After Alice had sent her despatch and returned to the fire that Jenkins lit between their tents, she lifted her tin cup of steaming tea and frowned at Simon. ‘Damn,’ she said. ‘I meant to ask if any guns of Russian make had been found amongst the dead. Did you see any?’
‘Some rifles, although they didn’t look Russian. Mostly they used – or tried to use – muskets. From the evidence so far, it doesn’t appear that Moscow has been supplying the Tibetans with arms.’
Alice snorted. ‘There you are. It looks as though Curzon has been completely wrong about the Russian influence in Lhasa. If he is, then this whole invasion is based on a myth.’
Fonthill raised a hand. ‘Now, don’t go jumping to conclusions. We have only had one real clash with the Tibetans so far and—’
‘It wasn’t a clash, more like a disgraceful massacre.’
‘Well, whatever it was, we’ve only come up against them once. There are likely to be others and we shall see then, when we penetrate deeper into the country. And, don’t forget, there are other reasons for making the Tibetans negotiate. They’ve broken treaties and not behaved like a civilised nation at all.’
Alice blew the steam away from her brimming mug. ‘Well, what do you expect from people who live on the roof of the world, paint their faces and had never seen a wheeled vehicle until we brought one in – carrying guns, of course.’
‘Oh dear, please don’t go on.’ Simon shrugged. ‘Anyway, Younghusband is hoping that this battle – if you can call it that – will have put the fear of God into the lamas in Lhasa and that we shall meet no further opposition. Let’s hope so.’
That, however, soon proved to be a pious hope.
Anxious to push on – a welcome and, most of the officers felt, probably temporary change of heart – Macdonald sent Fonthill and his Mounted Infantry scouting out ahead and widely to the flanks to flush out any further Tibetan forces before the advance recommenced. The unit had been reinforced by a number of Gurkhas, many of whom had never sat a horse in their lives until their intensive training back at the border. Nevertheless, as befitting their reputation as being among the most versatile and dedicated troops in the army of the Raj, they soon became as comfortable in the saddle as the Sikhs. In fact, ‘Fonthill’s Horse’, as it became known, had now assumed something of the mantle of an elite force, widely respected throughout the invading force – and certainly its most actively employed.
It was patrolling ahead when Macdonald’s ‘reconnaissance in force’ stoically gathered together its long tail and began to advance once more towards Gyantse. It plodded along beside the still frozen banks of the Bham Tso and Kala Tso lakes, their lush wildlife on the ice-free open patches of water contrasting starkly with the twisted corpses from the battlefield, where the iron-hard ground had resisted all attempts by the Pioneers to bury them. Alice, whose pony daintily threaded its own way between the once-human detritus, thankfully turned her head away to note the wildfowl: sheldrake, pintails, geese, teal and mallard. If she kept her eyes focussed to the left, she could have been in a wintry Norfolk.
Way ahead of the main column, however, Simon was leading the first of his two companies – he refused to call them squadrons, maintaining that his men remained Mounted Infantry – when he was fired upon as he approached a village called Samada. Retiring to regroup with his second company, he extended his front and, at the trot, approached the village, ready to break into a charge if fired upon again. In the event, he found that the defenders had retreated and the village was devoid of inhabitants.
‘Funny bleedin’ lot, these Tibeterans,’ confided Jenkins. ‘They can’t seem to make up their minds whether to be ’eroes or cowards, see. Perhaps it’s the weather up ’ere.’
Cautiously, the Mounted Infantry continued its patrol northwards along the trail, beside the Nyang Chu. The route was marked by small fields of barley and then, to a cheer from the Sikhs, a patch of stunted willow trees – the first real trees that the warriors had seen since climbing into the mountains. Then, just at the point where the river entered what was to be a fifteen-mile gorge that ended at the plain of Gyantse, Simon, Jenkins and Ottley, riding ahead, were fired on once again, from a wall that stretched across the trail at a place called Kangmar, the village of the Red Foot, so called from the surrounding spurs of toe-like red sandstone.
This time, however, it was a much more formidable proposition than the wall before Guru. It was loopholed, it extended right across the mouth of the gorge and it curled quite high up the mountains on both sides. Behind the wall, the Tibetans were gathered in considerable numbers.
‘Ah,’ muttered Jenkins, leaning forward in the saddle and munching his moustache, ‘I suppose we now give it another of our famous charges, jump the wall and then trot on to this Gutsey place.’
‘I rather fancy not,’ said Fonthill. ‘I don’t want to be a dead hero. We are here to scout and we’ve found what we are looking for. Let’s get back to the General.’ He paused only long enough to make a sketch of the Tibetan position before ordering the return to the column.
There, he found the Macdonald ensconced with Younghusband and he reported to both, showing them the sketch. ‘They seem pretty determined this time,’ he said, ‘and it looks as though they intend to defend in some depth. As best as I could see beyond the wall, the road narrows beside the river considerably and then there is a spur across the road which offers a good, sound, second line of defence.’
The two officers scanned the sketch. ‘Hmm,’ murmured Macdonald, ‘as far as we know, this blocks the only road to Gyantse and Lhasa, so we shall have to crack this nut if we want to get on.’
Younghusband nodded. ‘And we certainly do want to get on. Good work, Fonthill.’
‘We will sound reveille at 5 a.m. tomorrow morning and advance in battle formation,’ Macdonald’s voice was firm. ‘You will scout ahead, as usual, Fonthill, so you should be out at 4 a.m.’
