By the same author:
The Flashman Papers flashman
Royal flash
flash for freedom! flashman at the Charge
Short stories
The General Danced at Dawn McAusIffn in the Rough
The Steel Bonnets
The Story of the AngloScottish Border Reivers
From The Flashman Papers 18561858
Edited and Arranged
by
GEORGE MACDONALD FRASER
BAHRIE SJEIMKIIMS
COMMUNICA - EUROPA
535190
TORONTO
PUBLIC
LIBRARIES
PARKDALE
BRANCH
 George MacDonald Fraser 1975
First published in 1975 by
Barrie & Jenkins Limited
24 Highbury Crescent
London N5 iRX
ISBN o 214 20120 i
All rights reserved
No part of this publication may be reproduced
in any form or by any means, without the prior
permission of Barrie & Jenkins Limited.
Set in 10 point Linotype Juliana
Printed in Great Britain by
Western Printing Services Ltd
Bristol
Bound by W. & I. Mackay Ltd
Chatham, Kent
MAR 7 1979
For the Mad White Woman
of Papar River
Explanatory note
One of the most encouraging things about editing the first four
volumes of the Flashman Papers has been the generous response
from readers and students of history in many parts of the world.
Since the discovery of Flashman's remarkable manuscript in a
Leicestershire saleroom in 1965, when it was realised that it was
the hitherto-unsuspected autobiographical memoir of the notorious
bully of Tom Brown's Schooldays, letters have reached the editor
from such diverse places as Ascension Island, a G.I. rest camp
in Vietnam, university faculties and campuses in Britain and
America, a modem caravanserai on the Khyber Pass road, a
police-station cell in southern Australia, and many others.
What has been especially gratifying has been not only the
interest in Flashman himself, but the close historical knowledge
which correspondents have shown of the periods and incidents
with which his memoirs have dealt so farthe first Afghan War,
the solution of the Schleswig-Holstein Question (involving as it
did Count Bismarck and Lola Montez), the Afro-American slave
trade, and the Crimean War. Many have contributed interesting
observations, and one or two have detected curious discrepancies
in Flashman's recollections which, regrettably, escaped his editor.
A lady in Athens and a gentleman in Flint, Michigan, have
pointed out that Flashman apparently saw the Duchess of
Wellington at a London theatre some years after her death, and a
letter on Foreign Office notepaper has remarked on his careless
reference to a "British Ambassador" in Washington in 1848,
when in fact Her Majesty's representative in the American capital
held a less exalted diplomatic title. Such lapses are understandable,
if not excusable, in a hard-living octogenarian.
Equally interesting have been such communications as those
from a gentleman in New Orleans who claims to be Flashman's
illegitimate great-grandson (as the result of a liaison in a military
hospital at Richmond, Va., during the U.S. Civil War), and from
a British serving officer who asserts that his grandfather lent fifty
dollars and a horse to Flashman during the same campaign;
neither, apparently, was returned.
It is possible that these and other matters of interest will be
resolved when the later papers are edited. The present volume
deals with Flashman's adventures in the Indian Mutiny, where he
witnessed many of the dramatic moments of that terrible struggle,
and encountered numerous Victorian celebrities--monarchs, statesmen,
and generals among them. As in previous volumes, his
narrative tallies closely with accepted historical fact, as well as
furnishing much new information, and there has been little for
his editor to do except correct his spelling, deplore his conduct,
and provide the usual notes and appendices.
G.M.F.
They don't often invite me to Balmoral
nowadays, which is a blessing; those damned tartan carpets always
put me off my food, to say nothing of the endless pictures of
German royalty and that unspeakable statue of the Prince Consort
standing knock-kneed in a kilt. King Teddy's company is something
I'd sooner avoid than not, anyway, for he's no better than
an upper-class hooligan. Of course, he's been pretty leery of me
for forty-odd years (ever since I misguided his youthful footsteps
into an actress's bed, in fact, and brought Papa Albert's divine
wrath down on his fat head) and when he finally wheezed his
way on to the throne I gather he thought of dropping me
altogether--said something about my being Falstaff to his
Prince Hal. Falstaff, mark you--from a man with piggy eyes and
a belly like a Conestoga wagon cover. Vile taste in cigars he has,
too.
In the old Queen's time, of course, I was at Balmoral a great
deal. She always fancied me, from when she was a chit of a girl
and pinned the Afghan medal on my manly breast, and after I
had ridden herd on that same precious Teddy through the Tranby
Croft affair and saved him from the worst consequences of his
own folly, she couldn't do enough for me. Each September after
that, regular as clockwork, there would come a command for
"dear General Flashman" to take the train north to Kailyard
Castle, and there would be my own room, with a bowl of late
roses on the window-sill, and a bottle of brandy on the side-table
with a discreet napkin over it--they knew my style. So I put up
with it; she was all right, little Vicky, as long as you gave her
your arm to lean on, and let her prattle on endlessly, and the
rations were adequate. But even then, I never cottoned to the
place. Not only, as I've said, was it furnished in a taste that would
have offended the sensibilities of a nigger costermonger, it had
the most awful Highland gloom about it--all drizzle and mist
and draughts under the door and holy melancholy: even the
billiard-room had a print on the wall of a dreadful ancient Scotch
couple glowering devoutly. Praying, I don't doubt, for me to be
snookered.
But I think what really turns me against Balmoral in my old
age is its memories. It was there that the Great Mutiny began for
me, and on my rare excursions north nowadays there's a point on
the line where the rhythm of the wheels changes, and in my
imagination they begin to sing: "Mera-Jhansi-denge-nay, meraJhansidenge-nay",
over and over, and in a moment the years have
dropped away, and I'm remembering how I first came to Balmoral
half a century ago; aye, and what it led to--the stifling heat of
the parade ground at Meerut with the fettering-hammers clanging;
the bite of the muzzle of the nine-pounder jammed into my body
and my own blood steaming on the sun-scorched iron; old Wheeler
bawling hoarsely as the black cavalry sabres come thundering
across the maidan towards our flimsy rampart ("No surrender!
One last volley, damn 'em, and aim at the horses!"); the burning
bungalows, a skeleton hand in the dust, Colin Campbell scratching
his grizzled head, the crimson stain spreading in the filthy water
below Suttee Ghat, a huge glittering pile of silver and gold and
jewels and ivory bigger than anything you've ever seen--and two
great brown liquid eyes shadowed with kohl, a single pearl
resting on the satin skin above them, open red lips trembling...
and, blast him, here's the station-master, beaming and knuckling
his hat and starting me out of the only delightful part of that
waking nightmare, with his cry of "Welcome back taste Deeside,
Sir Harry! here we are again, then!"
And as he hands me down to the platform, you may be sure
the local folk are all on hand, bringing their brats to stare and
giggle at the big old buffer in his tweed cape and monstrous white
whiskers ("There he is! The V.C. man, Sir Harry Flashman--aye,
auld Flashy, him that charged wi' the Light Brigade and killed a'
the niggers at Kau-bool--Goad, but isnae he the auld yin?--hip,
hooray!"). So I acknowledge the cheers with a wave, bluff and
hearty, as I step into the dog-cart, stepping briskly to escape
the inevitable bemedalled veteran who comes shuffling after me,
hoping I'll slip him sixpence for a dram when he assures me that
10
we once stood together in the Highlanders' line at Balaclava. Lying
old bastard, he was probably skulking in bed.
Not that I'd blame him if he was, mark you; given the chance
I'd have skulked in mineand not just at Balaclava, neither, but
at every battle and skirmish I've sweated and scampered through
during fifty inglorious years of unwilling soldiering. (Leastways,
I know they were inglorious, but the country don't, thank heaven,
which is why they've rewarded me with general rank and the
knighthood and a double row of medals on my left tit. Which
shows you what cowardice and roguery can do, given a stalwart
appearance, long legs, and a thumping slice of luck. Aye, well,
whip up, driver, we mustn't keep royalty waiting.)
But to return to the point, which is the Mutiny, and that
terrible, incredible journey that began at Balmoralwell, it was
as ghastly a road as any living man travelled in my time. I've seen
a deal of war, and agree with Sherman that it's hell, but the
Mutiny was the Seventh Circle under the Pit. Of course, it had its
compensations: for one, I came through it, pretty whole, which is
more than Havelock and Harry East and Johnny Nicholson did,
enterprising lads that they were. (What's the use of a campaign
if you don't survive it?) I did, and it brought me my greatest
honour (totally undeserved, I needn't tell you), and a tidy enough
jslab of loot which bought and maintains my present place in
LeicestershireI reckon the plunder's better employed keeping me
and my tenants in drink, than it was decorating a nigger temple
for the edification of a gang of blood-sucking priests. And along
the Mutiny road I met and loved that gorgeous, wicked witch
Lakshmibaithere were others, too, naturally, but she was the
prime piece.
One other thing about the Mutiny, before I get down to cases
I reckon it must be about the only one of my campaigns that I
was pitched into through no fault of mine. On other occasions,
I'll own, I've been to blame; for a man with a white liver a yard
wide I've had a most unhappy knack of landing myself neck-deep
in the slaughter through my various folliesto wit, talking too
much (that got me into the Afghan debacle of '41); playing the
fool in pool-rooms (the Crimea); believing everything Abraham
Lincoln told me (American Civil War); inviting a half-breed
11
Hunkpapa whore to a regimental ball (the Sioux Rising of '76),
and so on; the list's as long as my arm. But my involvement in
the Mutiny was all Palmerston's doing (what disaster of the fifties
wasn't?).
It came out of as clear and untroubled a sky as you could wish,
a few months after my return from the Crimea, where, as you
may know, I'd won fresh laurels through my terrified inability to
avoid the most gruelling actions. I had stood petrified in the Thin
Red Streak, charged with the Heavies and Lights, been taken
prisoner by the Russians, and after a most deplorable series of
adventures (in which I was employed as chief stud to a nobleman's
daughter, was pursued by hordes of wolves and Cossacks, and
finally was caught up in a private war between Asian bandits and
a Ruski army bound for Indiait's all in my memoirs somewhere)
had emerged breathless and lousy at Peshawar.*
There, as if I hadn't had trouble enough, I was restoring my
powers by squandering them on one of those stately, hungry
Afghan Amazons, and she must have been a long sight better at
coupling than cooking, for something on her menu gave me the
cholera. I was on the broad of my back for months, and it took a
slow, restful voyage home before I was my own man again, in
prime fettle for the reunion with my loving Elspeth and to enjoy
the role of a returned hero about town. And, I may add, a retired
hero; oxen and wainropes weren't going to drag Flashy back to
the Front again. (I've made the same resolve a score of times, and
by God I've meant it, but you can't fight fate, especially when
he's called Palmerston.)
However, there I was in the summer of '56, safely content on
half-pay as a staff colonel, with not so much as a sniff of war in
sight, except the Persian farce, and that didn't matter. I was
comfortably settled with Elspeth and little Hawy (the first fruit
of our union, a guzzling lout of seven) in a fine house off Berkeley
Square which Elspeth's inheritance maintained in lavish style,
dropping by occasionally at Horse Guards, leading the social life,
clubbing and turfing, whoring here and there as an occasional
change from my lawful brainless beauty, and being lionised by
all Londonwell, I'd stood at Armageddon and battled for the
* See Flashman at the Charge.
Lord (ostensibly) hadn't I, and enough had leaked out about my
subsequent secret exploits in Central Asia (though government
was damned cagey about them, on account of our delicate peace
negotiations with Russia) to suggest that Flashy had surpassed all his former heroics. So with the country in a patriotic fever about
its returning braves, I was ace-high in popular esteem--there was
even talk that I'd get one of the new Victoria Crosses (for what
that was worth) but it's my belief that Airey and Cardigan
scotched it between them. Jealous bastards.
I suspect that Airey, who'd been chief of staff to Raglan in
Crimea, hadn't forgotten my minor dereliction of duty at the
Alma, when the Queen's randy little cousin Willy got his fool
head blown off while under my care. And Cardigan loathed me,
not least because I'd once emerged drunk, in the nick of time,
from a wardrobe to prevent him cocking his lustful leg over my
loving Elspeth. (She was no better than I was, you know.) And
since coming home, I hadn't given him cause to love me any better.
You see, there was a deal of fine malicious tittle-tattle going
about that summer, over Cardigan's part in the Light Brigade
fiasco--not so much about his responsibility for the disaster, which
was debatable, if you ask me, but for his personal behaviour at
the guns. He'd been at the head of the charge, right enough, with
me alongside on a bolting horse, farting my fearful soul out, but
after we'd reached the battery he'd barely paused to exchange a
cut or two with the Ruski gunners before heading for home and
safety again. Shocking bad form in a commander, says I, who was
trying to hide under a gun limber at the time--not that I think
for a moment that he was funking it; he hadn't the brains to be
frightened, our Lord Haw-Haw. But he had retreated without
undue delay, and since he was never short of enemies eager to
believe the worst, the gossips were having a field day now. There
were angry letters in the press, and even a law-suit,1 and since I'd
been in the thick of the action, it was natural that I should be
asked about it.
In fact, it was George Paget, who'd commanded the 4th Lights
in the charge, who put the thing to me point-blank in the cardroom
at White's (can't imagine what I was doing there; must
have been somebody's guest) in front of a number of people,
13
civilians mostly, but I know Spottswood was there, and old
Scarlett of the Heavies, I think.
"You were neck and neck with Cardigan," says Paget, "and
in the battery before anyone else. Now, God knows he's not my
soul-mate, but all this talk's getting a shade raw. Did you see him
in the battery or not?"
Well, I had, but I wasn't saying sofar be it from me to clear
his lordship's reputation when there was a chance of damaging it.
So I said offhand:
"Don't ask me, George; I was too busy hunting for your
cigars," which caused a guffaw.
"No gammon. Flash," says he, looking grim, and asked again,
in his tactful way: "Did Cardigan cut out, or not?"
There were one or two shocked murmurs, and I shuffled a pack,
frowning, before I answered. There are more ways than one of
damning a man's credit, and I wanted to give Cardigan of my
best. So I looked uncomfortable, and then growled, slapped the
pack down as I rose, looked Paget in the eye, and said:
"It's all by and done with now, ain't it? Let's drop it, George,
shall we?" And I went out then and there, leaving behind the
impression that bluff, gallant Flashy didn't want to talk about
itwhich convinced them all that Cardigan had shirked, better
than if I'd said so straight out, or called him a coward to his face.
I had a chance to do that, too, a bare two hours later, when the
man himself came raging up to me with a couple of his toadies in
tow, just as Spottswood and I were coming out of the Guards
Club. The hall was full of fellows, goggling at the sensation.
"Fwashman! You there, sir!" he croakedthey were absolutely
the first words between us since the Charge, nearly two years
before. He was breathing frantically, like a man who has been
running, his beaky face all mottled and his grey whiskers
quaking with fury. "Fwashmanthis is intolewable! My honour
is impugnedscandalous lies, sir! And they tell me that you
don't deny them! Well, sir? Well? Haw-haw?"
I tilted back my tile with a forefinger and looked Tinn up and
down, from his bald head and pop eyes to his stamping foot. He
looked on the edge of apoplexy; a delightful sight.
"What lies are these, my lord?" says I, very steady.
14
"You know vewy well!" he cried. "Bawacwava, sir--the
storming of the battewy! Word George Paget has asked you, in
nubwic, whether you saw me at the guns--and you have the
effwontewy to tell him you don't know! Damnation, sir! And one
of my own officers, too--"
"A former member of your regiment, my lord--I admit the
fact."
"Blast your impudence!" he roared, frothing at me. "Will you
give me the lie? Will you say I was not at the guns?"
I settled my hat and pulled on my gloves while he mouthed.
"My lord," says I, speaking deliberately clear, "I saw you in
the advance. In the battery itself--I was otherwise engaged, and
had no leisure nor inclination to look about me to see who was
where. For that matter, I did not see Lord George himself until he
pulled me to my feet. I assumed--" and I bore on the word ever
so slightly "--that you were on hand, at the head of your command.
But I do not know, and frankly I do not care. Good day to
you, my lord." And with a little nod I turned to the door.
His voice pursued me, cracking with rage.
"Colonel Fwashman!" he cried. "You are a viper!"
I turned at that, making myself go red in the face in righteous
wrath, but I knew what I was about; he was getting no blow or
challenge from me--he shot too damned straight for that.
"Indeed, my lord," says I. "Yet I don't wriggle and turn." And
I left him gargling, well pleased with myself. But, as I say, it
probably cost me the V.C. at the time; for all the rumours, he was
still a power at Horse Guards, and well insinuated at Court, too.
However, our little exchange did nothing to diminish my
popularity at large; a few nights later I got a tremendous cheer at
the Guards Dinner at Surrey Gardens, with chaps standing on the
table shouting "Huzza for Flash Harry!" and singing "Garryowen"
and tumbling down drunk--how they did it on a third of a bottle
of bubbly beat me.2 Cardigan wasn't there, sensible fellow; they'd
have hooted him out of the kingdom. As it was. Punch carried a
nasty little dig about his absence, and wondered that he hadn't
sent along his spurs, since he'd made such good use of them in
retiring from the battery.
Of course. Lord Haw-Haw wasn't the only general to come
15
under the public lash that summer; the rest of 'em, like Lucan
and Airey, got it too for the way they'd botched the campaign.
So while we gallant underlings enjoyed roses and laurels all the
way, our idiot commanders were gainfully employed exchanging
recriminations, writing furious letters to the papers saying 'twasn't
their fault, but some other fellow's, and there had even been a
commission set up to investigate their misconduct of the war.
Unfortunately, government picked the wrong men to do the
investigatingMacNeill and Tullochfor they turned out to be
honest, and reported that indeed our high command hadn't been
fit to dig latrines, or words to that effect. Well, that plainly
wouldn't do, so another commission had to be hurriedly formed
to investigate afresh, and this time get the right answer, and no
nonsense about it. Well, they did, and exonerated everybody, hiphip-hurrah
and Rule, Britannia. Which was what you'd have
expected any half-competent government to stage-manage in the
first place, but Palmerston was in the saddle by then, and he
wasn't really good at politics, you know.
To crown it all, in the middle of the scandal the Queen herself
had words about it with Hardinge, the Commander-in-Chief, at
the Aldershot Review, and poor old Hardinge fell down paralysed
and never smiled again. It's true; I was there myself, getting
soaked through, and Hardinge went down like a shanghaied sailor,
with all his faculties gone, not that he had many to start with.
Some said it was a judgement on the Army and government
corruption, so there.
All of which mattered rather less to me than the width of
Elspeth's crinolines, but if I've digressed it is merely to show you
how things were in England then, and also because I can never
resist the temptation to blackguard Cardigan as he deserves.
Meanwhile, I was going happily about my business, helping my
dear wife spend her cashwhich she did like a clipper-hand in
port, I'm bound to sayand you would have said we were
a blissful young couple, turning a blind eye to each other's
infidelities and galloping in harness when we felt like it, which
was frequent, for if anything she got more beddable with the
passing years.
And then came the invitation to Balmoral, which reduced
16
Elspeth to a state of nervous exultation close to hysterics, and
took me clean aback. I'd have imagined that if the Royal family
ever thought of me at all, it was as the chap who'd been remiss
enough to lose one of the Queen's cousins--but mind you, she
had so many of 'em she probably didn't notice, or if she did,
hadn't heard that I was to blame for it. No, I've puzzled over it
sometimes, and can only conclude that the reason we were bidden
to Balmoral that September was that Russia was still very much
the topic of the day, what with the new Tsar's coronation and the
recent peace, and I was one of the most senior men to have been
a prisoner in Russia's hands.
I didn't have leisure to speculate at the time, though, for
Elspeth's frenzy at the thought of being "in attendance", as she
chose to call it, claimed everyone's attention within a mile of
Berkeley Square. Being a Scotch tradesman's daughter, my darling
was one degree more snobbish than a penniless Spanish duke, and
in the days before we went north her condescension to her middleclass
friends would have turned your stomach. Between gloating,
and babbling about how she and the Queen would discuss dressmaking
while Albert and I boozed in the gunroom (she had a
marvellous notion of court life, you see), she went into declines at
the thought that she would come out in spots, or have her drawers
fall down when being presented. You must have endured the sort
of thing yourself.
"Oh, Harry, Jane Speedicut will be green! You and I--guests
of her majesty! It will be the finest thing--and I have my new
French dresses--the ivory, the beige silk, the lilac satin, and the
lovely, lovely green which old Admiral Lawson so admired--if
you think it is not a leetle low for the Queen? And my barrege
for Sunday--will there be members of the nobility staying also?--
will there be ladies whose husbands are of lower rank than you?
Ellen Parkin--Lady Parkin, indeed!--was consumed with spite
when I told her--oh, and I must have another maid who can
manage my hair, for Sarah is too maladroit for words, although
she is very passable with dresses--what shall I wear to picnics?--
for we shall be bound to walk in the lovely Highland countryside
--oh. Harry, what do you suppose the Queen reads?--and shall
I call the Prince 'highness' or 'sir'?"
17
I was glad, I can tell you, when we finally reached Abergeldie,
where we had rooms in the castle where guests were put up--for
Balmoral was very new then, and Albert was still busy having
the finishing touches put to it. Elspeth by this time was too
nervous even to talk, but her first glimpse of our royal hosts
reduced her awe a trifle, I think. We took a stroll the first afternoon,
in the direction of Balmoral, and on the road encountered
what seemed to be a family of tinkers led by a small washerwoman
and an usher who had evidently pinched his headmaster's clothes.
Fortunately, I recognised them as Victoria and Albert out with
their brood, and knew enough simply to raise my hat as we passed,
for they loathed to be treated as royalty when they were playing
at being commoners. Elspeth didn't even suspect who it was until
we were past, and when I told her she swooned by the roadside. I
revived her by threatening to carry her into the bushes and molest
her, and on the way back she observed that really her majesty had
looked quite royal, but in a common sort of way.
By the time we were presented at Balmoral, though, the next
day, she was high up the scale again, and the fact that we shared
the waiting-room beforehand with some lord or other and his
beak-nosed lady, who looked at us as though we were riffraff,
reduced my poor little scatterbrain to quaking terror. I'd met the
royals before, of course, and tried to reassure her, whispering that
she looked a stunner (which was true) and not to be put out by
Lord and Lady Puffbuttock, who were now ignoring us with that
icy incivility which is the stamp of our lower-class aristocracy. (I
know; I'm one myself nowadays.)
It was quite handy that our companions kept their noses in the
air, though, for it gave me the chance to loop a ribbon from the
lady's enormous crinoline on to an occasional table without her
knowing, and when the doors to the royal drawing-room were
opened she set off and brought the whole thing crashing down,
crockery and all, in full view of the little court circle. I kept
Elspeth in an iron grip, and steered her round the wreckage, and
so Colonel and Mrs Flashman made their bows while the doors
were hurriedly closed behind us, and the muffled sounds of the
Puffbuttocks being extricated by flunkeys was music to my ears,
even if it did make the Queen look more pop-eyed than usual. The
18
'^
moral is: don't put on airs with Flashy, and if you do, keep your
crinolines out of harm's way.
And, as it turned out, to Elspeth's lifelong delight and my
immense satisfaction, she and the Queen got on like port and nuts
from the first. Elspeth, you see, was one of those females who are
so beautiful that even other women can't help liking 'em, and in
her idiot way she was a lively and engaging soul. The fact that
she was Scotch helped, too, for the Queen was in one of her
Jacobite moods just then, and by the grace of God someone had
read 'Waverley to Elspeth when she was a child, and taught her to
recite "The Lady of the Lake".
I had been dreading meeting Albert again, in case he mentioned
his whoremongering Nephew Willy, now deceased, but all he did
was say:
"Ah, Colonel Flash-mann--haff you read Tocqueville's L'Anckn
Regime?"
I said I hadn't, yet, but I'd be at the railway library first thing
in the morning, and he looked doleful and went on:
"It warns us that bureaucratic central government, far from
curing the ills of revolution, can actually arouse them."
I said I'd often thought that, now that he mentioned it, and he
nodded and said: "Italy is very unsatisfactory," which brought
our conversation to a close. Fortunately old Ellenborough, who'd
been chief in India at the time of my Kabul heroics, was among
those present, and he buttonholed me, which was a profound relief.
And then the Queen addressed me, in that high sing-song of
hers:
"Your dear wife. Colonel Flashman, tells me that you are quite recovered from the rigours of your Russian adventures, which you
shall tell us of presently. They seem to be a quite extraordinary people; Lord Granville writes from Petersburg that Lady Wodehouse's
Russian maid was found eating the contents of one of her
ladyship's dressing-table pots--it was castor oil pomatum for the
hair! What a remarkable extravagance, was it not?"
That was my cue, of course, to regale them with a few domestic
anecdotes of Russia, and its primitive ways, which went down
well, with the Queen nodding approval and saying: "How barbarous!
How strange!" while Elspeth glowed to see her hero
19
holding the floor. Albert joined in in his rib-ticlding way to
observe that no European state offered such fertile soil for the
seeds of socialism as Russia did, and that he feared that the new
Tsar had little intellect or character.
"So Lord Granville says," was the Queen's prim rejoinder, "but
I do not think it is quite his place to make such observations on a
royal personage. Do you not agree, Mrs Flashman?"
Old Ellenborough, who was a cheery, boozy buffer, said to me
that he hoped I had tried to civilise the Russians a little by
teaching them cricket, and Albert, who had no more humour than
the parish trough, looked stuffy and says:
"I am sure Colonel Flash-mann would do no such thing. I
cannot unner-stend this passion for cricket; it seems to me a great
waste of time. What is the proff-it to a younk boy in crouching
motionless in a field for hourss on end? Em I nott right, Colonel?"
"Well, sir," says I, "I've looked out in the deep field myself
long enough to sympathise with you; it's a great fag, to be sure.
But perhaps, when the boy's a man, his life may depend on
crouching motionless, behind a Khyber rock or a Burmese bush--
so a bit of practice may not come amiss, when he's young."
Which was sauce, if you like, but I could never resist the
temptation, in grovelling to Albert, to put a pinch of pepper down
his shirt. It was in my character of bluff, no-nonsense Harry, too,
and a nice reminder of the daring deeds I'd done. Ellenborough
said "Hear, hear", and even Albert looked only half-sulky, and
said all diss-cipline was admirable, but there must be better ways
of instilling it; the Prince of Wales, he said, should nott play
cricket, but some more constructiff game.
After that we had tea, very informal, and Elspeth distinguished
herself by actually prevailing on Albert to eat a cucumber sandwich;
she'll have him in the bushes in a minute, thinks I, and on
that happy note our first visit concluded, with Elspeth going home
on a cloud to Abergeldie.
But if it was socially useful, it wasn't much of a holiday,
although Elspeth revelled in it. She went for walks with the
Queen, twice (calling themselves Mrs Fitzjames and Mrs Marmion,
if you please), and even made Albert laugh when charades were
played in the evening, by impersonating Helen of Troy with a
20
Scotch accent. I couldn't even get a grin out of him; we went
shooting with the other gentlemen, and it was purgatory having
to stalk at his pace. He was keen as mustard, though, and
slaughtered stags like a Ghazi on hashishyou'll hardly credit it,
but his notion of sport was that a huge long trench should be dug
so that we could sneak up on the deer unobserved; he'd have done
it, too, but the local ghillies showed so much disgust at the idea
that he dropped it. He couldn't understand their objections,
though; to him all that mattered was killing the beasts.
For the rest, he prosed interminably and played German music
on the piano, with me applauding like hell. Things weren't made
easier by the fact that he and Victoria weren't getting on too well
just then; she had just discovered (and confided to Elspeth) that
she was in foal for the ninth time, and she took her temper out on
dear Albertthe trouble was, he was so bloody patient with her,
which can drive a woman to fury faster than anything I know.
And he was always right, which was worse. So they weren't
dealing at all well, and he spent most of the daylight hours
tramping up Glen Bollocks, or whatever they call it, roaring "Ze
gunn!" and butchering every animal in view.
The only thing that seemed to cheer up the Queen was that she
was marrying off her oldest daughter. Princess Vickythe best of
the whole family, in my view, a really pretty, green-eyed little
mischief. She was to wed Frederick William of Prussia, who was
due at Balmoral in a few weeks, and the Queen was full of it,
Elspeth told me.
However, enough of the court gossip; it will give you some ^
notion of the trivial way in which I was being forced to pass my
timetoadying Albert, and telling the Queen how many acute
accents there were on "determines". The trouble with this kind of
thing is that it dulls your wits, and your proper instinct for selfpreservation,
so that if a blow falls you're caught clean offside, as
I was on the night of September 22, 1856: I recollect the date
absolutely because it was the day after Florence Nightingale came
to the castle.3
I'd never met her, but as the leading Crimean on the premises
I was summoned to join in the tete-a-tete she had with the Queen
in the afternoon. It was a frost, if you like; pious platitudes from
21
the two of 'em, with Flashy passing the muffins and joining in
when called on to agree that what our wars needed was more
sanitation and texts on the wall of every dressing-station. There
was one near-facer for me, and that was when Miss Nightingale
(a cool piece, that) asked me calm as you like what regimental
officers could do to prevent their men from contracting certain
indelicate social infections from--hem-hem--female campfollowers
of a certain sort; I near as dammit put my tea-cup in the
Queen's lap, but recovered to say that I'd never heard of any such
thing, not in the Light Cavalry, anyway--French troops another
matter, of course. Would you believe it, I actually made her blush,
but I doubt if the Queen even knew what we were talking about.
For the rest, I thought La Nightingale a waste of good womanhood;
handsome face, well set up and titted out, but with that
cold don't-lay-a-lecherous-limb-on-me-my-lad look in her eye--the
kind, in short, that can be all right if you're prepared to spend
time and trouble making 'em cry "Roger!", but I seldom have the
patience. Anywhere else I might have taken a squeeze at her, just
by way of research, but a queen's drawing-room cramps your
style. (Perhaps it's a pity I didn't; being locked up for indecent
assault on a national heroine couldn't have been worse than the
ordeal that was to begin a few hours later.)
Elspeth and I spent the following evening at a birthday party
at one of the big houses in the neighbourhood; it was a cheery
affair, and we didn't leave till close on midnight to drive back to
Abergeldie. It was a close, thundery night, with big raindrops
starting to fall, but we didn't mind; I had taken enough drink on
board to be monstrously horny, and if the drive had been longer
and Elspeth's crinoline less of a hindrance I'd have had at her on
the carriage-seat. She got out at the lodge giggling and squeaking,
and I chased her through the front door--and there was the
messenger of doom, waiting in the hall. A tall chap, almost a
swell, but with a jaw too long and an eye too sharp; very
respectable, with a hard hat under his arm and a billy in his hippocket,
I'll wager. I know a genteel strong man from a government
office when I see one.
He asked could he speak to me, so I took my arm from Elspeth's
waist, patted her towards the stairs with a whispered promise that
I'd be up directly to sound the charge, and told him to state his
business. He did that smart enough.
"I am from the Treasury, Colonel Flashman," says he. "My
name is Button. Lord Palmerston wishes to speak with you."
It took me flat aback, slightly foxed that I was. My first thought
was that he must want me to go back to London, but then he
said: "His lordship is at Balmoral, sir. If you will be good enough
to come with me--I have a coach."
"But--but... you said Lord Palmerston? The Prime... what
the deuce? Palmerston wants we?"
"At once, sir, if you please. The matter is urgent."
Well, I couldn't make anything of it. I never doubted it was
genuine--as I've said, the man in front of me had authority
written all over him. But it's a fair start when you come rolling
innocently home and are told that the first statesman of Europe
is round the corner and wants you at the double--and now the
fellow was positively ushering me towards the door.
"Hold on," says I. "Give me a moment to change my shoes"--
what I wanted was a moment to put my head in the washbowl
and think, and despite his insistence I snapped at him to wait,
and hurried upstairs.
What the devil was Pam doing here--and what could he want
with me? I'd only met him once, for a moment, before I went to
the Crimea; I'd leered at him ingratiatingly at parties, too, but
never spoken. And now he wanted me urgently--me, a mere
colonel on half-pay. I'd nothing on my conscience, either--
leastways, not to interest him. I couldn't see it, but there was
nothing but to obey, so I went to my dressing-room, fretting,
donned my hat and topcoat against the worsening weather, and
remembered that Elspeth, poor child, must even now be waiting
for her cross-buttocking lesson. Well, it was hard lines on her,
but duty called, so I just popped my head round her door to
call a chaste farewell--and there she was, dammit, reclining
languorously on the coverlet like one of those randy classical
goddesses, wearing nothing but the big ostrich-plume fan I'd
brought her from Egypt, and her sniggering maid turning the
lamp down low. Elspeth clothed could stop a monk in his tracks;
naked and pouting expectantly over a handful of red feathers,
23
she'd have made the Grand Inquisitor bum his books. I hesitated
between love and duty for a full second, and then "The hell with
Palmerston, let him wait!" cries I, and was plunging for the bed
before the abigail was fairly out of the room. Never miss the
chance, as the Duke used to say.
"Lord Palmerston? Oooo-ah! Harrywhat do you mean?"
"Ne'er mind!" cries I, taking hold and boundng away.
"But Harrysuch impatience, my love! And, dearestyou're
wearing your hat!"
"The next one's going to be a boy, dammit!" And for a few
glorious stolen moments I forgot Palmerston and minions in the
hall, and marvelled at the way that superb idiot woman of mine
could keep up a stream of questions while performing like a harem
houriwe were locked in an astonishing embrace on her dressingtable
stool, I recall, when there was a knock on the door, and
the maid's giggling voice piped through to say the gentleman
downstairs was getting impatient, and would I be long.
"Tell him I'm just packing my baggage," says I. "I'll be down
directly", and presently, keeping my mouth on hers to stem her
babble of questions, I carried my darling tenderly back to the bed.
Always leave things as you would wish to find them.
"I cannot stay longer, my love," I told her. "The Prime
Minister is waiting." And with bewildered entreaties pursuing
me I skipped out, trousers in hand, made a hasty toilet on the
landing, panted briefly against the wall, and then stepped briskly
down. It's a great satisfaction, looking back, that I kept the
government waiting in such a good cause, and I set it down here
as a deserved tribute to the woman who was the only real love of
my life and as the last pleasant memory I was to have for a long
time ahead.
It's true enough, too, as Ko Dali's daughter taught me, that
there's nothing like a good rattle for perking up an edgy chap
like me. It had shaken me for a moment, and it still looked rum,
that Palmerston should want to see me, but as we bowled through
the driving rain to Balmoral I was telling myself that there was
probably nothing in it after all; considering the good odour I
stood in just then, hob-nobbing with royalty and being admired
for my Russian heroics, it was far more likely to be fair news
14
than foul. And it wasn't like being bidden to the presence of one
of your true ogres, like the old Duke or Bismarck or Dr Wrath-of- God Arnold (I've knocked tremulously on some fearsome doors in
my time, I can tell you).
No, Pam might be an impatient old tyrant when it came to
bullying foreigners and sending warships to deal with the dagoes,
but everyone knew he was a decent, kindly old sport at bottom,
who put folk at their ease and told a good story. Why, it was
notorious that the reason he wouldn't live at Downing Street, but
on Piccadilly, was that he liked to ogle the good-lookers from his
window, and wave to the cads and crossing-sweepers, who loved
him because he talked plain English, and would stump up a
handsome subscription for an old beaten prize-pug like Tom Sayers.
That was Pam--and if anyone ever tells you that he was a
politically unprincipled old scoundrel, who carried things with a
high and reckless hand, I can only say that it didn't seem to work
a whit worse than the policies of more high-minded statesmen.
The only difference I ever saw between them and Pam was that
he did his dirty work bare-faced (when he wasn't being deeper
than damnation) and grinned about it.
So I was feeling pretty easy as we covered the three miles to
Balmoral--and even pleasantly excited--which shows you how
damned soft and optimistic I must have grown; I should have
known that it's never safe to get within range of princes or prime
ministers. When we got to the Castle I followed Button smartly
through a side-door, up some back-stairs, and along to heavy
double doors where a burly civilian was standing guard; I gave
my whiskers a martial twitch as he opened the door, and stepped
briskly in.
You know how it can be when you enter a strange room--
everything can look as safe and merry as ninepence, and yet
there's something in the air that touches you like an electric
shock. It was here now, a sort of bristling excitement that put my
nerves on edge in an instant. And yet there was nothing out of
the ordinary to see--just a big, cheerful panelled room with a
huge fire roaring under the mantel, a great table littered with
papers, and two sober chaps bustling about it under the direction
of a slim young fellow--Bamngton, Palmerston's secretary. And
25
over by the fire were three other menEUenborough, with his
great flushed face and his belly stuck out; a slim, keen-looking
old file whom I recognised as Wood, of the Admiralty; and with
his back to the blaze and his coat-tails up, the man himself,
peering at Ellenborough with his bright, short-sighted eyes and
looking as though his dyed hair and whiskers had just been
rubbed with a towelold Squire Pam as ever was. As I came in,
his brisk, sharp voice was ringing out (he never gave a damn who
heard him):
"... so if he's to be Prince Consort, it don't make a ha'porth of
difference, you see. Not to the countryor me. However, as
long as Her Majesty thinks it doesthat's what matters, what?
Haven't you found that telegraph of Quilter's yet, Barrington?
well, look in the Persian packet, then."
And then he caught sight of me, and frowned, sticking out his
long lip. "Ha, that's the man!" cries he. "Come in, sir, come in!"
What with the drink I'd taken, and my sudden nervousness, I
tripped over the matwhich was an omen, if you likeand came
as near as a toucher to oversetting a chair.
"By George," says Pam, "is he drunk? All these young fellows
are, nowadays. Here, Barrington, see him to a chair, before he
breaks a window. There, at the table." Barrington pulled out a
chair for me, and the three at the fireplace seemed to be staring
ominously at me while I apologised and took it, especially Pam in
the middle, with those bright steady eyes taking in every inch of
me as he nursed his port glass and stuck a thumb into his fob
for all the world like the marshal of a Kansas trail-town surveying
the street. (Which is what he was, of course, on a rather grand
scale.)
He was very old at this time, with the gout and his fake teeth
forever slipping out, but he was evidently full of ginger tonight,
and not in one of his easygoing moods. He didn't beat about, either.
"Young Flashman," growls he. "Very good. Staff colonel, on
half-pay at present, what? Well, from this moment you're back
on the full list, an' what you hear in this room tonight is to go no
further, understand? Not to anyonenot even in this castle. You
follow?"
I followed, sure enoughwhat he meant was that the Queen
26
wasn't to know: it was notorious that he never told her anything.
But that was nothing; it was his tone, and the solemn urgency of
his warning, that put the hairs up on my neck.
"Very good," says he again. "Now then, before I talk to you,
Lord Ellenborough has somethin' to show youwant your opinion
of it. All right, Barrington, I'll take that Persian stuff now, while
Colonel FIashman looks at the damned buns."
I thought I'd misheard him, as he limped past me and took his
seat at the table-head, pawing impatiently among his papers. But
sure enough, Barrington passed over to me a little lead biscuit-box,
and Ellenborough, seating himself beside me, indicated that I
should open it. I pushed back the lid, mystified, and there, in a
rice-paper wrapping, were three or four greyish, stale-looking
little scones, no bigger than captain's biscuits.
"There," says Pam, not looking up from his papers. "Don't eat
'em. Tell his lordship what you make of those."
I knew, right off; that faint eastern smell was unmistakable,
but I touched one of them to make sure.
"They're chapattis, my lord," says I, astonished. "Indian
chapattis."
Ellenborough nodded. "Ordinary cakes of native food. You
attach no signal significance to them, though?"
"Why... no, sir."
Wood took a seat opposite me. "And you can conjecture no
situation, colonel," says he, in his dry, quiet voice, "in which the
sight of such cakes might occasion you... alarm?"
Obviously Ministers of the Crown don't ask damnfool questions
for nothing, but I could only stare at him. Pam, apparently deep
in his papers at the table-head, wheezing and sucking his teeth
and muttering to Barrington, paused to grunt: "Serve the dam'
things at dinner an' they'd alarm me," and Ellenborough tapped
the biscuit box. .
"These chapattis came last week from India, by fast steam
sloop. Sent by our political agent at a place called Jhansi. Know
it? It's down below the Jumna, in Maharatta country. For weeks
now, scores of such cakes have been turning up among the sepoys
of our native Indian garrison at Jhansinot as food, though. It
seems the sepoys pass them from hand to hand as tokens"
27
"Have you ever heard of such a thing?" Wood interrupted.
I hadn't, so I just shook my head and looked attentive,
wondering what the devil this was all about, while Ellenborough
went on:
"Our political knows where they come from, all right. The
native village constablesyou know, the chow'kidarsbake them
in batches of ten, and send one apiece to ten different sepoys
and each sepoy is bound to make ten more, and pass them on, to
his comrades, and so on, ad infinitum. It's not new, of course;
ritual cake-passing is very old in India. But there are three
remarkable things about it: firstly, it happens only rarely; second,
even the natives themselves don't know why it happens, only that
the cakes must be baked and passed; and third" he tapped the
box again "they believe that the appearance of the cakes
foreshadows terrible catastrophe."
He paused, and I tried to look impressed. For there was nothing
out of the way in all thisstraight from Alice in Wonderland, if
you like, but when you know India and the amazing tricks the
niggers can get up to (usually in the name of religion) you cease
to be surprised. It seemed an interesting superstitionbut what
was more interesting was that two Ministers of the Government,
and a former Governor-General of India, were discussing it behind
closed doorsand had decided to let Flashy into the secret.
"But there's something more," Ellenborough went on, "which
is why Skene, our political man at Jhansi, is treating the matter as
one of urgency. Cakes like these have circulated among native
troops, quite apart from civilians, on only three occasions in the
past fifty yearsat Vellore in '06, at Buxar, and at Barrackpore.
You don't recall the names? Well, at each place, when the cakes
appeared, the same reaction followed among the sepoys." He put
on his House of Lords face and said impressively, "Mutiny."
Looking back, I suppose I ought to have thrilled with horror at
the mention of the dread wordbut in fact all that occurred to
me was the facetious thought that perhaps they ought to have
varied the sepoys' rations. I didn't think much of the political
man Skene's judgement, either; I'd been a political myself, and it's
part of the job to scream at your own shadow, but if heor
Ellenborough, who knew India outside inwas smelling a sepoy
28
revolt in a few mouldy biscuitswell, it was ludicrous. I knew
Tohn Sepoy (we all did, didn't we?) for the most loyal ass who
ever put on uniformand so he should have been, the way the
Company treated him. However, it wasn't for me to venture an
opinion in such august company, particularly with the Prime
Minister listening: he'd pushed his papers aside and risen, and
was pouring himself some more port.
"Well, now," says he briskly, taking a hearty swig and rolling
it round his teeth, "you've admired his lordship's cakes, what?
Damned unappetisin' they look, too. All right, Barrington, your
assistants can goour special leaves at four, does it? Very well."
He waited till the junior secretaries had gone, muttered something
about ungodly hours and the Queen's perversity in choosing a
country retreat at the North Pole, and paced stiffly over to the
fire, where he set his back to the mantel and glowered at me from
beneath his gorse-bush brows, which was enough to set my dinner
circulating in the old accustomed style.
"Tokens of revolution in an Indian garrison," says he. "Very
good. Been readin' that report of yours again, Flashmanthe one
you made to Dalhousie last year, in which you described the
discovery you made while you were a prisoner in Russiaabout
their scheme for invadin' India, while we were busy in Crimea.
Course, we say nothin' about that these dayspeace signed with
Russia, all good fellowship an' be damned, et ceteradon't have
to tell you. But somethin' in your report came to mind when this
cake business began." He pushed out his big lip at me. "You wrote
that the Russian march across the Indus was to be accompanied
by a native risin' in India, fomented by Tsarist agents. Our
politicals have been chasin' that fox ever sincepickin' up some
interestin' scents, of which these infernal buns are the latest.
Now, then," he settled himself, eyes half-shut, but watching me,
" tell me precisely what you heard in Russia, touchin' on an Indian
rebellion. Every word of it."
So I told him, exactly as I remembered ithow Scud East and
I had lain quaking in our nightshirts in the gallery at Starotorsk,
and overheard about "Item Seven", which was the Russian plan
for an invasion of India. They'd have done it, too, but Yakub
Beg's riders scuppered their army up on the Syr Daria, with
29
Flashy running about roaring with a bellyful of bhang, performing
unconscious prodigies of valour. I'd set it all out in my report to
Dalhousie, leaving out the discreditable bits (you can find those
in my earlier memoirs, along with the licentious details). It was a
report of nicely-judged modesty, that official one, calculated to
convince Dalhousie that I was the nearest thing to Hereward the
Wake he was ever likely to meetand why not? I'd suffered for
my credit.
But the information about an Indian rebellion had been slight.
All we'd discovered was that when the Russian army reached the
Khyber, their agents in India would rouse the nativesand
particularly John Company's sepoysto rise against the British.
I didn't doubt it was true, at the time; it seemed an obvious ploy.
But that was more than a year ago, and Russia was no threat to
India any longer, I supposed.
They heard me out, in a silence that lasted a full minute after
I'd finished, and then Wood says quietly:
"It fits, my lord."
"Too dam' well," says Pam, and came hobbling back to his
chair again. "It's all pat. You see, Flashman, Russia may be spent
as an armed power, for the presentbut that don't mean .she'll
leave us at peace in India, what? This scheme for a rebellionby
George, if I were a Russian political, invasion or no invasion, I
fancy I could achieve somethin' in India, given the right agents.
Couldn't I just, though!" He growled in his throat, heaving
restlessly and cursing his gouty foot. "Did you know, there's an
Indian superstition that the British Raj will come to an end
exactly a hundred years after the Battle of Plassey?" He picked
up one of the chapattis and peered at it. "Dam' thing isn't even
sugared. Well, the hundredth anniversary of Plassey falls next
June the twenty-third. Interestin'. Now then, tell mewhat d'you
know about a Russian nobleman called Count Nicholas Ignatieff?"
He shot it at me so abruptly that I must have started a good
six inches. There's a choice collection of ruffians whose names you
can mention if you want to ruin my digestion for an hour or two
Charity Spring and Bismarck, Rudi Stamberg and Wesley
Hardin, for examplebut I'd put N. P. Ignatieff up with the
leaders any time. He was the brute who'd nearly put paid to me
30
in Russiaa gotch-eyed, freezing ghoul of a man who'd dragged
me halfway to China in chains, and threatened me with exposure
in a cage and knouting to death, and like pleasantries. I hadn't
cared above half for the conversation thus far, with its bloody
mutiny cakes and the sinister way they kept dragging in my
report to Dalhousiebut at the introduction of Ignatieff's name
my bowels began to play the Hallelujah Chorus in earnest. It
took me all my time to keep a straight face and tell Pam what I
knewthat Ignatieff had been one of the late Tsar's closest
advisers, and that he was a political agent of immense skill and
utter ruthlessness; I ended with a reminiscence of the last time
I'd seen him, under that hideous row of gallows at Fort Raim.
Ellenborough exclaimed in disgust, Wood shuddered delicately,
and Pam sipped his port.
"Interestin' life you've led," says he. "Thought I remembered
his name from your reporthe was one of the prime movers
behind the Russian plan for invasion an' Indian rebellion, as I
recall. Capable chap, what?"
"My lord," says I, "he's the devil, and that's a fact."
"just so," says Pam. "An' the devil will find mischief." He
nodded to Ellenborough. "Tell him, my lord. Pay close heed to
this, Flashman."
Ellenborough cleared his throat and fixed his boozy spaniel eyes
on me. "Count Ignatieff," says he, "has made two clandestine
visits to India in the past year. Our politicals first had word of
him last autumn at Ghuznee; he came over the Khyber disguised
as an Afridi horse-coper, to Peshawar. There we lost himas you
might expect, one disguised man among so many natives"
"But my lord, that can't be!" I couldn't help interrupting.
"You can't lose Ignatieff, if you know what to look for. However
he's disguised, there's one thing he can't hidehis eyes! One of
'em's half-brown, half-blue!"
"He can if he puts a patch over it," says Ellenborough. "India's
full of one-eyed men. In any event, we picked up his trail again
and on both occasions it led to the same placejhansi. He spent
two months there, all told, usually out of sight, and our people
were never able to lay a hand on him. What he was doing, they
couldn't discoverexcept that it was mischief. Now, we see what
31
the mischief was--" and he pointed to the chapattis. "Brewing
insurrection, beyond a doubt. And having done his infernal work
--back over the hills to Afghanistan. This summer he was in
St Petersburg--but from what our politicals did learn, he's
expected back in Jhansi again. We don't know when."
No doubt it was the subject under discussion, but there didn't
seem to be an ounce of heat coming from the blazing fire behind
me; the room felt suddenly cold, and I was aware of the rain
slashing at the panes and the wind moaning in the dark outside.
I was looking at Ellenborough, but in his face I could see Ignatieff's
hideous parti-coloured eye, and hear that soft icy voice hissing
past the long cigarette clenched between his teeth.
"Plain enough, what?" says Pam. "The mine's laid, in Jhansi--
an' if it explodes ... God knows what might follow. India looks
tranquil enough--but how many other Jhansis, how many other
Ignatieffs, are there?" He shrugged. "We don't know, but we can
be certain there's no more sensitive spot than this one. The
Russians have picked Jhansi with care--we only annexed it four years ago, on the old Raja's death, an' we've still barely more than
a foothold there. Thug country, it used to be, an' still pretty wild,
for all it's one of the richest thrones in India. Worst of all, it's
ruled by a woman--the Rani, the Raja's widow. She was old when
she married him, I gather, an' there was no legitimate heir, so we
took it under our wing--an' she didn't like it. She rules under
our tutelage these days--but she remains as implacable an enemy
as we have in India. Fertile soil for Master Ignatieff to sow his
plots."
He paused, and then looked straight at me. "Aye--the mine's
laid in Jhansi. But precisely when an' where they'll try to fire it,
an' whether it'll go off or not... this we must know--an' prevent
at all costs."
The way he said it went through me like an icicle. I'd been
sure all along that I wasn't being lectured for fun, but now,
looking at their heavy faces, I knew that unless my poltroon
instinct was sadly at fault, some truly hellish proposal was about
to emerge. I waited quaking for the axe to fall, while Pam stirred
his false teeth with his tongue--which was a damned unnerving
sight, I may tell you--and then delivered sentence.
3
"Last week, the Board of Control decided to send an extraordinary
agent to Jhansi. His task will be to discover what the
Russians have been doing there, how serious is the unrest in the
sepoy garrison, and to deal with this hostile beldam of a Rani by
persuadin' her, if possible, that loyalty to the British Raj is in her
best interest." He struck his finger on the table. "An' if an' when
this man Ignatieff returns to Jhansi again--to deal with him, too.
Not a task for an ordinary political, you'll agree."
No, but I was realising, with mounting horror, who they did
think it was a task for. But I could only sit, with my spine
dissolving and my face set in an expression of attentive idiocy,
while he went inexorably on.
"The Board of Control chose you without hesitation. Flashman.
I approved the choice myself. You don't know it, but I've
been watchin' you since my time as Foreign Secretary. You've
been a political--an' a deuced successful one. I dare say you think
that the work you did in Middle Asia last year has gone unrecognised,
but that's not so." He rumbled at me impressively,
wagging his great fat head. "You've the highest name as an
active officer, you've proved your resource--you know India--
fluent in languages--includin' Russian, which could be of the
first importance, what? You know this man Ignatieff, by sight,
an' you've bested him before. You see, I know all about you,
Flashman," you old fool, I wanted to shout, you don't know anything
of the bloody sort; you ain't fit to be Prime Minister, if
that's what you think, "and I know of no one else so fitted to
this work. How old are you? Thirty-four--young enough to go a
long way yet--for your country and yourself." And the old
buffoon tried to look sternly inspiring, with his teeth gurgling.
It was appalling. God knows I've had my crosses to bear, but
this beat all. As so often in the past, I was the victim of my own
glorious and entirely unearned reputation--Flashy, the hero of
Jallalabad, the last man out of the Kabul retreat and the first man
into the Balaclava battery, the beau sabreur of the Light Cavalry,
Queen's Medal, Thanks of Parliament, darling of the mob, with a
liver as yellow as yesterday's custard, if they'd only known it.
And there was nothing, with Pam's eye on me, and Ellenborough
and Wood looking solemnly on, that I could do about it. Oh, if
33
I'd followed my best instincts, I could have fled wailing from the
room, or fallen blubbering at some convenient foot--but of
course I didn't. With sick fear mounting in my throat, I knew
that I'd have to go, and that was that--back to India, with its
heat and filth and flies and dangers and poxy niggers, to undertake
the damndest mission since Bismarck put me on the throne
of Strackenz.
But this was infinitely worse--Bismarck's crew had been as
choice a collection of villains as ever jumped bail or slit a throat,
but they were civilised by comparison with Ignatieff. The
thought of dealing with that devil, as Pam so nicely put it, was
enough to send me into a decline. And if that wasn't enough, I
was to sneak about some savage Indian kingdom (Thug country,
for a bonus), spying on some withered old bitch of an Indian
princess and trying to wheedle her to British interest against her
will--and she probably the kind of hag whose idea of fun would
be to chain malefactors to a rogue elephant's foot. (Most Indian
rulers are mad, you know, and capable of anything.) But there
wasn't the slightest chance to wriggle; all I could do was put on
my muscular Christian expression, look Palmerston fearlessly in
the eye, like Dick Champion when the headmaster gives him the
job of teaching the fags not to swear, and say I'd do my best.
"Well enough," says he. "I know you will. Who knows--
perhaps the signs are false, what? Tokens of mutiny, in a place
where Russia's been stirrin' the pot, an' the local ruler's chafin'
under our authority--it's happened before, an' it may amount to
nothin' in the end. But if the signs are true, make no mistake--"
and he gave me his steady stare "--it's the gravest peril our
country has faced since Bonaparte. It's no light commission we're
placin' in your hands, sir--but they're the safest hands in
England, I believe."
So help me God, it's absolutely what he said; it makes you
wonder how these fellows ever get elected. I believe I made some
manly sounds, and as usual my sick terror must have been manifesting
itself by making me red in the face, which in a fellow of
my size is often mistaken for noble resolution. It must have satisfied
Pam, anyway, for suddenly he was smiling at me, and sitting
back in his chair.
34
"Now you know why you're sittin' here talkin' to the Prime
Minister, what? Been sittin* on eggshells, haven't you? Ne'er
mind--I'm glad to have had the opportunity of instructin' you
myself--of course, you'll be more fully informed, before you
sail, of all the intelligence you'll need--his lordship here, an'
Mangles at the Board in London, will be talkin' to you. When
d'you take leave of her majesty? Another week? Come, that's
too long. When does the India sloop sail, Barrington? Monday
--you'd best be off to Town on Friday, then. Leave pretty little
Mrs Flashman to take care of royalty, what? Stunnin' gal, that--
never see her from my window on Piccadilly but it sets me in
humour--must make her acquaintance when you come home. Bring
her along to Number 96 some evenin'--dinner, an' so forth, what?"
He sat there, beaming like Pickwick. It turned my stomach at
the time, and small wonder, considering the stew he was launching
me into--and yet, when I think back on Pam nowadays,
that's how I see him, painted whiskers, sloppy false teeth and all,
grinning like a happy urchin. You never saw such young peepers
in a tired old face. I can say it now, from the safety of my
declining years: in spite of the hellish pickle he landed me in, I'd
swap any politician I ever met for old Pam--damn him.4
However, now that he'd put the doom on me, he couldn't get
rid of me fast enough; before I'd been properly shooed out of the
room he was snapping at Barrington to find some American telegraph
or other, and chivvying at Wood that they must soon be
off to catch their special train at Aberdeen. It must have been
about three in the morning, but he was still full of bounce, and
the last I saw of him he was dictating a letter even as they
helped him into his coat and muffler, with people bustling around
him, and he was breaking off to peer again at the chapattis on
the table and ask Ellenborough did the Hindoos eat 'em with
meat, or any kind of relish.
"Blasted buns," says he. "Might do with jam, d'you think,
what? No ... better not ... crumble an' get under my confounded
teeth, probably ..." He glanced up and caught sight of
me bowing my farewell from the doorway. "Good night to you,
Flashman," he sings out, "an' good huntin'. You look out sharp
for yourself, mind."
35
So that was how I got my marching orders--in a snap of the
fingers almost. Two hours earlier I'd been rogering happily away,
with not a care in the world, and now I was bound for India on
the most dangerous lunatic mission I'd ever heard of--by God, I
cursed the day I'd written that report to Dalhousie, glorifying
myself into the soup. And fine soup it promised to be--rumours
of mutiny, mad old Indian princesses, thugs, and Ignatieff and
his jackals lurking in the undergrowth.
You can imagine I didn't get much rest in what was left of
the night. Elspeth was fast asleep, looking glorious with the
candlelight on her blonde hair tumbled over the pillow, and her
rosebud lips half open, snoring like the town band. I was too
fretful to rouse her in her favourite way, so I just shook her
awake, and I must say she bore the news of our impending parting
with remarkable composure. At least, she wept inconsolably
for five minutes at the thought of being bereft while her Hector
(that's me) was Braving the Dangers of India, fondled my
whiskers and said she and little Havvy would be quite desolate, whimpered sadly while she teased me, in an absent-minded way,
into mounting her, and then remembered she had left her best
silk gloves behind at the evening's party and that she had a
spot on her left shoulder which no amount of cream would send
away. It's nice to know you're going to be missed.
I had three days still left at Balmoral, and the first of them was
spent closeted with Ellenborough and a sharp little creature from
the Board of Control, who lectured me in maddening detail about
my mission to Jhansi, and conditions in India--I won't weary
you with it here, for you'll learn about Jhansi and its attendant
horrors and delights in due course. Sufficient to say it did nothing
but deepen my misgivings--and then, on the Wednesday morning,
something happened which drove everything else clean out
of my mind. It was such a shock, such an unbelievable coincidence
in view of what had gone before (or so it seemed at the
time) that I can still think back to it with disbelief--aye, and
start sweating at the thought.
I'd had a thoroughly drunken night at Abergeldie, to take
my mind off the future, and when I woke cloth-headed and
surly on the Wednesday morning, Elspeth suggested that instead
36
of breakfast I'd be better going for a canter. I damned her advice
and sent for a horse, left her weeping sulkily into her boiled egg,
and ten minutes later was galloping the fumes away along the
Balmoral road. I reached the castle, and trotted up as far as the
carriage entrance; beyond it, on the far side of the gravel sweep,
one of the big castle coaches that brought quality visitors from
Aberdeen station was drawn up, and flunkies were handing down
the arrivals and bowing them towards the steps leading to the
side door.
Some more poor fools of consequence about to savour the
royal hospitality, thinks I, and was just about to turn my horse
away when I happened to glance again at the group of gentlemen
in travelling capes who were mounting the steps. One of
them turned to say something to the flunkies--and I nearly fell
from the saddle, and only saved myself by clutching the mane
with both hands. I believe I nearly fainted--for it was something
infinitely worse than a ghost; it was real, even if it was utterly
impossible. The man on the steps, spruce in the rig of an English
country gentleman, and now turning away into the castle, was
the man I'd last seen beside the line of carrion gallows at Fort
Raim--the man Palmerston was sending me to India to defeat
and kill: Count Nicholas Pavlevitch Ignatieff.
37
"You're sure?" croaked Ellenborough.
"No, no, Flashman--it can't be! Count Ignatieff--whom we were
discussing two nights since--here? Impossible!"
"My lord," says I, "I've good cause to know him better than
most, and I tell you he's in the castle now, gotch-eye and all.
Cool as damn-your-eyes, in a tweed cape and deer-stalker hat, so
help me! He was there, at the door, not ten minutes ago!"
He plumped down on a chair, mopping at the shaving-soap on
his cheeks--I'd practically had to manhandle his valet to be admitted,
and I'd left a trail of startled minions on the back-stairs in
my haste to get to his room. I was still panting from exertion, to
say nothing of shock.
"I want an explanation of this, my lord," says I, "for I'll not
believe it's chance."
"What d'ye mean?" says he, goggling.
"Two nights ago we talked of precious little else but this
Russian monster--how he'd been spying the length and breadth
of India, in the very place to which I'm being sent. And now he
turns up--the very man? Is that coincidence?" I was in such a
taking I didn't stand on ceremony. "How comes he in the country,
even? Will you tell me Lord Palmerston didn't know?"
"My God, Flashman!" His big mottled face looked shocked.
"What d'you mean by that?"
"I mean, my lord," says I, trying to hold myself in, "that
there's precious little that happens anywhere, let alone in
England, that Lord Palmerston doesn't know about--is it possible
that he's unaware that the most dangerous agent in Russia
--and one of their leading nobles, to boot--is promenading about
as large as life? And never a word the other night, when--"
"Wait! Wait!" cries he, wattling. "That's a monstrous suggestion!
Contain yourself, sir! Are you positive it's Ignatieff?"
I was ready to burst, but I didn't. "I'm positive."
38
"Stay here," says he, and bustled out, and for ten minutes I
chewed my nails until he came back, shutting the door behind
him carefully. He had got his normal beetroot colour back, but
he looked damned rattled.
"It's true," says he. "Count Ignatieff is here with Lord Aberdeen's
party--as a guest of the Queen. It seems--you know we
have Granville in Petersburg just now, for the new Tsar's coronation?
Well, a party of Russian noblemen--the first since the war
--have just arrived in Leith yesterday, bringing messages of good
will, or God knows what, from the new monarch to the Queen.
Someone had written to Aberdeen--I don't know it all yet--and
he brought them with him on his way north--with this fellow
among 'em. It's extraordinary! The damndest chance!"
"Chance, my lord?" says I. "I'll need some convincing of
that!"
"Good God, what else? I'll allow it's long odds, but I'm certain
if Lord Palmerston had had the least inkling ..." He trailed off,
and you could see the sudden doubt of his own precious Prime
Minister written on his jowly face. "Oh, but the notion's preposterous
... what purpose could it serve not to tell us? No--he
would certainly have told me--and you, I'm sure."
Well, I wasn't sure--from what I'd heard of Pam's sense of
humour I'd have put nothing past him. And yet it would have
been folly, surely, with me on the point of setting off for India,
ostensibly to undo Ignatieff's work, to have let him come face to
face with me. And then, the wildest thought--was it possible
Ignatieff knew about my mission?
"Never!" trumpets Ellenborough. "No, that couldn't be! The
decision to send you out was taken a bare two weeks since--it
would be to credit the Russian intelligence system with superhuman
powers--and if he did, what could he accomplish here?
--dammit, in the Queen's own home! This isn't Middle Asia--it's
a civilised country--"
"My lord, that's not a civilised man," says I. "But what's to be
done? I can't meet him!"
"Let me think," says he, and strode about, heaving his
stomach around. Then he stopped, heavy with decision.
"I think you must," says he. "If he has seen you--or finds out
39
that you were here and left before your time... wait, though, it
might be put down to tact on your part ... still, no!" He
snapped his fingers at me. "No, you must stay. Better to behave
as though there was nothing untoward--leave no room to excite
suspicion--after all, former enemies meet in time of peace, don't
they? And we'll watch him--by George, we will! Perhaps we'll learn something ourselves! Hah-ha!"
And this was the port-sodden clown who had once governed
India. I'd never heard such an idiot suggestion--but could I
shift him? I pleaded, in the name of common sense, that I should
leave at once, but he wouldn't have it--I do believe that at the
back of his mind was the suspicion that Pam had known Ignatieff
was coming, and Ellenborough was scared to tinker with the
Chief's machinations, whatever they were.
"You'll stay," he commanded, "and that's flat. What the
devil--it's )'ust a freak of fate--and if it's not, there's nothing this
Russian rascal can do. I tell you what, though--I'm not going to
miss his first sight of you, what? The man he threatened with
torture and worse--disgusting brute! Aye, and the man who bested
him in the end. Ha-ha!" And he clapped me on the shoulder. "Aye
--hope nothing happens to embarrass the Queen, though. You'll
mind out for that, FIashman, won't you--it wouldn't do--any
unpleasantness, hey?"
