‘But what happens after?’ Piroo demanded. ‘You’ll be all alone out there on foot.’
‘Hopefully Hamid will ride back for me.’
There was a long silence; all the officers exchanged glances. The Colonel looked down at the map, drumming his fingers on it. He glanced up.
‘You would do this, Lieutenant?’ he asked Piroo.
‘My pleasure, Colonel.’
‘Madness,’ Ram Singh said. ‘Total madness.’ Suddenly he smiled. ‘We’d better get cracking, Mr Chavasse. Not much time.’
* * *
Ram Singh said, ‘A very simple explosive, Mr Chavasse.’ He opened an army haversack and produced one of several dark-green blocks. ‘We get it from the French Army.’
‘Plastique,’ Chavasse said.
‘Totally harmless until used in conjunction with one of these timer pencils.’ He held a few up. ‘Five-minute fuses, but the two with yellow ends are two minutes.’
Chavasse took the haversack on his back and pushed his arms through the straps. One of the officers helped him into a parachute, another gave him a Sten-gun with two magazines taped together which he draped across his chest.
Ram Singh picked up a weighted signal can with a great scarlet streamer attached to it. ‘The message for Major Hamid. It tells him exactly what you intend.’ Ram Singh put a hand on Chavasse’s shoulder. ‘I hope he finds it possible to, how shall I put it, to retrieve you, my friend?’
‘He’s a Pathan,’ Chavasse said simply. ‘You know what they’re like. He’d walk into the jaws of hell just to have a look.’ He smiled. ‘I’d better get moving.’
Ram Singh pulled on a parka and led the way out. It was snowing a little, loose flakes on the wind and very cold. They crossed to the Navajo, where Piroo already had the engines warming up. Chavasse paused at the bottom of the Airstair door and Ram Singh shook hands and saluted.
‘As God wills, my friend.’
Chavasse smiled, went up the steps and pushed the door shut. Piroo glanced over his shoulder, boosted power and they roared along the airstrip and lifted off.
In spite of the layers of clothing he wore, Chavasse was cold – very cold – and he found breathing difficult. He looked out of the window to a landscape as barren as the moon, snow-covered peaks on either side. Now and then they dropped sickeningly in an air pocket and were constantly buffeted by strong winds.
Piroo glanced over his shoulder and shouted above the roar of the engines.
‘I’ll curve round to the gorge first. Let’s make sure the Chinese are still on the other side before we communicate with Hamid.’
‘Fine,’ Chavasse told him.
They entered low cloud which enveloped them for five minutes, came out on the other side and there was the gorge below, the bridge in clear view. Even clearer was the Chinese column perhaps a quarter of a mile on the other side, racing towards the bridge very fast over what was at that point a flat plain.
‘No time to hang around. They’ll be at the bridge in ten minutes,’ Chavasse shouted. ‘I’m on my way. Take me down to five hundred.’
Piroo dropped the nose, the Navajo went down and levelled out. Chavasse moved awkwardly because of the bulk of his equipment and released the Airstair door. There was a great rush of air. He waited until they were as close to the bridge as possible and tumbled out head first.
Hamid dismounted and waited while one of the Tibetan freedom fighters galloped to where the signal can lay on the snow, the scarlet streamer plain. The man leaned down from the saddle, picked up the can and galloped back.
Hamid was a typical Pathan, a large man, very tall, dark-skinned with a proud look to his bearded face. Behind him the column had stopped as everyone waited. The horseman arrived and handed over the can. Hamid opened it and took out the message and read it. He swore softly.
From behind, a voice called, ‘What is it, Major Hamid?’
The Dalai Lama, covered by sheepskins, lay on a kind of trailer pulled by a horse for he was too ill to ride.
‘It’s from Chavasse.’
‘So he got through?’
‘Unfortunately there’s a Chinese column very close to us on the other side of the Cholo Gorge. It would seem Chavasse has dropped in by parachute in an effort to blow the bridge. I must go to his aid.’
‘I understand,’ the Dalai Lama said.
‘Good. I’ll take two of the escort with me. The rest of you must press on with all possible speed.’
He rode across to one of the carts and picked up a Sten-gun and two magazines which he stuffed into his saddle-bag, then he gave a quick order to two of the Tibetans and galloped away. A few moments later they went after him leading a spare horse.
Chavasse hit the ground heavily perhaps 100 yards from the bridge. He lay there for a moment, winded, then stood up and struggled out of his parachute harness. There was still no sign of the Chinese and he unslung the Sten-gun and ran along the uneven track between outcrops of rock.
It was stupid, of course, such exertion at that altitude, and by the time he reached the bridge, he was gasping for air, his breath like white smoke. He started across and it swayed gently. He got to the centre, took off the haversack and selected a block of plastique, inserted a five-minute timer, lay down and reached over the edge and wedged the explosive into a space between the ends of two struts. He activated the timer, stood up and, at that moment, a Chinese jeep appeared on top of the rise on the other side.
Its machine gun opened up at once. Chavasse ran, the Sten-gun in one hand, the haversack in the other. He reached the end of the bridge, ducked behind one of the supporting posts, found another block of plastique, inserted a yellow two-minute fuse and activated it.
The jeep kept firing, bullets clipping wood from the post. He laid the plastique block down, returned fire with his Sten and a lucky shot knocked one soldier out. The jeep, half-way across the bridge, paused, another just behind it and, on the ridge above, the rest of the column arrived.
‘Just stay there,’ Chavasse prayed and tossed the block of plastique out on to the bridge.
To his horror it actually bounced over the edge where it exploded in space. The jeep started forward, firing relentlessly, followed by the other, and the column moved down on the other side.
Chavasse ran up amongst the rocks, head down, glancing back to see the two jeeps reach firm ground. At that moment and just as the convoy started across, there was a huge explosion. The centre of the bridge twisted up into the air, lengths of timber flying everywhere. The two lead jeeps in the convoy on the other side went with it.
As the reverberations died away there were cries of rage from the Chinese soldiers in the two jeeps which had got across, three left in one and four in the other. They both fired their light machine-guns into the rocks below the escarpment and Chavasse cowered down and opened his haversack. One block