‘Very good, gentlemen.’
Alice, of course, was concerned at the news. ‘Not another bloody wall,’ she hissed, ‘which, presumably, Mac will knock down with his artillery and then butcher the peasants behind again with his Maxims and rifles.’
‘I doubt if it will be that easy, this time. For God’s sake, Alice, stay well out of the way. Remember what happened to that chap from the Daily Mail.’
‘Oh, I shall be all right. I have the magnificent Sunil to defend me. We could invade Lhasa on our own.’
It was dark and, of course, bitingly cold, when Fonthill and his Mounted Infantry trotted away in the morning. Three hours or so later they approached Kangmar with caution, only to find that the wall now seemed completely unmanned. Fonthill, with Ottley, climbed as high as they could up the near-precipitate slopes on either side – Jenkins, of course, offering to stay with the men below, ‘to make sure we’re ready in case they attack.’ Through their field glasses they were able to confirm that the Tibetans had abandoned their positions during the night and had retreated to the stronger position that Simon had glimpsed at the throat of the gorge.
Fonthill ordered up some of his nimble-footed Gurkhas to climb the mountainside as high as they could. Gasping for breath, he scrambled up after them with his binoculars. He had to pause some hundred feet below them and stayed there, focussing his glasses. When the little men rejoined him, they reported that a line of sangars had been built and manned high on both sides of the defile and that the muzzles of numerous jingals, the blunderbuss Tibetan artillery, could be seen trained on the road below.
‘Hmm,’ mused Simon, ‘this is not going to be easy.’
And so he reported to Macdonald when, eventually, the main column came up. ‘They have taken up good defensive positions and it looks to me as though they are going to stay and fight properly this time,’ he said. ‘Past the wall, the road along the bottom of the defile bends to the right for about a mile. Here the valley looks as though it widens out to about 150 yards. On the left the cliffs are perpendicular, solid walls of rock. On the right, though, the rocky slopes could probably be climbed by Gurkhas, with great difficulty – a fair old scramble, I would say.’
Macdonald coughed and, for once, took the cigarette from his mouth. ‘Could you see what lay beyond?’ he asked.
‘A little, though not in great detail. After the wider bit, the road twists back to the left round a spur and narrows even to about six feet and seems to be studded with boulders. I reckon that, in addition to the men we could see up high on the sangars, this is where the main body of Tibetans will be. But I can’t be sure. It is not until we advance that this will become clear.’
‘Ah. Bloody difficult by the sound of it.’
Fonthill cleared his throat. ‘May I make a suggestion, General?’
‘Humph. Suggest away. But I don’t guarantee to follow it. We can’t afford to take extreme risks, Fonthill. We are far from home, with a very limited force and a line of supply that is stretched to twanging point.’
Simon struggled to suppress a smile. Typical Macdonald!
‘Quite so. But I had some experience of fighting in hills something like these – though, of course, nothing like so high – on the North-West Frontier.’
Macdonald frowned. ‘Very well. What do you propose?’
‘I would hold back your main body and send Gurkhas – they can climb like mountain goats – up the mountain to the right, where some of my men have managed to get up quite high today. Let them clear the sangars. Then let me advance with my Mounted Infantry along the road below to draw the fire of the Tibetans along the defile so that we can test how many there are and how strong. We may even be able to clear the way for you behind us.’
The General stayed silent, puffing on his cigarette. Eventually, he nodded. ‘Very well, Fonthill. But don’t take on the whole Tibetan army on your own.’ He let his features lapse into his sour smile. ‘Dammit all, man, remember you’re not a Regular soldier – and you’re even older than me. So don’t take undue risks. But first I must get the Pioneers to dismantle this damned wall and that will take all day, I should think. I will put the Gurkhas up the mountainside tomorrow and I will try and get the guns hauled up to a position where they can bear on the sangars. Have your men ready to go in when the little fellers have done their work. I shall give the order then.’
Fonthill nodded and turned away. Not the most supportive of responses but about as much as could be expected from the man!
For the rest of the day the 23rd Regiment of Pioneers, big Sikhs to a man, worked at pulling down the wall. They did so without a shot being fired at them and Simon wondered at one point if the Tibetans had, in fact, completely deserted their second position and fallen back on Gyantse. His scouts up the mountainside, however, reported that the sangars, at least, were still manned and their jingals were still in place, their wide muzzles still threatening any advance along the road.
That evening, Fonthill sought out Sunil, whom he found meticulously cleaning his rifle.
‘I have just not had time to thank you for looking after the memsahib back at Guru,’ he said, squatting down beside the youth. ‘I am sure that if you had not been there, she would have rushed up the wall, like that fellow from the Daily Mail, and been seriously wounded, if not killed.’
Sunil flashed his teeth in a wide smile. ‘Ah, thank you, sahib. She brave lady and don’t listen to me much when I say, “don’t go.” But I tell her I shoot her if she leaves me, so she stayed, writing … always, what you say, scrobbling?’
‘Scribbling. Yes, but she’s a damned good reporter and she likes to get near the action. This fight tomorrow could be far worse than the scrap at Guru and I won’t be able to be anywhere near her, so watch over her, that’s a good chap.’
‘I watch, yes. I watch.’
‘Good man.’
Shortly after dawn the next day, the Gurkhas were sent scrambling up the mountainside until they disappeared into the mist.
