the Iron Tiger (v5)

by Jack Higgins

  Hamid pulled himself into the branches and Drummond said, 'I'll try to guide it from the other end.'

  He lifted a foot from the water and pushed against the next tree. There was a snapping of branches and the tree lifted into the current. In a few moments they were drifting rapidly away and the floating mass of trees and the promontory disappeared into the mist.

  Drummond soon found that it was impossible to guide the tree. It went with the current and his feeble kicking had no effect. He gave up the struggle and tried to heave himself into a more secure position, but his frozen limbs refused to help him. He trailed helplessly through the water, arms hooking over a projecting branch and gradually all discomfort and pain left him.

  When Cheung scrambled up the steep bank from the river's edge, he found General Ho Tsen still sitting in the front of the jeep, a cigarette in a long jade holder between his teeth.

  'Well?' the General demanded.

  Cheung seemed tired. 'As yet there is no sign of them, General.'

  'A small subterfuge which often leads to remarkable results,' said Ho Tsen. 'Wasn't that what you promised me?'

  Cheung wiped rain from his face mechanically. 'What can I say?'

  'Nothing,' Ho Tsen told him. 'That would be much better. As it happens, in such weather it is more than likely that Drummond and his friend are already floating face down somewhere out there in the flood. In any case, I shall take charge here, Colonel. Take your men and go north to Kama. Cross the river and bring me back the young Khan.' He paused and neatly ejected the end of his cigarette from the holder. When he looked up again, his eyes were cold. 'Without him, there would be little point in returning at all. You follow me?'

  Cheung stood there in the rain, staring at him for a moment, his face quite white. He seemed to pull himself together, saluted, turned and clambered up beside the driver of the first troop carrier. A moment later, the two vehicles moved up the slope, their tracks spurning the wet earth and disappeared into the mist.

  8

  Forced March

  VAGUELY through his numbed mind, Drummond became aware that something was digging into him. After a while, he realised that another large tree had drifted into them. They floated together, branches intertwined, their combined weight considerably slowing down the speed at which they were travelling.

  Hamid was still secure in his perch amongst the branches and after a while he called, 'I can see the other side. The river must be narrowing.'

  Drummond turned his head. Through the torrential rain, the opposite bank was just visible and it seemed to draw nearer every moment. The water became rougher and trees and flotsam of every description raced through the white-capped waves.

  Suddenly, the bank was very close and seemed to increase in size as the river churned through a deeper and narrowing channel. There was a sickening, body-shaking jar and the tree grounded.

  Drummond heard a cry and saw Hamid flung into the water. He unhooked his cramped limbs and found that he could stand waist deep. He forced his way along, pushed by the current, and caught Hamid by the belt before the river took him. There was a crashing sound behind and, as he turned, the trees were lifted by a sudden swell of the water and swept away again.

  The water boiled around them as they braced themselves against the current. Slowly they forced their way to the steeply shelving banks and scrambled to temporary safety. They lay face down, their battered bodies heaving as they retched up river water.

  After a while, they got to their feet and clambered up the mud bank away from the river. They stood looking across the river through the mist, listening. Hamid was shaking with cold, his uniform moulded to his body although strangely enough, his turban was still intact.

  'Sooner or later they'll get men across by boat,' he said. 'They're bound to find an odd one or two missed by the refugees.'

  'But they'll be on foot, just like us,' Drummond reminded him. 'The nearest place they have a hope of crossing with vehicles is Kama and that's twenty miles north from here. The shallows there could well be impassable because of the rain.'

  'Well, one thing is certain,' Hamid said with a savage grin. 'There's only one road out to India and there's only one way we're going to get to it.'

  They began to walk south through the rain, slowly, because the ground was fast turning into a quagmire. Drummond found it an effort to lift one foot in front of the other, and after a while found himself falling behind the hardy hillman.

  They moved into a grey impenetrable mist that shrouded them completely from the outside world. Nothing existed now except the two of them and the rain and Drummond stumbled on through the mud, wondering what he was doing here and where it was all going to end.

