by John Wilcox
Order, however, was quickly restored and the three columns were merged into two. Some resistance continued to be offered by the Tibetans, but, with the antique Bubble at last doing good work at point-blank range, the maze of stone outbuildings was reduced by demolition parties until the whole of the southern flank of the fort was in British hands.
As soon as it was light, the artillery – the ten-pounders and the Gurkhas’ pair of elderly light guns – opened up from the three positions which they had reached under cover of darkness. Initially, each battery used shrapnel, fired so that it exploded over the heads of the defenders high above. Then, they were replaced by high-explosive shells which hammered away at the walls and earthworks at the base of the fort.
Eventually, with the sun burning down, the Tibetan fire consistent but not causing great damage and the British guns seemingly to be proving equally ineffective, Macdonald dithered. The great rock on which the fort itself perched, towered above the heads of the British troops, who now held all the ground up to the point at which the rock rose from the plain. Above them a road, ascending from right to left up to a gateway had been cut diagonally into the rock. But overlooking it was a high wall, surmounted by three towers. These commanded the road and the way to the gate and the Tibetans rained down fire on anyone who attempted to use the road.
Impasse set in. How could the sepoys, with their new British colleagues, the Fusiliers, get up there?
Fonthill had only been involved in the original diversionary movement, leading one company of his Mounted Infantry to make the feint to the north. Now, tired because of little sleep, he and Jenkins wandered round to where the main force was congregated at the southern end of the rock.
There, he met an old friend from the Pathan Revolt on the North-West Frontier, Colonel Campbell of the 40th Pathans, who was in charge of the storming parties.
‘Why are we stuck here?’ asked Simon.
‘Old Mac doesn’t seem to know what the hell to do next,’ growled Campbell. ‘But I’ll be damned if I’m going to let him keep my men sitting on their arses down here under this sun all day. Can’t move without his orders, though.’
‘Can you see any way up?’
‘Not really. Can you?’
‘There might be a way on the eastern corner. I’ve just walked round there. Come and have a look.’
The two men, with Jenkins tagging behind, constantly wiping his forehead with a dirty handkerchief, walked round the base of the rock, close enough to the face to avoid sniping and dodging stones that were occasionally hurled at them from up above. They eventually came to the eastern face of the rock, where the artillery fire had reduced two walls at the base of the fort itself to rubble, the second and highest of which was still being stoutly defended by a band of Tibetans. Below that wall, however, the rock face was not so sheer as elsewhere and stony projections protruded which might, just might, offer help to skilled climbers.
Fonthill pointed. ‘What do you think?’
Campbell wrinkled his nose. ‘My Pathans would never get up there,’ he muttered, ‘but Gurkhas just might.’
‘From what I’ve seen so far,’ said Simon, ‘I’d back Gurkhas in full battle order to climb Everest.’
‘Right, I’ll suggest to the General that he gives that a try. Or … your idea … would you rather put it to him?’
Fonthill grinned. ‘Good lord, no. I’m not a Regular. I’m just a part-time horseman, beyond the pale. You go and get the glory.’
‘No glory in it, old man. I’m certainly not going to shin up there meself.’
Simon and Jenkins watched the Colonel stride away, casting a wary eye upwards. ‘Good idea,’ said the Welshman. ‘I was just goin’ to suggest it myself but then I thought you’d say that I should lead the climbin’.’
‘You can still go up, if you want to lead.’
‘No thank you. I’ve been up all night and I might nod off, ’angin’ on with one ’and, see. An’ that would set a bad example, look you.’
The two dodged back to rejoin the Fusiliers grouped amongst the rubble. Very soon the artillery opened up again, but this time concentrating on the Tibetans manning the highest of the two semi-ruined walls that formed the base of the fort’s defences. The guns were laid with accuracy and soon a black hole appeared in the wall. Then, from deep inside the fort, came a dull explosion.
‘We’ve hit a powder magazine,’ declared Fonthill.
Yet the explosion seemed to have done nothing to diminish the weight of the Tibetans’ fire. Even so, the bang seemed to be the signal for two companies, one from the 8th Gurkhas and one from the Royal Fusiliers, to charge across the patch of open ground between the village ruins and the base of the rock, and begin to climb.
