Christopher woke at once, but one of the men grabbed him, holding a gun at his head.
“One word out of you, tovarisch, and I’ll send your brains to Urga before the rest of you. Pommaete?”
Christopher nodded and sank back. He had not understood much, but he got the general idea. Behind the man with the gun, the guard was watching him, his rifle poised. Winterpole came awake, unable at first to comprehend what was happening.
Chindamani turned as they dragged her to the entrance and spoke rapidly to Christopher in Tibetan.
“Ka-ris To-feh! Find him! Tell him I love him! If you can, hide him!
It’s not time yet! Tell him it isn’t time!”
One of the men clamped a heavy hand over her mouth. They wanted her out of the tent, away from the light of the oil-lamp.
They did not want light for what they were going to do. The fourth man let go of Christopher, holstered the gun, and followed the others. The guard remained, intently watching his charges.
A terrible silence formed round them. They knew what was happening, what would happen when the men had finished with her. They heard coarse shouts, then a laugh, raucous and prolonged. Then the laugh was cut short and a group of men cheered.
Someone began to sing a song, not a melancholy dirge about maidens or birches, but a coarse drinking song of German origin which Hebe something-or-other, but transposed into Russian, witless, brash, more sordid than usual out here in the wilderness. It was a song that needed a tavern and the smell of sour beer.
Christopher threw his bedclothes back and made as if to stand.
The guard levelled his rifle at him nervously. A hand grabbed his arm and pulled him back down to the ground.
“For God’s sake, Christopher, don’t be such a bloody fool!” It was Winterpole’s voice, hissing in the semi- darkness like a snake.
“They’re raping her!” Christopher shouted back.
“Don’t you understand? Those bastards are raping her!”
“It doesn’t matter, Christopher, really it doesn’t. She’s just a darkie. Don’t get things out of proportion. She isn’t important, you know that. Don’t get yourself killed for her sake.”
Christopher sat up again, but Winterpole got in front of him and fastened his hand on his arm even more tightly.
“There are plenty like her, Christopher, plenty. They breed like rabbits, these Asiatics. You can have as many as you like once this is all over. The best, the very best, I swear. Lovely women, I guarantee it. Just don’t let this one get to you. Try to behave like a professional for once. It’s part of their way of life here, they expect it. You can’t stop it. They’ll kill you if you try to interfere. So just stay out of it.”
Christopher hit him harder than he had ever hit anyone. The blow caught Winterpole full on the jaw and sent him sprawling back on to the floor. Christopher started to get to his feet, but Winterpole, groaning from the blow, somehow managed to twist round and make a grab for Christopher’s legs, toppling him.
That was when the guard made his mistake. He moved across to separate the struggling men, using his right hand while he held his rifle awkwardly in the other. Perhaps he thought he was invulnerable since he carried the gun. Perhaps he imagined the combatants were more interested in one another than in him. On both counts, he was wrong.
As the guard reached for Winterpole, Christopher lunged for his left arm, swinging it back hard against the shoulder. He heard a bone give with a snap and the guard scream in pain. The rifle dropped from paralysed fingers. The guard had sufficient presence of mind to throw himself round on Christopher as he scrabbled on the floor for the weapon. But Christopher was impatient now and out of control.
As the guard rounded on him, he heard a scream outside, a woman’s scream. Instinctively, he recoiled from his opponent’s grip, straightened, and lunged upwards with his knee, catching the man hard in the groin.
Christopher reached for the abandoned Mannlicher. It had been rendered clumsy by the long bayonet at its end. He heard Chindamani cry out again, a tight scream followed by a sob. They were hurting her. Without pausing, he turned and made for the entrance.
“Christopher!”
It was Winterpole, shouting urgently.
“He’s got a pistol, Christopher! I can’t get to him!”
The guard had struggled to his feet in spite of the pain and was fumbling with a pistol in his side- holster.
Christopher swung round. The man held the pistol in his right hand, trembling. He was swaying, dizzy with pain, unable to take aim. Christopher did not want to fire it would bring attention in his direction too soon. He swung the rifle round, feeling it move like a spear in his hand. Men had fought a war with weapons like this, in cold trenches, over rusted wire, yet he had never so much as handled one before. He felt primitive, a sort of god, cold metal in his hands. The man had steadied and was pointing the pistol at his chest. It was heavy, black and diabolical.
Christopher lunged, images of parade grounds in his mind. He had seen men stabbing bags of straw, shouting as they did so. The revolver fired, a sudden light, and a sound of roaring filling the world. He felt the rifle grow heavy, felt something cumbrous move at the end of the long spike, felt the rifle jerk in his hands, heard the revolver fire again, felt himself fall forward into the heaviness.
The bayonet twisted and there was a sound of screaming.
Christopher realized he had closed his eyes. He opened them and saw the guard beside him, vomiting blood, rearing against the long spike in his stomach like a fish made passionate against death on the angler’s gaff. He closed his eyes again and turned the blade once more, drawing away, empty, entranced, striving to escape the tearing of flesh. There was a softer cry and a silence and a pulling away, and suddenly he was adrift in the supremacy of life over death.
“There is no death. There is no death,” he kept repeating, but he opened his eyes and saw the guard on the floor, entering another world. The bullets had not touched Christopher. He was unhurt, but blood from the guard had splashed on his hands and the bayonet he held was dark and wet.
“You bloody fool!” screeched Winterpole from his corner of the tent.
“You’ve ruined us!”
Christopher ignored him and ran out, clutching the rifle.
A fire had been brought back to life about twenty yards away, a red fire that threw tremendous sparks out to tease the darkness. A semicircle of men stood near it, their faces lit like carnival masks, inflamed and bestial. They were cheering as though watching a cockfight. They seemed not to have heard the gunshots, or perhaps they had decided mutually to ignore them in order to concentrate on more immediate concerns.
Christopher raced towards them, pulling back the bolt on the rifle, gauging the distance and the positions of the men round the fire. Coming from the darkness across soft ground, he was at an advantage.
There was a cry and the circle parted a fraction.
Through the gap, Christopher could see one of the four men who had come for Chindamani. He crouched above her, half-naked, pawing her breasts, breathing heavily. Christopher stooped, took aim, and fired a single shot that left the man with only half a head.
The camp filled instantly with silence. Only Chindamani’s sobbing could be heard, and the voice of a hunting owl drifting on the darkness.
“Chindamani,” said Christopher calmly. Hysteria would not help them now. A cool head and a steady hand were what was needed.
“Push him aside, stand up, and come here to me,” he told her,
praying they had not disabled her or that fear had not frozen her into immobility.
For what seemed an age, she lay there, sobs racking her, the dead man’s blood wet on her naked skin like a baptism into all that life was really about. The men were unarmed, uncertain of how many guns their former prisoners might have trained on them.
They could not see into the darkness and knew they presented good targets against the light of the fire. Someone shouted in a harsh voice.
Tut that bloody fire out before he shoots somebody else!”
But nobody stirred. No-one wanted to be the one to move and be singled out for the next shot.
