We tumbled out of bed the next morning and, in the opaque darkness before dawn, climbed the ridge behind the hut and watched the world being reborn; the softly glowing pinnacle of Everest was emerging from the night far across the huge, intervening valleys. This soft radiance intensified and changed, while the world below slept in darkness. Then one peak, and another, and then another, was lit by the gently dawning sun until all of the high Himalayas gleamed with a soft, pale light, and only the chilling cold remained.

As we watched, the sunlight crept down the slopes until finally it spilled into the cloud-filled valleys below, and the world began to waken to a new day.

We should have started off early on the long trek back to Darjeeling, for the Himalayan mornings are the hours to treasure, when the air is crisp and cool, and everything stands out sharply in the clear, bright sunshine. But we were enclosed by mountains, hemmed in by them, and a little drunk with the heady intoxication of such a morning. Everest, Lhotse and Makalu stood in a high group off to the west; Kangchenjunga dominated the foreground, while behind it and a little to the east was a cluster of tall distant peaks in Tibet. Further along again a single peak stood very white, high and alone. It was several hours before we collected our senses sufficiently to start off down the track.

We spent three days on the return trek to Darjeeling, and the terrain was very different, for having travelled out along the ridges, we were now making our return through the more populated valleys. Thick forests alternated with areas of intense cultivation, and the path wound through villages, past waterfalls, and alongside roaring mountain streams on the valley floors.

I was fortunate that this wiry Australian extrovert had a temperament which did not clash with mine. In fact, we got along together rather better than I had a right to expect. He was sometimes a little testy in the mornings before we got off along the track, and he was inclined to mutter a good deal. But this, he reckoned, was the result of having spent so many months travelling alone. And indeed after a month or so his mumblings stopped. On the other hand, I was inclined to silence, not wanting to talk to anyone before I had eaten. But on the road, as we marched along, we were usually in good spirits and conversed easily, Geoff talking readily on a range of subjects. My life had been ordinary enough and I had less experience than he, so I tended to be somewhat assertive to compensate, but he was always tolerant of these pretensions.

In the evenings, over our meal, Geoff came into his own and would launch into irrepressible tales about unlikely people he had encountered - or perhaps invented - over the years. He did not so much talk as declaim, one finger in the air like an admonishing prophet. And the narrative would unfold with unconscious theatricality as he leaped, grimaced and mimed his way through his yarn.

"What's that 'S' on the top of your pack, Geoff?" I asked as we sat one night. "That green 'S' looks like a drunken snake."

"Oh, that. That's the sign of the Stotan." His face was expressionless, and he stared at the fire in silence.

"Oh," I said, reflecting for a moment, thinking this was something I should surely know. However, there was nothing for it but to ask, "What's a Stotan, Geoff?"

"A Stotan? - incredulously. "Why, a Stotan is a cross between a Stoic and a Spartan, of course," and he gave a chuckle. "That's what we call ourselves down at Portsea, where we used to train in the sand with old Cedric. Stotans."

Cedric was the tyrannical old despot who used to rule his athletes and dominate their lives with his uncompromising precepts. He was not so much a trainer as an eccentric guru; and you either accepted his radical ideas on diet, lifestyle, training and philosophy, or you were out. "Eat oats and fly!" he used to say, and he had them eating uncooked rolled oats mixed with honey, raisins, sultanas and nuts. He allowed very little meat. Then he would lead them pounding up and down the high sand dunes behind the beach until they dropped with exhaustion. "Har! Har!" he would sneer and point at them, ridiculing them as they lay gasping on the sand. "You young blokes are as weak as kittens, and I'd beat every one of you if there was sheilas waitin' over the hill!" And he used to goad them into getting up and running on past exhaustion to finish the course. He lived his own doctrines and, although in his late sixties, was fitter than most men in their twenties.

I was not much impressed with all this at first, having no particular interest in athletics and regarding athletes in general as self-interested body-worshippers, and marathon runners as only slightly better. I could see that running twenty-six miles called for unusual qualities of endurance and that this was no doubt admirable, rather like climbers who scorned regular routes on mountains and climbed 'direttissimo', but it was hardly a diversion for a well-balanced individual.

Geoff had started his wanderings in the United States when he turned up to compete in the Boston Marathon, one of the big races of the world, and in which he amazed himself by being placed in the first ten. It was his first big international race, and he was elated at his performance - his best ever - in tough competition.

