White Mountain by Robert Twigger

Author:Robert Twigger
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pegasus Books

6

The Major is Drowned and to be Auctioned off Today

Goodness whispers, evil shouts.

Nepali proverb

The Tsangpo is not a slow river. North of Sikkim, south of Lhasa, it hurries past the Himalayas at 7 knots, 12 kmh. It is not nearly as wide as it will become as the Brahmaputra, but it is still a wide, deep river by any standards. And across this obstacle 3,500 men, 3,500 animals and 350 tons of equipment needed to be transported in haste.

Four huge chains, cast and hammered by hand, dipping into the torrent and out the other side, were all that remained of a fifteenth-century suspension bridge (the principles of suspended bridgework were well known in the Himalayas long before Brunei began building them). On the far side, two 45-foot lighters with high and highly carved horse-head prows lay bobbing at anchor. The fleeing Tibetans had left them – a bad error.

Major Bretherton, Royal Engineers, was in charge of supply and transport and had made a splendid job of both since leaving Sikkim. The Engineers carried with them two collapsible Berthon boats, a two-skinned canvas lifeboat said to be unsinkable (the airspace between the skins provided buoyancy). These were lashed together and Major Bretherton (unlike Macdonald, he was happy to lead from the front) set off across the wicked current with two Gurkhas at the oars. Gurkhas are not horsemen, though they can learn. Assuredly, neither are they boatmen, and there was no time to learn. Heading for the moored ferries on the other side, the unwieldy raft was picked up by the fast current. Bretherton shouted orders but the men could not control the raft’s movement. What happened next was not clear but the raft upturned, or came apart, and the men were in the water. It was a wide, fast, exceedingly cold river and all the men drowned.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.