Sacred Mountain (21 page)

They stopped after another hour in the lee of a small cliff. Within minutes the men had a small fire burning and some water boiling for tea. Philip had always marvelled in the jungle how quickly the men could conjure a brew, however wet the weather. He sat watching with his back against the rock. He’d carefully removed his gloves and was now working on his fingers in an attempt to get some circulation back. He blew on them, flexing each finger, rubbing and wringing them in turn before sitting with hands squeezed tightly together as the agony of returning blood made the bones in the fingers ache.

Mani came over with a mug of strong, sweet tea which he gratefully took, nodding his thanks and sitting with it clasped in his hands. He could feel the heat burning into his palms, the tips of his fingers throbbing. He raised the mug to his lips and gulped the liquid greedily, ignoring the pain from his lips. He felt it searing his mouth and tongue, relishing the sensation of heat. Gulping down the rest of the drink he returned the mug to the men tending the fire.

He felt stronger, the sugar from the tea strengthening his body and resolve. Stamping his feet he tried to restore some feeling in them but without success. They’d have to wait, he thought grimly, until there was time to examine and warm them properly. He had, he noticed, been served his drink first and not wanting the men to feel hurried he turned and slowly made his way up a moraine slope that ran up the side of the valley. Since crossing the Nangpa la the snow had stopped and the cloud lifted, giving better visibility, even if the wind still blew bitterly into their faces.

He’d gone about fifty feet up the valley side when he found a small outcrop of rock he could perch on, glad to have found somewhere stable to prop him up as he tried to catch his breath. Looking around he was amazed at how the terrain had changed. On the Nepal side there’d been forest and scrub high up the valley until it was finally buried by the ice of the glacier and the thick snows that blanketed the entire upper valley. Here there was nothing but ice and rock. Looking down the valley he could see the tumbling glacier of white and blue, framed as far as the eye could see by the black and grey of the valley walls on either side. This was Tibet, its high plateaux kept barren by the freezing temperatures and the bitter winds that swept across its endless, arid plain.

He squinted, looking down the valley for any sign of movement. He could see nothing, partly because his eyes filled with tears as the breeze blew fine dust into his face. After rubbing his eyes clear he scrambled back down the slope to where the men had finished their brew and were packed to depart. Without a word they moved out, moving at a faster pace that, invigorated by the tea, Philip was comfortable with for a while. But he knew he was getting tired. His concentration kept wandering which resulted in a couple of stumbles he only just managed to recover. He’d always been amazed by the stamina of Gurkhas, they seemed to just keep on going, accepting and adapting to whatever situation they were in. He’d often wished for the same strength during his time in Burma and he did again now.

Without warning the trail contoured around a small ridge that jutted out into the valley and down below they could see Mingma and Prem. Their packs were lying on a silt beach beside a large pool fed by a stream that tumbled down the mountain side, before overflowing and disappearing under the glacier. They were both searching around, looking he guessed for anything that would burn. There was already a small pile of dead scrub and yak dung neatly stacked in the lea of some rocks. The weary column dropped down to join them and as soon as they arrived the Gurkhas collected the pieces of the tent from everyone’s baggage and started to erect it. Mingma set about creating a stone hearth and dispatched any spare men off to find more fuel.

Philip, Prem and Lhamu rolled three rounded boulders over to where it was going to be and sat wearily upon them, Tashi collapsing exhausted onto the beach beside them.

“Did you spot them?” Philip asked, trying to sound interested when all that he could really think about was removing his frozen feet from his sodden boots.

Mingma nodded, lighting some dry kindling he’d taken from his pack. “They are less than an hour ahead and already camped.” He looked at his watch. “That was a couple of hours ago so they must have been exhausted to camp so early. They must have spent last night high on the pass. It will have been freezing.”

“They have several men in a bad way,” Prem added. “I saw a couple using their rifles as crutches and one was lying down being bandaged.”

Philip sat starring into the small crackling fire that Mingmo was coaxing into life, almost too weary to think.

“So they’re within striking range. We just have to decide on what’s the best way to tackle them.” He grimaced as he rubbed his feet and felt blood slowly forcing its way back into them.