I minded out, all right. Strangely enough, by the time I came
back to the Castle with Elspeth that afternoon, my qualms about
coming face to face again with that Russian wolf had somewhat
subsided; I'd reminded myself that we weren't meeting on his
ground any more, but on mine, and that the kind of power he'd
once had over me was a thing quite past. Still, I won't pretend I
was feeling at ease, and I'd drummed it into Elspeth's head that
not a hint must be let slip about my ensuing departure for India,
or Pam's visit. She took it in wide-eyed and assured me she would
not dream of saying a word, but I realised with exasperation that
you couldn't trust any warning to take root in that beautiful empty
head: as we approached the drawing-room doors she was prattling
away about what wedding present she should suggest to the
Queen for Mary Seymour, and I, preoccupied, said offhand, why
not a lusty young coachman, and immediately regretted it--you
40
couldn't be sure she wouldn't pass it on--and then the doors
opened, we were announced, and the heads in the room were all
turning towards us.
There was the Queen, in the middle of the sofa, with a lady
and gentleman behind; Albert, propping up the mantelpiece, and
lecturing to old Aberdeen, who appeared to be asleep on his feet,
half a dozen assorted courtiers--and Ellenborough staring across
the room. As we made our bows, and the Queen says: "Ah
Mrs Flashman, you are come just in time to help with the service
of tea", I was following EUenborough's glance, and there was
Ignatieff, with another Russian-looking grandee and a couple of
our own gentry. He was staring at me, and by God, he never so
much as blinked or twitched a muscle; I made my little bow
towards Albert, and as I turned to face Ignatieff again I felt, God
knows why, a sudden rush of to-hell-with-it take hold of me.
"My--dear--Count!" says I, astonished, and everyone stopped
talking; the Queen looked pop-eyed, and even Albert left off
prosing to the noble corpse beside him.
"Surely it's Count Ignatieff?" cries I, and then broke off in
apology. "Your pardon, ma'am," says I to Vicky. "I was quite
startled--I had no notion Count Ignatieff was here! Forgive me,"
but of course by this time she was all curiosity, and I had to
explain that Count Ignatieff was an old comrade-in-arms, so to
speak, what? And beam in his direction, while she smiled uncertainly,
but not displeased, and Ellenborough played up well,
and told Albert that he'd heard me speak of being Ignatieff's
prisoner during the late war, but had had no idea this was the
same gentleman, and Albert looked disconcerted, and said that
was most remarkable.
"Indeed, highness, I had that honour," says Ignatieff, clicking
his heels, and the sound of that chilly voice made my spine tingle.
But there was nothing he could do but take the hand I stretched
out to him.
"This is splendid, old fellow!" says I, gripping him as though
he were my long-lost brother. "Wherever have you been keeping
yourself?" One or two of them smiled, to see bluff Flash Harry so
delighted at meeting an old enemy--just what they'd have
expected, of course. And when the Queen had been made quite
41
au fait with the situation, she said it was exactly like Fitzjames
and Roderick Dhu.
So after that it was quite jolly, and Albert made a group with
Ignatieff and Ellenborough and me, and questioned me about our
acquaintance, and I made light of my captivity and escape, and
said what a charming jailer Ignatieff had been, and the brute just
stood impassive, with his tawny head bowed over his cup, and
looking me over with that amazing half-blue, half-brown eye.
He was still the same handsome, broken-nosed young iceberg I
remembered--if I'd closed my eyes I could have heard the lash
whistling and cracking in Arabat courtyard, with the Cossacks'
grip on my arms.
Albert, of course, was much struck by the coincidence of our
meeting again, and preached a short sermon about the brotherhood
of men-at-arms, to which Ignatieff smiled politely and I
cried "Hear, hear!" It was difficult to guess, but I judged my
Muscovite monster wasn't enjoying this too much; he must have
been wondering why I pretended to be so glad to see him. But I
was all affability; I even presented him to Elspeth, and he
bowed and kissed her hand; she was very demure and cool, so I
knew she fancied him, the little trollop.
The truth is, my natural insolence was just asserting itself, as it
always does when I feel it's safe; when a moment came when
Ignatieff and I were left alone together, I thought I'd stick a pin
in him, just for sport, so I asked, quietly:
"Brought your knout with you, Count?"
He looked at me a moment before replying. "It is in Russia,"
says be. "Waiting. So, I have no doubt, is Count Pencherjevsky's
daughter."
"Oh, yes," says I. "Little Valla. Is she well, d'you know?"
"I have no idea. But if she is, it is no fault of yours." He
glanced away, towards Elspeth and the others. "Is it?"
"She never complained to me," says I, grinning at him. "On
that tack--if I'm well, it's no fault of yours, either."
"That is true," says he, and the eye was like a sword-point.
"However, may I suggest that the less we say about our previous
acquaintance, the better? I gather from your ... charade, a little
while ago--designed, no doubt, to impress your Queen--that you
42
are understandably reluctant that the truth of your behaviour
there should be made public."
"Oh, come now," says I. "'Twasn't a patch on yours, old boy.
What would the Court of Balmoral think if they knew that the
charming Russian nobleman with the funny eye, was a murderous
animal who flogs innocent men to death and tortures
prisoners of war? Thought about that?"
"If you think you were tortured. Colonel Flashman," says he,
poker-faced, "then I congratulate you on your ignorance." He
put down his cup. "I find this conversation tedious. If you will
excuse me," and he turned away.
"Oh, sorry if you're bored," says I. "I was forgetting--you
probably haven't cut a throat or burned a peasant in a week."
It was downright stupid of me, no doubt--two hours earlier I'd
been quaking at the thought of meeting him again, and here I
was sassing him to my heart's content. But I can never resist a
jibe and a gloat when the enemy's hands are tied, as Thomas
Hughes would tell you. Ignatieff didn't seem nearly as fearsome
here, among the tea-cups, with chaps toadying the royals, and
cress sandwiches being handed round, and Ellenborough flirting
ponderously with Elspeth while the Queen complained to old
Aberdeen that it was the press which had killed Lord Hardinge,
in her Uncle Leopold's opinion. No, not fearsome at all--without
his chains and gallows and dungeons and power of life and death,
and never so much as a Cossack thug to bless himself with. I
should have remembered that men like Nicholas Ignatieff are
dangerous anywhere--usually when you least expect it.
And I was far from expecting anything the next day, the last
full one I was to spend at Balmoral. It was a miserable, freezing
morning, I remember, with flurries of sleet among the rain, and
low clouds rolling down off Lochnagar; the kind of day when you
put your nose out once and then settle down to punch and
billiards with the boys, and build the fire up high. But not
Prince Albert; there were roe deer reported in great numbers at
Balloch Buie, and nothing would do but we must be drummed
out, cursing, for a stalk.
I'd have slid back to Abergeldie if I could, but he nailed me in
the hall with Ellenborough. "Why, Colonel Flash-maim, where
43
are your gaiters? Haff you nott called for your loader yet? Come,
gentlemen, in this weather we haff only a few hours--let us be
off!"
^ And he strutted about in his ridiculous Alpine hat and tartan
cloak, while the loaders were called and the brakes made ready,
and the ghillies loafed about grinning on the terrace with the
guns and pouches--they knew I loathed it, and that Ellenborough
couldn't carry his guts more than ten yards without a
rest, and the brutes enjoyed our discomfiture. There were four
or five other guns in the party, and presently we drove off into
the rain, huddling under the tarpaulin covers as we jolted away
from the castle on the unmade road.
The country round Balmoral is primitive at the best of times;
on a dank autumn day it's like an illustration from Bunyan's
'Holy War', especially near our destination, which was an eery,
dreary forest of firs among the mountains, with great patches of
bog, and gullies full of broken rocks, and heather waist-deep on
the valley sides. The road petered out there, and we clambered
out of the brakes and stood in the pouring wet while Albert, full
of energy and blood-lust, planned the campaign. We were to
spread out singly, with our loaders, and drive ahead up to the
high ground, because the mist was hanging fairly thick by this
time, and if we kept together we might miss the stags altogether.
We were just about to start on our squelching climb, when
another brake came rolling up the road, and who should pile out
but the Russian visitors, with one of the local bigwigs, all dressed
for the hill. Albert of course was delighted.
"Come, gentlemen," cries he, "this is capital! What? There
are no bearss in our Scottish mountains, but we can show you
fine sport among the deer. General Menshikof, will you accompany
me? Count Ignatieff--ah, where iss Flash-mann?" I was
having a quick swig from Ellenborough's flask, and as the Prince
turned towards me, and I saw Ignatieff at his elbow, very trim in
tweeds and top boots, with a fur cap on his head and a heavy
piece under his arm, I suddenly felt as though I'd been kicked in
the stomach. In that second I had a vision of those lonely, gullycrossed
crags above us, with their great reaches of forest in which
you could get lost for days, and mist blotting out sight and sound
44
of all companions--and myself, alone, with Ignatieff downwind
of me, armed, and with that split eye of his raking the trees and
heather for a sight of me. It hadn't even occurred to me that he
might be in the shooting party, but here he came, strolling across,
and behind him a great burly unmistakable moujik, in smock
and boots, carrying his pouches.
Ellenborough stiffened and shot a glance at me. For myself,
I was wondering frantically if I could plead indisposition at the
last minute. I opened my mouth to say something, and then
Albert was summoning Ellenborough to take the left flank, and
Ignatieff was standing watching me coolly, with the rain beating
down between us.
"I have my own loader," says he, indicating the moujik. "He
is used to heavy game--bears, as his royal highness says, and
wolves. However, he has experience of lesser animals, and vermin,
even."
"I ... I ..." It had all happened so quickly that I couldn't
think of what to say, or do. Albert was dispatching the others to
their various starting-points; the first of them were already
moving off into the mist. As I stood, dithering, Ignatieff stepped
closer, glanced at my own ghillie, who was a few yards away, and
said quietly in French:
"I did not know you were going to India, Colonel. My congratulations
on your ... appointment? A regimental command,
perhaps?"
"Eh? What d'you mean?" I started in astonishment.
"Surely nothing less," says he, "for such a distinguished campaigner
as yourself."
"I don't know what you're talking about," I croaked.
"Have I been misinformed? Or have I misunderstood your
charming wife? When I had the happiness to pay my respects to
her this morning, I understood her to say--but there, I may have
been mistaken. When one encounters a lady of such exceptional
beauty, I fear one tends to look rather than to listen." He smiled
--something I'd never seen him do before: it reminded me of a
frozen river breaking up. "But I think his royal highness is calling
you. Colonel."
"Flash-mann!" I tore myself away from the hypnotic stare of
45
that split eye; there was Albert waving at me impatiently. "Will
you take the lead on the right flank? Come, sir, we are losing
time--it will be dark before we can come up to the beasts!"
If I'd had any sense I'd have bolted, or gone into a swoon, or
claimed a sprained ankle--but I didn't have time to think. The
royal nincompoop was gesticulating at me to be off, my loader
was already ploughing into the trees just ahead, one or two of the
others had turned to look, and Ignatieff was smiling coldly at my
evident confusion. I hesitated, and then started after the loader;
as I entered the trees, I took one quick glance back; Ignatieff was
standing beside the brake, lighting a cigarette, waiting for Albert
to set him on his way. I gulped, and plunged into the trees.
The ghillie was waiting for me under the branches; he was
one of your grinning, freckled, red-haired Highlanders, called
MacLehose, or something equally unpronounceable. I'd had him
before, and he was a damned good shikari--they all are, of course.
Well, I was going to stick to him like glue this trip, I told myself,
and the farther we got away from our Russian sportsmen in
quick time, the better. As I strode through the fir wood, ducking
to avoid the whippy branches, I heard Albert's voice faintly
behind us, and pressed on even harder.
At the far side of the wood I paused, staring up at the hillside
ahead of us. What the devil was I getting in such a stew for?
--my heart racing like a trip-hammer, and the sweat running
down me, in spite of the chill. This wasn't Russia; it was a
civilised shooting-party in Scotland. Ignatieff wouldn't dare to
try any devilment here--it had just been the surprise of his sudden
appearance at the last minute that had unmanned me...
wouldn't he, though? By God, he'd try anything, that one--and
he knew about my going to India, thanks to that blathering idiot
I'd married in an evil hour. Shooters had been hit before, up on
the crags, in bad light ... it could be made to look like an accident
... mistaken for a stag ... heavy mist ... tragic error ...
never forgive himself....
"Come on!" I yammered, and stumbled over the rocks for a
gully that opened to our left--there was another one straight
ahead, but I wasn't having that. The ghillie protested that if we
went left we might run into the nearest shooters; that was all
right with me, and I ignored him and clambered over the rubble
at the gully foot, plunging up to the knee in a boggy patch and
almost dropping my gun. I stole a glance back, but there was no
sign of anyone emerging from the wood; I sprang into the gully
and scrambled upwards.
It was a gruelling climb, through the huge heather-bushes that
flanked the stream, and then it was bracken, six feet high, with a
beaten rabbit-path that I went up at a run. At the top the gully
opened out into another great mass of firs, and not until we were
well underneath them did I pause, heaving like a bellows, and the
ghillie padded up beside me, not even breathing hard, and grinning
surprise on his face.
"Crackey good gracious," says he, "you're eager to be at the
peasties the day. What's the great running, whatever?"
"Is this piece loaded? " says I, and held it out.
"What for would it be?" says the clown. "We'll no' be near
a deer for half an hour yet. There's no occasion."
"Load the dam' thing," says I.
"And have you plowing your pluidy head off, the haste you're
in? She'll look well then, right enuff."
"Damn you, do as you're told!" says I, so he shrugged and
| spat and looked his disgust as he put in the charge.
"Mind, there's two great pullets in there now," says he as he
handed it back. "If you've as much sense as a whaup's neb you'll
keep the caps in your pooch until we sight the deer." They've no
respect, those people.
I snatched it from him and made off through the wood, and for
ten minutes we pushed on, always upwards, through another
long gully, and along a rocky ledge over a deep stream, where
the mist hung in swirls among the rowan trees, and the foam
drifted slowly by on the brown pools. It was as dark as dusk,
although it was still early afternoon; there was no sound of
another living soul, and nothing moving on the low cliffs above us.
By this time I was asking myself again if I hadn't been overanxious--and
at the same time wondering if it wouldn't be
safest to he up here till dark, and buy the ghillie's silence with a
sovereign, or keep moving to our left to reach the other guns.
And then he gave a sudden exclamation and stopped, frowning,
47
and putting a hand on his belly. He gave a little barking cough,
and his ruddy face was pale as he turned to me.
"Oh!" says he. "What's this? All of a sudden, my pudden's
is pad."
"What is it?" says I, impatiently, and he sat down on a rock,
holding himself and making strained noises.
"I--I don't know. It's my belly--there's some mischief in herself--owf!"
"Are
you ill?"
"Oh, goad--I don't know." His face was green. "What do these
foreign puggers tak' to drink? It's--it must be the spirits yon
great hairy fella gave me before we cam' up--oh, mither, isn't it
hellish? Oh, stop you, till I vomit!"
But he couldn't, try as he would, but leaned against the rock,
in obvious pain, rubbing at himself and groaning. And I watched
him in horror, for there was no doubt what had happened--
Ignatieff's man had drugged or poisoned him, so that I'd be alone
on the hill. The sheer ruthlessness of it, the hellish calculation,
had me trembling to my boots--they would come on me alone,
and--but wait, whatever he'd been given, it couldn't be fatal: two
corpses on one shoot would be too much to explain away, and one
of them poisoned, at that. No, it must just be a drug, to render
him helpless, and of course I would turn back down the hill to
get help, and they'd be there....
"Stay where you are--I'll get help," says I, and lit out along the
ledge, but not in the direction we'd come; it was up and over the
hills for Flashy, and my groaning ghillie could be taken care of
when time served. I scudded round the corner of rock at the ledge's
end, and through a forest of bracken, out into a clear space, and
then into another fir wood, where I paused to get my bearings. If
I bore off left--but which way was left? We'd taken so many
turnings, among the confounded bogs and gullies, I couldn't be
sure, and there was no sun to help. Suppose I went the wrong
way, and ran into them? God knows, in this maze of hills and
heather it would be easy enough. Should I go back to the stricken
ghillie, and wait with him? I'd be safer, in his company--but they
might be up with him by now, lurking on the gully-side, waiting.
I stood clutching my gun, sweating.
48
It was silent as death under the fir-trees, close as a tomb, and
dim. I could see out one side, where there was bracken--that
would be the place to lie up, so I stole forward on tip-toe, making
no noise on the carpet of mould and needles. Near the wood's
edge I waited, listening: no sound, except my own breathing. I
turned to enter the bracken--and stood frozen, biting back a yelp
of fear. Behind me, on the far side of the wood, a twig had snapped.
For an instant I was paralysed, and then I was across the open
space of turf and burrowing into the bracken for dear life. I went
a few yards, and then writhed round to look back; through the
stems and fronds I could see the trees I'd just left, gloomy and
silent. But I was deep in cover; if I lay still, not to shake the
bracken above me, no one could hope to spot me unless he trod
on me. I burrowed down in the sodden grass, panting, and waited,
with my ears straining.
For five minutes nothing happened; there was only the dripping
of the fronds, and my own heart thumping. What made the
suspense so hellish was the sheer unfairness of my predicament--
I'd been in more tight corners before than I cared to count, but
always in some godless, savage part of the world like Afghanistan
or Madagascar or Russia or St Louis--it was damnable that I
should be lurking in fear of my life in England--or Scotland, even.
I hadn't been in this kind of terror on British soil since I'd been
a miserable fag at Rugby, carrying Bully Dawson's game bag for
him, and we'd had to hide from keepers at Brownsover. They'd
caught me, too, and I'd only got off by peaching on Dawson and
his pals, and showing the keepers where... and suddenly, where
there had been nothing a moment ago, a'shadow moved in the
gloom beneath the trees, stopped, and took on form in the halflight.
Ignatieff was standing just inside the edge of the fir wood.
I stopped breathing, while he turned his head this way and
that, searching the thickets; he had his gun cocked, and by God he
wasn't looking for stags. Then he snapped his fingers, and the moujik came padding out of the dimness of the wood; he was
heeled and ready as well, his eyes glaring above his furze of beard.
Ignatieff nodded to the left, and the great brute went prowling off
that way, his piece presented in front of him; Ignatieff waited a
few seconds and then took the way to the right. They both
49
disappeared, noiselessly, and I was left fumbling feverishly for my
caps. I slipped them under the hammers with trembling fingers,
wondering whether to stay where I was or try to wriggle farther
back into the undergrowth. They would be on either side of me
shortly, and if they turned into the bracken they might easily...
and with the thought came a steady rustling to my left, deep in
the green; it stopped, and then started again, and it sounded
closer. No doubt of it, someone was moving stealthily and steadily
towards my hiding place.
It takes a good deal to stir me out of petrified fear, but that did
it. I rolled on my side, trying to sweep my gun round to cover the
sound; it caught in the bracken, and I hauled frantically at it to
get it clear. God, what a din I must be makingand then the
damned lock must have caught on a stem, for one barrel went off
like a thunderclap, and I was on my feet with a yell, tearing
downhill through the bracken. I fairly flung myself through the
high fronds, there was the crack of a shot behind me, and a ball
buzzed overhead like a hornet. I went bounding through, came
out in a clearing with firs on either side, sprang over a bank of
fernsand plunged straight down into a peat cutting. I landed
belly first in the stinking ooze, but I was up and struggling over
the far side in an instant, for I could hear crashing in the bracken
above me, and knew that if I lost an instant he'd get a second shot.
I was plastered with muck like a tar-and-feather merchant, but I
still had my gun, and then I must have trod on a loose stone, for
I pitched headlong, and went rolling and bumping down the
slope, hit a rock, and finished up winded and battered in a bum,
trying frantically to scramble up, and slithering on the slimy
gravel underfoot.
There was a thumping of boots on the bank, I started round,
and there was the moujik, not ten yards away. I didn't even have
time to look for my gun; I was sprawling half out of the bum,
and the bastard had his piece at his shoulder, the muzzle looking
me straight in the face. I yelled and grabbed for a stone, there was
the crash of a gunshotand the moujik dropped his piece,
shrieking, and clutched at his arm as he toppled backwards among
the rocks.
"Careful, colonel," says a voice behind me. "He's only winged."
So
IJ And there, standing not five yards off, with a smoking revolver
in his hand, was a tall fellow in tweeds; he just gave me a nod,
and then jumped lightly over the rocks and stood over the moujik, who was groaning and clutching his bleeding arm.
"Murderous swine, ain't you?" says the newcomer conversationally,
and kicked him in the face. "It's the only punishment ^jl he'll get, I'm afraid," he added, over his shoulder. "No diplomatic
j| scandals, you see." And as he turned towards me, I saw to my " amazement who it was--Hutton, the tall chap with the long jaw
who'd taken me to Palmerston only a few nights before. He put
his pistol back in his arm-pit and came over to me.
"No bones broken? Bless me, but you're a sight." He pulled
me to my feet. "I'll say this, colonel--you're the fastest man over
rough country I ever hope to follow. I lost you in five minutes,
?a but I kept track of our friends, all right. Nice pair, ain't they,
H though? I wish to God it had been the other one I pulled trigger
, m on--oh, we won't see him again, never fret. Not until everyone's 1 down the hill, and he'll turn up cool as you like, never having
been near you all day, what?"
"But--but... you mean, you expected this?"
"No-o--not exactly, anyway. But I've been pretty much on ^L-- hand since the Russian brotherhood arrived, you know. We don't
-- believe in taking chances, eh? Not with customers like Master
Ignatieff--enterprising chap, that. So when I heard he'd decided
to join the shoot today, I thought I'd look along--just as well I
did, I think," says this astonishing fellow, "Now, if you've got
your wind back, I suggest we make our way down. Never mind
our little wounded bird yonder--if he don't bleed to death he'll
find his way back to his master. Pity he shot himself by accident,
ain't it? That'll be their story, I dare say--and we won't contradict
it--here, what are you about, sir?"
I was lunging for my fallen gun, full of murderous rage now
that the danger was past. "I'm going to blow that bloody peasant's
head off!" I roared, fumbling with the lock. "I'll teach--"
"Hold on!" cries he, catching my arm, and he was positively i/;| grinning. "Capital idea, I agree--but we mustn't, you see. One j bullet in him can be explained away by his own clumsiness--but .
not two, eh? We mustn't have any scandal, colonel--not involving
51
her majesty's guests. Come along now--let's be moving down, so
that Count Ignatieff, who I've no doubt is watching us this minute,
can come to his stricken servant's assistance. After you, sir."
He was right, of course; the irony of it was that although
Ignatieff and his brute had tried to murder me, we daren't say so,
for diplomacy's sake. God knows what international complications
there might have been. This didn't sink in with me at once--but
his reminder that Ignatieff was still prowling about was enough
to lend me wings down the hill. Not that even he'd have tried
another shot, with Button about, but I wasn't taking chances.
I'll say this for the secret service--which is what Button was,
of course--they're damned efficient. He had a gig waiting on the
road, one of his assistants was dispatched to the help of my ghillie,
and within a half-hour I was back in Balmoral through the
servants' entrance, being cleaned up and instructed by Button to
put it about that I'd abandoned the shoot with a strained muscle.
"I'll inform my chiefs in London that Colonel Hashman had a
fortunate escape from an unexpected danger, arising from a chance
encounter with an old Russian friend," says he, "and that he is
now fit and well to proceed on the important task ahead of him.
And that, in the meantime, I'm keeping an eye on him. No, sir,
I'm sorry--I can't answer any of your questions, and I wouldn't
if I could."
Which left me in a fine state of consternation and bewilderment,
wondering what to make of it all. My immediate thought was
that Palmerston had somehow arranged the whole thing, in the
hope that I'd kill Ignatieff, but even in my excited condition
that didn't make sense. A likelier explanation was that Ignatieff,
coming innocently to Balmoral and finding me on the premises,
had decided to take advantage of the chance to murder me,
in revenge for the way I'd sold him the previous year. That,
knowing the man and his ice-cold recklessness, was perfectly sound
reasoning--but there was also the horrid possibility that he had
found out about the job Palmerston had given me (God alone
knew how--but he'd at least discovered from the idiot Elspeth
that I was going to India) and had been out to dispose of me in
the way of business.
"A preposterous notion," was Ellenborough's answer when I
52
voiced my fears to him that night. "He could not know--why,
the Board dedsion was highly secret, and imparted only to the
Prime Minister's most intimate circle. No, this is merely another
example of the naked savagery of the Russian bear!" He was full
of port, and wattling furiously. "And virtually in her majesty's
presence, too! Damnable! But, of course, we can say nothing,
Flashman. It only remains," says he, booming sternly, "for you to
mete out conclusive justice to this villain, if you chance to
| encounter him in India. In the meantime, I'll see that the Lord
Chamberlain excludes him from any diplomatic invitations which
may be extended to St Petersburg in future. By gad, I will!"
I ventured the cautious suggestion that it might be better, after
what had happened, to send someone else to Jhansi--just in case
Ignatieff had tumbled to me--but Ellenborough wasn't even
listening. He was just full of indignation at Ignatieff's murderous
j impudence--not on my account, you'll note, but because it might
" have led to a scandal involving the Queen. (Admittedly, you
can't have it getting about that her guests have been trying to
slaughter each other; the poor woman probably had enough
trouble getting people to visit, with Albert about the place.)
So, of course, we kept mum, and as Button had foreseen, it was
put about and accepted that Ignatieff's loader had had an accident
with a gun, and everyone wagged their heads in sympathy, and
the Queen sent the poor unfortunate fellow some shortbread and
a tot of whisky. Ignatieff even had the crust to thank her after
dinner, and I could feel Ellenborough at my elbow fairly bubbling
with suppressed outrage. And to cap it all, the brute had the
effrontery to challenge me to a game of billiards--and beat me
hollow, too, in the presence of Albert and half a dozen others: I
had to be certain there was a good crowd on hand, for God knows
what he'd have tried if we'd gone to the pool-room alone. I'll say
it for Nicholas Ignatieff--he was a bear-cat for nerve. He'd have
been ready to brain me and claim afterwards that it was a miscue.
So now--having heard the prelude to my Indian Mutiny
adventure, you will understand why I don't care much for , , Balmoral. And if what happened there that September was trivial
(by comparison with what followed--well, I couldn't foresee that.
. j Indeed, as I soothed my bruised nerves with brandy fomentations
53
-I 3
that night, I reflected that there were worse places than India;
there was Aberdeenshire, with Ignatieff loose in the bracken,
hoping to hang my head on his gunroom wall. I hadn't been able
to avoid him here, but if we met again on the coral strand, it
wasn't going to be my fault. ;
I've never been stag-shooting from that day to this, either. f
Ellenborough was right: the company's too damned mixed.
54
I remember young Fred Roberts (who's
a Field-Marshal now, which shows you what pull these Addiscombe
wallahs have got) once saying that everyone hated India
for a month and then loved it forever. I wouldn't altogether agree,
but I'll allow that it had its attractions in the old days; you lived
like a lord without having to work, waited on hand and foot,
made money if you set your mind to it, and hardly exerted
yourself at all except to hunt the beasts, thrash the men, and
bull the women. You had to look sharp to avoid active service,
of course, of which there was a lot about; I never fell very lucky
that way. But even so, it wasn't a half-bad station, most of the
time.
Personally, I put that down to the fact that in my young days
India was a middle-class place for the British, where society people
didn't serve if they could help it. (Cardigan, for example, took
one look and fled.) It's different now, of course; since it became a
safe place many of our best and most highly-connected people
have let the light of their countenances shine on India, with the
results you might expect--prices have gone up, service has gone
down, and the women have got clap. So they tell me.
Mind you, I could see things were changing even in '56, when
I landed at Bombay. My first voyage to India, sixteen years before,
had lasted four months on a creaking East Indiaman; this time, in
natty little government steam sloops, it had taken just about half
that time, even with a vile journey by camel across the Suez
isthmus in between. And even from Bombay you could get the
smell of civilisation; they'd started the telegraph, and were pushing
ahead with the first railways, there were more white faces and
businesses to be seen, and people weren't talking, as they'd used
to, of India as though it were a wild jungle with John Company
strongholds here and there. In my early days, a journey from
Calcutta to Peshawar had seemed half round the world, but no
55
longer. It was as though the Company was at last seeing India as
one vast countryand realising that now the wars with the Sikhs
and Maharattas and Afghans were things of the past, it was an
empire that had to be ruled and run, quite apart from fighting
and showing a nice profit in Leadenhall Street.
It was far busier than I remembered it, and somehow the
civilians seemed more to the fore nowadays than the military.
Once the gossip on the verandahs had all been about war in the
north, or the Thugs, or the bandit chiefs of the Ghats who'd have
to be looked up some day; now it was as often as not about new
mills or factories, and even schools, and how there would be a
railroad clear over to Madras in the next five years, and you'd be
able to journey from Mrs Blackwell's in Bombay to the Auckland
in Calcutta without once putting on your boots.
"All sounds very peaceful and prosperous," says I, over a peg
and a whore at Mother Sousa'slike a good little political, you
see, I was conducting my first researches in the best gossip-mart I
could find (fine mixed clientele. Mother Sousa's, with nothing
blacker than quarter-caste and exhibition dances that would have
made a Paris gendarme blenchwell, if it's scuttle-butt you want,
you don't go to a cathedral, do you?). The chap who'd bought me
the peg laughed and said:
"Prosperous? I should Just think somy firm's divvy is up
forty per cent., and we'll have new factories at Lahore and
Allahabad working before Easter. Building churchesand when
the universities come there'll be contracts to last out my service,
I can tell you."
"Universities?" says I. "Not for the niggers, surely?"
"The native peoples," says he primlyand the little snirp
hadn't been out long enough to get his nose peeled"will soon
be advanced beyond those of any country on earth. Heathen
countries, that is. Lie still, you black bitch, can't you see I'm
fagged out? Yes, Lord Canning is very strong on education, I
believe, and spreading the gospel, too. Well, that's bricks and
mortar, ain't it?that's where to put your money, my boy."
"Dear me," says I, "at this rate I'll be out of a job, I can see."
"Military, are you? Well, don't fret, old fellow; you can always
apply to be sent to the frontiers."
56
"Quiet as that, is it? Even round Jhansi?"
"Wherever's that, my dear chap?"
He was just a pipsqueak, of course, and knew nothing; the
little yellow piece I was exercising hadn't heard of Jhansi either,
and when I asked her at a venture what chapattis were good for
except eating, she didn't bat an eye, but giggled and said I was a
verree fonnee maan, and must buy her meringues, not chapattis,
yaas? You may think I was wasting my time, sniffing about in
Bombay, but it's my experience that if there's anything untoward
in a countryeven one as big as Indiayou can sometimes get a
scent in the most unexpected places, just from the way the natives
look and answer. But it was the same whoever I talked to,
merchant or military, whore or missionary; no ripples at all. After
a couple of days, when I'd got the old Urdu bat rolling familiarly
off my palate again, I even browned up and put on a puggaree
and coat and pyjamys, and loafed about the Bund bazaar, letting
on I was a Mekran coast trader, and listening to the clack. I came
out rotten with fleas, stinking of nautch-oil and cheap perfume
and cooking ghee, with my ears full of beggars' whines and
hawkers' jabbering and the clang of the boothsbut that was all.
Still, it helped to get India back under my hide again, and that's
important, if you intend to do anything as a political.
Hullo, says you, what's this?not Flashy taking his duty
seriously for once, surely. Well, I was, and for a good reason. I
didn't take Pam's forebodings seriously, but I knew I was bound
to go to Jhansi and make some sort of showing in the task he'd
given methe thing was to do it quickly. If I could have a couple
of official chats with this Rani woman, look into the business of
the sepoys' cakes, and conclude that Skene, the Jhansi political,
was a nervous old woman, I could fire off a report to Calcutta and
withdraw gracefully. What I must not do was lingerbecause if
there was any bottom to Pam's anxieties, Jhansi might be full of
Ignatieff and his jackals before long, and I wanted to be well
away before that happened.
So I didn't linger in Bombay. On the third day I took the road
north-east towards Jhansi, travelling in good style by bullockhackery,
which is just a great wooden room on wheels, in which
you have your bed and eat your meals, and your groom and cook
57
and bearer squat on the roof. They've gone out now, of course,
with the railway, but they were a nice leisurely way of travelling,
and I stopped off at messes along the road, and kept my ears open.
None of the talk chimed with what I'd heard at Balmoral, and the
general feeling was that the country had never been so quiet.
Which was heartening, even if it was what you'd expect, downcountry.
I
purposely kept clear of any politicals, because I wanted to
form my own judgements without getting any uncomfortable
news that I didn't want to hear. However, up towards Mhow,
who should I run into but Johnny Nicholson, whom I hadn't seen
since Afghanistan, fifteen years before, trotting along on a Persian
pony and dressed like a Baluchi robber with a beard down to his
belly, and a couple of Sikh lancers in tow. We fell on each other
like old chums--he didn't know me well, you see, but mostly by
my fearsome reputation; he was one of your play-upandfear-God
paladins, full of zeal and athirst for glory, was John, and said his
prayers and didn't drink and thought women were either nuns or
mothers. He was very big by now, I discovered, and just coming
down for leave before he took up as resident at Peshawar.
By rights I shouldn't have mentioned my mission to anyone,
but this was too good a chance to miss. There wasn't a downier
bird in all India than Nicholson, or one who knew the country
better, and you could have trusted him with anything, money
even. So I told him I was bound for Jhansi, and why--the
chapattis, the Rani, and the Russians. He listened, fingering his
beard and squinting into the distance, while we squatted by the
road drinking coffee.
"Jhansi, eh?" says he. "Pindari robber country--Thugs, too.
Trust you to pick the toughest nut south of the Khyber.
Maharatta chieftains--wouldn't turn my back on any of 'em,
and if you tell me there have been Russian agitators at work, I'm
not surprised. Any number of ugly-looking copers and traders
have been sliding south with the caravans up our way this year
past, but not many guns, you see--that's what we keep our
accounts by. But I don't like this news about chapattis passing
among the sepoys."
"You don't think it amounts to anything, surely?" I found all
58
his cheerful references to Thugs and Pindaris damned disconcerting;
he was making Jhansi sound as bad as Afghanistan.
"I don't know," says he, very thoughtful. "But I do know that
this whole country's getting warm. Don't ask me how I know--
Irish instinct if you like. Oh, I know it looks fine from Bombay or
Calcutta, but sometimes I look around and ask myself what we're
sitting on, out here. Look at it--we're holding a northern frontier
against the toughest villains on earth: Pathans, Sikhs, Baluchis,
and Afghanistan thrown in, with Russia sitting on the touchline
waiting their chance. In addition, down-country, we're nominal
masters of a collection of native states, half of them wild as
Barbary, ruled by princes who'd cut our throats for three-pence.
Why? Because we've tried to civilise 'em--we've clipped the
tyrants' wings, abolished abominations like suttee and thugee,
cancelled their worst laws and instituted fair ones. We've reformed
'em until they're sick--and started the telegraph, the railroad,
schools, hospitals, all the rest of it."
This sounded to me like a man riding his pet hobby; I couldn't
see why any of this should do anything but please the people.
"The people don't count! They never do. It's the rulers that
matter, the rajas and the nabobs--like this rani of yours in Jhansi.
They've squeezed this country for centuries, and Dalhousie put a
stop to it. Of course it's for the benefit of the poor folk, but they
don't know that--they believe what their princes tell 'em. And
what they tell 'em is that the British Sirkar is their enemy, because
it stops them burning their widows, and murdering each other
in the name of Kali, and will abolish their religion and force
Christianity on them if it can."
"Oh, come, John," says I, "they've been saying that for years."
"Well, there's something in it." He looked troubled, in a stuffy
religious way. "I'm a Christian, I hope, or try to be, and I pray I
shall see the day when the Gospel is the daily bread of every poor
benighted soul on this continent, and His praise is sung in a
thousand churches. But I could wish our people went more
carefully about it. These are a devout people, Flashman, and their
beliefs, misguided though they are, must not be taken lightly.
What do they think, when they hear Christianity taught in the
schools--in the jails, even--and when colonels preach to their
59
regiments?' Let the prince, or the agitator, whisper in their ears
'See how the British will trample on thy holy things, which they
respect not. See how they will make Christians of you.' They will
believe him. And they are such simple folk, and their eyes are
closed. D'you know," he went on, " there's a sect in Kashmir that
even worships me?"
"Good for you," says I. "D'ye take up a collection?"
"I try to reason with thembut it does no good. I tell you,
India won't be converted in a day, or in years. It must come
slowly, if surely. But our missionariesgood, worthy menpress
on apace, and cannot see the harm they may do." He sighed. "Yet
can one find it in one's heart to blame them, old fellow, when one
considers the blessings that God's grace would bring to this
darkened continent? It is very hard." And he looked stem and
nobly anguished; Arnold would have loved him. Then he frowned
and growled, and suddenly burst out:
"It wouldn't be so bad, if we weren't so confounded soft! If we
would only carry things with a high handthe reforms, and the
missionary work, even. Either let well alone, or do the thing
properly. But we don't, you see; we take half-measures, and are
too gentle by a mile. If we are going to pull down their false gods,
and reform their old and corrupt states and amend their laws, and
make 'em worthy men and womenthen let us do it with
strength! Dalhousie was strong, but I don't know about Canning.
I know if I were he, I'd bring these oily, smirking, treacherous
princes under my heel" his eyes flashed as he ground his boot
in the dust. "I'd give 'em government, firm and fair. I'd be less
soft with the sepoys, tooand with some of our own people.
That's half the troubleyou haven't been back long enough, but
depend upon it, we send some poor specimens out to the army
nowadays, and to the Company offices. 'Broken-down tapsters and
serving men's sons', eh? Well, you'll see 'emignorant, slothful
fellows of poor class, and we put 'em to officer high-caste Hindoos
of ten years' service. They don't know their men, and treat 'em
like children or animals, and think of nothing but drinking and
hunting, andand..." he reddened to the roots of his enormous
beard and looked aside. "Some of them consort with ... with the
worst type of native women." He cleared his throat and patted
60
my arm. "There, I'm sorry, old fellow; I know it's distasteful to
talk of such things, but it's true, alas."
I shook my head and said it was heartbreaking.
"Now you see why your news concerns me so? These omens at
Jhansi--they may be the spark to the tinder, and I've shown
you, I hope, that the tinder exists in India, because of our own
blindness and softness. If we were stronger, and dealt firmly with
the princes, and accompanied our enlightenment of the people
with proper discipline--why, the spark would be stamped out
easily enough. As it is--" he shook his head again. "I don't like
it. Thank God they had the wit to send someone like you to
Jhansi--I only wish I could come with you, to share whatever
perils may lie ahead. It's a strange, wild place, from all I've
heard," says this confounded croaker with pious satisfaction, as
he shook my hand. "Come, old fellow, shall we pray together--
for your safety and guidance in whatever dangers you may find
yourself?"
And he plumped down there and then on his knees, with me
alongside, and gave God his marching orders in no uncertain
fashion, telling him to keep a sharp eye on his servant. I don't
know what it was about me, but holy fellows like Nicholson were
forever addressing heaven on my behalf--even those who didn't
know me well seemed to sense that there was a lot of hard graft
to be done if Flashy was ever to smell salvation. I can see him
yet--his great dark head and long nose against the sunset, his
beard quivering with exhortation, and even the freckles on the
back of his clasped hands. Poor wild John--he should have
canvassed the Lord on his own behalf, perhaps, for while I'm still
here after half a century, he was stiff inside the year, shot in the
midriff by a pandy sniper in the attack on Delhi, and left to die
by inches at the roadside. That's what his duty earned for him; if
he'd taken proper precautions he'd have made viceroy. And Delhi
would have fallen just the same.6
Whatever his prayers accomplished for my solid flesh, his talk
about Jhansi had done nothing for my spirits. "A strange wild
place," he'd said, and talked of the Pindari bandits and Thugs and
Maharatta scoundrels--well, I knew it had been hell's punchbowl
in the old days, but I'd thought since we'd annexed it that it
61
must be quieter now. Mangles, at the Board of Control in London,
had described it as "tranquil beneath the Company's benevolent
rule", but he was a pompous ass with a talent for talking complete
bosh about subjects on which he was an authority.
As I pushed on into Bandelkand it began to look as though he
was wrong and Nicholson was rightit was broken, hilly country,
with jungle on the slopes and in the valleys, never a white face
to be seen, and the black ones getting uglier by the mile. The
roads were so atrocious, and the hackery jolted and rolled so
sickeningly, that I was forced to take to my Pegu pony; there was
devil a sign of civilisation, but only walled villages and every so
often a sinister Maharatta fort squatting on a hilltop to remind
you who really held the power in this land. "The toughest nut
south of the Khyber"I was ready to believe it, as I surveyed
those unfriendly jungly hills, seeing nothing cheerier than a
distant tiger skulking among the waitabit thorn. And this was
the country that we were "ruling"with one battalion of suspect
sepoy infantry and a handful of British civilians to collect the
taxes.
My first sight of Jhansi city wasn't uplifting either. We rounded
a bend on the hill road, and there it was under a dull evening
skya massive fort, embattled and towered, on a great steep rock,
and the walled city clustered at its foot. It was far bigger than
I'd imagined; the walls must have been four miles round at
least, and the air over the city was thick with the smoke of a
thousand cooking fires. On this side of the city lay the orderly
white lines of the British camp and cantonmentGod, it looked
tiny and feeble, beneath that looming vastness of Jhansi fort. My
mind went back to Kabul, and how our camp had seemed dwarfed
by the Bala Hissarand even at Kabul, with an army of ten
thousand, only a handful of us had escaped. I told myself that
here it was differentthat less than a hundred miles ahead of me
there were our great garrisons along the Grand Trunk, and that
however forbidding jhansi might look, it was a British state
nowadays, and under the Sirkar's protection. Only there wasn't
much sign of that protectionjust our pathetic little village like
a flea on the lion's lip, and somewhere in that great citadel, where
our troops never went, that brooding old bitch of a Rani scheming
62
against us, with her thousands of savage subjects waiting for her
word. Thus my imagination--as if it hadn't been full enough
already, what with Ignatieff and Thugs and wild Pindaris and
dissident sepoys and Nicholson's forebodings.
My first task was to look up Skene, the political whose reports
had started the whole business, so I headed down to the cantonment,
which was a neat little compound of perhaps forty bungalows,
with decent gardens, and the usual groups already meeting
on the verandahs for sundown pegs and cordials; there were a few
carriages waiting with their grooms and drivers to take people out
for dinner, and one or two officers riding home, but I drove
straight through, and got a chowkldar's direction to the little
Star Fort, where Skene had his office--he'd still be there, the
chowkidar said, which argued a very conscientious political
indeed.
Frankly, I hoped to find him scared or stupid; he wasn't either.
He was one of these fair, intent young fellows who fall over
themselves to help, and will work all the hours God sends. He
hopped from one leg to another when I presented myself, and
seemed fairly overwhelmed to meet the great Flashy, but the
steady grey eye told you at once that here was a boy who didn't
take alarm at trifles. He had clerks and bearers running in all
directions to take my gear to quarters, saw to it that I was given
a bath, and then bore me off for dinner at his own bungalow,
where he lost no time in getting down to business.
"No one knows why you're here, sir, except me," says he. "I
believe Carshore, the Collector, suspects, but he's a sound man,
and will say nothing. Of course, Erskine, the Commissioner at
Saugor, knows all about it, but no one else." He hesitated. "I'm
not quite clear myself, sir, why they sent you out, and not
someone from Calcutta."
"Well, they wanted an assassin, you see," says I, easily, just
for bounce. "It so happens I'm acquainted with the Russian
gentleman who's been active in these parts--and dealing with
him ain't a job for an ordinary political, what?" It was true, after
all; Pam himself had said it. "Also, it seems Calcutta and yourself
and Commissioner Erskine--with all respect--haven't been too
successful with this titled lady up in the city palace. Then there
63
are these cakes; all told, it seemed better to Lord Palmerston to
send me."
"Lord Palmerston?" says he, his eyes wide open. "I didn't know
it had gone that far."
I assured him he'd been the cause of the Prime Minister's losing
a night's sleep, and he whistled and reached for the decanter.
"That's neither here nor there, anyway," says I. "You cost me
a night's sleep, too, for that matter. The first thing is: have any
of these Russian fellows been back this way?"
To my surprise, he looked confused. "Truth is, sirI never
knew they'd been near. That came to me from Calcuttaour
frontier people traced them down this way, three times, I believe,
and I was kept informed. But if they hadn't told me, I'd never
have known."
That rattled me, if you like. "You mean, if they do come back
or if they're loose in your bailiwick nowyou won't know of it
until Calcutta sees fit to tell you?"
"Oh, our frontier politicals will send me word as soon as any
suspected person crosses over," says he. "And I have my own
native agents on the look-out nowsome pretty sharp men, sir."
"They know especially to look out for a one-eyed man?"
"Yes, sirhe has a curious deformity which he hides with a
patch, you knowone of his eyes is half-blue, half-brown."
"You don't say," says I. By George, I hadn't realised our
political arrangements were as ramshackle as this. "That, Captain
Skene, is the man I'm here to killso if any of your... sharp
men have the chance to save me the trouble, they may do it with
my blessing."
"Oh, of course, sir. Oh, they will, you know. Some of them,"
says he, impressively, "are Pindari banditsor used to be, that is.
But we'll know in good time, sir, before any of these Ruski fellows
get within distance."
I wished I could share his confidence. "Calcutta has no notion
what the Russian spies were up to down here?" I asked him, but
he shook his head.
"Nothing definite at allonly that they'd been here. We were
sure it must be connected with the chapattis going round, but
those have dried up lately. None have passed since October, and
64
the sepoys of the izth N.I.that's the regiment here, you know
seem perfectly quiet. Their colonel swears they're loyalhas done
from the first, and was quite offended that I reported the cakes to
Calcutta. Perhaps he's right; I've had some of my men scouting
the sepoy lines, and they haven't heard so much as a murmur.
And Calcutta was to inform me if cakes passed at any other place,
but none have, apparently."
Come, thinks I, this is decidedly better; Pam's been up a gumtree
for nothing. All I had to do was make a show of brief activity
here, and then loaf over to Calcutta after a few weeks and report
nothing doing. Give 'em a piece of my mind, too, for causing me
so much inconvenience.
"Well, Skene," says I, "this is how I see it. There's nothing to
be done about what the Prime Minister calls 'those blasted buns'
unless they make a reappearance, what? As to the Russians
well, when we get word of them, I'll probably drop out of sight,
d'you see?" I would, tooto some convenient haven which the
Lord would provide, and emerge when the coast was clear. But I
doubted it would even come to that. "Yes, you won't see me
but I'll be about, never fear, and if our one-eyed friend, or any of
his creatures, shows face... well..."
He looked suitably impressed, with a hint of that awe which
my fearsome reputation inspires. "I understand, sir. You'll wish
to... er, work in your own way, of course." He blinked at me,
and then exclaimed reverently: "By jove, I don't envy those Ruski
fellows above halfif you don't mind my saying so, sir."
"Skene, old chap," says I, and winked at him. "Neither do I."
And believe me, he was my slave for life, from that moment.
"There's the other thing," I went on. "The Rani. I have to try
to talk some sense into her. Now, I daresay there isn't much I can
do, since I gather she's shown you and Erskine that she's not
disposed to be friendly, but I'm bound to try, you see. So I'll be
obliged to you if you'll arrange an audience for me the day after
tomorrowI'd like to rest and perhaps look around the city first.
For the present, you can tell me your own opinion of her."
He frowned, and filled my glass. "You'll think it's odd, sir, I
daresay, but in all the time I've been here, I've never even seen
her. I've met her, frequently, at the palace, but she speaks from
65
behind a purdah, you know--and as often as not her chamberlain
does the talking for her. She's a stickler for form, and since
government granted her diplomatic immunity after her husband
died--as a sop, really, when we assumed suzerainty--well, it
makes it difficult to deal with her satisfactorily. She was friendly
enough with Erskine at one time--but I've had no change out of
her at all. She's damned bitter, you see--when her husband died,
old Raja Gangadar, he left no children of his own--well, he was
an odd bird, really," and Skene blushed furiously and avoided my
eye. "Used to go about in female dress most of the time, and wore
bangles and... and perfume, you see--"
"No wonder she was bitter," says I.
"No, no, what I mean is, since he left no legitimate heir, but
only a boy whom he'd adopted, Dalhousie wouldn't recognise the
infant. The new succession law, you know. So the state was
annexed--and the Rani was furious, and petitioned the Queen,
and sent agents to London, but it was no go. The adopted son,
Damodar, was dispossessed, and the Rani, who'd hoped to be
regent, was deprived of her power--officially. Between ourselves,
we let her rule pretty well as she pleases--well, we can't do
otherwise, can we? We've one battalion of sepoys, and thirty
British civilians to run the state administration--but she's the
law, where her people are concerned, absolute as Caesar."
"Doesn't that satisfy her, then?"
"Not a bit of it. She detests the fact that officially she only
holds power by the Sirkar's leave, you see. And she's still wild
about the late Raja's will--you'd think that with a quarter of a
million in her treasury she'd be content, but there was some
jewellery or other that Calcutta confiscated, and she's never
forgiven us."
"Interesting lady," says I. "Dangerous, d'you think?"
He frowned. "Politically, yes. Given the chance, she'd pay our score off, double quick--that's why the chapatti business upset
me. She's got no army, as such--but with every man in Jhansi a born fighter, and robber, she don't need one, do she? And they'll
jump if she whistles, for they worship the ground she treads on.
She's proud as Lucifer's sister, and devilish hard, not to say cruel,
in her own courts, but she's uncommon kind to the poor folk,
66
and highly thought of for her pietyspends five hours a day
meditating, although she was a wild piece, they say, when she
was a girl. They brought her up like a Maharatta prince at the
old Feshwa's courttaught her to ride and shoot and fence with
the best of them. They say she still has the fiend's own temper,"
he added, grinning, "but she's always been civil enough to me
at a distance. But make no mistake, she's dangerous; if you can
sweeten her, sir, we'll all sleep a deal easier at nights."
There was that, of course. However withered an old trot she
might be, she'd be an odd female if she was altogether impervious
to Flashy's manly bearing and cavalry whiskerswhich was
probably what Pam had in mind in the first place. Cunning old
devil. Still, as I turned in that night I wasn't absolutely looking
forward to poodle-faking her in two days' time, and as I glanced
from my bungalow window and saw Jhansi citadel beetling in the
starlight, I thought, we'll take a nice little escort of lancers with
us when we go to take tea with the lady, so we will.
But that was denied me. I had intended to pass the next day
looking about the city, perhaps having a discreet word with
Carshore the Collector and the colonel of the sepoys, but as the
syce* was bringing round my pony to the dak-bungalow, up comes
Skene in a flurry. When he'd sent word to the palace that Colonel
Flashman, a distinguished soldier of the Sirkar, was seeking an
audience for the following day, he'd been told that distinguished
visitors were expected to present themselves immediately as a
token of proper respect to her highness, and Colonel Flashman
could shift his distinguished rump up to the palace forthwith.
"I... I thought in the circumstances of your visit," says Skene,
apologetically, "that you might think it best to comply."
"You did, did you?" says I. "Does every Briton in Jhansi leap
to attention when this beldam snaps her fingers, then?"
"Shall we say, we find it convenient to humour her highness,"
says hehe was more of a political than he looked, this lad, so I
blustered a bit, to be in character, and then said he might find me
an escort of lancers to convoy me in.
"I'm sorry, sir," says he. "We haven't any lancersand if we
had, we've agreed not to send troop formations inside the city
* Groom.
67
walls. Also, since I was excluded from the, er... invitation, I
fear you must go alone."
"What?" says I. "Damnation, who governs herethe Sirkar
or this harridan?" I didn't fancy above half risking my hide
unguarded in that unhealthy-looking fortress, but I had to cover
it with dignity. "You've made a rod for your own backs by being
too soft with this... this woman. She's not Queen Bess, you know!"
"She thinks she is," says he cheerfully, so in the end of course
I had to lump it. But I changed into my lancer fig first, sabre,
revolver and allfor I could guess why she was ensuring that I
visited her alone: up-country, on the frontier, they judge a man
on his own looks, but down here they go on the amount and
richness of your retinue. One mounted officer wasn't going to
impress the natives with the Sirkar's powerwell, then, he'd look
his best, and be damned to her. So I figged up, and when I
regarded myself in Skene's cracked mirrorblue tunic and
breeches, gold belt and epaulettes, white gauntlets and helmet,
well-bristled whiskers, and Flashy's stalwart fourteen stone inside
it all, it wasn't half bad. I took a couple of packages from my
trunk, stowed them in my saddle-bag, waved to Skene, and trotted
off to meet royalty, with only the syce to show me the way.
Jhansi city lies about a couple of miles from the cantonment,
and I had plenty of time to take in the scenery. The road, which
was well-lined with temples and smaller buildings, was crowded
into the city, with bullock-carts churning up the dust, camels,
palankeens, and hordes of travellers both mounted and on foot.
Most of them were country folk, on their way to the bazaars, but
every now and then would come an elephant with red and gold
fringed howdah swaying along, carrying some minor nabob or
rich lady, or a portly merchant on his mule with a string of porters
behind, and once the syce pointed out a group who he said were
members of the Rani's own bodyguarda dozen stalwart Khyberie
Pathans, of all things, trotting along very military in double file,
with mail coats and red silk scarves wound round their spiked
helmets. The Rani might not have an army, but she wasn't short
of force, with those fellows about: there was a hundred years'
Company service among them if there was a day.
And her city defences were a sight to seemassive walls twenty
68
feet high, and beyond them a warren of streets stretching for near
a mile to the castle rock, with its series of curtain walls and round
towersit would be the deuce of a place to storm, after you'd
fought through the city itself; there were guns in the embrasures,
and mail-clad spearmen on the walls, all looking like business.
We had to force our horses through a crowded inferno of heat
and smells and noise and jostling niggers to get to the palace,
which stood apart from the fort near a small lake, with a shady
park about it; it was a fine, four-square building, its outer walls
beautifully decorated with huge paintings of battles and hunting
scenes. I presented myself to another Pathan, very splendid in
steel back-and-breast and long-tail puggaree,* who commanded
the gate guard, and sat sweating in the scorching sun while he
sent off a messenger for the chamberlain. And as I chafed
impatiently, the Pathan walked slowly round me, eyeing me up
and down, and presently stopped, stuck his thumbs in his belt,
and spat carefully on my shadow.
Now, close by the gate there happened to be a number of booths
and side-shows set upthe usual things, lemonade-sellers, a fakir
with a plant growing through his palm, sundry beggars, and a
kind of punch-and-judy show, which was being watched by a
group of ladies in a palankeen. As a matter of fact, they'd already
taken my eye, for they were obviously Maharatta females of
quality, and four finer little trotters you never saw. There was a
very slim, languid-looking beauty in a gold sari reclining in the
palankeen, another plump piece in scarlet trousers and jacket
beside her, and a third, very black, but fine-boned as a Swede,
with a pearl headdress that must have cost my year's pay, sitting
in a kind of camp-chair alongsideeven the ladies' maid standing
beside the palankeen was a looker, with great almond eyes and a
figure inside her plain white sari like a Hindoo temple goddess. I
was in the act of touching my hat to them when the Pathan
started expectorating. At this the maid giggled, the ladies looked,
and the Pathan sniffed contemptuously and spat again.
Well, as a rule anyone can insult me and see how much it pays
him, especially if he's large and ugly and carrying a tulwar. + But
* Turban.
+ A sword.
69
for the credit of the Sirkar, and my own face in front of the
women, I had to do something, so I looked the Pathan up and
down, glanced away, and said quietly in Pushtu:
"You would spit more carefully if you were still in the Guides, hubshi:'*
He opened his eyes at that, and swore. "Who calls me hubshff Who says I was in the Guides? And what is it to thee, ^mngbeet pig?"
"You wear the old coat under your breastplate," says I. "But
belike you stole it from a dead Guide. For no man who had a right
to that uniform would spit on Bloody Lance's shadow."
That set him back on his heels. "Bloody Lance?" says he.
"Thou?" He came closer and stared up at me. "Art thou that
same Iflass-man who slew the four Gilzais?"
"At Mogala," says I mildly. It had caused a great stir at the
time, in the Gilzai country, and won me considerable fame (and
my extravagant nickname) along the Kabul road--in fact, old
Mohammed Iqbal had killed the four horsemen, while I lit out
for the undergrowth, but nobody living knew that.t And
obviously the legend endured, for the Pathan gaped and swore
again, and then came hastily to attention and threw me a barra salaam  that would have passed at Horse Guards.
"Sher Khan, havildar,^ lately of Ismeet Sahib's company of the
Guides,7 as your honour says," croaks he. "Now, shame on me
and mine that I put dishonour on Bloody Lance, and knew him not! Think not ill of me, husoor,|| for--"
"Let the ill think ill," says I easily. "The spittle of a durwan** will not drown a soldier." I was watching out of the corner of my
eye to see how the ladies were taking this, and noted with
satisfaction that they were giggling at the Pathan's discomfiture,
"Boast to your children, 0 Gbazi+tthatwasaGuideandisnow-aRani's-porter,
that you spat on Bloody Lance Mass-man's shadow--
* Literally "woolly-haired"--a negro.
+ Christian, a white man.
t See Flash-man.
 Great salute.
H Sergeant.
I] Sir, Lord.
** Doorkeeper.
++ Hero.
70
and lived." And I walked my horse past him into the courtyard,
well pleased; it would be all round Jhansi inside the hour.
It was a trifling enough incident, and I forgot it with my first
glance at the interior of the Rani's palace. Outside it had been all
dust and heat and din, but here was the finest garden courtyard
you ever sawa cool, pleasant enclosure where little antelopes
and peacocks strutted on the lawns, parrots and monkeys chattered
softly in the surrounding trees, and a dazzling white fountain
played; there were shaded archways in the carved walls, where
well-dressed folk whom I took to be her courtiers sat and talked,
waited on by bearers. One of the richest thrones in India, Pam
had said, and I could believe itthere were enough silks and
jewellery on view there to stuff an army with loot, the statuary
was of the finest, in marble and coloured stones that I took to be
jade, and even the pigeons that pecked at the spotless pavements
had silver rings on their claws. Until you've seen it, of course, you
can't imagine the luxury in which these Indian princes keep
themselvesand there are folk at home who'll tell you that John
Company were the robbers!
I was kept waiting there a good hour before a major-domo came,
salaaming, to lead me through the inner gate and up a narrow
winding stair to the durbar room on the first storey; here
i again all was richnesssplendid silk curtains on the walls, great
I chandeliers of purple crystal hanging from the carved and gilded
ceiling, magnificent carpets on the floor (with good old Axminster
there among the Persian, I noticed) and every kind of priceless
ornament, gold and ivory, ebony and silverwork, scattered about.
It would have been in damned bad taste if it hadn't all been so
bloody expensive, and the dozen or so men and women who
lounged about on the couches and cushions were dressed to match;
the ones down in the courtyard must have been their poor
relations. Handsome as Hebe the women were, tooI was just
running my eye over one alabaster beauty in tight scarlet trousers
who was reclining on a shawl, playing with a parakeet, when a
gong boomed somewhere, everyone stood up, and a fat little chap
in a huge turban waddled in and announced that the durbar had
begun. At which music began to play, and they all turned and
bowed to the wall, which I suddenly realised wasn't a wall at all,
71
but a colossal ivory screen, fine as lace, that cut the room in two.
Through it you could just make out movement in the space
beyond, like shadows behind thick gauze; this was the Rani's
purdah screen, to keep out prying heathen eyes like mine.
I seemed to be first man in, for the chamberlain led me to a
little gilt stool a few feet from the screen, and there I sat while
he stood at one end of the screen and cried out my name, rank,
decorations, and (it's a fact) my London clubs; there was a
murmur of voices beyond, and then he asked me what I wanted,
or words to that effect. I replied, in Urdu, that I brought greetings
from Queen Victoria, and a gift for the Rani from her majesty, if
she would graciously accept it. (It was a perfectly hellish photograph
of Victoria and Albert looking in apparent stupefaction at
a book which the Prince of Wales was holding in an attitude of
sullen defiance; all in a silver frame, too, and wrapped up in
muslin.) I handed it over, the chamberlain passed it through,
listened attentively, and then asked me who the fat child in the
picture was. I told him, he relayed the glad news, and then
announced that her highness was pleased to accept her sister-ruler's
gift--the effect was spoiled a trifle by a clatter from behind the
screen which suggested the picture had fallen on the floor (or
been thrown), but I just stroked my whiskers while the courtiers
tittered behind me. It's hell in the diplomatic, you know.
There was a further exchange of civilities, through the
chamberlain, and then I asked for a private audience with the
Rani; he replied that she never gave them. I explained that what
I had to say was of mutual but private interest to Jhansi and the
British government; he looked behind the screen for instructions,
and then said hopefully:
"Does that mean you have proposals for the restoration of her
highness's throne, the recognition of her adopted son, and the
restitution of her property--all of which have been stolen from
herbytheSirkar?"
Well, it didn't, of course. "What I have to say is for her
highness alone," says I, solemnly, and he stuck his head round
the screen and conferred, before popping back.
"There are such proposals?" says he, and I said I could not talk
in open durbar, at which there were sounds of rapid female
72
muttering from behind the screen. The chamberlain asked what I
could have to say that could not be said by Captain Skene, and I
said politely that I could tell that to the Rani, and no other. He
conferred again, and I tried to picture the other side of the screen,
with the Rani, sharp-faced and thin in her silk shawl, muttering
her instructions to him, and puzzled to myself what the odd
persistent noise was that I could hear above the soft pipes of the
hidden orchestraa gentle, rhythmic swishing from beyond the
screen, as though a huge fan were being used. And yet the room
was cool and airy enough not to need one. :"
The chamberlain popped out again, looking stem, and said that
her highness could see no reason for prolonging the interview; if
I had nothing new from the Sirkar to impart to her, I was
permitted to withdraw. So I got to my feet, clicked my heels,
saluted the screen, picked up the second package which I had
brought, thanked him and his mistress for their courtesy, and did
a smart about-turn. But I hadn't gone a yard before he stopped me.
"The packet you carry," says he. "What is that?"
I'd been counting on this; I told him it was my own.
"But it is wrapped as the gift to her highness was wrapped,"
says he. "Surely it also is a present."
"Yes," says I, slowly. "It was." He stared, was summoned
behind the screen, and came out looking anxious.
"Then you may leave it behind," says he.
I hesitated, weighing the packet in my hand, and shook my
head. "No, sir," says I. "It was my own personal present, to her
highnessbut in my country we deliver such gifts face to face,
as honouring both giver and receiver. By your leave," and I bowed
again to the screen and walked away.
"Wait, wait!" cries he, so I did; the rhythmic sound from
behind the screen had stopped now, and the female voice was
talking quickly again. The chamberlain came out, red-faced, and
to my astonishment he bustled everyone else from the room,
shooing the silken ladies and gentlemen like geese. Then he turned
to me, bowed, indicated the screen, and effaced himself through
one of the archways, leaving me alone with my present in my
hand. I listened a moment; the swishing sound had started again.
I paused to give my whiskers a twirl, stepped up to the end of
73
the screen, and rapped on it with my knuckles. No reply. So I
said: "Your highness?", but there was nothing except that damned
swishing. Well, here goes, I thought; this is what you came to
India for, and you must be civil and adoring, for old Pam's sake.
I stepped round the screen, and halted as though I'd walked into
a wall.
It wasn't the gorgeously-carved golden throne, or the splendour
of the furniture which outshone even what I'd left, or the
unexpected sensation of walking on the shimmering Chinese quilt
on the floor. Nor was it the bewildering effect of the mirrored
ceiling and walls, with their brilliantly-coloured panels. The
astonishing thing was that from the ceiling there hung, by silk
ropes, a great cushioned swing, and sitting in it, wafting gently
to and fro, was a girlthe only soul in the room. And such a
girlmy first impression was of great, dark, almond eyes in a
skin the colour of milky coffee, with a long straight nose above
a firm red mouth and chin, and hair as black as night that hung
in a jewelled tail down her back. She was dressed in a white silk
bodice and sari which showed off the dusky satin of her bare
arms and midriff, and on her head was a little white jewelled cap
from which a single pearl swung on her forehead above the castemark.
