Flashman Papers 3-Book Collection 4: Flashman and the Dragon, Flashman on the March, Flashman and the Tiger. George Fraser MacDonald

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СКАЧАТЬ were off at the canter, stretching to a gallop as we left the town. With luck, we might pass through before the explosion came, but barely a mile out on the road Parkes’s horse fell, and although he remounted, I could see that his beast, and De Normann’s, would never stay the course. I slowed to a trot, wondering what the devil to do; if it came to the pinch, they could damned well take their chance, but for the moment we must hold together and hope. By God, it was a long ride, with my ears straining for the first crack of gunfire ahead; if only Grant held off a little longer …

      We passed through Chang-kia-wan again, in a solid phalanx with the Sikh sowars around us, thrusting by main force through streets choked with jingal-men and Tiger soldiers who sneered and spat but kept their distance from those razor-sharp lance-heads. Then we were out and trotting down the long slope towards the distant camp-site; the plain either side was black with Imps, foot and horse; the huge coloured banners were streaming in the breeze, paper standards were flapping and filling, their horns were blaring and cymbals clashing, every group we passed turned to scream execrations at us; suddenly before us was a troop of Manchoo artillery, absolutely slewing round their great dragon-headed brass pieces to threaten us. I looked back – De Normann and Bowlby had fallen behind on their foundering hacks, and Parkes seized my elbow. “Sir Harry! Sir Harry, we must decide what is best to be done!”

      They’re smart in the diplomatic, you know, and in a moment the others had caught fire from his inspiration. Loch said that in such moments decisions should be arrived at quickly, De Normann urged the necessity of calm, and Brabazon cried out that since Parkes was the chief negotiator, he must say how we should proceed.

      “Shut your bloody trap!” I roared. “Anderson – wheel right!” If there was a way through – for anyone lucky enough to have a fresh horse, anyway – it was beyond the big nullah, where we might skirt round to the army. We swung off the road, and in that moment there was a thunderous roar of cannon from far ahead, and I knew the masked batteries were in action; a breathless pause, and then as Armstrong shells began to burst among the Imps, pandemonium broke loose. I yelled to Anderson to hold them together as we surged forward through the milling infantry, and here was Bowlby clattering up, brandishing his pistol.

      “Now we’ll see how these yellow fellows can fight!” cries he. I roared to him to holster his piece, heard Parkes yelling in front of me, and saw that he and Loch had reined up by a little silk pavilion where a mandarin was sitting a Tartar pony, with officers at his back; it was our acquaintance of yesterday, who had lost his spurs at Sinho. As I rode up to them, Parkes was shouting something about safe-conduct, but now there was a crowd of angry Imps in the way; they’d spotted us as enemy, clever lads, and were crowding in, waving fists and spears; suddenly there seemed to be contorted yellow faces all round us, screaming hate. Above the din I heard the mandarin cry out something about a prince; then Parkes was calling across the crowd to me. “Wait for us, Sir Harry! Prince …” And then he and Loch and one of the sowars were galloping off with the mandarin.

      “Come back!” I roared. “Parkes, you idiot!”, for it was plain that our one hope was the mandarin, and we should all stay with him. Roaring to Anderson to hold on, I drove through the press in pursuit; by the time I’d cleared that howling mob my quarry was wheeling into a gully a furlong ahead, and I cursed and thundered after them. I plunged into the gully, and there they were, not twenty paces off, reined up before a group of magnificently-armoured Manchoo horsemen, banners planted in the turf beside them, and Parkes was pointing to the white rag on the sowar’s lance-point. I pulled up, and the leader of the Manchoos was standing in his stirrups, screaming with laughter, which seemed damned odd till I saw who it was: Prince Sang-kol-in-sen. In fine voice he was.

      “You ask safe-conduct! Foreign filth! Crawling savages! You who would shame the Son of Heaven, and who come now treacherously to attack us! Barbarian lice! Offal! And now you come whining –”

      The rest was lost in howls of hatred as his followers closed in; I saw Parkes struggling with a mounted rider, and thought “McNaghten!”³² Loch was knocked flying from the saddle, and the Sikh was thrashing with his lance as they bore him down. I didn’t linger; I was round and out of that gully like a guilty squirrel – and slap in front of me was a boiling crowd of Imp braves, with Anderson’s party struggling desperately in the middle. A musket barked, and I saw a Sikh reel in the saddle; then the sabres were out, Sikhs and dragoons laying about them, with Anderson yelling to close up; a ragged volley of musketry, a Sikh going down, the answering crash of revolver fire, Bowlby blazing away wild-eyed until he was dragged from the saddle, Nolan bleeding from a sword-cut on the brow as he drove through the press – I heard him shriek as he pitched forward over his horse’s head into the crush. It didn’t matter now; I stared appalled at that hideous mêlée, and turned to flee.

      But they were streaming out of the gully, too, Tiger soldiers with drawn swords, and at their head the white-button mandarin and half a dozen mounted monsters in black bamboo armour and helmets, brandishing pennoned spears and screaming blue murder. I put my beast to the bank; he scrambled up, reared, and fell back, and I rolled clear just in time. There was a side-gully and I raced up it, howling as I went, and came down headlong over a pile of stones; I scrambled afoot, mouthing vainly for help, there wasn’t a friendly soul in sight, Loch and Parkes might be dead by now, hacked to pieces – well, by God, thinks I, if it must be, I’ll make a better end than that. I swung to face them, whipping out my sabre and dropping a hand to my pistol-butt as that devil’s horde bore down on me.

      Even for old Flashy, you see, there comes the moment when you realise that, after a lifetime of running, you can’t run any longer, and there’s only one thing for it. I gritted my teeth and ran at them, spun the weapons in my hands, and bawled in my best Chinese:

      “Quarter! I surrender! I’m a British staff colonel and you touch me at your peril! My sword, your excellency!”³³

^a Rumour.

       Chapter 11

      For a well-decorated hero I’ve done a deal of surrendering in my time – which is doubtless why I remain a well-decorated hero. Piper’s Fort, Balaclava, Cawnpore, Appomattox – I suppose I can’t count Little Big Horn, because the uncivilised rascals wouldn’t accept it, try as I might – and various minor capitulations. And if there’s one thing I’ve learned, which young military men should bear in mind, it’s that the foeman is generally as glad to accept your surrender as you are to give it. Mind you, he may turn spiteful later, when he’s got you snug and helpless (I often do), but that’s a risk you must run, you know. Most of my captors have been decent enough.

      The Chinese were not. You’d have thought, the trouble I saved ’em, they might have shown me some consideration, but they didn’t. For two days I was confined in a stinking wooden cage no bigger than a trunk, unable to stand or lie, but only to crouch painfully while I was exhibited in the temple square at Tang-chao to a jeering mob who spat and poked and shovelled ordure through the bars. I was given no food or drink beyond a filthy rag soaked in water, without which I’d have died – but I was in paradise compared with Parkes and Loch, who had survived only to be dragged to the Board of Punishments in Pekin.

      The worst of it was not knowing. What would they do to me? Where were the others? What had happened at Five-li Point? The Manchoo thugs who guarded my cage, and egged on the mob to torment me, gloated about the terrible slaughter they’d inflicted on our army – which I knew was lies, for they couldn’t have licked Grant, and why wasn’t Tang-chao choked with prisoners like myself? But I didn’t know that in fact Grant had thrashed their ambush out of sight, with our cavalry СКАЧАТЬ