He looked at Lhamu. “Where do you think they’re headed?”

She shrugged. “It is hard to say. I think they will continue north. The trail gets easier as you drop out of the mountains. In three days they will hit the main caravan route between Kathmandu and Lhasa. I think they will have some transport waiting there or will steal some ponies.” Philip nodded. “We’ll start before dawn and attack them while they’re still asleep. They’ll be exhausted and disorientated, and in the dark their guns won’t be as effective as our knives.”

He glanced at Prem. “Can you tell the men?” He nodded towards his feet. “If I stay here all night they might just about be thawed in time for the fun tomorrow.”

Prem stood up and smiled. “Makes a change from tropical sores and leeches.”

Chapter 14

Burma, 1943

Philip cautiously approached the hut. It seemed deserted, not a sound to be heard above the noises of the jungle that had started again after the shooting. Perhaps the villagers had fled when they heard the gunfire. He hoped not. They still needed food and without them they’d never find out where it was hidden.

There was a flash and the air by his left cheek fizzed, followed by the shark crack of a gunshot. He threw himself down, landing with a thump on the hard, dusty ground and rolling forward. He gasped in a couple of breaths, spitting out the dust that had clogged his mouth and rubbing it from his eyes. Peering back he realised that he was the nearest to the hut, his dive having taken him close enough to be out of the line of fire.

“Stay down,” he hissed back into the night before squirming his way forward on his belly, keeping as low as possible.

More shots rang out. Looking back he could see how exposed Prem and the other Gurkhas were. They’d been caught in the open, with only the darkness of the night preventing them from being easy targets. It fell silent again and he could hear them scrambling back to safety behind the tall stone shrine which was the nearest cover. A short burst of machine gunfire rattled out and tiny plumes of dirt were kicked up as the bullets danced around them, others ricocheting off into the night from the stone shrine walls. The moon slowly emerged from behind some heavy storm clouds that had been building all day. It bathed the village in an eerie light strong enough to throw ghostly shadows all around and Philip realised that the others were pinned down, unable to move without being seen. He was the only one who could act.

He scrambled to where a thick teak post was driven into the earth, one of the main supports for the hut that loomed over him. The pungent smell of pig muck stung his nose and he could hear panicked squealing from the darkness beneath the building. Leaning against the wood he fumbled for his belt, groping for the smooth metal texture of a grenade. Wrenching one free he clasped it to his chest, removing the pin while keeping the spoon held tightly down. It was a five second fuse. If he threw it immediately there was the chance that it might be picked up and thrown back. He spun up onto his knees and released the spoon.

He took deep, steady breaths to calm himself. He was standing deep in the outfield of a manicured cricket pitch, the ball racing towards him. In one movement he would stoop, pick it up and throw it back like an arrow. It would smack into the wicketkeepers gloves, hitting their toughened leather exactly as he counted five. He was good at this. He’d done it thousands of times on the pitches at school.

On two he stood and peered over the veranda. It was about level with his head and set back about ten feet was the front wall of the hut itself. There was a small window, no more than a gap in the matting, through which two rifles protruded. In one fluid flick of the arm he threw the grenade as he reached three. One of the rifles fired and in the flash he glimpsed the dull sheen of the grenade as spun past the barrel and disappeared into the void of the window. Too late he turned to throw himself down as the blast of the explosion lifted him and drove him hard into the dirt, winding him with the impact. Debris rained down, a bamboo rafter landing painfully across his back, followed by smaller pieces of wood and then stems of dried grass and leaves that smouldered and glowed.

His ears were ringing, his lungs clogged once more with dust and now smoke. He pulled his knees up under his body, trying to pull air back into his lungs. He could smell burnt flesh, pork meat he guessed, and made a note to get some of it before they left the village. He shook his head to clear his ears and wiped his mouth on his sleeve, blood smearing across the material.

A hand grasped him under the arm and hauled him to his feet. He turned and saw Prem looking at him, glancing him up and down to check for injuries. Satisfied there were none, the Gurkha nodded and turned back to the others who’d emerged from behind the shrine and surrounding bush. They lifted the ladder back in place and climbed silently into the shell of the hut.

