Treachery in Tibet (12 page)

‘What, walk into the face of that lot? They will be advancing into the muzzles of about 1,000 guns. We shall present an unmissable target. We could be slaughtered.’

Younghusband’s normally placid features twisted further to betray his agony. ‘I know. But I promised that we would not come with aggressive intentions. We must not fire the first shot. Go ahead, Mac. Don’t bring forward the guns, but order the advance and give instructions that the men must not fire until they are fired upon.’

Macdonald whirled round and barked a series of orders to his colonels, who doubled away to their waiting men. Whistles shrieked and, slowly, the khaki line began to move forward towards the waiting guns.

Fonthill swallowed hard. It seemed an act of ridiculous folly, also of courage, comparable to that of the Light Brigade at Balaclava just fifty years before when they charged into the Russian cannon. He mounted his pony and urged it to where his mounted Sikhs were waiting. Turning his head, he caught a glimpse of Alice mounting a rock to get a better view and angrily gestured for her to take cover, but she shook her head defiantly.

He came abreast of Ottley. ‘William, when our chaps reach the wall, we charge round the end of it and to the rear. The orders remain the same, however: don’t fire or use sabres until we meet resistance. We just shepherd those men off the rocks at the back there. If they fire, then we let them have it, but not until. Explain to the men.’

‘Very good, sir.’

Jenkins joined Fonthill and looked down on the troops plodding
forward, keeping their lines perfectly straight as though for The Trooping of the Colour, their regimental colours streaming back in the wind behind the large Union Jack. ‘Bloody ’ell, bach sir,’ he muttered. ‘They’re marchin’ right up to them gun muzzles, look you. ’Ave you ever seen anythin’ like it?’

Still the Tibetans refused to fire and the air of farce was complemented by the sight of the Lhasa general, with his bodyguard and staff, sitting
in front of the wall,
with his back to it, muttering to himself and waiting sullenly, it seemed, for events to take their turn. Had he given any orders? It seemed not.

Eventually, the front rank of the sepoys reached the wall and Simon and Jenkins moved their ponies forward and took their places at the head of the two companies of mounted Sikhs. Fonthill nodded to Ottley, raised his hand and shouted, ‘Charge!’

In an instant they had rounded the end of the wall, where the stone house marked its edge, and were thundering over the stone-hard ground, scattering grey-clad Tibetans to either side as they headed to where figures could be seen peering over the rocks on a spur that jutted out to the right of the trail.

Still no shots were fired at them and they reined in, spreading out below the rocks. Here, for a moment, farce reigned again, as the horsemen sat, steam rising from their steeds, staring at the Tibetans who showed no sign of either firing or moving.

‘Move, you stupid bastards,’ shouted Simon, waving his sabre to indicate that the riflemen should leave the safety of their rocks and come down to the road. The Tibetans stared blankly back at him, so he urged his pony up between the rocks and slapped the nearest man on the back with the flat of his sword, pointing down to the road. He
was aware that Jenkins was by his side, equally shouting and waving.

It was the turning point in the affair. The man, flinched, flung down his matchlock and turning, ran down onto the road. In an instant he was followed by the rest of the Tibetans who straggled down between the rocks onto the trail, some of them still carrying their muskets, but clearly having no intention of using them.

‘That’s it, lads,’ shouted Jenkins, easing his pony down onto the trail. ‘Yes, bugger off.’ He pointed along the track with his sword. ‘That way, you useless lot. Call yourselves soldiers! I’ve seen better in a school playground at Rhyl, look you. Go on. Piss off. No one’s goin’ to ’urt you.’

‘William,’ shouted Simon. ‘Make sure they clear off. Get the men to ensure they dump their weapons and shepherd them back down the trail out of harm’s way. I’m going back to the wall. Come on, 352.’

He looked ahead and realised that hundreds of Tibetans were thronging behind the wall, stretching back to the frozen lake that bordered the road to Guru and, beyond, Gyantse. They were standing, staring and gesticulating. Most of them carried flintlocks or waved long swords, but no shot was fired nor were the swords used menacingly. They appeared, he thought, like a Welsh rugby crowd who disputed the referee’s decision on the field but could do nothing about it.

