The Pulse of Danger by Jon Cleary

Author:Jon Cleary
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2013-09-19T00:00:00+00:00

2

When Marquis clambered out of the pup tent in the morning he found it had snowed during the night. Not heavily, but enough to have sprinkled the valley below with white lace. Higher up, on the mountains around the valley, the fall had been heavier; the trees stood out more clearly than yesterday, dark stains in the white fabric of the steep slopes. Here on the ledge it had been blown into pockets in the cliff face and was banked up against one side of the tent. His view obstructed by the cliff above him, Marquis could only guess at the depth of snow that lay on the mountains they would have to climb to-day.

The wind had dropped and the morning air was so thin and clear as to bring the valley up to only a goat’s leap below the ledge. So that when he walked to the top of the steps up which they had climbed yesterday he saw the Chinese camp at once, as clearly as if he had been looking at it through binoculars. But he went back for his binoculars anyway: Irish as ever, he liked confirmation of bad news.

While he was in the tent on his knees, searching through his pack for his binoculars, Eve woke. ‘What’s the matter?’

He hesitated a moment; but what was the point of trying to cover up the inevitable? ‘The Chinese are down in the valley.’ He found the binoculars in their case, separate from his pack and where he had placed them last night. He wasn’t thinking very clearly this morning; he would have to watch himself. He hadn’t slept well and he had the first touch of nausea he had had for months.

Eve had slept soundly, would be sleeping still if Marquis hadn’t disturbed her. She was refreshed and ready for another day, even a day that already seemed to have got off to a bad start. She pulled on her boots and anorak and followed Marquis out to the top of the steps. He took the glasses from his own eyes and handed them to her. She raised them, focused them and at once the distant Chinese were personal and threatening. They were moving about their camp, loading their gear on to the mules that stood in a line as if waiting to move off as soon as the command was given. Two of the soldiers stopped and looked towards the monastery. One of them raised an arm and pointed directly at Eve, and she involuntarily took a step back. She lowered the binoculars and looked at Marquis.

‘Can they see us?’

‘I doubt it. We’re against this cliff, we wouldn’t be so easy to pick out.’ He looked down into the valley again. ‘A couple of hours, that’s all we’ve got on them.’

‘That’s all we had the day before yesterday. And they nearly caught us.’

He seemed to flinch, as if she had blamed him for what had happened. But before she could tell him that that was not what she had meant, he turned away.

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.