Read Online Jack Higgins - Chavasse 02 by Year of the Tiger - Free Book Online Page A

carried them between twin peaks and into another pass.
    The rock walls were uncomfortably close, and Chavasse turned away hurriedly and looked for something to do. Joro was sitting with one of the submachine guns on his knee, carefully loading spare clips from a box of ammunition.
    Chavasse took out his own weapon, a Walther, and checked its action—not that a handgun would be of much use to him if he ran into real trouble. He slipped it back into the soft leather holster at his hip and reached for the other submachine gun.
    Â 
    Within half an hour, they seemed lost in a landscape so barren, it might have been the moon. Great snow-covered peaks towered onevery side and Kerensky, handling the plane with genius, moved through a maze that seemed to have no ending. Beyond the peaks, the stars were like diamond chips set in a black velvet cushion, brighter than Chavasse had ever known.
    On several occasions, they dropped in air pockets. Once, as they curved from one pass into another, Chavasse could have sworn that their right wingtip touched the rock wall, but they flew on, Kerensky’s great hands steady on the controls.
    Suddenly, they skimmed over the shoulder of a mountain and three hundred feet below, a lake glittered in the moonlight.
    â€œPangong Tso!” Joro shouted above the roar of the engine.
    The great pass lifted to meet them. Kerensky eased back the stick slightly, but as the plane rose, so did the frozen earth beneath.
    Chavasse held his breath and waited for the crash, but it didn’t come. With fifty feet to spare, they were over the hump and flashing between rock walls on one side and a glacier on the other.
    Beneath them, a dark plateau rolled away into the distance as far as the eye could see. Kerensky turned and smiled in the dim light thrown out by the instrument panel. “Thought you might like to know we’re now over Tibet,” he shouted. “I’m altering course slightly to bypass Rudok. No sense in advertising.”
    The plane banked sharply to the east and thenresumed level flight. The view was spectacular as the rolling steppes stretched away to the horizon. Here and there, hollows and valleys lay dark and forbidding, thrown into relief by the white moonlight, which picked out the higher stretches of ground.
    And then a lake appeared, and a few moments later, another. Joro tapped Kerensky on the shoulder and the Pole nodded and took the plane down.
    The sand flat at the eastern end of the lake gleamed white in the moonlight and Kerensky circled once and started to put the plane’s nose down for a landing. Suddenly he banked sharply and started to climb.
    â€œWhat’s wrong?” Chavasse cried.
    â€œThought I saw a light down there,” Kerensky said. “Just over the hill from the shore. I’ll go down and take a look.”
    He took the plane round once more, but there was no sign of a light. “What do you think?” he said over his shoulder.
    Chavasse looked enquiringly at Joro and the Tibetan shrugged. “If there was a light, it could only have been a herdsman’s fire. Chinese soldiers wouldn’t dare to spend a night in the open in this area.”
    â€œThat settles it.” Chavasse tapped Kerensky on the shoulder. “Put her down.”
    Kerenksy nodded and circled the lake once more before turning into the wind for a perfectlanding on the shore. Chavasse didn’t waste any time. As the plane taxied to a halt, he opened the door, jumped to the ground and turned to help Joro down with the guns and ammunition.
    Sand, whipped up by the propeller, enveloped him in a cloud of stinging particles, but within a few moments the boxes were on the ground and Joro was beside him.
    Kerenksy reached over to close the door. “One week from now, same time, same place,” he shouted above the roar of the engine. “And be here on time. I don’t want to hang around.”
    Chavasse and Joro quickly dragged the boxes out