Up ahead, to his right, he saw sepoys of the 23rd Pioneers and the 8th Gurkhas moving among the sangars, shepherding the musketeers behind the rocks down to the road, like good-natured policemen. There, the Tibetans joined the ranks of the erstwhile defenders of the wall who milled about aimlessly. Now, the rifles of the 23rd Pioneers
were lining the top of the wall, pointing down at the throng and the Maxims were trained on the crowd. But still no shot had been fired.

Fonthill reined in by the stone house and turned to Jenkins. ‘Thank God,’ he exclaimed. ‘This looks as though this has been an absolutely bloodless victory. Younghusband will be delighted.’

He walked his horse to where the head of the mission and his general were standing, in conclave.

‘Gentlemen,’ he called, ‘we have cleared the men off the rocks down the road and looks as though the way ahead to Gyantse is virtually cleared. Congratulations, General.’

‘Hmmm.’ Inevitably, Macdonald had lit a cigarette and he exhaled blue smoke into the clear, cold air. ‘Well done, Fonthill. But this mass behind the wall show no signs of moving nor putting down their weapons. We can’t advance leaving this lot behind us. We must get the men to remove their rifles.’ He turned and gave an order. Immediately, sepoys began moving among the Tibetans attempting to remove their weapons.

It proved to be easier ordered than done. Their guns were obviously the men’s own property, presumably mainly used for hunting, and they were certainly not going to relinquish them to the Indian troops. There were shouts and blows were exchanged as the Tibetans wrestled to retain their guns. All was confusion. Screams of abuse rose and stones were thrown.

It was at this point that the Lhasa general, still on the British side of the wall, decided to mount his pony. He screamed imprecations and forced the horse forward, round the wall, towards the melee. A tall Sikh barred his way and attempted to grab his bridle. The general drew a revolver and shot the sepoy through the jaw.

Immediately, the confusion that had marked the scene before, changed to one of deadly killing. The Pioneers lining the top of the wall opened fire on the crowds below them at point-blank range; volleys rang out from the escarpment above the wall and from the plain to its right; shrapnel from the British guns began to burst above the heads of the Tibetans at the rear of the melee and, most menacingly of all, the rattle of the Maxim was heard in earnest for the first time in Tibet.

Amazingly, the Tibetans, under such close fire, did not break and run. Instead, they turned their backs on the firing and
walked
away from it, with a strange and almost oriental dignity.

‘My God,’ screamed Fonthill, ‘this is a massacre. Order the ceasefire, someone.’ He lifted his voice. ‘Cease firing, damn you! Cease firing!’

But the damage had been done. With only limited ammunition, the infantry, it was later learnt, fired only an average of twelve rounds per man. The two Maxims expended 700 rounds each, enough for just ninety seconds firing each. The Tibetan army, estimated at between 1,000 and 1,500 men, left between 600 and 700 dead on the field, among them their general. It was enough. One hundred and sixty-eight of their wounded were treated by British doctors and only twenty died. The army of the Raj sustained only half a dozen casualties.

When the firing had stopped, Fonthill surveyed the scene, tears in his eyes. ‘There will be hell to pay back home when the news reaches London,’ he muttered. Then, a sudden thought struck him and, calling to Jenkins, he dug in his heels and urged his pony past the wall towards the rear where his men had been urging the Tibetan riflemen along the road, away from the conflict.

He found Ottley on his knees beside several inert Sikh bodies.

The young man looked up, his face ashen. ‘Our bloody shrapnel has killed three of our chaps,’ he said. ‘And we’ve lost two ponies.’ He shook his head. ‘Not from the Tibetans, mind you, Simon. But from our artillery. Damn them. They were firing over the enemy’s heads to the rear. They must surely have known we were here.’

Fonthill dismounted and knelt by his side, putting a hand on the young man’s shoulder. ‘I don’t think they did, William.’ He sighed. ‘It was all panic back there for just five minutes.’ He looked up resignedly to where the mountains towered over them. ‘All the frustration of those months shivering on the plain at Tuna or ploughing through the snow over the passes must have built up and exploded. That’s bloody warfare for you. I think I’ve already had enough of it.’

He rode back and found an ashen-faced and trembling Alice, scribbling away, while Sunil stood over her, his Lee Metford in his hands.

She looked up. ‘Oh Simon, it was a massacre. Some of the Gurkhas were firing at a range of twenty yards down into the mob. I saw them. Machine guns against muskets. Macdonald and Younghusband should be ashamed of themselves.’