  It was perhaps half an hour later that he became aware that Hamid was calling to him. He was standing on top of a small hill about fifty yards away. When Drummond joined him, he saw a herdsman's hut in a small hollow below.

  There was no sign of life and they moved cautiously down into the hollow. Drummond didn't feel tired any more. He didn't feel anything. He knew he was alive and that was about all.

  It was a poor place of mud and wattle construction and a thin tracer of smoke lifted through a hole in the straw roof. Hamid opened the door and led the way in.

  The fire on the stone hearth was banked with earth and smoke drifted in a heavy layer against the ceiling. It was filthy and it smelled and Drummond knew the place was very probably lousy with fleas as well, but it was warm and dry, and at the moment that was all that mattered.

  He raked the soil from the fire and brought wood from a pile in one comer. Hamid rummaged amongst the sheepskins at the back and came up with a couple of stone jars.

  He brought them to the fire with a grin. 'Goat's milk and cheese. Pretty rancid, but good for the constitution.'

  'At the moment, I could face anything except going out there in these wet clothes again,' Drummond said.

  He built the fire into a great, roaring pyramid and Hamid gave the sheepskins a shake. 'God alone knows what we'll get from this lot.'

  But it didn't matter, nothing mattered except that it was warm and the fire was hot on the skin. Drummond crouched there, Watching the steam rise from his clothes suspended from the ridge pole, a sheepskin around his shoulders, and after a while he slept.

  He awakened slowly and stared through the dim grey light at his clothes hanging from the ridge pole of the hut, wondering where he was. After a while he remembered and sat up.

  Hamid squatted on the other side of the fire. He was wearing his uniform again and grinned. 'How do you feel?'

  'Bloody awful!' Drummond stretched his arms and blood started to flow through cramped limbs. 'How long have we been here?'

  'A couple of hours, that's all. Must be about two o'clock. We'd better get moving. Your clothes are pretty dry by now. Better than they were, anyway.'

  Drummond started to dress and Hamid peered outside. 'From the looks of it, this rain is never going to stop. I think it'll turn to snow before it does.'

  'As if we haven't got enough to worry about.'

  Hamid shrugged. 'The weather should help if anything. It makes things just as difficult for the Chinese.'

  Drummond moved to the entrance, zipping up the front of his flying jacket and looked out. The rain was lancing into the earth with steady force and a slight mist rising from the cold ground combined with it to reduce visibility to a few yards.

  'I think you're right about the snow.'

  'Which means we've got to move fast. We can't be more than seven or eight miles from the road. Anyone else who got across the river is bound to move in the same direction. They've no other choice.'

  'You're thinking of Father Kerrigan and Janet?'

  'Or Sher Dil, but the Chinese will follow the same route once they get across and we must keep ahead of them. If we can only reach the village Sher Dil mentioned, Bandong, and get horses, we might stand a chance.'

  He picked up a couple of sheepskins and tossed one to Drummond. 'Bette
r wear that over your shoulders. It'll keep out some of the rain.'

  In the same moment, he drew back from the entrance, a finger to his mouth and dropped to one knee.

  They crouched side by side, soundless and waiting. At first there was only the savage drumming of the rain and then Drummond heard it. A slipping, stumbling sound of feet trailing through the wet ground outside.

  As the steps approached the hut and paused, Hamid launched himself through the entrance. There was a sudden splashing through the mud outside, the sound of a blow.

  Drummond went after him, fists ready, but there was no need. Hamid stood over the huddled figure of a man who crouched in the mud. He grabbed a handful of hair and jerked the head back savagely. A great scar ran from the man's right eye to the corner of his mouth. The tattered remnants of a khaki uniform with corporal's stripes on the right sleeve still clung to his wiry body.

  'It's the one who plunged into the river ahead of us,' Drummond said. 'You remember? He's one of Sher Dil's men.'

  The man's face split into a wide, impudent grin. 'You know me, Major Hamid. Ahmed Hussein, Corporal in Number One Section.' His English was almost perfect, but with a slight, sing-song accent. 'Drummond Sahib, I have seen many times.'

