The Rose of Tibet (7 page)

‘Yes, sahib, he did. Come now. You come with me.’

Houston remembered the moment with peculiar clarity in later years. The clock on the Scottish mission church had boomed seven as he stood there, and he remembered thinking, Well, I’ve had the little sodling for tonight, anyway. Then he walked with the boy to his home.

I
T
was a dark and malodorous shack, lit by oil lamps and with a dung fire burning in a rudimentary grate. Bozeling vanished as soon as they were inside, and Houston found himself alone in the smoky fug of the room, until the boy’s
mother appeared suddenly, a small plump woman with gold ear-rings, a glossy middle-parting and a long skirt and bodice, and fussed around him, talking half in English and half in Sherpali, as she fetched him a chair and a cup of tea and sat him as far from the reeking fire as was possible.

Her elder son was sleeping, she said; he usually slept for two whole days on returning from a trip. The sahib would forgive her English; her son’s, on the other hand, was excellent; he had climbed often with the British. Soon the sahib would be able to enjoy a fine conversation with him.

Houston sat and smiled and nodded to her, afraid almost to open his mouth for the sickness rising in his throat. A terrible nausea had come sweeping over him in the last few minutes, whether from the shock or the airless hovel he could not tell. But he managed to get the tea down; and presently there were sounds-off and Bozeling appeared with his brother.

Sherpa Ringling was a youth of
17
, slim, small, and with the agreeable monkey face of his young brother. Houston saw the lines of fatigue in the thin features and apologized for disturbing him.

‘It’s nothing, sahib. Tomorrow I’ll be fine.’

‘You say you saw some English people in Tibet.’

‘That’s right. I met them, sahib. They walked one day with the caravan.’

‘Which trip was that?’

That had been December. Yes, he was quite sure it was December. There was no possibility of his confusing it with an earlier trip. Why was this? Why, because the trip before that had been in September – there had been no caravan in October or November – and in September they had gone by a different route, to Norgku. It was only in December that they had travelled via the Portha-la pass. And it was on the Portha-la that they had met the English party.

Houston sat blinking in the smoky room, trying to comprehend this. He said at last, ‘They travelled a whole day with you?’

‘Most of one day. Four or five hours.’

‘Could you try and remember everything that happened that day.’

There was very little to remember. The weather had been
very bad, the youth said; a blizzard was blowing. The four people had joined the caravan while it was on the move. They had appeared some time during the ascent of Portha-la. They had caught up with the caravan with difficulty, for one was ill and had to be supported by the others. He thought one of the party had been a woman. They had managed to keep up with the caravan, however, and had bedded down with it when it had stopped for the night. Later they had left.

Left? Where had they left?

The boy had no idea. He remembered that guides had turned up for them – either during the night or early in the morning. He had woken to see two of the guides carrying away the sick man, and the rest of the party following. He had been awakened by shouting, in English. He thought the sahibs were angry with their guides. Perhaps they had arrived late. Yes, it had struck him as strange that a foreign party should be travelling in Tibet without guides. He had wondered about that.

But where had they gone to? Where could they have gone?

To a monastery, perhaps, to take shelter; the blizzard had continued for a further two days.

To the Yamdring monastery? Was that anywhere near?

Yes, it was not far, two, three days, not more.

And there had been no comment among the caravan team? Could a party suddenly disappear without arousing curiosity even?

But certainly. Parties were joining and leaving the caravan all the time; and this party had not even paid to join. Nobody had objected to this, of course. In winter wandering groups often took shelter with passing caravans. One would expect a foreign party to do this if they had missed their own guides. He had forgotten all about it himself. To tell the truth, it had only come to mind again when Bozeling had told him the sahib was interested. He hoped he had been of assistance. He would try and remember what else he could of the incident; but he didn’t think there was anything else to remember.

Houston thanked him, and refused more tea, and also Bozeling’s offer to see him back to the hotel, and said good night all round, and left.

