Flashman Papers 3-Book Collection 2: Flashman and the Mountain of Light, Flash For Freedom!, Flashman and the Redskins. George Fraser MacDonald

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ know when not to snatch at a cue, I can tell you. I waited till I saw him about to continue, and then got in first, slow and thoughtful:

      “George … I know I’m dead green, in some ways, and it’s true enough, I’m more at home with a sabre than a cypher, what? I’d never forgive myself, if I … well, if I failed you of all people, old fellow. Through inexperience, I mean. So … if you want to send an older hand … well …” Manly, you see, putting service before self, hiding my disappointment. All it got me was a handclasp and a noble gleam of his glasses.

      “Flashy, ye’re a trump. But the fact is, there’s no one in your parish for this work. Oh, it’s not just the Punjabi, or that you’ve shown a stout front and a cool head – aye, and resource beyond your years. I think you’ll succeed in this because ye have a gift with … with folk, that makes them take to you.” He gave a little uneasy laugh, not meeting my eye. “It’s what troubles me, in a way. Men respect you; women … admire you … and …”

      He broke off, taking another prod at the carpet, and I’d have laid gold to groceries his thoughts were what mine had been before he came in. I’ve wondered since what he’d have done if I’d said: “Very good, George, we both suspect that this horny bitch will corrupt my youthful innocence, but if I pleasure her groggy enough, why, I may turn her mind inside out, which is what you’re after. And how d’ye want me to steer her then, George, supposing I can? What would suit Calcutta?”

      Being Broadfoot, he’d probably have knocked me down. He was honest that far; if he’d been the hypocrite that most folk are, he’d not have come up to see me at all. But he had the conscience of his time, you see, Bible-reared and shunning sin, and the thought that my success in Lahore might depend on fornication set him a fine ethical problem. He couldn’t solve it – I doubt if Dr Arnold and Cardinal Newman could, either. (“I say, your eminence, what price Flashy’s salvation if he breaks the seventh commandment for his country’s sake?” “That depends, doctor, on whether the randy young pig enjoyed it.”) Of course, if it had been slaughter, not adultery, that was necessary, none of my pious generation would even have blinked – soldier’s duty, you see.

      I may tell you that, in Broadfoot’s shoes, with so much at stake, I’d have told my young emissary: “Roger’s the answer”, and wished him good hunting – but then, I’m a scoundrel.

      But I mustn’t carp at old George, for his tortured conscience saved my skin, in the end. I’m sure it made him feel that, for some twisted reason, he owed me something. So he bent his duty, just a little, by giving me a lifeline, in case things went amiss. It wasn’t much, but it might have imperilled another of his people, so as an amend I reckon it pretty high.

      After he’d finished havering, and not saying what couldn’t be said, he turned to go, still looking uneasy. Then he stopped, hesitated, and came out with it.

      ‘See here,’ says he, ‘I should not be saying this, but if the grip does come – which I don’t believe it will, mind – and ye find yourself in mortal danger, there’s a thing you can do.” He glowered at me, mauling his whiskers. “As a last resort only, mallum? Ye’ll think it strange, but it’s a word – a password, if ye like. Utter it anywhere within the bounds of Lahore Fort – dropped into conversation, or shouted from the housetops if need be – and the odds are there’ll be those who’ll pass it, and a friend will come to you. Ye follow? Well, the word is ‘Wisconsin’.”

      He was as deadly serious as I’d ever seen him. “‘Wisconsin’,” I repeated, and he nodded.

      “Never breathe it unless ye have to. It’s the name of a river in North America.”

      It might have been the name of a privy in Penzance for all the good it seemed likely to be. Well, I was wrong there.

      a Barber.

      b Organisation, business.

      c Little fellow.

      d All right.

      e Indian hemp.

      f An agent, in this case Broadfoot’s official representative in Lahore, through whom everyday business was openly transacted, and diplomatic messages exchanged.

       Chapter 4

      I’ve set out on my country’s service more times than I can count, always reluctantly, and often as not in a state of alarm; but at least I’ve usually known what I was meant to be doing, and why. The Punjab business was different. As I wended my sweltering, dust-driven way to Ferozepore on the frontier, the whole thing seemed more unlikely by the mile. I was going to a country in uproar, whose mutinous army might invade us at any moment. I was to present a legal case at a court of profligate, murderous intriguers on whom, war or no war, I was also to spy – both being tasks for which I was untrained, whatever Broadfoot might say. I had been assured that the work was entirely safe – and told almost in the same breath that when all hell broke loose I had only to holler “Wisconsin!” and a genie or Broadfoot’s grandmother or the Household Brigade would emerge from a bottle and see me right. Just so. Well, I didn’t believe a word of it.

      You see, tyro though I was, I knew the political service and the kind of larks it could get up to, like not telling a fellow until it was too late. Two fearsome possibilities had occurred to my distrustful mind: either I was a decoy to distract the enemy from other agents, or I was being placed in the deep field to receive secret instructions when war started. In either case I foresaw fatal consequences, and to make matters worse, I had dark misgivings about the native assistant Broadfoot had assigned to me – you remember, the “chota-wallah” who was to carry my green bag.

His name was Jassa, and he wasn’t chota. I had envisaged the usual fat babu or skinny clerk, but Jassa was a pock-marked, barrel-chested villain, complete with hairy poshteen,^a skull-cap, and Khyber knife – just the man you’d choose, as a rule, to see you through rough country, but I was leery of this one from the start. For one thing, he pretended to be a Baloochi dervish, and wasn’t – I put him down for Afghan chi-chi,^b for he was grey-eyed, had no greater a gap between his first and second toes than I did, and possessed something rare among Europeans at that time, let alone natives – a vaccination mark. I spotted it at Ferozepore when he was washing at the tank, but didn’t let on; he was from Broadfoot’s stable, after all, and plainly knew his business, which was to act as orderly, guide, shield-on-shoulder, and general adviser on country matters. Still, I didn’t trust him above half.

Ferozepore was the last outpost of British India then, a beastly hole not much better than a village, beyond which lay the broad brown flood of the Sutlej – and then the hot plain of the Punjab. We had just built a barracks for our three battalions, one British and two Native Infantry, who garrisoned the place, God help them, for it was hotter than hell’s pavement; you boiled when it rained, and baked when it didn’t. In my civilian role, I didn’t call on Littler, who commanded, but put up with Peter Nicolson, Broadfoot’s СКАЧАТЬ