Ottley and Fonthill stood below amongst the ruin of the wall, watching them. ‘They’re not going to be able to see much, let alone fight up there in this cloud,’ said the Captain, his nose, almost as red now as his hair, peeping out from behind the turned-up collar of his poshteen. ‘What’s more,’ he sniffed the air, ‘I think there’s a bloody snowstorm coming on. God help them up there.’
Simon nodded. ‘Yes, I think you’re right. I wish we hadn’t dismantled the tents. There’s precious little cover for men or horses down here.’
Within minutes the snowstorm had whirled down all about them, blotting out each man’s view of anyone or anything but his close neighbour. Fonthill could only order the ponies to be covered with their blankets and the men to take what shelter they could. So they all crouched in the freezing cold, to the point where Simon wondered if anyone would be able to move if and when the order to do so came.
It was a blessed relief, then, when the storm lifted, leaving a grey-black cloud above their heads, so low that it could almost be touched – and, of course, still obscuring the Gurkhas, if they had survived up there in the heights. At that moment, a young subaltern came running up.
‘General presents his compliments, sir,’ he said. ‘He doubts whether the Gurkhas have been able to clear the hillside but you are to take your mounted men and advance down the defile – he emphasises with caution – to test the enemy’s defences and report back.’
‘Thank you,’ said Fonthill, his teeth chattering. ‘We’ll move if the ponies haven’t been frozen to the ground. No,’ he grinned. ‘Don’t tell the General that. Just say that we will move immediately.’
He found Ottley and Jenkins and relayed the order. ‘We will go in single file,’ he said, ‘at a smart trot. Very much in extended order, with about fifteen yards between each man. I will lead A Company, with Sergeant Major Jenkins, and you will take B Company.’
‘I would much rather come with you, Simon. After all, it used to be my troop.’
‘Sorry, old chap. You have to be nearly ninety, like Jenkins and me, to do this job now.’ He grinned. ‘Let’s hope the visibility clears, because I don’t intend to just take a look and then bugger off back to the General. I wish to test the Tibetans – if they’re still there, that is. So be prepared to gallop up if you hear shots. Keep sabres sheathed. We won’t be able to charge, because they will probably be behind rocks. It will be a question of exchanging fire, I would think. Now, get the men lined up and good luck.’
Minutes later, Fonthill was sitting at the head of his Mounted Infantry – now numbering some 150 – winding back in single file behind him. At a nod from Jenkins, who had ridden back down the line and had now rejoined him, he put his whistle to his lips and blew a single, sharp note. Then he drew his revolver from its holster, dug in his heels and set off at a fast trot down the path that led by the side of the river at the bottom of the defile.
The clatter of the ponies’ hooves echoed back from steep walls, but that was the only sound. It seemed as if the Tibetans had retreated completely – perhaps all the way to Gyantse? Simon scanned the rocks that climbed up on either side of him but they seemed quite uninhabited.
He trotted on, with Jenkins now riding just behind him, until he reached a point at where the defile opened out to about 150 yards, then virtually closed again with a boulder-strewn outcrop jutting out, leaving only a narrow space bending round taking the track out of sight. A perfect place for an ambush? He frowned. Only one way to find out. He dug in his heels and, head down, rounded the spur. Instantly, the whole of the mountainside seemed to erupt with flame and smoke as the hidden Tibetans opened fire on him and Jenkins. A perfect ambush indeed!
Simon blew his whistle and wheeled the head of his pony round, indicating to Jenkins to do the same. Bullets whined over his head and thudded into the rocks, pinging away into the infinite, but somehow missing him, the Welshman and a couple of Sikhs who had rounded the bend behind them.
All four, now at the gallop, rounded the spur into safety and Fonthill pulled up and shouted: ‘Dismount and take cover. Handlers forward to take the horses. Quickly now!’
Ottley galloped up. ‘What happened?’
Simon threw himself from the saddle, handed the reins to a handler and indicated to Ottley to do the same. ‘It was a very cleverly placed ambush,’ he gasped. ‘The Tibetans are lined up the hillside on either side round the bend. If they had had the sense to delay their fire until the whole of our men had come round the bend, then they would have had us completely at their mercy. They lacked the discipline to do that so they missed their chance. Get the men to follow me on foot up this spur, to line the top and see if we can dislodge them with rifle fire.’
With Jenkins at his heels, Fonthill scrambled up the face of the spur and peered over the top. To his amazement, he realised that the Tibetans were relinquishing their secure positions behind the rocks up the mountainside and were spilling down onto the track.
He turned his head and indicated to his men climbing up behind him to spread out along the rocky top. He turned to Jenkins. ‘They obviously felt we had run for it and are trying to pursue us,’ he said. ‘Bloody fools.’ He turned to the Sikhs who had formed a ragged line along the top of the spur. ‘Rapid fire at the enemy in front,’ he ordered.
As he did so, he heard the rattle of musketry coming from high above him, where the Gurkhas had found positions to fire down on the sangars. This was then joined by the dull boom of artillery as the guns joined in. Looking up, Simon saw tiny figures pouring from the rocky emplacements and begin scrambling down the mountains in full retreat.
More of his own men now joined their fellows on the top of the spur and a rapid fire began pouring down on the dun-coloured Tibetans, running along the trail towards the bend. The fire immediately took its toll and the leaders began collapsing, crumpling and falling to the ground, their weapons clattering away from them. Immediately, the advance stopped, paused for a moment and then broke, the Tibetans running back, the way they had come, being joined now by others leaving their positions behind the rocks – all hurrying in headlong retreat to get away from the gunfire.
