Year Of The Tiger

14

There was a light that came very close and went away again. It did this several times. Chavasse found it very irritating. His head was spinning and it was an effort to open his eyes.

When he finally awoke, he was lying in a single bed. The room was small and narrow and over everything there was that peculiar and distinctive hospital smell of disinfectant and cleanliness.

The room was in half-shadow and there was a shaded lamp on the locker beside his bed. A young Chinese nurse was reading in the light of the lamp, and as he pushed himself up she put down her book and moved to the door.

“Get the doctor,” she told some anonymous person in the corridor, and closed the door again.

Chavasse grinned weakly. “So I’m still in the land of the living? Life’s full of surprises.”

She put a hand to his brow. It was cool and sweet and he closed his eyes. “Just rest,” she said. “You shouldn’t even talk.”

The door opened and he lifted his eyelids. He saw a brown, kindly face, the skin stretched tightly over high cheekbones and seamed with wrinkles. His wrist was lifted delicately while the doctor looked at his watch and said, “How do you feel?”

“Lousy!” Chavasse told him.

The doctor smiled. “You have an amazing constitution. Most men in your situation would have died by now.”

“I wouldn’t blame them,” Chavasse said. “Not after sampling the way you people treat the human body.”

“Please!” The doctor shrugged. “Politics are no concern of mine. You will live, that is the only important thing.”

“That’s a matter of opinion,” Chavasse told him.

There was a discreet tap on the door and the nurse opened it. “Colonel Li is here.”

The doctor turned to the door as the colonel entered. “Fifteen minutes please, Colonel,” he said. “He needs plenty of sleep.” He smiled at Chavasse. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

He and the nurse left and Li moved out of the shadows and smiled down. He looked lean and fit and his uniform molded to him like a glove. “Hello, Paul,” he said. “How do you feel?”

“Like a cigarette,” Chavasse said. “Have you got one?”

Li nodded. He pulled a chair forward and sat down and then he took out an elegant case and gave Chavasse a cigarette from it. Chavasse inhaled deeply and sighed with pleasure. “That’s better.”

“And so is this, is it not?” Li asked. “Clean sheets, a comfortable bed, the filth washed from your body.”

“But for how long?” Chavasse asked.

Li shrugged. “My dear Paul, that is entirely up to you.”

“I thought so,” Chavasse said bitterly. “You thought I was going to die, didn’t you? That explains the deluxe treatment. The minute I’m on my feet, it’s back to my cosy little cell and we begin all over again.”

“That’s right, Paul,” Li said calmly. “We begin all over again. I’d think about that if I were you.”

“Oh, I will, I assure you,” Chavasse told him.

Li moved to the door and turned. “By the way, you’re on the third floor of the monastery and there’s a guard on the door. Don’t try anything foolish.”

“I couldn’t even walk to the toilet,” Chavasse said.

Li smiled faintly. “Go back to sleep. I’ll see you in the morning.”

The door closed gently behind him and Chavasse stared up at the ceiling and tried to collect his thoughts. One thing was certain: He’d rather die than start the whole terrifying business all over again. That being so, he obviously had nothing to lose.

He pushed back the bedclothes and swung his feet to the floor. He took a deep breath, stood up and began to walk.

He felt curiously light-headed and for a few moments it was as if he were walking on cotton wool. When he reached the far wall, he rested for a while before turning and walking back.

He sat on the edge of the bed and then tried again. There was a cupboard in the far corner and he opened it hopefully. There was a bathrobe and a pair of felt slippers, nothing else, so he closed the door, padded across to the window and peered cautiously out.

When his eyes became accustomed to the darkness, he saw that the ground was some forty feet below. His heart sank and he turned and went back to bed. He had barely got himself settled again when the door opened and the nurse came in.

She punched his pillows and smoothed the blankets into place. “How do you feel?” she said.

He groaned a little and answered in a weak voice. “Not so good. I think I’ll go back to sleep.”

She nodded, and there was compassion in her eyes. “I’ll look in later. Try and get some rest.” She left the room as quietly as she had come.

Chavasse smiled softly. So far so good, he thought. He pulled back the bedclothes and moved across to the door. There was a murmur of conversation outside and the nurse laughed and he heard her say, “You’ll be bored to death sitting there all night.”

A man’s voice replied, “Not if I had something as pretty as you to keep me company, my flower.”

She laughed again. “I’ll be round again at half past eleven to have a look at him. If you’re good, I’ll see you get something hot to drink.” She moved away along the corridor and Chavasse heard a creak as the soldier settled back into his chair.

He had only one chance – surprise. If he didn’t get away now he knew that he never would. Tonight was the one slack period. The time when they thought him so ill and weak that the very thought of escape was laughable.

He took the bathrobe and slippers from the cupboard, pulled them on, turned off the bedside lamp and moved across to the window.

Slightly to the right and about thirty feet below was the main entrance, where a lantern swung on an iron bracket, casting a pool of light down onto the path. A fine rain drifted through the yellow light like silver mist and he opened the double-glazed window and leaned out.