Fonthill sighed. ‘Yes, it was a tragedy, darling, but go easy with your report. Younghusband and Mac held off for as long as they could, taking a huge risk in advancing without firing a shot. It was just a horrible accident that it all went wrong. Please be balanced in what you write.’

‘Balanced! I’m lucky to be alive. If it hadn’t been for Sunil here preventing me, I would have run to that bloody wall. Did you know that Candler of the
Daily Mail
was cut down by Tibetan swordsmen?
His hand was completely severed and he received seventeen other wounds. He was only saved by his thick
poshteen
. There but for Sunil go I …’ She burst into tears.

Fonthill dismounted and knelt beside her, putting his hand around her shoulders and pulling her to him. He looked up at Sunil and raised his other hand to him in acknowledgement. He mouthed ‘Well done.’

Alice pushed him away and blew her nose. ‘Sorry to be emotional,’ she sniffed. ‘It’s been a long time since I’ve been close to a massacre. Must be getting old. Now, do leave me to get on with recording these horrible details.’

Simon nodded, stood and, trailing his pony behind him by its reins, walked away to find Jenkins. He found him helping to load the three dead men of the Mounted Infantry onto small wooden carts.

He looked up. ‘Can’t bury these poor buggers,’ he said, ‘because they’re Sikhs. Got to be burnt, it seems, although God knows where we are goin’ to get the wood from.’

‘Any more of our chaps wounded?’

‘Seems not. Captain Ottley is just checking.’

Feeling at a loose end, Fonthill turned and walked with his pony back to the wall. The firing had lasted only a matter of minutes but the carnage was there for all to see. The bodies of the dead Tibetans lay where the volleys had cut them down, sprawled together in a mass of twisted, contorted shapes, alongside their weapons. A long line of bodies lay, marking the line of retreat for half a mile. The biting wind was already beginning to freeze them. Some of the Sikh Pioneers were picking their way between the bodies and applying their own first-aid dressings to the wounded.

He met O’Connor, the Tibetologist, and asked, ‘For God’s sake, Frank, was all this necessary?’

The Captain shook his head sadly. ‘Not the governor’s fault,’ he muttered, ‘nor Mac’s, for that matter.’ He put his hand on Fonthill’s shoulder. ‘You know, old chap, I have studied the ways of Tibetans as best I could for the last few years. Got to know the language, and all. But they are still almost a book of blank pages to me.’

He nodded to where a doctor in the Indian Medical Service was picking his way between the bodies, leading a small team of orderlies, looking for the wounded. ‘Austine Waddell, there, knows ’em much better than me. He’s the principal medical officer of the mission but he’s much more of a Tibetologist than I am. He has always pointed out that just because Buddhism is supposed to be a religion of pacificism, that doesn’t mean that the Tibetan leaders are not militaristic. They have a standing army, for instance, which, with its national territorial backup, hugely outnumbers the men under Mac’s command.

‘The Dalai Lama, of course, does not rule the country. The most powerful figures are the lamas, the monk priests, who have considerable power and run the country entirely in their own interests. This is not the gentle Buddhism of India. This is a Vajrayana form, which consists of idol worship and subjects the people completely to its power.’

He nodded again to where Dr Waddell was kneeling beside a wounded Tibetan. ‘According to Austine, the priests are not even ecclesiastics, they never preach or educate the laity and they keep the country closed in ignorance for their own benefit. They are far more aggressive than the generals. That’s Austine’s view – and I am inclined to agree with him.’

O’Connor wiped the wind-tears from his cheeks. ‘If it had been left to Depon Lhadang, the general who came to talk with us and who, tragically, started this bloody massacre, we could have negotiated, as Younghusband wished, and peacefully marched on to Gyantse or even Lhasa. It was the priests who wouldn’t let him. As a result,’ he jerked his head over his shoulder, ‘we had this stupid stalemate, as dangerous as a tinderbox on Bonfire Night. And, as we saw, it only took a single spark to ignite it.’

He shook his head. ‘Sorry. Got to go. Got to help poor old Y to write his report.’

Fonthill thanked him and, deep in thought, began to lead his pony back to where his men were re-forming. He was stopped by Macdonald.

‘A sad business, Fonthill,’ he said. He looked over Simon’s shoulder to where the trail to Guru led away into the distance. ‘But I’m not sure it’s over yet. You’ve lost some men, I hear.’