Jack Higgins - Chavasse 02 by Year of the Tiger Page A

of grenades. It’s all I could manage. We’ve just come from Kerensky. He wants to fly to Leh this afternoon. Is that all right with you?”
    Joro nodded. “I see no reason for delay if Mr. Chavasse is ready.”
    â€œIf the weather is good, Kerensky wants to try for Rudok tonight,” Chavasse said, “so we haven’t got much time. You’d better fill me in on a few things. What’s the general state of affairs in western Tibet?”
    â€œVery different from the rest of the country. The Chinese have built a road to link Gartok and Yarkand through the disputed territory of the Aksai Chin Plateau, which they claim from India, but there is little traffic. The area is the most sparsely populated part of Tibet, and they onlycontrol the villages and towns, and not all of those.”
    â€œSo there’s been some local resistance?”
    Joro smiled faintly. “Most of my people are herdsmen who move constantly with their flocks, hard mountaineers who do not take kindly to Chinese brutality. What would you expect?”
    â€œI thought that as Buddhists, the Tibetans were generally against any kind of violence?” Ferguson remarked.
    â€œThat was true once,” Joro said grimly, “but then the Reds came to butcher our young men and defile our women. Before the Lord Buddha brought the way of peace to us, we Tibetans were warriors. The Chinese have made us warriors again.”
    â€œHe’s right,” Chavasse told Ferguson. “When I was in the south, even the monks were fighting.”
    â€œThat is so,” Joro said. “Near Rudok at the monastery of Yalung Gompa we shall find many friends. The monks will help us in any way they can.”
    â€œNow tell me about Hoffner,” Chavasse said. “What shape was he in when you last saw him?”
    â€œHe had been very ill. That was why I went to see him. I told him I intended to visit Kashmir and he asked me to take the letter for him.”
    â€œHe’s not closely guarded then?”
    Joro shook his head. “He is allowed to continue living in his old house at Changu, which isan ancient walled town of perhaps five thousand people. The Chinese commandant for the entire area lives there, Colonel Li.”
    â€œAnd Hoffner is confined to his house?”
    â€œHe occasionally walked in the streets, but he is forbidden to leave the town.” Joro shrugged. “They don’t bother to guard him closely, if that’s what you want to know. Where would he go, a frail old man?”
    â€œThat means we can probably work something out without too much difficulty,” Chavasse said. “After all, we’ll only have to get him from Changu to this landing ground you’ve found near Rudok, and then Kerensky can take over.”
    â€œThere may be difficulties you have not foreseen,” Juro said. “For instance, there is Hoffner’s housekeeper. She may prove awkward. She was not there on the last occasion I saw Hoffner, but I believe she is still with him, and I don’t trust her.”
    â€œWhy not?” Chavasse asked.
    â€œFor the best of all possible reasons,” Joro told him. “She is Chinese—or rather her mother was. Her father was Russian, which is as bad. Her name is Katya Stranoff. She had been travelling with her father from Sinkiang to Lhasa, and he died on the way.”
    â€œAnd Hoffner took her in?”
    Joro nodded. “It is his great fault that he must always help others, no matter what the cost to himself.”
    Chavasse thought about it for a moment, a frown on his face. Finally he said, “What it comes down to is this: You don’t trust her, but you’ve nothing concrete to go on. For all we know, she may be perfectly harmless?”
    â€œThat is so,” Joro said reluctantly.
    â€œThen we’ll have to take a chance on her. When we get to the monastery, you’ll have to go to Changu anyway to spy out the land for