I
stood and gaped while she swung to and fro at least three
times, and then she put a foot on the carpet and let the swing
drag to a halt. She considered me, one smooth dusky arm up on
the swing ropeand then I recognised her: she was the ladies'
maid who had been standing by the palankeen at the palace gate.
The Rani's maid?then the lady of the palankeen must be...
"Your mistress?" says I. "Where is she?"
"Mistress? I have no mistress," says she, tilting up her chin and
looking down her nose at me. "I am Lakshmibai, Maharani of
Jhansi."
74
For a moment I didn't believe it: I
bad become so used to picturing her over the past three months
as a dried-up old shrew with skinny limbs that I just stood and
gaped.8 And yet, as I looked at her, there couldn't be any doubt:
the richness of her clothes shouted royalty at you, and the carriage
of her head, with its imperious dark eyes, told you as nothing else
could that here was a woman who'd never asked permission in
her life. There was strength in every line of her, too, for all
her femininityby George, I couldn't remember when I'd seen
bouncers like those, thrusting like pumpkins against the muslin
of her blouse, which was open to the jewelled clasp at her breast
boneif it hadn't been for a couple of discreetly embroidered
flowers on either side, there would have been nothing at all to
hide. I could only stand speechless before such queenly beauty,
wondering what it would be like to tear the muslin aside, thrust
your whiskers in between 'em, and go brrrrr!
"You have a gift to present," says she, speaking in a quick, soft
voice which had me recollecting myself and clicking my heels as
I presented my packet. She took it, weighed it in her hand, still
half-reclining in her swing, and asked sharply: "Why do you
stare at me so?"
"Forgive me, highness," says I. "I did not expect to find a
queen who looked so..." I'd been about to say "young and
lovely", but changed it hurriedly for a less personal compliment.
"So like a queen."
"Like that queen?" says she, and indicated the picture of Vicky
and Albert, which was lying on a cushion.
"Each of your majesties," says I, with mountainous diplomacy,
"looks like a queen in her own way."
She considered me gravely, and then held the packet out to me.
"You may open it."
I pulled off the wrapping, opened the little box, and took out
75
the gift. You may smile, but it was a bottle of perfume--you see,
Flashy ain't as green as he looks; it may be coals to Newcastle to
take perfume to India, but in my experience, which isn't inconsiderable,
there's not a woman breathing who isn't touched by a
gift of scent, and it don't matter what age she is, either. And it
was just the gift a blunt, honest soldier would choose, in his
simplicity--furthermore, it was from Paris, and had cost the dirty
old goat who presented it to Elspeth a cool five sovs. (She'd never
miss it.) I handed it over with a little bow, and she touched the
stopper daintily on her wrist.
"French," says she. "And very costly. Are you a rich man,
colonel?"
That took me aback; I muttered something about not calling on
a queen every day of my life.
"And why have you called?" says she, very cool. "What is
there that you have to say that can be said only face to face?" I
hesitated, and she suddenly stood up in one lithe movement--by
jove, they jumped like blancmanges in a gale. "Come and tell
me," she went on, and swept off out on to the terrace at that end
of the room, with a graceful swaying stride that stirred the seat of
her sari in a most disturbing way. She jingled as she walked--like
all rich Indian females, she seemed to affect as much jewellery
as she could carry, with bangles at wrist and ankle, a diamond
collar beneath her chin, and even a tiny pearl cluster at one nostril.
I followed, admiring the lines of the tall, full figure, and wondering
for the umpteenth time what I should say to her, now that the
moment had come.
Pam and Mangles, you see, had given me no proper directions
at all: I was supposed to wheedle her into being a loyal little
British subject, but I'd no power to make concessions to any of
her grievances. And it wasn't going to be easy; an unexpected
stunner she might be, and therefore all the easier for me to talk
to, but there was a directness about her that was daunting. This
was a queen, and intelligent and experienced (she even knew
French perfume when she smelled it); she wasn't going to be
impressed by polite political chat. So what must I say? The devil
with it, thinks I, there's nothing to lose by being as blunt as she
is herself.
76
So when she'd settled herself on a daybed, and I'd forced myself
to ignore that silky naked midriff and the shapely brown ankle
peeping out of her sari, I set my helmet on the ground and stood
up foursquare.
"Your highness," says I, "I can't talk like Mr Erskine, or
Captain Skene even. I'm a soldier, not a diplomat, so I won't
mince words." And thereafter I minced them for all I was worth,
telling her of the distress there was in London about the coolness
that existed between Jhansi on the one hand and the Company
and Sirkar on the other; how this state of affairs had endured for
four years to the disadvantage of all parties; how it was disturbing
the Queen, who felt a sisterly concern for the ruler of Jhansi not
only as a monarch, but as a woman, and so on--I rehearsed
Jhansi's grievances, the willingness of the Sirkar to repair them so
far as was possible, threw in the information that I came direct
from Lord Palmerston, and finished on a fine flourish with an
appeal to her to open her heart to Flashy, plenipotentiary extraordinary,
so that we could all be friends and live happy ever after.
It was the greatest gammon, but I gave it my best, with noble
compassion in my eye and a touch of ardour in the curl shaken
down over my brow. She heard me out, not a muscle moving in
that lovely face, and then asked:
"You have the power to make redress, then? To alter what has
been done?"
I said I had the power to report direct to Pam, and she said that
so, in effect, had Skene. Her agents in London had spoken direct
to the Board of Control, without avail.
"Well," says I, "this is a little different, highness, don't you
see? His lordship felt that if I heard from you at first-hand, so to
speak, and we talked--"
"There is nothing to talk about," says she. "What can I say
that has not been said--that the Sirkar does not know? What
can you--"
"I can ask, maharaj', what actions by the Sirkar, short of
removing from Jhansi and recognising your adopted son, would
satisfy your grievances--or go some way to satisfying them."
She came up on one elbow at that, frowning at me with those
magnificent eyes. For what I was hinting at--without the least
77
authority, mind youwas concessions, and devil a smell of those
she'd had in four years.
"Why," says she, thoughtfully. "They know well enough.
They have been told my grievances, my just demands, for four
years now. And yet they have denied me. How can repetition
serve?"
"A disappointed client may find a new advocate," says I, with
my most disarming smile, and she gave me a long stare, and then
got up and walked over to the balustrade, looking out across the
city. "If your highness would speak your mind to me, openly"
"Wait," says she, and stood for a moment, frowning, before
she turned back to me. She couldn't think what to make of this;
she was suspicious, and didn't dare to hope, and yet she was
wondering. God, she was a black beauty, sure enoughif I'd been
the Sirkar, she could have had Jhansi and a pound of tea with it,
just for half an hour on the daybed.
"If Lord Palmerston," says she at lastand old Pam himself
would have been tempted to restore her throne just to hear the
pretty way she said "Lud Pammer-stan""wishes me to restate
the wrongs that have been done me, it can only be because he has
discovered some interest to serve by redressing themor promising
redress. I do not know what that interest is, and you will not tell
me. It is no charitable desire to set right injustices done to my
Jhansi" and she lifted her head proudly. "That is certain. But
if he wishes my friendship, for whatever purpose of his own, he
may give an earnest of his good will by restoring the revenues
which should have come to me since my husband's death, but
which the Sirkar has confiscated." She stopped there, chin up,
challenging, so I said:
"And after that, highness? What else?"
"Will he concede as much? Will the Company?"
"I can't say," says I. "But if a strong case can be madewhen
I report to Lord Palmerston..."
"And you will put the case, yourself?"
"That is my mission, maharaj'."
"And such other... cases ... as I may advance?" She looked the
question, and there was just a hint of a smile on her mouth. "So.
And I must first put them to youand no doubt you will suggest
78
to me how they may best be phrased... or modified. You will
advise, and... persuade?"
"Well," says I, "I'll help your highness as I can ..."
To my astonishment she laughed, with a flash of white teeth,
her head back, and shaking most delightfully.
"Oh, the subtlety of the British!" cries she. "Such delicacy, like
an elephant in a swamp! Lord Falmerston wishes, for his own
mysterious reasons of policy, to placate the Rani of Jhansi. So he
invites her to repeat the petition which has been repeatedly denied
for years. But does he send a lawyer, or an advocate, or even an
official of the Company? Nojust a simple soldier, who will
discuss the petition with her, and how it may best be presented to
his lordship. Could not a lawyer have advised her better?" She
folded her hands and came slowly forward, sauntering round me.
"But how many lawyers are tall and broad-shouldered and... aye,
quite handsomeand persuasive as Flashman bahadur7* Not a
doubt but he is best fitted to convince a silly female that a modest
claim is most likely to succeedand she will abate her demands
for him, poor foolish girl, and be less inclined to insist on fine
points, and stand upon her rights. Is this not so?"
"Highness, you misunderstand entirely... I assure you"
"Do I?" says she, scornfully, but laughing still. "I am not
sixteen, colonel; I am an old lady of twenty-nine. And I may not
know Lord Palmerston's purpose, but I understand his methods.
Well, well. It may not have occurred to his lordship that even a
poor Indian lady may be persuasive in her turn." And she eyed
me with some amusement, confident in her own beauty, the
damned minx, and the effect it was having on me. "He paid me
a poor compliment, do you not think?"
What could I do but grin back at her? "Do his lordship justice,
highness," says I. "He'd never seen you. How many have, since
you are purdah-nis?rin?"+
"Enough to have told him what I am like, I should have hoped.
How did he instruct youhumour her, whatever she is, fair or
foul, young and silly or old and ugly? Charm her, so that she
keeps her demands cheap? Captivate her, as only a hero can." She
* Title of honour, champion.
+ Literally, "one who sits behind a curtain".
79
stirred an eyebrow. "Who could resist the champion who killed
the four Gilzaiswhere was it?"
"At Mogala, in Afghanistanas your highness heard at the
gate. Was it to test me that you had the Pathan spit on my
shadow?"
"His insolence needed no instruction," says she. "He is now
being flogged for it." She turned away from me and sauntered
back into the durbar-room. "You may have the tongue which
insulted you torn out, if you wish," she added over her shoulder.
That brought me up sharp, I can tell you. We'd been rallying
away famously, and I'd all but forgotten who and what she was
an Indian prince, with all the capricious cruelty of her kind
under that lovely hide. Unless she was just mocking me with the
reminderwhether or no, I would play my character. &
"Not necessary, highness," says I. "I had forgotten him."
She nodded, and struck a little silver gong with her wristbangle.
"It is time for my noon meal, and this afternoon I hold
my court. You may return tomorrow, and we shall discuss the
representations you are to make to the subtle Lord Palmerston."
She smiled slightly in dismissal. "And I thank you for your gift,
colonel."
Her maids were coming in, and the little fat chamberlain, so
I made my bow.
"Maharaj'," says I. "Your most humble obedient."
She inclined her head regally, and turned away, but as I backed
out round the screen I noticed that she had picked up my
perfume-bottle from the table, and was inviting her maids to have
a sniff at it.
I came away from that audience thinking no small diplomatic
beer of myself. At least I seemed to have got further with her
than any other representative of the Sirkar had ever done, even
if I'd had to lie truth out of Jhansi to do it. God knew I'd not the
slightest right to promise redress of any of her grievances against
the Raj, and if I trotted back a list of them to London the Board
would turn 'em down flat again, no question. But she didn't know
that, and if I could jolly her along for a week or two, hinting at
this or that possible concession, she might grow more friendly
disposedwhich was what Fam wanted, after all. Her hopes
80
would revive, and while they were sure to be dashed in the end,
I'd be back snug in England by then.
That was the official aspect, of course; the important thing was
the delightful surprise that the old beldam of Jhansi was as prime
a goer as ever wriggled a hip, and just ripe for my kind of diplomacy.
She was a cocky bitch, with a fine sense of her queenly
consequence, but I wasn't fooled by her airs, or the set-down she'd
tried to give me by warning me not to try to come round her with
whiskery blandishments. That was pure flirtation, to put me on
my mettle--I know these beauties, you see, and it don't matter
whether they're queens or commoners, when they start to play
the cool, mocking grand dame it's a sure sign that they're wondering
what kind of a mount you'll make. I'd seen the glint in this
one's eye when she walked round me, and thought quietly to
myself, we'll have you gasping for more, my girl, before this
fortnight's out.
You may think me a presumptuous ambassador on short
notice, especially where the object of my carnal ambitions was
royal, clever, dangerously powerful, and a high-caste Hindoo
lady of reputed purity to boot. But that means nothing when a
woman fancies a buck like me; besides, I knew about these
high-born Indian wenches--randy as ferrets, the lot of them, and
with all the opportunity to gratify it, too. A woman with a shape
and face like Lakshmibai's hadn't let it go to waste in four years'
widowhood (after being married to some prancing old quean, too),
not with the stallions of her palace guard available at the crook
of her little finger. Well, I'd make a rare change of bedding for
her--and if her lusty inclinations needed any prompting, she
might find it in the thought that being amiable to ambassador
Flashy was the likeliest way of getting what she wanted for herself
and her state. Duke et decorum est pro patria rogeri, she
could say to herself--and I cantered back to the cantonments full
of cheery thoughts, imagining what that voluptuous tawny body
would look like when I peeled the sari off it, and speculating on
the novel uses to which the pair of us could put that swing of
hers, in the interests of diplomatic relations.
In the meantime, I had Pam's other business to attend to, so I
spent the afternoon in the Native Infantry lines, looking at the
81
Company sepoys to gauge for myself what their temper was. I
did it idly enough, for they seemed a properly smart and docile
lot, and yet it was a momentous visit. For it led to an encounter
that was to save my life, and set me on one of the queerest and
most terrifying adventures of my career, and perhaps shaped the
destiny of British India, too.
I had just finished chatting to a group of the j'awans,* and
telling 'em that in my view they'd never be called on to serve
overseas, in spite of the new act,9 when the officer with me--
fellow called Tumbull--asked me if I'd like to look at the irregular
horse troop who had their stables close by. Being a cavalryman,
I said yes, and a fine mixed bunch they were, too, Punjabis
and frontiersmen mostly, big, strapping ruffians with oiled
whiskers and their shirts inside their breeches, laughing and
joking as they worked on their leather, and as different from the
smooth-faced infantry as Cheyennes are from hottentots. I was
having a good crack with them, for these were the kind of scoundrels
with whom I'd ridden (albeit reluctantly) in my Afghan days,
when their rissaldar^ came up--and at the sight of me he stopped
dead in the stable door, gaping as though he couldn't believe his
eyes. He was a huge, bearded Ghazi of a fellow, Afghan for
certain by the devil's face of him--I'd have said Gilzai or Dourani
--with a skull cap on the back of his head, and the old yellow
coat of Skinner's riders over his shoulders.10
"Jehannum!" says he, and stared again, and then stuck his
hands on his hips and roared with laughter.
"Salaam, rissaldar," says I, "what do you want with me?"
"A sight of thy left wrist. Bloody Lance," says he, grinning
like a death's head. "Is there not a scar, there, to match this?--"
and he pulled up his sleeve, while I stared in disbelief at the
little puckered mark, for the man who bore it should have been
dead, fifteen years ago--and he'd been a mere slip of a Gilzai boy
when it had been made, with his bleeding fore-arm against mine,
and his mad father, Sher Afzul, doing the honours and howling
to heaven that his son's life was pledged eternally to the service
of the White Queen.
"Ilderim?" says I, flabbergasted. "Ilderim Khan, of Mogala?"
And then he flung his arms round me, roaring, and danced me
about while the sowars* grinned and nudged each other.
"Flashman!" He pounded my back. "How many years since
ye took me for the Sirkar? Stand still, old friend, and let me see
thee! Bismillah, thou hast grown high and heavy in the service
--such a barra sahib,+ and a colonel, too! Now praise God for the
sight of thee!"
And then he was showing me off to his fellows, telling them
how we'd met in the old Kabul days, when his father had held the
passes south, and how I'd killed the four Gilzais (strange, the
same lying legend coming up twice in a day), and he'd been
pledged to me as a hostage, and we'd lost sight of each other in
the Great Retreat. It's all there, in my earlier memoirs, and
pretty gruesome, too, even if it was the basis of my glorious career.t
So now it was Speech Day with a vengeance, while we relived
old memories and slapped each other on the shoulder for half an
hour or so. And then he asked me what I was doing here, and I
answered vaguely that I was on a mission to the Rani, but soon to
go home again; and at this he looked at me shrewdly, but said
nothing more until I was leaving.
"It will be -palitikal, beyond doubt," says he. "Do not tell me.
Listen, instead, to a friend's word. If ye speak with the Rani, be
wary of her; she is a Hindoo woman, and knows too much for a
woman's good."
"What d'you know about her?" says I.
"Little enough," says he, "except that she is like the silver
krait, in that she is beautiful and cunning and loves to bite the
sahibs. The Company have made a cutch-rani^ of her, Flashman,
but she still has fangs. This," he added bitterly, "comes of soft
government in Calcutta, by ducks and wu!k|| who have been too
* Troopers.
+ Great lord, important man.
t See Flashman.
fl "Cutch" in this sense means inferior, as opposed to "pukka", meaning
first-rate. E.g. pukka road, a macadam surface, cutch road, a mere track. Thus cutch-rani, a nominal queen, without power.
II Ducks and mulls--Bombay Anglo-Indians and Madras AngloIndians.
Slang expressions current among the British in India, but probably seldom
used by Indians themselves.
83
long in the heat. So beware of her, an'd go with God, old friend.
And remember, while thou art in Jhansi, Ilderim is thy shadow
or if not me, then these loose-wallahs and jangli-admis* of mine.
They have their uses" And he jerked a thumb towards his
troopers.
That, coming from an Afghan upper rogert who was also a
friend, was the best kind of insurance policy you could wish
not that I now had any fears, fool that I was, about my stay in
Jhansi. As to what he'd said of the Raniwell, I knew it already,
and Afghans' views on women are invariably sourbeastly brutes.
Anyway, I didn't doubt my ability to handle Lakshmibai, in every
sense of the word.
Still, I found his simile coming to mind next day, when I
attended her durbar again, and watched her sitting enthroned to
hear petitions, dressed in a cloth-of-silver sari that fitted her like a
skin, with a silver-embroidered shawl framing that fine dark face;
when she moved it was for all the world like a great gleaming
snake stirring. She was very grave and queenly, and her courtiers
and suppliants fairly grovelled, and scuttled about if she raised her
pinky; when the last petitioner had been heard, and a gong had
boomed to end the durbar, she sat with her chin in the air while the
mob bowed itself out backwards, leaving only me and her two chief
councillors standing thereand then she slipped out of her throne
with a little cry of relief, hissed at one of her pet monkeys and
chased it out on to the terrace, clapping her hands in mock anger,
and then returned, perfectly composed, to lounge on her swing.
"Now we can talk," says she, "and while my vakeelt reads out
the matter of my 'petition', you may refresh yourself, colonel"
and she indicated a little table with flasks and cups on it. "Ah,
and see," she added, flicking a flimsy little handkerchief from her
sari, "I am wearing French perfume todaydo you care for it?
My lady Vashki thinks I am no better than an infidel."
It was my perfume, right enough; I bowed acknowledgement
while she smiled and settled herself, and the vakeel began to drone
out her petition in formal Persian.
* Thieves and jungle-men.
+ A young chiefSansk., "yuva rajah". For this and other curiosities of
Anglo-Indian slang, see Hobson-Jobson, by H. Yule (1886).
t Legal representative (possibly used here ironically).
84
It's worth repeating, perhaps, for it was a fair sample of the
objections that many Indian princes had to British rulethe
demand for restoration of her husband's revenues, compensation
for the slaughter of sacred cows, reappointment of court hangerson
dismissed by the Sirkar, restitution of confiscated temple funds,
recognition of her authority as regent, and the like. All a waste of
time, had she but known it, but splendid stuff for me to talk to
her about over the next week or two while I pursued the really
important work of charming her into a recumbent position.
I had no doubt she was willing enough for me to make the
running thereshe was wearing my scent, and letting me know
it, and she was as pleasant as pie in her cool way at that meeting
nodding graciously as I talked to her wise men about the
petition, smiling if I ventured a joke, inviting them to admire my
reasoning (which they fell over themselves to do, absolutely),
even asking my advice occasionally, and always considering me
languidly with those dark slanting eyes as I talked. All of which
might have seemed suspiciously amiable after her frankness at
our first encounterbut since then she'd had time to weigh the
political advantages of being pleasant to me, and was setting out
to make me enjoy my work.
But I knew politics wasn't the half of itI know when a
woman's got that little flutter in her midriff about me, and in our
ensuing meetings I could watch her enjoying using her beauty on
meand she could do that with a touch that Montez might have
envied. I'll admit it now, I found her enchanting; she had the
advantage of being a queen, of course, which makes a beauty all
the more tantalisingwell, even I, on short acquaintance, could
hardly have taken her belly in one hand, her bum in the other,
and fondled her flat on her back with passionate murmurs, as one
would do in ordinary circumstances. No, with royalty you have
to wait a little. Not that I wasn't tempted, in those early talks,
when she had dismissed her councillors, and we were alone, and
just once or twice, from the warm gleam in her eye as she swayed
on her swing or lay on her daybed, I wondered if perhaps... but
I decided to make haste slowly, and play the bowling as it came
down.
It came mighty fast, too, sometimes, for if she was generally
85
content just to politick flirtatiously, I soon discovered that she
could be dead serious where Jhansi and her own ambitions were
concerned; let the talk turn that way, and you saw the passion of
her feeling.
"Five years ago, how many beggars were on the streets?" she
rounded on me once. "One for every ten today. And who has
accomplished this? Who but the Sirkar, by assuming the affairs of
the state, so that one white sahib comes to do the work that
employed a dozen of our people, who must be turned out to starve.
Who guards the state? Why, the Company soldiers--so Jhansi's
army must be disbanded, and they, too, can shift or steal or go
hungry!"
"Well now, highness," says I, "it's hard to blame the Sirkar for
being efficient, and as for your unemployed soldiers, they'll be
more than welcome in the Company service--"
"In a foreign army? And will there be room in its ranks, too, for
the Indian craftsmen whom the Sirkar's efficiency has put out of
work? For the traders whose commerce has decayed under the
benevolent rule of the Raj?"
"You must give us a little time, maharaj'," says I, humouring
her. "And it ain't all bad, you know. Banditry has ceased; the
poor folk are safe from dacoits and Thugs--why, your own throne
is secure against greedy neighbours like Kathe Khan and the
Dewan of Orcha--"
"My throne is safe?" says she, stopping the swing on which
she had been swaying, and lifting her brows at me. "Oh, very
safe--for the Sirkar to enjoy its revenues, and usurp my place,
and disinherit my son--ha! As to Kathe Khan and that jackal of
Orcha, whom the Company in their wisdom allow to live--if I
ruled this state, and had my soldiers, Kathe Khan and his fellowviper
would come against me once--" she picked up a fruit from
the tray at her elbow, considered it, and nibbled daintily "--and
crawl home again-- without their hands and feet."
"No doubt, ma'am," says I. "But the fact is that when Jhansi
ruled itself, it couldn't deal with these foes. Nor were the Thugs
put down--"
"Oh, aye--we hear much of them, and how the Company
suppressed their wickedness. And why--because they slew tra-
86
vellers, or was it because they served a Hindoo god and so offended
the Christian Company?" She eyed me contemptuously. "Belike
had the Thugs been Jesus-worshippers, they would have been
roaming yetespecially if they had chosen Hindoo victims."
You can't argue with gross prejudice, so I just looked amiable
and said:
"And doubtless had suttee, that fine old Hindoo custom whereby
widows were tortured to death, been a Christian practice, we
would have encouraged it? But in our ignorance and spite, we
forbade italong with the law which condemned those widows
who had escaped burning to a life of slavery and degradation with
their heads shaved and heaven knows what else. Come, maharaj*
can we do nothing right?" And without thinking I added: "I'd
have thought your highness, as a widow, would have cause to
thank the Sirkar for that at least."
As soon as the words were out, I saw I'd put my foot in it. The
swing stopped abruptly, and she sat upright, with a face like a
mask, staring at me.
"I?" says she. "I? Thank the Sirkar?" And she suddenly flung
her fruit across the room and stood upright, blazing at me. "You
dare to suggest that?"
Well, I could grovel, or face it outbut I don't hold with
grovelling to pretty women, not unless the danger's desperate or
I'm short of cash. So I started to hum and haw placatingly, while
she snapped in a voice like ice:
"I owe the Company nothing! If the Company had never been,
do you think I would have submitted to suttee, or allowed myself
to be made a menial? Do you take me for a fool?"
"By God, no, ma'am," says I hastily. "Anything but, and if
I've offended, I beg your pardon. I simply thought that the law
was binding on all, ah... ladies, you see, and..."
"The Maharani makes the law," says she, all Good Queen Bess
damning the dagoes, and I hurriedly cried thank heaven for that,
at which she looked down her nose at me.
"That is not the view of your Company or your country. Why
should you be different? Why should you care?"
That was my cue, of course; I hesitated a second, and then
looked at her, very frank and manly. "Because I've seen your
87
highness," says I quietly. "And... well... I do care, a great deal,
you see." I stopped there, giving her my steadiest smile, with a
touch of ardent admiration thrown in, and after a long moment
her stare softened, and she even smiled as she sat down again and
said:
"Shall we return to the confiscated temple funds?"
Altogether it was a rum game in those first few daysnun for
her, because she was a fair natural tyrant, yet whenever a
disagreement in our discussions arose, she would allow it to
smooth over, with that .warm mysterious smile, and rum for me,
because here I was day after day closeted with this choice piece of
rump, and not so much as touching her, let alone squeezing and
grappling. But I had to bide my time, and since she took such
obvious and natural pleasure in my company, I contained my
hominess for the moment, in the interests of diplomacy.
In the meantime, I occasionally paid attention to the other side
of Pam's business, talking with Skene, and Carshore the Collector,
and reassuring myself that all continued to go well among the
sepoys. There wasn't a hint of agitation now, my earlier fears
about Ignatieff and his scoundrels were beginning to seem like a
distant nightmare, and now that I was so well established in the
Rani's good graces, the last cloud over my mission appeared to
have been dispelled. Laughable, you may think, when you recollect
that this was 1856 drawing to a closeyou will ask how I, and
the others, could have been so blind to the fact that we were
living on the very edge of hell, but if you'd been there, what
would you have seen? A peaceful native state, ruled by a charming
young woman whose grievances were petty enough, and who gave
most of her time to seducing the affections of a dashing British
colonel; a contented native soldiery; and a tranquil, happy, British
cantonment.
I was about it a great deal, and all our people were so placid
and at easeI remember a dinner at Carshore's bungalow, with
his family, and Skene and his pretty little wife so nervous and
pleased in her new pink gown, and jolly old Dr McEgan with his
fund of Irish stories, and the garrison men with their red jackets,
slung on the backs of their chairs, matching their smiling red
faces, and their gossipy wives, and myself raising a laugh by
88
coaxing one of the Wilton girls to eat a "country captain"* with
the promise that it would make her hair curl when she grew older.
It was all so comfy and easy, it might have been a dinner-party
at home, except for the black faces and gleaming eyes of the
bearers standing silent against the chick-screens, and the big
moths fluttering round the lamps; afterwards there was a silly
card game, and Truth or Consequences, and local scandal, and
talk of leave and game-shooting with our cheroots and port on
the verandah. Trivial enough memories, when you think what
happened to all of themI can still feel the younger Wilton chit
pulling at my arm and crying:
"Oh, Colonel Flashman, Papa says if I ask you ever so nicely
you will sing us 'The Galloping Major'will you please, oh,
please do!" And see those shining eyes, and the ringlets, as she
tugged me to where her sister was sitting at the piano.
We couldn't see ahead, then, and life was pleasantespecially
for me, with my diplomatic duties to attend to, and they became
more enjoyable by the hour; I'll say that for Rani Lakshmibai, she
knew how to make business a pleasure. Much of the time we
didn't talk in the palace at all; she was, as Skene had told me, a
fine horsewoman, and loved nothing better than to put on her
jodhpurs and turban, with two little silver pistols in her sash, and
gallop on the maidan, or go hawking along a wooded river not far
from the city. There was a charming little pavilion there, of about
a dozen rooms on two storeys, hidden among the trees, and once
or twice I was taken on picnics with a few of her courtiers and
attendants. At other times we would talk in the palace garden,
among the scores of pet beasts and birds which she kept, and
once she had me in to one of her hen-parties in the durbar room,
at which she entertained all the leading ladies of Jhansi to tea and
cakes, and I found myself called on to discourse on European
fashions to about fifty giggling Indian females in saris and bangles
and kohl-dark eyesexcellent fun, too, although the questions
they asked about crinolines and panniers would have made a
sailor blush.
But her great delight was to be out of doors, riding or playing
with her adopted son Damodar, a grave-faced imp of eight, or
* A type of curry.
89
inspecting her guards at field exercise; she even watched their
wrestling-matches in the courtyard, and a race-meeting in which
some of our garrison officers took partI was intrigued to see that
on this occasion she wore a purdah veil and an enveloping robe,
for about the palace she went bare-facedand pretty bare-bodied,
too. And if she could be as formal as a stockbroker with a newbought
peerage, she had a delightful way with the ordinary folk
she was never so gay and happy as when she held a party for
children from the city in her garden, letting them run among the
birds and monkeys, and at one of her ahns-givings I saw her quite
concerned as her treasurer scattered coins among the mob of
hideous and stinking beggars clamouring at her gate. Not at all like
a Rani, sometimesshe was a queer mixture of schoolgirl and
sophisticated woman, all scatter one moment, all languor and
dignity the next. Damned unpredictableoh, and captivating;
there were times when even I found myself regarding her with an
interest that wasn't more than four-fifths lustfuland that ain't
like me. It was directly after that alms-giving, when we rode out
to her pavilion among the trees, and I had just remarked that what
was needed for India was a Poor Law and a few parish workuses,
that she suddenly turned in her saddle, and burst out:
"Can you not see that that is not our waythat none of our
ways are your ways? You talk of your reforms, and the benefits
of British law and the Sirkar's ruleand never think that what
seems ideal to you may not suit others; that we have our own
customs, which you think strange and foolish, and perhaps they
arebut they are oursour own! You come, in your strength,
and your certainty, with your cold eyes and pale faces, like ... like
machines marching out of your northern ice, and you will have
everything in order, tramping in step like your soldiers, whether
those you conquer and civiliseas you call it whether they will
or no. Do you not see that it is better to leave people beto let
them alone?"
She wasn't a bit angry, or I'd have agreed straight off, but she
was as intense as I'd known her, and the great dark eyes were
almost appealing, which was most unusual. I said that all I'd
meant was that instead of thousands going sick and ragged and
hungry about her city, it might be better to have some system of
90
relief; come cheaper on her, too, if they had the beggars picking
yam or mending roads for their dole.
"You talk of a system!" says she, striking her riding crop on
the saddle. "We do not care for systems. Oh, we admire and
respect those which you show us--but we do not want them; we
would not choose them for ourselves. You remember we spoke of
how twelve Indian babus* did the work of one white clerk--"
"Well, that's waste, ma'am," says I respectfully. "There's no
point--"
"Wasteful or not, does it matter--if people are happy?" says
she, impatiently. "Where lies the virtue of your boasted progress,
your telegraphs, your railway trains, when we are content with
our sandals and our oxcarts?"
I could have pointed out that the price of her sandals would
have kept a hundred Jhansi coolie families all their lives, and that
she'd never been within ten yards of an ox-cart, but I was tactful.
"We can't help it, maharaj'," says I. "We have to do the best
we can, don't you know, as we see it. And it ain't just telegraphs
and trains--though you'll find those useful enough, in time--
why, I'm told there are to be universities, and hospitals--"
"To teach philosophies that we do not want, and sciences that
we do not need. And a law that is foreign to us, which our people
cannot understand."
"Well, that doesn't leave 'em far behind the average Englishman,"
says I. "But it's fair law--and with respect that's more
than you can say for most of your Indian courts. Look now--
when there was a brawl in the street outside your palace two days
since, what happened? Your guards didn't catch the culprits--so
they laid hands on the first poor soul they met, haled him into
your divan,+ guilty or not--and you have him hanging by his
thumbs and sun-drying at the scene of the crime for two solid
days. Fellow near died of it--and he'd done nothing! I ask you,
ma'am, is that justice?"
"He was a badmash.t and well known," says she, wide-eyed.
"Would you have let him go?"
Clerks.
+ Court.
t Scoundrel.
91
"For that offence, yessince he was innocent of it. We punish
only the guilty."
"And if you cannot find them? Is there to be no example made?
There will be no more brawls outside the palace, I think." And
seeing my look, she went on: "I know it is not your way, and it
seems unfair and even barbarous to you. But we understand it
should that not be enough? You find it strangelike our religions,
and our forbidden things, and our customs. But can your Sirkar
not see that they are as precious to us as yours are to you? Why
is it not enough to your Company to drive its profit? Why this
greed to order people's lives?"
"It isn't greed, highness," says I. "But you can't drive trade on
a battlefield, now can you? There has to be peace and order,
surely, and you can't have 'em without... well, a strong hand,
and a law that's fair for allor for most people, anyway." I knew
she wouldn't take kindly if I said the law was as much for her as
for her subjects. "And when we make mistakes, well, we try to
put 'em right, you seewhich is what I'm here for, to see that
justiceour justice, if you likeis done to you"
"Do you think that is all that matters?" says she. We had
stopped in the pavilion garden, and the horses were cropping
while her attendants waited out of earshot. She was looking at me,
frowning, and her eyes were very bright. "Do you think it is the
revenues, and the jewelseven my son's rights; do you think that
is all I care for? These are the things that can be redressedbut
what of the things that cannot? What of this life, this land, this
country that you will changeas you change everything you
touch? Today, it is still brightbut you will make it grey; today,
it is still freeoh, and no doubt wrong and savage by your lights
and you will make it tame, and orderly, and bleak, and the
people will forget what they once were. That is what you will
doand that is why I resist as best I can. As you, and Lord
Palmerston would. Tell him," says she, and by George, her voice
was shaking, but the pretty mouth was set and hard, "when you
go home, that whatever happens, I will not give up my Jhansi.
Mcra Jhansi deny nay. I will not give up my Jhansi!"
I was astonished; I'd never been in doubt that under the
delectable feminine surface there was a tigress of sorts, but I
92
hadn't thought it was such a passionately sentimental animal.
D'you know, for a moment I was almost moved, she seemed such
a damned spunky little woman; I felt like saying "There, there",
or stroking her hand, or squeezing her tits, or something--and
then she had taken a breath, and sat upright in the saddle, as
though recovering herself, and she looked so damned royal and so
damned lovely that I couldn't help myself.
"Maharaj'--you don't need me to say it. Go to London yourself,
and tell Lord Palmerston--and I swear he'll not only give you
Jhansi but Bombay and Hackney Wick as well." And I meant it;
she'd have been a sensation---had 'em eating out of her dusky
little palm. "See the Queen herself--why don't you?"
She stared thoughtfully ahead for a moment, and then murmured
under her breath: "The Queen... God save the Queen--
what strange people you British are."
"Don't you worry about the British," says I, "they'll sing 'God
save the Queen', all right--and they'll be thinking of the Queen
of Jhansi."
"Now that is disloyal, colonel," says she, and the languid smile
was back in her eyes, as she turned her horse and trotted off with
me following.
Now, you may be thinking to yourself, what's come over old
Flash? He ain't going soft on this female, surely? Well, you know,
I think the truth is that I was a bit soft on all my girls--Lola and
Cassie and Valla and Ko Dali's Daughter and Susie the Bawd and
Takes-Away-Clouds-Woman and the rest of 'em. Don't mistake
me; it was always the meat that mattered, but I had a fair
affection for them at the same time--every now and then, weather
permitting. You can't help it; feeling randy is a damned romantic
business, and it's my belief that Galahad was a bigger beast in bed
than ever Lancelot was. That's by the way, but worth remembering
if you are to understand about me and Lakshmibai--and
I've told you a good deal about her on purpose, because she was
such a mysterious, contrary female that I can't hope to explain
her (any more than historians can) but must just leave you to
judge for yourselves from what I've written--and from what was
to follow.
For on the morning after that talk at the pavilion--two weeks
93
to the day since I'd arrived in Jhansithings began to happen in
earnest. To me, at any rate.
I sensed there was something up as soon as I presented myself
in the durbar room; she was perfectly pleasant, vivacious even, as
she told me about some new hunting-cheetah she'd been given,
but her vakeel and chief minister weren't meeting her eye, and
her foot was tap-tapping under the edge of her gold sari; ah, thinks
I, someone's been getting the sharp side of missy's tongue. She
didn't have much mind to business, either, and once or twice I
caught her eyeing me almost warily, when she would smile
quicklywith anyone else I would have said it was nervousness.
Finally she cut the discussion off abruptly, saying enough for today,
and we would watch the guardsmen fencing in the courtyard.
Even there, I noticed her finger tapping on the balcony as
we looked down at the Pathans sabring awaydamned active,
dangerous lads they looked, toobut in a little while she began
to take notice, talking about the swordplay and applauding the
hits, and then she glanced sidelong at me, and says:
"Do you fence as well as you ride, colonel?"
I said, pretty fair, and she gave me her lazy smile and says:
"Then we shall try a bout", and blow me if she didn't order
a couple of foils up to the durbar room, and go off to change
into her jodhpurs and blouse. I waited, wonderingof course,
Skene had said she'd been brought up with boys, and could handle
arms with the best of them, but it seemed deuced oddand then
she was back, ordering her attendants away, tying up her hair in
a silk scarf, and ordering me on guard very business-like. They'll
never believe this at home, thinks I, but I obeyed, indulgently
enough, and she touched me three times in the first minute. So I
settled down, in earnest, and in the next minute she hit me only
once, laughing, and told me to try harder.
That nettled me, I confess; I wasn't having this, royalty or not, so
I went to workI'm a strong swordsman, but not too academic
and I pushed her for all I was worth. She was better-muscled than
she looked, though, and fast as a cat, and I had to labour to make
her break ground, gasping with laughter, until her back was
against one of the glass walls. She took to the point, holding me
off, and then unaccountably her guard seemed to falter, I jumped
94
in with the old heavy cavalry trick, punching my hilt against the
forte of her blade, her foil spun out of her handand for a
moment we were breast to breast, with me panting within inches
of that dusky face and open, laughing mouththe great dark
eyes were wide and waitingand then my foil was clattering on
the floor and I had her in my arms, crushing my lips on hers and
tasting the sweetness of her tongue, with that soft body pressed
against me, revelling in the feel and fragrance of her. I felt her
hands slip up my back to my head, holding my face against hers
for a long delicious moment, and then she drew her lips away,
sighing, opened her eyes, and said: 
"How well do you shoot, colonel?"
And then she had slipped from my arms and was walking
quickly towards the door to her private room, with me grunting
endearments in pursuit, but as I came after her she just raised a
hand, without turning or breaking stride, and said firmly:
"The durbar is finished... for the moment." The door closed
behind her, and I was left with the fallen foils, panting like a
bull before business, but thinking, my boy, we're homethe
damned little teaser. I hesitated, wondering whether to invade her
boudoir, when the little chamberlain came pottering in, eyeing the
foils in astonishment, so I took my leave and presently was riding
back to the cantonment, full of buck and anticipationI'd known
she'd call "Play!" in the end, and now there was nothing to do
but enjoy the game.
That was why she'd been jumpy earlier, of course, wondering
how best to bring me to the boil, the cunning minx. "How well
do you shoot?" forsoothshe'd find out soon enough, when we
finished the durbartomorrow, no doubt. So by way of celebration
I drank a sight more bubbly than was good for me at dinner, and
even took a magnum back to my bungalow for luck. It was as
well I did, for about ten Ilderim dropped by for a proseas he'd
taken to doingand there's nobody thirstier than a dry Gilzai
if you think all Muslims abstain, I can tell you of one who didn't.
So we popped the cork, and gassed about the old days, and smoked,
and I was enjoying myself with carnal thoughts about my Lucky
Lakshmibai and thinking about turning in, when there came a
scraping on the chick at the back of the bungalow, and the
95
khitmagar* appeared to tell me that there was a bibit who insisted
on seeing me.
Ilderim grinned and wagged his ugly head, and I cursed,
thinking here was some bazaar houri plying her trade where it
was least wanted, but I staggered out, and sure enough at the
foot of the steps was a veiled woman in a sari, but with a burlylooking
escort standing farther back at the gate. She didn't look
like a slut, somehow, and when I asked what she wanted she
came quickly up the steps, salaamed, and held out a little leather
pouch. I took it, wondering; inside there was a handkerchief, and
even through the champagne fumes there was no mistakingit
was heavy with my perfume.
"From my mistress," says the woman, as I goggled at it.
"By God," says I, and sniffed it again. "Who the blazes"
"Name no names," says she, and it was a well-spoken voice, for
a Hindoo. "My mistress sends it, and bids you come to the river
pavilion in an hour." And with that she salaamed again, and
slipped down the steps. I called after her, and took an unsteady
step, but she didn't stop, and she and her escort vanished in the
dark.
Well, I'm damned, thinks I, surprise giving way to delight
she couldn't wait, by heaven... and of course the river pavilion
at night was just the place... far better than the palace, where
all sorts of folk were prying. Nice and secluded, very discreet
just the place for a rowdy little Rani to entertain. "Syce!" I
shouted, and strode back inside, a trifle unsteadily, damning the
champagne, but chortling as I examined my chin in the glass,
decided it would do, and roared for a clean shirt.
"Now where away?" says Ilderim, who was squatting on the
rug. "Not after some trollop from the bazaar, at this time?"
"No, brother," says I. "Something much better than a trollop.
If you could see this one you'd forswear small boys and melons for
good." By jove, I was feeling prime; I dandled myself up in no
time, rinsed my face to clear some of the booze away, and was out
champing on the verandah as the syce brought my pony round.
"You're mad," growls Ilderim. "Do you go alonewhere to?"
* Bearer, waiter.
+ Lady.
96
"I'm not sharing her, if that's what you mean. I'll take the
syce." For I wasn't too sure of the way at night, and it was pitch
black. I must have been drunker than I felt, for it took me three
shots to mount, and then, with a wave to Ilderim, who was
glowering doubtfully from the verandah, I trotted off, with the
syce scrambling up behind.
Now, I'll admit I was woozy, and say at the same time that I'd
have gone if I'd been cold sober. I don't know when I've been
pawing the ground quite so hard for a womanprobably the two
weeks' spooning had worked me up, and I couldn't cover the two
miles to the pavilion fast enough. Fortunately the syce was a
handy lad, for he not only guided us but held me from tumbling
out of the saddle; I don't remember much of the journey except
that it lasted for ages, and then we were among trees, with the
hooves padding on grass, the syce was shaking my arm, and there
ahead was the pavilion, half-hidden by the foliage.
I didn't want the syce spying, so I slid down and told him to
wait, and then I pushed on. In spite of the night air, the booze
seemed to have increased its grip, but I navigated well enough,
leaning on a trunk every now and then. I surveyed the pavilion;
there were dim lights on the ground floor, and in one room
upstairs, and by George, there was even the sound of music on
the slight breeze. I beamed into the darkwhat these Indians
don't know about the refinements of romping isn't worth knowing.
An orchestra underneath, privacy and soft lights upstairs, and no
doubt refreshments to bootI nibbed my face and hurried forward
through the garden to the outside staircase leading to the upper
rooms, staggering quietly so as not to disturb the hidden musicians,
who were fluting sweetly away behind the screens.
I mounted the staircase, holding on tight, and reached the little
landing. There was a small passage, and a slatted door at the end,
with light filtering through it. I paused, to struggle out of my
loose trousersat least I wasn't so tight that I'd been fool enough
to come out in bootstook a great lusty breath, padded unsteadily
forward, and felt the door give at my touch. The air was heavy
with perfume as I stepped in, stumbled into a muslin curtain,
swore softly as I disentangled myself, took hold of a wooden pillar
for support, and gazed round into the half-gloom.
97
<,
t^1
y'. ' There were dim pink lamps burning, on the floor against the
walls, giving just enough light to show the broad couch, shrouded
in mosquito net, against the far wall. And there she was, silhouetted
against the glow, sitting back among the cushions, one leg
stretched out, the other with knee raised; there was a soft tinkle
of bangles, and I leaned against my pillar and croaked:
"Lakshmibai? Lucky?--it's me, darling... chabeli*... I'm
here!"
She turned her head, and then in one movement raised the net
and slipped out, standing motionless by the couch, like a bronze
statue. She was wearing bangles, all right, and a little gold girdle
round her hips, and some kind of metal headdress from which a
flimsy veil descended from just beneath her eyes to her chin--not
another stitch. I let out an astonishing noise, and was trying to
steady myself for a plunge, but she checked me with a lifted hand,
slid one foot forward, crooked her arms like a nautch-dancer,
and came gliding slowly towards me, swaying that splendid
golden nakedness in time to the throbbing of the music beneath
our feet.
I could only gape; whether it was the drink or admiration or
what, I don't know, but I seemed paralysed in every limb but one.
She came writhing up to me, bangles tinkling and dark eyes
gleaming enormously in the soft light; I couldn't see her face for
the veil, but I wasn't trying to; she retreated, turning and swaying
her rump, and then approached again, reaching forward to brush
me teasingly with her fingertips; I grabbed, gasping, but she slid
away, faster now as the tempo of the music increased, and then
back again, hissing at me through the veil, lifting those splendid
breasts in her hands, and this time I had the wit to seize a tit and
a buttock, fairly hooting with lust as she writhed against me and
lifted the veil just enough to bring her mouth up to mine. Her
right foot was slipping up the outside of my left leg, past the knee,
up to the hip, and round so that her heel was in the small of my
back--God knows how they do it, double joints or something--and
then she was thrusting up and down like a demented monkey on
a stick, raking me with her nails and giving little shrieks into
my mouth, until the torchlight procession which was marching
* Sweetheart.
98
through my loins suddenly exploded, she went limp in my arms,
and I thought, oh Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in
peace, as I slid gently to the floor in ecstatic exhaustion with that
delightful burden clinging and quivering on top of me.
The instructors who taught dancing to young Indian royalty in
those days must have been uncommon sturdy; she had just about
done for me, but somehow I must have managed to crawl to the
couch, for the next I knew I was there with my face cradled
against those wonderful perfumed boobiesI tried feebly to go
brrr! but she turned my head and lifted a cup to my lips. As if
I hadn't enough on board already, but I drank greedily and sank
back, gasping, and was just deciding I might live, after all, when
she set about me again, lips and hands questing over my body,
fondling and plaguing, writhing her hips across my groaning
carcase until she was astride my thighs with her back to me, and
the torchlight procession staggered into marching order once more,
eventually erupting yet again with shattering effect. After which
she left me in peace for a good half-hour, as near as I could judge
in my intoxicated stateone thing I'm certain of, that if I'd been
sober and in my right mind she could never have teased me into
action a third time, as she did, by doing incredible things which I
still only half-believe as I recall them. But I remember those great
eyes, over the veil, and the pearl on her brow, and her perfume,
and the tawny velvet skin in the half-light....
I came awake in an icy sweat, my limbs shivering, trying to
remember where I was. There was a cold wind from somewhere
out in the dark, and I turned my aching head; the pink lamps
were burning, casting their shadows, but she was no longer there.
Someone was, though, surely, over by the door; there was a dark
figure, but it wasn't naked, for I could see a white loin-cloth, and
instead of the gold headdress, there was a tight white turban. A
man? And he was holding somethinga stick? No, it had a
strange curved head on itand there was another man, just
behind him, and even as I watched they were gliding stealthily
into the room, and I saw that the second one had a cloth in his
right hand.
For perhaps ten seconds I lay motionless, gazingand then it
rushed in on me that this wasn't a dream, that they were moving
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towards the couch, and that this was horrible, inexplicable danger.
The net was gone from the couch, and I could see them clearly,
the white eyes in the black facesI braced for an instant and
then hurled myself off the couch away from them, slipped,
recovered, and rushed at the shutters in the screen-wall. There
was a snarl from behind me, something swished in the air and
thudded, and I had a glimpse of a small pick-axe quivering in the
shutter as I flung myself headlong at the screen, yelling in terror.
Thank God I'm fourteen stoneit came down with a splintering
crash, and I was sprawling on the little verandah, thrashing my
way out of the splintered tangle and heaving myself on to the
verandah rail.
From the tail of my eye I saw a dark shape springing for me
over the couch; there was a tree spreading its thick foliage within
five feet of the verandah, and I dived straight into it, crashing and
scraping through the branches, clutching vainly and taking a
tremendous thump across the hips as I struck a limb. For a second
I seemed suspended, and then I shot down and landed flat on my
back with a shock that sickened me. I rolled over, trying to heave
myself up, as two black figures dropped from the tree almost on
top of me; I blundered into one of them, smashed a fist into its
face, and then something flicked in front of my eyes, and I only
just got a hand up in time to catch the garotte as it jerked back
on to my throat.
I shrieked, hauling at it; my wrist was clamped under my chin
by the strangler's scarf, but my right arm was free, and as I
staggered back into him I scrabbled behind me, was fortunate
enough to grab a handful of essentials, and wrenched for all I was
worth. He screamed in agony, the scarf slackened, and he went
down, but before I could flee for the safety of the wood the other
one was on my back, and he made no mistake; the scarf whipped
round my windpipe, his knee was into my spine, and I was
flailing helplessly with his breath hissing in my ear. Five seconds,
it flashed across my mind, is all it takes for an expert garotter to
kill a manoh, Jesus, my sight was going, my head was coming
off, with a horrible pain tearing in my throat, I was dying even as
I fell, floating down to the turfand then I was on my back,
gasping down huge gulps of air, and the faces that were swimming
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in front of my eyes, glaring horribly, were merging into one--
Ilderim Khan was gripping my shoulders and urging:
"Flashman! Be still! There--now lie a moment, and breathe!
Inshallah! The strangler's touch is no light thing." His strong
fingers were massaging my throat as he grinned down at me. "See
what comes of lusting after loose women? A moment more, and
we would have been sounding retreat over thee--so give thanks
that I have a suspicious mind, and followed with my badmashes
to see what kind of cunchuwe* it was who bade thee to her bed
so mysteriously. How is it, old friend--can you stand?"
"What happened?" I mumbled, trying to rise.
"Ask why, rather. Has she a jealous husband, perhaps? We saw
the lights, and heard music, but presently all was still, and many
came out, to a palankeen in which ladies travel, and so away. But
no sign of thee, till we heard thee burst out, with these hounds of
hell behind thee." And following his nod, I saw there were two of
his ruffians squatting in the shadows over two dark shapes lying
on the grass--one was ominously still, but the other was gasping
and wheezing, and from the way he clutched himself I imagine
he was the assassin whose courting-tackle I'd tried to rearrange.
One of Ilderim's sowars was ostentatiously cleaning his Khyber
knife with a handful of leaves, and presently a third came
padding out of the dark.
"The sahib's syce is dead yonder," says he. "Bitten with a tooth
from Kali's mouth!"+
"What?" says Ilderim, starting up. "No}v, in God's name--"
and he went quickly to the body of the dead strangler, snatching
a lantern from one of his men, and peering into the dead face. I
heard him exclaim, and then he beckoned me. "Look there," says
he, and pulled down the dead man's eyelid with his finger; even
in the flickering light I could see the crude tattoo on the skin.
"Thug!"" says Ilderim through his teeth, "Now, Flashman,
what does this mean?"
I was trying to take hold of my senses, with my head splitting
and my neck feeling as though it had been through the mangle.
It was a nightmare--one moment I'd been in a drunken frenzy
* Dancing-girl.
T Stabbed with a Thug pickaxe.
101
of fornication with Lakshmibai, with a houseful of musicians
beating timeand the next I was being murdered by professional
stranglersand Thugs at that. But I was too shocked to think, so
Ilderim grunted and turned to the groaning prisoner.
"This one shall tell us," says he, and seized him by the throat.
"Look nowthou art dead already. But it can be swift, or I can
trim off the appurtenances and extremities from thy foul carcase
and make thee eat them. That, for a beginning. So choosewho
sent thee, and why?"
The Thug snarled, and spat at him, so Ilderim says: "Take him
to the trees yonder," and while they did he hauled out his knife,
stropped it on his sole, says "Bide here, husoor," and then strode
grimly after them.
I couldn't have moved, if I'd wanted to. It was a nightmare,
unbelievable, but in those few minutes, while dreadful grunts and
an occasional choked-off scream came out of the dark, I strove to
make some sense of it. Lakshmibai had plainly left me asleep
or drunk, or drugged, or bothin the pavilion, and shortly after
the Thugs had arrived. But whywhy should she seek my death?
It made no senseno, by God, because if she had just been luring
me out for assassination, she'd have had me ambushed on the
wayshe'd certainly not have pleasured me like a crazy spinster
first. And there was no earthly reason why she should want me
killedwhat had I done to merit that? She'd been so friendly and
straight and kindI could have sworn she'd been falling in love
with me for two weeks past. Oh, I've known crafty women, sluts
who'd tickle your buttons with one hand and reach for a knife
with the otherbut not her. I couldn't swallow that; I wouldn't.
I could even understand her slipping out and leaving meit
had been a clandestine gallop, after all; she had a reputation to
consider. What better way of concluding it than by vanishing
swiftly back to the palace, leaving her partner to find his own
way homeI reflected moodily that she'd probably done the same
thing, countless times, in that very pavilion, whenever she felt
like it. She was no novice, that was certainno wonder her late
husband had lost interest and curled up and died: the poor devil
must have been worn to a shadow.
But who then had set Thugs on me? Or were they just stray,
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indiscriminate killersas Thugs usually were, slaying anyone who
happened in their way, for fun and religion? Had they just spotted
me, out at night, and decided to chalk up another score for Kali
and then Ilderim came striding out of the dark, whipping his knife
into the turf, and squatting down beside me.
"Stubborn," says he, rubbing his beard, "but not too stubborn.
Flashmanit is ill news." He stared at me with grave eyes. "There
is a fellowshiphunting thee. They have been out this week past
the brotherhood of deceivers, whom everyone thought dead
or disbanded these years pastwith orders to seek out and slay
the Colonel Flashman sahib at Jhansi. That one yonder is a chief
among themsix nights since he was at Firozabad, where his
lodge met to hear a strange fakir who offered them gold, and"
he tapped my knee "an end to the Raj in due time, and a
rebirth of their order of thugee. They were to prepare against the
dayand as grace before meat they were to sacrifice thee to Kali.
I knew all along," says he with a grim satisfaction, "that this was
palitifeal, and ye walked a perilous road. Well, thou art warned in
timebut it must be a fast horse to the coast, and ship across the
kola pani* for if these folk are riding thy tail, then this land is
death to thee; there will not be a safe nook from the Deccan to
the Khyber Gate."
I sat limp and trembling, taking this horror in; I was afraid to
ask the question, but I had to know.
"This fakir," I croaked. "Who is he?"
"No one knowsexcept that he is from the north, a one-eyed
man with a fair skin from beyond the passes. There are those who
think he is a sahib, but not of thy people. He has money, and
followers in secret, and he preaches against the sahib-log-)- in
whispers..."
IgnatieffI almost threw up. So it had happened, as Pam had
thought it might: the bastard was back, and had tracked me down
and devil a doubt he knew all about my mission, too, somehow
and he and his agents were spreading their poison everywhere,
and seeking to revive the devilish thugee cult against us, with me
at the top of the menuand Ilderim was right, there wasn't a
* Black water, i.e., the ocean.
+ Lord-people, i.e., the British.
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hope unless I could get out of Indiabut I couldn't! This was
what I was meant to be here forwhy Pam in his purblind folly
had sent me out: to tackle Ignatieff at his own game and dispose
of him. I couldn't run squealing to Bombay or Calcutta bawling
"Gangwayand a first-class ticket home, quick!" This was the
moment I was meant to earn my cornagainst bloody dacoits and
Ruski agents? I gulped and sweatedand then another thought
struck me.
Was Lakshmibai part of this? God knew she'd no cause to
love the Sirkarwas she another of the spiders in this devilish
web, playing Delilah for the Russians?but no, no, even to
my disordered mind one thing remained clear: she'd never have
walloped the mattress with me like that if she'd been false. No,
this was IgnatieS, impure and anything but simple, and I had to
think as I'd never thought before, with Ilderim's eye on me while
I took my head in my hands and wondered, Christ, how can I
slide out this time. And then inspiration dawned, slowlyI
couldn't leave India, or be seen to be running away, but I'd told
Skene that if the crisis came I might well vanish from sight,
locally, to go after Ignatieff in my own waywell, now I would
vanish, right enough; that shouldn't be difficult. I schemed it fast,
as I can when I'm truly up against it, and turned to Ilderim.
"Look, brother," says I. "This is a great palitikal affair, as you
guessed. I cannot tell thee, and I cannot leave India"
"Then thou art dead," says he, cheerfully. "Kali's hand will be
on thee, through these messengers" and he pointed at the dead
Thug.
"Hold on," says I, sweating. "They're looking for Colonel
Hashmanbut if Colonel Flashman becomes, saya Khyekeen
pony-pedlar, or an Abizai who has done his time in the Guides
or lancers, how will they find him then? I've done it before,
remember? Dammit, I speak Pushtu as well as you do, and Urdu
even betterwasn't I an agent with Sekundar Sahib? All I need
is a safe place for a season, to lie up and sniff the wind before"
and I started lying recklessly, for effect "before I steal out again,
having made my plans, to break this one-eyed fakir and his rabble
of stranglers and loose-wallahs. D'you see?"
"Inshallah!" cries he, grinning all over his evil face. "It is the
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great game! To lie low in disguise, and watch and listen and wait,
and conspire with the other palitikal sahibs of the Sirkar, until
the time is ripe--and then go against these evil subverters in a
secret razzia!* And when that time comes--I may share the sport,
and hallalt these Hindoo and foreign swine, with my lads?--thou
wouldst not forget thy old friend then?" He grabbed my hand,
the bloodthirsty devil. "Thou'd send me word, surely, when the
knives are out--thy brother Ilderim?"
You'll wait a long time for it, my lad, thinks I; give me a good
disguise and a pony and you'll not see me again--not until everything
has safely blown over, and some other idiot has disposed of
Ignatieff and his bravos. That's when I'd emerge, with a good
yam to spin to Calcutta (and Pam) about how I'd gone after him
secretly, and dammit, I'd missed the blighter, bad luck. That
would serve, and sound sufficiently mysterious and convincing--
but for the moment my urgent need was a disguise and a hidingplace
at a safe distance. Some jungly or desert spot might be best;
I'd lived rough that way before, and as I'd told Ilderim, I could
pass as a frontiersman or Afghan with any of 'em.
"When there are Ruski throats to be cut, you'll be the first to
know," I assured him, and he embraced me, chuckling, and
swearing I was the best of brothers.
The matter of disguise reminded me that I was still stark
naked, and shivering; I told him I wanted a kit exactly like that
of his sowars, and he swore I'd have it, and a pony, too.
"And you may tell Skene sahib from me," says I, "that the
time has come--and he can start feeling sorry for the Ruskis--
he'll understand." For I wasn't going back to the cantonment; I
wanted to ride out tonight, wherever I was going. "Tell him of
the one-eyed fakir, that the Thugs are abroad again, and the axles
are getting hot. You may say I've had a brush with the enemy
already--but you needn't tell him what else I was doing tonight."
I winked at him. "Understand? Oh, aye--and if he has inquiries
after me from the Rani of Jhansi, he may say I have been called
away, and present my apologies."
"The Rani?" says he, and his eye strayed towards the pavilion.
* An attack on unbelievers.
+ Ritual throat-cutting.
105
"Aye." He coughed and grinned. "That was some rich lady's
palankeen I saw tonight, and many servants. Perchance, was
it--"
" 'A Gilzai and a grandmother for scandal'," I quoted. "Mind
your own dam' business. And now, be a good lad, and get me that
outfit and pony."
He summoned one of his rascals, and asked if the tortured Thug
was dead yet.
"Nay, but he has no more to tell," says the other. "For he said
nothing when I--" You wouldn't wish to know what he said
next. "Shall I pass him some of his own tobacco?"12 he added.
"Aye," says Ilderim. "And tell Rank Tamwar I want all his
clothes, and his knife, and his horse. Go thou."
For answer the sowar nodded, took out his Khyber knife, and
stepped back under the trees to where his companions were
guarding the prisoner, or what was left of him. I heard him
address the brute--even at that time and place it was an extraordinary
enough exchange to fix itself in my mind; one of the
most astonishing things I ever heard, even in India.
"It is over, deceiver," says he. "Here is the knife--in the throat
or the heart? Choose."
The Thug's reply was hoarse with agony. "In the heart, then--
quickly!"
"You're sure? As you wish."
"No--wait!" gasps the Thug. "Put the point... behind... my
ear--so. Thrust hard--thus I will bleed less, and go undisfigured.
Now!"
There was a pause, and then the sowar's voice says: "He was
right--he bleeds hardly at all. Trust a deceiver to know."
A few moments later and Rafik Tamwar appeared, grumbling,
in a rag of loin-cloth, with his clothes over his arm, and leading
a neat little pony. I told Ilderim that Skene sahib must see his kit
replaced, and he could have my own Pegu pony, at which the
good Tamwar grinned through his beard, and said he would
willingly make such an exchange every day. I slipped into his
shirt and cavalry breeches, drew on the soft boots, donned his
hairy posh teen,* stuck the Khyber cleaver in my sash, and was
* Sheepskin coat.
106
winding the puggaree round my head and wishing I had a revolver
as well, when Ilderim says thoughtfully:
"Where wilt thou go, Flashmanhave ye an eyrie to wait in
where no enemy can find thee? "
I confessed I hadn't, and asked if he had any suggestions,
at which he frowned thoughtfully, and then smiled, and then
roared with laughter, and rolled on his back, and then stood up,
peering and grinning at me.
"Some juice for thy skin," says he. "Aye, and when thy beard
has grown, thou'lt be a rare Peshawar minerso ye swagger
enough, and curl thy hair round thy finger, and spit from the
back of thy throat"
"I know all about that," says I, impatiently. "Where d'you
suggest I do all these things?"
"In the last place any ill-wilier would ever look for a British
colonel sahib," says he, chortling. "Look nowwouldst thou live
easy for a spell, and eat full, and grow fat, what time thou art
preparing to play the game against these enemies of the Raj? Aye,
and get well paid for it24 rupees a month, and batta* also?"
He slapped his hands together at my astonishment. "Why not
join the Sirkar's army! What a recruit for the native cavalry
why, given a month they'll make thee a daffadarl"^ He stuck
his tongue in his cheek. "Maybe a rissaldar in timewho knows?"
"Are you mad?" says I. "Meenlist as a sowar? And how the
devil d'you expect me to get away with that?"
"What hinders? Thou hast passed in Kabul bazaar before today,
and along the Kandahar road. Stain thy face, as I said, and grow
thy beard, and thou'lt be the properest Sirkar's bargain in India!
Does it not meet thy needand will it not place thee close to
affairswithin reach of thine own folk, and ready to move at a
finger-snap?"
It was ridiculousand yet the more I thought of it, the more
obvious it was. How long did I want to hidea month? Two or
three perhaps? I would have to live, and for the life of me I
couldn't think of a more discreet and comfortable hiding-place
than the ranks of a native cavalry regimentI had all the
* Field allowance.
+ Cavalry commander of ten.
107
qualifications and experience... if I was careful. But I'd have to
be that, whatever I did. I stood considering while Ilderim urged
me, full of enthusiasm.
