the Iron Tiger (1974)

by Jack Higgins

  'Do you believe that?'

  'Depends what a man's looking for, doesn't it? Had enough?'

  She nodded and he called for the bill and paid it. The room was by this time heavy with smoke and there was the sound of drunken laughter everywhere. As they threaded their way between the tables, eyes turned on Janet, there were winks and leers and sly nudges.

  Someone stood up at the edge of the floor and made an obscene gesture. There was a roar of spontaneous laughter and as she turned her head, flushing angrily, she was aware of a hand on her right leg, sliding up beneath the skirt.

  She cried out in rage and mortification and swung round. There were four men seated at a low table, three of them typical of a breed to be found the world over in spite of their turbans and loose robes, young, vicious animals, spoiling for trouble. The man who had grabbed at her was older with wild, drunken eyes in a bearded face. He wore a black outer robe threaded with gold and his hands were a blaze of jewels.

  As his chin tilted, the mouth wide with laughter, her hand caught him full across the face. His head rocked to one side, there was a general gasp and the room was silent.

  His head turned slowly and there was rage and madness in the eyes. As he grabbed at her coat, Drummond spun her to one side. The bearded man was only half way to his feet when Drummond's right foot swung into his crutch. The man screamed, doubling over, and Drummond raised a knee into the descending face, smashing the nose, sending him crashing back across the coffee table.

  And the thing Janet couldn't understand was the silence. No one moved to stop them when Drummond turned, straightening his jacket, took her arm, and pushed her through the crowd to the stairs.

  Outside in the street, he urged her on, turning and twisting through several alleys until, finally, they emerged on an old stone embankment above the river.

  'Why the rush?' she said. 'Did you think they might follow us?'

  'That's the general idea.' He lit a cheroot, the match flaring in his cupped hands to reveal the strong, sardonic face. 'The young squirt-about-town I treated so roughly back there happens to be the son of the town governor.'

  'Will there be trouble?'

  'Not the official kind, if that's what you mean. He's got away with too much in the past for anyone to start crying over his ruined looks at this stage. He might put someone on to me privately, but I can handle that.'

  'Did you really need to be so rough?'

  'It never pays to do things by halves, not here. This isn't tourist India, you know. The only thing I'm sorry about is taking you there in the first place. I should have had more sense.'

  'I'm not,' she said. 'You weren't responsible for what happened. To tell you the truth, I rather enjoyed myself.'

  'Including the nautch dance?'

  She laughed. 'I'll reserve my opinion on that part of the programme. It was very educational, mind you.'

  'Something of an understatement. You know, you're quite a girl, and for someone who believes in turning the other cheek, you throw a good punch. You certainly rocked him back there.'

  'A quick temper was always my besetting sin,' she said. 'My old grannie used to warn me about that when I was a little girl back home in Maine. Quakers are really quite nice when you get to know them. Flesh and blood, too.'

  He grinned and took her arm. 'All right, I surrender. Let's walk.'

  They went on to the beach below the embankment and strolled through the moonlight without talking for a while. Now and then, sandbanks collapsed into the water with a thunderous roar and cranes threshed through the shallows, disturbed by the noise.

  Huge pale flowers swam out of the night, and beyond the trees the sky was violet and purple, more beautiful than anything she had ever seen before. They passed a solitary fisherman cooking a supper of fish over a small fire of dried cowdung and Drummond gave him a greeting in Urdu.

  'What do you do in Balpur beside fly in guns for Mr. Cheung?' she said after a while.

  'Survey work for the Indian government, freight general cargo or passengers. Anything that comes to hand.'

  'I shouldn't have thought there was much of a living in that.'

  'There isn't, but Cheung pays well for the Tibetan trips. And I'll be leaving soon, anyway. I've had enough of the place.'

  'What's it like?'

  'Balpur?' He shrugged. 'Barren, treacherous mountains. A capital of three thousand people that's more like an overgrown village. An army, if you can call it that, of seventy-five. When winter comes, it's absolute hell and that's in another month. The roads are the worst in the world at the best of times, but during the winter, they're completely snowed up.'

  'What about the Khan?'