‘Cease firing,’ shouted Fonthill. ‘Handlers, bring up the horses. Mount up. Quickly now.’
Within minutes, the companies were mounted and lined up. Simon brought his pony round and stood in his stirrups to address the men. He became aware that Ottley had joined him and Jenkins. No hanging back with the rear company for the Irishman this time! ‘We will charge at the retreating enemy,’ he shouted. ‘The ground is covered in rocks so be careful. Do not use sabres. Fire from the saddle.’
He pulled his pony’s head round and shouted. ‘Bugler. Sound the charge!’
The clear notes bounced back from the walls on either side and Fonthill dug in his heels and his pony instinctively responded. Round the bend of the spur he raced and Simon found himself trusting to God and his steed’s good judgement to pick its way between the bodies that were now strewn along the floor of the defile and the rocks that studded it. Being thrown at this speed could result in death or injury – not to mention being trampled by the two companies racing behind him.
Somehow, horse and rider reached clearer ground and Fonthill realised that the cleft had opened out and he became aware that he was thundering by two large images that had been carved in semi-relief on a giant boulder and painted in scarlet and gold leaf, before he was among the retreating Tibetans. He fired his revolver into the mob, with no apparent result, and caught a glimpse of what appeared to be two Tibetan generals trying to rally their troops. But all of the Mounted Infantry were now among them and, although the horsemen were completely outnumbered by the running men, the Tibetans had lost all desire to fight and the arrival of the cavalry increased their panic.
Simon suddenly felt a revulsion at firing at men who showed no intention of defending themselves and he allowed his pony to slow to a walk and push its way along among the fleeing crowd. He saw that many of the Tibetans were now attempting to escape into a narrow valley that came in from the left, but it offered them no succour, for the Gurkhas who had cleared the sangars had now descended into it. He drew in his breath, expecting the sepoys to open fire, so creating another massacre, but it seemed that they, too, had had enough of the killing and the little men now began rounding up the Tibetans, like shepherds with sheep.
He became aware that Jenkins was at his side. ‘Good bit of gallopin’ that, bach sir,’ said the grinning Welshman. ‘You’re gettin’ better at this lark.’
‘Well, I don’t want to make a habit of it. Rough ground that. Let’s get our men to re-form. I don’t want them to go on needlessly shooting. It looks as though the day is ours.’
And so it was. Fonthill found Ottley and the mounted men joined with the Gurkha infantry in pushing the defeated Tibetans into compliant groups and stacking their weapons into heaps. Once again, Simon searched through the rifles and muskets, finding a preponderance of the latter and only three rifles that seemed to have been made outside Tibet – and they were British.
By now, Macdonald and Younghusband had arrived with the main force and the latter ordered that the prisoners should be set to breaking up their weaponry. This the Tibetans did with glee, crashing their muskets against rocks and jumping up and down on the stocks to break them.
Fonthill rode up to where O’Connor was supervising the destruction. ‘It looks as though the poor devils had nothing much to fight with,’ he observed. ‘No wonder they didn’t hit us as we rounded that bend.’
The Captain nodded. ‘Most of this lot are just poor peasants,’ he said. ‘They tell me that they were ordered to fight by those chaps,’ he indicated a number of monks in red robes, who were looking on truculently as the weapons were destroyed. ‘If they didn’t they were told that their houses would be burnt down and their families taken from them. No wonder they are laughing.’
Most of the Tibetans were allowed to continue their retreat and about a hundred were taken as prisoners. A rough count later that day found that some 150 of the enemy had been killed and wounded, with the wounded once again being given every care and their wounds bound, much to their relief and delight. The only casualties among Macdonald’s force were among Fonthill’s Mounted Infantry, where three of his Sikhs had been wounded in that charge amongst the rocks.
Later that day, Simon found Alice. She had completed her report and, with the ever-faithful Sunil, was sitting drinking tea.
‘At least, it wasn’t a massacre this time,’ he said, squatting beside the pair.
His wife grimaced. ‘No, but I don’t believe that figure of 150 casualties among the Tibetans. I am more or less sure that it did not contain the number who were killed when our guns and the Gurkhas fired on the sangars. We have not been back up there to count, so I have put in a figure of an estimated 200.’
‘Hmmm. Well that won’t please Younghusband and Macdonald, for sure.’
‘I don’t damn well care.’ Alice put down her cup. ‘Simon, this is a ridiculous war, if that is what you can call it. The Tibetans themselves don’t want to fight, that seems certain, so why don’t we camp our bloody great army somewhere half decent and send a message to Lhasa saying that we won’t advance further if the lamas will undertake to send their top men to parley with us about our so-called grievances?’
Simon grimaced. ‘The trouble with that is that we just can’t believe a word these monks say. If we stopped now, they would let us sit there for months and do nothing – just as they did earlier at Khamba Jong. Younghusband wouldn’t consider that for a second. What he really wants is to press on to Lhasa.’
‘Well, one thing is for sure. It looks as though Curzon was quite wrong about a Russian presence in Lhasa and about them supplying arms to the Tibetans. There’s been no evidence of that at all.’
Fonthill nodded. ‘You’re right about that, my love.’
