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

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СКАЧАТЬ fleas everywhere, and Hudson nearly suffocating inside the turban rag which hooded his whole head. Once we were hailed by a party of Pathans, and I answered with my heart in my mouth; they seemed interested in us, and in my panic all I could think to do was start singing – that old Pathan song that goes:

      There’s a girl across the river

      With a bottom like a peach –

      And alas, I cannot swim.

      They laughed and let us alone, but I thanked God they weren’t nearer than twenty yards, or they might have realised that I wasn’t as Afghan as I looked at a distance.

      It couldn’t have lasted long. I was sure that in another minute someone would have seen through our disguise, but then the ground fell away before us, and we were sitting our ponies at the top of a slope running down to the level, and on the far side of it, maybe two miles away, was Jallalabad, with the Kabul river at its back.

It was a scene to remember. On the long ridge on either side of us there were Afghans lining the rocks and singing out to each other, or squatting round their fires; down in the plain there were thousands of them, grouped any old way except near Jallalabad, where they formed a great half-moon line facing the city. There were troops of cavalry milling about, and I saw guns and wagons among the besiegers. From the front of the half-moon you could see little prickles of fire and hear the pop-pop of musketry, and farther forward, almost up to the defences, there were scores of little sangars dotted about, with white-robed figures lying behind them. It was a real siege, no question, and as I looked at that tremendous host between us and safety my heart sank: we could never get through it.

      Mind you, the siege didn’t seem to be troubling Jallalabad unduly. Even as we watched the popping increased, and we saw a swarm of figures running hell-for-leather back from before the earthworks – Jallalabad isn’t a big place, and had no proper walls, but the sappers had got some good-looking ramparts out before the town. At this the Afghans on the heights on either side of us set up a great jeering yell, as though to say they could have done better than their retreating fellows. From the scatter of figures lying in front of the earthworks it looked as though the besiegers had been taking a pounding.

      Much good that was to us, but then Hudson sidled his pony up to mine, and says, “There’s our way in, sir.” I followed his glance, and saw below and to our right, about a mile from the foot of the slope and maybe as far from the city, a little fort on an eminence, with the Union Jack fluttering over its gate, and flashes of musketry from its walls. Some of the Afghans were paying attention to it, but not many; it was cut off from the main fortifications by Afghan outposts on the plain, but they obviously weren’t caring much about it just now. We watched as a little cloud of Afghan horsemen swooped down towards it and then sheered off again from the firing on its walls.

      “If we ride down slow, sir,” says Hudson, “to where them niggers are lying round sniping, we could make a dash for it.”

      And get shot from our saddles for our pains, thinks I; no thank ’ee. But I had barely had the thought when someone hails us from the rocks on our left, and without a word we put our ponies down the slope. He bawled after us, but we kept going, and then we hit the level and were riding forward through the Afghans who were lying spread out among the rocks watching the little fort. The horsemen who had been attacking were wheeling about to our left, yelling and cursing, and one or two of the snipers shouted to us as we passed them by, but we kept on, and then there was just the last line of snipers and beyond it the little fort, three-quarters of a mile off, on top of its little hill, with its flag flying.

      “Now, sir,” snaps Hudson, and we dug in our heels and went like fury, flying past the last sangars. The Afghans there yelled out in surprise, wondering what the devil we were at, and we just put our heads down and made for the fort gate. I heard more shouting behind us, and thundering hooves, and then shots were whistling above us – from the fort, dammit. Oh Jesus, thinks I, they’ll shoot us for Afghans, and we can’t stop now with the horsemen behind us!

      Hudson flung off his poshteen, and yelled, rising in his stirrups. At the sight of the blue lancer tunic and breeches there was a tremendous yelling behind, but the firing from the fort stopped, and now it was just a race between us and the Afghans. Our ponies were about used up, but we put them to the hill at top speed, and as the walls drew near I saw the gate open. I whooped and rode for it, with Hudson at my heels, and then we were through, and I was slipping off the saddle into the arms of a man with enormous ginger whiskers and a sergeant’s stripes on his arm.

      “Damme!” he roars. “Who the hell are ye?”

      “Lieutenant Flashman,” says I, “of General Elphinstone’s army,” and his mouth opened like a cod’s. “Where’s your commanding officer?”

      “Blow me!” says he. “I’m the commanding officer, so far’s there is one. Sergeant Wells, Bombay Grenadiers, sir. But we thought you was all dead …”

      It took us a little time to convince him, and to learn what was happening. While his sepoys cracked away from the parapet overhead at the disappointed Afghans, he took us into the little tower, sat us on a bench, gave us pancakes and water – which was all they had – and told us how the Afghans had been besieging Jallalabad three days now, in ever-increasing force, and his own little detachment had been cut off in this outlying fort for that time.

      “It’s a main good place for them to mount guns, d’ye see, sir, if they could run us out,” says he. “So Cap’n Little – ’e’s back o’ the tower ’ere, wi’ is ’ead stove in by a bullet, sir – said as we ’ad to ’old out no matter what. ‘To the last man, sergeant,’ ’e sez, an’ then ’e died – that was yesterday evenin’, sir. They’d bin ’ittin’ us pretty ’ard, sir, an’ ’ave bin since. I dunno as we can last out much longer, ’cos the water’s runnin’ low, an’ they damn near got over the wall last night, sir.”

      “But can’t they relieve you from Jallalabad, for God’s sake?” says I.

      “I reckon they got their ’ands full, sir,” says he, shaking his head. “They can ’old out there long enough; ol’ Bob Sale – Gen’l Sale, I should say – ain’t worried about that. But makin’ a sortie to relieve us ’ud be another matter.”

      “Oh, Christ,” says I, “out of the frying pan into the fire!”

      He stared at me, but I was past caring. There seemed no end to it; there was some evil genie pursuing me through Afghanistan, and he meant to get me in the end. To have come so far, yet again, and to be dragged down within sight of safety! There was a palliasse in the corner of the tower, and I just went and threw myself down on it; my back was still burning, I was half-dead with fatigue, I was trapped in this hellish fort – I swore and wept with my face in the straw, careless of what they thought.

      I heard them muttering, Hudson and the sergeant, and the latter’s voice saying: “Well, strike me, ’e’s a rum one!” and they must have gone outside, for I heard them no more. I lay there, and must have fallen asleep out of sheer exhaustion, for when I opened my eyes again it was dark in the room. I could hear the sepoys outside, talking; but I didn’t go out; I got a drink from the pannikin on the table and lay down again and slept until morning.

      Some of you will hold up your hands in horror that a Queen’s officer could behave like this, and before his soldiers, too. To which I would reply that I do not claim, as I’ve said already, to be anything but a coward and a scoundrel, and I’ve never play-acted when it seemed pointless. It seemed pointless now. Possibly I was a little delirious in those days, from shock – Afghanistan, you’ll admit, hadn’t been exactly a Bank Holiday outing for me – but as I lay in that tower, listening СКАЧАТЬ