“They may not even have one. It’s astonishing how primitive the Chinese can be about some things.” Chavasse shrugged. “In any case, they haven’t much hope of finding us in these steppes.”
“I see,” Hoffner said, frowning. “Do you really think we stand a chance of getting out?”
“People are doing it all the time,” Chavasse told him. “Kashmir is full of refugees. As a matter of fact, the abbot told me a Kazakh family from Sinkiang passed through Yalung Gompa two days ago heading for the border. We might come across them near the pass. They could be a real help on the way through.”
“But I don’t understand,” Hoffner said. “Why should they want to leave Sinkiang? The Kazakhs have lived there for generations.”
“Colonel Li’s really been keeping you in the dark, Doctor,” Chavasse said. “In 1951, the Kazakhs tried to set up their own government. The Chinese called them together to talk things over, and then butchered them.”
Hoffner frowned. “What happened then?”
“They’ve been trying to get out ever since, in large groups and single families. There were still quite a few in Kashmir when I came through, and the Turkish government has settled a lot of them on the Anatolian Plateau.”
“It would seem I’ve been more cut off from the mainstream of events than I had imagined,” Hoffner said rather bitterly. He leaned back in his seat, a frown on his face, and made no further attempt at conversation.
About two hours later it started to snow in great powdery flakes that stuck to the windscreen, prompting Chavasse to switch on the wipers.
They crossed the great military road to Yarkand, and a little while after that Chavasse looked out and saw on his right the lake where Kerensky had landed the Beaver that night which seemed so long ago now.
He wondered if the Pole had made it back to base, and grinned suddenly. There was a man he really wanted to have another drink with.
Suddenly, Katya moaned and stirred and Hoffner touched Chavasse on the shoulder. “She’s waking, Paul.”
Chavasse brought the jeep to a halt and turned quickly. The rose had left her cheeks and beneath the bandage, the face seemed all hollows.
Noting that the great sheepskin coat looked far too big for Katya, he smiled down at her. “Hello, angel.”
There was puzzlement in her dark eyes and she tried to struggle up, but Hoffner pushed her down gently. “No, Katya,” he said. “You need rest. All the rest you can get.”
She pushed his restraining hand away, sat up and looked out at the barren landscape and the steadily falling snow. “But I don’t understand. Where are we?”
“Somewhere north of Rudok, about thirty miles from the border,” Chavasse told her, and grinned. “We’re almost home and dry.”
She frowned and put a hand to her bandage. “What happened back there?”
“There was a fight at the house and a bullet grazed you,” Hoffner said soothingly. “There’s nothing for you to worry about. Just relax. You’ll need all your strength for the final haul.”
She leaned back in the corner, pulling the hood of her sheepskin coat up around her face. Chavasse turned to reach for the starter and Hoffner tapped him urgently on the shoulder.
“Just a moment. I thought I heard something.”
Chavasse waited, a slight frown on his face, and then, quite clearly from somewhere behind them, the sound of an engine was carried on the wind.
Katya leaned forward. “What is it?”
“Colonel Li, hot on our trail by the sound of it,” Chavasse told her grimly, then drove quickly away.
Hoffner shouted above the roar of the engine, “He must be pushing hard.”
“Of course he is,” Chavasse replied. “If we get away, he’s faced with failure and disgrace, and his career’s ruined. It might even mean his life.”
“Of all alternatives, I think the last one would hurt him least,” Hoffner said.
Chavasse didn’t bother to reply because, suddenly, he found it was all he could do to keep to the ancient caravan trail they were following. It dropped down through a narrow ravine and its ruts were ice-bound and iron- hard.
The ravine widened and the trail dropped steeply towards a great gorge that cut its way through the heart of the rising mountain, and far below he saw a bridge.
He paused for a moment to examine the map and then engaged low gear and began a cautious descent. The cantilever bridge was a spindly, narrow affair supported by wooden beams on each side of the gorge.
He braked to a halt, jumped down to the frozen ground, walked out onto the bridge and stood in the centre for a moment. The river that splashed idly over great boulders was only about twenty feet below, but it was far enough. He turned and ran back to the jeep.
“Will it hold?” Hoffner asked.
“Solid as a rock,” Chavasse said, trying to make it sound convincing. “It would take a three-ton truck easily.”
There was only a couple of feet of clearance on either side as he drove slowly forward. He could feel the sweat soaking his shirt as the planks creaked ominously in the centre and then they were through and safe on the other side.
There was still one thing to be done and he braked to a halt, grabbed one of the stick grenades and walked back to the bridge. He pulled the pin and tossed the grenade out into the centre and turned his back as the explosion shattered the peace.
Pieces of stone and wooden girder lifted skywards and when he looked back, he saw that the entire middle section of the bridge had fallen in. He moved forward, waiting for the smoke to clear to get a better look. At that moment, two jeeps moved out of the mouth of the ravine on the opposite side of the river and started down the slope.
The first one carried perhaps half a dozen men and a light machine gun was mounted in the rear. He was aware of these things and his brain took account of them even as he turned and ran back to the jeep.
The wheels skidded on the icy mud and for a moment panic seized him, and then they were moving up out of the gorge. He recklessly changed to a higher gear and pressed his foot flat on the board so that the jeep bounded over the rim of the gorge, all four wheels leaving the ground as the machine gun chattered, kicking up dirt and stones to one side of them.
Once over the top, the track circled the base of a great pillar of rock. Chavasse accelerated and swung the wheel to take them round the shoulder and then Katya screamed a warning and he slammed his foot hard on the brake.
But he was too late. The track was washed out in a great sliding scoop that ran over the edge into space. The front wheels dipped into the hole and the jeep slewed towards the edge. He frantically tugged at the handbrake. For an instant, it seemed as if it might hold, and then the jeep lurched and one of the front wheels dipped over the edge.
They had only seconds in which to act. He jumped to the ground, turned and helped Katya down, then Hoffner after her, his black bag clutched firmly against his chest.
At that moment there was a protesting, shuddering groan and the jeep started to slide. Chavasse reached in, grabbed the machine pistol and the stick grenade and jumped back as the vehicle slid over the edge.
It hung there for a moment and then disappeared. There were three terrible, metal-wrenching crashes as it bounced its way down into the valley, and then silence.
Chavasse moved back along the track and peered round the edge of the bluff. The wind was beginning to sweep snow across the steppes in a great curtain, but he could see quite clearly the two jeeps parked on the other side of the bridge and the soldiers moving down on foot to cross the river.
He returned to the others. “It doesn’t look too good. They’re crossing the gorge on foot.”
Katya looked strained and anxious, but Hoffner seemed extraordinarily composed. “What do we do now, Paul?”
“According to the map, we’re only about ten miles from the border,” Chavasse told him. “If we leave the track here and cross over the shoulder of the mountain, we’ll come into the Pangong Tso Pass. About two miles along it, there’s an old Tibetan customs post marked. There may be soldiers there, of course, but we’ll have to risk that.”
“It’s impossible, Paul,” Katya cried, the wind whipping her voice into a scream. “I couldn’t walk a mile in this