"See now--there is my mother's cousin, Gulam Beg, who was malik* in one of my father's villages, and is now woordymajort in the 3rd Cavalry at Meerut garrison. If thou goest to him, and
say Ilderim sent thee, will he not be glad of such a fine sturdy
trooper--ye may touch the hilt, and eat the salt, and belike he'll
forget the assamit for my sake. Let me see, now," says this mad
rascal, chuckling as he warmed to his work, "thou art a Yusufzai
Pathan of the Peshawar Valley--no, no, better still, we'll have
thee a Hasanzai of the Black Mountain--they are a strange folk,
touched, and given to wild fits, so much may be excused thee. Oh,
it is rare! Thou art--Makarram Khan, late of the Peshawar
police, and so familiar with the ways of the sahibs; thou hast
skirmished along the line, too. Never fear, there was a Makarram
Khan,18 until I shot him on my last furlough; he will give thee a shabash^ from hell, for he was a stout rider in his time. Careless,
though--or he'd have watched the rocks as he rode. Well,
Makarram--" says he, grinning like a wolf in the gloom "--wilt
thou carry a lance for the Sirkar?"
I'd been determining even as he talked; I was in the greatest
fix, and there was no other choice. If I'd known what it would
lead to, I'd have damned Ilderim's notion to his teeth, but it
seemed inspired at the time.
"Bind thy puggaree round thy jaw at night, lest thou babble
in English in thy sleep," says he at parting. "Be sullen, and speak
little--and be a good soldier, blood-brother, for the credit of
Ilderim Khan." He laughed and slapped my saddle as we shook
hands in the dark under the trees. "When thou comest this way
again, go to Bull Temple, beyond the Jokan Bagh--I will have a
man waiting for an hour at sunrise and sunset. Salaam, sowar!"
cries he, and saluted, and I dug my heels into my pony and
cantered off in the dawn, still like a man in a wild dream.
* Headman. . ,
+ Native adjutant of Indian irregular cavalry. (Since the 3rd were not
irregulars, Flashman seems to have misused the term here.)
t In this sense, a deposit paid by a recruit on enlistment. H Hurrah, bravo.
108
You might think it impossible for a
white man to pass himself off as a native soldier in John Company's
army, and indeed I doubt if anyone else has ever done it. But
when you've been called on to play as many parts as I have, it's a
bagatelle. Why, I've been a Danish prince, a Texas slave-dealer,
an Arab sheik, a Cheyenne Dog Soldier, and a Yankee navy
lieutenant in my time, among other things, and none of 'em was
as hard to sustain as my lifetime's impersonation of a British
officer and gentleman. The truth is we all live under false
pretences much of the time; you just have to put on a bold front
and brazen it through.
I'll admit my gift of languages has been my greatest asset, and
I suppose I'm a pretty fair actor; anyway, I'd carried off the role
of an Asian-Afghan nigger often enough, and before I was more
than a day's ride on the way to Meerut I was thoroughly back in
the part, singing Kabuli bazaar songs through my nose, sneering
sideways at anyone I passed, and answering greetings with a grunt
or a snarl. I had to keep my chin and mouth covered for the first
three days, until my beard had sprouted to a disreputable stubble;
apart from that, I needed no disguise, for I was dark and dirtylooking
enough to start with. By the time I struck the Grand
Trunk my own mother wouldn't have recognised the big, hairy
Border ruffian jogging along so raffishly with his boots out of his
stirrups, and his love-lock curling out under his puggaree; on the
seventh day, when I cursed and shoved my pony through the
crowded streets of Meerut City, spurning the rabble aside as a
good Hasanzai should, I was even thinking in Pushtu, and if you'd
offered me a seven-course dinner at the Cafe Royal I'd have turned
it down for mutton-and-rice stew with boiled dates to follow.
My only anxiety was Ilderim's cousin, Gulam Beg, whom I had
to seek out in the native cavalry lines beyond the city; he would
be sure to run a sharp eye over a new recruit, and if he spotted
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anything queer about me I'd have a hard job keeping up the
imposture. Indeed, at the last minute my nerve slackened a little,
and I rode about for a couple of hours before I plucked up the
courage to go and see him--I rode on past the native infantry
lines, and over the Nullah Bridge up to the Mall in the British
town; it was while I was sitting my pony, brooding under the
trees, that a dog-cart with two English children and their mother
went by, and one of the brats squealed with excitement and said
I looked )'ust like All Baba and the Forty Thieves. That cheered
me up, for some reason--anyway, I had to have a place to eat and
sleep while I shirked my duty, so I finally presented myself at the
headquarters of the 3rd Native Light Cavalry, and demanded to
see the woordy-major.
I needn't have worried, Gulam Beg was a stout, white-whiskered
old cove with silver-rimmed spectacles on the end of his nose, and
when I announced that Ilderim Khan of Mogala was my sponsor
he was all over me. Hasanzai, was I, and late of the polls? That
was good--I had the look of an able man, yes--doubtless the
Colonel Sahib would look favourably on such a fine upstanding
recruit. I had seen no military service, though?--hm... he looked
at me quizzically, and I tried to slouch a bit more.
"Not in the Guides, perhaps?" says he, with his head on one
side. "Or the cutch-cavalry? No? Then doubtless it is by chance
that you stand the regulation three paces from my table, and
clench your hand with the thumb forward--and that the pony
I see out yonder is girthed and bridled like one of ours." He
chuckled playfully. "A man's past is his own affair, Makarram
Khan--what should it profit us to pry and discover that a new 'recruit' had once quit the Sirkar's service over some small matter
of feud or blood-letting, eh? You come from Ilderim--it is enough.
Be ready to see the Colonel Sahib at noon."
He'd spotted me for an old soldier, you see, which was all to
the good; having detected me in a small deception, it never
occurred to him to look for a large one. And he must have passed
on his conclusion to the Colonel, for when I made my salaam to that worthy officer on the orderly-room verandah, he looked me
up and down and says to the woordy-major in English:
"Shouldn't wonder if you weren't right, Gulam Beg--he's
no
heard Boots and Saddles before, that's plain. Probably got bored
with garrison work and slipped off one night with half-a-dozen
rifles on his back. And now, having cut the wrong throat or lifted
the wrong herd, he's come well south to avoid retribution." He
sat back, fingering the big white moustache which covered
most of his crimson face. "Ugly-looking devil, ain't he though?
Hasanzai of the Black Mountain, eh?--yes, that's what I'd have
thought. Very good..." He frowned at me and then said, very
carefully:
"Company cavalry apka mangta?" which abomination of bad Urdu I took to mean: did I want to join the Company cavalry? So I showed my teeth and says: "Han, sahib," and thought I might as well act out my part by betraying
some more military knowledge--I ducked my head and leaned
over and offered him the hilt of my sheathed Khyber knife, at
which he burst out laughing and touched it," saying that Gulam
Beg was undoubtedly right, and I wasn't half knowledgeable for
a chap who pretended never to have been in the Army before. He
gave instructions for me to be sworn in, and I took the oath on
the sabre-blade, ate a pinch of salt, and was informed that I was
now a skirmisher of the 3rd Native Light Cavalry, that my daffadar was Kudrat All, that I would be paid one rupee per day,
with a quarter-anna dyeing allowance, and that since I had
brought my own horse I would be excused the customary recruit
deposit. Also that if I was half as much a soldier as the Colonel
suspected, and kept my hands off other people's throats and
property, I might expect promotion in due course.
Thereafter I was issued with a new puggaree, half-boots and pyjamy breeches, a new and very smart silver-grey uniform coat,
a regulation sabre, a belt and bandolier, and a tangle of saddlery
which was old and stiff enough to have been used at Waterloo
(and probably had), and informed by a betel-chewing havildar that if I didn't have it reduced to gleaming suppleness by next
morning, I had best look out. Finally, he took me to the armoury,
and I was shown (mark this well) a new rifled Enfield musket,
serial number 4413--some things a soldier never forgets--which
I was informed was mine henceforth, and more precious than my
own mangy carcase.
in
Without thinking, I picked it up and tested the action, as I'd
done a score of times at Woolwich--and the Goanese store-wallah
gaped.
"Who taught you that?" says he. "And who bade you handle
it, jangli pig? It is for you to see--you touch it only when it is
issued on parade." And he snatched it back from me. I thought
another touch of character would do no harm, so I waited till he
had waddled away to replace it in the rack, and then whipped out
my Khyber knife and let it fly, intending to plant it in the wall a
foot or so away from him. My aim was off though--the knife
imbedded itself in the wall all right, but it nicked his arm in
passing, and he squealed and rolled on the floor, clutching at his
blood-smeared sleeve.
"Bring the knife back," I snarled, baring my fangs at him, and
when he had scrambled up, grey-faced and terrified, and returned
it, I touched the point on his chest and says: "Call Makarram
Khan a pig just once more, ulla kabaja* and I will carry thine
eyes and genitals on this point as kebabs." Then I made him lick
the blood off the blade, spat in his face, and respectfully asked the havildar what I should do next. He, being a Mussulman, was all
for me, and said, grinning, that I should make a fair recruit; he
told my daffadar, Kudrat All, about the incident, and presently
the word went round the big, airy barrack-room that Makarram
Khan was a genuine saddle-and-lance man, from up yonder, who
would strike first and inquire after--doubtless a Border lifter, and
a feud-carrier, but a man who knew how to treat Hindoo insolence,
and therefore to be properly respected.
So there I was--Colonel Harry Paget Flashman, late of the
nth Hussars, ijth Lancers and the Staff, former aide to the
Commander-in-Chief, and now acting-sowar and rear file in the skirmishing
squadron, 3rd Cavalry, Bengal Army, and if you think
it was a mad-brained train of circumstance that had taken me
there--well, so did I. But once I had got over the unreality of
it all, and stopped imagining that everyone was going to see
through my disguise, I settled in comfortably enough.
It was an eery feeling, though, at first, to squat on my cbarpait
* Son of an owl. tCot.
in
against the wall, with my puggaree off, combing my hair or oiling
my light harness, and look round that room at the brown, halfnaked
figures, laughing and chattering--of all the things that
soldiers talk about, women, and officers, and barrack gossip, and
women, and rations, and women-- but in a foreign tongue which,
although I spoke it perfectly and even with a genuine frontier
accent, was still not my own. While I'd been by myself, as I say,
I'd even been thinking in Pushtu, but here I had to hold on tight
and remember what I was meant to be--for one thing, I wasn't
used to being addressed in familiar terms by native soldiers, much
less ordered about by an officious naik* who'd normally have
leaped to attention if I'd so much as looked in his direction. When
the man who bunked next to me, Pir All, a jolly rascal of a
Baluch, tapped my shoulder in suggesting that we might visit the
bazaar that first evening, I absolutely stared at him and just
managed to bite back the "Damn your impudence" that sprang to
my tongue.
It wasn't easy, for a while; quite apart from remembering
obeisances at the prescribed times, and making a show at cooking
my own dinner at the choola,+ there were a thousand tiny details
to beware of--I must remember not to cross my legs when sitting,
or blow my nose like a European, or say "Mmh?" if someone
said something I couldn't catch, or use the wrong hand, or clear
my throat in the discreet British fashion, or do any of the things
that would have looked damned odd in an Afghan frontiersman.18
Of course I made mistakes--once or twice I was just plain
ignorant of things that I ought to have known, like how to chew
a majoont when Pir All offered me one (you have to spit into
your hand from time to time, or you'll end up poisoned), or how
to cut a sheep-tail for curry, or even how to sharpen my knife in
the approved fashion. When I blundered, and anyone noticed, I
found the best way was to stare them down and growl sullenly.
But more often than not my danger lay in betraying knowledge
which Makarram Khan simply wouldn't have had. For example,
when Kudrat All was giving us sword exercise I found myself
* Corporal.
+ Cooking-place, camp oven of clay.
I Green sweetmeat containing bhang.
"3
once falling into the "rest" position of a German schlager-fencer
(not that anyone in India was likely to recognise that), and again,
day-dreaming about fagging days at Rugby while cleaning my
boots one evening, I found myself humming "Widdicombe Fair"--
fortunately under my breath. My worst blunder, though, was
when I was walking near a spot where the British officers were
playing cricket, and the ball came skipping towards me--without
so much as thinking I snapped it up, and was looking to throw
down the wicket when I remembered, and threw it back as
clumsily as I could. One or two of them stared, though, and I
heard someone say that big nigger was a deuced smart field. That
rattled me, and I trod even more carefully than before.
My best plan, I soon discovered, was to do and say as little as
possible, and act the surly, reserved hillman who walked by
himself, and whom it was safest not to disturb. The fact that I
was by way of being a protege of the woordy-major's, and a
Hasanzai (and therefore supposedly eccentric), led to my being
treated with a certain deference; my imposing size and formidable
looks did the rest, and I was left pretty much alone. Once or twice
I walked out with Pir Ah, to lounge in the Old Market and ogle
the hints, or dally with them in the boutique doorways, but he
found my grunts a poor return for his own cheery prattle, and
abandoned me to my own devices.
It wasn't, as you can guess, the liveliest life for me at first--but
I only had to think of the alternative to resign myself to it for the
present. It was easy enough soldiering, and I quickly won golden
opinions from my naik and jemadar* for the speed and intelligence
with which I appeared to learn my duties. At first it was a
novelty, drilling, working, eating, and sleeping with thirty Indian
troopers--rather like being on the other side of the bars of a
monkey zoo--but when you're closed into a world whose four
corners are the barrack-room, the choola, the stables, and the
maidan, it can become maddening to have to endure the society
of an inferior and foreign race with whom you've no more in
common than if they were Russian moujiks or Irish bog-trotters.
What makes it ten times worse is the outcast feeling that comes
of knowing that within a mile or two your own kind are enjoying
* Under-officer.
114
all the home comforts, damn 'em--drinking barra pegs, smoking
decent cigars, flirting and ramming with white women, and eating
ices for dessert. (I was no longer so enamoured of mutton pilau in ghee* you gather.) Within a fortnight I'd have given anything to
join an English conversation again, instead of listening to Fir All
giggling about how he'd bullocked the headman's wife on his last
leave, or the endless details of Sita Gopal's uncle's law-suit, or
Ram Mangal's reviling of the havildar, or Gobinda Dal's whining
about how he and his brothers, being soldiers, had lost much of
the petty local influence they'd formerly enjoyed in their Oudh
village, now that the Sirkar had taken over.
When it got too bad I would loaf up to the Mall, and gape at
the mem-sahibs with their big hats and parasols, driving by, and
watch the officers cantering past, flicking their crops as I clumped
my big boots and saluted, or squat near the church to listen to
them singing "Greenland's Icy Mountains" of a Sunday evening.
Dammit, I missed my own folk then--far worse than if they'd
been a hundred miles away. I missed Lakshmibai, too--odd, ain't
it, but I think what riled me most was the knowledge that if she'd
seen me as I now was--well, she wouldn't even have noticed me.
However, it had to be stuck out--I just had to think of Ignatieff
--so I would trudge back to barracks and lie glowering while the
sowars chattered. It had this value--I learned more about Indian
soldiers in three weeks than I'd have done in a lifetime's ordinary
service.
You'll think I'm being clever afterwards, but I soon realised
that all wasn't as well with them as I'd have thought at first
sight. They were Northern Muslims, mostly, with a sprinkling of
high-caste Oudh Hindoos--the practice of separating the races in
different companies or troops hadn't come in then. Good soldiers,
too; the 3rd had distinguished itself in the last Sikh War, and a
few had frontier service. But they weren't happy--smart as you'd
wish on parade, but in the evening they would sit about and
croak like hell--at first I thought it was just the usual military
sore-headedness, but it wasn't.
At first all I heard was vague allusions, which I didn't inquire
about for fear of betraying a suspicious ignorance--they talked a
* Native butter, cooking-fat.
11;
deal about one of the padres in the garrison, Reynolds sahib, and
how Colonel Carmik-al-Ismeet (that was the 3rd's commander,
Carmichael-Smith) ought to keep him off the post, and there was
a fairly general repeated croak about polluted flour, and the
Enlistment Act, but I didn't pay much heed until one night, I
remember, an Oudh sowar came back from the bazaar in a
tremendous taking. I don't even remember his name, but what
had happened was that he'd been taking part in a wrestling match
with some local worthy, and before he'd got his shirt back on
afterwards, some British troopers from the Dragoon Guards who
were there at the time had playfully snapped the sacred cord
which he wore over his shoulder next the skin--as his kind of
Hindoos did.
"Banchutsl* Scum!" He was actually weeping with rage. "It
is defiled--I am unclean!" And for all that his mates tried to
cheer him up, saying he could get a new one, blessed by a holy
man, he went on raving--they take these things very seriously,
you know, like Jews and Muslims with pork. If it seems foolish
to you, you may compare it with how you'd feel if a nigger pissed
in the font at your own church.
"I shall go to the Colonel sahib!" says he finally, and one of the
Hindoos, Gobinda Dal, sneered:
"Why should he care--the man who will defile our atta+ will
not rebuke an English soldier for this!"
"What's all this about the atta?" says I to Pir All, and he
shrugged.
"The Hindoos say that the sahibs are grinding cow bones into
the sepoys' flour to break their caste. For me, they can break any
Hindoo's stupid caste and welcome."
"Why should they do that?" says I, and Sita Gopal, who
overheard, spat and says;
"Where have you lived, Hasanzai? The Sirkar will break every
man's caste--aye, and what passes for caste even among you
Muslims: there are pig bones in the atta, too, in case you didn't
know it, Naife Shere Afzul in the second troop told me; did he not
see them ground at the sahibs' factory at Cawnpore?"
* A highly offensive term. + Flour.
116
"Wind from a monkey's backside," says I. "What would it
profit the sahibs to pollute your foodsince when do they hate
their soldiers?"
To my astonishment about half a dozen of them scoffed aloud
at this"Listen to the Black Mountain munshil"* "The sahibs
love their soldiersand so the gora-cavalry broke Lal's string for
him tonight!" "Have you never heard of the Dum-Dum sweeper,
Makarram Khan?" and so on. Ram Mangal, who was the noisiest
croaker of them all, spat out:
"It is of a piece with the padre sahib's talk, and the new
regulation that will send men across the kala panithey will
break our caste to make us Christians! Do they not know this
even where you come from, hillman? Why, it is the talk of the
army!" ,
I growled that I didn't put any faith in latrine-gossip
especially if the latrine was a Hindoo one, and at this one of the
older men, Sardul something-or-other, shook, his head and says
gravely:
"It was no latrine-rumour, Makarram Khan, that came out of
Dum-Dum arsenal." And for the first time I heard the astonishing
tale that was, I discovered, accepted as gospel by every sepoy in
the Bengal armyof the sweeper at Dum-Dum who'd asked a
caste sepoy for a drink from his dish, and on being refused, had
told the sepoy that he needn't be so dam' particular because the
sahibs were going to do away with caste by defiling every soldier
in the army by greasing their cartridges with cow and pig fat.
"This thing is known," says old Sardul, positively, and he was
the kind of old soldier that men listen to, thirty years' service,
Aliwal medal, and clean conduct sheet, damn your eyes. "Is not
the new Enfield musket in the armoury? Are not the new greased
cartridges being prepared? How can any man keep his religion?"
"They say that at Benares the jawans have been permitted to
grease their own loads," says Pir Ali,16 but they hooted him down.
"They say!" cries Ram Mangal. "It is like the tale they put
about that all the grease was mutton-fatif that were so, where
is the need for anyone to make his own grease? It is a liejust as
the Enlistment Act is a lie, when they said it was a provision only,
* Teacher.
117
and no one would be asked to do foreign service. Ask the i9th at
Behrampore--where their officers told them they must serve in
Burma if they refused the cartridge when it was issued! Aye, but
they will refuse--then we'll see!" He waved his hands in passion.
"The polluted atta is another link in the chain--like the preaching
of that owl Reynolds sahib with his Jesus-talk, which Carmik-alIsmeet
permits to our offence. He wants to put us to shame!"
"It is true enough," says old Sardul, sadly. "Yet I would not
believe it if such a sahib as my old Colonel MacGregor--did he
not take a bullet meant for me at Kandahar?--were to look in my
eye and say it was false. The pity is that Carmik-al-Ismeet is not
such a sahib--there are none such nowadays," says he with
morbid satisfaction, "and the Army is but a poor ruin of what it
was. You do not know today what officers were--if you had seen
Sale sahib or Larrinsh* sahib or Cotton sahib, you would have
seen men!" (Since he'd served in Afghanistan I'd hoped he would
mention Iflass-man sahib, but he didn't, the croaking old bastard.)
"They would have died before they would have put dishonour on
their sepoys; their children, they used to call us, and we would
have followed them to hell! But now," he wagged his head
again, "these are cutch-sahibs, not pafcfca-sahibs--and the English
common soldiers are no better. Why, in my young day, an English
trooper would call me brother, give me his hand, offer me his
water-bottle (not realising that I could not take it, you understand).
And now--these common men spit on us, call us monkeys
and hubshis--and break Lal's string!"
Most of their talk was just patent rubbish, of course, and I'd
no doubt it was the work of agitators, spreading disaffection with
their nonsense about greased cartridges and polluted food. I almost
said so, but decided it would be unwise to draw attention to
myself--and anyway it wasn't such a burning topic of conversation
most of the time that one could take it seriously. I knew they
put tremendous store by their religion--the Hindoos especially--
and I supposed that whenever an incident like Lal's string stirred
them up, all the old grievances came out, and were soon forgotten.
But I'll confess that what Sardul had said about the British officers
* "Lawrence"--any one of the famous Lawrence brothers who served on
the frontier, and later in the Mutiny.
118
and troops reminded me of John Nicholson's misgivings. I had
hardly seen a British officer on parade since my enlistment; they
seemed content to leave their troops to the jemadars and n.c.o.s
Addiscombe" tripe, of courseand there was no question the
British rankers in the Meerut garrison were a poorer type than,
say, the 44th whom I'd known in the old Afghan days, or
Campbell's Highlanders.
I got first-hand evidence of this a day or two later, when I
accidentally jostled a Dragoon in the bazaar, and the brute turned
straight round and lashed out with his boot.
"Aht the way, yer black bastard!" says he. "Think yer can
shove a sahib arahndbanchuti" And he would have taken a
swipe at me with his fist, too, but I just put my hand on my
knife-hilt and glared at himit wouldn't have been prudent to
do more. "Christ!" says he, and took to his heels until he got to
the end of the street, where he snatched up a stone and flung it
at meit smashed a plate on a booth nearbyand then made off.
I'll remember you, my lad, thinks I, and the day'll come when I'll
have you triced up and flogged to ribbons. (And I did, as good
luck had it.) I've never been so wildthat the scum of a Whitechapel
gutter should take his boot to me! I'll be honest and say
that if I'd seen him do it to a native two months earlier I wouldn't
have minded a bitand still wouldn't, much: it's a nigger's lot to
be kicked. But it ain't mine, and I can't tell you how I felt
afterwardsfilthy, in a way, because I hadn't been able to pay
the swine back. That's by the way; the point is that old Sardul
was right. There wasn't the respect for jawans among the British
that there had been in my young day; we probably lashed and
kicked niggers just as much (I know I did), but there was a higher
regard for the sepoys at least, on the whole.
I doubt if any commander in the old days would have done
what Carmichael-Smith did in the way of preaching-parades, either.
I hadn't believed it in the barrack gossip, but sure enough, the
next Sunday this coffin-faced Anglican fakir, the Rev. Reynolds,
had a muster on the maidan, and we had to listen to him
expounding the Parable of the Prodigal Son, if you please. He did
it through a brazen-lunged rissaldar who interpreted for him, and
you never heard the like. Reynolds lined it out in English, from
119
the Bible, and the rissaldar stood there with his staff under his
arm, at attention, with his whiskers bristling, bawling his own
translation:
"There was a zamindar* with two sons. He was a mad zamindar, for while he yet lived he gave to the younger his
portion of the inheritance. Doubtless he raised it from a moneylender.
And the younger spent it all whoring in the bazaar, and
drinking sherab.t And when his money was gone he returned
home, and his father ran to meet him, for he was pleased--God
alone knows why. And in his foolishness, the father slew his only
cow--he was evidently not a Hindoo--and they feasted on it.
And the older son, who had been dutiful and stayed at home, was jealous, I cannot tell for what reason, unless the cow was to have
been part of his inheritance. But his father, who did not like him,
rebuked the older son. This story was told by Jesus the Jew, and
if you believe it you will not go to Paradise, but instead will sit
on the right-hand side of the English Lord God Sahib who lives in
Calcutta, And there you will play musical instruments, by order
of the Sirkar. Parade--dismiss!"
I don't know when I've been more embarrassed on behalf of
my church and country. I'm as religious as the next man--which
is to say I'll keep in with the local parson for form's sake and read
the lessons on feast-days because my tenants expect it, but I've
never been fool enough to confuse religion with belief in God.
That's where so many clergymen, like the unspeakable Reynolds,
go wrong--and it makes 'em arrogant, and totally blind to the
harm they may be doing. This idiot was so drunk with testaments
that he couldn't conceive how ill-mannered and offensive he was
making himself look; I suppose he thought of high-caste Hindoos
as being like wilful children or drunken costermongers--perverse
and misguided, but ripe for salvation if he just pointed 'em the
way. He stood there, with his unctuous fat face and piggy eyes,
blessing us soapily, while the Muslims, being worldly in their
worship, tried not to laugh, and the Hindoos fairly seethed. I'd
have found it amusing enough, I dare say, if I hadn't been irritated
by the thought that these irresponsible Christian zealots were
* Farmer.
+ Strong drink.
120
only making things harder for the Army and Company, who had
important work to do. It was all so foolish and unnecessary--the heathen creeds, for all their nonsensical mumbo-jumbo, were as
good as any for keeping the rabble in order, and what else is
religion for?
In any event, this misgnided attempt to cure Hindoo souls took
place, not just at Meerut but elsewhere, according to the religious
intoxication of the local commanders, and in my opinion was the
most important cause of the mischief that followed.18 I didn't
appreciate this at the time--and couldn't have done anything if
I had. Besides, I had more important matters to engage my
attention.
A few days after that parade, there was a gymkhana on
the maidan, and I rode for the skirmishers in the mzabazi.* Apart from languages and fornication, horsemanship is my only
accomplishment, and I'd been well-grounded in tent-pegging by
the late Muhammed Iqbal, so it was no surprise that I took the
greatest number of pegs, and would have got even more if I'd had
a pony that I knew, and my lance hadn't snapped in a touch peg
on the last round. It was enough to take the cup, though, and old
Bloody Bill Hewitt, the garrison commander, slipped the handle
over my broken lance-point in front of the marquee where all the
top numbers of Meerut society were sitting applauding
politely, the ladies in their crinolines and the men behind
their chairs.
"Shabash, sowar," says Bloody Bill. "Where did you learn to.
manage a lance?"
"Peshawar Valley, husoor," says I.
"Company cavalry?" says he, and I said no, Peshawar police.
"Didn't know they was lancers," says he, and CarmichaelSmith,
who was on hand, laughed and said to Hewitt in English:
"No more they are, sir. It's a rather delicate matter, I suspect--
this bird here pretends he's never served the Sirkar before, but
he's got Guide written all over him. Shouldn't wonder if he
wasn't rissaldar--havildar at least. But we don't ask embarrassing
questions, what? He's a dam' good recruit, anyway."
"Ah," says Hewitt, grinning; he was a fat, kindly old buffer.
* Tent-pegging with a lance.
121
" 'Nough said, then." And I was in the act of saluting when a
little puff of wind sprang up, scattering the papers which were
on the table behind him, and blowing them under the pony's
hooves. Like a good little toady, I slipped out of the saddle and
gathered them up, and without thinking set them on the table
and put the ink-pot on top of them, to hold them steadya
simple, ordinary thing, but I heard an exclamation, and looked up
to see Duff Mason, one of the infantry colonels, staring at me in
surprise. I just salaamed and saluted and was back in my saddle
in a second, while they called up the next man for his prize, but
as I wheeled my pony away I saw that Mason was looking after
me with a puzzled smile on his face, and saying something to the
officer next to him.
Hollo, thinks I, has he spotted something? But I couldn't think
I'd done anything to give myself awayuntil next morning, when
the rissaldar called me out of the ranks, and told me to report to
Mason's office in the British lines forthwith. I went with my
heart in my mouth, wondering what the hell I was going to do if
he had seen through my disguise, only to find it was the last
thing my guilty conscience might have suspected.
"Makarram Khan, isn't it?" says Mason, when I stood to
attention on his verandah and went through the ritual of hilttouching.
He was a tall, brisk, wiry fellow with a sharp eye which
he cast over me. "Hasanzai, Peshawar policemanbut only a few
weeks' Army service?" He spoke good Urdu, which suggested he
was smarter than most, and my innards quaked.
"Well, now, Makarram," says he, pleasantly, "I don't believe
you. Nor does your own Colonel. You're an old soldieryou
ride like one, you stand like one, and what's more you've held
command. Don't interruptno one's trying to trap you, or find
out how many throats you've cut in the Khyber country in your
time: that's nothing to me. You're here now, as an ordinary sowar
but a sowar who gathers up papers as though he's as used to
handling 'em as I am. Unusual, in a Pathaneven one who's seen
service, don't you agree?"
"In the police, husoor," says I woodenly, "are many kitabs*
and papers."
* Books,
122
"To be sure there are," says he, and then added, ever so easily,
in English, "What's that on your right hand?"
I didn't look, but I couldn't help my hand jerking, and he
chuckled and leaned back in his chair, pleased with himself.
"I guessed you understood English when the commander and
your Colonel were talking in front of you yesterday," says he.
"You couldn't keep it out of your eyes. Well, never mind; it's all
to the good. But see here, Makarram Khan--whatever you've
done, whatever you've been, where's the sense in burying yourself
in the ranks of a native cavalry pulton?* You've got education
and experience; why not use 'em? How long will it take you
to make subedar,+ or havildar even, in your present situation?
Twenty years, thirty--with down-country cavalry? I'll tell you
what--you can do better than that."
Well, it was a relief to know my disguise was safe enough, but
the last thing I wanted was to be singled out in any way.
However, I listened respectfully, and he went on:
"I had a Pathan orderly, Ayub Jan; first-class man, with me ten
years, and now he's gone back home, to inherit. I need someone
else--well, you're younger than he was, and a sight smarter, or
I'm no judge. And he wasn't a common orderly--never did a
menial task, or anything of that order; wouldn't have asked him
to, for he was Yusufzai--and a gentleman, as I believe you are,
d'you see?" He looked at me very steady, smiling. "So what I
want is a man of affairs who is also a man of his hands--someone
I can trust as a soldier, messenger, steward, aide, guide, shield-onshoulder--"
He shrugged. "When I saw you yesterday, I thought
'That's the kind of man.' Well--what d'ye say?"
I had to think quickly about this. If I could have looked at
myself in the mirror, I suppose I was just the sort of ruffian I'd
have picked myself, in Duff Mason's shoes. Pathans make the
best orderiy-bodyguards-comrades there are, as I'd discovered with
Muhammed Iqbal and Ilderim. And it would be a pleasant change
from barracks--but it was risky. It would draw attention to me;
on the other hand my character was established by now, and any
lapses into Englishness might be explained from the past which
* Regiment.
+ Native officer.
123
Mason and Carmichael-Smith had wished upon me. I hesitated,
and he said quietly:
"If you're thinking that coming out of the ranks may expose
you to greater danger of--being recognised by the police, say, or
some inconvenient acquaintance from the past... have no fear of
that. At need, there'll always be a fast horse and a dustuck* to see you back to the Black Mountain again."
It was ironic--he thought I went in fear of discovery as a
deserter or Border raider, when my only anxiety was that I'd be
unmasked as a British officer. Bit of a lark, really--and on that
thought I said very good, I'd accept his offer.
"Thank you, Makarram Khan," says he, and nodded to a table
that was set behind his chair, against the chick: there was a
drawn sabre lying on it, and I knew what was expected of me. I
went past him, and put my hand on the blade--it had been so
arranged that with my body in between, he couldn't see from
where he sat whether I was touching the steel or not. The old
dodge, thinks I, but I said aloud:
"On the haft and hilt, I am thy man and soldier."
"Good," says he, and as I turned he held out his hand. I took
it, and just for devilment I said:
"Have no fear, husoor--you will smell the onion on your
fingers." I knew, you see, that in anticipation of the oath, he
would have rubbed onion on the blade, so that he could tell
afterwards if I'd truly touched it while I swore. A Pathan who
intended to break his oath wouldn't have put his hand on the
steel, and consequently wouldn't have got the onion-smell on his
fingers.
"By Jove!" says he, and quickly sniffed his hand. Then he
laughed, and said I was a Pathan for wiliness, all right, and we
would get along famously.
Which I'm bound to say we did--mind you, our association
wasn't a long one, but while it lasted I thoroughly enjoyed myself,
playing major-domo in his household, for that's what it amounted
to, as I soon discovered. His bungalow was a pretty big establishment,
you see, just off the east end of the Mall, near the British
infantry lines, with about thirty servants, and since there was no
Permit.
124
proper mem-sahib, and his khansamah* was almost senile, there
was no order about the place at all. Rather than have me spend
my time dogging him about his office, where there wasn't much
for me to do except stand looking grim and impressive. Duff
Mason decided I should make a beginning by putting his house
and its staff into pakka order (as I gathered Ayub Jan had done in
his time) and I set about it. Flashy, Jack-of-all-trades, you see: in
the space of a few months I'd already been a gentleman of leisure,
staff officer, secret political agent, ambassador, and sepoy, so why
not a nigger butler for a change?
You may think it oddand looking back it seems damned queer
to me, toobut the job was just nuts to me. I was leading such
an unreal existence, anyway, and had become so devilish bored in
the sepoy barracks, that I suppose I was ready enough for anything
that occupied my time without too much effort. Duff Mason's
employ was just the ticket: it gave me the run of a splendid
establishment, the best of meat and drink, a snug little bunk of
my own, and nothing to do but bully menials, which I did with
a hearty relish that terrified the brutes and made the place run
like clockwork. All round, I couldn't have picked a softer billet for
my enforced sojourn in Meerut if I'd tried. (Between ourselves,
I've a notion that had I been born in a lower station in life I'd
have made a damned fine butler for some club or Town house, yesme-lording
the Quality, ordering flunkeys about, putting upstarts in
their place, and pinching the port and cigars with the best of them.)
I've said there were no proper mem-sahibs in the house, by
which I mean that there was no colonel's lady to supervise it
hence the need for me. But in fact there were two white women
there, both useless in managementMiss Blanche, a thin, twitchy
little spinster who was Duff Mason's sister, and Mrs Leslie, a
vague relative who was either a grass widow or a real one, and
reminded me rather of a sailor's whoreshe was a plumpish, paleskinned
woman with red frizzy hair and a roving eye for the
garrison officers, with whom she went riding and flirting when
she wasn't lolling on the verandah eating sweets. (I didn't do
more than run a brisk eye over either of 'em when Duff Mason
brought me to the house, by the waywe nigger underlings
 Butler.
125
E'
know our place, and I'd already spotted a nice fat black little
kitchen-maid with a saucy lip and a rolling stem.)
However, if neither of the resident ladies was any help in
setting me about my duties, there was another who was--Mrs
Captain MacDowall, who lived farther down the Mall, and who
bustled in on my first afternoon on the pretext of taking tea with
Miss Blanche, but in fact to see that Duff Mason's new orderly
started off on the right foot. She was a raw-boned old Scotch trot,
not unlike my mother-in-law; the kind who loves nothing better
than to interfere in other folk's affairs, and put their lives in order
for them. She ran me to earth just as I was stowing my kit; I
salaamed respectfully, and she fixed me with a glittering eye and
demanded if I spoke English.
"Now then, Makarram Khan, this is what you'll do," says she.
"This house is a positive disgrace; you'll make it what it should
be--the best in the garrison after General Hewitt's, mind that. Ye
can begin by thrashing every servant in the place--and if you're
wise you'll do it regularly. My father," says she, "believed in
flogging servants every second day, after breakfast. So now.
Have you the slightest--the slightest notion--of how such an
establishment as this should be run? I don't suppose ye have."
I said, submissively, that I had been in a sahib's house before.
"Aye, well," says she, "attend to me. Your first charge is the
kitchen--without a well-ordered kitchen, there's no living in a
place. Now--I dined here two nights since, and 1 was disgusted. So I have lists here prepared--" she whipped some papers from
her bag. "Ye can't read, I suppose? No, well, I'll tell you what's
here, and you'll see to it that the cook--who is none too bad,
considering--prepares her menus accordingly. I shouldn't need to
be doing this--" she went on, with a withering glance towards
the verandah, where Miss Blanche and Mrs Leslie were sitting
(reading "The Corsair" aloud, I recall) "--but if I don't, who
will, I'd like to know? Hmf! Poor Colonel Mason!" She glared''
at me. "That's none of your concern--you understand?" She adjusted
her spectacles. "Breakfast... aye. Chops-steaksquail-friedfishbakedmincedchickenprovidedthebird'snomorethana-day- old. No servants in the breakfast room--it can all be placed on the
buffet. Can ye make tea--I mean tea that's fit to drink?"
126
Bemused by these assaults, I said I could.
"Aye," says she, doubtfully. "A mistress should always make the
tea herself, but here ..." She sniffed. "Well then, always two teapots,
with no more than three spoonfuls to each, and a pinch of
carbonate of soda in the milk. See that the cook makes coffee, very
strong, first thing in the morning, and adds boiling water during
the course of the day. Boiling, I said--and fresh hot milk, or
cold whipped cream. Now, then--" and she consulted another
list.
"Luncheon--also on the buffet. Mutton-brothalmond-soupmulligatawny-white
- soup - cold - clear - soup - milk - pudding - s tewedfruit.
No heavy cooked dishes--" this with a glare over her
spectacles. "They're unhealthy. Afternoon tea--brown bread and
butter, scones, Devonshire cream, and cakes. Have ye any apostle
spoons?"
"Mem-sahib," says I, putting my hands together and ducking
my head, "I am only a poor soldier, I do not know what--"
"I'll have two dozen sent round. Dinner--saddleof-muttonboiledfowlsroast-beef
... ach!" says she, "I'll tell the cook myself.
But you--" she wagged a finger like a marlin-spike "--will mind
what I've said, and see that my instructions are followed and that
the food is cleanly and promptly served. And see that the salt is
changed every day, and that no one in the kitchen wears woollen
clothes. And if one of them cuts a finger--straight round with
them to my bungalow. Every inch of this house will be dusted
twice a day, before callers come between noon and two, and before
dinner. Is that clear?"
"Han mem-sahib, han mem-sahib," says I, nodding vigorously,
heaven help me. She regarded me grimly, and said she would be
in from time to time to see that all was going as it should, because
Colonel Mason must be properly served, and if she didn't attend
to it, and see that I kept the staff hard at their duties, well...
This with further sniffy looks towards the verandah, after which
she went to bully the cook, leaving me to reflect that there was
more in an orderly's duties than met the eye.18
I tell you this, because although it may seem not to have much
to do with my story, it strikes me it has a place; if you're to
understand India, and the Mutiny, and the people who were
127
caught up in it, and how they fared, then women like Mrs Captain
MacDowall matter as much as Outram or Lakshmibai or old
Wheeler or Tantia Tope. Terrible women, in their way--the memsahibs.
But it would have been a different country without 'em--
and I'm not sure the Raj would have survived the year '57, if they
hadn't been there, interfering.
At all events, under her occasional guidance and blistering
rebukes, I drove Mason's menials until the place was running like
a home-bound tea clipper. You'll think it trivial, perhaps, but I
got no end of satisfaction in this supervising--there was nothing
else to occupy me, you see, and as Arnold used to say, what thy
hand findeth to do... I welted the backsides off the sweepers,
terrorised the mateys* had the bearers parading twice a day with
their dusters, feather brooms, and polish bottles, and stalked
grimly about the place pleased as punch to see the table-tops and
silver polished till they gleamed, the floors bone-clean, and the chota hazrit and darwazabandt trays carried in on the dot.
Strange, looking back, to remember the pride I felt when Duff
Mason gave a dinner for the garrison's best, and I stood by the
buffet in my best grey coat and new red sash and puggaree, with
my beard oiled, looking dignified and watching like a hawk as the khansamah and his crew scuttled round the candle-lit table with
the courses. As the ladies withdrew Mrs Captain MacDowall
caught my eye, and gave just a little nod--probably as big a
compliment, in its way, as I ever received.
So a few more weeks went by, and I was slipping into this nice
easy life, as is my habit whenever things are quiet. I reckoned I'd
give it another month or so, and then slide out one fine night for Jhansi, where I'd surprise Skene by turning up a la Pathan and
pitch him the tale about how I'd been pursuing Ignatieff in secret
and getting nowhere. I'd see Ilderim, too, and find if the Thugs
were still out for me; if it seemed safe I'd shave, become Flashy
again, and make tracks for Calcutta, protesting that I'd done all
that could be done. Might even pay my respects to Lakshmibai on
the way... however, in the meantime I'd carry on as I was,
* Waiters.
+ Lit. "little breakfast"--early morning tea.
t "Darv/azaband", not at home. Presumably the salver used for callingcards.
us
3^zs^
eating Duff Mason's rations, seeing that his bearer laid out his kit,
harrying his servants, and tupping his kitchen-maid--she was a
poor substitute for my Rani, and once or twice, when it seemed to
me that Mrs Leslie's eye lingered warmly on my upstanding
Pathan figure or my swarthy bearded countenance, I toyed with
the idea of having a clutch at her. Better not, though--too many
prying eyes in a bungalow household, which is what made life
hard for grass widows and unattached white females in Indian
garrisons--they couldn't do more than flirt in safety.
Every now and then I had to go back to barracks. CarmichaelSmith
had been willing enough to detach me to Duff Mason, but
I still had to muster on important parades, when all sepoys on
the regimental strength were called in. It was on one of these
that I heard the rumour flying that the igth N.I. had rioted at
Behrampore over the greased cartridge, as sepoy Ram Mangal had
predicted.
"They have been disbanded by special court," says he to me out
of the corner of his mouth as we clattered back to the armoury to
hand in our rifles; he was full of excitement. "The sahibs have
sent the j'awans home, because the Sirkar fears to keep such
spirited fellows under arms! So much for the courage of your
British colonels--they begin to fear. Aye, presently they will
have real cause to be fearful!"
"It will need to be better cause than a pack of whining monkeys
like the igth," says Pir All. "Who minds if a few Hindoos get
cow-grease on their fingers? "
"Have you seen this, then?" Mangal whipped a paper from
under his jacket and thrust it at him. "Here are your own people
--you Mussulmen who so faithfully lick the sahibs' backsides--
even they are beginning to find their manhood! Read here of the
great jihad* that your mullahst are preaching against the infidels
--not just in India, either, but Arabia and Turkestan. Read it--
and learn that an Afghan army is preparing to seize India, with
Ruski guns and artillerymen--what does it say? 'Thousands of
Ghazis, strong as elephants'." He laughed jeeringly. "They may
come to help--but who knows, perhaps they will be behind the
* Holy war.
+ Preachers.
129
fair? The goddess Kali may have destroyed the British already--as
the wise men foretold."
It was just another scurrilous pamphlet, no doubt, but the sight
of that grinning black ape gloating over his sedition riled me; I
snatched the paper and rubbed it deliberately on the seat of my
trousers. Pir All and some of the sepoys grinned, but the rest
looked pretty glum, and old Sardul shook his head.
"If the igth have been false to their salt, it is an ill thing," says
he, and Mangal broke in excitedly to say hadn't the sahibs broken
faith first, by trying to defile the sepoys' caste?
"First Behrampore--then where?" cries he. "Which pulton will be next? It is coming, brothers--it is coming!" And he
nodded smugly, and went off chattering with his cronies.20
I didn't value this, at the time, but it crossed my mind again a
couple of nights later, when Duff Mason had Archdale Wilson,
the binfey-nabob,* and Hewitt and Carmichael-Smith and a few
others on his verandah, and I heard Jack Waterfield, a senior
man in the 3rd Native Cavalry, talking about Behrampore, and
wondering if it was wise to press ahead with the issue of the new
cartridge.
"Of course it is," snaps Carmichael-Smith. "Especially now,
when it's been refused at Behrampore. Give way on this--and
where will it end? It's a piece of damned nonsense--some crawling
little agitator fills the sepoys' heads with rubbish about beef-grease
and pig-fat, when it's been made perfectly plain by the authorities
that the new cartridge contains nothing that could possibly offend
Muslim or Hindoo. But it serves as an excuse for the troublemakers--and
there are always some."
"Fortunately not in our regiment," says another--Plowden,
who commanded my own company. By God, thinks I, that's all
you know, and then Carmichael-Smith was growling on that he'd
like to see one of his sepoys refuse the issue, by God he would.
"No chance of that, sir," says another major of the 3rd,
Richardson. "Our fellows are too good soldiers, and no fools. Can't
think what happened with'the igth--too many senior officers left
regimental service for the staff, I shouldn't wonder. New men
haven't got the proper grip."
* Artillery commander.
130
"But suppose our chaps did refuse?" says one young fellow in
the circle. "Mightn't it--"
"That is damned croaking!" says Carmichael-Smith angrily.
"You don't know sepoys, Cough, and that's plain. I do, and I
won't countenance the suggestion that my soldiers would have
their heads turned by this ... this seditious bosh. What the devil
--they know their duty! But if they get the notion that any of us
have doubts, or might show weakness--well, that's the worst
thing imaginable. I'll be obliged if you'll keep your half-baked
observations to yourself!"
That shut up Gough, sharp enough, and Duff Mason tried to
get the pepper out of the air by saying he was sure CarmichaelSmith
was right, and if Gough had misgivings, why not settle
them then and there.
"Your colonel won't mind, I'm sure, if I put it to one of his
own sowars--don't fret. Smith, he's a safe man." And he beckoned
me from where I stood in the shadows by the serving-table from
which the bearers kept the glasses topped up.
"Now, Makarram Khan," says he. "You know about this
cartridge nonsense. Well--you're a Muslim... will you take it?"
I stood respectfully by his chair, glancing round the circle of
faces--Carmichael-Smith red and glistening, Waterfield thin and
shrewd, young Gough flustered, old Hewitt grinning and belching
quietly.
"If it will drive a ball three hundred yards, and straight,
husoor," says I, "I shall take it."
They roared, of course, and Hewitt said there was a real Pathan
answer, what?
"And your comrades? " asks Archdale Wilson.
"If they are told, truly, by the colonel sahib, that the cartridge
is clean, why should they refuse?" says I, and they murmured
agreement. Well, thinks I, that's a plain enough hint, and
Carmichael-Smith can put Master MangaPs croaking into the
shade.
He might have done, too, but the very next day the barracks
was agog with a new rumour--and we heard for the first time a
name that was to sweep across India and the world.
"Pandy?" says I to Pir All. "Who may he be?"
131
"A sepoy of the 34th, at Barrackpore," says he. "He shot at his
captain sahib on the parade-ground--they say he was drunk with sharab or bhang, and called on the sepoys to rise against their
officers.21 What do I know? Perhaps it is true, perhaps it is rumour
--Ram Mangal is busy enough convincing those silly Hindoo
sheep that it really happened."
So he was, with an admiring crowd round him in the middle of
the barrack-room, applauding as he harangued them.
"It is a lie that the sepoy Pandy was drunk!" cries he. "A lie
put about by the sahibs to dishonour a hero who will defend his
caste to the death! He would not take the cartridge--and when
they would have arrested him, he called to his brothers to beware,
because the British are bringing fresh battalions of English soldiers
to steal away our religion and make slaves of us. And the captain
sahib at Barrackpore shot Pandy with his own hands, wounding
him, and they keep him alive for torture, even now!"
He was working himself into a terrific froth over this--what
surprised me was that no one--not even the Muslims--contradicted
him, and Naife Kudrat All, who was a good soldier, was
standing by chewing his lip, but doing nothing. Eventually, when
Mangal had raved himself hoarse, I thought I'd take a hand, so I
asked him why he didn't go to the Colonel himself, and find out
the truth, whatever it was, and ask for reassurance about the
cartridge.
"Hear him!" cries he scornfully. "Ask a sahib for the truth?
Hah! Only the gora-colonel's lapdog would suggest it! Maybe I
will speak to Karmik-al-Ismeet, though--in my own time!" He
looked round at his cronies with a significant, ugly grin. "Yes,
maybe I will... we shall see!"
Well, one swallow don't make a summer, or one ill-natured
agitator a revolt--no doubt what I'm telling you now about
barrack-room discontent among the sepoys looks strong evidence of trouble brewing, but it didn't seem so bad then. Of course there
was discontent, and Ram Mangal played on it, and every rumour,
for all he was worth--but you could go into any barracks in the
world, you know, at any time, and find almost the same thing
happening. No one did anything, just sullen talk; the parades
went on, and the sepoys did their duty, and the British officers
132
^AsSuvi
I^C& 3-/^ SO^'^-
seemed content enough--anyway, I was only occasionally in the .^~^ barracks myself, so I didn't hear much of the grumbling. When ^.... _, the word came through that Sepoy Pandy had been hanged at ^' Q Barrackpore for mutiny, I thought there might be some kind of / /i
stir among our men, but they never let cheep. ^L-/ /v c.<3^/l
In the meantime, I had other things to claim my attention: Mrs y^r) . Leslie of the red hair and lazy disposition had begun to take a v^ closer interest in me. It started with little errands and tasks that ='f3 S "7
put me in her company, then came her request to Duff Mason /'" that I should ride escort on her and Miss Blanche when they '""Y---^ drove out visiting ("it looks so much better to have Makarram
Khan attending us than an ordinary syce"), and finally I found
myself acompanying her when she went riding alone--the excuse
was that it was convenient to her to have an attendant who spoke
English, and could answer her questions about India, in which
she professed a great interest.
I know what interests you, my girl, thinks I, but you'll have to
make the first move. I didn't mind; she was a well-fleshed piece in
her way. It was amusing, too, to see her plucking up her courage;
I was a black servant to her, you see, and she was torn between
a natural revulsion and a desire to have the big hairy Pathan set
about her. On our rides, she would flirt a very little, in a hoitytoity
way, and then think better of it; I maintained my correct
and dignified noble animal pose, with just an occasional ardent
smile, and a slight squeeze when I helped her dismount. I knew ~ "V'. she was getting ready for the plunge when she said one day: ^"You
Pathans are not truly... Indian, are you? I mean... in ^^ some ways you look... well, almost... white." V
"We are not Indian at all, mem-sahib," says I. "We are
descended from the people of Ibrahim, Ishak and Yakub, who were ^ .
led from the Khedive's country by one Moses." (/}j
"You mean--you're Jewish?" says she. "Oh." She rode in f silence for a while. "I see. How strange." She thought some vmore.
"I... I have Jewish acquaintances ... in England. Most ^ respectable people. And quite white, of course."
Well, the Pathans believe it, and it made her happy, so I ( hurried the matter along by suggesting next day that I show her
the ruins at Aligaut, about six miles from the city; it's a deserted
133
temple, very overgrown, but what I hadn't told her was that the
inside walls were covered with most artistically-carved friezes
depicting all the Hindoo methods of fornicating--you know
the kind of thing: effeminate-looking lads performing incredible
couplings with fat-titted females. She took one look and gasped; I
stood behind with the horses and waited. I saw her eyes travel
round from one impossible carving to the next, while she gulped
and went crimson and pale by turns, not knowing whether to
scream or giggle, so I stepped up behind her and said quietly that
the forty-fifth position was much admired by the discriminating.
She was shivering, with her back to me, and then she turned, and
I saw that her eyes were wild and her lips trembling, so I gave
my swarthy ravisher's growl, swept her up in my arms, and then
down on to the mossy floor. She gave a little frightened moan,
opened her eyes wide, and whispered:
"You're sure you're Jewish... not... not Indian?"
"Han, mem-sahib," says I, thrusting away respectfully, and
she gave a contented little squeal and grappled me like a wrestler.
We rode to Aligaut quite frequently after that, studying Indian
social customs, and if the forty-fifth position eluded us, it wasn't
for want of trying. She had a passion for knowledge, did Mrs
Leslie, and I can think back affectionately to that cool, dim, musty
interior, the plump white body among the ferns, and the thoughtful
way she would gnaw her lower lip while she surveyed the
friezes before pointing to the lesson for today. Pity for some chap
she never re-married. Aye, and more of a pity for her she never
got the chance.
For by now April had turned into May, the temperature was
sweltering, and there was a hot wind blowing across the Meerut
parade-ground and barracks that had nothing to do with the
weather. You could feel the tension in the air like an electric ploud; the sepoys of the 3rd N.C. went about their drill like sullen automatons, the native officers stopped looking their men in the pye, the British officers were quiet and wary or explosively short- fempered, and there were more men on report than anyone could j-emember. There were ugly rumours and portents: the 34th N.I.
.--the executed Sepoy Pandy's regiment--had been disbanded at parrackpore, a mysterious fakir on an elephant had appeared in
?34
Meerut bazaar predicting that the wrath of Kali was about to fall
on the British, chapattis were said to be passing in some barrackrooms,
the Plassey legend was circulated again. Out of all the
grievances and mistrust that folk like Ram Mangal had been
voicing, a great, discontented unease grew in those few weeks
and one thing suddenly became known throughout the Meerut
garrison: without a word said, the certainty was there. When the
new greased cartridge was issued, the 3rd Native Cavalry would
refuse it.
Now, you may say, knowing what followed, something should
have been done. I, with respect, will ask: what? The thing was,
while everyone knew that feeling was rising by the hour, no one
could foresee for a moment what was about to happen. It was
unimaginable. The British officers couldn't conceive that their
beloved sepoys would be false to their saltdammit, neither could
the sepoys. If there's one thing I will maintain, it is that not a
soulnot even creatures like Ram Mangalthought that the
bitterness could explode in violence. Even if the cartridge was
refusedwell, the worst that could follow was disbandment, and
even that was hard to contemplate. I didn't dream of what lay
aheadnot even with all my forewarning over months. And I
was thereand no one can take fright faster than I. So when I
heard that Carmichael-Smith had ordered a firing-parade, at which
the skirmishers (of whom I was one) would demonstrate the new
cartridge, I simply thought: well, this will settle iteither they'll
accept the new loads, and ifll all blow over, or they won't and
Calcutta will have to think again.
"Waterfield tried to smooth things beforehand, singling out the
older skirmishers and reassuring them that the loads were not
offensively greased, but they wouldn't have itthey even pleaded
with him not to ask them to take the cartridge. I think he tried to
reason with Carmichael-Smithbut the word came out that the
firing-parade would take place as ordered.
After Waterfield's failure, this was really throwing down the
gauntlet, if you likeI'd not have done it, if I'd been CarmichaelSmith,
for one thing I've learned as an officer is never to give an
order unless there's a good chance of its being obeyed. And if
you'd fallen in with the skirmishers that fine morning, having
13?
seen the sullen faces as they put on their belts and bandoliers and
drew their Enfields from the armoury, you'd not have wagered a quid to a hundred on their taking the cartridge. But CarmichaelSmith,
the ass, was determined, so there we stood, in extended
line between the other squadrons of the regiment facing inwards,
the native officers at ease before their respective troops, and the
rissaldar calling us to attention as Carmichael-Smith, looking
thunderous, rode up and saluted.
We waited, with our Enfields at our sides, while he rode along
the extended rank, looking at us. There wasn't a sound; we stood
with the baking sun at our backs; every now and then a little puff
of warm wind would drive a tiny dust-devil across the ground;
Plowden's horse kept shying as he cursed and tried to steady it.
I watched the shadows of the rank swaying with the effort of
standing rigid, and the sweat rivers were tickling my chest. Naife Kudrat All on my right was straight as a lance; on my other
side old Sardul's breathing was hoarse enough to be audible.
Carmichael-Smith completed his slow inspection, and reined up
almost in front of me; his red face under the service cap was as
heavy as a statue's. Then he snapped an order, and the havildarmajor
stepped forward, saluted, and marched to CarmichaelSmith's
side, where he turned to face us. Jack "Waterfield, sitting
a little in rear of the colonel, called out the orders from the
platoon exercise manual.
"Prepare to load!" says he, adding quietly: "Rifle-atfull-extentofleft-arm."
The havlldar-inajor shoved out his rifle.
"Load!" cries Jack, adding again: "Cartridge-isbroughtto-thelefthandrightelbowraisedtearofftopofcartridgewithfingers-bydropping-elbow."

This was the moment; you could feel the rank sway forward
ever so little as the havildar-major, his bearded face intent, held
up the little shiny brown cylinder, tore it across, and poured the
powder into his barrel. A hundred and eighty eyes watched him
do it; there was just a suspicion of a sigh from the rank as his
ram-rod drove the charge home; then he came to attention again.
Waterfield gave him the "present" and "fire", and the single
demonstration shot cracked across the great parade-ground. On
either side, the rest of the regiment waited, watching us.
136
"Now," says CannichaeI-Smith, and although he didn't raise
his voice, it carried easily across the parade. "Now, you have seen
the loading drill. You have seen the havildar-major, a soldier of
high caste, take the cartridge. He knows the grease with which
it is waxed is pure. I assure you again--nothing that could offend
Hindoo or Muslim is being offered to you--I would not permit it.
Carry on, havildar-major."
What happened was that the havildar-major came along the
rank, with two naiks carrying big bags of cartridges, of which he
offered three to each skirmisher. I was looking straight to my
front, sweating and wishing the back of my leg would stop
itching; I couldn't see what was happening along the rank,
but I heard a repeated murmur as the havildar-major progressed
--"Nahin, havildar-major sahib; nahin, havildar-major sahib."
Carmichael-Smith's head was turned to watch; I could see his
hand clenched white on his rein.
The havildar-major stopped opposite Kudrat All, and held out
three cartridges. I could feel Kudrat stiffen--he was a big, rangy
Punjabi Mussulman, a veteran of Aliwal and the frontier, proud
as Lucifer of his stripes and himself, the kind of devoted ass who
thinks his colonel is his father and even breaks wind by numbers.
I stole a glance at him; his mouth was trembling under his heavy
moustache as he muttered:
"Nahin, havildar-major sahib."
Suddenly, CannichaeI-Smith broke silence; his temper must have
boiled higher with each refusal.
"What the devil do you mean?" His voice cracked hoarsely.
"Don't you recognise an order? D'you know what insubordination
means?"
Kudrat started violently, but recovered. He swallowed with a
gulp you could have heard in Poona, and then says:
"Colonel sahib--I cannot have a bad name!"
"Bad name, by God!" roars Smith. "D'you know a worse name
than mutineer?" He sat there glowering and Kudrat trembled;
then the havildar-waj'or's hand was thrust out to me, his bloodshot
brown eyes glaring into mine; I looked at the three little
brown cylinders, aware that Waterfield was watching me intently,
and old Sardul was breathing like a walrus on my other side.
i37
I took the cartridges--there was a sudden exclamation farther
along the rank, but I stuffed two of them into my belt, and held
up the third. As I glanced at it, I realised with a start that it
wasn't greased--it was waxed. I tore it across with a shaky hand.
poured the powder into the barrel, stuffed the cartridge after it,
and rammed it down.22 Then I returned to attention, waiting.
Old Sardul was crying. As the cartridges were held out to him
he put up a shaking hand, but not to take them. He made a little,
feeble gesture, and then sings out:
"Colonel sahib--it is not just! Never--never have I disobeyed
--never have I been false to my salt! Sahib--do not ask this of
me--ask anything--my life, even! But not my honour!" He
dropped his Enfield, wringing his hands. "Sahib, I--"
"Fool!" shouts Carmichael-Smith. "D'you suppose I would ask
you to hurt your honour? When did any man know me do such a
thing? The cartridges are clean, I tell you! Look at the havildarmajor--look
at Makarram Khan! Are they men of no honour?
No--and they're not mutinous dogs, either!"
It wasn't the most tactful thing to say, to that particular sepoy;
I thought Sardul would go into a frenzy, the way he wept--but
he wouldn't touch the cartridges. So it went, along the line; when
the end had been reached only four other men out of ninety had
accepted the loads--four and that stalwart pillar of loyalty. Flashy
Makarram Khan (he knew his duty, and which side his bread was
buttered).
So there it was. Carmichael-Smith could hardly talk for sheer
fury, but he cussed us something primitive, promising dire retribution,
and then dismissed the parade. They went in silence--some
stony-faced, others troubled, a number (like old Sardul) weeping
openly, but mostly just sullen. For those of us who had taken the
cartridges, by the way, there were no reproaches from the others
--proper lot of long-suffering holy little Tom Browns they were.
That, of course, was something that Carmichael-Smith didn't
understand. He thought the refusal of the cartridges was pure
pig-headedness by the sepoys, egged on by a few malcontents. So
it was, but there was a genuine religious feeling behind it, and a
distrust of the Sirkar. If he'd had his wits about him, he'd have
seen that the thing to do now was to drop the cartridge for the
138
moment, and badger Calcutta to issue a new one that the sepoys
could grease themselves (as was done, I believe, in some garrisons).
He might even have made an example of one or two of the older
disobedients, but no, that wasn't enough for him. He'd been
defied by his own men, and by God, he wasn't having that. So the
whole eighty-five were court-martialled, and the court, composed
entirely of native officers, gave them all ten years' hard labour.
I can't say I had much sympathy with 'em--anyone who's fool
enough to invite ten years on the rock-pile for his superstitions
deserves all he gets, in my view. But I'm bound to say that once
the sentence had been passed, it couldn't have been worse carried
out--instead of shipping the eighty-five quietly off to jail the
buffoon Hewitt decided to let the world--and other sepoys
especially--see what happened to mutineers, and so a great
punishment parade was ordered for the following Saturday.
As it happened, I quite welcomed this myself, because I had to
attend, and so was spared an excursion to Aligaut with Mrs Leslie
--that woman's appetite for experiment was increasing, and I'd
had a wearing if pleasurable week of it. But from the official point
of view, that parade was a stupid, dangerous farce, and came near
to costing us all India.
It was a red morning, oppressive and grim, with a heavy, overcast
sky, and a hot wind driving the dust in stinging volleys
across the maidan. The air was suffocatingly close, like the
moment before thunder. The whole Meerut garrison was there--
the Dragoon Guards with their sabres out; the Bengal Artillery,
with their British gunners and native assistants in leather
breeches standing by their guns; line on line of red-coated native
infantry completing the hollow square, and in the middle Hewitt
and his staff with Carmichael-Smith and the regimental officers,
all mounted. And then the eighty-five were led out in double
file, all in full uniform, but for one thing--they were in their
bare feet.
I don't know when I've seen a bleaker sight than those two
grey ranks standing there hangdog, while someone bawled out
the court's findings and sentence, and then a drum began to roll,
very slow, and the ceremony began.
Now I've been on more punishment parades than I care to
139
remember, and quite enjoyed 'em, by and large. There's a
fascination about a banging, or a good flogging, and the first
time I saw a man shot from a gun--at Kabul, that was--I
couldn't take my eyes off it. I've noticed, too, that the most pious
and humanitarian folk always make sure they get a good view,
and while they look grim or pitying or shocked they take care to
miss none of the best bits. Really, what happened at Meerut
was tame enough--and yet it was different from any other
drumming-out or execution I remember; usually there's excitement,
or fear, or even exultation, but here there was just a
doomed depression that you could feel, hanging over the whole
vast parade.
While the drum beat slowly, a havildar and two naifcs went
along the ranks of the prisoners, tearing the buttons off the
uniform coats; they bad been half cut off beforehand, to make
the tearing easy, and soon in front of the long grey line there
were little scattered piles of buttons, gleaming dully in the
sultry light; the grey coats hung loose, like sacks, each with a
dull black face above it.
Then the fettering began. Groups of armourers, each under a
British sergeant, went from man to man, fastening the heavy
lengths of irons between their ankles; the fast clanging of the
hammers and the drum-beat made the most uncanny noise,
clink-clank-boom! clink-clank-clink-boom! and a thin wailing
sounded from beyond the ranks of the native infantry.
