The Maharajah's Monkey (22 page)

I could not understand their talk. But the sense was clear, by the gabble of voices drifting over and ice and the harsh way the Tibetan waved his arm toward us.

“What does he say?” Aunt Hilda demanded once their talk was over and Chamba had limped his way over to us.

“We are prisoners,” Chamba replied. “We must go with this man; he is commander of Tibetan border guards.”

“That blooming monk has left us slap-bang in the lurch,” my aunt growled. “Listen, tell him we are a British scientific expedition.”

“He not know what that mean.”

“Confounded impertinence. My goodness, man, this is India. The property of her Imperial Highness Queen Victoria!”

“He say we in Tibets.” Chamba shrugged his shoulders, hopelessly. “Tibet's prisoners.”

The Tibetan commander was watching these exchanges with a superior smile.

“We weel shoot our way out,” Champlon blustered. Luckily he was no longer waving his pistol around for I feared what would happen if he were to start banging
off bullets. The Tibetans flintlock muskets were ancient, granted, but their bows and arrows looked lethal. There were so many of them and so few of us. Plus, I knew in my bones the Sherpas wouldn't fight.

“It not possible fight,” Chamba said, echoing my thoughts. “Too many.”

“Yes,” Aunt Hilda agreed. “I think this is a case for the silver tongue rather than the iron fist.” I let out a breath on hearing this. The soldiers—spread out over the glaring ice on their horses—were menacing in their stillness.

“Commander tell us pack.” Chamba's words came out in a jumbled hurry. “He take us see governor.”

“No,” Aunt Hilda said.

“Vat?” Chamba gasped.

“We will not go anywhere. We are subjects of the Queen. This peasant has no right to order us hither and thither.”

I should have remembered that Aunt Hilda's idea of a silver tongue was different from other people's. “Please, Aunt,” I begged. “Let's go.” My hands were trembling

“Please, Memsahib Salter,” Chamba begged. “Please, ve vill all die, if you refuse go.”

“I am staying right here,” Aunt Hilda declared, her bulldog chin tilting up defiantly. She had never been more splendid, more fearless—and more plain foolish—as she glared at that brute of a commander. The Tibetan
was clearly trying to follow the exchanges. Now he intervened, barking at Chamba, who I could tell was trying to wriggle out of the situation.

Aunt Hilda wasn't having this. She marched up to the commander, waving her hands dismissively. “
No
,” she mouthed, so even if you didn't speak English you couldn't fail to understand. “We are staying here.”

The man lurched, as if she had struck him. On his broad, weather-beaten face was a look of utter surprise. My aunt's courage must have seemed foolish beyond belief to him. His mouth was cruel, but I caught something uncertain, from him, a breath of fear. This made him even more terrifying, for in his cowardice he might be driven to violence.

I thought he was going to spit on my aunt; instead he turned and barked out an order. Two men came hurrying forward and seized Aunt Hilda. Champlon's hand was on his pistol, but in a flash more men were on him, pinioning his arms. A soldier seized his mustache and pulled it, as if he believed it was false. Champlon and my aunt were stripped of their gloves. Before our horrified eyes, the men produced stout bamboo cords which they wrapped around my aunt's wrists and those of the Frenchman. The cords were tied to a stick, the soldiers scurrying around like worker ants. I swear we didn't understand what they intended till the last minute, when
we saw the sticks tied, with more rope to the tails of two mules. Champlon bore the torture coolly but my aunt was thrashing around like a thing demented, causing more men to run to her and force her into submission.

Before our horrified and helpless eyes, Champlon and Aunt Hilda were to be made to march, half dragged along, tied to the tails of the mules. It was horribly cruel and already I could see scarlet weals standing out on their wrists. The blood was draining out of their hands, the danger of frostbite all too great.

“No,” I screamed inside, but I was too scared to open my mouth.

Waldo was watching, pale and unmoving. I felt Rachel's gloved hand creep into my arm and give me a squeeze.

“Pack tents,” Chamba yelled, spittle flying. “Pack and go. Ve must go with the men. I no vant they kill us.”

The sun was climbing up the sky, dazzling on the cones and crests of the glacier, as we hurriedly packed our belongings. Our party of explorers, Sherpas and donkeys were a silent, wary lot as we followed Aunt Hilda and Gaston Champlon off the glacier. The border soldiers rode a careful distance from us, as if they were afraid that even the wind from our passage would contaminate them.

