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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СКАЧАТЬ rolled his eyes and flung his cup away in a passion. “And that drunken bitch in Lahore gives me no help, no orders! While she couples with her grooms, I wait to be butchered like Jawaheer –”

      “Now, see here, Wazir!” says I roughly, for his whining was starting to give me the shakes. “You take hold, d’you hear? Your position ain’t all that desperate –”

      “You see a way out?” quavers he, clutching at me again. “Oh, my dear friend, I knew you would not fail me! Tell me, tell me, then – and let me embrace you!”

      “You keep your bloody distance,” says I. “What’s Littler doing?”

      “Fortifying his lines. Yesterday he came out with his whole garrison, and we thought he meant to attack us, and held our ground. But my colonels say it was a feint to gain time, and that I must storm his trenches! Oh, God, what can I –”

      “Hold on – he’s entrenched, you say? Is he still digging? Capital – you can tell your colonels he’s mining his defences!”

      “But will they believe me?” He wrung his hands. “Suppose the deserters deny it?”

      “Why should you trust deserting sepoys? How d’ye know Littler hasn’t sent ’em to give you false reports of his strength, eh? To lure you into attacking him? Ferozepore’s a ripe fruit, is it? Come, raja, you know the British – foxy bastards, every one of us! Deuced odd, ain’t it, that we’ve left a weak garrison, cut off, just asking to be attacked, what?”

      He stared wide-eyed. “Is this true?”

      “I doubt it – but you don’t know that,” says I, warming to my work. “Anyway, it’s a dam’ good reason to give your colonels for not attacking headlong. Now then, what force has Tej Singh, and where?”

      “Thirty thousand infantry, with heavy guns, behind us along the river.” He shuddered. “Thank God I have only light artillery – with heavy pieces I should have no excuse for not blowing Littler’s position to rubble!”

      “Never mind Littler! What news of Gough?”

      “Two days ago he was at Lutwalla, a hundred miles away! He will be here in two days – but word is that he has scarcely ten thousand men, only half of them British! If he comes on, we are sure to defeat him!” He was almost crying, wrenching off his beard net and trembling like a fever case. “What can I do to prevent it? Even if I give reasons for not taking Ferozepore, I cannot avoid battle with the Jangi lat! Help me, Flashman bahadur! Tell me what I must do!”

      Well, this was a real facer, if you like. Gardner, for all his misgivings about Lal, had been sure that he and Tej would have some scheme for leading their army to destruction – that was what I was here for, dammit, to carry their plans to Gough! And it was plain as a pikestaff that they hadn’t any. And Lal expected me, a junior officer, to plot his own defeat for him. And as I stared at that shivering, helpless clown, it came to me with awful clarity that if I didn’t, no one else would.

      It ain’t the kind of problem you meet every day. I doubt if it’s ever been posed at Staff College … “Now then, Mr Flashman, you command an army fifty thousand strong, with heavy guns, well supplied, their lines of communication protected by an excellent river. Against you is a force of only ten thousand, with light guns, exhausted after a week’s forced marching, short of food and fodder and damned near dying of thirst. Now then, sir, answer directly, no hedging – how do you lose, hey? Come, come, you’ve just given excellent reasons for not taking a town that’s lying at your mercy! This should be child’s play to a man with your God-given gift of catastrophe! Well, sir?”

      Lal was gibbering at me, his eyes full of terrified entreaty – and I knew that if I wavered now it would be all up with him. He’d break, and his colonels would either hang or depose him, and put a decent soldier in his place – the very thing that Gardner had feared. And that would be the end of Gough’s advancing force, and perhaps the war, and British India. And no doubt, of me. But if I could rally this spineless wreck, and think of some plan that would satisfy his colonels and at the same time bring the Khalsa to destruction … Aye, just so.

      To gain time, I asked for a map, and he pawed among his gear and produced a splendid illuminated document with all the forts in red and the rivers in turquoise, and little bearded wallahs with tulwars chasing each other round the margin on elephants. I studied it, trying to think, and gripping my belt to keep my hand from trembling.

      I’ve told you I didn’t know much about war, in those days. Tactically, I was a novice who could bungle a section flanking movement with the worst of them – but strategy’s another matter. At its simplest, it’s mere common sense – and if the First Sikh War was anything, it was simple, thank God. Also, strategy seldom involves your own neck. So I conned the map, weighing the facts that Lal had given me, and applied the age-old laws that you learn in the school playground.

      To win, the Khalsa need only take Ferozepore and wait for Gough to come and be slaughtered by overwhelming odds and big guns. To lose, they must be divided, and the weaker part sent to meet Gough with as little artillery as possible. If I could contrive that the first battle was on near level terms, or even odds of three to two against us, I’d have given Gough victory on a lordly dish. Daft he might be, but he could still out-manoeuvre any Sikh commander, and if they didn’t have their big guns along, British cavalry and infantry would do the business. Gough believed in the bayonet: give him a chance to use it, and the Khalsa were beat – in the first battle, at least. After that, Paddy would have to take care of the war himself.

      So I figured, with the sweat cold on my skin, my ankle giving me hell’s delight, and Lal mumping at my elbow. D’you know, that steadied me – encountering a liver whiter than my own. Well, it don’t happen that often. This is what I told him:

      “Call your staff together – generals and brigadiers, no colonels. Tej Singh as well. Tell ’em you won’t attack Ferozepore, because it’s mined, you don’t trust the deserters’ tale of Littler’s weakness, and as Wazir it’s beneath your dignity to engage anyone but the Jangi lat himself. Also, there’s a risk that if you get embroiled with Littler, and Gough arrives early, you may be caught between two fires. Don’t let ’em argue. Simply say that Ferozepore don’t matter, d’you see – it can be wiped up when you’ve settled Gough. Lay down the law, highhanded. Very good?”

      He nodded, rubbing his face and biting his knuckle – he had the wind up to such a tune that I swear if I’d told him to march on Ceylon, he’d have cried amen.

      “Now, your gorracharra are deployed already – send them against Gough with their horse artillery, pointing out that they outnumber him two to one. You’ll meet him somewhere between here and Woodnee, and if you detach some of your force to entrench at Ferozeshah or Sultan Khan Wallah, you’ll reduce the odds, d’you see? Gough will do the rest –”

      “But Tej Singh?” he bleated. “He has thirty thousand infantry, and the heavy guns –”

      “He’s to sit down here and watch Littler, in place of your gorracharra. Yes, yes, I know – that don’t take thirty thousand men. He must divide his force in turn, leaving only enough to watch Ferozepore, while the rest follow you as slowly as Tej can decently arrange – it’ll take him time to bring ’em down here from the river, and if he sets about it in the right spirit he can waste the best part of a week, I dare say –”

      “But to divide the Khalsa?” goggles he. “It is not good strategy, surely? The generals will not permit –”

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