Philip looked around, still dazed, and stooped to retrieve his revolver which lay on the ground. He climbed the log ladder after his men, almost falling as it shifted sharply to one side but managing to scramble onto the platform. The hut had almost totally gone, its light construction obliterated by the explosion. A few hard teak posts still stood, some connected by beams from which hung fragments of the woven leaf matting that had made up the walls.

He walked to where the door had been, its broken frame now the only thing remaining, and stepped inside. The interior was still thick with smoke but to his left he saw the bodies of two Japanese soldiers, thrown forward by the blast, which looked to have happened while the grenade was still tumbling through the air. Half buried in the debris, their legs stuck out naked where their trouser legs had been ripped away, twisted into unnatural angles. One boot had been blown off, taking the foot with it and leaving a bloody stump clogged with dust.

The smoke and dust were slowly clearing, and as Philip turned to look it revealed a scene of utter devastation. Philip stood paralysed, unable to comprehend what was before him, before turning and vomiting over the legs of the dead soldiers. The retching had cleared his ears of the pressure of the explosion and the sounds of moaning and weeping swept over him. He slowly turned back, his chest so tight he couldn’t breathe. There were bodies everywhere. It looked as if the whole village had been crammed into this one hut by the Japanese, presumably to stop them slipping away to warn them of their presence.

Looking down he saw the body of a young Burmese boy, little more than six or seven years old. His left leg was twisted back on itself at the knee. His arms were thrown back above his head with several fingers missing from each hand. Blood slowly seeping from the torn stumps and disappeared through gaps in the rough wooden floor. His eyes were still open, staring blankly up at the moon whose rays fell through the non-existent roof and caught the smoke still rising from his singed and burnt hair. Philip knelt, fearing that his legs might give way beneath him, and reached out his trembling hand gently closed the boys eyes. He felt himself going numb, his mind detaching itself from his consciousness as shock washed through him.

Glancing around he saw the bodies of other villagers, who must have been standing directly under the blast. The bodies were a jumble, an unrecognisable mass of flesh, cloth and bone. Others sat or lay on the floor, perforated with small shrapnel wounds to their faces and necks or with splinters of jagged wood protruding from their bodies. Most bled from their ears after the enclosed blast had shredded their ear drums.

He watched as Prem made his way through the bodies towards him and crouched beside him.

“We’ve found Balbir. He was in a room at the back. He should be strong enough to come with us. The villagers had bound his wounds before,” he looked around, “before the explosion. He’ll be able to walk when he gets circulation back into his legs. The Japs had tied him up tight.”

Philip nodded, trying to think. “Help him out and then get back to where we left the packs. Rana will show you the way.” He looked around the hut. “We know they’d radioed their HQ and after this I expect every Jap in Burma is heading this way.”

Prem nodded and stood, ordering the Gurkhas out of the hut with a curt order in Nepalese. They left quickly, one of them supporting Balbir, keen to leave the carnage. They carefully lowered him off the edge of the veranda into the waiting hands of those who’d been on watch outside, before jumping down and disappearing off into the darkness.

Philip stood alone. The flames were now subsiding and everything was fading into darkness. The villagers who’d escaped the worst injuries were starting to wander around, staring in disbelief at what surrounded them. He heard a woman cry out in anguish and run over to the boy at his feet, collapsing onto it and hugging the broken body to her. Her weeping and torrent of desperate words made Philip despair, holding his head in his hands.

Why had he tossed the grenade? His men had scrambled to safety and he could have climbed onto the veranda unnoticed and shot through the opening. He could have joined the pigs under the hut, looking silently up from the darkness beneath to shoot through the uneven flooring at the guards. For Christ’s sake he could just as easily have killed Balbir as the Japs as he’d no idea where the injured man had been in the hut. All he could hear was silent weeping and the moaning of the wounded. It was his fault. He had to get out. He couldn’t bear to listen any longer to the consequences of what he’d done.

