Flashman and the Mountain of Light. George Fraser MacDonald

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      ‘Debauchery, with men.’ He gave a Presbyterian sniff, hesitating, no doubt, to sully my boyish mind. ‘She has an incurable lust – what the medicos call nymphomania. It’s driven her to unspeakable excesses … not only with every man of rank in Lahore, but slaves and sweepers, too. Her present favourite is Lal Singh, a powerful general – although I hear she abandoned him briefly of late for a stable lad who robbed her of ten lakhs of jewels.’

      I was so shocked I couldn’t think what to say, except easy come, easy go.

      ‘I doubt if the stable lad thought so. He’s in a cage over the Looharree Gate this minute, minus his nose, lips, ears … et cetera, they tell me. That,’ says Broadfoot, ‘is why I say I’m not sure about her. Debauched or not, the lady is still formidable.’

      And I’d been looking forward no end to meeting her, too; Flashy’s ideal of womanhood, she’d sounded like – until this, the last grisly detail in the whole hideous business. That night, in my room at Crags, after I’d pored through Broadfoot’s packets, flung the law books in a corner, paced up and down racking my brains for a way out, and found none, I felt so low altogether that I decided to complete my misery by shaving my whiskers – that’s how reduced I was. When I’d done, and stared at my naked chops in the glass, remembering how Elspeth had adored my face-furniture and sworn they were what had first won her girlish heart, I could have wept. ‘Beardie-beardie,’ she used to murmur fondly, and that sent me into a maudlin reverie about that first splendid tumble in the bushes by the Clyde, and equally glorious romps in the Madagascar forest … from which my mind naturally strayed to frenzied gallops with Queen Ranavalona, who hadn’t cared for whiskers at all – leastways, she always used to try to wrench mine out by the roots in moments of ecstasy.

      Well, some women don’t like ’em. I reflected idly that the Maharani Jeendan, who evidently counted all time lost when she wasn’t being bulled by Sikhs, must be partial to beards … then again, she might welcome a change. By George, that would ease the diplomatic burden; no place like bed for state secrets … useful patroness, too, in troubled times. Mind you, if she wore out six strong men in a night, Lahore bazaar had better be well stocked with stout and oysters …

      Mere musing, as I say – but something similar may have been troubling the mind of Major Broadfoot, G., for while I was still admiring my commanding profile in the glass, in he tooled, looking middling uneasy, I thought. He apologised for intruding, and then sat down, prodding the rug with his stick and pondering. Finally:

      ‘Flashy … how old are ye?’ I told him, twenty-three.

      He grunted. ‘Ye’re married, though?’ Wondering, I said I’d been wed five years, and he frowned and shook his head.

      ‘Even so … dear me, you’re young for this Lahore business!’ Hope sprang at once, then he went on: ‘What I mean is, it’s the deuce of a responsibility I’m putting on you. The price of fame, I suppose – Kabul, Mogala, Piper’s Fort … man, it’s a brave tale, and you just a bit laddie, as my grandam would have said. But this thing,’ says he seriously, ‘… perhaps an older head … a man of the world … aye, if there was anyone else …’

      I 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.

      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 СКАЧАТЬ