"Keep those damned people quiet!" shouts someone, and
there was barking of orders and the wailing died away into a
few thin cries. But then it was taken up by the prisoners themselves;
some of them stood, others squatted in their chains,
crying; I saw old Sardul, kneeling, smearing dust on his head and
hitting his fist on the ground; Kudrat Ah stood stiff at attention,
looking straight ahead; my half-section, Pir Alt--who to my
astonishment had refused the cartridge in the end--was jabbering
angrily to the man next to him; Ram Mangal was actually
shaking his fist and yelling something. A great babble of noise
swelled up from the line, with the havildar-major scampering
along the front, yelling "Chubbaraol Silence!" while the hammers
clanged and the drum rolled--you never heard such an infernal
140
din. Old Sardul seemed to be appealing to Carmichael-Smith,
stretching out his hands; Ram Mangal was bawling the odds
louder than ever; close beside where I was an English sergeant
of the Bombay Artillery knocked out his pipe on the gun-wheel,
spat, and says:
"There's one black bastard I'd have spread over the muzzle o'
this gun, by Jesus! Scatter his guts far enough, eh, Paddy?"
"Aye," says his mate, and paced about, scratching his head.
"Tis a bad business, though, Mike, right enough. Dam' niggers!
Bad business!"
"Oughter be a bleedin' sight worse," says Mike. "Pampered
sods--lissen 'em squeal! If they 'ad floggin' in the nigger army,
they'd 'ave summat to whine about--touch o' the cat'd 'ave
them bitin' each other's arses, never mind cartridges. But all
they get's the chokey, an' put in irons. That's what riles me--
Englishmen get flogged fast enough, an' these black pigs can
stand by grinnin' at it, but somebody pulls their buttons off
an' they yelp like bleedin' kids!"23
"Ah-h," says the other. "Disgustin'. An' pitiful, pitiful."
I suppose it was, if you're the pitying kind--those patheticlooking
creatures in their shapeless coats, with the irons on
their feet, some yelling, some pleading, some indifferent, some
silently weeping, but mostly just sunk in shame--and out in
front Hewitt and Carmichael-Smith and the rest sat their horses
and watched, unblinking. I'm not soft, but I had an uneasy
feeling just then--you're making a mistake, Hewitt, thinks I,
you're doing more harm than good. He didn't seem to know it,
but he was trampling on their pride (I may not have much myself,
but I recognise it in others, and it's a chancy thing to
tamper with). And yet he could have seen the danger, in the
sullen stare of the watching native infantry; they were feeling
the shame, too, as those fetters went on, and the prisoners wept
and clamoured, and old Sardul grovelled in the dust for one of
his fallen buttons, and clenched it against his chest, with the
tears streaming down his face.
He was one, I confess, that I felt a mite sorry for, when the
fettering was done, and the band had struck up "The Rogues
March", and they shuffled off, dragging their irons as they were
141
herded away to the New Jail beyond the Grand Trunk Road.
He kept turning and crying out to Carmichael-Smith--it reminded
me somehow of how my old guv'nor had wept and
pleaded when I saw him off for the last time to the blue-devil
factory in the country where he died bawling with delirium
tremens. Damned depressing--and as I walked my pony off
with the four other loyal skirmishers, and glanced at their
smug black faces, I thought, well, you bloody toadies--after all,
they were Hindoos; I wasn't.
However, I soon worked off my glums back at Duff Mason's
bungalow, by lashing the backside off one of the bearers who'd
lost his oil-funnel. And then I had to be on hand for the dinner
that was being given for Carmichael-Smith that night (doubtless
to celebrate the decimation of his regiment), and Mrs Leslie,
dressed up to the nines for the occasion, was murmuring with a
meaning look that she intended to have a long ride in the
country next day, so I must see picnic prepared, and there were
the mateys to chase, and the kitchen-staff to swear at, and little
Miss Langley, the riding-master's daughter, to chivvy respectfully
away--she was a pretty wee thing, seven years old, and a
favourite of Miss Blanche's, but she was the damnedest nuisance
when she came round the back verandah in the evenings to play,
keeping the servants from their work and being given sugar
cakes.
f With all this, I'd soon forgotten about the punishment parade, -5,^;. until after dinner, when Duff Mason and Carmichael-Smith and
Archdale "Wilson had taken their pegs and cheroots on to the
verandah, and I heard Smith's voice suddenly raised unusually
loud. I stopped a matey who was taking out a tray to them, and
took it myself, so I was )'ust in time to hear Smith saying:
"...of all the damned rubbish I ever heard! Who is this
havildar, then?"
"Imtiaz Ahmed--and he's a good man, sir." It was young
Gough, mighty red in the face, and carrying his crop, for all he
was in dinner kit.
"Damned good croaker, you mean!" snaps Smith, angrily. ^. "And you stand there and tell me that he has given you this
cock-and-bull about the cavalry plotting to march on the jail and
142
set the prisoners free? Utter stuff--and you're a fool for listening
to--"
"I beg your pardon, sir," says Gough, "but I've been to the
jail--and it looks ugly. And I've been to barracks; the men
are in a bad way, and--"
"Now, now, now," says Wilson, "easy there, young fellow.
You don't know 'em, perhaps, as well as we do. Of course they're
in a bad way--what, they've seen their comrades marched off in
irons, and they're upset. They're like that--they'll cry their eyes
out, half of 'em... All right, Makarram Khan," says he, spotting
me at the buffet, "you can go." So that was all I heard, for what
it was worth, and since nothing happened that night, it didn't
seem to be worth too much.24
Next morning Mrs Leslie wanted to make an early start, so
I fortified myself against what was sure to be a taxing day with
half a dozen raw eggs beaten up in a pint of stout, and we rode
out again to Aligaut. She was in the cheeriest spirits, curse her,
climbing all over me as soon as we reached the temple, and by
the end of the afternoon I was beginning to wonder how much
more Hindoo culture I could endure, delightful though it was. I
was a sore and weary native orderly by the time we set off back,
and dozing pleasantly in my saddle as we passed through the
little village which lies about a mile east of the British town--
indeed, I could just hear the distant chiming of the church bell
for evening service--when Mrs Leslie gave an exclamation and
reined in her pony.
"What's that?" says she, and as I came up beside her, she
hushed me and sat listening. Sure enough, there was another
sound--a distant, indistinct murmur, like the sea on a far shore. I
couldn't place it, so we rode quickly forward to where the trees
ended, and looked across the plain. Straight ahead in the distance
were the bungalows at the end of the Mall, all serene; far to the
left, there was the outline of the Jail, and beyond it the huge mass
of Meerut city--nothing out of the way there. And then beyond
the Jail, I saw it as I peered at the red horizon--where the native
cavalry and infantry lines lay, dark clouds of smoke were rising
against the orange of the sky, and flickers of flame showed in the
dusk. Buildings were burning, and the distant murmur was
i43
resolving itself into a thousand voices shouting, louder and ever
louder. I sat staring, with a horrid suspicion growing in my
mind, half-aware that Mrs Leslie was tugging at my sleeve,
demanding to know what was happening. I couldn't tell her,
because I didn't know; nobody knew, in that first moment, on a
peaceful, warm May evening when the great Indian Mutiny
began.
144
If I'd had my wits about me, or more
than an inkling of what was happening, I'd have turned our
ponies north and ridden for the safety of the British infantry
lines a mile away. But my first thought was: Gough was right,
some crazy bastards are rioting and trying to break the prisoners
loose--and of course they'll fail, because Hewitt'U have British
troops marching down to the scene at once; maybe they're there
already, cutting up the niggers. I was right--and wrong, you
see, but above all I was curious, once my first qualms had settled.
So it wasn't in any spirit of chivalry that I sang out to Mrs
Leslie:
"Ride to the bungalow directly, mem-sahib! Hold tight, now!"
and cut her mare hard across the rump. She squealed as it leaped
forward, and called to me, but I was already wheeling away down
towards the distant Jail--I wanted to see the fun, whatever it
was, and I had a good horse under me to cut out at the first sign
of danger. Her plaintive commands echoed after me, but I was
putting my pony to a bank, and clattering off towards the outlying
buildings of the native city bazaar, skirting south so that I'd
pass the Jail at a distance and see what was happening.
At first there didn't seem to be much; this side of the bazaar
was strangely empty, but in the gathering dark I could hear
rather than see confused activity going on between the Jail and
the Grand Trunk--shouting and the rush of hurrying feet, and
sounds of smashing timber. I wheeled into the bazaar, following
the confusion of noise ahead; the whole of the sky to my front
beyond the bazaar was glowing orange now, whether with fire or
sundown you couldn't tell, but the smoke was hanging in a great
pall beyond the city--it's a hell of a fine fire, thinks I, and forged
on into the bazaar, between booths where dim figures seemed to
be trying to get their goods away, or darting about in the shadows,
chattering and waning. I bawled to a fat vendor, who was staring
145
down the street, asking what was up, but he just waddled swiftly
into his shop, slamming his shutters--try to get sense out of an
excited Indian, if you like. Then I reined up, with a chico* scampering almost under my hooves, and the mother after it,
crouching and shrieking, and before I knew it there was a swarm
of folk in the street, all wailing and running in panic; stumbling
into my pony, while I cursed and lashed out with my quirt;
behind them the sounds of riot were suddenly closer--hoarse
yelling and chanting, and the sudden crack of a shot, and then
another.
Time to withdraw to a safer distance, thinks I, and wheeled my
pony through the press into a side-alley. Someone went down
beneath my hooves, they scattered like sheep--and then down the
alley ahead of me, running pell-mell for his life, was a man in the
unmistakable stable kit of the Dragoon Guards, bare-headed and
wild-eyed, and behind him, like hounds in full cry, a screaming
mob of niggers.
He saw me ahead, and yelled with despair--of course, what he
saw was a great hairy native villain blocking his way. He darted
for a doorway, and stumbled, and in an instant they were on him,
a clawing, animal mob, tearing at him while he lashed out, yelling
obscenities. For an instant he broke free, blood pouring from a
wound in his neck, and actually scrambled under my pony; the
mob was round us in a trice, dragging him out bodily while I
struggled to keep my seat--there was no question of helping him,
even if I'd been fool enough to try. They bore him up, everyone
shrieking like madmen, and smashed him down on the table of a
pop-shop, holding his limbs while others broke the pop-bottles and
slashed and stabbed at him with the shards.
It was a nightmare. I could only clutch my reins and stare at
that screaming, thrashing figure, half-covered in the pop foam,
as those glittering glass knives rose and fell. In seconds he was
just a hideous bloody shape, and then someone got a rope round
him, and they swung him up to a beam, with his life pouring out
of him.26 In panic I drove my heels into the pony, blundered to
the corner, and rode for dear life.
It was the shocking unexpectedness of it that had unmanned
Child.
146
me--to see a white man torn to pieces by natives. Perhaps you
can't imagine what that meant in India; it was something you
could not believe, even when you saw it. For a few moments I
must have ridden blind, for the next thing I knew I was reining
up on the edge of the Grand Trunk where it comes north out of
Meerut city, gazing at a huge rabble pouring up towards the
British town; to my amazement half of them were sepoys, some
of them just in their jackets, others in full fig down to the cross- 
belts, brandishing muskets and bayonets, and yelling in unison:
"Mat karo! Mat karo!* Sipahi jai!" and the like--slogans of death
and rebellion. There was one rascal on a cart, brandishing ankle- irons above his head, and a heaving mass of sepoys and bazaarwallahs
pushing his vehicle along, yelling like drunkards.
Beyond the road the native cavalry barracks were in full flame;
even as I watched I saw one roof cave in with an explosion of
sparks. Behind me there were buildings burning in the bazaar,
and even as I turned to look I saw a gang of ruffians hurling an
oil-lamp into a booth, while others were steadily thrashing with
clubs at the fallen body of the owner; finally they picked him up
and tossed him into the blaze, dancing and yelling as he tried
vainly to struggle out; he was a human torch, his mouth opening
and closing in unheard screams, and then he fell back in the
burning ruin.
I don't know how long I sat there, staring at these incredible
things, but I know it was dark, with flames leaping up everywhere,
and an acrid reek pervading the air, before I came to my
senses enough to realise that the sooner I lit out the better--of
course, I was safe enough in that I was to all outward appearance
a native, and a big, ugly one at that, but it made no sense to
linger; any moment there must be the sound of bugles up the
road, heralding a British detachment, and I didn't want to be
caught up in the ensuing brawl. So I put my pony's nose north,
and trotted along the edge of the road, with that stream of mad
humanity surging in the same direction at my elbow.
Even then I hadn't determined what it all meant, but any
doubts I might have had were resolved as I came level with the
Jail, and there was a huge crowd, clamouring and applauding
*"Killt"
147
round a bonfire, and forming up, in their prison dbotis,* but with
their ankles freed, were some of the prisoners--I recognised
Gobinda, and one or two others, and a sepoy whom I didn't know
was standing on a cart, haranguing the mob, although you could
hardly hear him for the din:
"It is done!... Death to the gora-Iog!+ ... sahibs are already
running away... see the broken chains!,.. On, brothers, kill!
kill! To the white town!"
The whole mob screamed as one man, leaping up and down,
and then bore the prisoners shoulder-high, streaming out on to
the Grand Trunk towards the distant Mall--God, I could see
flames up there already, out towards the eastern end. There must
be bungalows burning on this side of the Mall, beyond the
Nullah.
There was only one way for me to go. Behind was Meerut city
and the bazaar, which was being smashed up and looted by the
sound of things; to my left lay the burning native barracks; ahead,
between me and the British Town, the road was jammed with
thousands of crazy fanatics, bent on blood and destruction. I
waited till the press thinned a little, and swung right, heading for
the Nullah north of the Jail; I would cross the east bridge, and
make a long circle north past the Mall to come to the British camp
lines.
The first part was easy enough; I crossed the Nullah, and
skirted the east end of the British Town, riding carefully in the
half-dark, for the moon wasn't up yet. It was quiet here, in the
groves of trees; the tumult was far off to my left, but now and
then I saw little groups of natives--servant-women, probably,
scurrying among the bushes, and one ominous sign that some of
the killers had come this way--an old chowkidar, with his broken
staff beside him, lying with his skull beaten in. Were they
butchering anyone, then--even their own folk? Of course--any
natives suspected of loyalty would be fair game--including the
gora-colonel's lapdog, as Ram Mangal had charmingly called me.
I pressed on quickly; not far behind me, I could hear chanting
voices, and see torch-light among the trees. The sooner I...
* Loincloths.
+ British.
148
"Help! Help! In God's name, help us!"
It came from my right; a little bungalow, behind a white gate,
and as I stopped, uncertain, another voice cried:
"Shut up. Tommy! God knows who it is ... see the lights
yonder!"
"But Mary's dead!" cries the first voice, and it would have
made your hair stand up. "She's dead, I tell youthey've"
They were English, anyway, and without thinking I supped
from the saddle, vaulted the gate, and cried:
"It's a friend! Who are you?"
"Oh, thank God!" cries the first voice. "Quicklythey've
killed Mary... Mary!"
I glanced back; the torches were still two hundred yards away
among the trees. If I could get the occupants of the bungalow
moving quickly, they might get away. I strode up the verandah
steps, looked through the space where a chick had been torn
down, and saw a wrecked room, with an oil-lamp burning feebly,
and a white man, his left leg soaked in blood, lying against the
wall, a sabre in his hand, staring at me with feverish eyes.
"Are you . . . ?" he began, and then yelled. "Christit's a
mutineer3rd Cavalry! Jim!"
And I hadn't got my mouth open when out of the shadows
someone sprang; I had an instant's vision of a white face, red
moustache, staring eyes, and whirling sabre, and then I was
locked with him, crashing to the floor, while I yelled:
"You bloody idiot! I'm English, damn you!"
But he seemed to have gone mad; even as I wrested his sabre
from him and sprang away he yelled to his pal, who feebly
shoved his sabre towards him; the next thing he was slashing at
me, yelling curses, and I was guarding and trying to shout sense
at him. I broke ground, fell over something soft, and realised as I
struck the ground that it was a white woman, in evening dress
or rather it was her body, for she was lying in a pool of blood.
I flung up my sabre to guard another maniac slash, but too late;
I felt a fiery pain across my skull, just above the left ear, and the
fellow on the floor screams:
"Go it, Jim! Finish him, finish"
The crash of musketry filled the room; the fellow above me
149
twisted grotesquely, dropping his sabre, and tumbled down across
my legs; there were black faces grinning at the window above me
through the powder smoke, and then they were in the room,
yelling with triumph as they drove their bayonets into the
wounded Tommy, hacking at him, smashing the furniture, and
finally one of them was helping me up, shouting:
"Just in time, brother! Thank the nth N.I., sowar! Aieee!
Three of the pigs! God be praised--have ye been at their goods,
then?"
I was dizzy with pain, so he dropped me, and while they ransacked
the bungalow, growling like beasts, I crawled out on to
the verandah and into the bushes. I lay there, staunching the
blood that was running down my cheek; it wasn't a bad wound--
no worse than the schlager cut beside it, which de Gautet had
given me years ago. But I didn't come out, even after they'd gone,
taking my pony with them; I was too shaken and scared--that
idiot Jim had come within an ace of finishing me--my God, it had
been Jim Lewis, of course--the veterinary. I'd bowed him out of
Mason's bungalow only a couple of nights before. And now, he
was dead, and his wife Mary--and I was alive, saved by the
mutineers who'd murdered them.
I lay there, still half-dazed, trying to make sense of it. This was
mutiny, no doubt of it, and on the grand scale--the 3rd Cavalry
were out, of course, and I'd seen zoth N.I. men under arms on
the Grand Trunk; the fellows who'd inadvertently saved me were
nth N.I., so that was the whole Indian garrison of Meerut. But
where the devil were the two British regiments?--their lines
weren't more than a half-mile from where I was lying, beyond
the Mall, but although two or three hours must have passed
since the rioting started, there wasn't a sign of any activity by
the authorities. I lay listening to the crackle of firing, and the
distant tumult of voices and wrecking and burning--there were
no bugle calls, no sound of volleys, no shouted orders, no heavy
gunfire amidst the confusion. Hewitt couldn't just be sitting
doing nothing--a terrible thought struck me: they couldn't have
been wiped out, surely? No, you can't beat two thousand
disciplined soldiers with a mutinous mob--but what the hell was
keeping 'em quiet, then?28
150
'". ^
In the long run I decided I'd have to make a break for it, up to
the Mall and across towards the British infantry lines; it would
take me past Duff Mason's bungalow, and the MacDowalls', so I
could see what was happening there, though no doubt the people
would have withdrawn already to the safety of the British camps.
Yes, I could see, when I stood up, that some of the bungalows
south of the Mall were burning, and there was a hell of a din
and shooting coming from the British Town farther west; I would
have to keep well clear of that.
I moved cautiously through the trees, and found the little drive
that led up to the eastern end of 	the Mall. There was a bungalow
burning like blazes a hundred yards ahead, and half a dozen
sepoys standing by its fence, cursing and occasionally firing a
shot into it; on the other side of the road, a crowd of servants
were huddled under a tree, and as I stole quietly towards them in
the shadows I could hear them wailing. That was Surgeon
Dawson's bungalow; as I came level with it, I remembered that
Dawson had been down with smallpox--he and his wife and
children had all been confined to the house--and there was its
roof caving in with a thunderous whoosh of sparks. I felt giddy
and ill at the thought--and then hurried on, past that hellish
scene; the drive ahead was deserted as far as I could see in the
light of the rising moon.
Our bungalow wasn't burning, anyway--but just before I
reached it my eye was caught by something on the verandah of
the Courtneys* place across the way. Something was moving; it
was a human figure, trying to crawl. I hesitated fearfully, and
then slipped through the gate and up the path; the figure was
wheezing horribly; it suddenly rolled over on its back, and I saw
it was a native servant, with a bayonet buried in his chest. As I
stood appalled his head rolled, and he saw me; he tried to lift a
hand, pointing towards the house, and then he flopped back,
groaning.
For the life of me I can't think what made me go inside, and I
wish I hadn't. Mrs Courtney was dead in her chair, shot and
bayonetted, with her head buried in the cushions, and when I
looked beyond I vomited on the spot--her three children were
there as well. It was a sight to blast your eyes; the place was like
i?i
a slaughter-house, stinking with blood--I turned and ran, retching,
and didn't stop until I found myself stumbling on to Duff
Mason's verandah.
The place was still as death--but I had to go in, for I knew
that in Duff Mason's bottom desk-drawer there was a Colt and a
box of ammunition, and I wanted them both as I wanted my next
breath. I glanced through the trees towards the Dawsons' burning
home, but there was no sign of approaching mutineers, so I
slipped through the chick-door into the hall. And there I fainted
dead away--something I haven't done more than twice in my
life.
The reason I'll tell you quickly--Mrs Leslie's head was lying
on the hall table. Her body, stripped naked--that same plump
white body that I'd fondled only a few hours earlier, was lying a
few feet beyond, unspeakably gashed. And in the doorway to the
dining-room, Mrs Captain MacDowall was huddled grotesquely
against the jamb, with a tulwar pinning her to the wall; clenched
in one hand was a small vase, with the flowers it had held scattered
on the boards--I realised that she must have snatched it up
as a weapon.
I don't remember getting Duff Mason's revolver, but I know
that later I was standing in the hall, keeping my eyes away from
those ghastly things on the floor, loading it with cartridges and
weeping and cursing to myself together. Why--why the hell
should they do this?--I found myself blubbering it aloud. I've
seen death and horror more than most men, but this was worse
than anything--it was beyond bestiality. Gobinda? Fir All? Old
Sardul? Ram Mangal, even? They couldn't have done this--they
wouldn't have done it to the wives of their bitterest enemies. But it had been done--if not by them, then by men like them. It was
mad, senseless, incredible--but it was there, and if I tell you of it
now, it is not to horrify, but to let you understand what happened
in India in '57, and how it was like nothing that any of us had
ever seen before. And none of us--not even I--was ever the same
again.
You know me, and what a damned coward and scoundrel I am,
and not much moved by anything--but I did an odd thing in
that house. I couldn't bring myself to touch Mrs Leslie, or even
i?z
to look again at that ghastly head, with its frizzy red hair and
staring eyes--but before I left I went to Mrs Captain MacDowall,
and forced the vase from her fingers, and I collected the flowers
and put them in it. I was going to set it on the floor beside
her, and then I remembered that carping Scotch voice, and her
contemptuous sniff--so I set it on a little table instead, with a napkin
under it, just so. I took one more look round--at the wreckage
of the place that my bearers had made the finest house on the
station; the polished wood scarred and broken, the ornaments
smashed, the rug matted with blood, the fine chandelier that had
been Miss Blanche's pride wantonly shattered in a comer--and I
went out of that house with such hate in my heart as I've never
felt before or since. There was something I wanted to do--and
quickly; I had my chance in the next five minutes, as I slipped
up to the corner of the drive, and looked westward along the
Mall.
The shots were still crackling in the British Town--were there
any of our folk left alive down there, I wondered. How many
bungalows, burned or whole, contained the same horrors that I'd
found? I wasn't going to look--and I wasn't going a step farther,
either. Burning buildings, screaming mobs, death and wreckage--
they were all there, ahead of me; as I looked north through the
trees I could see torchlight and hear yelling between me and
the British lines. Whatever Hewitt and Carmichael-Smith and the
rest of them were doing--supposing they were still alive--I'd
now decided they could do without me: all I wanted was to get
out of Meerut, and away from that hell, as fast as I could, and
find peace and safety, and rest the hellish pain in my wounded
head. But first I must do what I lusted above all things to do--and
here came the chance, in the shape of a trooper, cantering along
the Mall, swaying in his saddle, singing drunkenly to himself as
he rode. Behind him, against the distant flames, there were a few
parties of sepoys straggling on the Mall; eastward the road was
quite empty.
I stepped into the Mall as he rode up; he had a bloody tulwar in one hand, a foolish animal grin on his filthy black face, and the
grey coat of the 3rd Cavalry on his back. Seeing me in the same
rig he let out a whoop and reined in unsteadily.
i?3
"Ram-ram* sowar," says I, and forced myself to leer at him.
"Have you slain as many as I have, eh? And whose blood is
that?" I pointed at his sword.
"Hee-hee-hee-hee," giggles he, lurching in the saddle. "Is it
blood? It is? Whose--why, maybe it is Karmik-al-Ismeet's?" He
waved the blade, goggling drunkenly. "Or Hewitt Sahib's? Nay,
nay, nay!"
"Whose, then?" says I, genially, and laid a hand on his crupper.

"Ah, now," says he, studying the blade. "The Riding-Master
Langley Sahib's--eh? That son of a stinking mangy pork-eating
dog! Nay, nay, nay!" He leaned precariously from the saddle.
"Not Langley. Hee-hee-hee-hee! He will have no grandchildren
by his daughter! Heeheeheehee!"
And I'd chased her growling, off the verandah, just the previous
night. I had to hold on to his leather to keep my balance, biting
back the bile that came into my mouth. I took another quick
glance along the Mall; the nearest sepoys were still some distance
off.
"Shabash!" says I. "That was a brave stroke." And as he
leered and chortled I brought my hand up with the Colt in it,
aimed carefully just above his groin, and fired.
He reared up, and I clutched the bridle to steady the horse as
he went flying from the saddle; a second and I had it managed,
then I was up and in his place, and he was threshing on the
ground, screaming in agony--with luck he would take days to die.
I circled him once, snarling down at him, looked back along the
Mall, at those distant black figures like Dante's demons against
the burning inferno behind them, and then I was thundering
eastward, past the last bungalows, and the sights and sounds of
horror were fading behind me.27
* * *
God knows how far I rode that night--probably no great distance.
I don't think I was quite right in the head, partly from
the shock of what I'd seen, but much more from the pain of my
wound, which began to act up most damnably. It felt as though
my left temple was wide open, and white heat was getting into
* Hello.
154
my brain; I could hardly see out of my left eye, and was haunted
by the fear that the cut would send me blind. I had enough sense, though, to know which way I wanted to go--south by east at
first to skirt Meerut dry, and then south by west until I struck
the Delhi road at a safe distance. Delhi meant the safety of a
great British garrison (or so I thought), and since there were telegraph
lines between it and Meerut I felt certain that I'd meet help
coming along it. I wasn't to know that the fool Hewitt hadn't
even sent a message to tell of the Meerut outbreak.
So that was the course I followed, half-blind with pain, and
constantly losing my bearings, even in the bright moonlight, so
that I had to stop and cast about among the groves and hamlets.
I forged ahead, and when I came on the Delhi road at last, what
did I see but two companies of sepoys tramping along under the
moon, in fair order, singing and chanting as they went, with
their muskets slung and the havildars calling the step. For an
instant I thought they must be reliefs from Delhi, and then it
dawned on me that they were marching in the wrong direction--
but I was too done up to care; I just sat my pony by the roadside,
and when they spotted me half a dozen of them broke ranks,
crying that it was a 3rd Cavalryman, and cheering me until they
saw the blood on my face and coat. Then they helped me down,
and sponged my head and gave me a drink, and their havildar says:
"You're in no case to catch your pulton tonight, bhai* They
must be half-way to Delhi by now," at which the rest of them
cheered and threw up their hats.
"Are they so?" says I, wondering what the devil he meant.
"Aye, first among the loot, as usual," cries another. "They
have the advantage of us, on their ponies--but we'll be there,
too!" And they all cheered and laughed again, black faces with
grinning white, teeth looking down at me. Even in my bemused
state this seemed to mean only one thing.
"Has Delhi fallen, then?" I asked, and the havildar says, not
yet, but the three regiments there would surely rise, and with the
whole of the Meerut garrison marching to help them the sahibs
would be overthrown and slaughtered within the day.
"We were only the beginning!" says he, sponging away at my
* Brother.
i5!
wound. "Soon Delhi--then Agra, Cawnpore, Jaipur--aye, and
Calcutta itself! The Madras army is on the move also, and from
one end of the Grand Trunk to the other the sahibs have been
driven into their compounds like mice into their holes. The North
is rising--there, he still, man--there will be sahibs enough for your
knife-edge, when your wound is healed. Best come with us, if you
can travel; see, we hold together in good company, like soldiers--
lest the sahibs send out riders who may snap us up piecemeal."
"No--no," says I, struggling up. The pain made me dizzy, but
I had to get away from them. "I'll ride on to join my pultan" And despite their protests I clambered on to my pony again.
"He thirsts for white blood!" shouts one. "Shabash, sowar!
But leave enough for the rest of us to drink!"
I shouted something incoherent, about wanting to be first in
at the death, and as they halloed encouragement after me I put
my pony to a trot, hanging on grimly, and set off down the road.
The other company was yelling and singing as I passed--I remember
noting that they were wearing flower garlands round their
necks. I carried on until I had distanced them, my head splitting
at every step and swelling up like a balloon, and then I remember
swinging off into the forest, and blundering until I slumped out
of the saddle and lay where I fell, utterly exhausted.
When I came to--if you can call it that--I was extremely ill.
I've no clear idea of what followed, except that there were long
periods of confused dreaming, and moments of vivid clarity, but
it's difficult to tell one from the other. I'm sure that at one point
I was lying face-down in a tank, gulping down brackish water
while a little girl with a goat stood and watched me--I can even
remember that the goat had a red thread round its horns. On
the other hand, I doubt if Dr Arnold truly did come striding
through the trees in an enormous turban, crying: "Flashman,
you have been fornicating with Lakshmibai during first lesson;
how often must I tell you there is to be no galloping after morning
prayers, sir!" Or that John Charity Spring stood there foursquare
shouting: "Amo, amas, amat! Lay into him, doctor! The horny young bastard is always amo-ing! Hae nugw in seria duce-nt
mala* by God!" And then they changed into a wrinkled old
* These trifles will lead to grave evils.
156
native woman and a scrawny nigger with a white moustache;
she was holding a chatti* to my mouthit felt hard and cold,
but it became suddenly soft and warm, and the chatti was Mrs
Leslie's lips against mine, and what was running into my mouth
wasn't water, but blood, and I screamed silently while all the
grinning faces whirled round me, and the whole world was buming
while a voice intoned: "Cartridge is brought to the left hand
with right elbow raised"... and then the old man and woman
were there again, peering anxiously down at me while I slipped
into black unconsciousness.
It was in their hut that I finally came to myself, with a halfhealed
wound on my temple, having lost heaven knows how
much blood and weight, verminous and stinking and weak as a
kittenbut with my head just clear enough to remember what
had happened. Unfortunately, it wasn't to prove quite so clear
about thinking ahead.
I've since calculated that I lay ill and delirious in their hovel
for nearly three weeks, perhaps longer. They didn't seem to know
apart from being the lowest kind of creatures, they were scared
stiff of me, and it wasn't until I'd prevailed on them to fetch
someone from a nearby village that I could get any notion of
what was happening. They finally drummed up an ancient
pensioner, who shied off as soon as he saw memy cavalry coat
and gear, and my filthy appearance must have marked me as a
mutineer par excellencebut before he could get out of the door
I had soothed him with my revolver, held in a shaky hand, and in
no time he was crouching beside my charpoy, babbling like the
man from Reuters, while the rest of his village peeped through
cracks in the walls, shivering.
Delhi had fallenhe had been there, and there had been a
terrible slaughter of sahibs, and all their folk. The King of Delhi
had been proclaimed and now ruled all India. It had been the
same everywhereMeerut, Bareilly, Aligarh, Etawah, Mainpuri
(all of which were within a hundred miles or so), the splendid
sepoys had triumphed all along the line, and soon every peasant
in the land would receive a rupee and a new chicken. (Sensation.)
The sahibs had tried to fall treacherously on the native soldiers at
* Pot, drinking cup.
i?7
Agra, Cawnpore and Lucknow, but there was no doubt that these
places would succumb also--two regiments of mutineers had
passed through his own village last night, with cannon, to assist
in the overthrow of Agra--everywhere there were dead sahibs,
obviously there would soon be none left in the world. Bombay
had risen, Afghan fighters were pouring in from the north, a
great Muslim jihad had been proclaimed, fort after fort of the
hated gora-log was going down, with fearful slaughter. Doubtless
I had already borne my part?--excellent, I would certainly be
rewarded with a nawab's throne and treasure and flocks of
amorous women. What less did I deserve? 3rd Cavalry, was I not?
Doughty fighters--he had been in the Bombay Sappers, himself,
thirty-one years' service, and not so much as a naik's stripes to
swell his miserable pinshun--aieee, it was time the mean, corrupt
and obscene Sirkar was swept away ...
Some of his news would be exaggerated bosh, of course, but I
couldn't judge how much, and I didn't doubt his information
about the local mutinies (which proved accurate enough, by the
way: half the stations between Meerut and Cawnpore had been
overrun by this time). Perhaps I was too ready to swallow his
gammon about Afghan invasion and Bombay being in flames--
but remember, I'd seen the stark, staring impossible happen at
Meerut--after that, anything was credible. After all, there was
only one British soldier in India for every fifty sepoys, to say
nothing of banditti, frontiersmen, dacoits, bazaar ruffians and the
like--dear God, if the thing spread there wasn't an earthly
damned reason why they shouldn't swallow every British garrison,
cantonment and residency from Khyber to Coromandel. And
it would spread--I didn't doubt it, as I sat numb and shaking on
my charpai.
Coward's reasoning, if you like, but I don't know any other
kind, thank heaven; at least it prepares you for the worst. And
there couldn't be much worse than my present situation, plumb
in the eye of the storm--damnation, of all the places to hide in,
what malign fate had taken me to Meerut? And how to get away?
--my native disguise was sound enough, but I couldn't skulk
round India forever as a footloose nigger. I'd have to find a British
garrison--a large, safe one. . . . Cawnpore? Not by a mile--the
158
whole Jumna valley seemed to be ablaze. North wasn't any good,
Delhi was gone and Agra on the brink. . . . South? Gwalior?
Jhansi? Indore? I found myself chattering the names aloud, and
repeating one over and over--"Jhansi, Jhansi!"
Now, you must remember I was in my normal state of great
pusillanimity, and half-barmy to boot, as a result of shock and
the clout I'd taken. Otherwise I'd never have dreamed of Jhansi,
two hundred and fifty miles away--but Ilderim was at Jhansi,
and if there was one thing certain in this dreadful world, it was
that he'd keep his tryst, and would either wait for me at Bull
Temple as he'd promised, or leave word. And Jhansi must be safe
--dammit, I'd spent weeks with its ruler, in civilised discussion
and hectic banging; she was a lovely, wonderful girl, and would
have her state well in hand, surely? Yes, Jhansi--it was madness,
and I know it now, but in my weak, feverish state it seemed the
only course at the time.
So south I went, talking to myself most of the time, and shying
away from everyone and everything except the meanest villages,
where I put in for provisions; I didn't stand on ceremony, but just
lurched in snarling and brandishing my Colt, kicking the cowed
inhabitants aside, and lifting whatever I fancied--I've never been
more grateful for my English public school upbringing than I was
then. Whether I was unlucky or not I don't know, but as I worked
my way south past Khurjah and Hathras and Firozabad, over the
river and down past Gohad to the Jhansi border, everything I
saw confirmed my worst fears. I must have skulked in the brush a
dozen times to avoid bands of sepoys--one of 'em a full regiment,
blow me, with colours and band tootling away, but plainly
mutineers from the din they made and the slovenly way they
marched. I know now that there were British-held towns and
stations along the way, and even bands of our cavalry scouring
the country, but I never ran across them. What I did see was a
sickening trail of death--bumed-out bungalows, looted villages,
bodies all swollen up and half-eaten by vultures and jackals. I
remember one little garden, beside a pretty house, and three
skeletons among the flowers--picked clean by ants, I daresay.
Two were full-grown, and one was a baby. Now and then I would
see smoke on the horizon, or over the trees, and crowds of
i!9
villagers fleeing with their miserable belongingsit was like the
end of the world to me, then, and if you'd known India you'd
have thought the sameimagine it in Kent or Hampshire, for
that's how it seemed to us.
Fortunately, thanks to my curiously light-headed condition,
my recollections of that wandering ride are not too clear; it
wasn't until the very morning that I came down out of the low
hills to Jhansi city, and saw the distant fort-crowned rock above
the town, that my mind seemed to give a little snapI remember
sitting my pony, with my brain clearing, understanding what I'd
done, and why I was here, breaking out in a sweat at my own
temerity, and then realising that I'd perhaps done the wise thing,
after all. It all looked peaceful enough, although I was on the
wrong side of the city to see the British cantonment; I decided to
lie up during the afternoon, and then slip into Bull Temple, which
was not far from the Jokan Bagh, a garden of little beehive temples
not far outside the town. If Ilderim's messenger wasn't there by
sundown, I'd scout the cantonment, and if all was well I'd ride in
and report myself to Skene.
The sun was just slipping away and the shadows lengthening
when I skirted the woods where Lakshmibai's pavilion laywho
knows, thinks I, perhaps we'll dance another Haymarket hornpipe
before longand came down to Bull Temple just after dusk. I
didn't see a soul as I came, but I was cheered by the sound of a
bugle-call in the distance, and I was pressing ahead more boldly
up towards the temple ruin when someone clicked his tongue in
the shadows, and I reined up sharply.
"Who goes there?" says I, fingering the Colt, and a man
lounged out, spreading his hands to show they were empty. He
was a Pathan, skull-cap and pyjamys and all, and as he came to
my horse's head I recognised the sowar who'd given me his gear
and pony when I'd left JhansiRafik Tamwar.
"Flashman busoor," says he, softly. "Ilderim said you would
come." And without another word he jerked his thumb towards
the temple itself, put his hands to his mouth, and hooted softly
like an owl; there was an answering hoot from the ruins, and
Tamwar nodded to me to go ahead.
"Ilderim is yonder," says he, and before I could ask him what
160
the devil it meant, he had dissolved into the shadows and I was
staring uneasily across the tangle of weeds and broken masonry
that marked the old temple garden; there was a glare of firelight
from the doorway in the half-fallen shell of the dome, and a man
was standing waiting--even at that distance I knew it was
Ilderim Khan, and a moment later I was face to bearded grinning
face with him, shaking with very relief as his one sound arm
clasped me round the shoulders--the other was bound up in a
sling--and he was chuckling in his throat and growling that I
must have a pact with Shaitan since I was alive to keep the
rendezvous.
"For we have heard of Meerut," says he, as he drew me in to
the fire, and the half-dozen sowars crouched round it made space
for us. "And Delhi, Aligarh and the rest--"
"But what the blazes are you doing here?" says I. "Since when
have irregular cavalry taken to bivouacking in ruins when they
have their own quarters?"
He stared at me, stopping in the act of throwing a billet on the
fire, and something in that look turned my blood to ice. They
were all staring at me; I glanced from one grim bearded face to
another, and in a voice suddenly hoarse I asked:
"What does it mean? Your officer--Henry sahib? Has anything--"

Ilderim threw the billet on the fire, and squatted down beside
me. "Henry sahib is dead, brother," says he quietly. "And Skene
sahib. And the Collector sahib. And all their women, and their
children also. They are all dead."
161
I can see it now as vividly as I saw it
then--the dark hawk-face silhouetted against the temple wall that
glowed ruddy in the firelight, and the bright stream of a tear on
his cheek. You don't often see a Pathan cry, but Ilderim Khan
cried as he told me what had happened at Jhansi.
"When the news came of Meerut, that black Hindoo bitch who
calls herself Maharani summoned Skene sahib, and says she
needs must enlarge her bodyguard, for the safety of her person
and the treasure in her palace. These being unquiet times. She
spoke very sweetly, and Skene, being young and foolish, gave her
what she wished--aye, he even said that we of the free cavalry
might serve her, and Kala Khan (may he rot in hell) took her salt
and her money, and two others with him. But most of her new
guard were the scum of the bazaar--badmashes and kliftiwaUahs* and street-comer ten-to-one assassins and the sweepings of the jail.
"Then, two weeks ago, there was stirring among the sepoys of
the i2th N.I., and chapattis and lotus flowers passed, and some
among them burned a bungalow by night. But the colonel sahib
spoke with them, and all seemed well, and a day and a night
passed. Then Faiz Ah and the false swine Kala Khan, with a
great rabble of sepoys and these new heroes of the Rani's guard,
fell on the Star Fort, and made themselves masters of the guns
and powder, and marched on the cantonment to put it to the fire,
but Skene sahib had warning from a true sepoy, and while some
dozen sahibs were caught and butchered by these vermin, the
rest escaped into the little Town Fort, and the mem-sahibs and
little ones with them, and made it good against the mutineers.
And for five days they held it--do I not know? For I was there,
with Rafik Tamwar and Shadman Khan and Muhammed Din,
whom you see here. And I took this--" he touched his wounded
arm "--the seventh time they tried to storm the wall."
* Thieves.
162
"They came like locusts," growls one of the sowars round the
fire. "And like locusts they were driven."
"Then the food was gone, and the water, and no powder
remained for the bundooks,"* says Ilderim. "And Skene sahib--
have ye seen a young man grow old in a week, brother?--said we
could hold no longer, for the children were like to die. So he sent
three men, under a white flag, to the Rani, to beg her help. And
she--she told them she had no concern for the English swine."
"I don't believe it," says I.
"Listen, brother--and believe, for I was one of the three, and
Muhammed Din here another, and we went with Murray sahib
to her palace gate. Him only they admitted, and flung us two in
a stinking pit, but they told us what passed afterwards--that she
had spumed Murray sahib, and afterwards he was racked to
pieces in her dungeon." He turned to stare at me with blazing
eyes. "I do not know--it is what I was told; only hear what
followed, and then--judge thou."
He stared into the fire, clenching and unclenching his fist, and
then went on:
"When no word went back to Skene sahib, and seeing the
townsfolk all comforting the mutineers, and jeering at his poor
few, he offered to surrender. And Kala Khan agreed, and they
opened the fort gates, and trusted to the mercy of the mutineers."
It was then I saw the tear run down into his beard; he didn't
look at me, but just continued gazing at the flames and speaking
very softly:
"They took them all--men, and women, and children--to the
Jokan Bagh, and told them they must die. And the women wept,
and threw themselves on their knees, and begged for the children's
lives--mem-sahibs, brother, you understand, such ladies as
you know of, grovelled at the boots of the filth of the bazaar.
I saw it!" He suddenly shouted. "And the untouchable scum--
these high-caste worms who call themselves men, and will shudder
away if a real man's shadow falls across their chattis--these
creatures laughed and mocked the mem-sahibs and kicked them
aside.
"I saw it--I, and Muhammed Din here, for they brought us
* Firearms.
163
out to the Jokan Bagh saying, 'See thy mighty sahibs; see thy
proud mem-sahibs who looked on us as dirt; see them crawl to us
before they die.'"
"There is a furnace thrice-heated waiting," says one of the
sowars. "Remember that, rissaldar sahib."
"If they burn forever it will not be hot enough," says Ilderim.
"They killed the sahibs first--the Collector sahib, Andrews
sahib--Gordon, Burgess, Taylor, Turnbull--all of them. They
held them in a row, and chopped them down with cleavers. Skene
sahib they slew last of all; he asked to embrace his wife, but they
laughed at him and struck him, and bade him kneel for the knife.
'I will die on my feet,' says he, 'with no regret save that I am
polluted by the touch of dishonoured lice like you. Strike, coward
--see, my hands are tied.' And Bakshish Alt, the jail daroga, cut
him down. And through all this they made the women and
children watch, crying 'See, thy husband's blood! See, baby, it is
thy father's head--ask him to kiss thee, baby!' And then they
killed the mem-sahibs, in another row, while the townsfolk
watched and cheered, and threw marigolds at the executioners.
And Skene mem-sahib said to Faiz All, 'If it pleases you, you may
burn me alive, or do what you will, if you will spare the children.'
But they threw dirt in her face, and swore the children should
die."
One of the sowars says: "There will be a red thread round her
wrist, as for a Ghazi."
"And I," says Ilderim, "fought like a tiger and foamed and
swore as they held me. And I cried out: 'Shabash, mem-sahib!'
and 'Heep-heep-heep-hoora', as the sahibs do, to comfort her. And
they cut her down." He was crying openly now, his mouth
working. "And then they took the children--twenty of them--
little children, that cried out and called for their dead mothers,
and they cut them all in pieces, with axes and butchers' knives.
And there they left them all, in the Jokan Bagh, without burial."28
Hearing something, however horrible, can never be as ghastly
as seeing it; the mind may take it in, but mercifully the imagination
can't. Even while I shuddered and felt sickened, listening, I
couldn't conjure up the hideous scene he was describing--all
I could think of was McEgan's jolly red face as he told his awful
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jokes, and little Mrs Skene so anxious in case her dress was wrong
for the Collector's dinner, and Andrews talking about Keats's
poetry, and Skene saying it wasn't a patch on Burns, and that
dainty little Wilton girl singing "bobbity-bobbity-bob" along with
me and laughing till she was breathless. It didn't seem possible
they were all dead--cut down like beasts in a slaughterhouse.
Yet what shocked me most, I think, was to see that great Gilzai
warrior, whom you could have roasted alive and got nothing but
taunts and curses, sobbing like a child. There was nothing to say;
after a moment I asked him how he came to be still alive.
"They put Muhammed and me in the jail, with promises of
death by torture, but these others of my troop broke us out at
night, and we escaped. Until yesterday we hid in the woods, but
then the mutineers departed. God knows whither, and we came
here. Shadman and two others have gone for horses; we wait for
them--and for thee, brother." He wiped his face and forced a
grin, and gripped me by the shoulder.
"But the Rani, then?"
"God send that fair foulness a lover made of red-hot metal to
bed her through eternity," says he, and spat. "She is in her
citadel yonder, while Kala Khan marshals her guard on the
maidan--perchance ye heard his bugles?--and sends out for levies
to raise her an army. For why?--hear this and laugh. Some of the
mutineers chose Sadasheo Rao of Parola as their leader--he has
taken Karera Fort, and calls himself Raja of Jhansi in defiance of
her." He laughed harshly. "They say she will crucify him with
his own bayonets--God send she does. Then she will march
against Kathe Khan and the Dewan of Orcha, to bring them
under her pretty heel. Oh, an enterprising lady, this Rani, who
knows how to take advantage of a world upside down--and
meanwhile they say she sends messages to the British protesting
her loyalty to the Sirkar--rot her for a lying, faithless, female
pi-dog!"
"Maybe she is," says I. "Loyal, I mean. Very well, I don't
doubt your story, or what you saw and were told--but, look
here, Ilderim. I know something of her--and while I'll allow she's
deep, I'U not credit that she would have children slaughtered--it
isn't in her. Do you know for a fact that she joined the mutineers,
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or encouraged them--or could have prevented them?" The fact is,
I didn't want to believe she was an enemy, you see.
Ilderim glanced at me witheringly, and bit his nail in scorn.
"Bloody Lance," says he, "ye may be the bravest rider in the
British Army, and God knows thou art no fool--but with women
thou art a witless infant. Thou hast coupled this Hindoo slut, hast
thou not?"
"Damn your impudence--"
"I thought as much. Tell me, blood-brother, how many women
hast thou covered, in thy time?" And he winked at his mates.
"What the devil d'you mean?" I demanded.
"How many? Come, as a favour to thy old friend."
"Eh? What's it to you, dammit? Oh, well, let's see ... there's
the wife, and ... er... and, ah--"
"Aye--ye have fornicated more times than I have passed
water," says this elegant fellow. "And just because they let thee
have thy way, didst thou trust them therefore? Because they were
beautiful or lecherous--wert thou fool enough to think it made
them honest? Like enough. This Rani has beglamoured thee--
well then, go thou up and knock on her palace gate tonight, and
cry 'Beloved, let me in.' I shall stand under the wall to catch the
pieces."
When he put it that way, of course, it was ridiculous. Whether
she was loyal or not--and I could hardly credit that she wasn't--
it didn't seem quite the best time to test the matter, with her
state running over at the edges with mutineers. Good God, was
there nowhere safe in this bloody country? Delhi, Meerut, Jhansi
--how many garrisons remained, I asked Ilderim, and told him
the stories I'd heard, and the sights I'd seen, on my way south.
"No one knows," says he grimly. "But be sure the sepoys have
not won, as they would have the world believe. They have made
the land between Ganges and Jumna a ruin of fire and blood, and
gone undefeated--as yet. They range the country in strength--
but already there is word that the British are marching on Delhi,
and bands of sahibs who escaped when their garrisons were overthrown
are riding abroad in growing numbers. Not only men
who have lost their regiments, but civilian sahibs also. The Sirkar
still has teeth--and there are garrisons that hold out in strength.
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Cawnpore for one--a bare four days* ride from here. They say the
old General Wheeler sahib is in great force there, and has shattered
an army of sepoys and badmashes. When Shadman brings
our horses, it is there we will ride."
"Cawnpore?" I almost squeaked the word in consternation, for
it was back in the dirty country with a vengeance. Having come
out of that once, I'd no wish to venture in again.
"Where else?" says he. "There is no safer road from Jhansi.
Farther south ye dare not go, for there are few sahib places, and
no great garrisons. Nor are there to the west. Over the Jumna the
country may be hot with mutineers, but it is where thine own
folk are--and they are mine, too, and my lads'."
I looked at the ugly villains round the fire, hard-bitten frontier
rough-necks to a man in their dirty old poshteens and the big
Khyber knives in their belts--by George, I'd be a sight safer
going north again in their company than striking out anywhere
else on my own. What IIderim said was probably true, too;
Cawnpore and the other river strongholds would be where our
generals would concentrate--I could get back among my own
kind, and shed this filthy beard and sepoy kit and feel civilised
again. Wouldn't have to spin any nonsense about why I'd disappeared
from Jhansi, either, in supposed pursuit of Ignatieff--
my God, I'd forgotten him entirely, and the Thugs, and all the
rest. My mission to Jhansi--Pam and his cakes and warnings--it
was all chaff in the wind now, forgotten in this colossal storm
that was sweeping through India. No one was going to fret about
where I'd sprung from, or what I'd been doing. I felt my spirits
rising by the minute--when I thought of the escape I'd had,
leaving Jhansi in the first place, I could say that even my horrible
experience at Meerut had been worth while.
That's another thing about being a windy beggar--if you scare
easily, you usually cheer up just as fast when the danger is past.
Well, not past yet, perhaps--but at least I was with friends again,
and by what IIderim said the Mutiny wasn't by any means such
a foregone thing as I'd imagined--why, once our people got their
second wind, it would be the bloody rebels who'd be doing the
running, no doubt, with Flashy roaring on the pursuit from a
safe distance. And I might have been rotting out yonder with the
167
others at Jokan Bagh--I shuddered at the ghastly memory of
Ilderim's story--or burned alive with the Dawsons at Meerut.
By Jove, things weren't so bad after all.
"Right," says I. "Cawnpore let it be." How was I to know I
was almost speaking my own epitaph?
In the meantime, I had one good night's sleep, feeling safe for
the first time in weeks with Ilderim's rascals around me, and next
day we just lay up in the temple ruins while one sowar went to
scout for Shadman Khan, who was meant to be out stealing
horses for us. It was the rummest fix to be in, for all day we
could hear the bugles tootling out on the plain where the Rani's
army was mustering for her own private little wars with Jhansi's
neighbours; Ilderim reported in the evening that she had
assembled several hundred foot soldiers, and a few troops of
Maharatta riders, as well as half a dozen guns--not a bad beginning,
in a troubled time, but of course with a treasury like
Jhansi's she could promise regular pay for her soldiers, as well as
the prospect of Orcha's loot when she had dealt with the Dewan.
With the second dawn came Shadman himself, cackling at his
own cleverness: he and his pals had laid hands on six horses
already, they were snug in a thicket a couple of miles from the
town, and he had devised a delightful plan for getting another
half dozen mounts as well.
"The Hindoo bitch needs riders," says he. "So I marched into
her camp on the maidan this afternoon and offered my services. 'I can find six old Company sowars who will ride round Jehannum
and back for a rupee a day and whatever spoil the campaign
promises,' says I to the noseless pig who is master of her cavalry,
'if ye have six good beasts to put under them.' 'We have horses
and to spare,' says he, 'bring me your six sowars and they shall
have five rupees a man down payment, and a carbine and
embroidered saddle-cloth apiece.' I beat him up to ten rupees each
--so tomorrow let six of us join her cavalry, and at nightfall we
shall unjoin, and meet thee, rissaldar, and all ride off rejoicing. Is
it not a brave scheme--and will cost this slut of a Rani sixty
rupees as well as her steeds and furniture?"
There's nothing as gleeful as a Pathan when he's doing the
dirty; they slapped their knees in approval and five of them went
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off with him that afternoon. Ilderim and I and the remaining
three waited until nightfall, and then set off on foot to the
thicket where we were to rendezvous; there were the first six
horses and a sowar waiting, and round about midnight Shadman
and his companions came clattering out of the dark to join us,
crowing with laughter. Not only had they lifted the six horses,
they bad cut the lines of a score more, slit the throat of the
cavalry-master as he lay asleep, and set fire to the fodder-store,
just to keep the Rani's army happy.
"Well enough," growls Ilderim, when he had snarled them to
silence. "It will do--till we ride to Jhansi again, some day. There
is a debt to pay, at the Jokan Bagh. Is there not, blood-brother?"
He gripped my shoulder for a moment as we sat our mounts
under the trees, and the others fell in two by two behind us. In
the distance, very black against the starlit purple of the night
sky, was the outline of the Jhansi fortress with the glow of the
city beneath it; Ilderim was staring towards it bright-eyed--I
remember that moment so clearly, with the warm gloom and the
smell of Indian earth and horse-flesh, the creak of leather and the
soft stamping of the beasts. I was thinking of the horror that lay
in the Jokan Bagh--and of that lovely girl, in her mirrored palace
yonder with its swing and soft carpets and luxurious furniture,
and trying to make myself believe that they belonged in the same
world.
"It will take more than one dead rebel and a few horses to settle
the score for Skene sahib and the others," says he. "Much more.
So--to Cawnpore? Walk-march, trot!"
He had said it was a bare four days' ride, but it took us that
long to reach the Jumna above Haminpur, for on my advice we
steered clear of the roads, and kept to the countryside, where we
sighted nothing bigger than villages and poor farms. Even there,
though, there was ample sign of the turbulence that was sweeping
the land; we passed hamlets that were just smoking, blackened
ruins, with buzzing carcases, human and animal, lying where
they had been shot down, or strung up to branches; and several
times we saw parties of mutineers on the march, all heading
north-east like ourselves. That was enough to set me wondering
if I wasn't going in the wrong direction, but I consoled myself
169
that there was safety in numbers--until the morning of the fourth
day, when Ilderim aroused me in a swearing passion with the
news that eight of our party had slipped off in the night, leaving
only the two of us with Muhammed Din and Rank Tamwar.
"That faithless thieving, reiving son of a Kabuli whore. Shadman
Khan, has put them up to this!" He was livid with rage.
"He and that other dung-beetle Asaf Yakub had the dawn watch
--they have stolen off and left us, and taken the food and fodder
with them!"
"You mean they've gone to join the mutineers?" I cried.
"Not they! We would never have woken again if that had
been their aim. No--they will be off about their trade, which is
loot and murder! I should have known! Did I not see Shadman
licking his robber's lips when we passed the sacked bungalows
yesterday? He and the others see in this broken countryside a
chance to fill their pockets, rather than do honest service according
to their salt. They will live like the bandits they were before
the Sirkar enlisted them in an evil hour, and when they have
ravaged and raped their fill they will be off north to the frontier
again. They have not even the stomach to be honest mutinsers!"
And he spat and stamped, raging.
"Never trust an Afridi," says Tamwar philosophically. "I
knew Shadman was a badmash the day he joined. At least they
have left us our horses."
That was little consolation to me as we saddled up; with eleven
hardy riders round me I'd felt fairly secure, but now that they
were reduced to three--and only one of those really trustworthy
--I fairly had the shakes again. However, having come this far
there was nothing for it but to push on; we weren't more than a
day's ride from Cawnpore by my reckoning, and once we were
behind Wheeler's lines we would be safe enough. My chief
anxiety was that the closer we got, the more likely we would be
to find mutineers in strength, and this was confirmed when, a
few hours after sun-up, we heard, very faint in the distance, the
dull thump of gunfire. We had stopped to water our beasts at a
tank beside the road, which at that point was enclosed by fairly
thick forest either side; Ilderim's head came up sharp at the
sound.
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"Cawnpore!" says he. "Now what shall that shooting mean?
Can Wheeler sahib be under siege? Surely"
Before I could reply there was a sudden drumming of hooves,
and round a bend in the road not two hundred yards ahead came
three horsemen, going like hell's delight; I barely had time to
identify them as native cavalrymen of some sort, and therefore
probably mutineers, when into view came their pursuersand I
let out a yell of delight, for out in the van was an undoubted
white officer, with his sabre out and view-hallooing like a good
'un. At his heels came a motley gang of riders, but I hadn't time
to examine themI was crouched down at the roadside with my
Colt out, drawing a bead on the foremost fugitive. I let blaze, and
his horse gave a gigantic bound and crashed down, thrashing in
the dust; his two companions swung off to take to the woods, but
one of the mounts stumbled and threw its rider, and only the
other won to the safety of the trees, with a group of the pursuers
crashing after him.
The others pounced on the two who'd come to grief, while I ran
towards them, yelling:
"Hurrah! Bravo, you fellows! It's me, Flashman! Don't shoot!"
I could see now that they were Sikh cavalry, mostly, although
there were 'at least half a dozen white faces among them, staring
at me as I came running up; suddenly one of them, with a cry of
warning, whips out his revolver and covers me.
"Don't move" he bawls. "Drop that pistolsharp, now!"
"No, no!" cries I. "You don't understand! I'm a British officer!
Colonel Flashman!"
"The devil you are!" He stared from me to Ilderim, who had
come up behind me. "You look like it, don't you? And who the
hell is hethe Duke of Cambridge?"
"He's a rissaldar of irregular cavalry. And I, old fellow, believe
it or not, beneath this fine beard and homely native garb, am
Colonel Harry Paget Flashmanof whom I dare say you've
heard?" I was positively burbling with relief as I held out my
hand to him.
"You look bloody like a pandy* to me," says he. "Keep your
distance!"
* Mutineer (see Note 21).
iji
"Well, you don't exactly look straight from Horse Guards
yourself, you know," says I, laughing. None of them did; apart
from the Sikhs, who were a fairly wild-looking bunch, his white
companions were the oddest crowd, in bits and pieces of uniform
from half a dozen regiments, with their gear slung any old how.
Some had puggarees, some helmets, and one fat chap with a white
beard had a straw hat and frock coat; they were all dirty and
unshaven after weeks in the saddle, and the only thing uniform
about them was that they were fairly bristling with weapons--
pistols, carbines, swords, knives in their belts, and one or two
with pig spears.
"May I ask who I have the honour of addressing?" says I, as
they crowded up. "And if you have a commanding officer, perhaps
you might convey my compliments to him."
That impressed him, although he still looked suspicious.
"Lieutenant Cheeseman, of Rowbotham's Mosstroopers," says
he. "But if you're one of us, what the dooce are you going about
dressed as a nigger for?"
"You say you're Flashman?" says another--he was wearing a
pith helmet and spectacles, and what looked like old cricket
flannels tucked into his top-boots. "Well, if you are--an' I must
say you don't look a bit like him--you ought to know me. Because
Harry Flashman stood godfather to my boy at Lahore in '42
--what's my name, eh?"
I had to close my eyes and think--it had been on my triumphal
progress south after the Jalallabad business. An Irish name--yes,
by God, it was unforgettable.
"O'Toole!" says I. "You did me the honour of having your
youngster christened Flashman O'Toole--I trust he's well?"
"By God I did!" says he, staring. "It must be him, Cheeseman!
Here, where's Colonel Rowbotham?"
I confess I was curious myself--Rowbotham's Mosstroopers
was a new one on me, and if their commander was anything
like his followers he must be a remarkable chap. There was a
great rumpus going on in the road behind the group who surrounded
me, and I saw that one of the fugitives was being
dragged up between two of the Sikhs, and thrown forward in
the dust before one of the riders, who was leaning down from
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his saddle looking at the still form of the fellow whose horse I'd
shot.
"Why, this one's dead!" he exclaimed, peevishly. "Of all the
confounded bad luck! Hold on to that other scoundrel, there!
Here, Cheeseman, what have you got--is it some more of the
villains?"
He rode over the dead man, glaring at me, and I don't think
I've ever seen an angrier-looking man in my life. Everything
about him was raging--his round red face, his tufty brindle eyebrows,
his bristling sandy whiskers, even the way he clenched
his crop, and when he spoke his harsh, squeaky voice seemed to
shake with suppressed wrath. He was short and stout, and sat his
pony like a hog on a hurdle; his pith helmet was wrapped in a
long puggaree, and he wore a most peculiar loose cape, like an
American poncho, clasped round with a snake-clasp belt. Altogether
a most ridiculous sight, but there was nothing funny
about the pale, staring eyes, or the way his mouth worked as he
considered me.
"Who's this?" he barked, and when Cheeseman told him, and
O'Toole, who had been eyeing me closely, said he believed I was
Flashman after all, he growled suspiciously and demanded to
know why I was skulking about dressed as a native, and where
had I come from. So I told him, briefly, that I was a political,
lately from Jhansi, where I and my three followers had escaped
the massacre.
"What's that you say?" cries he. "Massacre--at Jhansi?" And
the others crowded their horses round, staring and exclaiming,
while I reported what had happened to Skene and the rest--even
as I told it, I was uncomfortably aware of something not quite
canny in the way they listened: it was a shocking story enough,
but there was an excitement about them, in the haggard faces
and the bright eyes, as though they had some fever, that I
couldn't account for. Usually, when Englishmen listen to a dreadful
tale, they do it silently, at most with signs of disgust or disbelief,
but this crowd stirred restlessly in their saddles, muttering
and exclaiming, and when I'd finished the little chap burst into
tears, gritting his teeth and shaking his crop.
"God in Heaven!" cries he. "Will it never cease? How many
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innocents--twenty children, you say? And all the women? My
God!" He rocked in his saddle, dashing the tears away, while his
companions groaned and shook their fists--it was an astonishing
sight, those dozen scarecrows who looked as though they'd fought
a long campaign in fancy-dress costume, swearing and addressing
heaven; it occurred to me that they weren't quite right in the
head. Presently the little chap regained his composure, and
turned to me.
"Your pardon, colonel," says he, and if his voice was low it
was shaking with emotion. "This grievous news--this shocking
intelligence--it makes me forget myself. Rowbotham, James Kane
Rowbotham, at your service; these are my mosstroopers--my
column of volunteer horse, sir, banded after the rebellion at Delhi,
and myself commissioned by Governor Colvin at Agra."
"Commissioned ... by a civilian?" It sounded deuced odd, but
then he and his gang looked odd. "I gather, sir, that you ain't...
er. Army?"
He flew up at that. "We are soldiers, sir, as much as you! A
month ago I was a doctor, at Delhi..." His mouth worked again,
and his tongue seemed to be impeding his speech. "My . . . my
wife and son, sir ... lost in the uprising . . . murdered. These
gentlemen ... volunteers, sir, from Agra and Delhi... merchants,
lawyers, officials, people of all classes. Now we act as a mobile
column, because there are no regular cavalry to be spared from
the garrisons; we strive to keep the road open between Agra and
Cawnpore, but since the mutineers are now before Cawnpore in
force, we scour the country for news of their movements and fall
on them when we can. Vermin!" He choked, glaring round, and
his eye fell on the prisoner, prone in the dust with a Sikh keeping
a foot on his neck. "Yes!" cries he, "we may not be soldiers, sir,
in your eyes, but we have done some service in putting down this
abomination! Oh, yes! You'll see--you'll see for yourself! Cheeseman!
How many have we now?"
"Seven, sir, counting this one." Cheeseman nodded at the
prisoner. "Here comes Fields with the others now."
What I took to be the rest of Rowbotham's remarkable regiment
was approaching down the road at a brisk trot, a dozen
Sikhs and two Englishmen in the same kind of outlandish rig as
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the others. Running or staggering behind, their wrists tied to the
Sikhs' stirrup-leathers, were half a dozen niggers in the last stages
of exhaustion; three or four of them were plainly native infantrymen,
from their coats and breeches.
