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

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      This got a rousing hand, but others shouted that Jawaheer was the hope of the side, and innocent of Peshora’s death.

“Who bribed thee to say that?” roars the rissaldar-major, all fire and whiskers. “Did Jawaheer buy thee with a gold chain, boroowa?^v Or perchance Mai Jeendan danced for thee, fornicating strumpet that she is!” Cries of “Shame!”, “Shabash!”^w and the Punjabi equivalent of “Mr Chairman!”, some pointing out that the Maharani had promised them fifteen rupees a month to march against the bastardised British pigs (the spectator in the jampan drew his curtain tactfully at this point) and Jawaheer was just the chap to lead them. Another suggested that Jawaheer wanted war only to draw the Khalsa’s fury from his own head, and that the Maharani was an abominable whore of questionable parentage who had lately had a Brahmin’s nose sliced off when he rebuked her depravities, so there. A beardless youth, frothing with loyalty, offered to eat the innards of anyone who impugned the honour of that saintly woman, and the meeting seemed likely to dissolve in riot when a gorgeously-robed old general, hawk-faced and commanding, mounted the dais and let them have it straight from the shoulder.

“Silence! Are ye soldiers or fish-wives? Ye have heard Pirthee Singh – the parwana has been sent, summoning Jawaheer to come out to us on the sixth of Assin, to answer for Peshora’s death or show himself guiltless. There is no more to be said, but this …” He paused, and you could have heard a pin drop as his cold eye ranged over them. “We are the Khalsa, the Pure, and our allegiance is to none but our Maharaja, Dalip Singh, may God protect his innocence! Our swords and lives are his alone!” Thunderous cheers, the old rissaldar-major spouting tears of loyalty. “As to marching against the British … that is for the panchayats to decide another day. But if we do, then I, General Maka Khan” – he slapped his breast – “shall march because the Khalsa wills it, and not for the wiles of a naked cunchunee^x or the whim of a drunken dancing-boy!”

      With that summary of the regents’ characters the day’s business concluded, and I was relieved, as Sardul led us past the dispersing soldiery, to note that any glances in my direction were curious rather than hostile; indeed, one or two saluted, and you may be sure I responded civilly. This heartened me, for it suggested that Broadfoot was right, and whatever upheavals in government took place – dramatic ones, by the sound of it – the stranger Flashy would be respected within their gates, their opinion of his country notwithstanding.

      We approached Lahore roundabout, skirting the main town, which is a filthy maze of crooked streets and alleys, to the northern side, where the Fort and palace building dominate the city. Lahore’s an impressive place, or was then, more than a mile across and girdled by towering thirty-foot walls which overlooked a deep moat and massive earthworks – since gone, I believe. In those days you were struck by the number and grandeur of its gates, and by the extent of the Fort and palace on their eminence, with the great half-octagon tower, the Summum Boorj, thrusting up like a giant finger close to the northern ramparts.

It loomed above us as we entered by the Rushnai, or Bright Gate, past the swarms of dust-covered workmen labouring on old Runjeet’s mausoleum, and into the Court Garden. To the right a tremendous flight of steps led up to Badshai Musjit, the great triple mosque said to be the biggest on earth – mind you, the Samarkandians say the same of their mosque – and to the left was the inner gate up to the Fort, a bewildering place full of contradictions, for it contains not only the Sleeping Palace but a foundry and arsenal close by, the splendid Pearl Mosque which is used as a treasury, and over one of the gates a figure of the Virgin Mary, which they say Shah Jehan put up to keep the Portugee traders happy. But there was something stranger still: I’d just bidden farewell to Sardul’s escort and my jampan, and was being conducted on foot by a yellow-clad officer of the Palace Guard, when I noticed an extraordinary figure lounging in an embrasure above the gate, swigging from an enormous tankard and barking orders at a party of Guardsmen drilling with the light guns on the wall. He was a real Pathan mercenary, with iron moustaches and a nose like a hatchet – but he was dressed from top to toe, puggaree,^y robe, and pyjamys, in the red tartan of the 79th Highlanders! Well, I’ve seen a Madagascar nigger in a Black Watch kilt, but this beat all. Stranger still, he carried a great metal collar in one hand, and each time before he drank he would clamp it round his throat, almost as though he expected the liquor to leak out through his Adam’s apple.

      I turned to remark on this to Jassa – and dammit, he’d vanished. Nowhere to be seen. I stared about, and demanded of the officer where he had got to, but he hadn’t seen him at all, so in the end I found myself being led onward alone, with all my former alarms rushing back at the gallop.

      You may wonder why, just because my orderly had gone astray. Aye, but he’d done it at the very moment of entering the lion’s den, so to speak, and the whole mission was mysterious and chancy enough to begin with, and I’m God’s own original funk, so there. And I smelled mischief here, in this maze of courts and passages, with high walls looming about me. I didn’t even care for the splendid apartments to which I was conducted. They were on an upper storey of the Sleeping Palace, two lofty, spacious rooms joined by a broad Moorish arch, with mosaic tiles and Persian murals, a little marble balcony overlooking a secluded fountain court, silks on the bed, silent bearers to stow my kit, two pretty little maids who shimmied in and out, bringing water and towels and tea (I didn’t even think of slapping a rump, which tells you how jumpy I was), and a cooling breeze provided by an ancient punkah-wallah in the passage, when the old bugger was awake, which was seldom. For some reason, the very luxury of the place struck me as sinister, as though designed to lull my fears. At least there were two doors, one from either chamber – I do like to know there’s a line of retreat.

      I washed and changed, still fretting about Jassa’s absence, and was about to lie down to calm my nerves when my eye lit on a book on the bedside table – and I sat up with a start. For it was a Bible, placed by an unknown hand – in case I’d forgotten my own, of course.

      Broadfoot, thinks I, you’re an uneasy man to work for, but by God you know your business. It reminded me that I wasn’t quite cut off; I found I was muttering “Wisconsin”, then humming it shakily to the tune of “My bonnie is over the ocean”, and on the spur of the moment I dug out my cypher key – Crotchet Castle, the edition of 1831, if you’re interested – and began to write Broadfoot a note of all that I’d heard on Maian Mir. And I had just completed it, and inserted it carefully at Second Thessalonians, and was glumly pondering a verse that read “Pray without ceasing”, and thinking a fat lot of good that’ll do, when the door slammed open, there was a blood-curdling shriek, a mad dwarf flourishing a gleaming sabre leaped into the archway, and I rolled off the bed with a yell of terror, scrabbling for the pepperbox in my open valise, floundering round to cover the arch, my finger snatching at the trigger ring …

      In the archway stood a tiny boy, not above seven years old, one hand clutching his little sabre, the other pressed to his teeth, eyes shining with delight. My wavering pistol fell away, and the little monster fairly crowed with glee, clapping his hands.

      “Mangla! Mangla, come and see! Come on, woman – it is he, the Afghan killer! He has a great gun, Mangla! He was going to shoot me! Oh, shabash, shabash!”

      “I’ll give you shabash, you little son-of-a-bitch!” I roared, and was going for him when a woman came flying into the archway, scooping him up in her arms, and I stopped dead. For one thing, she was a regular plum – and for another the imp was glaring at me in indignation and piping:

      “No! No! You may shoot me – but don’t dare strike me! I am a maharaja!”

      a Coat.

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