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 chasing raiding parties, disarming badmashes,^d ruling a district, and keeping the Queen’s peace – all this, mind you, without provoking a hostile power which was spoiling for trouble.

      “It can’t last,” says he cheerfully – and I wondered how long he could, with that impossible task and the mercury at 107. “They’re just waitin’ for an excuse, an’ if I don’t give ’em one – why, they’ll roll over the river as soon as the cold weather comes, horse, foot an’ guns, you’ll see. We ought to go in an’ smash ’em now, while they’re in two minds an’ gettin’ over the cholera – five thousand of the Khalsa have died in Lahore, but it’s past its worst.”

      He was seeing me down to the ferry at daybreak; when I mentioned the great assembly of our troops I’d seen above Meerut he laughed and pointed back to the cantonment, where the 62nd were drilling, the red and buff figures like dolls in the heat haze.

      “Never mind what’s on the Grand Trunk,” says he. “That’s what’s here, my boy – seven thousand men, one-third British, an’ only light guns. Up there,” he pointed north, “is the Khalsa – one hundred thousand of the finest native army in Asia, with heavy guns. They’re two days’ march away. Our nearest reinforcements are Gilbert’s ten thousand at Umballa, a week’s march away, and Wheeler’s five thousand at Ludhiana – only five days’ march. Strong on mathematics, are you?”

      I’d heard vague talk in Simla, as you know, about our weakness on the frontier, but it’s different when you’re on the spot, and hear the figures. “But why –?” I was beginning, and Nicolson chuckled and shook his head.

      “– doesn’t Gough reinforce now?” he mimicked me. “Because it would provoke Lahore – my goodness, it provokes Lahore if one of our sepoys walks north to the latrines! I hear they’re goin’ to demand that we withdraw even the troops we have up here now – perhaps that’ll start the war, even if your Soochet legacy doesn’t.” He knew about that, and had twitted me about how I’d be languishing at the feet of “the fair sultana” while honest soldiers like him were chasing infiltrators along the river.

      “Mind you, she may be out of office by the time you get there. There’s talk that Prince Peshora – he’s another of old Runjeet’s by-blows – is goin’ to have a try for the throne; they say he has most of the Khalsa on his side. What price a palace revolution, what? Why, if I were you, I’d apply for the job!”

There was a great crowd of refugees camped about the ghat^e on the water’s edge, and at the sight of Nicolson they set up a howl and swarmed round him, women mostly and fly-blown chicos^f clamouring with hands stretched up. His orderlies pushed them back to let us through. “A few hundred more mouths to feed,” sighs Nicolson, “an’ they ain’t even ours. Easy there, havildar!^g Oh, chubbarao,^h you noisy heathen – Papa’ll bring your bread and milk in a moment! God knows how we’re goin’ to house ’em, though – I’ve screwed as much canvas out of stores as the Q.M. will bear, I think.”

      The ferry itself was a huge barge crewed by native boatmen, but with a light gun in the bows, manned by two sepoys. “That’s another provocation,” says Nicolson. “We’ve sixty of these tubs on the river, an’ the Sikhs suspect we mean to use ’em as a bridge for invasion. You never know, one o’ these days … Ah, see yonder!” He shaded his eyes, pointing with his crop across the swollen river; the mist was hanging on the far shore, but through it I could see a party of horsemen waiting, arms gleaming in the sun.

      “There’s your escort, my boy! The vakil sent word they was coming to see you into Lahore in style. Nothin’ too good for an envoy with the scent of cash about him, eh? Well, good luck to you!” As we pushed off he waved and shouted: “It’ll all come out right, you’ll see!”

      I don’t know why I remember those words, or the sight of him with that great mob of niggers chattering about him while his orderlies cuffed and pushed them up to the camp where they’d be fed and looked after; he was for all the world like a prepostor marshalling the fags, laughing and swearing by turns, with a chico perched on his shoulder – I’d not have touched the verminous imp for a pension. He was a kindly, cheery ass, working twenty hours a day, minding his frontier. Four months later he got his reward: a bullet. I wonder if anyone else remembers him?

      The last time I’d crossed the Sutlej had been four years earlier, where there was a British army ahead, and we had posts all the way to Kabul. Now there were no friends before me, and no one to turn to except the Khyberie thug Jassa and our gaggle of bearers – they were there chiefly because Broadfoot had said I should enter Lahore in a jampan, to impress the Sikhs with my consequence. Thanks, George, but I felt damned unimportant as I surveyed my waiting escort (or captors?), and Jassa did nothing to raise my spirits.

“Gorracharra,” grunts he, and spat. “Irregular cavalry – it is an insult to thee, husoor.ⁱ These should have been men of the palace, pukka cavalry. They seek to put shame on us, the Hindoo swine!”

I told him pretty sharp to mind his manners, but I saw what he meant. They were typical native irregulars, splendid cavalry undoubtedly, but dressed and armed any old how, with lances, bows, tulwars,^j and ancient firearms, some in mail coats and helmets, others bare-legged, and all grinning most familiarly. Not what you’d call a guard of honour – yet that’s what they were, as I learned when their officer, a handsome young Sikh in a splendid rigout of yellow silk, addressed me by name – and by fame.

“Sardul Singh, at your service, Flashman bahadur,”^k cries he, teeth flashing through his beard. “I was by the Turksalee Gate when you came down from Jallalabad, and all men came to see the Afghan Kush.” So much for Broadfoot’s notion that shaving my whiskers would help me to pass unnoticed – mind you, it was famous to hear myself described as “the slayer of Afghans”, if quite undeserved. “When we heard you were coming with the book and not the sword – may it be an omen of peace for our peoples – I sought command of your escort – and these are volunteers.” He indicated his motley squadron. “Men of the Sirkar^l in their time. A fitter escort for Bloody Lance than Khalsa cavalry.”

Well, this was altogether grand, so I thanked him, raised my civilian kepi to his grinning bandits, saying “Salaam, bhai’”,^m which pleased them no end. I took the first chance to remind Jassa how wrong he’d been, but the curmudgeon only grunted: “The Sikh speaks, the cobra spits – who grows fat on the difference?” There’s no pleasing some folk.

Between the Sutlej and Lahore lie fifty of the hottest, flattest, scrubbiest miles on earth, and I supposed we’d cover them in a long day’s ride, but Sardul said we should lie overnight at a seraiⁿ a few miles from the city: there was something he wanted me to see. So we did, and after supper he took me through a copse to the loveliest place I ever saw in India – there, all unexpected after the heat and dust of the plain, was a great garden, with little palaces and pavilions among the trees, all hung with coloured lanterns in the warm dusk; streams meandered among the lawns and flower-beds, the air was fragrant with night-blooms, soft music sounded from some hidden place, and everywhere couples were strolling hand in hand or deep in lovers’ talk under the boughs. The Chinese Summer Palace, where I walked years later, was altogether grander, I suppose, but there was a magic about that Indian garden that I can’t describe – you could call it perfect peace, СКАЧАТЬ