On Dangerous Ground
Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
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London SE1 9GF
First published in Great Britain by Michael Joseph 1994
Copyright © Harry Patterson 1994
Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2015
Photography and illustration © Nik Keevil
Harry Patterson asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
Certain elements of this book are inspired by an earlier work, Midnight Never Comes, published in 1966.
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
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Source ISBN: 9780008132385
Ebook Edition © May 2015 ISBN: 9780007352302
Version: 2015-04-01
For Sally Palmer with love
Contents
CHUNGKING
August 1944
The pilot, Flight Lieutenant Joe Caine of RAF Transport Command, was tired, frozen to the bone, his hands clamped to the control column. He eased it forward and took the plane down, emerging from low cloud at three thousand feet into driving rain.
The aircraft ploughing its way through heavy cloud and thunderstorm was a Douglas DC3, the famous Dakota, as much a workhorse for the American Air Force as for the RAF who together operated them out of the Assam airfields of north India, flying supplies to Chiang Kai-shek’s Chinese Army. On their way they had to negotiate the infamous Hump, as it was known to Allied aircrews, the Himalayan mountains, trying to survive in some of the worst flying conditions in the world.
‘There she is, Skipper,’ the second pilot said. ‘Dead ahead. Three miles.’
‘And the usual lousy blackout,’ Caine said, which was true enough. The inhabitants of Chungking were notoriously lazy in that respect and there were lights all over the place.
‘Well, here we go,’ he said.
‘Message from control tower,’ the wireless operator called from behind.
Caine switched on to VHF and called the tower. ‘Sugar Nan here. Is there a problem?’
‘Priority traffic coming in. Please go round,’ a neutral voice said.
‘For God’s sake,’ Caine replied