Rogue Officer (14 page)

‘Well, then, you have your work and we have ours,’ said the lieutenant. ‘On my way down here from a house which sheltered me, I noticed a goatherd’s hut, which appears to be empty. You and Sajan stay there. It’s just beyond that small orchard. Good luck, Sergeant.’

‘And to you, sir. You’ll need more luck than me.’

‘Don’t wager on it. If you’re caught in this region, you could be summarily executed. Stay out of sight. Bother no one.’

With that Crossman and his men set out, walking alongside the narrow river, towards the far end of the valley.

Sergeant King and his adopted son went immediately to the goatherd’s hut and made themselves at home inside.

Sajan said, as he brought in freshly cut hay for their beds, ‘It is very important – our work – is it not, Father?’

‘It is indeed,’ murmured Farrier King, with some satisfaction.

Until now the lieutenant had suffered the sergeant’s desire to make maps with some irritation, not giving the work any priority whatsoever. King however had worked long and hard to become a surveyor. It had not been easy. Though he had been given a short education, it had been a poor one and over with in just three short years. However he counted himself lucky to have had one at all. Then the army had recognized his intelligence and had given him to a mapmaker as an assistant. Farrier King had taken to his new work with a passion that bordered on the religious. When God created the earth, King was certain He did it with his head full of contour lines and trigonometrical points. Sergeant King could not imagine anyone so base as not to be excited by the coloured inks, the pens, the measuring devices, the mathematics, the physics and all the other tools of the mapmaker. His was a skill made in heaven.

King and Sajan stayed in the hut all that day, then under cover of darkness they went out to seek a better viewpoint. After a long climb amongst moonlit crags they came to a stone watchtower on the peak of one of the lesser mountains. Inspecting it, King found some stairs within, which led to a floor above, some thirty feet from the base. Here it was open to the elements. He watched the dawn come up from the far-off Indian plains, creeping up the sides of foothills and spilling over on to each crest below, until it reached the tower. Perfect. This was a perfect observatory for him.

That day they slept, the boy being utterly exhausted. King kept watch for a while, wondering if the tower was used for anything. When no one came he joined Sajan on the stone floor and slept. The boy woke first and made tea on the portable stove. While King was grateful to be woken with a cup of hot beverage, he also felt worried. However, observations from the tower led him to believe no one knew of their existence in this region.

He boiled the water again and checked the temperature with a thermometer to calculate their height above sea level. The lower the water’s boiling point, the higher their altitude. It was not a fail-safe or accurate way to read their elevation above sea level, but it was a reasonable guide. His calculations showed they were 9,720 feet above sea level. King intended to check and recheck the altitude using this method.

‘Where is the pack, Sajan?’ he asked his adopted son.

The boy fetched the heavy haversack in which was carried the precious sextant and chronometer. Together they unwrapped the instruments; Sajan showing almost the same reverence as his father. Once these were ready King filled a small bowl with mercury to use as an artificial horizon in order to measure the altitude of the stars. Thus the sergeant began to calculate the heights of the surrounding mountains and was sometimes astonished by the results. These were indeed giants of earth and stone, tipped with snow, and so exciting were his discoveries that after a few days King’s guard relaxed and he spent less and less time watching for intruders.

Crossman, Raktambar, Gwilliams and Wynter pushed on deeper into the Tibetan mountains. They drank from clear-water streams and ate what they could find in the way of vegetables. There was a particular plant with a root similar to an onion which, though so strong-tasting it brought tears to the eyes, none-the-less satisfied a craving for greens. Gwilliams was adept not only at tracking their enemy, but also at snaring game birds and small mammals, which kept them in meat. Gwilliams never tired of boring Wynter with his stories of tracking with Kit Carson in the American West. Wynter was now in the habit of sticking his fingers down his throat whenever the corporal mentioned one of the Wild West heroes he supposedly shaved and gave haircuts to.

‘One day you’ll swaller them fingers,’ Gwilliams told the private, ‘and you’ll have to keep swallerin’ till your hand comes out of your ass and your shoulder jams up your jaws. Then you’ll look the dope everyone takes you for anyways. No surprises there.’

One morning, when they were closing on their quarry, Wynter turned the corner at the foot of a mountain path to be confronted by a strange horned beast with a long silky-looking coat.

