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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       Chapter 14

      You’ll have difficulty finding Ferozeshah (or Pheeroo Shah, as we Punjabi purists call it) in the atlas nowadays. It’s a scrubby little hamlet about halfway between Ferozepore and Moodkee, but in its way it’s a greater place than Delhi or Calcutta or Bombay, for it’s where the fate of India was settled – appropriately by treachery, folly, and idiot courage beyond belief. And most of all, by blind luck.

      It was where Lal Singh, on my advice, had left half his force when he marched to meet Gough, and it was where his battered advance guard retired after Moodkee. So there he was now, twenty thousand strong with a hundred splendid guns, all nicely entrenched and snug as bugs. And Gough must attack him at once, for who could tell when Tej Singh, loafing before Ferozepore a mere dozen miles away, would be forced by his colonels to do the sensible thing and join Lal, thereby facing Paddy with a Khalsa of over fifty thousand, outnumbering us more than three to one?

      So it was bundle and go at Moodkee next day, with the last of the dead being shovelled under, the Native Infantry deploying for a night march, the 29th marching in from the Umballa track, their red coats as yellow as their facings with the rolling dust, and the band thumping out “Royal Windsor”, the elephant teams squealing as they hauled up the heavy pieces, camels braying in the lines, fellows shouting and waving papers in every tent opening, the munition carts rolling through, and Gough in his shirtsleeves at an open-air table with his staff scampering round him. And the discerning eye would also have noted a stalwart figure propped up on a charpoy with his leg swathed to the knee in an enormous bandage, cursing the luck which kept him out of the fun.

      “I say, Cust,” cries Abbott, “have you seen? Flashy’s got the gout! Has to have beef tea and sal volatile, and kameela drenches twice a day!”

      “Comes of boozin’ with maharanis at Lahore, I dare say,” says Cust, “while the rest of us poor politicals have to work for a living.”

      “When did politicals ever work?” says Hore. “You stay where you are, Flashy, and keep out of the sun, mind! If the goin’ gets sticky we’ll haul you up to wave your crutch at the Sikhs!”

      “Wait till I’m walking and I’ll wave more than a crutch!” cries I. “You fellows think you’re clever – I’ll be ahead of you all yet, you’ll see!” At which they all made game of me, and said they’d leave a few Sikh wounded for me to cut up. Cheery stuff, you see. Broadfoot himself had pronounced me hors de combat, and I got a deal of sympathy among all the chaff, but Gough insisted that I should be brought along to Ferozeshah anyway, to deal with casualty returns, of which there were likely to be a-plenty. “If he can’t ride he can still write,” says Paddy. “Besides, if I know the boy he’ll be in at the death before all’s done.” Live in hope, old Paddy, thinks I; I’d expected to be left behind at Moodkee with the wounded, but at least I’d be well out of the way at advance headquarters while the rest of them got on with the serious work.

      Broadfoot and his Afghans were out all day, scouting the Sikh position, so I never saw him. I went hot and cold by turns when I thought of the awful prospect he’d unfolded to me the previous night – sneaking back to Lahore in disguise, no doubt to carry treasonable messages to Jeendan, and keep an eye on her and her court of snakes … how the devil was it to be done, and why? But sufficient unto the day; I’d find out soon enough.

We marched, after a broiling day of confused preparation, in the freezing small hours, the army in column of route and your humble obedient borne in a dooli^a by minions, which caused much hilarity among the staff-wallopers, who kept stopping by to ask if I needed any gruel or a stone pig to warm my toes. I responded with bluff repartee – and noticed that as the march progressed the comedians fell silent; we came within earshot of the Sikh drums soon after dawn, and by nine were deploying within sight of Ferozeshah. I bade my dooli-bearers set me down in a little grove not far from the headquarters group, to be out of the heat – with interesting results, as you’ll see. For while most of what I tell you of that momentous day is hearsay, one vital incident was played out under my nose alone. This is what happened.

      The scouts had reported that the place was heavily entrenched on all sides, in a rough mile square about the village, with the Sikhs’ heavy guns among the mounds and ditches that enclosed it. On three sides there were jungly patches which would hinder our attack, but on the eastern side facing us it was flat maidan, and Gough, honest man, could see only one way – open up with the guns and sweep straight in, trusting to the bayonets of his twelve thousand to do the trick against twenty thousand Khalsa. During the night Littler had slipped out of Ferozepore with almost his whole seven thousand, leaving Tej guarding an empty town; Paddy’s notion may have been to drive the Sikhs out of Ferozeshah and into Littler’s path, but I ain’t sure.

      At all events, I was reclining in my dooli in the shade, discussing beef and hardtack and coughing contentedly over my cheroot, admiring the view of our army deployed across my front and feeling patriotic, when there was a commotion fifty yards off, where the HQ staff were at breakfast – Hardinge trying to hog the marmalade again, thinks I, but when I peeped out, here was the man himself striding towards my grove, looking stern, and five yards behind, Paddy Gough with his white coat flapping and bright murder in his eye. Hardinge stops just inside the grove and says: “Well, Sir Hugh?”

      “Well, indeed, Sorr Hinry!” cries Paddy, Irish with fury. “I’ll tell ye again – you’re lookin’ at the foinest victory that ever was won in India, bigad, an’ –”

      “And I tell you, Sir Hugh, it is not to be thought of! Why, you are outnumbered two to one in men, and even more in cannon – and they are in cover, sir!”

      “And don’t I know that, then? I tell ye still, I’ll put Ferozeshah in your hand by noon! Dear man, our infantry aren’t Portuguese!”

      That was a dig at Hardinge, who’d served with the Portugoosers in the Peninsula. His tone was freezing as he replied: “I cannot entertain it. You must wait for Littler to come up.”

      “An’ if I wait that long, sure’n the rabbits’ll be runnin’ through Ferozeshah! ’Tis the shortest day o’ the year, man! And will ye tell me, plain now – who commands this army?”

      “You do!” snaps Hardinge.

      “And did ye not offer me your services, as a soldier, in whutsoivver capacity, СКАЧАТЬ