"Bring them up here!" cries Rowbotham violently, and when
they had been untied and ranged in a straggled line in front of
him, he pointed to the trees behind them. "Those will do excellently--get
the ropes, Cheeseman! Untie their hands, and put
them under the branches." He was bouncing about in his saddle
in excitement, and there were little flecks of spittle among the
stubble of his chin. "You'll see, sir," says he to me. "You'll see
how we deal with these filthy butchers of women and children!
It has been our custom to hang them in groups of thirteen, as an
appropriate warning--but this news of Jhansi which you bring--
this new horror--makes it necessary... makes it necessary...."
He broke off incoherently, twisting the reins in his hands. "We
must make an immediate example, sir! This cancer of mutiny ...
what? Let these serve as a sacrifice to those dead innocent spirits
so cruelly released at Jhansi!"
He wasn't mad, I'd decided; he was just an ordinary little man
suddenly at war. I've seen it scores of times. He had reason, too;
I, who had been at Meerut and Jhansi, was the last to deny that.
His followers were the same; while the Sikhs threw lines over the
branches, they sat and stared their hatred at the prisoners; I
glanced along and noted the bright eyes, the clenched teeth, the
tongues moistening the lips, and thought to myself, you've taken
right smartly to nigger-killing, my boys. Well, good luck to you;
you'll make the pandies sorry they ever broke ranks before you're
done.
They didn't look sorry at the moment, mind, just sullen as the
Sikhs knotted the ropes round their necks--except for one of
them, a fat scoundrel in a ditoti who shrieked and struggled and
blubbered and even broke free for a moment and flung himself
grovelling before Rowbotham until they dragged him back again.
He collapsed in the dust, beating the earth with his hands and
feet while the others stood resigned; Cheeseman says:
"Shall we put 'em on horses, sir--makes it quicker?"
"No!" cries Rowbotham. "How often must I tell you--I do
i7?
not wish to make it quicker for these... these villains! They are
being hanged as a punishment, Mr Cheeseman--it is not my
design to make it easy for them! Let them suffer--and the longer
the better! Will it atone for the atrocities they have wrought?
No, not if they were flayed alive! You hear that, you rascals?"
He shook his fist at them. "You know now the price of mutiny
and murder--in a moment you shall pay it, and you may thank
whatever false God you worship that you obtain a merciful death
--you who did not scruple to torture and defile the innocent!"
He was raving by now, with both hands in the air, and then he
noticed again the dead fellow lying in the road, and roared to the
Sikhs to string him up as well, so that they should all hang
together as a token of justice. While they were manhandling the
corpse he rode along behind the prisoners, examining each knot jealously, and then, so help me, he whipped off his hat and began
to pray aloud, beseeching a Merciful God, as he put it, to witness
what just retribution they were meting out in His name, and
putting in a word for the condemned, although he managed to
convey that a few thousand years in hell wouldn't do them any
harm.
Then he solemnly told the Sikhs to haul away, and they tailed
on the ropes and swung the pandies into the air, the fat one
screeching horribly. He wasn't a mutineer, I was certain, but it
probably wouldn't have been tactful to mention that just then.
The others gasped and thrashed about, clutching at their halters
--now I saw why they hadn't tied their hands, for three of them
managed to clutch the ropes and haul themselves up, while the
others choked and turned blue and presently hung there, twitching and swaying gently in the sunlight. Everyone was craning to
watch the struggles of the three who had got their hands on the
ropes, pulling themselves up to take the choking strain off their
necks; they kicked and screamed now, swinging wildly to and
fro; you could see their muscles quivering with the appalling
strain.
"Five to one on the Rajput," says O'Toole, fumbling in his
pockets.
"Gammon," says another. "He's no stayer; I'll give evens on
the little 'un--less weight to support, you see."
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"Neither of 'em's fit to swing alongside that artillery havildar we caught near Barthana," says a third. "Remember, the one old
T.K. found hiding under the old woman's charpoy. I thought he'd
hang on forever--how long was it. Cheese? "
"Six and a half minutes," says Cheeseman. He had his foot
cocked up on his saddle and was scribbling in a notebook. "That's
eighty-six, by the way, with today's batch--" he nodded towards
the struggling figures. "Counting the three shot last night, but
not the ones we killed in the Mainpuri road ambush. Should
knock up our century by tomorrow night, with luck."
"I say, that's not bad--hollo, O'Toole, there goes your Rajput!
Bad luck, old son--five chips, what? Told you my bantam was
the form horse, didn't I?"
"Here--he'll be loose in a moment, though! Look!" O'Toole
pointed to the small sepoy, who had managed to pull himself well
up his rope, getting his elbow in the bight of it, and was tugging
at the noose with his other hand. One of the Sikhs sprang up to
haul at his ankles, but Rowbotham barked an order and then,
drawing his revolver, took careful aim and shot the sepoy through
the body. The man jerked convulsively and then fell, his head
snapping back as the rope tightened; someone laughed and sang
out "Shame!" while another huzzaed, and then they all had their
pistols out, banging away at the hanging figures which twitched
and swung under the impact of the bullets.
"Take that, you bastard!" "There--that's for little Jane! And
that--and that!" "How d'ye like it now, you black pig of a
mutineer? I wish you had fifty lives to blow away!" "Die, damn
you--and roast in hell!" "That's for Johnson--that's for Mrs Fox
--that, that, and that for the Prices!" They wheeled their mounts
under the corpses, which were running with blood now, blasting
at them pointblank.
"Too bloody good for 'em!" cries the white-bearded chap in the
straw hat, as he fumbled feverishly to reload. "The colonel's right
--we ought to be flaying 'em alive, after what they've done! Take
that, you devil! Or burning the brutes. I say, J.K., why ain't we
burnin' 'em?" ''
They banged away, until Rowbotham called a halt, and their
frenzy died down; the smoking pistols were put away, and the
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column fell in, with the flies buzzing thickly over the eight
growing pools of blood beneath the bodies. I wasn't surprised to
see the riders suddenly quiet now, their excitement all spent;
they sat heavy in their saddles, breathing deeply, while Cheeseman
checked their dressing. It's the usual way, with civilians
suddenly plunged into war and given the chance to kill; for the
first time, after years spent pushing pens and counting pennies,
they're suddenly free of all restraint, away from wives and
families and responsibility, and able to indulge their animal
instincts. They go a little crazy after a while, and if you can
convince 'em they're doing the Lord's work, they soon start
enjoying it. There's nothing like a spirit of righteous retribution
for kindling cruelty in a decent, kindly, God-fearing man--I, who
am not one, and have never needed any virtuous excuse for my
bestial indulgences, can tell you that. Now, having let off steam,
they were sated, and some a little shocked at themselves, just as if
they'd been whoring for the first time--which, of course, was
something they'd never have dreamed of doing, proper little
Christians that they were. If you ask me what I think of what
I'd just witnessed--well, personally, I'd have backed O'Toole's
Rajput, and lost my money.
However, now that the bloody assizes was over, and Rowbotham
and his merry men were ready to take the road again, I
was able to get back to the business in hand, which was getting
myself safely into Cawnpore. Fortunately they were headed that
way themselves, since two weeks spent slaughtering pandies in
the countryside had exhausted their forage and ammunition (the
way they shot up corpses, I wasn't surprised). But when, as we
rode along, I questioned Rowbotham about how the land lay, and
what the cannonading to the north signified, I was most disagreeably
surprised by his answer; it couldn't have been much worse
news.
Cawnpore was under siege, right enough, and had been for two
weeks. It seemed that Wheeler, unlike most commanders, had
seen the trouble coming; he didn't trust his sepoys a damned
inch, and as soon as he heard of the Meerut rising he'd prepared
a big new, fortification in barracks on the eastern edge of Cawnpore
city, with entrenchments and guns, so that if his four native
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regiments mutinied he could get inside it with every British
civilian and loyal rifle in the place. He knew that the city itself,
a great straggling place along the Ganges, was indefensible, and
that he couldn't have hoped to secure the great numbers of white
civilians, women and children and all, unless he packed them
into his new stronghold, which was by the racecourse, and had a
good level field of fire all round.
So when the pandies did mutiny, there he was, all prepared,
and for a fortnight he'd been giving them their bellyful, in spite
of the fact that the mutineers had been reinforced by the local
native prince, Nana Dondu Pant Sahib, who'd turned traitor at
the last minute. Rowbotham hadn't the least doubt that the place
would hold; rumours had reached him that help was already on
its way, from Lucknow, forty miles to the north, and from
Allahabad, which lay farther off, east along the Ganges.
This was all very well, but we were going to have to run the
gauntlet to get inside, as I pointed out; wouldn't it be better to
skirt the place and make for Lucknow, which by all accounts
was still free from mutiny? He wouldn't have that, though; his
troops needed supplies badly, and in the uncertain state of the
country he must make for the nearest British garrison. Besides, he
anticipated no difficulty about getting in; his Sikhs had already
scouted the pandy besiegers, and while they were in great
strength there was no order about their lines, and plenty of places
to slip through. He'd even got a message in to Wheeler, giving
him a time and signal for our arrival, so that we could win to the
entrenchment without any danger of being mistaken for the
enemy.
For a sawbones he was a most complete little bandolero, I'll
say that for him, but what he said gave me the blue fits straight
off. Plainly, I'd jumped from the Jhansi frying-pan into the Cawnpore
fire, but what the devil could I do about it? From what
Rowbotham said, there wasn't a safe bolt-hole between Agra and
Allahabad; no one knew how many garrisons were still holding,
and those that were couldn't offer any safer refuge than Cawnpore;
I daren't try a run for Lucknow with Ilderim (God knew
what state it might be in when we got there). A rapid, fearful
calculation convinced me that there wasn't a better bet than to
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stick with this little madman, and pray to God he knew what he
was doing. After all, Wheeler was a good man--I'd known him
in the Sikh war--and Rowbotham was positive he'd hold out
easily and be relieved before long.
"And that will be the end of this wicked, abominable insurrection,"
says he, when we made camp that night ten miles closer
to Cawnpore, with the distant northern sky lighting to the flashes
of gunfire, rumbling away unceasingly. "We know that our
people are already investing Delhi, and must soon break down
the rebel defences and pull that unclean creature who calls himself
King off his traitor's throne--that will be to root out the
mischief at its heart. Then, when Lawrence moves south from
Lucknow, and our other forces push up the river, this nest of
rebels about Cawnpore will be trapped; destroy them, and the
thing is done. Then it will only remain to restore order, and visit
a merited punishment upon these scoundrels; they must be
taught such a lesson as will never be forgotten--aye, if we have
to destroy them by tens of thousands--" he was away again on
that fine, rising bray which reminded me of the hangings that
afternoon; his troopers, round the camp-fire, growled enthusiastically
"--hundreds of thousands, even. Nothing less will serve if
this foulness is to be crushed once for all. Mercy will be folly--it
will be construed as mere weakness."
This sermon provoked a happy little discussion on whether,
when all the mutineers had been rounded up, they should be
blown from guns, or hanged, or shot. Some favoured burning
alive, and others flogging to death; the chap in the straw hat was
strong for crucifixion, I remember, but another fellow thought
that would be blasphemous. They got quite heated about it--and
before you throw up your hands in pious horror, remember that
many of them had seen their own families butchered in the kind
of circumstances I'd witnessed myself at Meerut, and were thirsting
to pay the pandies back with interest, which was reasonable
enough. Also, they were convinced that if they didn't make a
dreadful example, it would lead to more outbreaks, and the
slaughter of every white person in India--the fear of that, and
the knowledge of the kind of wantonly cruel foe they were up
against, hardened them as nothing else could have done.
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It was all one to me, I may say; I was too anxious about coming
safe into Cawnpore to worry about how they disposed of the
mutineers--it seemed a trifle premature to me. They were the
rummest lot, though; when they'd tired of devising means of
execution they got into a great argument about whether hacking
and carrying should be allowed in football, and as I was an old
Rugby boy my support was naturally enlisted by the hackers--
it must have been the strangest sight, when I come to think of it,
me in my garb of hairy Pathan with poshteen and puggaree,
maintaining that if you did away with scrimmaging you'd be
ruining the manliest game there was (not that I'd go near a
scrimmage if you paid me), and the white-bearded wallah, with
the blood splashes still on his coat, denouncing the handling
game as a barbarism. Most of the others joined in, on one side or
the other, but there were some who sat apart brooding, reading
their Bibles, sharpening their weapons, or just muttering to themselves;
it wasn't a canny company, and I can get the shivers
thinking about them now.
They could soldier, though; how Rowbotham had licked them
into shape in less than a month (and where he'd got the genius
from) beat me altogether, but you never saw anything more
workmanlike than the way they disposed their march next day,
with flank riders and scouts, a twenty-pound forage bag behind
each saddle, all their gear and arms padded with cloth so that they
didn't jingle, and even leather night-shoes for the horses slung on
their cruppers. Pencherjevsky's Cossacks and Custer's scalphunters
couldn't have made a braver show than that motley gang
of clerks and counter-jumpers that followed Rowbotham to Cawnpore.
We
were coming in from the east, and since the pandy army
was all concentrated close to Wheeler's stronghold and in the city
itself, we got within two or three miles before Rowbotham said
we must lie up in a wood and wait for dark. Before then, by the
way, we'd pounced on an outlying pandy picket in a grove and
killed two of them, taking three more prisoner: they were strung
up on the spot. Two more stragglers were caught farther on, and
since there wasn't a tree handy Rowbotham and the Sikh
rissaldar cut their heads off. The Sikh settled his man with one
181
swipe, but Rowbotham took three; he wasn't much with a sabre.
(Ninety-three not out, as Cheeseman put it.)
We lay up in the stuffy, sweltering heat of the wood all afternoon,
listening to the incessant thunder of the cannonading; one
consolation was the regular crash of the artillery salvoes, which
indicated that Wheeler's gunners were making good practice, and
must still be well stocked with powder and shot. Even after nightfall
they still kept cracking away, and one of the Sikhs, who had
wormed his way up to within a quarter-mile of the entrenchment,
reported that he had heard Wheeler's sentries singing out "All's
well!" regular as clockwork.
About two in the morning Rowbotham called us together and
gave his orders. "There is a clear way to the Allahabad road,"
says he, "but before we reach it we must bear right to come in
behind the rebel gun positions, no more than half a mile from
the entrenchment. At precisely four o'clock I shall fire a rocket,
on which we shall burst out of cover and ride for the entrenchment
at our uttermost speed; the sentries, having seen our rocket,
will pass us through. The word is 'Britannia'. Now, remember,
for your lives, that our goal lies to the left of the church, so keep
that tower always to your right front. Our rush will take us past
the racecourse and across the cricket pitch--"
"Oh, I say!" says someone. "Mind the wicket, though."
"--and then we must put our horses to the entrenchment bank,
which is four feet high. Now, God bless us all, and let us meet
again within the lines or in Heaven."
That's just the kind of pious reminder of mortality I like, I
must say; while the rest of 'em were shaking hands in the dark
I was carefully instructing Dderim that at all costs he must stick
by my shoulder. I was in my normal state of chattering funk, and
my spirits weren't raised as we were filing out of the wood and I
heard someone whisper:
"I say. Jinks, what's the time?"
"Ten past three," says Jinks, "on the bright summer morning
of June the twenty-second--and lets hope to God we see the
twenty-third."
June twenty-third; I knew that date--and suddenly I was back
in the big panelled room at Balmoral, and Pam was saying
182
"... the Raj will come to an end a hnndred years after the battle
of Plassey . . . next June twenty-third." By George, there was an
omen for you! And now all round was the gloom, and the soft
pad of the walking horses, and the reins sweating in my palms as
we advanced interminably, my eyes glued to the faint dark shape
of the rider ahead; there was a mutter of voices as we halted, and
then we waited in the stifling dark between two rows of ruined
houses--five minutes, ten, fifteen, and then a voice called "Ready, all!" There was the flare of a match, a curse, then a brighter
glare, and suddenly a rush of sparks and an orange rocket shot up
into the purple night sky, weaving like a comet, and as it burst
to a chorus of cries and yells from far ahead Rowbotham shouts
"Advance!" and we dug in our heels and fairly shot forward in a
thundering mass.
There was a clear space ahead, and then a grove of trees, and
beyond more level ground with dim shapes moving. As we bore
down on them I realised that they must be pandies; we were
charging the rear of their positions, and it was just light enough
to make out the guns parked at intervals. There were shrieks of
alarm and a crackle of shots, and then we were past, swerving
between the gun-pits; there were horsemen ahead and either side
and Ilderim crouched low in the saddle at my elbow. He yelled
something and pointed right, and I saw an irregular tumbled outline
which must be the church; to its left, directly ahead, little
sparks of light were flashing in the distance--the entrenchment
defenders were firing to cover us.
Someone sang out: "Bravo, boys!" and then all hell burst loose
behind us; there was a crashing salvo of cannon, the earth ahead
rose up in fountains of dust, and shot was whistling over our
heads. A horse screamed, and I missed by a whisker a thrashing
tangle of man and mount which I passed so close that a lashing
limb caught me smack on the knee. Voices were roaring in the
dark, I heard Rowbotham's frantic "Close up! Ride for it!" A
dismounted man plunged across my path and was hurled aside by
my beast; behind me I heard the shriek of someone mortally hit,
and a riderless horse came neighing and stretching frantically
against my left side. Another shattering volley burst from the
guns in our rear, and that hellish storm swept through us--it was
183
Balaclava all over again, and in the dark, to boot. Suddenly my
pony stumbled, and I knew from the way he came up that he was
hit; a stinging cloud of earth and gravel struck me across the
face, a shot howled overhead, and Ilderim was sweeping past
ahead of me.
"Stop!" I bawled. "My screw's foundered! Stop, blast you
give me a hand!"
I saw his shadowy form check, and his horse rear; he swung
round, and as my horse sank under me his arm swept me out of
the saddleby God, he was strong, that one. My feet hit the
ground, but I had hold of his bridle, and for a few yards I was
literally dragged along, with Ilderim above hauling to get me
across the crupper. Someone cannoned into us, and then as I
pulled myself by main force across the crupper I felt a sudden
shock, and Ilderim pitched over me and out of the saddle.
Even as I righted myself on the horse's back the whole scene
was suddenly bathed in glaring lightsome swine had fired a
flare, and its flickering illumination shone on a scene that looked
like a mad artist's hell. Men and horses seemed to be staggering
and going down all round me under the hail of fire, throwing
grotesque shadows as they fought and struggled. I saw Rowbotham
pinned under a fallen horse only a few yards away;
Cheeseman, his face a bloody mask, was stretched supine beside
him, his limbs asprawl; Ilderim, with his left arm dangling, was
half-up on one knee, clutching at my stirrup. A bare hundred
yards ahead the entrenchment was in plain view, with the
defenders' heads visible, and some ass standing atop of it waving
his hat; behind us, the red explosions of the cannon suddenly
died, and to my horror I saw, pounding out under the umbrella
of light cast by the flare, a straggling line of riderssepoy
cavalry with their sabres out, bearing down at the charge, and
not more than a furlong away. Ilderim sei2ed my stirrup and
bawled:
"On, on! Ride, brother!"
I didn't hesitate. He'd turned back to rescue me, and his noble
sacrifice wasn't going to be in vain if I could help it. That was
certain death bearing down on us; I jammed in my heels, the
horse leaped forward, and Ilderim was almost jerked off his feet.
184
For perhaps five paces he kept up, with the yells and hoof-beats
growing behind us, and then he stumbled and went down. I did
my damnedest to shake him free, but in that instant the bloody
bridle snapped, and I hurtled out of the saddle and hit the ground
with a smash that jarred every bone in my body. A shocking
pain shot through my left ankle--Christ, it was caught in the
stirrup, and the horse was tearing ahead, dragging me behind at
the end of a tangle of leatherwork which somehow was still
attached to its body.
If any of you young fellows ever find yourself in this predicament,
where you're dragged over rough, iron-hard ground, with
or without a mob of yelling black fiends after you, take a word of
advice from me. Keep your head up (screaming helps), and above
all try to be dragged on your back--it will cost you a skinned
arse, but that's better than having your organs scraped off. Try,
too, to arrange for some stout lads to pour rapid fire into your
pursuers, and for a handy Gilzai friend to chase after you and
slash the stirrup-leather free in the nick of time before your spine
falls apart. I was half-conscious and virtually buttockless when
Elderim--God knows, wounded as he was, where he'd got the
speed and strength--hauled me up below the entrenchment and
pitched me almost bodily over the breastwork. I went over in a
shocking tangle, roaring: "Britannia! Britannia, for Christ's sake!
I'm a friend!" and then a chap was catching me and lowering my
battered carcase to earth and inquiring:
"Will you have nuts or a cigar, sir?"
Then a musket was being pushed into my hand, and in
shocked confusion I found myself at the rampart, banging away
at red-coated figures who came out of the smoke and dust, and I
know Ilderim was alongside me, relieving me of my revolver and
loosing off shots into the brown. All round there was the crash of
volleys, and a great bass voice was yelling "Odds, fire! Reload!
Evens, fire! Reload!" The pain from my ankle was surging up my
leg, into my body, making me sick and dizzy, I was coughing
with the reek of powder smoke, there was a bugle sounding, and
a confused roar of cheering--and the next thing I remember I
was lying in the half-light of dawn, with my back against a sandbagged
wall, staring at a big, shot-torn barrack building, while a
185
tall, bald-headed cove with a pipe was getting my boot off, and
applying a damp cloth to my swollen ankle.
There were a couple of chaps with muskets looking on, and
Ilderim was having his arm bandaged by a fellow in a kepi and
spectacles. There were others, moving about, carrying people
towards the barrack, and along the parapet there were haggardlooking
fellows, white and sepoy, with their pieces at the ready.
A horrid smell seemed to hang over the place, and everything
was filthy, with gear and litter all over the dusty ground, and the
people seemed to be moving slowly. I was still feeling pretty
dazed, but I guessed it must all be a dream anyway, for the chap
third along the parapet to my left, with a handkerchief knotted
round his head, was undoubtedly young Harry East. There
couldn't be two snub noses like that in the world, and since the
last time I'd seen him I'd been pinned under a sledge in the snows
of southern Russia, and he had been lighting out for safety, it
didn't seem reasonable that he should have turned up here.
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I'll tell you a strange thing about
pain--and Cawnpore. That ankle of mine, which I'd thought was
broken, but which in fact was badly sprained, would have kept
me flat on my back for days anywhere else, bleating for sympathy;
in Cawnpore I was walking on it within a few hours, suffering
damnably, but with no choice but to endure it. That was the sort
of place it was; if you'd had both legs blown off you were rated
fit for only light duties.
Imagine a great trench, with an earth and rubble parapet five
feet high, enclosing two big single-storey barracks, one of them a burned-out shell and the other with half its roof gone. All round
was flat plain, stretching hundreds of yards to the encircling
pandy lines which lay among half-ruined buildings and trees; a
mile or less to the north-west was the great straggling mass of
Cawnpore city itself, beside the river--but when anyone of my
generation speaks of Cawnpore he means those two shattered
barracks with the earth wall round them.
That was where Wheeler, with his ramshackle garrison, had
been holding out against an army for two and a half weeks.
There were nine hundred people inside it when the siege began,
nearly half of them women and children; of the rest four hundred
were British soldiers and civilians, and a hundred loyal natives.
They had one well, and three cannon; they were living on two
handfuls of mealies a day, fighting off a besieging force of more
than three thousand mutineers who smashed at them constantly
with fifteen cannon, subjected them to incessant musket-fire, and
tried to storm the entrenchment. The defenders lost over two
hundred dead in the first fortnight, men, women, and children,
from gunfire, heat and disease; the hospital barrack had been
burned to ashes with the casualties inside, and of the three
hundred left fit to fight, more than half were wounded or ill.
187
They worked the guns and manned the wall with muskets and
bayonets and whatever they could lay hands on.
This, I discovered to my horror, was the place I'd fled to for
safety, the stronghold which Rowbotham had boasted was being
held with such splendid ease. It was being held--by starved
ghosts half of whom had never fired a musket before, with their
women and children dying by inches in the shot-torn, stifling
barrack behind them, in the certainty that unless help came
quickly that entrenchment would be their common grave.
Rowbotham never lived to discover how mistaken he'd been; he
and half his troop were lying stark out on the plain--his final
miscalculation having been to time our rush to coincide with a
pandy assault.
I was the senior officer of those who'd got safely (?) inside,
and when they'd discovered who I was and bound up my ankle I
was helped into the little curtained corner of the remaining barrack
where Wheeler had his office. We stared at each other in
disbelief, he because I was still looking like Abdul the Bulbul,
and I because in place of the stalwart, brisk commander I'd known
ten years ago there was now a haggard, sunken ancient; with his
grimy, grizzled face, his uniform coat torn and filthy, and his
breeches held up with string, he looked like a dead gardener.
"Good God, you're never young Harry Flashman!" was his
greeting to me. "Yes, you are though! Where the dooce did you
spring from?" I told him--and in the short time I took to tell him
about Meerut and Jhansi, no fewer than three round-shot hit the
building, shaking the plaster; Wheeler just brushed the debris
absently off his table, and then says:
"Well, thank God for twenty more men--though what we'll
feed you on I cannot think. Still, what matter a few more
mouths?--you see the plight we're in. You've heard nothing of
. . . our people advancing from Allahabad, or Lucknow?" I said I
hadn't and he looked round at his chief officers, Vibart and
Moore, and gave a little gesture of despair.
"I suppose it was not to be expected," says he. "So . .. we can
only do our duty--how much longer? If only it was not for the
children, I think we could face it well enough. Still--no croaking,
eh?" He gave me a tired grin. "Don't take it amiss if I say I'm
188
glad to see you, Flashman, and will welcome your presence in our
council. In the meantime, the best service you can do is to take a
place at the parapet. Moore here will show you--God bless you,"
says he, shaking hands, and it was from Moore, a tall, fair-haired
captain with his arm in a blood-smeared sling, that I learned of
what had been happening in the past two weeks, and how truly
desperate our plight was.
It may read stark enough, but the sight of it was terrible.
Moore took me round the entrenchment, stooping as he walked
and I hobbled, for the small-arms fire from the distant sepoy lines
kept whistling overhead, smacking into the barrack-wall, and
every so often a large shot would plump into the enclosure or smash another lump out of the building. It was terrifying--and
yet no one seemed to pay it much attention; the men at the parapet
just popped up for an occasional look, and those moving in
the enclosure, with their heads hunched down, never even broke
step if a bullet whined above them. I kept bobbing nervously,
and Moore grinned and said:
"You'll soon get used to it--pandy marksmen don't hit a dam'
thing they aim at. It's the random shots that do the damage--
damnation!" This as a cloud of dust, thrown up by a round-shot
hitting the parapet, enveloped us. "Stretcher, there! Lively now!"
There was a body twitching close by where the shot had struck;
at Moore's shout two fellows doubled out from the barrack to
attend to it. After a brief look one of them shook his head, and
then they picked up the body between them and carried it off
towards what looked like a well; they just pitched it in, and
Moore says:
"That's our cemetery. I've worked it out that we put someone
in there every two hours. Over there--that's the wet well, where
we get our water. We won't go too close--the pandy sharpshooters
get a clear crack at it from that grove yonder, so we
draw our water at night. Jock McKillop worked it for a week,
until they got him. Heaven only knows how many we've lost on
water-drawing since."
What seemed so unreal about it, and still does, was the quiet
conversational way he talked. There was this garrison, being
steadily shot to bits, and starving in the process, and he went on
pointing things out, cool as dammit, with the crackle of desultory
firing going on around us. I stomached it so long, and then burst
out:
"But in God's name--it's hopeless! Hasn't Wheeler tried to
make terms?"
He laughed straight out at that. "Terms? Who with? Nana
Sahib? Look here, you were at Meerut, weren't you? Did they make terms? They want us dead, laddie. They slaughtered everything
white up in the city yonder, and God knows how many of
their own folk as well. They tortured the native goldsmiths to
death to get at their loot; Nana's been blowing loyal Indians from
guns as fast as they can trice 'em over the muzzles! No," he shook
his head, "there'll be no terms."
"But what the devil--I mean, what... ?"
"What's going to come of it? Well, I don't need to tell you, of
all people--either a relief column wins through from Allahabad
in three days at most, or we'll be so starved and short of cartridge
that the pandies will storm over that wall. Then ..." He
shrugged. "But of course, we don't admit that--not in front of
the ladies, anyway, however much some of 'em may guess, just
grin and assure 'em that Lawrence will be up with the radons
any day, what?"
I won't trouble to describe my emotions as this sank in, along
with the knowledge that for once there was nowhere to bolt to--
and I couldn't have run anyway, with my game ankle. It was
utterly hopeless--and what made it worse, if anything, was that
as a senior man I had to pretend, like Wheeler and Moore and
Vibart and the rest, that I was ready to do or die with the best.
Even I couldn't show otherwise--not with everyone else steady
and cheery enough to sicken you. I'll carry to my grave the
picture of that blood-sodden ground, with the flies droning
everywhere, and the gaunt figures at the parapet; the barrack wall
honeycombed with the shots that slapped into it every few
seconds; the occasional cry of a man struck; the stretcher-parties
running--and through it all Moore walking about with his
bloody arm, grinning and calling out jokes to everyone; Wheeler,
with his hat on the back of his head and the pistol through the
cord at his waist, staring grim-faced at the pandy lines and
190
scratching his white moustache while he muttered to the aide
scribbling notes at his elbow; a Cockney sergeant arguing with a
private about the height of the pillars at Euston Square station,
while they cut pieces from a dead horse for the big copper boiler
against the barrack wall.
- "Stew today," says Moore to me. "That's thanks to you fellows
coming in. Usually, if we want meat, we have to let a pandy
cavalryman charge up close, and then shoot the horse, not the rider,"
"More meat on the 'orse than there is on the pandy, eh,
Jasper?" says the sergeant, winking, and the private said it was
just as well, since some non-coms of his acquaintance, namin' no
names, would as soon be cannibals as not.
These are the trivial things that stick in memory, but none
clearer than the inside of that great barrack-room, with the
wounded lying in a long, sighing, groaning line down one wall,
and a few yards away, behind roughly improvised screens of
chick and canvas, four hundred women and children, who had
lived in that confined, sweating furnace for two weeks. The first
thing that struck you was the stench, of blood and stale sweat
and sickness, and then the sound--the children's voices, a baby
crying, the older ones calling out, some even laughing, while the
firing cracked away outside; the quiet murmur of the women; the
occasional gasp of pain from the wounded; the brisk voices from
the curtained corner where Wheeler had his office. Then the
gaunt patient faces--the weary-looking women, some in ragged
aprons, others in soiled evening dresses, nursing or minding the
children or tending the wounded; the loyal sepoys, slumped
against the wall, with their muskets between their knees; an
English civilian sitting writing, and staring up in thought, and
then writing again; beside him an old babu in a dhoti, mouthing
the words as he read a scrap of newspaper through steel-rimmed
spectacles; a haggard-looking young girl stitching a garment for a
small boy who was waiting and hitting out angrily at the flies
buzzing round his head; two officers in foul suits that had once
been white, talking about pig-sticking--I remember one jerking
his arm to shoot his linen, and him with nothing over his torso
but his jacket; an ayah* smiling as she piled toy bricks for a little
* Native nursemaid.
191
girl; a stocky, tow-headed corporal scraping his pipe; a woman
whispering from the Bible to a pallid Goanese-looking fellow
lying on a blanket with a bloody bandage round his head; an old,
stem, silver-haired mem-sahib rocking a cradle.
They were all waiting to die, and some of them knew it, but
there was no complaint, no cross words that I ever heard. It wasn't
real, somehow--the patient, ordinary way they carried on. "It
beats me," I remember Moore saying, "when I think how our
dear ladies used to slang and back-bite on the verandahs, to see
'em now, as gentle as nuns. Take my word for it, they'll never
look at their fellow-women the same way again, if we get out of
this."
"Don't you believe it," says another, called Delafosse. "It's just
lack of grub that's keeping 'em quiet. A week after it's all over,
they'll be cutting Lady Wheeler dead in the street, as usual."
It's all vague memory, though, with no sense of time to it; I
couldn't tell you when it was that I came face to face with Harry
East, and we spoke, but I know that it was near Wheeler's curtain,
where I'd been talking with two officers called Whiting and
Thomson, and a rather pretty girl called Bella Blair was sitting
not far away reading a poem to some of the children. I must have
got over my funks to some extent, for I know I was sufficiently
myself to be properly malicious to him.
"Hallo, Flashman," says he.
"Hallo, young Scud East," says I, quite cool. "You got to
Raglan, I hear."
"Yes," says he, blushing. "Yes, I did."
"Good for you," says I. "Wish I could have come along--but I
was delayed, you recollect."
This was all Greek to the others, of course, so the young ass
had to blurt it out for their benefit--how we'd escaped together
in Russia, and he'd left me behind wounded (which, between
ourselves, had been the proper thing to do, since there was vital
news to carry to Raglan at Sevastopol), and the Cossacks had got
me. Of course, he hadn't got the style to make the tale sound
creditable to himself, and I saw Whiting cock an eyebrow and
sniff. East stuttered over it, and blushed even redder, and finally
says:
192
"I'm so glad you got out, in the end, though, Flashman. I...
I hated leaving you, old fellow."
"Yes," says I. "The Cossacks were all for it, though."
"I ... I hope they didn't--I mean, they didn't use you too
badly . . . that they didn't ..." He was making a truly dreadful
hash of it, much to my enjoyment. "It's been on my conscience,
you know... having to go off like that."
Whiting was looking at the ceiling by this, Thomson was
frowning, and the delectable Bella had stopped reading to listen.
"Well," says I, after a moment, "it's all one now, you know."
I gave a little sigh. "Don't fret about it, young Scud. If the worst
comes to the worst here--I won't leave you behind."
It hit him like a blow; he went chalk-white, and gasped, and
then he turned on his heel and hurried off. Whiting said, "Good
God!" and Thomson asked incredulously: "Did I understand that
right? He absolutely cut out and left you--saved his own skin?"
"Urn? What's that?" says I, and frowned. "Oh, now, that's a
bit hard. No use both of us being caught and strung up in a
dungeon and ..." I stopped there and bit my lip. "That would
just have meant the Cossacks would have had two of us to ...
play with, wouldn't it? Doubled the chance of one of us cracking
and telling 'em what they wanted to know. That's why I wasn't
sorry he cleared out.... I knew I could trust myself, you see....
But, Lord, what am I rambling about? It's all past." I smiled
bravely at them. "He's a good chap, young East; we were at
school together, you know."
I limped off then, leaving them to discuss it if they wanted to,
and what they said I don't know, but later that evening Thomson
sought me out at my place on the parapet, and shook my hand
without a word, and then Bella Blair came, biting her lip, and
kissed me quickly on the cheek and hurried off. It's truly remarkable,
if you choose a few words carefully, how you can enhance
your reputation and damage someone else's--and it was the least
I could do to pay back that pious bastard East. Between me and
his own precious Arnold-nurtured conscience he must have had a
happy night of it.
I didn't sleep too well myself. A cupful of horse stew and a
handful of flour don't settle you, especially if you're shaking with
i93
the horrors of your predicament. I even toyed with the idea of
resuming my Pathan dress--which I had exchanged for army
shirt and breeches--slipping over the parapet, lame as I was, and
trying to escape, but the thought of being caught in the pandy
lines was more than I could bear. I just lay there quaking, listening
to the distant crack of the rebel snipers, and the occasional
crump of a shot landing in the enclosure, tortured by thirst and
hunger cramps, and I must have dozed off, for suddenly I was
being shaken, and all round me people were hurrying, and a
brazen voice was bawling "Stand to! Stand to! Loading parties,
there!" A bugle was blaring, and orders were being shouted along
the parapet--the fellow next me was ramming in a charge
hurriedly, and when I demanded what was the row he just
pointed out over the barricade, and invited me to look for myself.
It was dawn, and across the flat maidan, in front of the pandy
gun positions, men were moving--hundreds of them. I could see
long lines of horsemen in white tunics, dim through the light
morning mist, and in among the squadrons were the scarlet coats
and white breeches of native infantry. Even as I looked there was
the red winking of fire from the gun positions, and then the crash
of the explosions, followed by the whine of shot and a series of
crashes from the barracks behind. Clouds of dust billowed down
from the wall, to the accompaniment of yells and oaths, and a
chorus of wails from the children. A kettle-drum was clashing, and
here were the loading parties, civilians and followers and even some
of the women, and a couple of bhistis* and then Wheeler himself,
with Moore at his heels, bawling orders, and behind him on the
barrack-roof the torn Union Jack was being hauled up to flap
limply in the warm dawn air.
"They're coming, rot *em!" says the man next to me. "Look at
'em, yonder--56th N.L, Madras Fusiliers. An' Bengal Cavalry,
too--don't I know it! Those are my own fellows, blast the
scoundrels--or were. All right, my bucks, your old ridingmaster's
waiting for you!" He slapped the stock of his rifle. "I'll
give you more pepper than I ever did at stables!"
The pandy guns were crashing away full tilt now, and the
whistle of small arms shot was sounding overhead. I was fumbling
* Native water-carriers.
194
with my revolver, pressing in the loads; all down the parapet
there was the scraping of ram-rods, and Wheeler was shouting:
"Every piece loaded, mind! Loading parties be ready with
fresh charges! Three rifles to each man! All right, Delafosse!
Moore, call every second man from the south side--smartly, now!
Have the fire-parties stand by! Sergeant Grady, I want an orderly
with bandages every ten yards on this parapet!"
He could hardly be heard above the din of the enemy firing
and the crash of the shots as they plumped home; the space
between the parapet and the barracks was swirling with dust
thrown up by the shot, and we lay with our heads pressed into
the earth below the top of the barrier. Someone came forward at a crouching run and laid two charged muskets on the ground
beside me; to my astonishment I saw it was Bella Blair--the fat
babu I'd seen reading the previous night was similarly arming
the riding-master, and the chap on t'other side of me had as his
loader a very frail-looking old civilian in a dust-coat and cricket
cap. They lay down behind us; Bella was pale as death, but she
smiled at me and pushed the hair out of her eyes; she was wearing
a yellow calico dress, I recall, with a band tied round her
brows.
"All standing to!" roars Wheeler. He alone was on his feet,
gaunt and bare-headed, with his white hair hanging in wisps
down his cheeks; he had his revolver in one hand, and his sabre
stuck point-first in the ground before him. "Masters--I want a
ration of flour and half a cup of water to each--"
A terrific concerted salvo drowned out the words; the whole
entrenchment seemed to shake as the shots ploughed into it and
smashed clouds of brickdust from the barracks. Farther down the
line someone was screaming, high-pitched, there was a cry for
the stretchers, the dust eddied round us and subsided, and then
the noise gradually ebbed away, even the screams trailed off into a
whimper, and a strange, eery stillness fell.
"Steady, all!" It was Wheeler, quieter now. "Riflemen--up to ._ the parapet! Now hold your fire, until I give the word! Steady,
I now!"
I peered over the parapet. Across the maidan there was silence,
too, suddenly broken by the shrill note of a trumpet. There they
i95
were, looking like a rather untidy review--the ranks of redcoated
infantry, in open order, just forward of the ruined buildings,
and before them, within shot, the horse squadrons, half a
dozen of them well spaced out. A musket cracked somewhere
down the parapet, and Wheeler shouted:
"Confound it, hold that fire! D'you hear?"
We waited and watched as the squadrons formed, and the
riding-master cursed under his breath.
"Sickenin'," says he, "when you think I taught 'em that. As
usual--C Troop can't dress! That's Havildar Ram Hyder for you!
Look at 'em, like a bloody Paul Jones! Take a line from the righthand
troop, can't you? Rest of 'em look well enough, though,
don't they? There now, steady up. That's better, eh?"
The man beyond him said something, and the riding-master
laughed. "If they must charge us I'd like to see 'em do it proper,
for my own credits sake, that's all."
I tore my eyes away from that distant mass of men, and glanced
round. The babu, flat on the ground, was turning his head to
polish his spectacles; Bella Blair had her face hidden, but I noticed
her fists were clenched. Wheeler had clapped his hat on, and was
saying something to Moore; one of the bhistis was crawling on
hands and knees along the line, holding a chaggle for the fellows
to drink from. Suddenly the distant trumpet sounded again, there
was a chorus of cries from across the maidan, a volley of orders,
and now the cavalry were moving, at a walk, and then at a trot,
and there was a bright flicker along their lines as the sabres came
out.
Oh, Christ, I thought, this is the finish. There seemed to be
hordes of them, advancing steadily through the wisps of mist, the
dust coming up in little clouds behind them, and the crackle of
the sharpshooters started up again, the bullets whining overhead.
"Steady, all!' roars Wheeler again. "Wait for the word,
remember!"
I had laid by my revolver and had my musket up on the parapet.
My mouth was so dry I couldn't swallow--I was remembering
those masses of horsemen that had poured down from the Causeway
Heights at Balaclava, and how disciplined fire had stopped
them in their tracks--but those had been Campbell's High196
shooting < ^e11* ^d we had nothing but a straggling line
crocks ano^^ civilians. They must break over us like a wave,
ig past our-rX feeble volleys--
e aim1" v yells Wheeler, "make every shot tell, and wait
-^- S ff
command! I
were coix^11111^? at ^e g^0? now' perhaps three hundred
ff and tha-t-6 sabres steady against the shoulders; they were
line darnx^116^ we^' an<^ ^ heard my riding-master mutter-
c at 'em ccy0111' ^ough! Ain't that a sight?--and ain't they 'welll Holll^ 'em m ^ere, rissaUar, mind the dressing--"
hunder of^fcf the beating hooves was like surf; there was a
veil and s a^ ^le P011115 came down, with the black blobs behind the^111 as ^e n^ers crouched forward and the whole ht into tin^ charge. They came sweeping in towards the
unent I e gripPe^ my P^ce convulsively, and Wheeler nre!"'
rilev crastu^1^ out In a ^"w of smoke--but it didn't stop
orses and rx -men went down, and then we were seizing our
suskets anx^ blazing away, and then our third--and still
te into th-s^^ ^e^ ^ smo^e sa^ flame, yelling like madia
BIair wae^5 beside me, thrusting a musket into my hand,
ying feverx-y^hly to reload the others. I fired again, and as
fc cleared w^0 ^"^cd out onto a tangle of fallen beasts and
it half of tl^hem were still up and tearing in, howling and wir sabres-^-1 seized my revolver and blasted away; there ^ of them surging in towards my position, and I toppled
(the saddles ' another went rolling down with his mount
sr him ano^d t^e third came hurtling over the entrenchih
the man ^ on "^ right slashing at him as he passed.
him pressQ^d ^s others--white coats, black faces, reari',
putting their horses to the parapet; I was yelling
i" obscenitie-^5' scrabbling up the muskets as fast as they Mded firina^g lnto the nisss; men were struggling all
aentrenchm.r?101*"' bayonets and swords against sabres, and
s-ine crashea^^ out' ^ heard Bella scream, and then there
Mounted tio^61 scrambling up the barrier directly before
Da vision o OI goring eyes in a black face and a sabre
197
upraised to strike, an^ A6" he fell back shrieking into the smoke.
Behind me Wheeler was roaring, and I was grabbing for another
musket, and then thy were falling back, thank God, wheeling
and riding back intotne smoke, and the bhisti was at my elbow,
thrusting his chagglelt "^ "P5-
"Stand to!" shouts Wheeler, "they're coming again!"
They were re-form^g' a Dare hundred yards off; the ground
between was littered yltn dead and dying beasts and men. I had
barely time to gulp a1110111^^! of warm, muddy water and seize
my musket before tW were howling in at us once more, and this
time there were pandy infantrymen racing behind them.
"One more volley!' bawls Wheeler. "Hold your fire, there!
Aim for the horses! ? surrender! Ready, present--fire!"
The whole wall biased Dre' and the charge shook and wavered
before it came rushint on again; half a dozen of them were rearing
and plunging up t' the entrenchment, the sabres were swinging
about our heads, a^d T was rolling away to avoid the smashing
hooves of a rider comng m almost on top of me. I scrambled to
my feet, and there w" a red-coated black devil leaping at me
from the parapet; I slashed at him with my musket butt and
sent him flying, and t^en another one was at me with his sabre,
lunging. I shrieked asit flew past ^ head' and then we had
closed, and I was clawPg at his face, bearing him down by sheer
weight. His sabre fell, and I plunged for it; another pandy was
rushing past me, mu^et and bayonet extended, but I got my
hand on the fallen hill slashing blindly; I felt a sickening shock
on my head and fell, a dead weight landed on top of me, and the
next thing I knew I w;5 on my hands and knees, with the earth
swimming round me, aid Wheeler was bawling,
"Cease fire! Cease fire' Stretchers, there!"
and the noise of yelliri and banging had died away, while the
last of the smoke clewed above the ghastly shambles of the
parapet.
There seemed to be ^ead and dying everywhere. There must
have been at least a do^" pandies sprawled within ten yards of
where I knelt; the groi^d was sticky with blood. Wheeler himself
was down on one mee' supporting the fat babu, who was
wailing with a shatters ^g; the trail civilian was lying asprawl,
198
his cricket cap gone and his head just a squashed red mess. One
of the pandies stirred, and pulled himself up on one knee;
WTieeler, his arm still round the babu, whipped up his revolver
and fired, and the pandy flopped back in the dust. The stretcher
parties were hurrying up; I looked out over the parapet, across a
maidan littered with figures of men that crawled or lay still; there
were screaming horses trying to rise, and others that lay dead
among the fallen riders. Two hundred yards off there were men
runningthe other way, thank God; farther down the parapet
someone sent up a cheer, and it gradually spread along the
entrenchment in a ghastly, croaking yell. My mouth was too dry,
and I was too dazed to cheerbut I was alive.
Bella Blair was dead. She was lying on her side, her hands
clutched on the stock of a musket whose bayonet was buried in
her body. I heard a moan behind me, and there was the ridingmaster,
flopped against the parapet, his shirt soaked in blood,
trying to reach for the fallen water-chaggle. I stumbled over to
him, and held it up to his lips; he sucked at it, groaning, and then
let his head fall back.
"Beat 'em, did we?" says he, painfully. I could only nod; I took
a gulp at the chaggle myself, and offered him another swig, but he
turned his head feebly aside. There was nothing to be done for
him; his life was running out of him where he lay.
"Beat 'em," says he again. "Dam* good. Thought... they was
going to ride . . . clean over us there ... for a moment." He
coughed blood, and his voice trailed away into a -whisper. "They
shaped well, though . . . didn't they . . . shape well? My
Bengalis ..." He closed his eyes. "I thought they shaped . . .
uncommon well..."
I looked down the entrenchment. About half the defenders
were on their feet at the parapet, I reckoned. In between, the
sprawled, silent figures, the groaning, writhing wounded waiting
for the stretchers, the tangle of gear and fallen weapons, the
bloody ragsand now the pandy guns again, pounding anew at
the near-dead wreck of the Cawnpore garrison, with its tattered
flag still flapping from the mast. Well, thinks I, they can walk in
now, any time they like. There's nothing left to stop 'em.
But they didn't. That last great assault of June twenty-third,
199
which had come within an ace o: peaking us, had sickened the
pandies. The maidan was strewn ^ ^ ^, ^ although
they pounded us with gunfire for pother ^ ^errible days, they
didn't have the stomach for anodic ^^ ^tack. If only they'd
known it, half the men left on oui ^ ^ ^00 done up with
fatigue and starvation to lift a ir^^ ^ ^^ ^ ^oked
with more than three hundred wc^ed and dying, the well was
down to stinking ooze, and our gaming flour was so much
dust. We couldn't have lasted tw^ ^^s ^ 3 determined
assault-yet why should they bod^ ^^ ^ ^ ^eat and
the steady rate of casualties from h,^^^ were sure to finish
us soon anyway?
Three folk went mad, as I n^^ ^ ^hose forty-eight
hours; I only wonder now that ^ ^ ^^ ^ ^ furnace of
the barrack the women and childr^ ^g ^oo reduced by famine
even to cry; even the younger offi^ ^^ to be overcome by
the lethargy of approaching certaii^ jg^ por that. Wheeler now
admitted, was all that remained.
"I have sent a last message out ^ Lawrence," he told us senior
men on the second night. "I have ^ ^ ^hat we have nothing
left but British spirit, and that ca^^ ^ ^gy^. We are like
rats in a cage. Our best hope is tha^ ^ ^els will come in again,
and give us a quick end; better th^ ^ ^ch our women and
little ones die by inches."29
I can still see the gaunt faces ^ ^he flickering candlelight
round his table; someone gave a j^le sob, and another swore
softly, and after a moment Vibart -^^ ^ ^here was no hope that
Lawrence might yet come to our reli r
Wheeler shook his head. "He wc^ ^g ^ ^ ^^ ^ ^
if he marched now he could not n,^ ^ ^ ^^ two days. By
then . . . well, you know me, ge^^ j ^aven't croaked in
fifty years' soldiering, and I'm not croaking now, when I say that
short of a miracle it is all up. We,^ ^ (^'s hands, so let each
one of us make his preparations ^"trflmglv "
I was with him there, only my preparations weren't going to
be spiritual. I still had my Patha^ ^ ^ stowed away, and I
could see that the time was fast ap^^ ^^ ankle or
no. Flashy was going to have to ta^g ^ ^^ ^ ^ ^11. It
200
was that or die in this stinking hole, so I left them praying and
went to my place on the parapet to think it out; I was in a blue funk at the thought of trying to decamp, but the longer I waited,
the harder it might become. I was still wrestling with my fears
when someone have up out of the gloom beside me, and who
should it be but East.
"Flashman," says he, "may I have a word with you?"
"If you must," says I. "I'll be obliged if you'll make it a brief
one."
"Of course, of course," says he. "I understand. As Sir Hugh
said, it is time for each of us to make his own soul; I won't intrude
on your meditations a moment longer than I must, I promise.
The trouble is ... my own conscience. I... I need your help, old
fellow."
"Eh?" I stared at him, trying to make out his face in the dark.
" What the deuce--?"
"Please . . . bear with me. I know you're bitter, because you
think I abandoned you in Russia . . . left you to die, while I
escaped. Oh, I know it was my duty, and all that, to get to Raglan
. . . but the truth is--" he broke off and had a gulp to himself
"--the truth is, I was glad to leave you. There--it's out at last
... oh, if you knew how it had been tormenting me these two
years past! That weight on my soul--that I abandoned you in a
spirit of hatred and sinful vengeance. No... let me finish! I hated
you then . ,. because of the way you had treated Valla ... when
you flung her from that sledge, into the snow! I could have
killed you for it!"
He was in a rare taking, no error; a Rugby conscience pouring
out is a hell of a performance. He wasn't telling me a thing I
hadn't guessed at the time--I know these pious bastards better
than they know themselves, you see.
"I loved her, you see," he went on, talking like an old man
with a hernia. "She meant everything to me ... and you had
cast her away so ... brutally. Please, please, hear me out! I'm
confessing, don't you see? And . . . and asking for your forgiveness.
It's late in the day, I know--but, well, it looks as though we
haven't much longer, don't it? So ... I wanted to tell you . . .
and shake your hand, old school-fellow, and hear from you that
my . . . my sin is forgiven me. If you (% find it in your heart,
that is." He choked resoundingly. "I. .. trust you can."
I've heard some amazing declarations in my time, but this
babbling was extraordinary. It comes o Christian upbringing,
of course, and taking cold baths, all of which implants in the
impressionable mind the notion that rhentance can somehow
square the account. At any other time, t would have given me
some malicious amusement to listen to hia; even in my distracted
condition, it was interesting enough for ne to ask him:
"D'ye mean that if I hadn't given }m cause to detest me,
you'd have stayed with me, and let Ragm's message go hang?"
"What's that?" says he. "I... I don': know what you mean.
I... I... please, Flashman, you must s^ my agony of spirit...
I'm trying to ... make you understani. Please--tell me, even
now, what I can do."
"Well," says I, thoughtfully, "you coud go and fart in a bottle
and paint it."
"What?" says he, bewildered. "Whatiid you say?"
"I'm trying to indicate that you can i^e yourself off," says I.
"You're a selfish little swine, East. You almit you've behaved like
a scoundrel to me, and if that wasn't en<ugh, you have the cheek
to waste my time--when I need it for payer. So go to hell, will
you?"
"My God, Flashman . . . you can't lean it! You can't be so
hard. It only needs a word! I own I've }ronged you, terribly ...
maybe in more ways than I know. Somtmies . .. I've wondered
if perhaps you too loved Valla . . . if })u did, and placed duty
first. . ." He gulped again, and peered <t me. "Did you ... love
her, Flashman?"
"About four or five times a week," sarg I, "but you needn't be jealous; she wasn't nearly as good a ri& as her Aunt Sara. You
should have tried a steam-bath with thatone."
He gave a shocked gasp, and I absoluely heard his teeth chatter.
Then: "God, Flashman! Oh ... oh, 'ou are unspeakable! You
are vile! God help you!"
"Unspeakable and vile I may be," sa's I, "but at least I'm no
hypocrite, like you: the last thing you want is for God to help
me. You don't want my forgiveness, eiher; you just want to be
able to forgive yourself. Well, you run along and do it. Scud, and
thank me for making it easy for you. After what you've heard
tonight, your conscience needn't trouble you any longer about
having left old Flashy to his fate, what?"
He stumbled off at that, and I was able to resume my own
debate about whether it was best to slide out or stay. In the end,
my nerve failed me, and I cnrled up in the lee of the parapet for
the night. Thank God I did, for on the next morning Wheeler
got his miracle.
203
She was the most unlikely messenger
of grace you ever saw--a raddled old chee-chee* biddy with
clanking earrings and a parasol, drawn in a rickshaw ghari by two
pandies, with another couple marching as guard, and a havildar out in front brandishing a white flag. Wheeler ordered a stand-to
when this strange little procession was seen approaching the east corner of the entrenchment, and went off himself with Moore to
meet it, and a few minutes later word was passed for me and
Vibart, who was up at my end of the parapet, to present ourselves.

Wheeler and the other senior men were grouped inside the
parapet, while the old wife, fanning herself with a leaf and sipping
at a chatti, was sitting just outside with her escort squatting
round her. Wheeler was holding a paper, and glancing in
bewilderment from it to the old woman; as we came up someone
was saying: "I wouldn't trust it a blasted inch! Why should they
want to treat, at this time o'day? Tell me that!", and Wheeler
shook his head and passed the paper to Vibart.
"Read that," says he. "If what it says is true, the Nana wishes
to make terms."
It didn't sink in, at first; I studied the paper over Vibart's
shoulder, while he read it out half-aloud. It was a brief, simple
note, written in a good hand, in English, and addressed to
Wheeler. As near as I recall, it said:
To subjects of Her Most Gracious Majesty, Queen Victoria--
all who are not connected with the acts of Lord Dalhousie
and are willing to lay down their arms, shall receive a safe
passage to Allahabad.
It was signed on behalf of Nana Sahib, with a name I couldn't
make out, until Vibart muttered it out: "Azeemoolah Khan". He
* Half-caste.
204
"^
looked at Wheeler, then at the old woman, and Wheeler flapped
a band and says:
"This is Mrs Jacobs, of... ah, Cawnpore city. She has this
note from Azeemoolah himself, in the presence of the Nana."
"How-dee-do, gentlemen," says Mrs Jacobs, bowing with a
great creak of stays from her seat in the ghari. "Such jolly
weather we are having, yess?"
"I don't like it," says Wheeler quietly, turning his back so that
she shouldn't hear; the others grouped round us. "As Whiting
says, why should he offer terms when he must know we're at his
mercy? All he needs do is wait."
"Perhaps, sir," says Vibart, "he don't know how reduced we
are." He let out a deep breath. "And we have our women and
children to think of"
At this the others broke in, in a fierce babble of low voices:
"It's a plot'" "No, it ain't!" "We've stood the bastards off this
long" "It's falseI can smell nigger treachery a mile away."
"Why should it be treacherymy God, what have we to lose?
We're done for as it is ...", while I tried to keep my face straight
and the delicious hope began to break over mewe were saved!
For it seemed to me in that moment that whatever anyone said,
whatever Wheeler felt, he was going to have to accept any terms
the pandies offeredhe couldn't refuse, and doom the women and
children in that stinking barrack to certain death, however fearful
of treachery he might be. We were being offered at least a chance
of life against the certainty of death: he had to take it.
So I said nothing, while they wrangled in whispers there by
the parapet, with every drawn face along the entrenchment on
either side turned anxiously in our direction, and that painted
old harridan sitting under the canopy of her ghari, nodding and
bowing whenever anyone glanced at her. And sure enough,
Wheeler finally says:
"What's your opinion. Colonel Flashman?"
The temptation to sing out: "Take it, you bloody old fool
offer to crawl on your belly the whole way to Allahabad!" was
strong, but I mastered it and looked pretty cool. "Well, sir," says
! "It's an offerno more. There's nothing to be decided until
we've tested it."
205
That shut them up. "True enough," says Wheeler, "h^
"Someone must talk to Nana Sahib," says I. "It may be ^-"
isn't well with him, or that he thinks this siege ain't w^ hat all
candle. Maybe his precious pandies have had enough--" 'th. the
"That's it, by God!" broke in Delafosse, but I went q
steady: (. very
"But we can't accept--or turn him down flat--till we'v
more than is written here," and I tapped the paper in heard
hand. "He hasn't approached us out of charity, we may be ibart's
well, it may be treachery, or it may be weakness. Let's lo ^Ure--- in the eye." ^ him
It must have sounded well--bluff Flashy talking cak while others went pink in the face. They weren't to kt^ sense
made up my trembling mind in the moment I'd read t^w I'd
the trick now was to make sure that Wheeler made up k' note;
in the right direction. For he was obviously full of s^ s, and
about the Nana, and half-inclined to listen to the hothe^icion
were urging him to throw the offer back in the mutineers' i S who
you never heard such appalling nonsense in your life. I^eth--
were, doomed for certain, being offered an eleventh-hour r^e we
and more than half the idiots in that impromptu council v^rieve,
rejecting it out of hand. It made my innards heave to listen; ^e for
I, this is going to need delicate handling. Blinks
However, Wheeler saw the sense of what I'd said, and ^ that Moore and I should go to see the Nana and hear p(, Mded
what he had to say. Thank God he chose me--I don't c^'cisely
rule, to put my head into the lion's den, even under a '. as a
truce, but this was one negotiation I wanted to have a larg 'ag of
in. I didn't want any hitches about the surrender--for suh hand
if I had anything to do with it, was what it was going to l^tider,
that mattered besides was that I should keep my credit ink ^. All
So at noon Moore and I were escorted through the pan^t.
with Mrs Jacobs in her ghari jabbering about what a shame i lines,
oah yess, that the present unsettled state of affairs had pr^ was,
her getting up to the hills during the hot weather. Who s)^ ^nted
by the way, I never discovered; she looked like a typical ha^ was,
bawd who'd been employed as a go-between because s); caste
obviously neutral and inoffensive. But I may be misjudging t^ was
lady.
206
r
,t in front of a
The notorious Nana Sahib was waiting M gf servitors and
great day-tent in a grove of trees, with a p^' guardsmen, in
minions attending him, and a score of Mahaf ^ great Afghan
breastplates and helmets, ranged either side o> ^easy twinge--
carpet before his chair. That carpet gave me ^i^aghten seized
it reminded me of the one on which I'd seen [ ^eeting as this;
and chopped up outside Kabul, at just such voiced down our
however, Moore and I put out our chests an^ ^e of rebellious
no?es, as true Britons ought to do in the pr^
niggers who happen to have the drop on them. ^;th curly musMana
himsetf ^s a burly, fat-faced rascal g idmi,* dressed
tachioes and a shifty look--what they call a (<1 sliding his eyes
in more silks aod jewels than a French whol^pip hand to the
across Moore and me and whispering behind a f^ or two, by the
woman beside him. She was worth a lewd thoiitLjtb a drooping
way; one of youx tall, heavy-hipped beautie^ ^ sorry I never
lower lip--Sultana Adala, they called her, and i ^ glance or two
got closer to her dmn twenty feet. We exchan^ gjiiations work;
dur'ing that interview, and let our mutual i)11 ,.e$t. On Nana's
ten minutes alone together would have done tP ^1, who I gather
other side sat a nondescript and nasty-looking r^
was> his brother-in-crime, Tantia Tope. ^ Azeemoolah
Flowever, the man who took things in hand . ^ cloth-of-gold
Khsin, a tall, handsome, light-skinned exquisite stepped smiling
coalt and with a jewelled aigret in his turban, w^ -oiQptly put his
across the carpet wfth his hand out. Moore (Hiig my thumbs
hands behind his back, I contented myself by ^ dnd withdrew
into) my belt, and Azeemoolab smiled even wi" couldn't have
his hand with 3 graceful flutter--Rudi Staml/ gj his eyes wide.
dome it better. I gave him our names, and he opC- j! It has always
"Colonel FlaslimanJ But this is an honour in^^ys he, flashing
been my regret that I missed you in the Crimea, ^illiam Howard
his teeth. "And ht^ ^ my dear old friend. Mi
Russell?" ^ then that this
It: was my turn to stare, at that; I didn't kn^ pcb and English
Aze.'emoolah was a travelled man, who spoke ff ^oa.--and gone
as well as I did, h3^ done diplomatic work in L
Literally, "a tight man".
207
,t sillier society women like a mal stallion at the same ^arming, clever politician, whosi urbanity masked a
through ^Wealing as a hooded cobra's;30 fo the occasion he was
time. A ^ ferpreter for the Nana, who spok" no English.
nature as ,^. fairly cool, that we were there P receive his master's
acting as ^ ( which he sighed and spread his hiuds.
I told 1^ ^Ptiemen, it is a most distressing 'usiness, and no one
proposals, 'l^f troubled by it than his highness, which is why he
"Well, '"Rote to General Wheeler, in the rpe that we can put
, ^Qj-g d^/j this bloodshed and suffering--"
has sent ^\ erupted at this to say that in th:t case it was a pity
an end to f^Pt his message earlier, or stayel loyal in the first
Moore ^ ^oolah just smiled.
he hadn't h^ not talking politics, are we, Gptain Moore? We
place. Az^. ^t military reality--which is that your gallant resist-
"But ^, end' one way or another. His highness deplores the
are lookiry ^eless slaughter; he is willing, if y)u will quit Cawnance
is at't^ your garrison to depart with tie honours of war;
thought o'H^e. all necessary food and comfort* for your women
pore, to ^ (fw whom his highness is particularly concerned),
you shall .(^ to Allahabad. It seems to me rot an ungenerous
and childly"
and safe f <fho obviously knew the purport cf what was being
offer." ^vrward at this, smiling greasily, and gabbled in
The Na^i ^emoolah nodded, and went on:
said, lean^^at baggage anhnals are already teing collected to
Maharatta' 'iinded to the river, where boats will be waiting to
"He saf/yU1'11131^-''
carry your ^.iiestion Wheeler wanted asked, "ivliat guarantees
take you al'i'does he offer?"
I asked t'.i jifted his brows. "But are any recessary? If we
of safe-con^^rm, we have only to attack, or ""ait. We know |
Azeeino^) you see. Believe me, gentlemen, his highness is
intended ^.L- humanity, the spirit of mercy--"
your situa(l'(^s deliberately timed or not, I don'1 know, but his
moved simfiVrupted by the most hideous sere1 of agony--
Whether ,(1 iibbling wail from behind the gn^e of trees. It
words wer^ and then died into an awful wri?''1' f P'1"1'
a drawn-oi*^'
rang out W
20 ''
o I felt the hairs rise on my neck. Moore almost jumped out of
wots.
and What in Cod's name was that?" says he. ^"Maharatta diplomacy, I imagine," says I, with a straight face my innards dissolving. "Someone being flayed alive, probably,
bur benefit--so that we could hear, and take note." fo" T but if his highness's word is not sufficient," Azeemoolah ^  t on blandly, "he would raise no objection to your carrying
went7 your PCTSOnal as and ^all we say, twenty rounds a '' awav ? with thatt you wm hardly be at a y^r disadvantage in
man? open than behind that pathetic breastwork. But I repeat,
the oi16111611' his highness has "^hing to gain by treachery--quite
apnM^"^' It is rePugIlaIlt to him, and would be politically ^"^gmg."
danJe?"111'1 trust the bastard an mch' but I was privately inclined
I dicT6 with him' ^P"^ out a British garrison entire was one
to agre" but he could do that aIlyway without luring us into the
thine I the other hand' gettmg a British garrison to haul down
open Cg would be a real feather m his ^P--but Azeemoolah was a
its flap t00 shl'ewd to ^Y s0' for ""Aing would have been better mile to to stiffen wheelerts resistance.
calculaT^V1"16'1 to chatter again m Maharatta, whUe I tried to
Nana '"^"T of that awful scream by exchanging a long
efface th01 two with sultana ^^dala--it never does any harm.
look or noolah heard him out, and then addressed us again.