‘Arrrghhh!’ he yelled, then recovering quickly called, ‘Lieutenant! Here’s a hairy bull!

Crossman joined the private. ‘I think it’s what they call a yak,’ he told Wynter. ‘It doesn’t look wild. It must have wandered away from its owner.’ He looked a bit harder. ‘A female with full udders. Wynter, you were a farmhand. Can you milk this creature? Some warm milk would go down well.’

‘I weren’t no farmhand – I was a bodger.’

‘Oh – a forest worker. But still . . .’

Wynter was saved by Gwilliams stepping forward. ‘I’ll do it.’

The yak, doe-eyed and submissive, subjected itself to this indignity passively, and was then sent on its way. They all had a few mouthfuls of the rich fluid. Crossman, weak from his trials, was especially grateful for the milk which seemed to revive his spirits as well as his physical state. His stump was hurting badly, having been scuffed and grazed. He had lost weight with the heat of the plains and lack of food, and now he was in the cold country his condition was frail. His bones were protruding like sticks through his Indian cottons, which were inadequate for the climate.

‘We could’ve ate that beast,’ grumbled Wynter, gulping down the milk. ‘Good meat gone to waste.’

Raktambar said, ‘That animal belongs to someone. If you kill the yak how will the owner survive?’

‘And I’m s’posed to care?’ Wynter growled. ‘The whole bleedin’ lot of ’em could starve and it wun’t worry me a jot.’

The four of them pushed on, hopeful to catch up with the rebels before nightfall. However, before they had gone another few yards Jack caught a flash of light on the mountainside. He stopped and peered into the drifting sun-pierced mists above. He saw another glint. Then he heard the unmistakable clink of metal.

‘Quickly, behind that outcrop,’ he whispered. ‘Someone’s coming.’

The group scrambled behind several large boulders and waited for the oncomers to emerge from the haze. When they did it felt like stepping back in time for Crossman. A line of Chinese soldiers were filing down the path dressed in padded jackets with medieval armour over the top. They wore large helmets with fly-away rims, chain-mail vests, shoulder epaulettes and greaves. Instead of spears they carried ancient-looking flintlocks. In the centre of the column of about thirty soldiers was a sedan chair carried by four men. Tied to one pole of the sedan chair, and roped to each other by the wrists and ankles, hobbled three prisoners, one of which was Rudi Hilversum. Jack also recognized the other two. They were the rebel havildar and one of his sepoys.

Out of the frying pan into the fire, thought Jack, as he stared at Hilversum. The column passed by without seeing the group. It was moving at a leisurely pace so Jack was not too concerned about catching them up again. He gathered his force around him.

‘We’ll follow them and wait our chance,’ he said. ‘Their muskets don’t look up to much, but there’s thirty or more.’

Gwilliams and Wynter both had Enfield rifles. Jack had King’s Enfield. Raktambar had his own weapons, which included two pistols and a tulwar. There was a fair amount of fire power there, but the odds were such that they could not guarantee an easy victory. Jack deemed it wiser to hold back for a decent opportunity to free the prisoners.

He was also more than a little concerned about killing any Chinese soldiers, however comical their uniforms. So far as he knew Britain was at war with China, but the last he had heard was that the British and French were trying to force a peace by attacking the Dagu forts in Northern China. If that rather dubious strategy had been successful Jack did not want to jeopardize any negotiations by creating an international incident allowing the Chinese to rescind. If he was responsible for something like that he would not only be in trouble with the army, but parliament would want his head, torso and limbs on a platter too.

They trailed the small Chinese column to a tiny village in a mountain valley. At one point Jack’s men were surprised by a string of Buddhist monks appearing out of nowhere and trooping silently past them. The monks did not raise an eyebrow and indeed hardly seemed to notice these raggle-taggle foreigners standing by the path. One of them was intent on spinning a hand-held prayer wheel, which fascinated Wynter.

‘Grown men playin’ with toys,’ he muttered jealously. ‘Give ’im a windmill next.’