Later, in a reflective mood as we stared into the flickering fire, he told me how he had gone running on a beach near Boston after that race. "It was a beaut beach - long stretches of sand and rolling dunes behind. Great to run on. Sometimes I ran in the dunes, but mostly the beach was so full of interesting things that I stayed on it. Sandpipers ran across the water's edge ... there was driftwood and the hull of an old whaler ... barrels as old as Boston - great treasures, I thought. There was an old Victrola Talking Machine there half buried and strangled with sand. I remember thinking of James Thurber as I ran along alone with the birds and the sea. I don't know why. Then out over a long spit, sloshing along in thick mud - feet tracking through the mud. The wind blew over my skin, and I became aware of my soul floating free and my feet going 'slosh, slosh, slosh' way below in the mud. I could feel muscles working and the wind on my back. I felt strong and elated. I stripped off my shorts and dived into the cold surf and came out glowing." He gulped the last of his coffee and savoured it for a moment, his eyes shining as he watched the flames. "A man feels close to God in one of those moments. It was a beaut run, and I thought I had been out for about half an hour. I checked on the time later and I had been running for an hour and a half."

I came gradually, over the months, to understand that running like this and training, and taking part in races was for Geoff a potent form of self-expression ... an intense feeling of freedom, yet one which demanded, at the test, all his reserves of mental and spiritual strength.

Late on the second afternoon of our return to Darjeeling, we came into a village set on a slope just above the junction of two rocky streams. I was tired, beginning to flag a little, and our food was running low. Our arrival - especially the bushy beard and the two rucksacks - caused quite a stir, and a staring crowd gathered about us. Feeling quite hungry, and spying a food stall in the centre of the village, we purchased a couple of chapattis each, which proved to be rubbery and rather unpleasant; we covered them with sugar but did not improve the taste; then, to wash down this mess, a cup of tea which tasted strongly of sump oil. Geoff screwed up his face, his beard bristling, and muttered angrily at the teaseller, for he strongly resented having to pay four annas for such unpalatable rubbish. An old man in the still-gaping crowd leaned forward and shouted something unintelligible. It sounded very much to me like abuse. Geoff thought so too, and as the villagers looked quite unfriendly, and some of the more burly ones even threatening, we shouldered our packs and moved rapidly off up the track, pausing only for Geoff to mutter "Up you too, mate! You silly old bugger!" as he passed the old man.

We put several hundred yards between ourselves and the village as we moved quickly up the ridge toward the rest hut we could see about half a mile further up. But the villagers were to have their revenge on us for that casual insult. Suddenly we found we were walking through human excrement strewn all along the path. Obviously the inhabitants of that unpleasant village who were too lazy to use latrines just hopped up the path to relieve themselves and left it lying about to be stepped in by unwary travellers. Revolted, we cursed them roundly as we tried to clean our boots on rocks beside the track. "It's enough to crap you off, Jules," said Geoff disgustedly, with unconscious humour.

When we reached the hut a little later we were too tired and irritable to notice the fine dry-stone construction of the buildings and the intricately worked stone channels which brought water from a nearby stream to the tiny settlement in this forest glen. Likewise, when we went into the cabin we saw a cheery blazing fire but did not at first notice the figure seated at the table a few feet away. We were, in fact, a little startled to hear, "Good evening, gentlemen," when the figure rose from the shadows and came forward, introducing himself. "I am Gopal Bannerjee. Welcome to you." He was thin, middle-aged, with faint pockmarks on his face and very dark, very sensitive eyes. He was dressed in jodhpurs and jacket with a fine, cream-coloured woollen drape wound about his shoulders for warmth. "I do not often have the pleasure of sharing my cabin with other travellers, and I am pleased to have some company."

"Yeah," said Geoff flatly, nonplussed, and he mumbled an introduction. We had both often wasted many hours talking reluctantly with Indians who had no interest in us but merely wanted to practise their English or make themselves appear men of the world to their neighbours. However, this man seemed different.

"You are English?" he asked.

"No. I'm Australian, and Jules here is from New Zealand."

"Ah. Ah yes." And he seemed to have placed us in relation to some mysterious scale of order. We bustled about, unpacking our things and preparing our evening meal, but somehow felt we had disturbed this man's peace and were making an unnecessary demand on him with our clatter. He, on the other hand, regarded us in a lively way and took a great interest in all our activities, saying nothing but smiling gently.