‘Splendid,’ breathed Simon, ‘Mac’s bought the idea.’
As they watched, it became clear that the Gurkhas were easily outdistancing the Fusiliers. To protect the climbers, the guns still concentrated on the defenders up above but this was counterproductive, for the shells dislodged large lumps of rock and masonry that bounced down the almost precipitous face, hitting some of the little men in the lead and sending them plunging to the ground below.
Then the guns stopped and immediately enfilading fire opened up on the climbers from turrets on either flank and the defenders at the ruined wall reappeared and began hurling rocks at them. But the Gurkhas hung on and it became clear to the anxious watchers below that they were being led by a young English subaltern, Lieutenant John Grant, now climbing hand over hand and being followed by his Gurkha havildar, Karbir Pun.
A cheer rang out when it was seen that they had reached a point just below the black hole. Here the Gurkhas grouped for a moment but further progress could only be made by one man at a time, crawling on hands and knees. So Grant hauled himself up and was about to enter the breach when he was hit by a bullet and almost simultaneously another hit the havildar. A groan went up from the watchers as both men slid down the rock for about thirty feet. It was immediately followed by another cheer as the officer and the havildar immediately picked themselves up and began, agonisingly, to climb again.
They reached the gaping cavern and disappeared within it, followed hard on their heels by the waiting riflemen.
Immediately, figures high up above were seen dodging away from the battlements, others were seen running to the north and others began sliding down ropes seeking shelter in the warren of buildings there that had so far escaped the shelling.
‘My God!’ cried Fonthill. ‘We’ve done it. We’ve recaptured the fort.’ He turned to Jenkins. ‘What would we do without those magnificent Gurkhas!’
The Welshman sniffed. ‘Lose bloody wars, that’s what. They’re tough as nuts and real fighters, so they are.’
‘Come on, I must go and see the General. He will probably want us to pursue the retreating soldiers and run them down. It’s what I hate doing, but it’s our bloody job, I suppose. Come on, Sergeant Major, smartly now.’
They half ran, half trotted in the hot sun to the hamlet of Palla, where Macdonald had his headquarters. They found the General on a rooftop, inspecting the fort with a telescope.
‘Congratulations, General,’ said Fonthill. ‘The fort is yours. Do you want the Mounted Infantry to pursue the fleeing Tibetans?’
Macdonald wheezed, took the cigarette from his mouth and shook his head. ‘Thank you, Fonthill, but I think not. I don’t want to take on loads of prisoners again and I think we’ve done enough for one day.’
He turned and gestured to where a large Union Jack was being pulled up the flagstaff on top of the highest tower, there to flutter in the breeze. The General put his eye to the telescope again and muttered, half to himself, ‘Yes, we’ve stormed the fort and the road to Lhasa now really is open – if we want to take it, that is …’ His voice fell away almost to a whisper.
Fonthill nodded, relieved that he was not being asked to undertake a sabre-swinging pursuit, and turned away to find Jenkins waiting at the bottom of the stairs.
‘Let’s get out of here,’ he said ‘and find Alice.’
‘Yes. I’ll make us all a nice cup of tea. Victorious warriors deserve at least that, I’d say, particularly them that ’ave been up all day, like.’
On their way, however, they were met by a Royal Fusilier warrant officer, pulling along a bedraggled Sunil and carrying the youth’s rifle.
‘Ah sir,’ he cried. ‘Glad I’ve found you. I believe this lad belongs to you, sort of, anyway.’
‘Sort of, Sergeant Major, yes. Where did you find him?’
‘He was among the ruins below the rock taking potshots at the Tibetans on the ramparts with this Lee Metford. He must have stolen it.’
‘No, I did not steal,’ shouted Sunil.
‘No mate,’ Jenkins intervened. ‘It’s his own. I’ve been teaching him to shoot.’
‘Well, Taffy,’ said the Sergeant Major, ‘You’ve done a bloody good job, I’d say. While I was watchin’ him, I saw him hit two of the blokes on the top. Very good shooting, indeed. And they’re his own people, by the look of it.’