  'An old mountain hawk, proud as Lucifer. Quite a warrior in his day. To his people, something very special. Not only king, but priest, and that makes for quite a distinction. You'll like Kerim, his son. A great pity about his accident. I hope your people in Chicago can fix him up all right.'

  'He's eight, isn't he?'

  'Nine in three months.'

  'My instructions told me to get in touch with a Father Kerrigan when I arrive. Apparently he's in charge of all the arrangements.'

  'You'll like him,' Drummond said. 'He's about sixty. A marvellous old Irishman who just won't give in. He's been twelve years in Sikkim and hasn't made a single convert and the people adore him. It's fantastic.'

  'If he hasn't got a congregation, what does he do with himself?'

  'As it happens, he's a qualified doctor. Runs a small mission hospital about a mile outside of Sadar, completely on his own. There's one other European up there, a man called Brackenshaw. A geologist for some British firm or other. They've also made him British Consul, but don't let that impress you. It doesn't mean a thing.'

  'You don't like him, I take it?'

  'Not much.'

  He stopped to light another cheroot and she said casually, 'Why did you leave the Navy, Jack?'

  He paused, the match flaring in his fingers, his eyes dark shadows. 'You really want to know?'

  She didn't answer and he shrugged, flicking the match into the night. 'They kicked me out, or advised me to leave, which comes to the same thing for a career officer.'

  She could sense the pain in his voice and put a hand on his arm instinctively. 'What happened?'

  'I was a Fleet Air Arm pilot during the Korean War. One bright morning in July, 1952, I took my squadron to the wrong target. When we left, it was a smoking ruin. We did a good job. We managed to kill twenty-three American marines and ten Royal Marine Commandos who had been serving with them.'

  There was bewilderment in her voice. 'But how could such a thing happen?'

  'The briefing officer gave me the wrong information.'

  'So it wasn't your fault?'

  'Depends how you look at it. If I'd checked my orders more carefully, I'd have spotted the mistake. I was too tired, that was the trouble. Overtired. Too many missions, not enough sleep. I should have grounded myself weeks before, but I didn't.'

  'So they couldn't court-martial you?'

  'A quiet chat with someone with gold rings all the way up to his elbow, that's all it took. I got the message.'

  'I'm sorry, Jack. Sorrier than I can say.'

  Her voice was warm and full of sympathy. They had reached a flight of stone steps leading up from the shore and he paused and looked at her.

  Her mouth opened to cry a warning and he ducked, turning to meet the rush of feet from the darkness.

  A fist grazed his cheek, he lost his balance and rolled over and over, hands protecting his genitals as feet swung in viciously.

  He sprang up and backed to the wall. There were three of them, dark, shadowy figures in tattered robes, scum from the market place hired for a few rupees. Above them on the steps below the lamp, stood the man from the cafe, supported by two of his friends, blood on his face.

  A knife gleamed dully and Janet ran in past the three men to join Drummond against the wall. 'Kill him!' the bearded man cried. 'Kill the sw
ine!'

  Drummond was tired. It had been a long evening. His hand disappeared inside his coat reaching to the leather holster on his left hip and reappeared holding a Smith & Wesson .38 Magnum revolver with a three-inch barrel.

  He fired into the air and there was a sudden stillness. 'Go on, get out of it!' he shouted angrily and fired a shot towards the man on the steps that ricocheted into the night.

  The men from the market place were already running away along the shore, cursing volubly, and the governor's son and his two friends staggered into the darkness.

  Drummond slipped the revolver back into its holster and looked down at her calmly. 'You know, I really think it's time we went back to the hotel, don't you?'

  She started to tremble uncontrollably and he reached out, pulling her into his arms. 'It's all right. Everything's all right now.'

  He stroked her hair gently with one hand and his lips brushed her forehead. In the heavy stillness of the night, she could almost hear her heart beating. When he tilted her chin and kissed her gently on the mouth, it was like nothing she had ever known before.

  He slipped her arm in his without speaking, and together they went up the steps to the embankment.

  4

  The Last Place God Made

  THE air was bumpy as they flew out of the pass for a forty-knot wind was blowing across the mountains. They climbed through a heat haze that was already blurring the horizon and levelled out at 9,000 feet to cross the mountains between India and Balpur.