We invited him to eat with us, but he refused politely saying that he had eaten already for the day. By the time we had finished our meal we felt more at ease with him and were conversing together in a quiet, relaxed way. He did not say very much, but when he spoke he was cheerful and direct. He told us that he was a regional forest officer, and it was his job to make regular tours of the district and make reports of conditions as he found them. "I spend many months each year in the forests, and I travel slowly and watch carefully the trees and the animals and birds. And, of course, the mountains and the people." He spoke affectionately. "They teach me a great deal. In fact, they teach me everything I need to know."

"You mean the levels of animal life, and the condition of the trees, that sort of thing?" I asked.

"No. Not exactly that. But it is, of course, important." He smiled at me. "This is the centre of my world." He gestured out toward the wide, darkened valleys. "I am coming slowly to understand it ... to understand something of its nature and its purpose."

Geoff darted a swift look at him. "How long have you been doing this job?"

"Nearly three years now."

"And before that?"

"Before that?" He laughed and was silent for a moment. "Before that I was a soldier."

"A soldier? That's rather different from the Department of Forestry, isn't it?"

"Yes, isn't it," and he grinned broadly at both of us. "I was with the British Army at first, and then afterwards, when they had gone, I stayed on. The British were good people mostly and did much for us, but they were so conscious of their destiny and their position in the world that they did not understand us at all. In fact, they were the first conquerors of my country that we did not absorb. We were indigestible, I suppose." He chuckled at the thought.

"But why did you leave the army?" Geoff was not going to become sidetracked into a discussion of the fall of the British Empire.

"Oh well, you see, there was nothing more I could do as a soldier. I had fought for good causes, bad causes, and all sorts of causes that noone could tell were good or bad. And that's the way it is when you're a soldier. I was born to it, you know; my family had always been in the army; we come from a warrior caste. Always we have believed that it is a good and honourable profession for a man." He spoke slowly, and looked at us pensively. "Our religion taught us that the spirit goes on and doesn't die when the body is killed. It remains unchanged for ever. And that when we killed in war we were no more than just instruments and did not have the power to start it or stop it. And you see, the spirit is not wounded or burned or disfigured - only the body; and there are many bodies, not just this one."

"And do you believe it?" asked Geoff quickly.

"Should I not believe it? It is a truth after all." And he paused. "But you must find all this very tedious. After all, you have a long journey ahead of you, and you didn't come all this way to listen to a lot of nonsense about the soul and the spirit and that sort of thing."

But Geoff was persistent. "But why did you leave the army?" he repeated.

The Indian said nothing for a moment, then asked a question in return. "What is your profession?"

"I'm a dentist. Why?"

"Well, do you find complete satisfaction in your work as a dentist?"

"I suppose so; I've never given it much thought, really."

"Do you have some other interest in your life?"

"Oh, yeah. Sure. I like to run. You know, athletics. I do the marathon."

"The marathon is surely a very long race, isn't it?"

"It varies. Somewhere around twenty-six miles is the official length. But there are a lot of ten- and twelve-mile races too, you know." Geoff's eyes gleamed as he began to talk about his running. "It really depends on yourself whether it's a long race or not. You see, training for it is the real story. You've got to get rid of all kinds of useless attitudes and habits and ideas and concentrate on being able to beat your own body, your own laziness ... yourself really. It's when you want to stop and lie down, but you make yourself keep going, that's when you're starting to get somewhere." He subsided and looked across at our companion. "What's that got to do with leaving the army?"

"Well, you have told me part of the reason yourself. Getting rid of useless habits and ideas, and concentrating on what is essential to you. There was nothing more for me in the army. Once I had accepted the truth of being just an instrument, and that so long as I behaved in a reasonable sort of way, fighting as a soldier was neither good nor bad but just another kind of action, honourable enough in itself, then it was no longer enough. I needed something more. I had to find something very important to me. You may perhaps call it soul or spirit. But my religion couldn't help me because it taught that finding self-realisation was a matter of following the right path and practising my profession with honour. Selfless action ... that sort of thing. So I came away to the mountains and now I have this job. And I go about the hills and I look and I listen."

I found all this rather confusing and difficult to follow, but Geoff seemed to grasp at once what the man was talking about. "What happens to you then when you go about the hills?"