Alice put her head in her hands and reflected for a moment. ‘Do you know,’ she said eventually, ‘I am getting really tired of riding with this damned army and standing by while it slaughters Tibetans.’ She looked up. ‘I wish to God I could do something to stop it all.’
Simon put a hand on her shoulder. ‘You are doing your best by merely reporting what is happening. And no one can do that better. Your reporting must surely be having an affect back home.’
She nodded glumly. ‘Up to a point. There have been questions asked in the House, of course, and a debate is promised.’ She pulled a scrap of paper from within her blouse. ‘This is a cable from my editor. He has sent me a caption from a cartoon by Punch, published just after the Guru massacre. It says: “We are sorry to learn that the recent sudden and treacherous attack by the Tibetans on our men at Guru seriously injured the photographs that the officers were taking.”’ She threw down the cable. ‘That’s what it has come down to. Fat commentators back home making fun of all this killing. It is disgraceful.’
Tears began to trickle down her cheeks and she blew her nose violently. Simon pulled her to him.
‘I agree,’ he said. ‘But look at it this way. These two defeats that the Tibetans have suffered must surely have had some effect in Lhasa. I can’t see them standing up to us again. And there is one more thing. At the moment, Younghusband doesn’t have permission to push on to Lhasa. The resistance we’ve met may have changed the government’s mind on that point and they may well now allow him to continue his advance to the capital. Once there, it will all be over.’
Alice regarded her husband steadily. ‘There’s a lot of ifs and buts there, darling,’ she muttered. ‘And there is one other development.’ She picked up the cable. ‘Curzon has left India for home. He is not well, I understand, and has gone home on leave. What that means I don’t know.’ She sighed. ‘All I know is that we are stuck up here in these damned mountains surrounded by dead bodies.’ She shuddered. ‘And it is damned cold.’
That night, clutching each other in their tent, Fonthill and his wife made love for the first time since the advance had begun. It was not the most satisfactory lovemaking of their matrimonial life but it made them both feel much, much better.
The expedition left what had already become known as Red Idol Gorge as quickly as it could and marched on towards what was its official destination, the town of Gyantse, the third most important in Tibet. The route was slightly and most rewardingly downhill, for Gyantse was said to be lower in altitude, at 13,000 feet, than Tuna and the column debouched onto the Gyantse Valley on 11th April. The terrain now presented a most fertile and delightful vista to eyes smarting from the grey grit and granite of Guru and Kangmar. Dotted with trees and neat buildings of white-washed stone, clustered amongst groves and well-cultivated fields, the valley was, in fact, a fertile plain, through which the River Nyang danced and glistened in the sunlight. But every eye was drawn to a dominating feature rising from the middle of the plain, like Gibraltar emerging from the western Mediterranean. This was a white fort, set about 500 feet high atop a dark rock: the citadel of Gyantse, blocking the way north to Lhasa.
Its appearance was summarised, as usual, by Jenkins. ‘Bloody ’ell,’ he muttered to Fonthill. ‘If the General wants to attack that, ’e can do it without me. I ain’t climbin’ that, look you.’
Indeed, it looked a formidable obstacle. As the column wound its way towards it from the south it appeared to be virtually impregnable, with the rock sides rising sheer. Near-to, however, it became plain that the fort itself was set on the southern edge of a ridge that ran north and south down the centre of the plain for about a mile and a half, with the ridge descending towards the north. Behind the fort was an ancient and famous monastery, Palkor Chode, the ‘Illustrious Circle of the Religious Residence’, and sprawled at its foot was a warrenlike town, capable of housing at least 1,000 inhabitants.
The column camped on the banks of the river, less than two miles from the fort. From there, Fonthill examined the citadel with care through his field glasses. ‘This is certainly not going to be easy,’ he confided to Ottley and Jenkins. ‘If the fort is manned, then I don’t really see how we can take it, because we have no siege artillery and the garrison probably outnumber us, anyway.’
Ottley nodded. ‘And for once,’ he said, ‘this is no job for the Mounted Infantry.’
Immediately, however, the fort gates were seen to be opened and through them came a colourful group of mounted delegates, trotting towards the camp, obviously with no aggressive intentions.
They were led by the jongpen, or commandant of the fort, and by Mo, a Chinese general, who was said to be an emissary of the amban, the resident Chinese agent in Lhasa, and whom Younghusband had met during previous abortive negotiations. The latter, with Macdonald, received them within the camp, O’Connor once again acting as interpreter. Fonthill, Ottley, some of the other British officers and the press corps, including Alice, crowded round to listen.
The jongpen was a smiling, round-faced and stout Tibetan with a submissive air who regretted that he was unable to hand over the fort because he was under strict orders from Lhasa to defend it to the death. Alas, he confided that he could not do that either, because most of the garrison had fled to the north when the British approached. He was, he said, in a difficult position, but he could not open the gates, for to do so would mean that all his family and his belongings would be seized by the lamas in the capital. Could not, perhaps, the British solve his problem by simply passing by and ignoring the fort?
Equally courteously, Younghusband explained that this would not be possible and that, if the gates were not opened by 8 a.m. the following morning, artillery would be brought up and the gates blasted open. Still smiling, but insisting that he was unable to accommodate the British, much as he would like to, the jongpen and his party rode back to the citadel.
The next morning, the guns were brought up laboriously within range of the fort. It was not until just before eight o’clock that the great doors were opened and, under the rueful gaze of the jongpen and his Chinese colleagues, two companies of the 32nd Sikh Pioneers marched into the citadel. Fonthill and Alice slipped into the fort on their tail and watched as the Union Jack was hoisted on the ramparts, to cheers from the soldiers watching below.