Sunil’s face was now a dark purple. ‘No, not my people. Not proper Tibetans. They Khampas. Not from here. Nasty people but fierce warriors. I happy to kill them.’
The Sergeant Major nodded. ‘Ah, from what I’ve heard, they’re the lot who gave you all a hard time in taking Palla, before we arrived. Well, if this lad wants to be a British soldier, I’ll warrant the Fusiliers will take him.’
‘Thank you, Sergeant Major.’ Fonthill offered his hand to the old soldier, who paused for a second, unused to such a social gesture from a senior officer, and then shook it. ‘We’ll take the boy. I think we all deserve a cup of tea.’
‘Right sir.’ The warrant officer saluted smartly. ‘I don’t think I’ll need you to sign a chit for safe receipt. Goodbye, marksman. Maybe we’ll see you in the Fusiliers yet.’
Sunil glared at the back of the departing soldier. ‘What is Fusiliers?’ he asked.
Jenkins sniffed. ‘Ah, very, very ordinary soldiers, Sunshine. They’re not Welsh, y’see. Not proper soldiers like the old 24th of Foot. Now they—’
Fonthill interrupted smartly. ‘Come on, Sunil. Let’s go and find Alice.’
CHAPTER NINE
The following day it was announced that Lieutenant Grant had been recommended for the Victoria Cross and his havildar the Indian Order of Merit, first class – sepoys were not eligible to receive the Cross – and the General led a small force round the back of the fort to clear out the town and the monastic complex there. No further opposition was found and it was clear that what remained of the Tibetan army and the civilian population of the Gyantse had fled along the road to Lhasa. A search of the monastery, however, revealed 3,000 pounds of atta, or ground flour – a much prized addition to the expedition’s dwindling food supplies. While some of the officers and men took part in strictly illegal looting of the fort, others were given the melancholic task of burying the dead.
Once again, the cost of the attack on the Tibetans was remarkably small: just three dead and seventeen wounded. And, as always, the intensity of the British firepower showed in the far greater number of defenders killed and wounded. As F Company of the Royal Fusiliers marched up to the fort to take over guard duty there they passed ‘dead Tibetans lying in heaps’.
Ever assiduous in her reporting of the losses of both sides, Alice strode up with the Fusiliers. She stumbled upon a trench which ran the whole length of the fort and which was full of the dead defenders who must have been caught by overhead bursts of shrapnel as they sought to flee. Putting a handkerchief to her nose she carefully noted the methods used by captured prisoners to drag the dead away.
‘They tie two ropes to the heels,’ she scribbled, ‘and two men pull while a third lifts the head by the pigtail. So the corpses are carried away.’
Later, she walked to where the monastery buildings had been demolished and picked her way delicately over a line of corpses: those of warriors from the Kham country whom she identified by what Sunil had told her about their giant physiques and long hair: ‘glorious in death,’ she wrote, ‘lying as they fell with their crude weapons at their side and usually with a peaceful, patient look on their faces.’
She sent her despatch back down the line to be cabled to The Morning Post in London, sparing none of the details of the losses born by the Tibetans. Nor could she refrain from hinting at the breaking of the General’s orders that no looting was to be permitted either in the ruins of the monasteries or in the fort itself.
‘This expedition is becoming a disgrace,’ she confided to Simon as they sat in their tiny room in the mission headquarters. ‘The censor will probably strike out much of what I have written, but I don’t think I can stand much more of the slaughter of these peoples and the desecration that civilised men in our army – and I speak of the British, not the sepoys – are doing to sacred sites here.’
Fonthill sighed. ‘You know as well as I do, darling, that if the Tibetans continue to oppose us, there will be more killing – on both sides. And as for the pillaging, well, I suppose it is a sort of tradition in the army: the privilege of the victors, if you like. Wellington probably began it in recent times and Gordon certainly continued it in China.’
‘Privilege be damned, Simon. It’s against army law and as for any further killing by machine guns and artillery against muskets, I have got to think of some way of stopping it now. It simply can’t go on.’
