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

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СКАЧАТЬ beneath my head. I was in a British bed, somewhere, and the rustling sound above me was a punkah fan. Even when I moved, and a sudden anguish stabbed through my right leg, I wasn’t dismayed, for I guessed at once that it was only broken, and there was still a foot to waggle at the end of it.

      How I had got there I didn’t care. Obviously I had been rescued at the last minute from the fort, wounded but otherwise whole, and brought to safety. Far away I could hear the tiny popping of muskets, but here there was peace, and I lay marvelling at my own luck, revelling in my present situation, and not even bothering to open my eyes, I was so contented.

      When I did, it was to find myself in a pleasant, whitewashed room, with the sun slanting through wooden shutters, and a punkah wallah dozing against the wall, automatically twitching the string of his big fan. I turned my head, and found it was heavily bandaged; I was conscious that it throbbed at the back, but even that didn’t discourage me. I had got clear away, from pursuing Afghans and relentless enemies and beastly-minded women and idiot commanders – I was snug in bed, and anyone who expected any more from Flashy – well, let him wish he might get it!

      I stirred again, and my leg hurt, and I swore, at which the punkah wallah jumps up, squeaking, and ran from the room crying that I was awake. Presently there was a bustling, and in came a little spectacled man with a bald head and a large canvas jacket, followed by two or three Indian attendants.

“Awake at last!” says he. “Well, well, this is gratifying. Don’t move, sir. Still, still. You’ve a broken leg here and a broken head there, let’s have peace between ’em, what?” He beamed at me, took my pulse, looked at my tongue, told me his name was Bucket, pulled his nose, and said I was very well, considering. “Fractured femur, sir – thigh bone; nasty, but uncomplicated. Few months and you’ll be bounding over the jumps again. But not yet – no; had a nasty time of it, eh? Ugly cuts about your back – ne’er mind, we’ll hear about that later. Now Abdul,” says he, “run and tell Major Havelock the patient’s awake, juldi jao. Pray don’t move, sir. What’s that? – yes, a little drink. Better? Head still, that’s right – nothing to do for the present but lie properly still.”

      He prattled on, but I wasn’t heeding him. Oddly enough, it was the sight of the blue coat beneath the canvas jacket that put me in mind of Hudson – what had become of him? My last recollection was of seeing him hit and probably killed. But was he dead? He had better be, for my sake – for the memory of our latter relations was all too vivid in my mind, and it suddenly rushed in on me that if Hudson was alive, and talked, I was done for. He could swear to my cowardice, if he wanted to – would he dare? Would he be believed? He could prove nothing, but if he was known as a steady man – and I was sure he would be – he might well be listened to. It would mean my ruin, my disgrace – and while I hadn’t cared a button for these things when I believed death was closing in on me and everyone else in that fort, well, I cared most damnably for them now that I was safe again.

      Oh, God, says I to myself, let him be dead; the sepoys, if any survived, don’t know, and wouldn’t talk if they did, or be believed. But Hudson – he must be dead!

      Charitable thoughts, you’ll say. Aye, it’s a hard world, and while bastards like Hudson have their uses, they can be most inconvenient, too. I wanted him to be dead, then, as much as I ever wanted anything.

      My suspense must have been written on my face, for the little doctor began to babble soothingly to me, and then the door opened and in walked Sale, his big, kind, stupid face all beaming as red as his coat, and behind him a tall, flinty-faced, pulpit-looking man; there were others peeping round the lintel as Sale strode forward and plumped down into a chair beside the bed, leaning forward to take my hand in his own. He held it gently in his big paw and gazed at me like a cow in milk.

      “My boy!” says he, almost in a whisper. “My brave boy!”

      Hullo, thinks I, this don’t sound too bad at all. But I had to find out, and quickly.

      “Sir,” says I – and to my astonishment my voice came out in a hoarse quaver, it had been so long unused, I suppose – “sir, how is Sergeant Hudson?”

      Sale gave a grunt as though he had been kicked, bowed his head, and then looked at the doctor and the gravedigger fellow with him. They both looked damned solemn.

      “His first words,” says the little doctor, hauling out a handkerchief and snorting into it.

      Sale shook his head sadly, and looked back at me.

      “My boy,” says he, “it grieves me deeply to tell you that your comrade – Sergeant Hudson – is dead. He did not survive the last onslaught on Piper’s Fort.” He paused, staring at me compassionately, and then says: “He died – like a true soldier.”

      “‘And Nicanor lay dead in his harness’,” says the gravedigger chap, taking a look at the ceiling. “He died in the fullness of his duty, and was not found wanting.”

      “Thank God,” says I. “God help him, I mean – God rest him, that is.” Luckily my voice was so weak that they couldn’t hear more than a mumble. I looked downcast, and Sale squeezed my hand.

      “I think I know,” says he, “what his comradeship must have meant to you. We understand, you see, that you must have come together from the ruins of General Elphinstone’s army, and we can guess at the hardships – oh, my boy, they are written all too plainly on your body – that you must have endured together. I would have spared you this news until you were stronger …” He made a gesture and brushed his eye.

      “No, sir,” says I, speaking a little stronger, “I wanted to know now.”

      “It is what I would have expected of you,” says he, wringing my hand. “My boy, what can I say? It is a soldier’s lot. We must console ourselves with the thought that we would as gladly sacrifice ourselves for our comrades as they do for us. And we do not forget them.”

      “‘Non omnis moriar’,” says the gravedigger. “Such men do not wholly die.”

      “Amen,” says the little doctor, sniffing. Really, all they needed was an organ and a church choir.

      “But we must not disturb you too soon,” says Sale. “You need rest.” He got up. “Take it in the knowledge that your troubles are over, and that you have done your duty as few men would have done it. Aye, or could have done it. I shall come again as soon as I may; in the meantime, let me say what I came to tell you: that I rejoice from my heart to see you so far recovered, for your delivery is the finest thing that has come to us in all this dark catalogue of disasters. God bless you, my boy. Come, gentlemen.”

      He stumped out, with the others following; the gravedigger bowed solemnly and the little doctor ducked his head and shooed the nigger attendants before him. And I was left not only relieved but amazed by what Sale had said – oh, the everyday compliments of people like Elphy Bey are one thing, but this was Sale, after all, the renowned Fighting Bob, whose courage was a byword. And he had said my deliverance was “the finest thing”, and that I had done my duty as few could have done it – why, he had talked as though I was a hero, to be reverenced with that astonishing pussy-footing worship which, for some reason, my century extended to its idols. They treated us (I can say “us”) as though we were too delicate to handle normally, like old Chinese pots.

Well, I had thought, when I woke up, that I was safe and in credit, but Sale’s visit made me realise that there was more to it than I had imagined. I didn’t find out what, though, until the following day, when Sale came back again with the gravedigger at his elbow – he was Major Havelock, by the way, a Bible-moth of the deepest dye, and a great СКАЧАТЬ