Exploring the warren of corridors within the empty fortress, they were astonished to find one huge chamber stacked full of barley, later found to contain thirty-six tons, and another horrendously packed with the severed heads of men, women and children.
Holding her nose, Alice staggered out. ‘I thought the Buddhist code forbade the taking of human life,’ she gasped. ‘What the hell was that about?’
Simon shook his head. ‘I have no idea. But it’s clear that these monks run a very different show to those in India. I just don’t understand this very strange country.’
Leaving the fort, the two walked through the labyrinthine streets of the township beneath the monastery. Here, they met another surprise. In seeming disregard of the fact that a hostile army was camped on their doorstep, the inhabitants were going about their normal business, without sign of fear or hostility: hundreds of men in cherry-coloured coats riding lean ponies, less well-dressed women chattering away and carrying children slung on their backs, and lines of donkeys, laden with grain or fodder, plodding along in single file. Below the main entrance to the monastery a thriving market was being held.
Here booths straddled the road and pavements, laden with carpets and saddle rugs, for which Alice had heard that the town was famous, as well as tea, tobacco, sugar, cotton cloth, matches, pipes, tumblers, kerosene oil and foodstuffs, including pork, fresh vegetables and barley beer.
‘Hmmm,’ mused Simon, ‘better keep Jenkins away from here.’
Alice frowned. ‘This place is so different from anything else we have seen so far,’ she said. ‘There is an abundance here that we’ve not glimpsed before. Is it because it’s set in this fertile plain, with a much more pleasant climate, or what?’
‘Don’t know. Could be because of the fortress. It’s important because it guards the entrance to the main interior of Tibet, the road to Lhasa and so on.’
‘Well, as you said, Tibet is full of surprises.’
The next morning, Macdonald decided to move the camp away from the fort and the town, some 1,000 yards to a hamlet by the river, where water was freely available and where a Tibetan nobleman had set up a residence years before. The manor house, called Chang Lo, still stood and was surrounded by a few rustic dwellings.
Here the General produced another surprise. He announced that he was going to take approximately half of his troops – including his only effective artillery, the British-manned ten-pounders – back 150 miles to New Chumbi. This, he explained, was necessary ‘to arrange posts and communications and convoys’. To guard the mission at Chang Lo, he left four companies of 32nd Pioneers, two companies of the 8th Gurkhas, fifty of Fonthill’s Mounted Infantry, the two Maxims, Bubble and Squeak, part of a mule corps and one section of an India field hospital; in all about five hundred men.
The General by now was clearly a sick man suffering from fevers, although he continued to chain smoke. ‘Sorry I can’t leave you in command, Fonthill,’ he explained, ‘but it has to be a line officer. So Lieutenant Colonel Brander, the CO of the Pioneers, will command. No offence meant, you know.’
‘None taken, General. Brander is a good man.’
‘Good. I am leaving you Ottley, of course.’ He gave a wintry smile. ‘If I took him back with me he’d give me a hell of a time. I am leaving the fort ungarrisoned. We just don’t have enough men to man both places – and there’s no water up there on that rock. Keep patrolling. We mustn’t be caught napping here, although I must say the natives seem friendly hereabouts.’
Immediately, Brander set about making Chang Lo more defendable. The main house stood amidst willow trees and was large and spacious, containing a hall where Younghusband could hold his hoped-for meetings with representatives of the Dalai Lama. Some of the outhouses and trees were demolished to yield lines of fire and lines of sharpened stakes, called abattis, knocked into the ground, while a loopholed wall, some 300 yards in circumference, was erected around the main house and the remaining outbuildings. Within it was a large farmhouse, where the troops were housed, which was immediately called the Redoubt.
Macdonald set off on his long journey back to New Chumbi on 20th April, leaving three weeks rations for the mission, deemed plenty in view of the fact that the Tibetans were now freely trading with the newcomers, even setting up a standing market just outside Chang Lo, to which they brought regular supplies of food stuffs as well as souvenirs of all kinds. The Raj’s Indian rupee, it became clear, was much valued in Tibet.
Fonthill tried to persuade Alice to return with Macdonald, arguing that nothing much could happen at Gyantse while he was away. She refused, however, stating that to do so would leave her with nothing to write about except, once again, retailing old descriptions of fighting through high, snowbound passes and problems of logistics. ‘Besides which,’ she explained, ‘I am not sure I can trust you and Jenkins in the bazaars of wild Gyantse.’
Once Macdonald’s column had wound out of sight along the plain a kind of peaceful serenity descended on Chang Lo. The spring weather was quite mild, the rivers provided reasonable fishing and the plain and the surrounding foothills offered plenty of game. A large Tibetan lady was happily recruited to plant a small garden within the hamlet – she was immediately christened Mrs Wiggs, after a bucolic novel of the day – and once the defences of the little hamlet had been erected, it was only Fonthill and his Mounted Infantry who were left with serious work to do, ranging out every day on patrol.
‘How long do you think we shall be stuck here, with nothing but good food to eat and nothing to do but enjoy ourselves?’ demanded Alice of her husband. ‘Do you think there is any chance at all of the Chinese or Tibetans coming here to negotiate with old Y?’