He laughed. "Oh, nothing unusual happens. It's just that as I go about I am aware at last of what is happening. Previously I never had time to be aware. Now I feel like a bowl ... I am taken out each morning and filled gradually with treasures of great value until by the time evening comes I am overflowing with the riches of the day." And he laughed again. "But I don't pretend to understand it."

"Yeah! Look, I know what you mean; I get it sometimes when I'm running. I run because it makes me feel good - like some men smoke marijuana or take drugs. I run for the thrill of it, and to hear the music in the wind. My muscles feel strong and my blood pounds through my veins, and I can feel the oxygen being burnt up. To run against some other fellow, to run till you're exhausted and done. That's like making an offering ..." His voice trailed off, and we were all quiet.

Then, very softly, the Indian spoke again. "Yes, I believe you understand it. You see, it's not just a matter of a religion or a faith being unsufficient. For some people it is quite enough. Maybe more than enough for some. But for others, well, they just have to listen to the voice in their heart that tells them what they must do. And they are driven on to do it. There's no other way, and there's no turning back. The heart gives the orders and off you go, marching on, and you've no idea where you're going. I found it very hard. I was used to giving orders and commanding a great many men, then suddenly I stopped, but the impetus of my life carried me on for a while and I could not settle all the commotion and confusion inside me. We do agitate ourselves with a lot of unnecessary worry, you know. But gradually it came to me, when I stopped struggling and just let myself be carried along, that the world could tell me what I needed to know. It's just as you say ... there's music in the wind if your ears can hear it. And, of course, it's beautiful here, and very peaceful. They say the gods live here in the Himalayas; I think it must be true."

We talked on for a while, before I decided to turn in. Gopal and Geoff were still deep in conversation in front of the dying fire when I climbed into my sleeping bag.

It was late when we rose next day. We went out into the morning sunshine in time to see Gopal riding off on a mountain pony, down the path we had climbed the night before. He gave us a wave and a grin, and then he was gone into the forest.

There were two further stages to Darjeeling, but we were feeling so good and making such excellent time, that we reached the first day's stop by early afternoon. From here a four-wheel-drive road ran along the valley and wound up to Darjeeling, straggled around a spur nearly four thousand feet above. For five rupees each we could have hired a jeep to take us, but it seemed an unnecessary expense, so we set out to hike the distance, confident that we would make it by nightfall. We walked the first part of the road with a Ghurka soldier returning from his village after being home on leave from his station in Malaya. He was intelligent and had much to tell us of his life in the British Army. His father was walking with him to Darjeeling to see him on his way. They were simple, good people; cheerful and optimistic.

We began the long climb up to the town, and before long I could feel my legs beginning to tire, and my breathing becoming less easy. We had come about fifteen miles that day, and I was not feeling quite so springy even before we started to climb. We went on some distance, but soon my legs became wobbly and weak, and I felt I could not carry my rucksack very much further. We stopped and rested by the side of the road for a while, and I was able to go on again. When we were about a thousand feet below the town I was wheezing and gasping, finding it difficult to support what seemed like a mountainous burden on my back. Geoff was still climbing easily and showed no sign of tiring. "Come on, Jules, you can make it mate!" and he encouraged me to stagger on a little further. Finally, however, I was done. "Look, give me your pack and we'll see how we go then." I protested weakly, but he was firm about it and dismissed my feeble objections with a wave of his arm. "Look, I feel OK. Don't worry, the time will come when you'll have to carry me." And somehow he managed to sling my pack over one shoulder without dislodging his own, and we set off again, little realising how prophetic his remark was.

It was quite dark when we stumbled onto a bitumen road on the outskirts of Darjeeling, and sat resting and drinking a bottle of raspberry fizz we bought at a nearby road-stall. We were both exhausted and vowed that we would hire the first jeep-taxi we could find to take us into town, where, if possible, we intended to stay at the local dharamsala.

Liz Stein had told us about the dharamsalas before we set off on our hike around the hills, and she advised us to stay in them whenever we could, the main attraction being that they were free. They are, in fact, a kind of dosshouse for religious pilgrims, there being naturally enough an enormous number of these in India, since there are a tremendous number of holy sites and sacred places scattered throughout the country. These dharamsalas are to be found all over the place and in all sorts of towns, large and small. Often a wealthy Hindu will have such a place built to house pilgrims and poor travellers, and by such a charitable action he might perhaps hope to offset some of the unfortunate results to come his way in the next life should his wealth have been obtained by doubtful means, or at the expense of his poorer brothers. Altogether an excellent arrangement, we felt, and one that could perhaps be introduced with some merit into our western world.