Azeemoo,15 mhness asks Y^ to reassure General Wheeler, and to
"His l^ you are ^"dering his most generous proposal, he
add that ^^S ""r troops to observe an armistice. I myself will
^ instruciT"^ for General wheeler>s ^swer." "Qietom?, _was that- Moore and I trudged back through the
And tt, s and if anything was needed to convince me that pandy 1m WI was Operative it was the sight of those glowering
'"n-ender es at the S"11 emplacements and round the bivouacs. bh^ face"1^ k Iess smart and orderly than they'd done as loyal ^ey mig^ tlwps' but by God there were plenty of them, and no
Company "^^"^g or desertion. ' '
9 ^s of we.B'1011'11 and go' ^"go. when we got back to the entrench- Jt was tod rep ted to Wheeler what Nana's proposals were. He ^or and i
209
called a council of all the officers, and we; sat or stot^ crowded into the stifling corner of the barrack which was his ^ce' wltn the moaning of the wounded beyond the pjartition, an^ ^le w ing of the children, while we heard rehearssed again all the b^'
ments that had been whispered to and fro that Di0"1111^,.
frightened me, I may tell you, for Wheeler was still SIIleumg treachery, and our younger sparks were im full cry ^alnst notion of surrender. ,
"We've held out this long," cries Delafosse, "and n^ taeyw weakening. Tell him to go to blazes, I say, and ten to oae raise the siege."
There were growls of approval at this, umtil Vibart ^Y5''
"And if he don't raise it? What then? We'll not h^ a chlld or woman alive in this hellish place three days hence' e you prepared to accept that? "
"Are you prepared to accept a rebel's won-d?" retorts; D"'110^- "While we're in a defensive position here, at least we can make some show against him--and he may raise the siege, of ^WIeace may march. But once we accept his terms amd step intC "P'
we're at his mercy." 
"And we'll have hauled down our flag to a pack of rebels> says Thomson bitterly. "How do we go home to Engla(1^ a 'em that?"
At this some cried "Bravo!" and urged Wheeler to answer Nana with defiance, but old Ewart, who was so sick tt^ e a to attend the council lying on a stretcher, wondered wb^ ^ would say if we condemned hundreds of women and ("I11!'11"01 to die in the useless defence of a couple of ruined mud b1111"111^, The older men nodded agreement, but the youngster snoute him down, and Delafosse repeated the argument, red JP ace'
that Nana must be weakening or he'd never have mad^ otter.
Wheeler, who'd been sitting tugging his moustache ^lue l y bickered, looks at Moore and me.
"You saw his camp, gentlemen; what opinion did yC11 Iom" s he negotiating from weakness, because his troops ^ave heart?"
I'd said nothing throughout; I was biding my tini6' e Moore answer. He said we'd seen no signs of flaggi^S Inora e'

210
which was true enough. Wheeler looked glum, and shook his
head.
"I cannot think the Nana is to be trusted," says he. "And yet
... it is a cruel choice. All my nature, every instinct, tells me to
fight this command to the last; to die in my duty as a soldier
should do, and let my country avenge me. But to do that at the
cost of our loved ones' lives . .. already, so many ..."
He broke off, and there was an uneasy silence; everyone knew
that Wheeler's own son had died the day before. Finally he
rubbed his face and looked round.
"If it were ourselves alone, there could be but one answer. As
it is, I confess I should be tempted, for our women and children's
sake, to accept this murderer's terms, were it not that my judgement
tells me he will play us false. I..."
"Forgive me, sir," says Moore, quietly, "but if he does, we've
lost nothing. For if we don't trust him, we're dead anyway--all
of us. We know that, and--"
"At least we can die with honour!" cries some fool, and the
younger chaps cheered like the idiots they were. At this Wheeler's
head came up, and I saw his stubborn lip go out, and I thought,
now, Flashy, now's your time, or the stupid old bastard will
damn us all in the name of Duty and Honour. So I growled in
my throat, and scraped my heel, and that caught his attention,
just in time, and he looked at me.
"You've said nothing, Flashman," says he. "What is your
thought?"
I felt all their eyes turn to me, and deliberately took my time,
for I knew Wheeler was within an ace of deciding to fight it out
to a finish, and I was going to have to humbug him, and the rest
of them, into surrendering. But it was going to require my most
artistic handling.
"Well, sir," says I, "like you, I wouldn't trust the Nana as far
as the tuck-shop." (Someone laughed; homely old Flashy, you see,
with his schoolboy metaphors.) "But as Moore here says--that
don't matter. What does--or so it seems to me--is the fate of our
ladies--" (here I looked red-faced and noble) "--and the ...
the youngsters. If we accept the Nana's offer, at least there's a
chance they'll come off safe."
211
"You'd surrender?" says Wheeler, in a strained voice.
"For myself?" growls I, and looked at the floor. "Well, I never
quite got the habit... goes against the grain, I reckon. Matter of
honouras someone said just now. And I suppose it can be said
that honour demands we fight it out to the last"
"Shabashi" cries Delafosse. "Well done. Flashy!"
"but, d'ye know, sir," I went on, "the day my honour has
to be maintained by sacrificing Vibart's little boyor Tunstall's
motheror Mrs Newnham's daughter, well ..." I raised my
head and stared at the circle of faces, a strong, simple man
stirred to his depths; you could have heard a pin drop. "I don't
knowI may be wrong . .. but I don't think my honour's worth
that much, d'ye know?"
The beauty of it was, while it was the most fearful gammon,
coming from meit was stark truth for the rest of them, gallant
and honourable souls that they were. The irony was that for my
own cowardly, selfish reasons, I was arguing the sane and sensible
course, and having to dress it up in high-sounding bilge in order
to break down their fatuous notions of Duty. Reason wouldn't
have done it, but to suggest that the true honour demanded
surrender, for the women and children's sakethat shamed 'em
into sanity.
Old Ewart put the final touch to it. "And that, gentlemen,
you would do well to bear in mind" he glared almost defiantly
at Delafosse "is the opinion of the man who held Piper's Fort,
and led the Light Brigade."
Wheeler put it to the formality of a vote, but it was foregone
now. When Moore and Whiting voted to surrender, even the
firiest of the younger men gave way, and inside half an hour
Wheeler's answer was on its way to Nana, agreeing to capitulate
with the honours of war.31 But he added the condition that we
should not only keep our arms, but sixty rounds a man instead
of the proposed twenty"then, if there is treachery, it will profit
him little," he told us, and echoed the thought Azeemoolah had
expressed in the afternoon: "We can fight as well in the open as
in this death-trap." That was all he knew.
He was still fearful of treachery, you see. I was notyou may
think I was deluding myself, but the fact was I couldn't see that
212
the Nana h
' ,id anything to gain by playing us fake. I state that surren , w, and I've explained the details of the Cawnpore
. '. xause it was a momentous thing, not only in the
, : in Indian history. I had spoken--and, as I've said, I
., . was the decisive voice--for surrender, because I saw
, Ty way to save my skin. But apart from that vital
fnT} on f)T v
 i, I still believe that surrender was right, by every
 , Jdiering and common sense. Call me a fool if you could have 1^ y^ ^^ ^ ^ ^ ^ history--nothing
""''I1!- 'een worse than fiehtine on in that doomed entrenchwhatever
- 
else shared t ^g^g;; ^heeler may have had, hardly anyone
and Azeeim^ ^^ ^^ ^ ^^ ^ ^^ ^ ^^ dedded,
ment with ^ ^ ^^ Pershad had come to the entrenchdraugntann^
^^ undertakings aU signed and witnessed:
h ^lver:lals were to amve at dawn for the Q1"6-1011^ l03^ mgnt there ^g^g ^y^ ^ould be waiting, and throughout the
the garrison^ ^^ g^d eagerness and thanksgiving all through
cooking fare ^ ^^ ^ though a great shadow had been lifted;
1I7Pf W f'h f^ Vi
weeKs, me ^ ^^ ^^ ^ barrack for the first time in
in the open^^ ^.g brought out of that stinking oven to lie
where we d ^ ^ ^^ ^ children frolicked on the parapet
worn faces ^ slashing at the sepoys two days before. Tired, nger' or S^ere smiling, no one minded the dirt and stench any
a w un /e a thought to the rebels' massed guns and infantry
death had hi^ y^ ^^ ^ g^g ^ stopped, the fear of
night, "^ted, we were going out to safety, and throughout the
hymns rolled^ ^ ^ packing and preparation, the sound of
One of th , ,r .r,, ,  - . up to the night sky.
sepoys who J ^ croakers was Ilderim. Wheeler had told those
away over tl^ remained loyal and fought in the garrison to slip
mutinous tel^ southern rampart, for fear of reprisals from their
Me came to ^ ^ ^ morning, but Ilderim wouldn't have it.
wassmo ngne in the dBrk at the north entrenchment, where I
. - ^a cheroot and enjoying my peace of mind.
i . says e. ^y^y y^g 3 ^^ when someone throws a stone at
you tomonw,,^_j ^^ ^^ WTieeler Sahib and the rest of
v. And so that no pi-dog of a mutineer will take me
J
213
"You'd surrender?" says Wheeler, in a strained voice.
"For myself?" growls I, and looked at the floor. "Well, I never
quite got the habit... goes against the grain, I reckon. Matter of
honouras someone said just now. And I suppose it can be said
that honour demands we fight it out to the last"
"ShabashI" cries Delafosse. "Well done. Flashy!"
"but, d'ye know, sir," I went on, "the day my honour has
to be maintained by sacrificing Vibart's little boyor Tunstall's
motheror Mrs Newnham's daughter, well ..." I raised my
head and stared at the circle of faces, a strong, simple man
stirred to his depths; you could have heard a pin drop. "I don't
knowI may be wrong . .. but I don't think my honour's worth
that much, d'ye know?"
The beauty of it was, while it was the most fearful gammon,
coming from meit was stark truth for the rest of them, gallant
and honourable souls that they were. The irony was that for my
own cowardly, selfish reasons, I was arguing the sane and sensible
course, and having to dress it up in high-sounding bilge in order
to break down their fatuous notions of Duty. Reason wouldn't
have done it, but to suggest that the true honour demanded
surrender, for the women and children's sakethat shamed 'em
into sanity.
Old Ewart put the final touch to it. "And that, gentlemen,
you would do well to bear in mind" he glared almost defiantly
at Delafosse "is the opinion of the man who held Piper's Fort,
and led the Light Brigade."
Wheeler put it to the formality of a vote, but it was foregone
now. When Moore and Whiting voted to surrender, even the
firiest of the younger men gave way, and inside half an hour
Wheeler's answer was on its way to Nana, agreeing to capitulate
with the honours of war.31 But he added the condition that we
should not only keep our arms, but sixty rounds a man instead
of the proposed twenty"then, if there is treachery, it will profit
him little," he told us, and echoed the thought Azeemoolah had
expressed in the afternoon: "We can fight as well in the open as
in this death-trap." That was all he knew.
He was still fearful of treachery, you see. I was notyou may
think I was deluding myself, but the fact was I couldn't see that
the Nana had anything to gain by playing us false. I state that
honestly now, and I've explained the details of the Cawnpore
surrender because it was a momentous thing, not only in the
Mutiny, but in Indian history. I had spoken--and, as I've said, I
believe mine was the decisive voice--for surrender, because I saw
it as the only way to save my skin. But apart from that vital
consideration, I still believe that surrender was right, by every
canon of soldiering and common sense. Call me a fool if you
like, and shake your heads in the light of history--nothing
could have been worse than fighting on in that doomed entrenchment.

Whatever misgivings Wheeler may have had, hardly anyone
else shared them when word got round of what had been decided,
and Azeemoolah and Jwala Pershad had come to the entrenchment
with the Nana's undertakings all signed and witnessed:
draught animals were to arrive at dawn for the mile-long journey
to the river where boats would be waiting, and throughout the
night there was bustle and eagerness and thanksgiving all through
the garrison. It was as though a great shadow had been lifted;
cooking fires blazed outside the barrack for the first time in
weeks, the wounded were brought out of that stinking oven to lie
in the open air, and even the children frolicked on the parapet where we'd been slashing at the sepoys two days before. Tired,
worn faces were smiling, no one minded the dirt and stench any
longer, or gave a thought to the rebels' massed guns and infantry
a few hundred yards away; the firing had stopped, the fear of
death had lifted, we were going out to safety, and throughout the
night, over the din of packing and preparation, the sound of
hymns rolled up to the night sky.
One of the few croakers was Ilderim. Wheeler had told those
sepoys who had remained loyal and fought in the garrison to slip
away over the southern rampart, for fear of reprisals from their
mutinous fellows in the morning, but Ilderim wouldn't have it.
He came to me in the dark at the north entrenchment, where I
was smoking a cheroot and enjoying my peace of mind.
"Do I slip away like a cur when someone throws a stone at
it?" says he. "No--I march with Wheeler Sahib and the rest of
you tomorrow. And so that no pi-dog of a mutineer will take me
213
for anything but what I am, I have put this on, for a killut*"
and as he stepped closer in the gloom, I saw he was in the full fig
of a native officer of cavalry, white coat, gauntlets, long-tailed
puggaree and all. "It is just a down-country regiment's coat,
which I took from one of those we slew the other day, but it will
serve to mark me as a soldier." He grinned, showing his teeth.
"And I shall take my sixty roundsdo thou likewise, bloodbrother."
"We're
not going to need 'em, though," says I, and he
shrugged.
"Who knows? When the tiger has its paw on the goat's neck,
and then smiles in friendship . . . Wheeler Sahib does not trust
the Nana. Dost thou?"
"There's no choice, is there?" says I. "But he's signed his
name to a promise, after all"
"And if he breaks it, the dead can complain," says he, and
spat. "So I saykeep thy sixty rounds to hand, Flashman
sahib." 
I didn't heed him much, for Pathans are notoriously suspicious
of everyone, reason or none, and when day broke there was too
much to do to waste time in thinking. The mutineers came in the
first mists of dawn, with bullocks and elephants and carts to carry
us to the river, and we had the herculean task of getting everyone
into the convoy. There were two hundred wounded to be moved,
and all the women and children, some of them just babes-in-arms,
and old people who'd have been feeble enough even without
three weeks on starvation rations. Everyone was tired and filthy
and oddly dispirited now that the first flush of excitement had
died away. As the sun came up it shone on a strange, nightmare
sight that lives with me now only as a series of pictures as the
evacuation of Cawnpore began.
I can see the straggling mass of the procession, the bullockcarts
with their stretchers carrying the blood-stained figures of
the wounded, gaunt and wasted; bedraggled white women, either
sitting in the carts or standing patiently alongside, with children
who looked like Whitechapel waifs clinging to their skirts; our
own men, ragged and haggard, with their muskets cradled,
* Dress of honour, usually on ceremonial occasions.
214
taking up station along the convoy; the red coats and sullen faces
of the mutineers who were to shepherd us across the maidan and
down to the river ghat beyond the distant trees where the boats
were waiting. The dawn air was heavy with mist and suspicion
and hatred, as Wheeler, with Moore at his elbow as always, stood
up on the rampart and reviewed the battered remnants of his
command, strung out along the entrenchment, waiting listlessly
for the word to move while all around was the confused babble of
voices, orders being shouted, officers hurrying up and down,
elephants squealing, the carts creaking, children crying, and the
kites beginning to swoop down on the emptying barracks.
Incidents and figures remain very clear--two civilians hauling
down the tattered flag from the barrack roof, rolling it up carefully
and bringing it to Wheeler, who stood absentmindedly
with it trailing from one hand while he shouted: "Sam't Grady!
Is the south entrenchment clear, Sam't Grady?" A little boy
with curly hair, laughing and shouting "Plop-plop!" as one of
the elephants dropped its dung; his mother, a harassed young
woman in a torn ball-gown (it had rosebuds embroidered, I recall)
with a sleeping infant in her arms, slapped and shook him with
her free hand, and then straightened her hair. A group of mutineers walking round the barracks, belabouring one of our
native cooks who was limping along under a great load of pans.
A British private, his uniform unrecognisable, being railed at by
an old mem-sahib as he helped her into a cart, until she was
settled, when she said, "Thank you, my good man, thank you
very much", and began searching her reticule for a tip. Four
mutineers were hurrying up and down the untidy convoy, calling
out and searching, until they spotted Vibart and his family--and
then they ran hallooing and calling "Colonel sahib! Mem-sahib!",
and seized on the family's baggage, and one of them, beaming
and chuckling, lifted Vibart's little lad on to his shoulders, piggyback,
while the others shouted and shoved and made room for
Mrs Vibart in a wagon. Vibart was dumbfounded, and two of the
mutineers were weeping as they took his hand and carried his
gear--I saw another one at it, too, an old grizzled havildar of the
56th, standing on the entrenchment gazing down into the ruin
of the barracks with tears running down his white beard; he was
215
shaking his head in grief, and then he would look no more, but
turned about and stared across the maidan, still crying.
Most of the mutineers weren't so sentimental, though. One
tried to snatch a musket from Whiting, and Whiting flung him
off snarling and shouting: "You want it, do you? I'll give you its
contents fast enough, you damned dog, if you don't take care!"
The pandies fell back, growling and shaking their fists, and
another gang of them stood and jeered while old Colonel Ewart
was carried on a paiki to his place in the line. "Is it not a fine
parade, colonel sahib?" they were jeering. "Is it not well drawn
up?" And they cackled and made mock of the drill, prancing up
and down.
I didn't like the look of this a bit, or of the menacing-looking
crowd of pandies which was growing across the maidan. Promises
or no promises, it don't take much to touch off a crowd like that,
and I was relieved when Moore, who had hurried to the head of
the column, shouted and blew his whistle, and the procession
began to move, creaking slowly, away from the entrenchment,
and out on to the plain. I was near the rear of the line, where
Vibart had charge of the supply-wagons; behind us the pandies
were already scavenging in the deserted barracks--by God, they
were welcome to anything they could find.
It was about a mile to the river, where the boats were, but we
were so exhausted, and the convoy so haphazard and cumbersome,
that it took us the best part of an hour to cross the maidan
alone. It was a hellish trek, with the mutineers trying to drive us
along, swearing and thrusting, and our fellows cursing 'em back,
while wagons foundered, and one or two of the garrison collapsed
and had to be loaded aboard, and the drivers thrashed at the
beasts. Crowds of natives had come down from Cawnpore city to
watch and jeer at us and get in the way; some of them, and the
more hostile pandies, kept sneaking in close to shout taunts, or
even to strike at us and try to steal our belongings. Something's
going to crack in a moment, thinks I, and sure enough, just as
we were trying to manhandle one of the store-wagons over a little
white bridge at the far side of the maidan, where the trees began,
there was a crackle of firing off to one side, and sudden shouting,
and then more shots.
216
t
The driver of my store-wagon tried to whip up in alarm, a
wheel caught on the bridge, and I and two civilians were
struggling to keep it steady when Whiting comes up at the run,
cocking his musket and demanding to know what the row was.
In the same moment one of our corporals came flying out of the
wood, rolled clean under the wagon in front of us, and jumps up
yelling:
"Quick, sircome quick! Them devils is murthering Colonel
Ewart! They got 'im in the trees yonder, an'"
Whiting sprang forward with an oath, but quick as light one
of the mutineers who'd been watching us at the bridge jumps in
his way and flung his arm round him. For a moment I thought,
oh God, now they're going to ambush us, and the corporal must
have thought the same, for he whipped out his bayonet, but the
mutineer holding Whiting was just trying to keep him back and
shouting:
"Nahin, sahib, khabadarl* If you go there, they will kill you!
Let be, sahib! Go onto the river!"
Whiting swore, and struggled with him, but the mutineera
big, black-moustached havildar with a Chillianwallah medal
threw him down and wrested his musket away. Whiting came up,
furious, but the corporal understood, and grabbed his wrist.
"'E's right, sir! Them swine'll just sarf fearot you, like they
done the colonel! We got to git on to the river, like 'e says!
Otherwise, maybe they'll do for everybodythe wimmen an'
kids an' all, sir!"
He was right, of courseI'd been through the same sort of
retreat as this, back in Afghanistan, and you've got to allow for a
few stray slaughters and turn a blind eye, or the next thing you
know you'll have a battle on your hands. Even Whiting realised
it, I think, for he wheeled on the havildar and says:
"I must see. Will you come with me?"
The fellow says "Han, sahib", and they strode into the trees.
It seemed a sensible time to be getting on down to the river, so I
told the corporal I must inform Wheeler of what was happening,
ordered him to see the store-wagon safely over the bridge, and
* Take care!
+ To make cleani.e., clean you up.
217
jumped up on to the coping, running past the carts ahead, with
their passengers demanding to know what was happening. I
hurried on through the trees, and found myself looking down
the slope to the Suttee Choura Ghat, and beyond it the broad,
placid expanse of the Ganges.
The slope was alive with people. The foremost wagons had
reached the landing-stage, and our folk were already getting out
and making their way to the water's edge, where a great line of
thatched, clumsy-looking barges were anchored in the shallows.
The wagons nearer me were splitting away from the convoy to
get closer to the water, and everything was in confusion, with
some people getting out and others sitting tight. Already the
ground was littered with abandoned gear, the stretchers with the
wounded were being unloaded just anywhere; groups of women
and children were waiting, wondering which way to go, while
their menfolk, red in the face and shouting, demanded to know
what the orders for embarkation were. Someone was calling, "All
ladies with small children are to go in numbers twelve to sixteen!"
but no one knew which barges were which, and you
couldn't hear yourself think above the elephants'squealing and
the babble of voices.
On either side of the slope there were groups of pandies with
their bayonets fixed, glowering but doing nothing to help, and off
to one side I saw a little gaily-dressed group of natives by a
temple on a knoll--Azeemoolah was there, talking to Wheeler,
who was gesturing towards the barges, so I walked across towards
them, through the silent groups of pandy riflemen, and as I came
up Azeemoolah was saying:
"... but I assure you general, the flour is already in the boats
--go and see for yourself. Ah, Colonel Flashman, good morning,
sir; I trust I see you in good health. Perhaps, general, Colonel
Flashman could be asked to examine the boats, and see that all is
as I have told you?"
So I was dispatched down to the water, and had to wade out
through the shallows to the barges; they were great, mustysmelling
craft, but clean enough, with half-naked nigger boatmen in charge, and sure enough there were grain sacks in most of
them, as Azeemoolah had said. I reported accordingly, and then
218
we set to with the embarkation, which simply meant telling
people off at random to the various barges, carrying the women
and children through the water, bearing the stretchers of the
wounded head-high, stumbling and swearing in the stinking ooze
of the shallows--I went under twice myself, but thank God I
didn't swallow any; the Ganges is one river you don't want to
take the waters of. It was desperate work, gasping in the steamy
heat as the sun came up; the worst of it was getting the women
and children and wounded properly stowed inboard--I remember
thinking it was ironic that my experience of packing howling
niggers into the slave-ship Balliol College some years before should
come in so handy now. But there you are--any special knowledge
comes in useful, sooner or later.
By God, though, the niggers had been easier to handle. I reckon
I must have carried twenty females to the barges (and none of 'em
worth even a quick fumble, just my luck), plucked one weeping
child from the water's edge, where she was crying for her mama,
put my fist into the face of a pandy who was pestering Mrs
Newnham and trying to snatch her parasol, quieted an old crone
who refused to*be embarked until she was positive the barge she
was going to was Number 12 ("Mr Turner said I must go to
Number 12; I will go to no other"--it might have been the Great Eastern for all I knew, or cared), and stood neck deep
wrestling to replace a rotted rudder rope. Strange, when you're
working all out with things like that, sweating and wrestling to
make sense out of chaos, you forget about death and danger and
possible treachery--all that matters is getting that piece of hemp
knotted through the rudder stem, or finding the carpetbag that
Mrs Burtenshaw's maid has left in the cart.
I was about done when I stumbled up through the litter of the
bank for the last time, and looked about me. Nearly all the command
was loaded, the barges were floating comfortably high on
the oily surface, and beyond them the last dawn mists were
receding across the broad expanse of the river to the far bank half
a mile distant, with the eastern sun turning the water to a great
crimson mirror.
There weren't above fifty of our folk, Vibart's rearguard
mostly, left on the wreck-strewn, mud-chumed slope; Wheeler
219
and Moore and Vibart were all together, and as I came to them I
heard Whiting's voice, shaking with anger:
"and he was shot on his paiki, I tell youhalf a dozen times,
at least! Those foresworn swine up yonder" and he shook his
fist towards the temple on the knoll, where Azeemoolah was
sitting with Tantia Tope in a little group of the Nana's officers.
There was no sign of Nana himself, though.
"There is nothing to be done, Captain Whiting!" Wheeler's
voice was hoarse, and his gaunt face was crimson and sweating.
He looked on the edge of collapse. "I know, sir, I knowit is the
basest treachery, but there is no remedy now! Let us thank God
. ,-we have come this farno, no, sir, we are in no case to protest,
let alone punishwe must make haste down the river before
worse befalls!"
Whiting stamped and cursed, but Vibart eased him away. The
pandies who had lined the slope were moving down now, through
the abandoned wagons, converging on the landing-place.
"Hollo, Flash," says Moore, wearily. Like me, he was plastered
with mud, and the sling was gone from his wounded arm. "They
settled Massie, toodid you know? He and Ewart protested
when the pandies dragged off four of our loyal sepoysso they
shot 'em all, out o' hand"
"Like dogs, beside the road!" cries Whiting. "By God, if I'd a
gun!" He dashed the sweat from his eyes, glaring at the pandies
on the slope. Then he saw me. "Flashmanone of the sepoys was
that Pathan orderly of yoursthe big chap in the havildar's coat
they shot him in the ditch!"
For a moment I didn't comprehend; I just stared at his flushed,
raging face. "Like a dog in the ditch!" cries he again, and then it
hit me like a blow: he was telling me that Ilderim was dead. I
can't describe what I feltit wasn't grief, or horror, so much as
disbelief. Ilderim couldn't diehe was indestructible, always had
been, even as the boy I'd first met at Mogala years ago, one of
those folk whose life is fairly bursting out of them; I had a vision
of that grinning, bearded hawk-face of just a few hours ago"No
pi-dog of a mutineer will take me for anything but what I am!"
And he'd been right, and it had been the death of himbut not
the kind of death the great brave idiot had always looked for, just
a mean, covert murder at the roadside. Oh, you stupid Gilzai
bastard, I thoughtwhy didn't you go over the wall when you
had the chance ...
"Come on!" Moore was pushing at my shoulder. "We'll be
last aboard. We're in thehollo, what's that?"
From the trees on the top of the slope a bugle sounded, the
notes floating clearly down to us. I looked up the hill, and saw a
strange thing happeningI suppose I was still shocked by the
news of Ilderim's death, but what I saw seemed odd rather than
menacing. The pandies on the slope, and there must have been a
couple of hundred of them, were dropping to the kneeling firing
position, their muskets were at their shoulders, and they were
pointing at us.
"For Christ's" a voice shouted, and then the hillside seemed
to explode in a hail of musketry, the balls were howling past, I
heard someone scream beside me, and then Moore's arm flailed
me to the ground, and I was plunging through the ooze, into the
water. I went under, and struck out for dear life, coming up with
a shattering crash of my head against the middle barge. Overhead
women were shrieking and muskets were cracking, and then
there was the crash of distant cannon, and I saw the narrow strip
of water between me and the shore ploughed up as the storm of
grape hit it. I reached up, seizing the gunwale, and heaved myself
up, and then the whole barge shook as though in a giant hand,
and I was hurled back into the water again.
I came up gasping. The pandies were tearing down the slope
now, sabres and muskets and bayonets at the ready, charging into
the last of our shore-party, who were struggling in the shallows.
Up on the slope others were firing at the boats, and in the shade
beneath the trees there was the triple flash of cannon, sending
grape and round-shot smashing down into the helpless lumbering
boats. Men were struggling in the water only a few yards from
meI saw a British soldier sabred down, another floundering
back as a sepoy shot him point-blank through the body, and a
third, thrust through with a bayonet, sinking down slowly on
the muddy shore. Wheeler, white-faced and roaring "Treachery!
Shove offquickly! Treachery!", was stumbling out into the
shallows, his sabre drawn; he slashed at a pursuing sepoy, missed
221
his footing and went under, but a hand reached out from the
gunwale near me and pulled him up, coughing and spewing
water. Moore was in the water close by, and Vibart was trying
to swim towards us with his wounded arm trailing. As Moore
plunged towards him I sank beneath the surface, dived, and struck
out beneath the boat, and as I went I was thinking, clear enough,
well, Flashy my lad, you were wrong again--Nana Sahib wasn't
to be trusted after all.
I came up on the other side, and the first thing I saw was a
body falling from the boat above me. Overhead its thatch was
burning, and as a great chunk of the stuff fell hissing into the
water I shoved away. I trod water, looking about me: in the next
two barges the thatches were alight as well, and people were
screaming and tumbling into the water--I saw one woman jumping
with a baby in her arms: I believe it was the one who had
cuffed the little boy for laughing at the elephant's dung. The
shore was hidden from me by the loom of the barge, but the
crash of firing was redoubling, and the chorus of screams and
yells was deafening. People were firing back from the barges, too,
and in the one down-river from me two chaps were beating at
the burning thatch, and another was heaving at its tiller; very
slowly it seemed to be veering from the bank. That's the boy for
me, thinks I, and in the same moment the thatch of the barge
immediately above me collapsed with a roar and a whoosh of
sparks, with shrieks of the damned coming from beneath it.
It was obvious, even in that nightmare few moments, what had
happened. Nana had been meaning to play false all along; he had
just waited until we were in the boats before opening up with
musketry, grape, and every piece of artillery he had. From where
I was I could see one barge already sinking, with people
struggling in the water round it; at least four others were on fire;
two were drifting helplessly into midstream. The pandies were in
the water round the last three boats, where most of the women
and children were, but then a great gust of smoke blotted the
scene from my view, and at the same tune I heard the crackle of
firing from the far bank--the treacherous bastards had us trapped
both sides. I put my head down and struck out for the next barge
ahead, which at least had someone steering it, and as I came
222
f
under its stern there was Moore in the water alongside, shoving
for all he was worth to turn the rudder and help it from the
shore. Beyond him I saw Wheeler and Vibart and a couple of
others being dragged inboard, while our people blazed back at the
pandies on the bank.
Moore shouted something incoherent at me, and as I seized on
the rudder with him his face was within a foot of mineand
then it exploded in a shower of blood, and I literally had his
brains blown all over me. I let go, shrieking, and when I had
dashed the hideous mess from my eyes he was gone, the barge
was surging out into the river as our people got the sweeps going,
and I was just in time to grasp the gunwale and be dragged along,
clinging like grim death, and bawling to be hauled aboard.
We must have gone several hundred yards before I managed to
scramble up and on to the deck and get my bearings. The first
thing I saw was Wheeler, dead or dying; he had a gaping wound
in the neck, and the blood was pumping oozily on to his shirt.
All around there were wounded men sprawled on the planks, the
smouldering thatch filled the boat with acrid clouds of smoke,
and at both gunwales men were firing at the banks. I clung to the
gunwale, looking backwe were half a mile below Suttee Ghat
by now, where most of the barges were still swinging at their
moorings, under a pall of smoke; the river round them was full of
people, floundering for the bank. The firing seemed to have
slackened, but you could still see the sparkle of the muskets along
the slope above the ghat, and the occasional blink of a heavy gun,
booming dully across the water. Behind us, two of the barges
seemed to have got clear, and were drifting helplessly across the
river, but we were the only one under way, with half a dozen
chaps each side tugging at the sweeps.
I took stock. We were clear; the shots weren't reaching us.
Wheeler was dead, flopped out on the deck, and beyond him
Vibart was lying against the gunwale, eyes closed, both arms
soaked in blood; someone was babbling in agony, and I saw it was
Turner, with one leg doubled at a hideous angle and the other
lying in a bloody pool. Whiting was holding on to one of the
awning supports, a gory spectre, fumbling one-handed at the lock
of a carbinethere hardly seemed to be a sound man in the
223
barge. I saw Delafosse was at one of the sweeps, Thomson at
another, and Sergeant Grady, with a bandage round his brow,
was in the act of loosing off a shot at the shore. And then, with
a little shock of astonishment, I saw that one of the wounded
men on the deck was East--and he was finished.
Why, I don't know, but I dropped down beside him and felt his
pulse. He opened his eyes at that, and looked up at me, and someone
at my elbow--I don't know who--says hoarsely:
"Pandy got him on the bank . . . bayonet in the back, poor
devil."
East recognised me, and tried to speak, but couldn't; you could
see the life ebbing out of his eyes. His lips quivered, and very
faintly I heard him say:
"Flashman ... tell the doctor ... I..."
That was all, except that he gripped my hand hard, and the
man beside me said something about there not being any doctor
on board.
"That ain't what he meant," says I. "It's another doctor he
means--a schoolmaster, but he's dead."
East gave a little ghost of a smile, and his hand tightened, and
then went loose in mine--and I found I was blubbering and
gasping, and thinking about Rugby, and hot murphies at Sally's
shop, and a small fag limping along pathetically after the players
at Big Side--because he couldn't play himself, you see, being
lame. I'd hated the little bastard, too, man and boy, for his smug
manly piety--but you don't see a child you've known all your
life die every day. Maybe that was why I wept, maybe it was the
shock and horror of what had been happening. I don't know.
Whatever it was, I'm sure I felt it all the more sincerely for
knowing that I was still alive myself, and no bones broken so
far.32
  *
Memory's the queerest thing. When you've been through a
hellish experience--and the Cawnpore siege and surrender ranks
high in that line, along with Balaclava and Kabul and Greasy
Grass and Isandlhwana--the aftermath tends to be vague, until
some fresh horror strikes. That barge is mercifully dim in my
mind now--I know it was the only one that got away from
224
Cawnpore, and that of the rest, all were shot to pieces or burned
with their passengers, except those which had the women and
children aboard. The pandies captured those, and took the women
and kids back ashore--all the world knows what happened after
that. But only a few things are clear about our trip down-river--
Thomson has left a pretty full account of it, if you're interested.
I remember Whiting dying--or rather I remember him being
dead, looking very pale and small in the bows of the boat. I
remember taking a turn at the rudder, and splashing and straining
in the water when we grounded on a mudbank in the dark.
I remember hearing drums beating on the bank, and Vibart biting
on a leather strap as they set his broken arm, and the dull splashes
as we put dead bodies over the side, and the musty taste of dry
mealies which was all we had to eat--but the first time that
memory becomes consecutive and coherent after East died was
when a fire-arrow came winging out of the dark and thudded into
the deck, and we were shooting away at dim figures on the nearest
bank, and fire-arrows came down in a blazing rain as we hauled
on the sweeps and forced the barge back into mid-stream out of
range. We rowed like fury until the fiery pinpoints of light on
the bank were far behind us, and the yelling and drumming of the
niggers had died away, and then we flopped down exhausted and
the current carried us and landed us high and dry on another
mudbank Just before dawn.
This time theie was no shoving off; we were wedged tight in
the mud, along a deserted jungly shore, with nothing to be heard
but monkeys chattering and birds screeching in the dense undergrowth.
The far bank was the same, a thick mass of green, with
the brown oily r.ver sliding slowly past. At least it looked peaceful,
which was a pleasant change.
Vibart reckoned we must still be a hundred miles from Allahabad,
and if the behaviour of the niggers who'd showered us
with fire-arrows was anything to go by, we could count on hostile
country most of the way. There were two dozen of us in the
boat, perhaps half of whom were fit to stand; we were low on
powder and ball, and desperately short of mealies, there were no
medical supplies, and it was odds half the wounded would contract
gangrene unless we reached safety quickly. Not a pleasant
225
prospect, thinks I, as I looked round the squalid barge, with its
dozen wounded groaning or listless on the planks, the stench of
blood and death everywhere, and even the whole men looking
emaciated and fit to croak. I was in better case than mostI
hadn't been through the whole siegeand it was crossing my
mind that I might do worse than slip away on my own and trust
to luck and judgement to get to Allahabad on foot; after all, I
could always turn into a native again.
So when we held our little council, I prepared the way for
decamping, in my own subtle style. The others, naturally, were
all debating how we might get refloated again and press on to
Allahabad; I shook them up by suddenly growling that I was in
no hurry to get there.
"I agree we must get the barge refloated to take the wounded
on," says I. "For the rest of uswell, for me, leastways, I'd
sooner head back for Cawnpore."
They gaped at me in disbelief. "You're mad!" cries Delafosse.
"So I've been told," says I. "See herewhile we had the
women and children to think of, they were our first concern.
That's the only reason we surrendered, isn't it? Well, now they're
. . . either gone, or captives of those fiendsI don't much fancy
running any longer." I looked as belligerent as I knew how.
"There hasn't been much time to think things out these past
hoursbut now, well, I reckon I've a score to settleand the
only place I want to settle it is Cawnpore."
"But.. . but..." says Thomson, "we can't go back, man! It's
certain death!"
"Maybe," says I, very business-like. "But I've seen my
country's flag hauled down oncesomething I never thought to
seeI've seen us betrayed, our . . . our loved ones ravished from
us ..." I managed a manly glisten about the eye. "I don't like it
above half! SoI'm going back, and I'm going to get a bullet into
that black bastard's heartI don't care how! Andthat's that."
"By God!" says Delafosse, taking fire, "by GodI've half a
mind to come with you!"
"You'll do no such thing!" This was Vibart; he was deathly
pale, with both arms useless, but he was still in command. "Our
duty is to reach AllahabadColonel Flashman, I forbid you! I
226
will not have your life flung away in ... in this rash folly! You
will carry out General Wheeler's orders--"
"Look, old fellow," says I. "I was never one of General
Wheeler's command, you recollect? I don't ask anyone to come
with me--but I left a friend dead back there--a comrade from
the old Afghan days--a salt man from the hills. Well, maybe I'm
more of a salt man than a parade soldier myself--anyway, I know
what I must do." I gave him a quizzical little grin, and patted his
foot. "Anyway, Vibart, I'm senior to you, remember?"
At this they cried out together, telling me not to be a fool,
and Vibart said I couldn't desert our wounded. He wanted to send
a shore-party, to try to find friendly villagers who would tow us
off; I was best fitted to lead it, he said, and my first duty was to
carry out Wheeler's dying wishes, and get down-river. I seemed
to hesitate, and finally said I would lead the shore-party--"but
you'll be going to Allahabad without me in the end," says I.
"All I'll need is a rifle and a knife--and a handshake from each
one of you."
So we set off, a dozen of us, to try to find a friendly village. If
we found one, and the prospects of getting off for Allahabad
seemed good, I'd allow myself to be persuaded, and go along with
them. If we didn't--I'd slip away, and they could imagine I'd
gone back to Cawnpore on my mission of vengeance. (That's one
thing about having a reckless reputation: they'll believe anything
of you, and shake their heads in admiration over your daredevilry.)

We hadn't gone five minutes into the jungle before I was
wishing to God I'd been able to stay in the boat. It wasn't very
thick stuff, once we got away from the river, but eery and
curiously quiet, with huge tall trees shadowing a forest-floor of
creeper and swampy plants, like a great cathedral, and only the
occasional tree-creature chirruping in the silence. We struck a
little path, and followed it, and presently came on a tiny temple
in a clearing, a lath-and-plaster thing that looked as though it
hadn't been visited in years. Delafosse and Sergeant Grady
scouted it, and reported it empty, and I was just ordering up the
others when we heard it--very low and far-off in the forest: the
slow boom-boom of drums.
217
I don't know any sound like it for shivering the soul. I've
heard it in Dahomey, when the Amazons were after us, and in
South American backwaters, and on a night on the Papar River
in Borneo when the Iban head-hunters took the warpaththe
muted rumble of doom that conjures up spectres with painted
faces creeping towards you through the dark. They're usually
damned real spectres, tooas they were here, for I'd barely given
my order when there was a whistle and a thud, and Grady, on
the edge of the clearing, was staggering with an arrow in his
brow, and with a chorus of blood-chilling screams they were on
usblack, half-naked figures swarming out of the trees, yelling
bloody murder. I snapped off one shotGod knows where it
wentand then I was baring for the temple. I made it a split
second ahead of two arrows which quivered in the doorpost, and
then we were tumbling inside, with Delafosse and Thomson
crouched in the doorway, blazing away as hard as they could.
They came storming up to the doorway in a great rabble, and
for the next five minutes it was as bloody and desperate a melee as
ever I've been in. We were so packed in the tiny space inside the
buildingit wasn't more than eight feet square, and about that
number of us had got insidethat only two of us could fire
through the door at once. Whoever the attackers werehalfhuman
jungle people, apparently, infected by the general Mutiny
madnessthey didn't appear to have fire-arms, and the foremost
of them were shot down before they could get close enough to
use their spears and long swords. But their arrows buzzed in like
hornets, and two of our fellows went down before the attack
slackened off. We were just getting our breath back, and I was
helping Thomson push an arrow through and out of the fleshy
part of Private Murphy's armand all the time we could hear
our besiegers grunting and fumbling stealthily close under the
temple wallwhen Delafosse suddenly whoops out "Fire, fire!
They've set the place alight!"
Sure enough, a gust of smoke came billowing in the doorway,
setting us coughing and stumbling; a fire-arrow came zipping in
to bury itself in Private Ryan's side, and the yells of the niggers
redoubled triumphantly. I staggered through the reek, and
Thomson was clutching my arm, shouting:
118
"Must break out . . . two volleys straight in front. . . run for
it..."
It was an affair of split seconds; there wasn't time to think or
argue. He and Delafosse and two of the privates stumbled to the
door, Thomson yells "Fire!", they all let blast together, and then
we put our heads down and went charging out of the temple,
with the flames licking up behind us, and drove in a body across
the clearing for the shelter of the jungle. The niggers shrieked at
the sight of us, I saw the man before me tumble down with a
spear in his back, I cannoned into a black figure and he fell away,
and then we were haring through the trees, my musket was
gone, and no thought but flight. Delafosse was in front of me;
I followed him as he swerved on to the path, with the arrows
whipping past us; booted feet were thumping behind me, and
Thomson was shouting, "On, onwe can distance 'em!come
on, Murphy, Sullivanto the boat!"
How we broke clear. God knowsthe very suddenness with
which we'd rushed from the temple must have surprised them
but we could hear their yells in the jungle behind, and they
weren't giving up the hunt, either. My lungs were bursting as
we ploughed through the thicker jungle near the river, tripping
on snags, tearing ourselves, sobbing with exhaustionand then
we were on the bank, and Delafosse was sliding to a halt in the
mud and yelling:
"It's gone! Vibart! My God, the boafs gone!"
The mudbank was emptythere was the great groove where
the barge had been, but the brown stretch of water was unbroken
to the wall of green on its far side; of the barge there wasn't a
sign.
"It must have slid off" Delafosse was crying, and I thought,
good for you, my boy, let's stop to consider how it happened,
eh, and the niggers can come up and join in. I didn't even check
stride; I went into the water in the mightiest racing dive I ever
performed, and I heard the cries and splashes as the others took
to the river behind me. I was striking out blindly, feeling the
current tugging me downstreamI didn't mind; anywhere would
do so long as it was away from those black devils screeching in
the forest behind. The far bank was too distant to reach, but
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i^
downstream where the river curved there were islands and sandbanks,
and we were being carried towards them far faster than
our pursuers could hope to run. I swam hard with the current,
until the yelping of the niggers had faded into the distance, and
then glanced round to see how the others were getting along.
There were four heads bobbing in the water--Delafosse, Thomson,
Murphy, and Sullivan, all swimming in my wake, and I was just
debating whether to make for the nearest sandbank or allow
myself to be carried past, when Delafosse reared up in the water,
yelling and gesturing ahead of me. I couldn't make him out, and
then the single shrieked word "Muggers!" reached me, and as I
looked where he was pointing the steamy waters of the Ganges
seemed to turn to ice.
On a mudbank a hundred yards ahead and to my right, shapes
were moving--long, brown, hideously scaly dragons waddling
down to the water at frightening speed, plashing into the shallows
and then gliding out inexorably to head us off, their halfsubmerged
snouts rippling the surface. For an instant I was
paralysed--then I was thrashing at the water in a frenzy of
terror, trying to get out into midstream, fighting the sluggish
current. I knew it was hopeless; they must intercept us long
before we could reach the islands, but I lashed out blindly,
ploughing through the water, too terrified to look and expecting
every moment to feel the agonising stab of crocodile teeth in my
legs. I was almost done, with exhaustion and panic, and then
Sullivan was alongside, tugging at me, pointing ahead--and I saw
that the placid surface was breaking up into a long, swirling race
where the water ran down between two little scrubby mudbanks.
There was just a chance, if we could get into that broken water,
that the faster current might carry us away--muggers hate rough
water, anyway--and I went for it with the energy of despair.
One glance I spared to my right--my God, there was one of
the brutes within ten yards, swirling towards me. I had a nightmare
glimpse of that hideous snout breaking surface, of the great
tapering jaws suddenly yawning in a cavern of teeth--and I regret
to say I did not notice whether the fourth tooth of the lower jaw
was overlapping or not. A naturalist chap, to whom I described
my experience a few years ago, tells me that if I'd taken note of
230
this, I'd have known whether I was being attacked by a true
crocodile or gavial, or by some other species, which would have
added immense interest to the occasion.33 As it was, I can only
say that the bloody thing looked like an Iron Maiden rushing at
me through the water, and I was just letting out a last wail of
despair when Sullivan seized me by the hair, the current tore at
our legs, and we were swept away into the rough water between
the islands, striking out any old way, going under into the choking
brown, coming up again and struggling to stay afloat--and
then the water had changed to clinging black ooze, and Sullivan
was crying:
"Up, up, sir, for Christ's sake!" and he was half-dragging me
through the slime towards the safety of a tangled mass of creeper
on top of a mudbank. Delafosse was staggering out beside us,
Thomson was knee-deep in the water smashing with a piece of
root at the head of a mugger which lunged and snapped before
swilling away with a flourish of its enormous tail: Murphy, his
arm trickling blood, was already up on the top of the bank,
reaching down to help us. I heaved up beside him, shuddering,
and I remember thinking: that must be the end, nothing more can
happen now, and if it does, I don't care, I'll just have to die,
because there's nothing I can do. Sullivan was kneeling over me,
and I remember I said:
j "God bless you, Sullivan. You are the noblest man alive", or
something equally brilliant--although I meant it, by God--and
he replied: "I daresay you're right, sir; you'll have to tell my
missus, for damn me if she thinks so." And then I must have
swooned away, for all I can remember is Delafosse saying: "I
believe they are friends--see, Thomson, they are waving to us--
they mean us no harm", and myself thinking, if it's the muggers
waving, don't you trust the bastards an inch, they're only
pretending to be friendly.. .84
231
Luck, as I've often observed, is an
agile sprite who jumps both ways in double quick time. You
could say it had been evil chance that took me to Meerut and the
birth of the Mutiny--but I'd escaped, only to land in the hell of
Cawnpore, from which I was one of only five to get clear away
after the ghat massacre. It had been the foulest luck to run into
those wild men in the jungle, and the infernal muggers--but if
they hadn't chased us, we mightn't have fetched up on a mudbank
under the walls of one of those petty Indian rulers who
stayed loyal to the Sirkar. For that was what had happened--
the new niggers whom Delafosse saw waving and hallooing from
the shore turned out to be the followers of one Diribijah Singh,
a tough old maharaj who ruled from a fort in the jungle, and was
a steadfast friend of the British. So you see, all that matters about
luck is thai: it should run good on the last throw.
Not that the game was over, you understand; when I think
back on the Mutiny, even on Cawnpore, I can say that the worst
was still to come. And yet, I feel that the ride turned on that
mudbank; at least, after a long nightmare, I can say that there
followed a period of comparative calm, for me, in which I was
able to recruit my tattered nerves, and take stock, and start planning
how to get the devil out of this Indian pickle and back to
England and safety.
For the moment, there was nothing to do but thank God and
the loyal savages who picked us up from that shoal, with the
muggers snuffling discontentedly in the wings. The natives took
us ashore, to the maharaj's castle, and he was a brick--a fine old
sport with white whiskers and a belly like a barrel, who swore
damnation to all mutineers and promised to return us to our own
folk as soon as we had recovered and it seemed safe to pass
through the country round. But that wasn't for several weeks,
and in the meantime the five of us could only lie and recuperate
232
and contain our impatience as best we might--Delafosse and
Thomson were itching to get back into the thick of things; Murphy and Sullivan, the two privates, kept their counsel and ate like
horses; while I, making an even greater show of impatience than
my brother-officers, was secretly well content to rest at ease,
blinking in the sun and eating mangoes, to which I'm partial.
In the meantime, we later discovered, great things were
happening in the world beyond. When news of Cawnpore's fall
got out, it gave the Mutiny a tremendous fillip; revolt spread all
along the Ganges valley and in Central India, the garrisons at
Mhow and Agra and a dozen other places rebelled, and most
notable of all, Henry Lawrence got beat fighting a dam' silly battle
at Chinhat, and had to hole up in Lucknow, which went under
siege. On the credit side, my old friend the First Gravedigger
(General Havelock to you) finally got up off his Puritan rump
and struck through Allahabad at Cawnpore; he fought his way
in after a nine-day march, and recaptured the place a bare three
weeks after we'd been driven out--and I suppose all the world
knows what he found when he got there.
You remember that when we escaped the massacre at the
Suttee Ghat, the barges with the women and children were
caught by the pandies. Well, Nana took them ashore, all 200 of
them, and locked them up in a place called the Bibigarh, in such
filth and heat that thirty of them died within a week. He made
our women grind corn; then, when word came that Havelock
was fighting his way in, and slaughtering all opposition, Nana
had all the women and children butchered. They say even the
pandies wouldn't do it, so he sent in hooligans with cleavers from
the Cawnpore bazaar; they chopped them all up, even the babies,
and threw them, dead and still living, down a well. Havelock's
people found the Bibigarh ankle-deep in blood, with children's
toys and hats and bits of hair still floating in it; they had got
there two days too late.
I don't suppose any event in my lifetime--not Balaclava nor Shilo nor Rorke's Drift nor anywhere else I can think of--has
had such a stunning effect on people's minds as that Cawnpore
massacre of the innocents. I didn't see the full horror of it, of
course, as Havelock's folk did, but-I was there a few weeks after,
W
and walked in the Bibigarh, and saw the bloody floor and walls,
and near the well I found the skeleton bones of a baby's hand,
like a little white crab in the dust. I'm a pretty cool hand, as you
know, but it made me gag, and if you ask me what I think of the
vengeance that old General Neill wreaked, making captured
mutineers clean up the Bibigarh, flogging 'em and forcing 'em to
lick up the blood with their tongues before they were hanged--
well, I was all for it then, and I still am. Perhaps it's because I knew the corpses that went into that well--I'd seen them playing
on the Cawnpore rampart, and being heard their lessons in that
awful barrack, and laughing at the elephant dunging. Perhaps
that baby hand I found belonged to the infant I'd seen in the
arms of the woman in the torn gown. Anyway, I'd have snuffed
out every life in India, and thought naught of it, in that moment
when I looked at Bibigarh--and if you think that shocking, well,
maybe I'm just more like Nana Sahib than you are.
Anyway, what I think don't signify. What mattered was the
effect that Cawnpore had on our people. I know it turned our
army crazy; they were ready to slaughter anything that even
sniffed of mutiny, from that moment on. Not that they'd been
dealing exactly kindly before; Havelock and Neill had been hanging
right, left and centre from Allahabad north, and I daresay
had disposed of quite a number of innocents--just as the pandies
at Meerut and Delhi had done.38
What beats me is the way people take it to heart--what do they
expect in war? It ain't conducted by missionaries, or chaps in
Liberal clubs, snug and secure. But what amuses me most is the
way fashionable views change--why, for years after Cawnpore,
any vengeance wreaked on an Indian, mutineer or not, was
regarded as just vengeance; nothing was too bad for 'em. Now
it's t'other way round, with eminent writers crying shame, and
saying nothing justified such terrible retribution as Neill took,
and we were far guilder than the niggers had been. Why?
Because we were Christians, and supposed to know better?--and
because England contains this great crowd of noisy know-alls
that are forever defending our enemies' behaviour and crying out
in pious horror against our own. Why our sins are always so
much blacker, I can't fathom--as to Cawnpore, it don't seem to
234
me one whit worse to slay in revenge, like Neill, than out of sheer
spite and cruelty, like Nana; at least it's more understandable.
The truth is, of course, that both sides were afraidthe pandy
wbo'd mutinied, and feared punishment, decided he might as well
be hanged for a sheep, and let his natural bloodlust gothey're
cruel bastards at bottom. And our folkthey'd had an almighty
scare, and Cawnpore brought their natural bloodlust to the top in
turn; just give 'em a few well-chosen texts about vengeance and
wrath of God and they could fall to with a willas I've already
observed about Rowbotham's Mosstroopers, there's nothing
crueller than a justified Christian. Except maybe a nigger running
loose.
So you can see it was a jolly summer in the Ganges valley, all
right, as I and my four companions discovered, when Diribijah
Singh finally convoyed us out from his fort and back to Cawnpore
after Havelock had retaken it. I hadn't seen old Blood-and-Bones
since he'd stood grumping beside my bed at Jallalabad fifteen
years before, and time hadn't improved him; he still looked like
Abe Lincoln dying of diarrhoea, with his mournful whiskers and
bloodhound eyes. When I told him my recent history he just
listened in silence, and then grabbed me by the wrist with his
great bony hand, dragged me down on to my knees beside him,
and began congratulating God on lugging Flashy out of the stew
again, through His infinite mercy.
"The shield of His truth has been before thee, Flashman," cries
he. "Has not the Hand which plucked thee from the paw of the
bear at Kabul, and the jaws of the lion at Balaclava, delivered
thee also from the Philistine at Cawnpore? "
"Absolutely, amen," says I, but when I took him into my
confidenceabout Palmerston, and why I came to India in the
first place, and suggested there was no good reason why I
shouldn't head for home at oncehe shook his great coffin head.
"It cannot be," says he. "That mission is over, and we need
every hand at the plough. The fate of this country is in the
balance, and I can ill spare such a seasoned soldier as yourself.
There is a work of cleansing and purging before us," he went on,
and you could see by the holy fire in his eyes that he was just
sweating to get to grips with it. "I shall take you on to my staff,
35
Hashman--nay, sir, never thank me; it is I shall be the gainer,
rather than you."
I was ready to agree with him there, but I knew there was no
point in arguing with the likes of Havelock--anyway, before I
could think of anything to say he was scribbling orders for hanging
a few more pandies, and dictating a crusty note to Neill, and
roaring for his adjutant; he was a busy old Baptist in those days,
right enough.
So there I was, and it might have been worse. I'd had no real
hope of being sent home--no high command in their right mind
would have dispensed with the famous Flash when there was a
campaign on hand, and since I had to be here I'd rather be under
Havelock's wing than anyone's. He was a good soldier, you see,
and as canny as Campbell in his own way; there'd be no
massacres or Last Stands round the Union Jack with the Gravedigger
in charge.
So I settled in as Havelock's intelligence aide--a nice safe billet
in the circumstances, but if you would learn the details of how I
fared with him you must consult my official history. Dawns and Departures of a Soldier's Life (in three handsomely-bound
morocco volumes, price two gns. each or five gns. the set, though
you may have difficulty laying hands on Volume III, since it had
to be called in and burned by the bailiffs after that odious little
Whitechapel sharper D'lsraeli egged on one of his toadies to sue
me for criminal information. Suez Canal shares, eh? I'll blacken
the bastard's memory yet, though, just see if I don't. Truth will
out).
However, the point is that my present tale isn't truly concerned
with the main course of the Mutiny henceforth--
although I bore my full reluctant part in that--but still with
that mad mission on which Pam had sent me out in the first
place, to Jhansi and the bewitching Lakshmibai. For I wasn't
done with her, whatever Havelock might think, and however
little I guessed it myself; the rest of the Mutiny was just the road
that led me back to her, and to that final terrible adventure of
the Jhansi flight and the guns of Gwalior when--but I'll come to
that presently.
In the meantime I'll tell you as briskly as I can what happened
236
in the few months after I joined Havelock at Cawnpore. At first
it was damned bad news all round: the Mutiny kept spreading,
Nana had sheered off after losing Cawnpore and was raising cain
farther up-country, Delhi was still held by the pandies with our
people banging away at it, and Havelock at Cawnpore didn't
have the men or means to relieve Lucknow, only forty miles
away, where Lawrence's garrison was hemmed in. He tried hard
enough, but found that the pandy forces, while they didn't make
best use of their overwhelming numbers, fought better defensive
actions than anyone had expected, and Havelock got a couple of
black eyes before he'd gone ten miles, and had to fall back. To
make matters worse, Lloyd's advance guard got cut up at Arab,
and no one down in Calcutta seemed to have any notion of overall
strategy--that clown Canning was sitting like a fart in a
trance, they tell me, and no proper order was taken.
I wasn't too upset, though. For one thing I was snug at the
Cawnpore headquarters, making a great bandobast* over collecting
information from our spies and passing the gist on to
Havelock (intelligence work is nuts to me, so long as I can stay
close to bed, bottle and breakfast and don't have to venture out).
And for another, I could sense that things were turning our way;
once the first flood of pandy successes had spent itself, there
could only be one end, and old Campbell, who was the best
general in the business, was coming out to take command-in-chief.
In September we moved on Lucknow in style, with fresh troops
under Outram, a dirty-looking little chap on a waler horse, more
like a Sheeny tailor than a general. They tell me it was a hell of
a march; certainly it rained buckets all the way, and there was
some stem fighting at Mangalwarh and at the Alum Bagh near
Lucknow town--I know, because I got reports of it in my intelligence
ghari at the rear of the column, where I was properly
ensconced writing reports, examining prisoners, and getting news
from friendly natives--at least, they were friendly by the time my
Rajput orderlies had basted 'em a bit. From time to time I poked
my head out into the rain, and called cheery encouragement to
the reinforcements, or sent messages to Havelock--I remember
one of them was that Delhi had fallen at last, and that old
* Organisation, administration.
37
Johnny Nicholson had bought a bullet, poor devil. I drank a quiet
brandy to him, listening to the downpour and the guns booming,
and thought God help poor soldiers on a night like this.
However, having got Lucknow, Havelock and Outram didn't
know what the devil to do with it, for the pandies were still thick
around as fleas, and it soon became evident that far from raising
the siege, our forces were nothing but a reinforcement to the
garrison. So we were all besieged, for another seven weeks, and
the deuce of a business it must have been, with bad rations
and the pandies forever trying to tunnel in under our defences, and
our chaps fighting 'em in the mines which were like a warren
underground. I say "must have been", for I knew nothing about
it; the night we entered Lucknow my bowels began to explode in
all directions, and before morning I was Hat on my back with
cholera, for the second time in my life.
For once, it was a blessing, for it meant I was spared knowledge
of a siege that was Cawnpore all over again, if not quite as bad.
I gather I raved a good deal of the time, and I know I spent weeks
lying on a cot in a beastly little cellar, as weak as a rat and not
quite in my right mind. It was only in the last fortnight of the
siege that I began to get about again, and by that time the garrison
was cheery with the news that Campbell was on his way. I
limped about gamely at first, looking gaunt and noble, and asking
"Is the flag flying still?" and "Is there anything I can do, sir?--
I'm much better than I look, I assure you." I was, too, but I took
care to lean on my stick a good deal, and sit down, breathing
hard. In fact, there wasn't much to do, except wait, and hsten to
the pandies sniping away--they didn't hit much.
In the last week, when we knew for certain that Campbell was
only a few days away, with his Highlanders and naval guns and
all, I was careless enough to look like a whole man again--it
seemed safe enough now, for you must know that at Lucknow,
unlike Cawnpore, we were defending a large area, and if one kept
away from the outer works, which unemployed convalescents like
me were entitled to do, one could promenade about the Residency
gardens without peril. There were any number of large houses,
half-ruined now, but still habitable, and we occupied them or
camped out in the grounds--when I came out of my cellar I was
238
sent to the bungalow, where Havelock was quartered with his
staff people, but he packed me off to Outram's headquarters, in
case I should be of some use there. Havelock himself was pretty
done by this time, and not taking much part in the command; he
spent most of his time in Gubbins's garden, reading some bilge by
Macaulay--and was greatly intrigued to know that I'd met Lord
Know-all and discussed his "Lays" with the Queen; I had to tell
Havelock all about that.
For the rest, I yarned a good deal with Vincent Eyre, who'd
been in the Kabul retreat with me, and was now one of the many
wounded in the garrison, or chaffed with the ladies in the old
Residency garden, twitting them about their fashions--for after a
six-month siege everyone was dressed any old how, with scraps
and curtains and even towels run up into clothes. I was hailed
everywhere, of course--jovial Flash, the hero on the mend--and
quizzed about my adventures from Meerut to Cawnpore. I never
mind telling a modest tale, if the audience is pretty enough, so I
did, and entertained them by imitating Makarram Khan, too,
which attracted much notice and laughter. It was an idiot thing
to do, as you'll see--it earned another man the V.C., and nearly
won me a cut throat.
What happened was this. One morning, it must have been
about November gth or loth, there was a tremendous commotion
over on the southern perimeter, where someone in Andersen's
Post claimed he had heard CampbelPs pipers in the distance;
there was huge excitement, with fellows and ladies and niggers
and even children hastening through the ruined buildings, laughing
and cheering--and then everything went deadly still as we
stood to listen, and sure enough, above the occasional crack of
firing, far, far away there was the faintest whisper on the breeze
of a pig in torment, and someone sings out, "The Campbells are
coming, hurrah, hurrah!" and people were embracing and shaking
hands and leaping in the air, laughing and crying all together,
and a few dropping to their knees to pray, for now the siege was
as good as over. So there was continued jubilation throughout
the garrison, and Outram sniffed and grunted and chewed his
cheroot and called a staff conference.
. He had been smuggling out messages by native spies all
239
through the siege, and now that the relief force was so close he
wanted to send explicit directions to Campbell on the best route
to take in fighting his way through the streets and gardens of
Lucknow to the Residency. It was a great maze of a place, and
our folk had had the deuce of a struggle getting in two months
earlier, being cut up badly in the alleys. Outram wanted to be
sure Campbell didn't have the same trouble, for he had a bare
5,000 men against 60,000 pandies, and if they strayed or were
ambushed it might be the end of them--and consequently of us.
I didn't have much part in their deliberations, beyond helping
Outram draft his message in the secret Greek code he employed,
and making a desperate hash of it. One of the Sappers had the
best route all plotted out, and while they talked about that I went
into the big verandah room adjoining to rest from the noon heat,
convalescent-like. I sprawled on the cot, with my boots off, and
must have dozed off, for when I came to it was late afternoon,
the murmur of many voices from beyond the chick screen had
gone, and there were only two people talking. Outram was saying:

"... it is a hare-brained risk, surely--a white man proposing to
make his way disguised as a native through a city packed with
hostiles! And if he's caught--and the message falls into their
hands? What then, Napier?"
"True enough," says Napier, "but to get a guide out to Campbell--a
guide who can point his way for him--is better than a
thousand messages of direction. And Kavanaugh knows the streets
like a bazaar-wallah."
"No doubt he does," mutters Outram, "but he'll no more pass
for a native than my aunt's parrot. What--he's more than six
feet tall, flaming red hair, blue eyes, and talks poor Hindi with a
Donegal accent! Kananji may not be able to guide Campbell, but
at least we can be sure he'll get a message to him."