  Janet Tate was in the front passenger seat beside Drummond and Hamid sat behind her. She was wearing a white blouse, collar turned down over the neck of a cashmere sweater, cream whipcord slacks and a sheepskin coat that Drummond had provided.

  Hamid poured coffee into a plastic cap and handed it to hen 'We're moving into Balpur now,' he said. 'The mountains to the east are in Bhutan with Assam far beyond in the haze. The Chinese broke through in strength there in 1962.'

  'Were you there?'

  He shook his head. 'No, I was on the Ladakh front in the north-west.'

  'It was supposed to be pretty bad up there, wasn't it?'

  'A vision from hell,' he said grimly. 'Can you imagine what it's like trying to live at 20,000 feet, never mind fight? The mules died of asthma, the men of pulmonary oedema. You've heard of it, I suppose.'

  She nodded. 'The lungs fill with water, don't they?'

  'An ironic way for a man to die in battle - by drowning. We could never get them down to the base hospitals in time for treatment, that was the trouble.'

  'Hadn't you any air support, helicopters?'

  He laughed harshly. 'Until October, 1962, we hadn't needed them. The way of peace was the way for India.' He shook his head. 'No, we didn't have the necessary planes. Even if we had, there weren't the pilots. Certainly not the kind who could fly in that sort of country. That's where I met Jack, you know.'

  She turned to Drummond in surprise. 'You were flying for the Indian Army?'

  'Five hundred quid a week,' he said. 'Good money by any standards.'

  'Don't listen to him,' Hamid broke in. 'A game he plays. From Leh, he flew three operational flights a day into the Ladakh mountains to one small airstrip at 18,000 feet, taking in supplies and ammunition, bringing out the sick and wounded. In five weeks, he flew just over a hundred sorties, then collapsed and spent three weeks in hospital suffering from complete exhaustion. His contract called for five flights a week, no more.'

  'He should have added that they didn't pay me for the time in hospital,' Drummond told her. 'That's the wily oriental for you.'

  He increased speed and banked in a long, sweeping curve that took them out of a shallow pass and into a valley beyond. A broad river flowed sluggishly, snaking between jagged cliffs, a thread of silver in a landscape so savage and sterile that it took the breath away.

  'Remember what I told you,' Drummond said. 'The last place God made. And to think the Chinese have laid claim to this bloody lot.'

  'But why?' she said.

  'The same psychology the Roman Emperors used,' Hamid told her. 'Give the mob circuses to take their minds off the more important problems. In China in 1962, the harvest was bad and thousands starved, so their army invaded India, a country completely unprepared for such an attack, and presented their people with a ready made victory. In Pekin, they were able to tighten their belts and wave banners.'

  'Have they really laid claim to Balpur?'

  'Along with almost every other border country. Actually, Balpur was a part of the Chinese Empire in ancient times. The people are Mongolian. Only the ruling class are Muslims, descendants of the original invaders. But no one seriously imagines that they would invade. For one thing, the old Khan has preferred to stay completely neutral. He's the only ruler of a border state who hasn't signed a mutual defence pact with India.'

  'Yet he accepts you as an adviser?'

  'To an army of seventy-five men. A political gesture only. In Pekin they laugh about it.'

  She almost mentioned Mr. Cheung, but remembering what Drummond had told her on the previous evening, kept silent. Even if Hamid did know the truth, that Cheung was in fact a Chinese Nationalist agent, that Drummond was flying in guns to Tibetan guerrilla fighters, he would probably prefer to know nothing officially. Remembering Vietnam, she sighed heavily. The same pattern, violence, blood and suffering turning on each other in a circle that had no ending.

  They were flying at no more than a thousand feet above the floor of the valley and suddenly, in a bend of the river, she saw Sadar, flat-roofed houses scattered untidily across a broad plateau, the Khan's palace like a fortress in a walled garden.

  The Beaver banked tightly and swept in past the graceful tower of a mosque, and beyond the town on the plain to the south she could see the airstrip, a narrow slot laboriously carved out of the rough terrain, a windsock on a tall pole at one end. Drummond circled once then turned into the wind for a perfect landing between two rows of empty oil drums.

