The Pulse of Danger. Jon Cleary

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СКАЧАТЬ 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, СКАЧАТЬ