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

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СКАЧАТЬ paused, and “Isn’t it?” was on the tip of my tongue, for I didn’t care for this above half; talk of besieged forts and hillmen unsettles me, and I had horrid visions of Flashy sneaking through the passes with a portmanteau, bearing statements of compound interest to these two eccentric legatees, both of whom were probably dam’ dangerous to know.

      “A further complication,” says Broadfoot, “is that Jawaheer Singh is threatening to make this legacy a cause of war. As you know, peace is in the balance; those three jars down there might tip the scale. Naturally, Sir Henry Hardinge wishes negotiations about the legacy to be reopened at Lahore – not with a view to settlement, of course, but to temporise.” He looked at me over his spectacles. “We’re not ready yet.”

To settle – or to go to war? Having eavesdropped on Broadfoot’s opinions, I could guess which. Just as I could see, with sudden horrible clarity, who the negotiator was going to be, in that Court of bhang^e-sodden savages where they murdered each other regular, after supper. But that apart, the thing made no sense at all.

      “You want me to go to Lahore – but I ain’t a lawyer, dammit! Why, I’ve only been in a court twice in my life!” Drunk and resisting arrest, and being apprehended on premises known to be a disorderly house, five quid each time, not that it mattered.

      “They don’t ken that,” says Broadfoot.

      “Don’t they, though? George, I ain’t puffing myself, but I’m not unknown over there! Man alive, when we had a garrison in Lahore, in ’42, I was being trumpeted all over the shop! Why, you said yourself the fewer who knew Iflassman was back, the better! They know I’m a soldier, don’t they – Bloody Lance, and all that rot?”

      “So they may,” says he blandly. “But who’s to say ye haven’t been eating your dinner in Middle Temple Hall these three years past? If Hardinge sends ye, accredited and under seal, they’re not going to doubt ye. Ye can pick up the jargon, and as much law as ye’ll need, from those.” He indicated the books.

      “But where’s the point? A real lawyer can spin the thing out ten times better than I can! Calcutta’s full of ’em –”

      “But they can’t speak Punjabi. They can’t be my eyes and ears in Lahore Fort. They can’t take the pulse in that viper’s nest of intrigue. They’re not politicals trained by Sekundar Burnes. And if the grip comes” – He tapped his desk triumphantly – “they can’t turn themselves into a Khye-Keen or Barukzai jezzailchi and slip back over the Sutlej.”

      So I was to be a spy – in that den of devilment! I sat appalled, stammering out the first objection that came to mind.

      “And a fat chance I’ll have of doing that, with my face shaved!” He waved it aside.

      “Ye cannot go to Lahore with soldier written all over ye. Forbye, it’ll never come to disguise, or anything desperate. You’ll be a British diplomat, the Governor-General’s envoy, and immune.”

      So was McNaghten, I wanted to holler, so was Burnes, so were Connolly and Stoddart and Uncle Tom Cobleigh, it’s on their bloody tombstones. And then he unveiled the full horror of the thing.

      “That immunity will enable you to remain in Lahore after the war has begun … supposing it does. And that is when your real work will begin.”

      And I’d exchanged a staff billet for this. The prospect was fit to make me puke – but I daren’t say so, not to Broadfoot. Somehow I contained my emotion, assumed a ruptured frown, and said surely a diplomat would be expelled, or confined at least.

      “Not for a moment.” Oh, he had it all pat, blast him. “From the day you arrive in Lahore – and thereafter, whatever befalls – ye’ll be the most courted man in the Punjab. It’s this way: there’s a war party, and a peace party, and the Khalsa, and the panch committees that control it, and a faction that wants us to take the Punjab, and a faction that wants us driven from India altogether, and some that hop from one side to t’other, and cabals and cliques that don’t ken what they want because they’re too drunk and debauched to think.” He leaned forward, all eager red whiskers, his eyes huge behind the bottle lenses. “But they all want to be on the right side at the finish, and most have wit enough to see that that will be our side. Oh, they’ll shift and swither and plot, and ye’ll be approached (discreetly) with more hints and ploys and assurances of good will than ye can count. From enemies who’ll be friends tomorrow – and vice versa. All of which ye’ll transmit secretly to me.” He sat back, well pleased with himself, while I kept a straight face with my bowels in my boots. “That’s the marrow of the business. Now, for your more particular information …”

      He brought out a sheaf of those slim buff packets that I remembered from Burnes’s office at Kabul. I knew what they held: maps, names, places, reports and summaries, laws and customs, biographies and artists’ sketches, heights and distances, history, geography, even weights and measures – all that years of intelligence and espionage had gathered about the Punjab, to be digested and returned. “When ye’ve studied these, and the law books, we’ll talk at more length,” says he, and asked if I had any observations.

      I could have made a few, but what was the use? I was sunk – through my own folly, as usual. If I hadn’t thumped that randy baggage Madison, I’d never have overheard Gough and rushed rejoicing into this hellish political stew … it didn’t bear thinking of. All I could do was show willing, for my precious credit’s sake, so I asked him who the friends and enemies in Lahore were likely to be.

      “If I knew that, ye wouldn’t be going. Oh, I ken who our professed sympathisers and ill-willers are at the moment – but where they’ll stand next week …? Take Goolab Singh, Soochet’s fugitive heir – he’s sworn that if the Khalsa marches, he’ll stand by us … well, perhaps he will, in the hope that we’ll confirm him in Kashmir. But if the Khalsa were to give us a wee set-back – where would Goolab and his hillmen be then, eh? Loyal … or thinking about the loot of Delhi?”

I could see where Flashy would be – stranded in Lahore among the raging heathen. I knew better than to ask him what other politicals and trusted agents would be on hand, so I went round about. “How shall I report to you – through the vakil?”^f

      “No such thing – he’s a native, and not a sure one. He can take any letters ye may write about the Soochet legacy, but anything secret will be in cypher notes, which you’ll leave in Second Thessalonians on the bedside table in your quarters –”

      “Second where?”

      He looked at me as though I’d farted. “In your Bible, man!” You could see him wondering if my bedside reading wasn’t more likely to be Tom and Jerry. “The cypher, and coding instructions, are in the packets. Your messages will be … collected, never fear.”

      So there was a trusted messenger at the Court – and the fact that I wasn’t to be told who was another thought to chill my blood: what you don’t know you can’t tell if inquisitive folk approach you with hot irons … “What if I need to get word to you quickly? I mean, if the Khalsa march, all of a sudden –”

      “I’ll ken that before you do. What you must discover then is why they’ve marched. Who set them on, and for what purpose? If it’s war … what’s behind it, and how came it to begin? That’s what I must know.” He hunched forward again, intent. “Ye see, Flashy … to know precisely why your enemy is making war, what he hopes to gain and fears to lose … is to be half-way to winning. Mind that.”

      Looking СКАЧАТЬ