  There was a small improvised hangar constructed of rusting corrugated iron, barely large enough to house the Beaver from the look of it. He taxied towards it and switched off the engine.

  He unfastened his seat belt, jumped to the ground and turned to give Janet a hand. At the same moment, a Land Rover appeared from among the houses on the edge of the town and came towards them in a cloud of dust.

  She shivered and wrapped her sheepskin coat more tightly around her. 'It's colder than I thought it would be.'

  'Winter coming,' Drummond said. 'Maybe it'll be early this year.'

  An old army jeep, still painted in the grey-green camouflage of wartime, its canvas tilt patched and mended in many places, was parked inside the hangar. He and Hamid had just started to transfer the luggage to it from the plane when the Land Rover arrived.

  Mr. Cheung jumped out of the passenger seat and came towards them wearing a heavy blue quilted jacket and an astrakhan hat. His driver was a young fair-haired man with a bronzed, reckless face. He wore a sheepskin jacket in untanned hide and knee-length boots. A revolver, slung low on his right hip in a black holster, seemed theatrical and out of place.

  He came forward with a ready smile, eyes fixed on Janet, and Hamid said maliciously, 'Why the gun, Tony? Expecting trouble?'

  The young man flushed. 'I'm driving up to my base camp at Howeel for a couple of days. They'd cut your throat for the shoes on your feet up there. I've come for that new theodolite I ordered if Drummond's remembered to bring it.'

  'It's in the plane,' Drummond said coldly. 'Help yourself.'

  'So this is Miss Tate?' Cheung took both of her hands in his. 'We must try to make your stay a pleasant one.'

  'You knew I was coming?'

  Hamid grinned. 'I had Indian Army Headquarters in Juma send a signal to warn the Khan.'

  Cheung nodded. 'Colonel Dil got the message last night by radio.'

  'And probably told you before the Khan.'

  Brackenhurst jumped down from the Beaver and turned t
o lift out a wooden case containing his theodolite. 'A hell of a lot of machine parts you seem to bring through these days,' he commented and turned to Janet before Drummond could reply. 'I'm Tony Brackenhurst, Miss Tate. I'm doing geological survey work up here, but I'm also the British Consul. If I can help you in any way, don't hesitate to ask.'

  'She happens to be an American, so that's hardly likely,' Drummond said acidly.

  Brackenhurst ignored him, holding her hand for longer than was necessary, an eager smile on his lips, and it was the smile which betrayed him, somehow revealing an essential weakness, a lack of strength.

  'Why, that's very kind of you, Mr. Brackenhurst.'

  'I'll be back in two days,' he said. 'You'll probably still be here from what they tell me of the boy's condition.'

  He carried the theodolite across to the Land Rover and Cheung said quickly, 'I'll go back with him. You'll have enough in the jeep with the three of you and the luggage. You'll call on me this afternoon, Jack?'

  'After lunch. I'll take Janet out to the mission first. Is the boy still out there?'

  Cheung nodded and smiled down at her. 'And you, I will have the pleasure of seeing you again this evening, Miss Tate. The Khan is to give a small dinner party for you. He has honoured me with an invitation.'

  'I'll look forward to that, Mr. Cheung.'

  The Land Rover moved back towards town and Drummond drove the jeep out of the hangar. He and Hamid pushed the Beaver inside and padlocked the door.

  'I'll take Janet out to Father Kerrigan now. What about you, Ali?'

  Hamid shrugged. 'You can drop me at Colonel Dil's headquarters. I'll probably see you both tonight at the palace unless the old boy's decided to change his usual guest list.'

  They got into the jeep and Drummond drove towards the town, following the rutted track that did service as a road. He changed down, scattering a herd of goats, and they entered the outskirts of Sadar.

  Janet looked about her with interest, but there was nothing of the gaiety and colour of Juma and Altaf here. The people were small, squat Mongolians with skins the colour of weathered parchment and slanting eyes. The men wore boots of untanned hide, baggy trousers and sheepskin jackets. Only a few sported the turban, the majority preferring conical sheepskin caps with earflaps. The women's attire differed in only one significant detail. Instead of the sheepskin jacket, they wore three-quarter length blanket coats of black and brown, relieved in some cases by a necklace of silver coins.