He felt very ill. He thought he was going to be sick. He
walked slowly, breathing in the crisp night air, and stopped once or twice to lean against the wall. He could see the glow in the sky over the square, and made towards it through the dark alleys. There was nobody about, and he thought after a while he had lost himself; the glow was getting no nearer. But presently he saw a familiar feature, an upended cart he had passed on the way, and a moment afterwards a white shape glimmering in the dark.

He saw as he came closer that it was two men sitting smoking on a low earth wall, and he made towards them to ask the direction. He slowed down a bit as he approached. He didn’t know what it was about them. They were sitting per
 
fectly still, not looking towards him though his footsteps were loud in the alley. He felt the hairs on the back of his neck beginning to bristle again, and he had an instinct to turn round and go back.

He couldn’t quite bring himself to do that, and continued walking, and that was the last opportunity he had. He saw, without quite believing it, that they had got up and were coming towards him. He saw the clubs in their hands. He stopped and watched them, too petrified to turn and run, still trying to convince himself that they were watchmen. They came quite slowly, without any sound, and he saw their feet were bare. He put out his hand and tried to speak, and they leapt at him.

He caught a numbing crack on the elbow and another on the side of his head and staggered, grunting. He tried to protect his head with one hand, but one of them had got behind him, and he felt another stunning blow. He found himself stumbling forwards and clutching at the man in front of him, and he grabbed at his white garment, still falling, and saw a bare foot beneath him, and stamped on it as hard as he could.

He heard the thin soft cry of pain, ‘Aaaah …’ and thought the fellow went over, too. He was down himself, scrambling in the dirt, and then his ear exploded and, as he moved his hands, his eye also, a single great pink blossom of pain unfolding above his right eye as he slipped and slithered and tried to stop himself but finally fell into a lurching, bruised blackness.

His unconsciousness was short and they were still there as
he came too, bending over him and going through his pockets. He heard someone grunting and coughing and realized it was himself, and they dropped the wallet quickly and looked at him, muttering. They straightened up, and he saw by the way they held the clubs what was coming and tried to twist away but failed and got them both in the pit of the stomach and heard the single drawn-out animal sound as the air went out of his body.

He was over on his side, retching. He had not eaten for hours and only tea and gin and sour bile came up. He had to get his head out of it, and he struggled up on to his hands and knees, trembling. His forehead was icy with sweat and his arms would not support him properly. A dog came to sniff at him, and was soon joined by two others, and they found the patch of vomit, and he had to get away from that, and he was up, somehow, reeling and tottering in the alley.

He must have turned into another alley, for at the end were lights, and he saw it was the square, and he stopped, leaning against the wall before going into it. He found his wallet in his hand and he dusted himself down with it. He straightened his tie and buttoned his jacket and smoothed his hair, and found it wet with vomit.

He walked across the square as steadily as he could, and went into the hotel and up to his room.

He ran the tap and plunged his head in the bowl several times till he thought he had got rid of the vomit. Then he changed out of his suit and put on a dressing-gown and had a look in his wallet and lay down on the bed.

He heard eight o’clock strike from the Scottish mission church. Only an hour since the boy had first told him. Then nine o’clock struck, and ten. He lay there all night. The servant found him like that, still awake and in his dressing- gown, in the morning.

He thought that if they had taken all his money, he could explain it to himself. But they hadn’t done that; they had taken only the small notes; more in the nature of recompensing themselves for their trouble. He shied away for quite a
long time from the explanation that seemed to make most sense.

There were so many new problems here that he thought he ought to proceed on the assumption that, right from the beginning, someone had made a mistake. He assumed first that it was the Tibetans.

A party of four people had been found dead after an avalanche. The party had been wrongly identified as a party of missing British people. A message to that effect had gone off to Lhasa. When the error had been discovered, it had taken time to rectify. Communications were bad. Everything had to be checked and double-checked by Lhasa before the error could be admitted. And in the meantime they would give no information.

