“He’s Political Officer for Sikkim,” says the Deacon from around his pipe stem. He sounds very angry. “Remember our maps? The easternmost province of the Raj in India, the one we have to trek through to get to Tibet? It’s a quasi-independent kingdom called Sikkim. Bailey got the Dalai Lama at Lhasa to back him on all this ‘the Tibetans are outraged’ nonsense, but in truth, it’s Bailey who’s stopping all British climbing permits except ours. He’s stopping German and Swiss permit attempts as well.”
“Why would he want to do that, Ree-shard?” asks Jean-Claude. “I mean, I see why a British Political Officer would try to head off the Germans and Swiss, to keep Everest an English hill, but why on earth is he stopping permi