We were “foreign devils” to these men. We were entering
a country stuck in the Middle Ages, ruled by the whip and the sword. The idea of treating prisoners with respect was as remote here as hansom carriages and gas lighting.

We plodded along mutely, forced to keep pace with the mules behind which Aunt Hilda and Gaston Champlon marched. A soldier walked beside each donkey, striking it with a bamboo switch, forcing the pace. Once I tried to come up to Aunt Hilda and talk to her, but the soldier turned his stick on me. I had to dodge to avoid a blow. Aunt Hilda's eyes were aglitter. We came off the glacier on to a path that wound its way around the mountain and began a slow descent. Later, sore and heartsick, we turned a corner and there before us stretched an endless plain. Tibet! You'll forgive me if the sight did not fill me with the joy I expected. It was a barren landscape, bisected by a frothing river and calm sheets of water. At that moment I couldn't understand why we had ever wanted to explore it.

Nearer to us was a frontier post, permanently in the shadow of a teetering spar of ice. Huddled together for comfort was a handful of buildings, their roofs weighted down with rocks, as if to prevent them being blown away. As we were frogmarched into the garrison, snow began to fall, blowing slantways into our faces and pulling a gray veil over Tibet. One of the houses was
larger than the rest. Aunt Hilda and Gaston Champlon were untied from the mules and then we were all taken into this house and led along a dark corridor. Aunt Hilda, Rachel and I were separated from the rest of the group and shoved into a dark cell.

As we listened to our friend's footsteps plodding away, my aunt was very quiet. She rubbed her hands together to force some blood into the flesh. They were gray, as dingy and limp-looking as wrung-out dishcloths. Her wrists were deeply indented where the bamboo cord had bit into them, spots of blood standing out on the flesh. This was a hurt, subdued Aunt Hilda. Only in her eyes was there a trace of the old fire.

I took off my sheepskin gloves and gently eased them on to Aunt Hilda's poor hands. The pain must have been agonizing, but she has never wanted for bravery. She bit her lip so hard she drew blood but uttered not a moan.

“A bit better?” I asked.

She nodded, not trusting herself to speak.

I silently took stock of our situation. Imprisoned in the middle of a glacial expanse by wild and heathen bandits. This was a cell, no doubt of it, bare of even mat or commode. The walls and floor were of rock, the tiny window through which freezing wind blew, was barred. There was no way out of here. No way of contacting the representatives of our Empire in Simla.

There was only one, small ray of hope. I was going to explain when Aunt Hilda did something ridiculous. She strode over to the door, which was made of thick planks of pine, and for a moment I thought she was going to batter on it with her sore hands. Instead she kicked, once, twice, raining a frenzy of blows upon the wood. It began to creak and then a splinter appeared. Outside I heard yelling and then running.

“Stop it!” I yelled.

But she would not. A wild light in her eyes, she continued to kick. It came to me that she was enjoying it, and for a moment I thought she had gone truly insane.

“Stop!” Rachel screamed and we both tried to take her arms, pull her away from the door.

A piece of wood in the middle of door slid aside, revealing a hatch. Through it slanted an angry eye. A voice called out a guttural command. She ignored it. Aunt Hilda had been driven wild by her pain and was beyond reason. She continued to kick at the door, with her steel-toed boots, the crampons doing terrible damage to the wood.

Next moment an iron cylinder slid through the door. A bullet exploded, deafening in the tiny space. Blood thrummed in my ears. The shining pellet sped through the room, ricocheting off the stone wall, sending splinters of stone spinning through the air. Rachel and I
crouched instinctively but Aunt Hilda was too dazed to move, and a flying dart grazed her sheepskin-covered shoulder.

“Enough!” I screamed.

The air seemed to leave my aunt and she sagged in the corner. The hatch closed with a bang and I collapsed next to her.

“Enough, Aunt Hilda!” I screeched at her immobile form. My voice was hysterical to my own ears. “We've got to keep our heads if we are to survive.”