So standing out into the centre of the road, we imperiously waved down the first jeep to appear, and asked to be taken to the dharamsala. It was a moment or two before we realised that, far from hiring a jeep-taxi, we had unwittingly hitchhiked an army jeep.

"Do you guys want a lift?" an American voice came from behind the headlights. Two civilian Americans were being driven by an impeccable Sikh sergeant from the Indian Army. We mumbled apologies for our mistake, but the two men good-naturedly made room for us in the back, and off we went into the town. They were salesmen for a large American aircraft corporation and had been in Darjeeling for the past two weeks enthusiastically demonstrating helicopters in the mountains to the Indian Army. It was one of their machines which had prompted the cryptic remark by the Tibetan curio dealer over a week earlier. "What hotel are you guys staying at?" one of them asked as we came into Darjeeling.

"Oh. Um. Well, at the ... ah ... dharamsala," I said uneasily.

"Dharamsala, eh? Hmmm. Don't know that one. OK. Hotel Dharamsala, please, driver!" he instructed the Sikh.

"Well it's not exactly a hotel," I said hastily.

"What is it, some kind of boarding house?"

"No. Well ... you see ..."

"The Dharamsala, sir, is a place for poor people to stay without payment," the Sikh driver cut in icily. "It is for religious people who are making pilgrimage to some holy place." We squirmed in our seats.

"Say, is that right? You guys some kind of religious nuts?"

"No. You see, it's just that it's free, and we're not exactly loaded."

"Is that right? Yeah, I get it," and they laughed. "Say, that's a real good deal." They drove us very close to the street of the dharamsala. "Look, why don't you guys come and have a few drinks with us tomorrow afternoon? Over at our hotel, say around 6 p.m." We agreed, and their driver took them off still chuckling, back to their hotel.

We made our way wearily to the dharamsala and were greeted by the custodian, a cheerful Nepalese, who seemed happy enough to see us, and he led us upstairs to a room on the first floor which, to our surprise, we had to ourselves. It was furnished only with two wooden pallets but was clean, and a wodden-shuttered doorway led out on to a small balcony. We were quite delighted. That such quarters were available to pilgrims seemed to us a bountiful gift from heaven. We were honest travellers, we felt, perhaps even pilgrims, and sank gratefully on to the plain wooden beds.

The place had been established by one Mohendas Lall, and in his honour, Geoff felt moved to verse:

"Some pray with the Prophet to Allah,

And they rate him a pretty good fellah.

But Mohendas Lall

was right on the ball

When he set up the old dharamsala."

The next room was noisy with a band of porters from Nepal, all laughter and loud talk as they sat on their haunches smoking and drinking. They waved us in, and for a few minutes we had an uproarious conversation with waving hands and grinning, contorted faces. The other two rooms on the floor were empty, and we were entranced to find that the toilet, although it was of the squatting, hole-in-the-floor variety, nevertheless had what appeared to be Darjeeling's most spectacular view of Kangchenjunga from its window.

We spread out our sleeping bags on the wooden couches and slept soundly. The next day we rested and sat for much of the time on the little balcony overlooking the street. We were right in the middle of a seedy part of the town with second-rate herbalists, fly-blown sweet shops and an amazing number of places selling old motor tyres and second-hand car parts. It was noisy; steam billowed out from a basement laundry, mingling with an extraordinary variety of smells, and a tiny narrow-gauge railway ran the length of the winding street. It was never empty, and we watched and dozed in the warm sunshine.

In the evening, having carefully spruced ourselves up, we made our way to the hotel where the two helicopter-salesmen were staying; a pleasant, homely place in a more refined part of Darjeeling. There were the usual white-robed and beturbaned servants gliding obsequiously about, and one of these took us into a small sitting-room, very cosy with a blazing fire. Our two Americans were there, and after chatting together for a moment they asked us whether we should like to drink bourbon or rum. I chose whisky. Geoff, however, elected to have rum with one of the Americans, whose name was Kelvin Bates. "I'll join you," he said, more to be sociable than from any great fondness for the stuff. What he did not know was that the rum was from the Indian city of Lucknow. Called "Lucknow XXXX Rum," it was unbelievably savage, possibly even having played some part in the Indian Mutiny. He told me later that as the first mouthful touched the back of his throat, his eyes went momentarily out of focus, although for some reason, he did not at the time attribute this to the rum. The American had only one drink, but Geoff tucked into the stuff with gusto, and it was his undoing. Later, he could remember nothing of the evening with any clarity.

