The word, in the faint, flickering light from the tiny fire, with the shadows dancing on the grey mud walls, sent a shiver through Jamie. Tenzin removed his heavy woollen jacket to expose the maroon robe of a Tibetan monk.
‘Yes, I am of the Gelug, Mr Saintclair. But I am also a patriot. Why should it surprise you? The tradition of the warrior priest has been part of your own culture since the dawn of Christianity. Did not an entire sect, the Knights of St John, fight in the Crusades?’
Jamie had placed Tenzin in his mid-forties, but now he could see the monk’s face properly he realized he was at least a decade younger, his features prematurely aged by the privations of the life he chose to live. ‘I had the impression that the only opposition to the Chinese in Tibet was of the non-violent variety.’
‘Aye, and it has been a spectacular success, has it not? More than a million Tibetans dead since the invasion in nineteen fifty, hundreds of thousands still being tortured in Chinese prisons, our people brutalized, our land plundered and polluted, our children taught lies, our religion drowned in the blood of our nuns and monks. Six thousand monasteries destroyed. What you see around you was once a great centre of learning, now it is home only to spiders, bats and vultures – and ghosts.’
The tone was flat and emotionless, but the words evoked images of whole lifetimes of pain and suffering. Jamie struggled for the right response and failed to find it. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t know.’
Tenzin laughed. ‘Why should you? A dispute between neighbours in a faraway place. The strong overcome the weak, but Quomolonga is still open to your mountaineering tourists. Tibet was not the Falklands. The oppressed did not speak English, so why should you care about us?’
‘You speak English, and speak it very well,’ Jamie pointed out.
‘Of course. I was sent to school in England from Delhi, where my father was one of the fortunate few who grew rich in exile. At Winchester I proved to be intelligent, but exotic, and was treated the way exotic boys are in your public schools. That was where I learned the futility of passive resistance. When I went to Cambridge I did not stand out quite so much. I made many friends, some of whom now support my little Crusade here in the mountains. Kundun, the Dalai Lama, does not approve of what we do, but we do it all the same. A patrol or a convoy ambushed up in the passes. A wujing garrison attacked while they sleep in their fort. We try to protect those who wish to flee to India. Futile pinpricks, you might argue, but enough to remind the invaders that Tibet still has teeth and they are not welcome here. Then we drift away, like smoke, across the border. Tibet is a place where myth and legend and truth quickly become indistinguishable, Mr Saintclair. Word of our deeds is whispered among the oppressed and gives them hope. So we are the Ghosts of the Four Rivers, the Kamba guerrillas reborn, and proof that some Tibetans are still willing to fight and die for freedom.’
A young fighter entered the room with a rifle on his shoulder and while Tenzin gave him his orders Jamie pondered the reality behind the softly spoken statement. We drift away like smoke. He knew the truth must be brutally different. The Chinese would send whole divisions of specially trained mountain troops to hunt down men like these. The dead eyes of Tenzin’s followers told their own tale. Of men living on the edge, or perhaps beyond it. Men who knew their time was short and their end inevitable. For the Ghosts of the Four Rivers every new breath and every heartbeat was another battle won.
When the young man left, Jamie said, ‘I would have thought Beijing would put pressure on India to stop you from making these incursions?’
Tenzin leaned forward over the fire and allowed the flames to light the leaves of a twig, which immediately gave off fragrant, perfume-scented smoke. He handed Jamie another twig and invited him to do the same.
‘Now you have committed an act of defiance against the regime and are as liable to imprisonment and torture as I. The burning of juniper branches pleases Buddha, but displeases the oppressors. The Indians ignore us, because the Chinese do not acknowledge our existence. To do so would be an admission of failure, a loss of face. They wish the world to believe that after fifty years of their benign rule Tibet is a peaceful, ordered society. In their misplaced pride lies our strength.’ He raised his head to look directly into Jamie’s eyes. ‘When we talked earlier of the sacred place, it seemed to me that your story was not complete.’
Jamie studied him warily. He’d limited his tale of the expedition to what the documentary team had known and meant to keep it that way. ‘Why would you think that?’
‘Perhaps it is a coincidence that a special unit of Chinese engineers have also been taking an interest in it for the past month?’