Mrs. Pollifax on the China Station

Now he began the fight to swim across the river, the rope holding him in
place as he fought, struggled, dogpaddled, and at last fell across the opposite
bank.
    But the icy cold had invigorated him, and a moment later he was on his
feet, slapping his arms and jogging-in-place to restore circulation. With the
rope still around his waist he hiked back to the stand of trees opposite his
starting point, and after untying wet knots with chilled fingers he secured the
end of the rope around the base of the larger tree. Checking it he found just
enough slack; the tree was well-rooted and the rope firmly engaged. When he
finished it was still night but dawn was emerging almost imperceptibly from the
darkness, the shapes in the clearing where he stood acquiring sharper edges:
dawn was only an hour away. He was bone-chillingly cold and he was tired, but
his reconnoitering was nearing an end, he would soon be on his run back to
Urumchi with three days to complete his plans. He headed across the clearing
for the shelter of standing trees where he suddenly stood very still,
listening.
    The rush of the water behind him was deadening to the ear but above it
or below it he understood that he was sensing movement ahead of him. Human
sounds: the murmur of voices, the shuffling of feet. Lowering himself to the
ground he crept to the next stand of trees and came to a stop.
    From his hiding place he looked out on a second clearing into which a
dozen or more men were marching in a bedraggled fashion, dull shapes in a
twilit world. Once in the clearing they stood passively, a few wandering off to
lean against piles of wood, or to sit on logs while their leader—or
guard—gestured to men unseen as yet. Peter saw the flare of a match; from the
vaguely discerned movements he deduced the men— prisoners—were smoking, eating,
or idly talking... a free moment before the day’s work began, a precious
moment.
    One of the men left the others and strolled toward the cluster of trees
behind which Peter hid. Quickly Peter dropped to the ground again as the man
paused beside a low bush six feet away from him, fumbling at his trousers. He
was so near to Peter that he could see the neatly mended patches in his drab
shirt; from the ground he could peer up and into the man’s face and see him
clearly.
    And seeing him clearly he thought in a rush of shock, But this man is
Wang Shen!
    He thought, I haven’t even found the labor camp and here is X...
    He was shaken and incredulous. He didn’t want it to be X, some part of
his shocked head insisted that it couldn’t be X, searched wildly for
discrepancies, demanding doubt, skepticism, second thoughts because this was
not in his scenario... And yet it was X, he had memorized that face
until he knew its very essence—the slant of the cheekbones, the shape of the
pointed jaw and the blunt nose, the intelligent eyes, the rather sardonic
mouth. This was Wang Shen all right, and he was standing only six feet away
from him.
    He thought, Dear God, this is incredible — the cave and now
this.
    He thought, It can’t ever happen this way again. Not like this.
    But he had no plans made yet, X was to be rescued later, after he had
divested himself of the tour group, he couldn’t possibly do anything now, it
was too soon, this was a mere reconnaissance. In only a few hours the tour
group was to leave for Turfan, and it was already perilously close to the time
when he must race back to the hotel. He couldn’t afford any rescue attempt now,
it would make him late and then they would all be in the soup, including—and
most of all— Wang Shen.
    ”There’s the cave, ” an inner voice reminded him.
    ”The cave now!” he protested. ”Leave X there for two days when
everything could go hideously wrong and I never get back to him? Abandon him
there with only a handful of dried fruit, a chocolate bar, and no ID papers
should something happen and I never reach him again?”
    He thought abruptly, I wish Mrs. Pollifax were here.
    The devoutness of that longing staggered him. He had believed he could
manage everything himself and originally he had thought her preposterous, and
now he wished above all else that she was here to advise him. ”What would she
say?” he asked himself, and then, desperately, ”What would she do?”
    Words suddenly came to him that she had used describing her meeting with
Guo Musu. ”Oh, I had no plans,” she’d said to his amazement. ”There comes a
time when one has to trust