We were, in fact, the first guests at what proved to be a cocktail party. It was turned on by the two Americans in an effort to clinch the deal with their customers - in this case the Indian Army. Before long the room began to fill with elegantly dressed folk; slender women in graceful saris, suave, dark-suited Indian businessmen, and a number of Indian military people; a general, two colonels and several lesser officers, all impeccably uniformed, their brass gleaming. We were, by contrast, undeniably scruffy, and I felt very much out of place. Not so Geoff, who, having discovered that he and Kelvin Bates had a mutual friend in the United States, was busy penning a note to this friend, which the American promised he would deliver on his return home. He was seated at a table in the corner, and I could see that his writing was deteriorating rapidly, becoming a scrawl and progressively trailing away illegibly down the side of the page.

Meanwhile, I had been accosted by a young Indian officer, who claimed to have met Liz Stein in Kalimpong a day or two earlier. He had previously seen her with us in Darjeeling. He set out to dress me down for being so scruffy and opined that Liz was obviously 'not right in the head' for associating with such shabby people as Geoff and myself. However I suspected he had made advances to her and had been rebuffed.

Geoff had overheard the last part of this one-sided conversation and, rising unsteadily from the table, he lurched across. He had, of course, rather fallen for Liz and would have sailed to her defence at any time. He fixed the man with a beady-eyed sneer. "Wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute!" he said loudly, silencing the room. "You met Liz in Kalim - ah - Kalim - er - pong, eh? And you reckon she's not right in the head."

"Yes," said the little fellow, "that's what I said."

"Let's get this straight," aggressively. "You reckon she's NOT RIGHT in the head? Bloody rubbish!" He tapped the man on the chest as he spoke. I think the Indian fully expected to be attacked, but to my secret delight Geoff kept on at him, belching occasionally to emphasise his displeasure. Everybody in the room had stopped to watch, and the wretched little man was so embarrassed he was clearly very sorry he had brought the matter up. He slunk away quietly and disappeared.

By now the poisonous effects of the rum were beginning to show rather painfully, and, to the embarrassment of all, Geoff started in on the general's tie - a striped one - which he insisted was an Old Melbournian's tie. "Hey General!" he shouted genially. "Hey General, that looks like an Old Melbournian's tie to me. Don't tell me you're an Old Melbournian?" The unfortunate general was standing with his back to the fire and found Geoff difficult to ignore, particularly as all conversation had died again. Geoff kept at him about his tie, whilst he reddened and shifted from foot to foot, looking as though he might at any moment give orders for my companion to be shot. Finally Geoff let up and collapsed backwards into a chair which I brought up behind him rather abruptly. The general, with obvious relief, turned away and began an animated conversation with his neighbour. Geoff was now quite drunk and began making incoherent, full-throated remarks to nobody in particular. These would erupt at odd, unexpected moments when the conversation had started to flow freely again and they had much the same effect on the gathering as an alarm bell. I felt for Geoff, although I was in a quiver of embarrassment.

Kelvin sidled up and hissed at me through clenched teeth, "For Chrissake, will you get that guy out of here!" Only too happy to oblige, I managed to get Geoff to his feet and, with Kelvin's help, steered him quickly out of the room.

As we stumbled out, he muttered over and over, "Jesus, I'm drunk!" and reaching the cold air outside he lapsed into a kind of trance. Putting his arm round my shoulder and supporting him at the waist, we staggered off together into the night.

Nearly twelve months later, when we were both living in London, it was my habit for a time to ape the English gentlemen and read the London 'Times' each day. This paper, I discovered, had an enormously comprehensive news coverage. Nothing seemed to escape its watchful correspondents. So it was with some emotion that I discovered one day - tucked away at the bottom of Page Five the heading "Indian Army Buys Russian Helicopters". It seemed a fitting end to the story and I wondered just what part Geoff had played in the success of the Russian sales mission.