, but then they had gone back to work digging up plants from the garden. Marquis, who hadn’t seen Tsering’s gestures, looked down at Nimchu and the others, wondering what they thought of these invaders.
‘I’d like to keep the leopard skin,’ Eve said. ‘It would make a nice handbag.’
‘Too many holes in it. He put about five bullets into it. He’s a handy man with that Sten gun. It wasn’t an easy shot. I mean, if he wanted to miss me.’
‘You’re lucky he is handy with it.’ She looked down at the leopard, now almost divested of its skin, and shuddered. The bloody carcass could have been Jack’s. ‘He could have killed you, darling.’
He nodded, not wanting to disturb her further by telling her how close he had come to death. He had not yet thanked the Indian for saving his life, but he wanted to do it when and if he had a moment alone with him. For some reason he could not name, he did not want to thank Singh in front of the Chinese. He remembered something he had read: that the victors should never acknowledge their indebtedness to each other in front of the defeated enemy: it was a sign of weakness and at once gave the enemy hope for revenge. It was probably a Roman or a Chinese or a Frenchman who had written it; the English and the Americans were too sentimental about their enemies once they were defeated; and it could not have been a Russian or a German, he found them unreadable. And it could not have been an Irishman or an Australian: whenever they won anything, they then started a fight amongst themselves.
He looked up towards the kitchen tent at the two men, the tall Indian and the thickset Chinese each ignoring the other as he ate, each self-contained in a sort of national arrogance.
Then he looked down at the leopard, grudgingly admiring the dead beast. Its long tail, so beautiful when the animal was alive, now lay like a coil of frayed rope on the grass; the skin, no longer living, already looked as if it had lost its sheen. The head was still attached to the body and now the skin had been peeled away he could see the amazing muscular development of the neck, thick as that of some tigresses he had seen, even though the tigresses must have been at least twice the weight of this graceful beast. The leopard would have torn him to pieces before he could have cleared his eyes of the tears that had blinded him.
‘What actually happened?’ Eve asked; and when he told her she said, ‘That wouldn’t happen back in Kensington.’
‘Oh, I don’t know. The Jaguars on Cromwell Road are just as lethal.’
He’s dodging the argument again, she thought; but before she could say anything Wilkins and the Brecks were coming across the bridge.
‘We heard some shots. Didn’t sound like rifle shots—’ Then they all looked across at the kitchen tent and saw the two strangers. It was Tom Breck who said, ‘Soldiers? Up here?’
‘Whatever happened to Bhutan’s neutrality?’ said Wilkins, slipping his sarcasm out of its sheath for a moment.
Marquis glanced at him, and Eve prepared herself for a sharp exchange between the two men. She saw Jack’s eyes darken as they always did when temper gripped him; he had the Irish weakness of wearing his emotions on his face. Then he turned away, casually, and said, ‘Let’s find out.’
He led the way up to the kitchen tent. He introduced Wilkins and the Brecks, then he sat down at the head of the table and looked at the Indian. ‘Now maybe you’d better put us in the picture, Colonel.’ He kept the note of worry out of his voice and hoped that his expression was equally bland. ‘If our camp is going to be turned into a battleground, we’d like to get to hell out of it.’
‘Of course.’ Singh leaned back in his chair, crossing his legs; unshaven, unwashed, he still carried an air of authority with him. And an air of something else, Marquis thought. An out-of-date peacock pride? A demolished splendour? Marquis couldn’t quite put his finger on it. He had the feeling that he was looking at a ghost that was only too substantial, that mocked its own grave. The Taj Mahal could have been turned into a bowling alley, but this man would still go there.
Singh took the cigarette Wilkins offered him, lit it and drew on it with relish. Wilkins offered the packet to the Chinese, but the latter shook his head. Singh blew out smoke, then looked at the cigarette between his long elegant fingers. ‘Ah, Benson and Hedges. Jolly good.’
‘My last packet.’ They were Wilkins’s one snob symbol: he couldn’t afford the Savile Row suit, the Aston Martin. He had bought a dozen cartons just before leaving London and had severely rationed himself to a certain number of cigarettes a day. It was the story of Lis life: even his snobbery had to be on the bargain-rate level.
‘I used to smoke them when I was at Oxford. Before the war they used to make a special cigarette for my father. He was very particular about his pleasures. Pleasure, he used to say, was the foretaste of Heaven. He had sixty wives, including my dear mother. He expected a very special Heaven, too, I’m afraid.’ Singh looked at Marquis. ‘You don’t smoke, old chap?’
‘My husband is afraid of lung cancer,’ said Eve, drawing on her own cigarette. ‘He doesn’t believe in hastening towards Heaven.’
‘It is a pity all pleasures have their price. Or don’t you agree, Mr. Marquis?’
Marquis saw the Chinese flick a quick glance at the Indian, then the almond eyes were still again, staring down at the bound hands resting on the table in front of him. The inscrutable bloody Orient was not as inscrutable as it thought: behind the impassive face Marquis had glimpsed a mind that was lively and (or was he wrong?) even optimistic. He jerked a thumb at the Chinese. ‘Does he speak English?’
‘I don’t know, old chap. I’ve been chatting to him for almost eighteen hours now, but I haven’t got a word out of him. Later on, when I feel a little stronger, I’ll have a real chin-wag with him.’ There was no mistaking his meaning. He stared at the Chinese, his dark face turning to wood; for all his educated accent and his out-of-date schoolboy slang, Singh looked to Marquis as if he could be as cruel and direct as any wild tribesman of the Indian hills. He had been brought up on pig-sticking; he could turn the lance to other uses. Then abruptly Singh seemed to remember the others, and he looked back at them and smiled. ‘But to put you in the picture. I’m afraid it is not a jolly one.’
‘I knew it,’ said Wilkins, but he might just as well have not spoken for all the notice the others took of him. They all leaned forward, concerned with what Singh might have to tell them. Marquis saw the eyes of the Chinese shine for a moment, but the muscles of the face remained fixed. But the eyes had given Li Bu-fang away: he was laughing at them.
‘These chaps,’ Singh nodded at Li Bu-fang, ‘have set up some posts right across the border here in Bhutan. At least three, possibly more. Border posts with quite a large number of men manning them. Fifty or sixty men to a post. They’re building up for something.’
‘Invasion,’ said Nancy, and put on her glasses to look at the Chinese with an expression that startled Eve with its intensity.