Simon shrugged. ‘I honestly have no idea. You know that prevarication and procrastination are the Tibetans watchwords. Younghusband keeps receiving letters, I understand, from the Chinese amban in Lhasa, saying that he wishes to travel here to talk but that the lamas won’t provide him with transport. I can’t help feeling that the prospects of a negotiated settlement are as remote now as ever they were.’
‘What does Y think?’
‘Probably the same, I feel. I believe he has written to the acting viceroy urging that he be allowed to go on from here to Lhasa to force the issue, but that all depends upon how the government back home view things.’ He sighed. ‘Frankly, my love, I think the days of the great British thrusts into strange lands are over. We’ve become a bit of an anachronism, not to mention embarrassment, to Whitehall and the Horse Guards.’
‘Quite right, too. We should never have invaded.’
The days of serenity were broken, however, when intelligence was received at the camp that a Tibetan army was being concentrated less than fifty miles to the east of Gyantse, at a 16,000-feet-high pass called Karo La, on the road to Lhasa. Inevitably, Fonthill and his fifty men were sent to investigate.
After a climb that left the mild air of the plain well behind them, they eventually reached the pass – to find yet another rock wall stretching across the defile and effectively blocking the road forward.
Jenkins pulled on his moustache. ‘This lot is a nation of bricklayers, it seems to me, bach sir,’ he observed, ‘except that they’ve never discovered mortar. Do they just go about the place, look you, stickin’ stones across the bloody road all the time?’
‘Probably. What else is there to do up here?’ He studied the wall through his binoculars. ‘Seems unmanned.’ He focussed up the steep mountain slopes on either side. ‘Can’t see any one there.’ He lowered the glasses. ‘Come on. Let’s take a walk and have a look. William, stay here with the men.’
They dismounted and began walking warily towards the wall. At about 200 yards from it, however, a fusillade of fire sprang from along the wall and from the surrounding rocks, matched by stones hurled down on them from the side of the mountains.
Without a word, the two spun on their heels and ran back out of range, where they stood, panting.
‘Another little surprise, look you,’ gasped Jenkins.
Fonthill drew out his field glasses again from their case and examined the wall and the hillside. ‘I can see hundreds of them now,’ he murmured, focusing the lenses. ‘Thank God they can’t shoot straight. There must be well over 1,000.’ He lowered the glasses. ‘Let’s get back. I’ve seen enough. We’ve found the Tibetan army, old chap.’
Back at Chang Lo, he reported to Colonel Herbert Brander, a short, bright-eyed officer, younger than Fonthill, of course, who had already distinguished himself on the march from the border.
‘How many d’yer say, old man?’
‘Could be as many as 1,500. And they seem well armed – though they still can’t shoot straight.’
‘Then I shall go and clear them out.’
‘What, and leave the camp virtually undefended? You will need as many troops as you can muster to get them out from behind that wall.’
Brander grinned. ‘Oh, I think we are pretty well housed here and I shall leave as many as I can spare. We can’t afford, Fonthill, to have that many of the enemy hanging about as near to us as this. I want to hit ’em while they are not expecting us.’
Simon grimaced. ‘Well, it’s your decision, Brander. But I suppose you must get Y’s agreement. And what about Macdonald?’
The Colonel’s grin widened. ‘I think Y will agree. He’s all for getting on with things. And I shall get a telegram off to the General, although, alas, I am afraid he won’t receive it until after I have set out. Unfortunately, I won’t be able to wait for his reply. I would like you and your chaps to come with me, if you will?’
For a moment, Fonthill hesitated. Alice would be left in a camp which, if things went wrong, would have had its garrison severely reduced, whatever Brander said. But the Colonel would need scouts patrolling ahead of him to protect his force. There was no choice.
‘Of course we will come. We and the horses will need a good night’s rest, though. We had to ride pretty hard coming back here.’
‘Very well. We leave at dawn.’
Alice rose at 4 a.m. to see off her husband for, as always, the Mounted Infantry had to leave before the main column to range ahead of the marching men. Brander had taken the decision to ban the correspondents from riding with him because, he explained, he needed to move fast and wished to have no additional responsibility for civilians in what could prove to be a stiff fight. Grudgingly, therefore, Alice returned to the small room she shared with Simon within the compound, turned up the wick of her lantern and began writing a report, detailing the despatch of Brander and his force.
Communications with London were now more tenuous, because the telegraph line had not been extended to Gyantse, running only to Kala Tso, some sixty miles away. She would need, then, to find a despatch rider quickly to take her story back to the telegraph station.
It was this delay in communicating, of course, that Brander had relied on in riding out immediately to fight the Tibetans. He had a pretty sure feeling that Macdonald would forbid him to leave the camp, but, of course, he would be well on his way before such an order could reach him. And so it proved.
Alice, of course, was unaware of this manoeuvring and, once she had despatched her story, she decided that, rather than sit and mope, worrying about Simon, she would offer her services to the mission’s medical officer, Captain Walton, who had set up a small hospital just outside the perimeter walls and who had already built up a thriving practice, with peasants from the town as his patients.
In fact, she spent a busy and rewarding day, helping the Captain and his orderlies, applying dressings and administering doses of colic and other basic medicines. Her attendance was welcomed by Walton and Alice decided to return the following day.
That morning, however, she noticed a sudden and surprising slackening in the number of patients attending. In fact, as the day progressed, the inmates of the sickroom all picked themselves up and hobbled away, or were picked up by their relatives.