  Hamid started to laugh. 'I know this one, all right. One of the greatest rogues you'll ever meet in your life. An old Indian Army man, Khyber Rifles, wasn't it?'

  'That's right, sahib.' Ahmed got to his feet and indicated the row of medal ribbons above his left breast. 'D.C.M. from King George himself, sahib.'

  'Probably bought in the bazaar at Peshawar,' Hamid said. 'But he's an Afridi. They're good fighting men.'

  They went outside and Ahmed crouched over the fire, warming his hands. 'What are we going to do with him?' Drummond said. 'We can't afford to wait for him to dry off.'

  'No need, sahib.' Ahmed picked up another sheepskin. 'This will do fine. The cold is nothing to me. Hardship is nothing.' He grinned hugely. 'I'm an Afridi.'

  'Which also means liar, cheat and rogue,' Hamid said. 'There's goat's cheese in one of the jars. If you're hungry, you'll have to carry it with you and eat on the way.'

  'Where do we go, sahib?'

  'To the road, where else? The road out of this accursed country. Colonel Sher Dil told us to meet at Bandong if we managed to cross the river. Do you know it?'

  'About eight miles south, sahib. I take you there.'

  When they climbed out of the hollow, Drummond paused for a moment and looked down at the small hut, the smoke rising into the air. Somehow it represented security and safety and now he was moving into the unknown again. He shivered and hurried after his two companions.

  For the first quarter of a mile, Ahmed trailed at the rear scooping handfuls of the soft cheese from the jar, devouring it avidly with groans of delight. Finally, he tossed the jar to one side and ran ahead to take the lead.

  Drummond kept a pace or two behind Hamid. The world was a few cubic feet covered on all sides by walls and a ceiling of mist and rain and they were the only inhabitants.

  They had been marching for about half an hour when he stumbled into Hamid who grabbed his arm. 'Listen for a moment.'

  Ahmed joined them and they stood in a small group, strange figures in their sheepskins, streaming with rain and somehow symbolic like a piece of modern sculpture.

  'I thought I heard firing,' Hamid said and at that moment it sounded again, a faint echo to the west.

  'Sounded like a machine gun,' Drummond said.

  Again, there was a faint, deadly echo of small arms fire and then there was silence.

  'Probably back across the river,' Hamid said. 'We're still moving parallel with it, remember, but I think one of us should scout ahead from now on.'

  'I will go, sahib,' Ahmed said with a grin and ran into the mist.

  They commenced to march again. Drummond's senses were on the alert for danger at first, but gradually he succumbed to his surroundings. There was a safety, an anonymity about the rain and the mist that was vaguely comforting.

  He withdrew into himself, an old trick, forgot about fatigue, discomfort, the danger of his present situation. He didn't even feel fear when Ahmed suddenly emerged from the mist and ran towards them.

  Hamid grabbed hold of the Afridi and steadied him. 'What is it?'

  'There is a village up ahead, sahib.'

  'Good, lead the way.'

  He walked into the mist and they followed him. Drummond found that he was sweating a little, the ground sloped and then dipped suddenly as they descended into a large hollow.

  The houses loomed out of the mist. There were no more than six of them, poor, mean places of mud and wattle like the herdsman's hut scattered alongside the banks of a small stream.

  They went forward quickly and Drummond was aware of the acrid smell of woodsmoke on the damp air. Ahmed opened the first door and went in. He reappeared a moment later.

  'Empty, sahib, everything gone.'

  He ran along the line of huts, opening the crude, wooden doors and finally came back to meet them despondently. 'Picked clean, sahib. Picked clean.'

  Hamid looked in through the door of the nearest house at the embers of the fire which still glowed on the hearth. 'I said bad news travels fast, didn't I? They've gone, every last one of them. Horses, livestock, the lot. Taken to the hills I suppose, to wait things out and see what happens.'

  Ahmed looked at them enquiringly. 'We move on now? Nothing for us here.'

