The Flashman Papers: The Complete 12-Book Collection. George Fraser MacDonald

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СКАЧАТЬ way – set his mind at rest if he’s still worried about the subsidy, and so forth.”

      “It will all be in the letters,” says Burnes. “You must just give any added reassurances that may be needed.”

      “All right, Flashman?” says Cotton. “Good experience for you. Diplomatic mission, what?”

      “It’s very important,” says Burnes. “You see, if they thought there was anything wrong, or grew suspicious, it could be bad for us.”

      It could be a damned sight worse for me, I thought. I didn’t like this idea above half – all I knew of the Gilzais was that they were murderous brutes, like all country Afghans, and the thought of walking into their nests, up in the hills, with not the slightest hope of help if there was trouble – well, Kabul might not be Hyde Park, but at least it was safe for the present. And what the Afghan women did to prisoners was enough to start my stomach turning at the thought – I’d heard the stories.

      Some of this must have showed in my face, for Cotton asked fairly sharply what was the matter. Didn’t I want to go?

      “Of course, sir,” I lied. “But – well, I’m pretty raw, I know. A more experienced officer …”

      “Don’t fret yourself,” says Burnes, smiling. “You’re more at home with these folk than some men with twenty years in the service.” He winked. “I’ve seen you, Flashman, remember. Hah-ha! And you’ve got what they call a ‘fool’s face’. No disrespect: it means you look honest. Besides, the fact that you have some Pushtu will win their confidence.”

      “But as General Elphinstone’s aide, should I not be here …”

      “Elphy ain’t due for a week,” snapped Cotton. “Dammit, man, this is an opportunity. Any young feller in your shoes would be bursting to go.”

      I saw it would be bad to try to make further excuses, so I said I was all eagerness, of course, and had only wanted to be sure I was the right man, and so forth. That settled it: Burnes took me to the great wall map, and showed me where Mogala was – needless to say, it was at the back of nowhere, about fifty miles from Kabul, in hellish hill country south of the Jugdulluk Pass. He pointed out the road we should take, assuring me I should have a good guide, and produced the sealed packet I was to deliver to the half-mad (and doubtless half-human) Sher Afzul.

      “Make sure they go into his own hands,” he told me. “He’s a good friend to us – just now – but I don’t trust his nephew, Gul Shah. He was too thick with Akbar Khan in the old days. If there’s ever trouble among the Gilzais, it will come from Gul, so watch out for him. And I don’t have to tell you to be careful of old Afzul – he’s sharp when he’s sane, which he is most of the time. He’s lord of life and death in his own parish, and that includes you. Not that he’s likely to offer you harm, but keep on his good side.”

      I began to wonder if I could manage to fall ill in the next hour or two – jaundice, possibly, or something infectious. Cotton set the final seal on it.

      “If there’s trouble,” says he, “you must just ride for it.”

      To this fatherly advice he and Burnes added a few words about how I should conduct myself if the matter of subsidy was discussed with me, bidding me be reassuring at all costs – no thought of who should reassure me, I may say – and dismissed me. Burnes said they had high hopes of me, a sentiment I found it difficult to share.

      However, there was nothing for it, and next morning found me on the road east, with Iqbal and an Afghan guide on either side and five troopers of the 16th Lancers for escort. It was a tiny enough guard to be useless against anything but a stray robber – and Afghanistan never lacked for those – but it gave me some heart, and what with the fresh morning air, and the thought that all would probably be well and the mission another small stepping stone in the career of Lieutenant Flashman, I felt rather more cheerful.

The sergeant in charge of the Lancers was called Hudson, and he had already shown himself a steady and capable man. Before setting out he had suggested I leave behind my sabre – they were poor weapons, the Army swords, and turned in your grip¹³ – and take instead one of the Persian scimitars that some of the Afghans used. They were light and strong, and damned sharp. He had been very business-like about it, and about such matters as rations for the men and fodder for the horses. He was one of those quiet, middle-sized, square-set men who seem to know exactly what they are doing, and it was good to have him and Iqbal at my back.

      Our first day’s march took us as far as Khoord-Kabul, and on the second we left the track at Tezeen and went south-east into the hills. The going had been rough enough on the path, but now it was frightful – the land was all sun-scorched rock and jagged peaks, with stony defiles that were like ovens, where the ponies stumbled over the loose stones. We hardly saw a living creature for twenty miles after we left Tezeen, and when night came we were camped on a high pass, in the lee of a cliff that might have been the wall of hell. It was bitter cold, and the wind howled up the pass; far away a wolf wailed, and we had barely enough wood to keep our fire going. I lay in my blanket cursing the day I got drunk at Rugby, and wishing I were snug in a warm bed with Elspeth or Fetnab or Josette.

      Next day we were picking our way up a long stony slope when Iqbal muttered and pointed, and far ahead on a rocky shoulder I made out a figure which vanished almost as soon as I saw it.

      “Gilzai scout,” said Iqbal, and in the next hour we saw a dozen more of them; as we rode upwards we were aware of them in the hills on either side, behind boulders or on the ledges, and in the last few miles there were horsemen shadowing us on either side and behind. Then we came out of a defile, and the guide pointed ahead to a height crowned with a great grey fortress, with a round tower behind its outer wall, and a cluster of huts outside its embattled gate. This was Mogala, stronghold of the Gilzai chieftain, Sher Afzul. I seldom saw a place I liked less at first sight.

      We went forward at a canter, and the horsemen who had been following us galloped into the open on either side, keeping pace to the fort, but not approaching too close to us. They rode Afghan ponies, carried long jezzails and lances, and were a tough-looking crowd; some wore mail over their robes, and a few had spiked helmets; they looked like warriors from an Eastern fairy tale, with their outlandish clothes and fierce bearded faces – and of course, they were.

      Close by the gate was a row of four wooden crosses, and to my horror I realised that the blackened, twisted things nailed to them were human bodies. Sher Afzul obviously had his own notions of discipline. One or two of the troopers muttered at the sight, and there were anxious glances at our shadowers, who had lined up on either side of the gateway. I was feeling a trifle wobbly myself, but I thought, to hell with these blackamoors, we are Englishmen, and so I said, “Come on, lads, ride to attention,” and we clattered under the frowning gateway.

      I suppose Mogala is about a quarter of a mile from wall to wall, but inside its battlements, in addition to its huge keep, there were barracks and stables for Sher Afzul’s warriors, storehouses and armouries, and the house of the Khan himself. In fact, it was more of a little palace than a house, for it stood in a pretty garden under the shadow of the outer wall, shaded by cypress tress, and it was furnished inside like something from Burton’s Arabian Nights. There were tapestries on the walls, carpets on the paved floor, intricately carved wood screens in the archways, and a general air of luxury – he did himself well, I thought, but he took no chances. There were sentries all over the place, big men and well armed.

      Sher Afzul turned out to be a man about sixty, with a beard dyed jet black, and a lined, ugly face whose main features were two fierce, burning eyes that looked straight through you. He received me civilly enough in his fine presence СКАЧАТЬ