Windows stretched to the right and left of him, yellow fingers of light reaching out into the night through chinks in their shutters. There was no way out above him – the eaves of the roof were several feet out of reach.

A strong wind dashed rain into his face as he leaned far out and looked down. There was no light in the room directly beneath him.

He hardly considered the danger involved as he stripped his bed quickly and knotted two sheets and a blanket together. Underneath the windowsill ran the iron pipe which carried water from the washbasin in the corner. He carefully tied one end of his improvised rope around this pipe and threw the other out into the night.

He went out feetfirst, took a firm grip on the sheets and began to slide down. The icy wind cut through the thin material of his bathrobe and the rain blinded him and then his feet bumped against the sill of the room below and he was safe.

He swayed there for a moment, hanging on to his lifeline with one trembling hand, reaching out with the other in an attempt to open the window. It was locked. He lifted his elbow recklessly and pushed it hard against the glass. A sudden gust of wind whirled round the corner, half-drowning the sound, and he reached in through the jagged hole and unfastened the catch. A moment later, he was crouched in the warm darkness.

He appeared to be in some kind of storeroom, for the walls were lined with wooden shelves piled high with blankets. A thin strip of light drifted in at the bottom of the door and he opened it cautiously and stepped out into the deserted corridor.

He closed the door behind him and walked slowly along, his senses alert for danger. What his next move was to be, he did not know. He preferred to leave it to chance. He felt calm and fatalistic now because, in some queer way, he knew he was going to get away with it.

As he came to the end of the corridor, he heard voices talking quietly, and when he peered round the corner he saw two soldiers leaning against the wall at the stairhead. They were both armed with machine pistols.

Colonel Li was obviously taking no chances. Chavasse retraced his steps and paused suddenly as he heard voices approaching from the other end of the corridor. There was a small door at his back and he opened it quickly and stepped into darkness.

He was standing at the head of a narrow stone circular stairway that seemed to descend through the thickness of the outer wall. He went down cautiously, and when he opened the door at the bottom found himself in a long, whitewashed corridor.

He walked quickly along, checking the rooms as he did so. Suddenly he heard voices coming from behind the door at the far end. It was slightly open, and he peered in. Two soldiers were sitting at a wooden table having a meal and laughing over some joke. He continued on and turned the corner into a smaller corridor in which there were just two doors.

He opened the first one and found himself in a lavatory, but the other room was more promising. It contained five beds and several tin lockers, and was obviously living quarters for some of the guards.

All the lockers contained the same things: spare uniforms, rubber boots and various personal items. He grabbed the first uniform which looked something like his size and a pair of rubber boots and started to change quickly.

When he was ready, he examined himself in a cracked mirror. In the drab, quilted uniform he would pass anywhere, with a little luck. He needed only one extra touch.

He found what he was looking for in the end locker. It was a uniform cap with the Red Star of the army of the People’s Republic set above the peak and he pulled it forward over his eyes to obscure as much of his face as possible. At that moment, the door opened and a soldier walked in.

He was a young and brawny peasant with slightly bowed legs and the hands of a farmer. His jaw went slack with astonishment, and then he moved in.

Chavasse was in no condition to fight fairly. There was an old broken chair leaning against the wall behind him. He snatched it up and smashed it down across the head and shoulders of the unfortunate intruder.

The soldier sank to his knees with a terrible groan. He tried to get up, his arms reaching out as Chavasse moved for the door. His grasping fingers clawed at the quilted uniform and Chavasse turned and kicked him in the stomach. The man went over backwards and writhed on the floor, his face slowly turning purple.

Chavasse closed the door and moved quickly along the corridor. He mounted the steps at the far end, opened another door and found himself in a narrow passage that opened into the main hall.

There was a tiny glass office by the entrance and two guards were sitting in it drinking tea. He walked steadily forward, keeping his head down, and one of the guards looked over his shoulder, called something and laughed, exposing decaying yellow teeth. Chavasse waved a hand casually and went out into the night.

A jeep was parked at the bottom of the steps, its canvas hood raised against the rain. He hesitated for only a moment before going down the steps quickly and climbing behind the wheel. The engine roared into life at the first touch of the accelerator and he released the handbrake and drove slowly away.

He waited for the sound to come from behind, for the sudden cries of alarm, but nothing happened. There was a soldier on duty under the light at the main entrance, a submachine gun crooked in his arm. Chavasse slowed to stop, but the man raised an arm and waved him on. He turned into the square outside and drove down into the centre of Changu.

When he parked the jeep in the courtyard outside Hoffner’s house, the rain was still drifting slowly down and it was cold and raw. It had been easy – almost too easy – and as he mounted the steps to the front door he felt no particular jubilation. He was tired, very tired, and curiously light-headed.

When he pulled on the chain, the bell echoed into the darkness inside. He leaned against the door and when it opened suddenly he staggered forward.

And then he was safe – truly safe. Arms reached out to steady him, soft arms, but with strength in them for all that, and Katya Stranoff’s face glowed out of the half-darkness.