‘I don’t think there is anything you can do, my love. Anyway, the good news is that Lhasa is virtually within our reach now. It’s about a 150 miles away and the rumour is that Y has received a message from India giving permission at last to march on the capital and, if necessary, to winter there and iron out a treaty with the Dalai Lama and his henchmen. I am told that there are plenty of monasteries lining the route and that we shall be able to buy grain from them and more or less live off the country, although we must give assurances that we shall not occupy them.’
‘Nor loot them, I hope!’
Alice looked affectionately at her husband. Despite the fact that he was nearing fifty, this hard-riding life with his mounted Sikhs and Gurkhas was undoubtedly suiting him. He had lost weight and his body was hard and trim; his face and the backs of his hands were burnt dark brown by the sun and wind; and, although he wore a piratical fur hat most of the time he was in the saddle, somehow his brown hair had become bleached in the thin air to a rather becoming blonde. He was – and she hugged the thought to herself – now a very handsome, middle-aged man.
Then she frowned. But had he reverted to becoming a professional soldier again: a give-no-quarter, sabre-wielding, hunter-down of fleeing peasants? He was undoubtedly enjoying himself, as he had on the South African veldt only three years ago as he pursued those elusive Boer generals. And he was always quick to defend Younghusband and Macdonald in the face of her criticisms.
Alice sighed. Her resourceful, brave husband had always had a gentle, liberal side to him. She only hoped now that he had not lost that, here among the cold, ice-tipped mountains of Tibet.
On 14th July, under a heavy downpour that marked the beginning of the summer monsoon in India, the British force marched eastwards out of Gyentse on what everyone felt was the last lap to the Tibetan capital. Throughout the armed force, the general feeling was of hope that there would be no further attempt to delay the march by the Tibetans seeking to negotiate en route, for even the sepoys were now anxious to enter the fabled city of Lhasa.
It had been agreed between Younghusband and Macdonald that this last lap should be covered as speedily as possible, for the full column, with its supplies, could now stretch back, marching on a single-track file, a vulnerable seven miles in all. The column’s flock of sheep had become a major nuisance, slowing the marching men down as they waded through the bleating animals, so they were left to straggle behind, much to the relief of the troops who had all become heartily sick of the stringy mutton and lamb, likened to ‘pian
o wire’.
So it was a slimmed-down force – reduced, apart from the need for speed, by the necessity of leaving a garrison at Gyantse – that set off through the rain. Even so, it now included 91 British officers, 521 British NCOs and other ranks, 32 Indian native officers, 1,966 Indian and Nepali sepoys or riflemen, and approximately 1,500 orderlies, porters, transport drivers and other camp followers – in all, just over 4,000 men.
‘Well,’ observed Jenkins, ‘it’s got to be bloody obvious to even the most blind chink-eyed Tibbo that we mean business now. P’raps they won’t be building any more walls in the mountains to stop us.’
That proved to be a pious hope, for, scouting ahead as usual with his two companies of Mounted Infantry – now a supremely confident, grinning ragged bunch of rough riders, looking more like brigands than soldiers – Fonthill rode cautiously up to the scene of the battle at Karo La and found that the Tibetans had strengthened their old position and were manning it once more. A second wall had been built behind the first and new sangars had been erected, even higher up the mountainside than before, to protect both flanks.
Riding back to report, however, the horsemen captured a convoy of 130 loaded yaks, together with several prisoners, which put the men in even better heart than before.
Macdonald decided to attack at once and moved into the defile on 17th July, advancing on the wall and sending up his Gurkhas once more, scrambling up the mountainsides to attack the sangars. These returned but little fire this time and these key positions were abandoned, causing the main defenders of the wall to retreat without firing a shot.
‘They’ve had enough of our firepower to stand up to it again,’ said Ottley. ‘Once bitten twice shy.’
Once again it was decided, much to Fonthill’s relief, that it would be useless for the Mounted Infantry to attempt to ride down the retreating Tibetans, for it would take at least a day to dismantle both walls. So it was a leisurely army that eventually debouched from Karo La and found itself looking down on a great and remote basin, filled by an immense lake. It was found to be drinkable, not salted, and its swampy shore was dotted by half-ruined castles from which screeching redshanks rose in protest as the troops ambled towards them. The lake’s colour was deliciously soothing to foreign eyes accustomed to the grey shale and dirty snow of the mountains.