‘Was it something that I said?’ she joked to Walton.
He shrugged his shoulders. ‘Strange, isn’t it? I have had to turn people away almost every day over the last week. Now, they’ve all suddenly become extremely healthy overnight. They are, indeed, an unpredictable lot.’
The reason soon became apparent.
Alice was asleep in her hut when, at about four-thirty the next morning, she was awakened by a shrill howling, like that of a pack of hyenas fighting over a carcase that she recalled from her days in Africa. She realised, with a sinking stomach, that they were war cries. They were followed immediately by the sound of firing.
She threw on her clothes, picked up the Webley service revolver that Simon had left with her and ran out into the compound. All around, the perimeter wall was aflame with fire and gunshot smoke and she realised that muskets were poking through the loopholes and firing indiscriminately inwards from outside the wall!
Inside the compound all was confusion, with sepoys running towards the wall and officers, some of them in their nightshirts, shouting orders.
Alice caught the arm of one of them. ‘What’s happening?’ she shouted.
‘We’re under attack, madam. The compound is surrounded. There are hundreds of them. Get back into your house and take cover.’
Alice ran back into her hut, but only to grab a carton of cartridges for her revolver, thrusting the bullets into the pockets of her jodhpurs as she ran back, following three Sikhs towards the wall. As she ran, she was aware that Sunil was at her side, carrying his Lee Metford and keeping pace with her. She realised that the muskets firing through the loopholes were discharging their balls mainly over the heads of the defenders. The holes, of course, were set at shoulder level for the Sikh Pioneers, who were all much taller than the Tibetans, with the result that the muskets were harmlessly pointing up to the rapidly lightening sky.
Pushing the revolver into the waistband of her riding breeches, Alice followed a Sikh who was climbing up the side of one of the outhouses near to the perimeter. He reached down a hand and pulled her up onto the roof, Sunil scrambling up behind her, where they all three lay and looked over the wall. Below them stretched a thick line of Tibetans, all shrieking, some of them firing through the loopholes, others waving long swords aimlessly. Alice turned her head and realised that the enemy were pressing up against the wall on all sides of the compound. There must be nearly 1,000 of them. How long before the gates collapsed?
The Sikh levelled his Lee Metford and fired. Immediately, his action was taken up by Sunil and by other sepoys and officers who had similarly gained vantage points looking over the wall. Alice, too, instinctively levelled her pistol and fired into the mass below.
It was impossible to miss, so tightly packed were the Tibetans, and the crack of the rifles now began to outnumber the dull sound of the attackers’ muskets. Within minutes, it seemed to Alice, the throng began to thin and then the Tibetans turned and ran, leaving behind them piles of bodies, hunched against the bottom of the wall.
From behind her somewhere, Alice heard an authoritarian voice shout, ‘Open the gates. After the bastards!’
As she watched, scores of sepoys doubled out of the opened gates, knelt and delivered a series of volleys after the fleeing Tibetans. Then, the soldiers reloaded and began running after the enemy, pursuing them into a grove of poplars and then towards the river, where some had taken refuge behind the bank.
‘Can I go with them, memsahib?’ Sunil was looking at her with anxious eyes, a thin smear of cordite across his cheek.
Alice rested her head on her forearm and sighed. More killing! She inspected the chambers of her revolver. Two were empty. Did this mean that she had killed two Tibetans? She had no idea, for, caught up in the heat and fear of the moment, she had fired blindly into the mob.
‘I think not, Sunil,’ she said. ‘I think we’ve had enough killing for one day, don’t you?’
‘No, miss. They try to kill us. We should see they don’t do it again.’
Alice frowned. ‘But aren’t these your fellow countrymen? Do you want to kill your own people?’
For a moment the boy looked slightly puzzled. Then he shook his head. ‘They not my people now, memsahib. Not anymore.’
‘I see. Well, I think Colonel Fonthill would want you stay here and help look after me. Which, I must say, you have done splendidly.’
She lay for a moment more along the top of the hut, not noticing that the Sikh had left his post, presumably to join in the pursuit.
Then she heard a familiar sound and looked up. Dawn had broken, touching the mountains to the east with a delicate pink, and skylarks were singing, their warbling replacing the harsh cracks of the Lee Metfords.
‘Come on,’ she said to Sunil. ‘Let’s see if we can find some breakfast.’
The two scrambled down the side of the hut, Alice cursing as she barked her shin, causing the blood to flow. She told Sunil to repair to the cookhouse and find food but she returned to her bed, put on her poshteen and replaced her revolver with her notebook, before walking outside to assess the number of Tibetan dead and to see what she could do to help the wounded. As far as she could detect, there were no casualties amongst the soldiers, who were now returning from their pursuit, grinning and laughing. But she lost count of the number of Tibetan dead, giving up at 200.
It was amazing. She knew that the number of riflemen defending the cantonment were less than 150 and there must have been nearly 1,000 of the Tibetans. If they had scaled the wall and used their swords instead of poking their muskets through the loopholes and blazing away indiscriminately, then that would have been the end of Younghusband’s Mission.
Alice returned to her room and sat on a corner of the bed. If there were 1,000 attacking here at Gyantse, how many might there be waiting out there for Simon? She sat for a while, thinking. This stupid, one-sided killing had to stop. She was tired of reporting on it and finding reasons to diminish the tragic slaughter of the people of Tibet. Somehow, she had to do something positive to stop it …