Well. It was one explanation, as reasonable as any other. More reasonable, in a way. For here were human error and bureaucracy and procrastination. He had met them all in India, and he supposed you could find the same in Tibet. But what, in that case, had happened to the British party? Five months had passed since December. Why had they not come out of the country?

There was no answer to that, so he began assuming on another tack. He assumed that the boy Ringling had made the mistake. Ringling had observed a party of four people join his caravan, and thought he had heard them talking English. He had been half asleep when he heard them. They had gone off with their guides. Then, according to this assumption, the people he had seen must have been four other people. They were three other men and one other woman, and they had not been talking English.

Houston didn’t like this assumption. The boy would know if they had spoken English. He had no reason to lie. And Houston had given no details himself. The boy had supplied them: the three men, the woman, one of the men sick.

So the Tibetans had reported the party dead in October, and Ringling had seen them alive in December. And after he had been to see Ringling to hear this story, he had been attacked. The men had been waiting for him; they had been more intent on beating him up than on robbing him. And in fact they had robbed him of very little.

Houston thought he could see a pattern in this. He was still trying to think where it got him when a voice said softly in his ear, ‘Sahib, your tea. You have not drunk your tea, sahib. It is nine o’clock.’

Houston looked about him and saw daylight in the room, and thanked the servant and got up. The walls lurched a bit. His head was still pounding vilely and his stomach felt badly bruised. He took off his dressing-gown and examined it. There was only slight reddening; but his eye, in the mirror, was more spectacular. An angry purple contusion rose between eyelid and temple. He thought he had better wear dark glasses today.

He washed and shaved and dressed and sat down for a moment to recover from these exertions and to allow the furniture to get back in place. He thought he had better eat something. He had had nothing since lunchtime in Darjeeling the day before. He went rather carefully down the stairs and into the dining-room and had fruit juice and warm rolls and coffee, and managed to get back to his room just in time to bring them up again.

He sat in a cane chair, trembling and faint and wiped his sweating forehead. He didn’t know what he was going to do about this. He thought he had better not stay in Kalimpong today. He had to go somewhere and think.

He went downstairs and out on to the hotel steps and looked out over the brilliant, bustling square and tried to make a plan that would get him through the day.

‘Hello, sahib. Where we go today?’

He saw that here was a problem even more urgent than how he would occupy his time all day; and to get rid of the boy said the first thing that came in his head.

‘Sorry, me lad. I’m going to Darjeeling.’

‘Oh, sahib, you’ve just come back.’

‘Well, I’m going again.’

‘Well. I keep the bus for you, sahib. I see you catch it.’

Houston cursed dully, head thumping in the sharp sunlight as he followed Bozeling across the square. It would have to be Darjeeling, then. But one place as good as another today, he thought; and perhaps he could think on the bus.

It was a magnificent day, high cloudless sky, the great round hills lush and plump with spring. The bus stopped
frequently at villages on the way, passengers got in and out, jostling, chattering, joking, the whole world delighted to be about its business on such a day. Houston sat leaden in his seat, counting the swinging hammer blows in his head and trying to control the nausea in his stomach.

They were alive. They had been alive in December. They had travelled without guides in December. And then guides had appeared for them, and they had left the caravan. But why leave it? They had walked all day with it in a blizzard. Why leave it when guides were available to carry the sick man? Because the guides not guides; because the guides men sent to bring them back… .

He thought he could go on indefinitely with this preposterous daydream, and suddenly realized how preposterous it was, and pulled himself together. The situation, from a certain point of view, was not without humour: himself fed up, frigged up and far from home, taking an unnecessary journey to Darjeeling to escape the attention of one single small Sherpa.

And with regard to the robbers: why shouldn’t they take only his small notes? They were only small robbers. They were robbers without shoes. Large notes would be an embarrassment to such robbers. And with regard to Ringling’s story – he must at some time have mentioned himself what he was looking for, and Bozeling had heard him and had told his brother, and his brother had been happy to provide the right answers.