As he turned towards the door he heard a small whimper of pain. Taking a couple of faltering steps, towards a pile of singed grass thatch laying in the corner, he gingerly pushed it aside. In the moonlight a beautiful young woman lay motionless, staring up at him. Her long black hair fanned out behind her head on the floor and framed the pale white of her skin. Her face was perfect, unblemished, with large brown eyes and a small, full mouth. She reminded Philip of one of his sisters china dolls she’d used to carry everywhere when still young; delicate, as if she could shatter at any moment. The eyes focused on his face and he saw the face crease with a combination of pain and fear. Glancing down at her body he could see no sign of an injury but noticed a large stain of blood spreading on the floor beneath.

“Hello,” he said quietly, kneeling by her side. “You seem to have been in the wars. Will you let me have a look at you?”

The woman didn’t move, only her eyes following Philips movements.

Gently he felt the woman’s shoulders and head, trying to find the source of the bleeding. Nothing. The front of her abdomen looked fine so he carefully ran his fingers behind her shoulders and sides. As he felt beneath her upper arm he could feel the flow of hot, sticky blood, pumping rhythmically onto his fingers.

“I’m just going to move you slightly to see where it is that you’re hurt,” he said, trying to make his voice sound reassuring and sliding his hands beneath her shoulder and waist, gently raised her up. He knew immediately it was hopeless. In the centre of her back was a hole; protruding from it a huge splinter of hardened bamboo. It was half embedded in her spine, the rest lost in a bloody pit from which blood pumped. She hadn’t moved when she’d seen him because she hadn’t been able. She was paralysed. He could see air bubbling through the wound and knew it’d pierced her lungs.

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a dose of morphine, ripping it from its wrapping. He’d been trained before the campaign had started in giving lethal injections, knowing that there’d be no evacuation possible for seriously injured men and a quick end was a better than a painful, lonely death in the jungle.

“Here we go,” he said, his voice cracking. “This will take away the pain.” A tear ran from his eye, landing on her tiny hand. Lifting the woman’s arm he searched for a vein and quickly stabbed in the drug. Throwing the empty container away he stayed, gently squeezing the woman’s hand. After a few moments she felt her weakly grasp his back. “I’m not going anywhere,” he said quietly, “I’ll stay with you.”

The morphine acted quickly but to Philip it felt like an eternity. Finally her eyes started to lose their focus and slowly close. Gently he placed her hand on her chest and lowered his head, his eyes clamped shut to prevent more tears. He felt he should pray but had no words to use. It seemed wrong to pray for someone you’d just murdered.

His mind lurched as a bright light flashed through his eyelids. Forcing them open he watched bemused as a thin beam of light moved around the hut, shining through the rips and holes in the shattered walls. Glancing out, he could see a wall of distant torches sweeping towards the village. Japs. He struggled to his feet, trying to think what to do. It must have been at least a couple of minutes since Prem had left with the men. He could jump down behind the hut and run for the forest. He glanced out again and realised that his chances of getting away, unspotted, were slim. Even if he did, it would take him time to work his way around the village and fields back to the rendezvous, time his men could better use.

He glanced around the hut. He couldn’t stay here. If he fired they would pinpoint his position and god knows how many more villagers would be killed when they returned fire. For the first time in days he felt calm, certain of what he had to do to save his men.

Moving to where the dead Japanese lay he searched the floor, groping with his hands until they felt the hot barrel of the machine gun. A quick examination showed it to be undamaged, shielded from the blast by the body of its user. Scrabbling around he found a couple of belts of ammo and slung them around his shoulders. Crossing to the furthest wall he crouched and waited out of sight behind some debris. For a moment the torches swung away and seizing the moment he leapt through a shredded wall and ran in a crouch towards the shrine, diving behind it just as a beam swept back across the clearing.

He lay there panting, listening for any indication that he’d been spotted. When none came he clambered up onto the first ledge, then the next of the stepped structure until he was ten feet or so above the ground. Sitting with his back to the shrines rock pinnacle he loaded the gun. It felt good to have it in his hands. After all the skulking around of the previous weeks it was a relief to finally have an enemy you could see.