The next day the Chinese troops left the village and reached a chasm which had to be crossed by a flimsy-looking bridge of rope and wooden slats. Here Jack saw the officer in charge for the first time when he stepped out of the sedan chair. He was dressed in the rich clothes and had the manner of a mandarin. His ornate robe was covered in golden symbols, on a red background, and had deep hanging sleeves. On his head was a black silk hat with a dangling tassle. In his arms, being fondly stroked, was a strange-looking small dog with a pug nose.

No doubt this man in charge was a local official of a minor region of Chinese Tartary on his way back from Peking or some other major city. Whatever his rank and circumstances he obviously held his own life in the utmost importance, because he sent the sedan chair and prisoners, along with the chair’s carriers, over the bridge first, presumably to test its strength. If it held seven men and a heavy chair it would hold the mandarin.

Jack and his men were behind some dwarf trees.

‘What we’ll do,’ he whispered, ‘is wait until the prisoners are over the chasm, then rush down firing over the heads of the soldiers and run across the bridge before they recover from their surprise. Then we’ll cut the ropes and let the bridge fall into the chasm. How does that sound?’

‘Bloody terrible, if you don’t mind me sayin’,’ replied the blunt Corporal Gwilliams without hesitation. ‘I reckon your plan’s more wobbly than that bridge, which is sayin’ somethin’.’

Jack set his jaw. ‘Well, that
is
the plan.’

Raktambar shook his head firmly. Jack looked likely to have a mutiny on his hands. However, fortune intervened and overrode such a disaster. The Chinese mandarin was no fool. As soon as his chair was safely on the other side, he sent a contingent of soldiers over the bridge. Then he started out himself over the swaying bridge, alone of course so that weight was at a minimum. He was a clever man when it came to his own precious life, but he had not thought it through thoroughly. He had done the one thing a commander should never do: he had split his forces. On Jack’s side of the chasm there were now only six soldiers. He and his men rushed them, taking them completely by surprise. They were felled with blows and disarmed within a minute. One or two shots followed from the other side, but ceased when the mandarin, in the line of fire, screamed at his soldiers.

Raktambar stood with a knife poised over the anchor ropes.

The mandarin stood, white with fear, in the middle of the bridge knowing exactly what was indicated.

Jack stepped on to the bridge and began walking across. He looked down between the slats once or twice and was entirely sympathetic to the mandarin’s terror. Far, far below was the twinkling of a thread-narrow stream and on the way down were many a jagged crag and razor rock. Jack himself did not like heights overmuch. He held on with his one good hand and balanced with his left forearm. When he reached the mandarin he stopped and bowed his head politely. The official, who was probably wondering whether he was going to be killed or not, gazed back with relief evident in his eyes. He too lowered his head slightly, knowing Jack was trying to preserve his dignity in front of his troops.

‘My apologies, sir,’ said Jack, ‘for this interlude, but you have one of my men over there. I know you cannot comprehend my words, but you understand the tone and no that no harm will come to you.’

With that, Jack passed on. When he reached the other side some of the Chinese warriors reached out to grab him, but the mandarin screeched again, knowing that he was still in grave peril. They might have a hostage each, but his life was more important than any foreign hostage. Jack was unhanded and left free to cut the bonds of the three prisoners.

‘Thank you, sir,’ gushed the sepoy, ‘you are saving our lives from these barbarians.’

‘Oh, I’ll hang you later,’ Jack replied cheerfully, ‘if we ever get out of this mess alive.’

Once free, Rudi Hilversum spoke to Jack.

‘Look in the sedan. That swine took my handguns from the Indians.’

Jack pulled back the curtain of the sedan chair and sure enough there was Hilversum’s travel bag with the dog asleep across it. He went to pick it up and the pug woke and snapped at Jack’s hand. Jack lifted the beast by the scruff of its neck and tossed it back into its corner again. It remained where it was, yapping at him, while he took the bag. There was also a wooden casket on the seat covered in brass studs. The havildar reached for this item but Jack rapped his wrist.

‘We are not robbers or bandits,’ he murmured.

The havildar’s eyes flashed. ‘You are not my commanding officer,’ he snapped. ‘I am not your trooper.’

‘No,’ replied Jack mildly, ‘you are my prisoner.’

The four men filed back across the bridge. Jack could not stop Hilversum from snatching the mandarin’s cap off his head and thus destroying his attempt at leaving the man with his dignity intact. Hilversum threw the cap out into the gorge where it floated down on the wind.