  'That's right, Ahmed,' Drummond said. 'Nothing for us here.'

  They moved up out of the hollow and started to march again. The rain-soaked earth made the going very heavy and the ground itself was boulder-strewn and very difficult so that they had to pick their way with care.

  Gradually a change became noticeable. The air seemed colder and drifted steadily into their faces and the ground began to slope steeply. They paused to take stock of the situation.

  'We must be coming to the edge of the rift valley,' Hamid said. 'And that means the road can't be far away. We should cut across it in another mile or so.'

  They started to make their way down the hillside. The ground began to fall away until at times, they were compelled to climb very carefully, feeling for handholds.

  Finally, they found themselves on the lower slopes and the going was easier over rough, moss-covered ground. Ahmed moved ahead again and was soon lost to sight, for as they descended through the rain, the mist became thicker until visibility was almost nil.

  It was Drummond who heard the motor. He stopped quickly and called to Hamid. They both stood there on the hillside listening and heard the sound of truck engines.

  Ahmed came running out of the mist. 'Bandong just below in the valley, sahib,' he said to Hamid. 'Four trucks stopping there. Big ones, sahib, I think they are ours.'

  'What do you mean, ours?' Drummond said.

  'Army trucks, sahib. Convoy from India making its way to Sadar.'

  'He's right,' Drummond said. 'I'd forgotten about that. Don't they make the run once a month?'

  'Only one difficulty,' Hamid said. 'If it is the usual convoy to Sadar, then it's going in the wrong direction.'

  'Not if they'd heard what's happened.'

  They covered the rest of the distance quickly, running and sliding down the slippery slopes until they came to a boulder-filled stream bed. On the other side they scrambled up on to a dirt road, and Ahmed motioned them to silence as a flat-roofed house loomed out of the mist.

  'Bandong,' he whispered.

  The truck engines had stopped and the whole world seemed to have died with them. A vague unease stirred in Drummond and then he heard the voice, the rough, familiar Irish voice, and ran forward between the houses scattered on either side of the road.

  Four trucks were drawn up in a line, old Bedford three-tonners, pointing south towards India. Father Kerrigan stood bareheaded in the rain talking to a tribesman in sheepskin coat and fur hat who held an old .303 Enfield rifle in one hand and the bridle of a rough hi
ll pony in the other.

  A stone rattled under Drummond's foot and they swung round. The hillman was Colonel Sher Dil.

  'Well, praise be,' Father Kerrigan said softly.

  The door of one of the trucks opened and Janet Tate dropped to the ground. She was wearing the same clothes she had worn on the flight in, fur lined boots, cord pants and the sheepskin jacket Drummond had provided for her, but he didn't really notice these things. Only her eyes and the deep incredulous joy in them as she ran towards him.

  9

  Council of War

  A CORPORAL and three privates walked forward slowly, curiosity written on their faces, and behind them, lagging slightly, his left arm heavily bandaged, came Tony Brackenhurst.

  'We didn't expect to see any of you again,' Father Kerrigan said. 'The Chinese arrived so quickly that we only got out of the mission by the skin of our teeth. I drove up-river to Quala and found that the headman had already had the vehicle ferry destroyed to prevent the Chinese crossing the river with transport. Everyone in the village was being ferried over by small boats in relays.'

  'Mr. Brackenhurst arrived while we were waiting our turn,' Janet continued. 'He was pretty badly burned. He told us what happened at Sadar. He thought he was the only one to get away.'

  'So he was for a while,' Hamid replied calmly.

  Brackenhurst looked very pale and swayed slightly, groping for the side of the truck to steady himself. Two of the soldiers moved to catch him and Father Kerrigan said, 'I think you ought to lie down again, my boy, you don't look too good. Will you see to him, Janet?'

  Brackenhurst stumbled away between the two privates, Janet walking beside them, and the priest turned back to the others.

  'I don't think I've ever had a greater surprise in my life than I did ten minutes ago when this tribesman here emerged from the mist and turned out to be Sher Dil.'