As the words left my throat I spied something in the wall just to the right of my head. In the dim light I could just about discern some writing graven into the wall. I couldn't read it, for it was Tibetan. Each letter, about five inches tall, had been painstakingly whittled into the stone. As I saw them the awful conviction came to me that the letters formed a name. A name and a protest in the face of a horrible fate.

Perhaps the only thing that remained on earth of the last occupant of our cell.

We didn't sleep much that night. The three of us crouched together in the corner of the cell. Huddled like bats, we closed our eyes and a sort of release born of deep weariness washed over us. In my blurry, anguished dreams we were trapped on endless ice. Monsters, with fur-like hair growing on their face and hands, were prodding us with giant hairpins sharp as spears. Their jabs hurt. I opened my eyes and a man with a stick was prodding me. Rachel and Aunt Hilda were stumbling blearily about and there was a sharp ache in my chest.

“Ugh ugh,” the man grunted, gesturing to the door.

He did have hair on his face. It took me a moment to realize it was a hat that covered most of his skin.

We were marched along a dark corridor to a room that was hung with embroidered parchments, rich paintings of the Buddha and Tibetan Tankas. It was so still; with shining butter lamps spluttering away, casting a golden glow on the scene. I guessed it was the garrison's
shrine. Waldo, Champlon and Isaac were sitting, disconsolate, on a low bench. Waldo looked awful, his skin appeared as clammy as a beached whale. His right hand was limp inside the manacles, the missing fingertip painfully obvious. Champlon was horribly pale and somehow twisted, askew. I had to look twice at him to understand what was wrong. They had deprived my gallant French friend of his proudest possession, his mustache. Those luxuriant, carefully trimmed and waxed fronds had been shaved clean off. Without it Champlon was naked. Anger boiled in me. The barbarians. Why had they done that to Champlon, save to humiliate him?

“Kit,” Waldo began before a guard dealt my friend a blow on the back of his head, effectively silencing him.

I wanted to lash out at these Tibetan savages, but I held both tongue and fire. I had to learn from Aunt Hilda's example what
not
to do. Losing my temper would only make our situation worse.

The commander stomped in followed by a very frightened Chamba.

Our cook cast us an imploring look, before the commander began ranting. He was carrying a bag, which I realized with a shock, was Aunt Hilda's. With a savage oath he ripped it open and emptied it on a low wooden table. The contents scattered. The brass and wood prayer wheel I had seen earlier, gloves, handkerchiefs,
lacy bloomers and the vaguely familiar but strange steel instrument. The commander shouted at Chamba, who began to translate in a stuttering voice.

“The commander tell you are the spy,” Chamba said to Aunt Hilda. “You have come here as spy for the English government.”

“Poppycock. Never heard such a bunch of piffle in my life,” Aunt Hilda declared confidently.

The commander waved his hands at the odd assortment of possessions on the table, his voice yapping and persistent as a basset hound.

“He tell you are here to steal Tibet's secrets.”

“That's nonsense,” Rachel cut in to my surprise. “We're explorers. Here on a scientific expedition.”

“Fringies no allowed in Tibets,” Chamba translated. Fringies was the slang in this part of the world for foreigners.

“Well, we wouldn't have been in Tibet if he hadn't brought us here,” I retorted.

I was thankful that Aunt Hilda's spurt of lunacy in the cell seemed to have passed. Her eyes had lost that wild glitter and she was holding her peace remarkably well. Indeed, she looked thoughtful.

The commander had picked up that spiky steel instrument etched with numbers and containing a section of revolving bands. He was looking at it and muttering
furiously to Chamba, who shook his head. I had the feeling the Tibetan was puzzled by this piece of equipment that he didn't understand, but that only made him more suspicious. The commander barked at him and, quaking, Chamba translated.

“The commander know what this is. It for finding gold. You come with your gold machine to steal Tibet's gold.”

“I will not stand for this,” Aunt Hilda replied, sternly. “That is a perfectly harmless instrument for calculating the position of the stars. I happen to be a keen astronomer. Tell the commander that I know all the magic of the stars.”

My mind was working furiously as Chamba translated Aunt Hilda's remarks. What the commander said must be a fairytale. But on the other hand, it was clearly no star charter that Aunt Hilda had in her possession. I had seen one of these complex instruments before in my father's study. This was a theodolite, a piece of modern equipment for precisely calculating the altitude of mountains and surveying land mass.