"Kananji swears he won't go if Kavanaugh does. He's ready to
go alone, but he says Kavanaugh's bound to be spotted."
"There you are, then!" I could hear Outram muttering and
puffing on a fresh cheroot. "Confound it, Napier--he's a brave
man . . . and I'll own that if he could reach Campbell his knowledge
of the byways of Lucknow would be beyond price--but he's
240
harder to disguise than... damme, than any man in this garrison."
I listened with some interest to this. I knew Kavanaugh, a
great freckled Irish bumpkin of a civilian who'd spent the siege
playing tig with pandy besiegers in the tunnels beneath our
defences--mad as a hatter. And now madder still, by the sound of it, if he proposed to try to get through the enemy lines to
Campbell. I saw Outram's problem--Kavanaugh was the one
man who'd be a reliable guide to Campbell, if only he could get to
him. But it was Tattersall's to a tin can that the pandies would
spot him, torture his message out of him, and be ready and waiting
for Campbell when he advanced. Well, thank God I wasn't
called on to decide..,
"... if he can disguise himself well enough to pass muster with
me, he can go," says Outram at last. "But I wish to heaven
Kananji would accompany him--I don't blame him for refusing, mind . . . but if only there were someone else who could go along
--some cool hand who can pass as a native without question, to
do the talking if they're challenged by the pandies--for if they
are, and if Kavanaugh has to open that great Paddy mouth of his
. . . stop, though! Of course, Napier--the very man! Why didn't
it occur..."
I was off the cot and moving before Outram was halfway
through his speech; I knew before he did himself whose name was
going to pop into his mind as the ideal candidate for this latest
lunacy. I paused only to scoop up my boots and was tip-toeing at
speed for the verandah rail; a quick vault into the garden, and
then let them try to find me before sunset if they could . . . but
blast it, I hadn't gone five steps when the door was flung open,
and there was Outram, pointing his cheroot, looking like Sam
Grant after the first couple of drinks, crying:
"Flashman! That's our man, Napier! Can you think of a
better?"
Of course, Napier couldn't--who could, with the famous Flashy
on hand, ripe to be plucked and hurled into the bloody soup? It's
damnable, the way they pick on a fellow--and all because of my
swollen reputation for derring-do and breakneck gallantry. As
usual, there was nothing I could do, except stand blinking innocently
in my stocking-soles while Outram repeated all that I'd
241
heard already, and pointed out that I was the very man to go
along on this hideous escapade to hold the great Fenian idiot's
hand for him. I heard him in mounting terror, concealed behind
a stem and thoughtful aspect, and replied that, of course, I was
at his disposal, but really, gentlemen, was it wise? Not that I
cared about the risk (Jesus, the things I've had to say), but I
earnestly doubted whether Kavanaugh could pass . . . my
convalescent condition, of course, was a trifling matter . . . even
so, one wouldn't want to fail through lack of strength . . . not
when a native could be certain of getting through ...
"There isn't a loyal sepoy in this garrison who can come near
you for skill and shrewdness," says Outram briskly, "or who'd
stand half the chance of seeing Kavanaugh safe. Weren't you
playing your old Pathan role the other day for the ladies? As to
the toll of your illnessI've a notion your strength will always
match your spirit, whatever happens. This thing's your meat and
drink, Flashman, and you know itand you've been fairly itching
to get into harness again. Eh?"
"I'll hazard a guess," says Napier, smiling, "that he's more
concerned for Kavanaugh than for himselfisn't that so, Flashman?"
"Well,
sir, since you've said it"
"I know," says Outram, frowning at his damned cheroot.
"Kavanaugh has a wife and familybut he has volunteered, you
see, and he's the man for Campbell, not a doubt of it. It only
remains to get him there." And the brute simply gave me a
sturdy look and shook my hand as though that were the thing
settled.
Which of course it was. What could I do, without ruining my
reputation?although such was my fame by this time that if I'd
thrown myself on the floor weeping with fright, they'd probably
not have taken me seriously, but thought it was just one of my
jokes in doubtful taste. Give a dog a bad nameby God, it doesn't
stick half as hard as a good one.
So I spent the evening dyeing myself with soot and ghee,
shuddering with apprehension and cursing my folly and ill luck.
This, at the eleventh hour! I thought of having another shot at
Napier, pleading my illness, but I didn't dare; he had a hard eye,
/
242
and Outram's would be even worse if they suspected I was shirking.
I near as a toucher cried off, though, when I saw Kavanaugh;
he was got up like Sinbad the Sailor, with nigger minstrel eyes,
hareem slippers, and a great sword and shield. I stopped dead in
the doorway, whispering to Napier:
"My God, man, he won't fool a child! We'll have the bloody
pandies running after us shouting, 'Penny for Guy Fawkes!'"
But he said reassuringly that it would be pretty dark, and
Outram and the other officers agreed that Kavanaugh might just
do. They were full of admiration for my get-up--which was my
usual one of bazaar-ruffler--and Kavanaugh came up to me with
absolute tears in his eyes and said I was the stoutest chap alive to
stand by him in this. I nearly spat in his eye. The others were full
of sallies about our appearance, and then Outram handed
Kavanaugh the message for Campbell, biting on his cheroot and
looking hard at us.
"I need not tell you," says he, "that it must never fall into
enemy hands. That would be disaster for us all,"
Just to rub the point in, he asked if we were fully armed (so
that we could blow our brains out if necessary), and then gave us
our directions. We were to swim the river beyond the northern
rampart, recross it by the bridge west of the Residency, and cut
straight south through Lucknow city and hope to run into
Campbell's advance picquets on the other side. Kavanaugh, who
knew the streets, would choose our path, but I would lead and do
the talking.
Then Outram looked us both in the eye, and blessed us, and
everyone shook hands, looking noble, while I wondered if I'd
time to go to the privy. Kavanaugh, shaking with excitement,
cleared his throat and says:
"We know what is to be done, son---an' we'll give our lives
gladly in the attempt. We know the risks, ould fellow, do we
not?" he added, turning to me.
"Oh, aye," says I, "that bazaar'll be full of fleas--we'll be
lousy for weeks." Since there was no escape, I might as well give
'em another Flashy bon mot to remember.
It moved them, as only jocular heroism can; Outram's aide,
Hardinge, was absolutely piping his eye, and said England would
43
never forget us, everyone patted us on the back with restrained
emotion, and shoved us off in the direction of the rampart. I could
hear Kavanaugh breathing heavilythe brute positively panted in
Irishand whispered to him again to remember to leave any
talking to me. "Oi will, Flashy, Oi will," says he, lumbering along
and stumbling over his ridiculous sword.
The thing was a farce from the start. By the time we had
slipped over the rampart and made our way through the pitch
dark down to the bank of the Goomtee, I had realised that I was
in company with an irresponsible lunatic, who had no real notion
of what he was doing. Even while we were stripping for our swim,
he suddenly jerked his head up, at the sound of a faint plop out
on the water.
"That's trout afther minnow," says he, and then there was
another louder plop. "An' that's otter afther trout," says he, with
satisfaction. "Are ye a fisherman, are ye?" Before I could hush
his babbling, he had suddenly seized my handand him standing
there bollock-naked with his togs piled on his headand said
fervently:
"D'ye know whatwe're goin' to do wan o' the deeds that
saved the Impoire, so we are! An' Oi don't moind tellin' ye somethin' elsefor the first toime in me loife, Oi'm scared!"
"The first time!" squeaks I, but already he was plunging in
with a splash like the launching of the Great Eastern, puffing and
striking out in the dark, leaving me with the appalling realisation
that for once I was in the company of someone as terrified as
myself. It was desperateI mean, on previous enterprises of this
kind I'd been used to relying on some gallant idiot who could
keep his head, but here I was with this buffoon who was not only
mad Irish, but was plainly drunk with the idea of playing Dick
Champion, the Saviour of the Side, and was trembling in his
boots at the same time. Furthermore, he was given to daydreaming
about trouts and otters at inappropriate moments, and had no
more idea of moving silently than a bear with a ball and chain.
But there was nothing for it now; I slid into the freezing water
and swam the half-furlong to the far bank, where he was standing
on one leg in the mud, hauling his clothes on, and making the
deuce of a row about it.
244 *,
"Are ye there. Flash?" says he, in a hoarse whisper you could
have heard in Delhi. "We'll have to be hellish quiet, ye know.
Oi think there's pandies up the bank!"
Since we could see their picquets round the camp-fires not fifty
yards away, it was a reasonable conclusion, and we hadn't stolen
twenty yards along the riverside when someone hailed us. I
shouted back, and our challenger remarked that it was cold, at
which the oaf Kavanaugh petrified me by suddenly bawling out:
"Han, bhai, bahut tunder!"* like some greenhorn reciting from a
Hindi primer. I hustled him quickly away, took him by the neck,
and hissed:
"Will you keep your damned gob shut, you great murphy?"
He apologised in a nervous whisper, and muttered something
about Queen and Country; his eye was glittering feverishly.
"Oi'll be more discreet. Flash," says he, and so we went on, with
me answering another couple of challenges before we reached the
bridge, and crossed safely over into Lucknow town.
This was the testing part, for here there was lighting in the
streets, and passers-by, and Kavanaugh might easily be recognised
as counterfeit. The swim hadn't done his dyed skin any
good, and apart from that his outlandish rig, the European walk,
the whole cut of the man, was an invitation to disaster. Well,
thinks I, if he's spotted, it's into the dark for Flashy, and old
O'Hooligan can take care of himself.
The worst of it was, he seemed incapable of keeping quiet, but
was forever halting to mutter: "The mosque, ah, that's right,
now--and then de little stone bridge--where the divil is it? D'ye
see it. Flashy--it ought to be right by hereabouts?" I told him if
he must chunter, to do it in Hindi, and he said absentmindedly
"Oi will, Oi will, niver fear. Oi wish to God we had a compass."
He seemed to think he was in Phoenix Park.
It wasn't too bad at first, because we were moving through
gardens, with few folk about, but then we came to the great
Chauk Bazaar. Thank God it was ill-lit, but there were groups of
pandies everywhere, folk at the stalls, idlers at every corner, and
even a few palkis swaying through the narrow ways. I put on
a bold front, keeping Kavanaugh between me and the wall, and
* "Yes, brother, very cold!"
24?
just swaggered along, spitting. No one gave me a second glance,
but by hellish luck we passed close by a group of pandies with
some whores in tow, and one of the tarts plucked at Kavanaugh's
sleeve and made an improper suggestion; her sepoy stared and
growled resentfully, and my heart was in my mouth as I hustled
Kavanaugh along, shouting over my shoulder that he'd just been
married the previous day and was exhausted, at which they
laughed and let us be. At least that kept him shut up for a spell,
but no sooner were we clear of the bazaar than he was chattering
with relief, and stopped to pick carrots in a vegetable patch,
remarking at the top of his voice that they were "the swaitest
little things" he'd tasted in months.
Then he lost our way. "That looks devilish like the Kaiser
Bagh," says he, and fell into a monsoon ditch. I hauled him out,
and he went striding off into the dark, and to my horror stopped
a little old fellow and asked where we were. The man said
"Jangli Ganj", and hurried off, glancing suspiciously at us.
Kavanaugh stood and scratched himself and said it wasn't possible.
"If this is Jangli Ganj," says he, "then where the hell is Mirza
Kera, will ye tell me that? Ye know what, Flashman, that ould
clown doesn't know where he's at, at all, at all." After that we
blundered about in the dark, two daring and desperate men on
our vital secret mission, and then Kavanaugh gave a great laugh
and said it was all right, he knew where we were, after all, and
that must be Moulvie Jenab's garden, so we should go left.
We did, and finished up striking matches along Haidar's Canal
at least, that's what Kavanaugh said it was, and he should have
known, for he was in it twice, thrashing about in the water and
cursing. When he had climbed out he was in a thundering rage,
swearing the Engineers had got the map of Lucknow all wrong,
but we must cross the canal anyway, and bear left until we hit
the Cawnpore road. "The bloody thing's over dere somewheres!" ;
cries he, and since he seemed sure of that, at least, I stifled my
growing alarm and off we went, with Kavanaugh tripping over
things and stopping every now and then to peer into the gloom
wondering: "D'ye think that garden could have been the Char
Bagh, now? No, no, niverand yet agin, it moight bewhat
d'ye think. Flashy?"
'^
246
What I thought you may guess; we must have been wandering
for hours, and for all we knew we might be heading back towards
the Residency. Kavanaugh's slippers had given out, and when he
lost one of them we had to grope about in a melon patch until he
found it; his feet were in a deplorable condition, and he'd lost his
shield, but he was still convinced our plight was all the fault of
the ancient he had asked the way from. He thought we might try
a cast to our right, so we did, and found ourselves wandering in
Dilkoosha Park, which was full of pandy artillery; even I knew
we were quite out of the way, and Kavanaugh said, yes, he had
made a mistake, but such mishaps were of frequent occurrence.
We must bear away south, so we tried that, and I asked a peasant
sitting out with his crops if he would guide us to the Alam
Bagh. He said he was too old and lame, and Kavanaugh lost his
temper and roared at him, at which the fellow ran off shrieking,
and the dogs began to bark and we had to run for it and
Kavanaugh went headlong into a thorn bush. (And this, as he'd
remarked, was one of the Deeds that Saved the Empire; it's in all
the books.)
There was no end to the fellow's capacity for disaster, apparently.
Given a choice of paths, he headed along one which
brought us full tilt into a pandy patrol, and I had to talk our way
out of it by saying we were poor men going to Umroula to tell a
friend the British had shot his brother. Arriving in a village, he
wandered into a hut when I wasn't looking, and blundered about
in the dark, seized a woman by the thigh--fortunately she was
too terrified to cry out, and we got away. After that he took to
crying out "That's Jafirabad, Oi'm certain sure. And that's
Salehnagar, over there, yes." Pause. "Oi think." The upshot of
that was that we landed in a swamp, and spent over an hour
ploshing about in the mud, and Kavanaugh's language was shocking
to hear. We went under half a dozen tunes before we
managed to find dry land, and I spotted a house not far off, with
a light in an upper window, and insisted that Kavanaugh must
rest while I found out where we were. He agreed, blaspheming
because the last of his dye had rubbed off with repeated immersions.

I went to the house, and who should be at the window but the
247
charmingest little brown girl, who said we were not far from
Alam Bagh, but the British had arrived there, and people were
running away. I thanked her, inwardly rejoicing, and she peeped
at me over the sill and says:
"You are very wet, big man. Why not come in and rest, while
you dry your clothes? Only five rupees."
By George, thinks I, why not? I was tired, and sick, and it had
been the deuce of a long time, what with sieges and cholera and
daft Irishmen falling in bogs; this was just the tonic I needed, so
I scrambled up, and there she was, all chubby and brown and
shiny, giggling on her charpoy and shaking her bouncers at me.
I seized hold, nearly crying at this unexpected windfall, and in a
twinkling was marching her round the room, horse artillery
fashion, while she squeaked and protested that for five rupees I
shouldn't be so impatient. I was, though, and it was just as well,
for I'd no sooner finished the business than Kavanaugh was under
the window, airing his Urdu plaintively in search of me, and
wanting to know what was the delay?
I leaned out and cadged five rupees off him, explaining it was a
bribe for an old sick man who knew the way; he passed it up, I
struggled into my wet fugs, kissed my giggling Delilah goodnight,
and scrambled down, feeling fit for anything.
It took us another two hours, though, for Kavanaugh was
about done, and we had to keep dodging behind trees to avoid
parties of peasants who were making for Lucknow. I was getting
a mite alarmed, because the moon was up, and I knew that dawn
couldn't be far off; if we were caught by daylight, with
Kavanaugh looking as pale as Marley's ghost, we were done for.
I cursed myself for a fool, whoring and wasting time when we
should have been pushing on--what had I been thinking of?
D'you know, I suddenly realised that in my exasperation with
Kavanaugh, and all that aimless wandering in wrong directions,
and watching him fall in tanks and canals, I'd forgotten the
seriousness of the whole thing--perhaps I was still a trifle lightheaded
from my illness, but I'd even forgotten my fears. They
came back now, though, in full force, as we staggered along; I
was about as tuckered as he was, my head was swimming, and
I must have covered the last mile in a walking dream, because the
f
248
next thing I remember is bearded faces barring our way, and
blue-tunicked troopers with white puggarees, and thinking,
"These are gth Lancers."
Then there was an officer holding me by the shoulders, and to
my astonishment it was Gough, to whom I'd served brandy and
smokes on the verandah at Meerut. He didn't know me, but he
poured spirits into us, and had us borne down into the camp,
where the bugles were blowing, and the cavalry pickets were
falling in, and the flag was going up, and it all looked so brisk
and orderly and safe you would have wept for relief--but the
cheeriest sight of all, to me, was that crumpled, bony figure outside
the headquarter tent, and the dour, wrinkled old face under
the battered helmet. I hadn't seen Campbell close to, not since
Balaclava; he was an ugly old devil, with a damned caustic tongue
and a graveyard sense of humour, but I never saw a man yet who
made me feel more secure.
He must have been a rare disappointment to Kavanaugh,
though, for at the sight of him my blundering Paddy threw off
his tiredness, and made a tremendous parade of announcing who
he was, fishing out the message, and presenting it like the last
gallant survivor stumbling in with the News; you never saw
suffering nobility like it as he explained how we'd come out of
Lucknow, but Campbell, listening and tugging at his dreary
moustache, just said "Aye", and sniffed, and added after a
moment: "That's surprising." Kavanaugh, who had probably
expected stricken admiration, looked quite deflated, and when
Campbell told him to "Away you and lie down", he obeyed
pretty huffily.
I knew Campbell, of course, so I wasn't a bit astonished at the
way he greeted me, when he realised who I was.
"It's no' you again?" says he, like a Free Kirk elder to the town
drunk. "Dearie me--ye're not looking a whit better than when I
saw ye last. I doot ye've nae discretion, Flashman." He sighed
and shook his head, but just as he was turning away to his tent
he looked back and says: "I'm glad taste see ye, mind."
I suppose there are those who'd say that there's no higher
honour than that, coming from Old Slowcoach; if that's so, I must
make the most of it, for it's all the thanks I ever got for convoying
249
Kavanaugh out of Lucknow. Not that I'm complaining, mind, for
God knows I've had my share of undeserved credit, but it's a fact
that Kavanaugh stole all the limelight when the story came out;
I'm certain it was sheer lust for glory that had made him undertake
the job in the first place, for when I joined him in the
rest-tent after we'd left Campbell, he broke off the kneeling-andpraying
which he was engaged in, looked up at me with his great
freckled yokel face, and says anxiously:
"D'yez think they'll give us the Victoria Cross?"
Well, in the end they did give him the V.C. for that night's
work, while all I got was a shocking case of dysentery. He was a
civilian, of course, so they were bound to make a fuss of him, and
there was so much V.C.-hunting going on just then that I suppose
they thought recognised heroes like me could be passed over--
ironic, ain't it? Anyway, I wasn't recommended at the time for
any decoration at all, and he was, which seemed fairly raw,
although I don't deny he was brave, you understand. Anyone
who's as big a bloody fool as that, and goes gallivanting about
seeking sorrow, must be called courageous. Still ... if it hadn't
been for me, finding his blasted slipper for him, and fishing him
out of canals--and most important of all, getting the right direction
from that little brown banger--friend Kavanaugh might still
have been traipsing along Haidar's Canal asking the way. But
thinking back, perhaps I got the better of the bargain--she was a
lissome little wriggler, and it was Kavanaugh's five rupees, after
all.36
250
If Campbell was sparing with his
compliments, he was equally careful of his soldiers' lives, especially
his precious 93rd Highlanders. He took a week to relieve Lucknow,
feeling his way in along the route our message had suggested,
battering the pandies with his artillery, and only turning his
kilties and Sikhs on them when he had to. They butchered everything
in sight, of course, between them, but it was a slow business,
and he was much abused for it afterwards. In my opinion,
he was dead right--as he and Mansfield, his staff chief, were
when they wouldn't risk lives simply to pursue and punish fleeing
mutineers. A general's job is to win campaigns with as little loss
as may be, but of course that don't suit the critics in clubs and
newspaper offices--they're at a safe distance, and they want
blood, rot them, so they sneer at Old Slowcoach, and call him
a stick-in-the-mud soldier."
In fact, his relief of Lucknow, in the face of odds that were
sometimes fifteen to one, was a model of sound sense. He got in,
he took the garrison out, and he retired in good order, scratching
his ear and looking glum, while ignorant asses like Kavanaugh
danced with impatience. D'ye know, that Irish lunatic absolutely
ran the gauntlet of pandy fire to get back into Lucknow, and
bring out Outram and Havelock in person (with the poor old
Gravedigger hardly able to hobble along) just so that they could
greet Sir Colin as he covered the last few furlongs? Bloody
nonsense, but it looked very gallant, and has since been commemorated
in oils, with camels and niggers looking on admiringly,
and the Chiefs all shaking hands. (I'm there, too, like John
the Baptist on horseback, with one aimless hand up in the air,
which is rot, because at the time I was squatting in the latrine
working the dysentery bugs out of my system and wishing I was
dead.)28
Poor old Gravedigger--he didn't last more than a few days
251
after. The dysentery bugs did for him in earnest, and we buried
him under a palm tree by the Alam Bagh at the start of the
retreat. I guess that suited him, and I remember the text running
through my head, "And Nicanor lay dead in his harness"--it
was what he'd said to me fifteen years earlier, when he'd told me
of Sergeant Hudson dying at Piper's Fort. Aye, well, none of us
lives forever.
Anyway, Lucknow.had to be left in rebel hands, and Campbell
took our army back to Cawnpore, where Tantia Tope was raging
around the garrison; Campbell whipped him in quick time, and
then started clearing up rebel resistance along the Ganges, while
at the same time assembling a new force which would march back
to Lucknow after Christmas, clear the pandies out properly, and
subdue the whole of Oudh kingdom. It was fairly obvious that
although mutineers were still thick as mosquitoes everywhere,
and had several armies in the field, Campbell's methodical operations
would have the whole business settled in a few months, if
only Calcutta let him alone. I lent my gallant assistance by
supervising intelligence work at Unao, just across the river from
Cawnpore, where our new army was assembling; easy work, and
nothing more dangerous than occasional brawls and turn-ups
between the Pathan Horse and the Devil's Own,* which suited
me. The only thing that ruffled my surface at all that winter was
a rebuke from Higher Authority when I squired an upper-class
half-caste whore to a band parade at Cawnpore,39 which shows
you better than anything how things were beginning to quieten
down: when generals have nothing better to do than worry about
the morals of staff colonels, you may be sure there's no great
work on hand.
And indeed, we were beginning to make things so hot for the
pandies along the Grand Trunk that winter that it seemed the
bulk of their power was being forced farther and farther south,
into the Gwalior country, where Tantia Tope had taken his army,
and the rebel princelings had still to be dealt with. That was
where Jhansi was: I used to see its name daily in the intelligence
reports, with increasing references to Lakshmibai--"the rebel
Rani" and "the traitor queen" was what they were calling her
* The Connaught Rangers (88th Foot).
25Z
now, for in the past few months she'd thrown off the pretence of
loyalty which she had maintained after the Jhansi massacre, and
cast in her lot with Nana and Tantia and the other mutinous
princes. That had shocked me when I first heard it, and yet it
wasn't so surprising really--not when I recalled her feelings
towards us, and her grievances, and that lovely dark face so grimly
set--"Mera Jhansi denge nay! I won't give up my Jhansi!"
She'd have to give it up fast enough, though, presently, with
our southern armies under General Rose already advancing north
to Gwalior and Bandelkand. She would be crushed along with the
other monarchs and their sepoy-cum-bandit armies, and I didn't
care to think about that, much. When my thoughts turned towards
her--and for some reason they did increasingly in the
leisure of that winter--I couldn't think of her as belonging in
this world of turmoil and blood and burning and massacre: when
I read about "the Jhansi Jezebel" plotting with Nana and whipping
up revolt, I couldn't reconcile it with my memory of that
bewitching figure swinging gently to and fro on her silken swing
in that mirrored fairy palace. I found myself wondering if she
was still swinging there, or playing with the monkeys and parrots
in her sunny garden, or riding in the woods by the river--who
with? How many new lovers had she taken since that night in
the pavilion? That was enough to set the flutters going low down
in my innards--and farther up, in my midriff, for it wasn't only
lust. When I thought of those slanting eyes, and the grave little
smile, and the smooth dusky arm along the rope of her swing, I
was conscious of a strange, empty longing just for the sight of
her, and the sound of her voice. It was downright irritating, for
when I reflect on an old love it's usually in terms of tits and
buttocks pure and simple--after all, I wasn't a green kid, and I
didn't care to find myself thinking like one. What I needed to
cure me, I decided, was two weeks' steady rogering at her to get
these moon-calf yearnings out of my mind for good, but of course
there was no chance of that now.
Or so I thought, in my complacent ignorance, as the winter
wore through, and our campaign in the north approached its
climax. I knew it was as good as over when Billy Russell of The
Times showed up to join CampbeU's final march on Lucknow--
253
it's a sure sign of victory when the correspondents gather like
vultures. We marched with 30,000 men and strong artillery,
myself piling up great heaps of useless paper in Mansfield's intelligence
section and keeping out of harm's way. It was an inexorable,
pounding business, as our gunners blew the pandy defences
systematically to bits, the Highlanders and Irish slaughtered the
sepoy infantry whenever it stood, the engineers demolished shrines
and temples to show who was master, and everyone laid hands on
as much loot as he could carry.
It was a great bloody carnival, with everyone making the most
of the war: I recall one incident, in a Lucknow courtyard (I believe
it may have been in the Begum's palace) in which I saw Highlanders,
their gory bayonets laid aside, smashing open chests that
were simply stuffed with jewels, and grinning idiot little Goorkhas
breaking mirrors for sheer sport and wiping their knives on silks
and fabrics worth a fortune--they didn't know any better. There
were Sikh infantry dancing with gold chains and necklaces round
their necks, an infantry subaltern staggering under a great
enamelled pot overflowing with coins, a naval gunner bleeding to
death with a huge shimmering bolt of cloth-of-gold clasped in his
arms--there were dead and dying men everywhere, our own
fellows as well as pandies, and desperate hand-to-hand fighting
going on just over the courtyard wall; muskets banging, men
shrieking, two Irishmen coming to blows over a white marble
statuette smeared with blood, and Billy Russell stamping and
damning his luck because he had no rupees on him to buy the
treasures which private soldiers were willing to trade away for
the price of a bottle of rum.
"Gi'es a hunnerd rupees, now!" one of the Micks was shouting,
as he flourished a gold chain set with rubies--they were as big as
gull's eggs. "Jist a hunnerd, yer honour, an' dey're yours!"
"But... but they're worth fifty times that!" cries Russell, torn
between greed and honesty.
"Ah, the divil wid that!" cries Paddy. "Oi'm sayin' a hunnerd,
an'welcome!"
All right, says Russell, but the man must come to his tent for
the money that night. But at this Paddy cries out:
"Oh, God, Oi can't, sorr! How do Oi know you or me won't be
"^ 254
dead by then? Ready money, yer honour--say jist fifty chips, an' yer spirit flask! Come, now?"
But Billy hadn't even fifty rupees, so the Mick shook his head
sorrowfully and swore he couldn't trade, except for cash down.
Finally he burst out:
"But Oi can't see a gintleman in yer honour's position goin'
empty-handed! Here, take dis for nuthin', an' say a prayer for
O'Halloran, Private Michael," and he thrust a diamond brooch
into Russell's hand and ran off, whooping, to join his mates.
You may wonder what I was doing there, so close to the fighting:
the answer is I was keeping an eye on my two Rajput
orderlies, who were picking up gold and jewellery for me at
bargain prices, using intelligence section funds. I paid it all back,
mind, out of profits, no irregularities, and finished with the handsome
surplus which built Gandamack Lodge, Leicestershire, for
my declining years. (My Rajputs bought O'Halloran's ruby chain,
by the way, for ten rupees and two ounces of baccy--say for 2
all told. I sold it to a Calcutta jeweller for 7,500, which was
about half its true value, but not a bad stroke of business, I
think.)40
I asked Billy later what value he would have put on all the
loot that we saw piled up and scrambled for in that one yard, and
he said curtly: "Millions of pounds, blast it!" I'd believe it, too:
there were solid gold and silver vessels and ornaments, crusted
with gems, miles of jewel-sewn brocade, gorgeous pictures and
statues that the troops just hacked and smashed, beautiful enamel
and porcelain trampled underfoot, weapons and standards set
with rubies and emeralds which were gouged and hammered from
their settings--all this among the powder-smoke and blood, with
native soldiers who'd never seen above ten rupees in their lives,
and slum-ruffians from Glasgow and Liverpool, all staggering
about drunk on plunder and killing and destruction. One thing
I'm sure of: there was twice as much treasure destroyed as carried
away, and we officers were too busy bagging our share to do anything
about it. I daresay a philosopher would have made heavy
speculation about that scene, if he'd had time to spare from filling
his pockets.
I was well satisfied with my winnings, and pondered that night
W
on how I'd employ them when I went home, which couldn't be
long now: I remember thinking "This is the end of the war,
Flash, old buck, or near as dammit, and well out of it you are."
I was very much at ease, sitting round the mess-fire in the dusk
of a Lucknow garden, smoking and swigging port and listening
to the distant thump of the night guns, while I yarned idly with
Russell and "Rake" Hodson (who'd fagged me at Rugby) and
Macdonald the Peeler and Sam Browne and little Fred Roberts,
who wasn't much more than a griff,41 but knew enough to hang
around us older hands, warming himself in the glow of our fame.
Thinking of them, it strikes me how many famous men I've run
across in the dawn of their careers--not that Hodson had long to
go, since he was shot while looting next day, with his glory all
behind him. But Roberts has gone to the very top of the tree (pity
I wasn't more civil to him when he was green; I might have been
higher up the ladder myself now), and I suppose Sam Browne's
name is known today in every army on earth. Just because he
lost an arm and invented a belt, too--get them to call some useful
article of clothing after you, and your fame's assured, as witness
Sam and Raglan and Cardigan. If I had my time over again I'd
patent the Flashman fly-button, and go down in history.42
I don't remember much of what we discussed, except that
Billy was full of indignation over how he'd seen some Sikhs burning
a captured pandy alive, with white soldiers looking on and
laughing; he and Roberts said such cruelty oughtn't to be
allowed, but Hodson, who was as near a wild beast as I ever met,
even among British irregular cavalry, said the viler deaths the
rebels died, the better; they'd be less ready to mutiny again. I can
see him yet, sitting forward glaring into the fire, pushing back
his fair hair with that nervous gesture he had, and steady Sam
Browne squinting at him quizzically, drawing on his cigar, saying
nothing. I know we talked too of light cavalry, and Russell was
teasing Hodson with the prowess of the Black Sea Cossacks,
winking at me, when Destiny in the unlikely shape of General
Mansfield tapped me on the shoulder and said: "Sir Colin wants
you, directly."
I didn't think twice about it, but pitched my cheroot into the
fire and sauntered through the lines to the Chief's tent, computing
.56 ^
my loot in my mind and drinking in the warm night air with
sleepy content. Even when Campbell's greeting to me was: "How
well d'ye know the Rani of Jhansi?" I wasn't uncomfortably
surprisedthere'd been a dispatch in about the Jhansi campaign
that very day, and Campbell already knew about my mission for
Palmerston; it all seemed a long way away now.
I said I had known her very well; we had talked a great deal
together.
"And her cityher fortress?" says Campbell.
"Passably, sir. I was never in her fort properour meetings
were at the palace, and I'm not over-familiar with the city
itself"
"More familiar than Sir Hugh Rose, though, I'll be bound,"
says he, tapping a paper in front of him. "And that's his own
opeenionhe mentions ye by name in his latest dispatch." I
didn't care for that; it don't do to have generals talking about you.
I didn't care for the way Campbell was looking at me, either,
tapping a nail against those beautifully-kept teeth that shone so
odd in his ancient face.
"This Rani," says he at length. "What's she like?"
I began to say that she was a capable ruler and nobody's fool,
but he interrupted with one of his barbarous Scotch noises.
"Taghaway-wi'-ye! Is she pretty, man? Eh? How pretty?"
I admitted that she was strikingly beautiful, and he grinned
and shook his grizzly head.
"Aye, aye," says he, and squinted at me. "Ye're a strange
man, Flashman. I'll confess to ye, I've even-on had my doots
aboot yedon't ask me what, for I don't know. I'm frank wi' ye,
d'ye see?" I'll say that for him, he always was. "This much I'm
certain of," he went on, "ye always win. God kens howand I'm
glad I don't ken mysel', for I wish to think well of ye. But there
Sir Hugh needs ye at Jhansi, and I'm sending ye south."
I didn't know what to think of thisor of his curious opinion
of me. I just stood and waited anxiously.
"This mutiny mischief is just aboot doneit's a question of
scattering the last armieshere, in Oudh and Rohilkand, and
there, in Bandelkandand hanging Nana and Tantia and
Azeemoolah higher than Haman. Jhansi is one of the last nuts
257
taste be cracked--and it'll be a hard one, like enough. This bizzum
of a Rani has ten thousand men and stout city walls. Sir Hugh
will have her under siege by the time ye get there, and nae doot
he'll have to take the place by storm. But that's not enough--
which is why you, wi' your particular deeplomatic knowledge of
the Rani and her state, are essential to Sir Hugh. Ye see, Flashman,
Lord Canning and Sir Hugh and mysel' are agreed on one
thing--and your experience of this wumman may be the key to
it." He looked me carefully in the eye. "Whatever else befalls,
we must contrive taste capture the Rani of Jhansi alive."
258	,
If she'd been ugly as sin, or twenty
years older and scrawny, it would never have happened. Jhansi
would have been taken, and if a plain, elderly Rani had been
bayoneted or shot in the process, no one would have given a
damn. But Canning, our enlightened Governor-General, was a
sentimental fool, intent on suppressing the Mutiny with the least
possible bloodshed, and already alarmed at the toll of vengeance
that people like Neill and Havelock had taken. He guessed that
sooner or later the righteous wrath of Britons at home would die
down, and that if we slaughtered too many pandies a revulsion
would set in--which, of course, it did. My guess is that he also
feared the death of a young and beautiful rebel princess (for her
fame and likeness had spread across India by now) might just
tip the balance of public conscience--he didn't want the liberal
press depicting her as some Indian Joan of Arc. So, however
many other niggers died, male and female, she was to be taken
alive.
Mind you, I could see Canning's point, and personally I was all
for it. There wasn't a life anywhere--except Elspeth's and little
Hawy's--that was as precious to me then as Lakshmibai's, and I
don't mind admitting it. But fair's fair; I wanted her saved without
any dangerous intervention on my part, and the farther I
could have kept away from Jhansi the better I'd have liked it. It
wasn't a lucky place for me.
So I took as long as I decently could getting there, in the hope
that it might be all over by the time I arrived. I had the excuse
that the two hundred miles between Lucknow and Jhansi was
damned dangerous country, with pandies and the armies of rebel
chiefs all over the place; I had a strong escort of Pathan Horse,
but even so we went warily, and didn't sight that fort of ill-omen
on its frowning rock until the last week in March. Rose was just
getting himself settled in by then, battering away at the city
259
defences with his guns, his army circling the walls in a gigantic
ring, with observation posts and cavalry pickets all prettily sited
to bottle it up.
He was a good soldier, Rose, careful as Campbell but twice as
quick, and one glance at the rebel defences told you that he
needed to be. Jhansi lay massive and impregnable under the
brazen sun, with its walls and outworks and the red rebel banner
floating lazily above the fort. Outside the walk the dusty plain
had been swept clear of every scrap of cover, and the rebel batteries
thundered out in reply to our gunners, as though warning
the besiegers what would happen if they ventured too close. And
inside there were ten thousand rebels ready to fight to the finish.
A tough nut, as Campbell had said.
"We'll have them out in a week, though, no fears about that,"
was Rose's verdict. He was another Scotsman (India was crawling
with them, of course, as always), brisk and bright-eyed and spry;
I knew him well from the Crimea, where he'd been liaison at the
Frog headquarters, and less objectionable than most diplomatsoldiers.
He was new to India, but you'd never have guessed it
from his easy confidence and dandy air--to tell the truth, I have
difficulty in memory separating his appearance from George
Custer's, for they both had the same gimlet assurance, as well as
the carefully wind-blown blond hair and artless moustaches.
There the resemblance ended--if we'd had Rose at Little Big
Horn, Crazy Horse and Gall could have whistled for their dinners.

"Yes, a week at most," says he, and pointed out how he had
sited his left and right attacks opposite the strongest points in the
rebel defences, which our gunners were pounding with red-hot
shot, keeping the pandy fire-parties busy quelling the flames
which you could see here and there behind the walls, flickering
crazily through the heat-haze. "Frontal night assault as soon as
the breaches are big enough, and then ..." He snapped his telescope
shut. "Bloody work, since the pandies are sure to fight to
the last--but we'll do the business. The question is: in all that
carnage, how do we preserve her ladyship? You must be our
oracle on that subject, what? Would she personally surrender,
d'you suppose?"
260
I looked about me from the knoll on which we stood, with his
staff officers. Just before us were the lines of siege-guns in their
earthworks, shaking the ground with their explosions, the smoke
wraithing back towards us as the gunners, crawling like ants
round their pieces, reloaded and fired again. Either side the
pickets of the flying cavalry camps were strung out as far as
the eye could see--the red jackets of the Light Dragoons, and the
grey khakee of the Hyderabad troopers' coats, dusty with the new
curry-powder dye. Two miles behind us, near the ruins of the old
cantonment, were the endless tent-lines of the infantry brigades,
waiting patiently till the guns had done their work on the massive
walls of Jhansi city, behind which the jumble of distant
houses stretched in the smoky haze up to the mighty crag of the
fortress. She'd be up there, somewhere, perhaps in that cool
durbar room, or on the terrace, playing with her pet monkeys;
perhaps she was with her chiefs and soldiers, looking out at the
great army that was going to swallow her up and reduce her city
and fairy palace to rubble. Mem Jhansi denge nay, thinks I.
"Surrender?" says I. "No, I doubt if she will."
"Well, you know her." He gave me that odd, leery look that
I'd got used to even in the few hours I'd been at his headquarters,
whenever her name was mentioned. The popular view was that
she was some gorgeous human tigress who prowled half-naked
through sumptuous apartments, supervising the torture of discarded
legions of lovers--oh, my pious generation had splendid
imaginations, I may tell you.48
"We've tried proclamation, of course," says Rose, "but since
we can't guarantee immunity to her followers, we might as well
save our breath. On the other hand, she may not be eager to see
her civilians exposed to continuous bombardment followed by
the horrors of assault, what? I mean, being a woman . .. what is
she like, by the way?"
"She's a lady," says I, "extremely lovely, uses French scent, is
kind to animals, fences like a Hungarian hussar, prays for several
hours each day, recreates herself on a white silk swing in a room
full of mirrors, gives afternoon tea-parties for society ladies, and
hangs criminals up in the sun by their thumbs. Useful horsewoman,
too."
261
"Good God!" says Rose, staring, and behind him his staff were
gaping at me round-eyed, licking their lips. "Are you serious?"
"What about lovers, hey?" says one of the staff, sweating and
homy-eyed. "They say she keeps a hareem of muscular young
bucks, primed with love-potions--"
"She didn't tell me," says I, "and I didn't ask her. Even you
wouldn't, I fancy."
"Well," says Rose, glancing at me and then away. "We must
certainly consider what's to be done about her."
That was how I employed myself for the next three days, while
the guns and eight-inch mortars smashed away in fine style,
opening a sizeable breach in the south wall, and burning up the
rebels' repair barricades with red-hot shot. We blew most of their
heavy gun posts into nibble, and by the 29th Rose was drawing
up final orders for his infantry stormers--and still we had reached
no firm plan for capturing Lakshmibai unharmed. For the more I
thought about it, the more certain I became that she'd fight it
out, in person, when our infantry fought their way hand-to-hand
into her palace--it was easy, after Lucknow, to imagine bloody
corpses on that quilted Chinese carpet, and the mirrors shattered
by shot, and yelling looters smashing and tearing in those priceless
apartments, sabring and bayoneting everything that stood in
their way. God knows it was nothing new to me, and I'd lent a
hand in my time, when it had been safe to do so--but these
would be her rooms, her possessions, and I was sentimental
enough to be sorry for that, because I'd liked them and been
happy there. By George, I'd got her into my bloodstream though,
hadn't I just, when I started worrying about her damned furniture.

And what would happen to her, in that madhouse of blood
and steel? Try as I might, I could see nothing for it but to tell off
a picked platoon with orders to make straight for the palace and
secure her unharmed at any price--provided she didn't get in the
way of a stray shot/ there was no reason why they shouldn't
bring her out safe. By God, though, that was one detail I'd have
to avoid--no, my job would be her reception and safekeeping
when the slaughter was safely over: Flashy the stem and sorrowful
jailer, firm but kindly, shielding her from prying eyes and
262 <"
lecherous staff-wallopers with dirty minds, that was the ticket.
She'd have to be escorted away, perhaps even to Calcutta, where
they'd decide what to do with her. A nice long journey, that, and
she'd be grateful for a friendly face among her enemies--
especially one for which she'd shown such a partiality in the past.
I thought of that pavilion, and that gleaming bronze body undulating
towards me, quivering voluptuously to the music--we'll
have dancing every night, thinks I, in our private hackery, and if
I'm not down to twelve stone by the time we reach Calcutta, it
won't be for want of nocturnal exercise.
I explained my thoughts to Rose--the first part, about the
special platoon, not the rest--at dinner in his tent, and he
frowned and shook his head.
"Too uncertain," says he, "We need something concerted and
executed before the battle has even reached her palace; we must
have her snug and secure by then."
"Well, I don't for the life of me see how you're going to do
that," says I. "We can't send anyone in ahead of the troops, to
kidnap her or any such thing. They wouldn't get a hundred yards
through the streets of Jhansi--and if they did, she has a Pathan
guard hundreds strong covering every inch of the palace."
"No," says he, thoughtfully, picking at his cheroot. "Force
wouldn't serve, I agree--but diplomacy, now? What d'ye think,
Lyster?"
This was young Harry Lyster, Rose's galloper, and the only
other person present at our talk. I'd known him any time the past
ten years; he'd been a special constable with me at the Chartist
farce of '48, when I took up old Momson's truncheon and did his
duty for him --me and Gladstone and Louis Napoleon holding
the plebeian mob at bay, I don't think. Lyster was a smart 'un,
though; given a silver spoon he'd have been a field marshal by
now.
"Bribery, perhaps--if we could smuggle a proposal to some of
her officers?" says he.
"Too complicated," says Rose, "and you'd probably just lose
your money."
"They've eaten her salt," says I. "You couldn't buy 'em." I was
far from sure of that, by the way, but I wanted to squash all this
263
talk of intrigue and secret messages--I'd heard it too often before,
and I know who finishes up sneaking through the dark with his
bowels gurgling and his hair standing on end in the enemy's lair.
"I'm afraid it comes down to the special platoon after all, sir. A
good native officer, with intelligent j'awans--"
" Counsel of despair, Flashman." Rose shook his head decisively.
"No--we'll have to trick her out. Here's a possibility--storm the
city, as we intend, but leave her a bolt-hole. If we draw off our
cavalry pickets from the Orcha gate, they'll spot the weakness,
and when our rebel lady sees that her city's doomed, I'll be much
surprised if she don't try to make a run for it. How well do
Indian women ride?"
"This one? Like a Polish lancer. It might work," says I, "if she
don't suspicion what we're up to. But if she smells a rat--"
"She'll be smelling too much powder-smoke by then to notice
anything eke," says Rose confidently. "She'll break for the open,
to try to join Tantia, or some other rebel leader--and we'll be
waiting for her on the Orcha road. What d'you say, gentlemen? "
says he, smiling.
Well, it suited me, although I thought he underrated her
subtlety. But Lyster was nodding agreement44 and Rose went
on:
"Yes, I think we'll try that--but only as a long stop. It's still
not enough. Lord Canning attaches the utmost importance to
capturing the Rani unscathed; that being so, we must play every
card in our hand. And we have a trump which it would be folly
not to use for everything it's worth." He turned and snapped a
pointing finger at me. "You, Flashman."
I choked on my glass, and covered my dismay with a shuddering
cough. "I, sir?" I tried to get my breath back. "How, sir?
I mean, what--?"
"We can't afford to neglect the opportunity which your knowledge
of this woman--your familiarity with her--gives us. I
don't suppose there's a white man living who has been on closer
terms with her--isn't that so?"
"Well, now, sir, I don't know--"
"I still think we can talk her out. Public offers of surrender
are useless, we agree--but a private offer, now, secretly con264
veyed, with my word of honour, and Lord Canning's, attached to
it ... that might be a different matter. Especially if it were persuasively
argued, by a British officer she could trust. You follow
me?"
All too well I followed him; I could see the abyss of ruin and
despair opening before my feet once again, as the bright-eyed
lunatic went eagerly on:
"The offer would assure her that her life would be spared, if
she gave herself up. She doesn't have to surrender Jhansi, even--
just her own person. How can she refuse? She could even keep
her credit intact with her own people--that's it!" cries he,
smacking the table. "If she accepts, all she has to do is take
advantage of the bolt-hole we're going to leave her, through the
Orcha Gate! She can pretend to her own folk that she's trying to
escape, and we'll snap her up as she emerges. No one would ever
know it was a put-up business--except her, and ourselves!" He
beamed at us in triumph.
Lyster was frowning. "Will she accept--and leave her city and
people to their fate?" He glanced at me.
"Oh, come, come!" cries Rose. "She ain't European royalty,
you know! These black rulers don't care a snuff for their subjects
--ain't that so, Flashman?"
I seized on this like a drowning man. "This one does, sir," says
I emphatically. "She wouldn't betray 'em--never." The irony of
it was, I believed it to be true.
He stared at me in disappointment. "I can't credit that," says
he. "I can't. I'm positive you're mistaken, Flashman." He shook
his head. "But we have nothing to lose by trying, at any rate."
"But if I went in, under a flag of truce, demanding private
audience with her--"
"Pshaw! Who said anything about a flag of truce? Of course,
that would blow the gaff at once--her people would know there
was something up." He tapped the table, grinning at me, bursting
with his own cleverness. "Didn't I say you were the trump card?
You not only know her well, you're one of the few men who can
get inside Jhansi, and into her presence, with no one the wiser--
as a native!" He sat back, laughing. "Haven't you done it a score
of times--? why, all the world knows about how you brought
265
Kavanaugh out of Lucknow! What d'ye think they're calling you
down in Bombay these days--the Pall Mall Pathan!"
There are times when you know it absolutely ain't worth
struggling any longer. First Palmerston, then Outram, and now
Rose--and they were only the most recent in a long line of
enthusiastic madmen who at one time or another had declared
that I was just the chap they were looking for to undertake some
ghastly adventure. I made one attempt at a feeble excuse by
pointing out that I didn't have a beard any longer; Rose brushed
it aside as of no importance, poured me another brandy, and
began to elaborate his idiot plan.
In essence it was what I've already described--I was to convince
Lakshmibai of the wisdom of giving herself up (which I reckoned
she'd never agree to do), and if she accepted, I was to explain
how she must make an attempt to escape through the unguarded
Orcha Gate at the very height of our attack on Jhansi city--the
timing, said Rose, was of the utmost importance, and the further
advanced our attack was before she made her bolt, the less
suspicion her people might feel. (I couldn't see that this mattered
much, but Rose was one of these meticulous swine who'll leave
nothing to chance.)
"And if she rejects the offer--as I know she will?" I asked him.
"Then on no account must you say anything about the Orcha
Gate," says he. "Only when she has accepted the offer must you
explain how her 'capture' is to be contrived. But if she does
refuse--well, she may still be tempted to use a bolt-hole in the
last resort, if we leave her one. So we shall nab her anyway," he
concluded smugly.
"And I--if she refuses?"
"My guess," says he airily, puffing at his cheroot, "is that she'll
try to keep you as a hostage. I hardly think she'd do more than
that, what? Anyway," says he, clapping me on the arm, "I know
you've never counted risk yet--I saw you at Balaclava, by
George! Did you know about that, Lyster?" he went on, "charging
with the Heavies wasn't enough for this beauty--he had to
go in with the Lights as well!" And, do you know, he actually
sat laughing at me in admiration? It would rum your stomach.
So there it was--again. Hell in front and no way out, I tried to
266	"I
balance the odds in my mind, while I kept a straight face and
punished the brandy. Would Lakshmibai listen to me? Probably
not; she might try to escape when all was lost, but she'd never
give herself up and leave her city to die. What would she do
with me, then? I conjured up a picture of that dark face, smiling
up at me with parted lips when I pinned her and kissed her
against the mirrored wall; I remembered the pavilion--no, she
wouldn't do me harm, if she could help it. Unless ... had she set
those Thugs after me? No, that had been Ignatieff. And yet--
there was the Jhansi massacre--how deep had she been in that?
Who knew what went on in an Indian mind, if it came to that?
Was she as cruel and treacherous as all the rest of them? I
couldn't say--but I was going to find out, by God, whether I
liked it or not. I'd know, when I came face to face with her--and
just for an instant I felt a leap of eagerness in my chest at the
thought of seeing her once more. It was only for an instant, and
then I was sweating again.
I'll say this for Hugh Rose--along with his fiendish ingenuity for dreaming up dangers for me, he had an equally formidable
talent of organisation. It took him a good thirty seconds to think
of a fool-proof way of getting me safe inside Jhansi--I would have
the next day to prepare my disguise, with skin-dye and the rest,
and the following night he would loose a squadron of Hyderabad
Cavalry in a sudden raid on the breach in the city wall. They
would break through the flimsy barrier which the defenders had
thrown up, sabre a few sentries, create a hell of a row, and then
withdraw in good order--leaving behind among the rubble one
native badmash of unsavoury appearance, to wit. Colonel Flashman,
late of the lyth Lancers and General Staff. I'd have no difficulty,
said Rose breezily, in lying low for half an hour, and then
emerging as one of the defenders. After that, all I had to do was
tool up through the streets to the palace and knock on the door,
like Barnacle Bill.
Speaking from a safe distance, I can say it was a sound scheme.
Hearing it propounded at the time I thought it was fit to loosen
the bowels of a bronze statue--but the hellish thing is, whatever
a general suggests, you can do nothing but grin and agree. And,
I have to admit, it worked.
267
I don't remember the agonising day I must have spent waiting,
and attiring myself in a filthy sepoy uniform, so that I could pass
in my old role of 3rd Cavalry mutineer. But I'll never forget the
last moment of suspense beside the siege guns, with the Hyderabad!
troopers round me in the gloom, and Rose clasping my hand,
and then the whispered order, and the slow, muffled advance
through the cold dark, with only the snorting of the horses and
the creak of leather to mark our passing towards that looming
distant wall, with the dull crimson glow of the city behind it,
and the broad gap of the breach where the watch-fires twinkled,
and we could even see figures silhouetted as they moved to and
fro.
Away to our left flank the night-batteries were firing, distant
tiny jets of flame in the dark, pounding away at the flank of the
city which faced the old cantonment. That was for diversion; I
could smell the bazaar stink from Jhansi, and still we hadn't been
spotted. Even through my genuine funk, I could feel that strange
tremor of excitement that every horse-soldier knows as the squadrons
move forward silently in the gloom towards an unsuspecting
enemy, slowly and ponderously, bump-bump-bump at the walk,
knee to knee, one hand on the bridle, t'other on the hilt of the
lamp-blacked sabre, ears straining for the first cry of alarm.
How often I'd known it, and been terrified by it--in Afghanistan,
at Cawnpore with Rowbotham, in the Punjab, under the
walls of Fort Raim when I rode against the Russians with old
Izzat Kutebar and the Horde of the Blue Wolves, and that lovely
witch, Ko Dali's daughter, touching my hand in the dark . ..
The crack of a rifle, a distant yell, and the thunderous roar of
the rissaldar: "Aye-hee! Squah-drahn--charge!" The dark mass
either side seemed to leap forward, and then I was thundering
along, flat down against my pony's flanks like an Oglala, as we
tore across the last furlong towards the breach. The Hyderabadis
screamed like fury as they spread out, except for the four who
remained bunched ahead and either side of me, as a protective
screen. Beyond them I could see the smoky glare of the fires in
the breach, a rubble-strewn gap a hundred yards wide, with a
crazy barricade thrown across it; pin-points of flame were
twinkling in the gloom, and shots whistled overhead, and then
268
the first riders were at the barrier, jumping it or bursting through,
sabres swinging. My front-gallopers swerved in among the jumble
of fallen masonry and scorched timbers, howling like dervishes;
I saw one of them sabring down a pandy who thrust up at him
with musket and bayonet, while another rode slap into a big,
white-dhotied fellow who was springing at him with a spear. His
horse stumbled and went down, and I scrambled my own beast
over a pile of stones and plaster, from which a dark figure
emerged, shrieking, and vanished into the gloom.
There was a fire straight ahead, and men running towards me,
so I jerked my beast's head round and made for the shadows to
my right. Two Hyderabadis surged up at my elbow, charging into
the advancing group, and under their cover I managed to reach
the lee of a ruined house, while the clash of steel, the crack of
musketry, and the yells of the fighters sounded behind me. Close
by the house there was a tangle of bushes--one quick glance
round showed no immediate enemy making for me, and I rolled
neatly out of the saddle into what seemed to be a midden,
crawled frantically under the bushes, and lay there panting.
I'd dropped my sabre, but I had a stout knife in my boot and a
revolver in my waist under my shirt; I snuggled back as far into
cover as I could and kept mum. Feet went pounding by towards
the tumult at the barricade, and for two or three minutes the
pandemonium of shooting and yelling continued. Then it died
down, to be replaced by a babble of insults from the defenders--
presumably directed at our retreating cavalry--a few shots went
after them, and then comparative peace descended on that small corner of Jhansi. So far, so good--but, as some clever lad once
said, we hadn't gone very far.
I waited perhaps quarter of an hour, and then burrowed
through the bushes and found myself in a narrow lane. There
was no one about, but round the corner was a watch-fire, with a
few pandies and bazaar-wallahs round it; I ambled past them,
exchanging a greeting, and they didn't do more than give me an
idle glance. Two minutes later I was in the bazaar, buying a
chapatti and chili, and agreeing with the booth-wallah that if the
sahib-log couldn't do better than the feeble skirmish there had
just been down at the breach, then they'd never take Jhansi.
269
Although it was three in the morning, the narrow streets were
as busy as if it had been noon. There were troops on the move
everywhererebels of the izth N.I., regulars of the Rani's
Maharatta army, Bhil soldiers-of-fortune, and every sort of armed
tribesman from the surrounding country, with spiked helmets,
long swords, round shields, and all lands of firearm from Minies
to matchlocks. It looked to me as though Jhansi knew our main
attack was soon coming, and they were moving reserves down to
the walls.
There were ten civilian townsfolk about for every soldier, and
the booths were doing a roaring trade. Here and there were
ruined shops and houses where some of our stray shots had fallen,
but there was no sign of unease, as you'd have expectedrather a
sense of excitement and bustle, with everyone wideawake and
chattering. A party of coolies went by, dragging a cart piled with
six-pounder cartridges, and I took the opportunity to remark to
the booth-wallah:
"There go a thousand English lives, eh, brother?"
"Like enough," says he, scowling. "And every cannon-shot
means another anna in market-tax. Lives can be bought too dear
even English ones."
"Nay, the Rani will pay it from her treasury," says I, giving
him my shrill sepoy giggle.
"Ho-ho-ho, hear him!" says he, scornfully. "You should set up
a stall, soldier, and see how fat you get. When did the Rani ever
payor any other prince? What are we for but to pay, while the
great ones make war?"
Just what they'd be saying in the Reform Club or the Star and
Garter, thinks I. Aloud I said:
"They say she holds a great council in the fort tonight. Is it
true?"
"She did not invite me," says he, sarcastically. "Nor, strangely
enough, did she offer me the use of the palace when she left it.
That will be three pice, soldier."
I paid him, having learned what I wanted to know, and took
the streets that led up to the fort, with my knees getting shakier
at every step. By God, this was a chancy business; I had to nerve
myself with the thought that, whatever her feelings towards my
270
/y
\par country and army, she'd never shown anything but friendliness
to me--and she'd hardly show violence to an envoy from the
British general. Even so, when I found myself gazing across
the little square towards that squat, frowning gateway, with the
torches blazing over it, and the red-jacketed Pathan sentries of
her personal guard standing either side, I had to fight down the
temptation to scuttle back into the lanes and try to hide until it
was all over. Only the certainty that those lanes would shortly
be a bloody battleground sent me reluctantly on. I wound my puggaree tightly round head and chin, hiding half my face,
slipped from my pocket the note which Rose and I had carefully
prepared, walked firmly across to the sentry, and demanded to see
the guard commander.
He came out, yawning and expectorating, and who should it be
but my old acquaintance who spat on shadows. I gave him the
note and said: "This is for the Rani's hand, and no other. Take it
to her, and quickly."
He glowered from me to it and back. "What is this, and who
may you be?"
"If she wishes you to know, belike she'll tell you," I growled,
and squatted down in the archway. "But be sure, if you delay,
she'll have that empty head off your shoulders."
He stood glaring, turning the note in his hands. Evidently it
impressed him--with a red seal carrying young Lyster's family
crest, it should have done--for after an obscene inquiry about my
parentage, which I ignored, he scratched himself and then loafed
off, bidding the sentries keep an eye on me.
I waited, with my heart hammering, for this was the moment
when things might go badly astray. Rose and I had cudgelled our
brains for wording that would mean nothing to anyone but her,
in case the note fell into the wrong hands. As an added precaution,
we'd written it in schoolboy French, which I knew she
understood. It said, simply:
One who brought perfume and a picture is here. See him
alone. Trust him.
Rose had been delighted with this--he was plainly one who
271
enjoyed intrigue for its own sake, and I've no doubt would have
liked to sign it with a skull and crossbones. Squatting in the doorway,
I couldn't take such a light-hearted view. Assuming that
Pathan blockhead took it straight to her, she'd guess who it was
from fast enough--but suppose she didn't want to see me? Suppose
she thought the best way of answering the message would
be to send me back in bits to Rose's headquarters? Suppose she
showed it to someone else, or it miscarried, or...
The sound of marching feet came from the gloom beyond the
archway, and I got to my feet, quivering. The havildar came out
of the dark, with two troopers behind him. He stopped, gave me
a long, glowering look, and then jerked his head. I went forward,
and he motioned me on into the courtyard beyond, falling in
beside me with the two troopers behind. I wanted to ask him if
he'd given the note to the Rani personally, but my tongue seemed
to have shrivelled up; I'd know soon enough. As my eyes became
accustomed to the gloom after the glare of the torches by the
gate, I saw that we were heading across the yard, with high
black walls on either side, and another torch at the far end over a
doorway, guarded by two more Pathans.
"In," growls the havildar, and I found myself in a small
vaulted guard-room; I blinked in the sudden glare of oil lamps,
and then my heart lurched down into my boots, for the figure
peering intently towards me from the centre of the room was the
little fat chamberlain whom I knew so well from Lakshmibai's
durbar.
The stupid bitch had told him who I was! There was no hope
of a secret offer now--Rose's fat-headed scheme had sprung a
leak, and--
"You are the officer who brought gifts from the British
Queen?" he squeaked. "The Sirkar's envoy--Colonel Flashman?"
He was squinting at me in consternation, as well he might, for I
didn't look much like the dandy staff officer he'd known. Sick and
fearful, I peeled off my puggaree and pushed my hair back.
"Yes," said I. "I'm Colonel Flashman. You must take me to the
Rani, at once!"
He goggled at me, his little eyes wide in that fat face, twisting
his hands nervously. And then something fluttered in the air
2?between us--for an instant I thought it was a moth--and fell to
the floor with a tiny puff of sparks. It was a cigarette, smoking
on the flags; a long yellow tube with a mouthpiece.
"All in good time," said Ignatieff's voice, and I believe I
actually cried out with shock, as I spun round to stare in horrified
disbelief at the doorway. He was standing there, his hand still
frozen in the act of flicking away the cigarette--Ignatieff, whom
I'd supposed a thousand miles away by now, looking at me with
his dreadful cold smile, and then inclining his tawny head.
"All in good time," he repeated in English, as he came forward.
He ground his heel on the fallen cigarette. "After we have
resumed the . . . discussion? . . . which was so unfortunately
interrupted at Balmoral."
* * *
How I've survived four-score years without heart seizure I do
not know. Perhaps I'm inured to the kind of shock I experienced
then, with my innards surging up into my throat; I couldn't
move, but stood there with my skin crawling as he came to stand
in front of me--a new Ignatieff, this, in flowered shirt and pyjamy
trousers and Persian boots, and with a little gingery beard adorning
his chin. But the rat-trap mouth was still the same, and that
unwinking half-blue half-brown eye boring into me.
"I have been anticipating this meeting," says he, "ever since I
learned of your mission to India--did you know, I heard about it
before you did yourself?" He gave a chilly little smile--he could
never resist bragging, this one. "The secret deliberations of the
astute Lord Palmerston are not as secret as he supposes. And it
has been a fool's errand, has it not? But never so foolish as now.
You should have been thankful to escape me . . . twice? . . . but
you come blundering back a third time. Very well." The gotch
eye seemed to harden with a brilliant light. "You will not have
long to regret it."
With an effort I got my voice back, damned shaky though it
was.
"I've nothing to say to you!" cries I, as truculently as I could,
and turned on the little chamberlain. "My business is with the
Rani Lakshmibai--not with this . . . this renegade! I demand to
see her at once! Tell her--"
173
Ignarieff's hand smashed across my mouth, sending me staggering,
but his voice didn't rise by a fraction. "That will not be
necessary," says he, and the little chamberlain dithered submissively.
"Her highness is not to be troubled for a mere spy. I shall
deal with this jackal myself."
"In a pig's eye you will!" I blustered. "I'm an envoy from
Sir Hugh Rose, to the Rani--not to any hole-and-corner Russian
bully! You'll hinder me at your peril! Damn you, let me loose!"
I roared as the two troopers suddenly grabbed my elbows. "I'm a
staff officer! You can't touch me--I'm--"
"Staff officer! Envoy!" Ignatieff's words came out in that
raging icy whisper that took me back to the nightmare of that
verminous dungeon beneath Fort Arabat. "You crawl here in
your filthy disguise, like the spy you are, and claim to be treated
as an emissary? If that is what you are, why did you not come in
uniform, under a flag, in open day?" His face was frozen in fury,
and then the brute hit me again. "I shall tell you--because you
are a dishonoured liar, whose word no one would trust! Treachery
and deceit are your trade--or is it assassination this time?" His
hand shot out and whipped the revolver from my waist.
"It's a lie!" I shouted. "Send to Sir Hugh Rose--he'll tell
you!" I was appealing to the chamberlain. "You know me, man--
tell the Rani! I demand it!"
But he just stood gaping, waiting for Ignatieff, whose sudden
anger had died as quickly as it came.
"Since Sir Hugh Rose has not honoured us with a parley, there
is no reason why we should address him," says he softly. "We
have to deal only with a night prowler." He gestured to the
troopers. "Take him down."
"You've no authority!" I roared. "I'm not answerable to you,
you Russian swine! Let me go!" They were dragging me forward
by main strength, while I bawled to the chamberlain, pleading
with him to tell the Rani. They ran me through a doorway, and
down a flight of stone steps, with Ignatieff following, the
chamberlain twittering in front of him. I struggled in panic, for
it was plain that the brute was going to prevent the Rani hearing of my arrival until after he'd done.... I nearly threw up in terror,
for the troopers were hauling me across the floor to an enormous
^4
wheel like a cable drum, set perpendicular above ground level.
There were manacles dangling from it, and fetters attached to the
stone floor beneath it--Jesus! They had racked Murray to death
in this very fort, IIderim had said, and now they flung me against
the hellish contraption, one grinning trooper pinning me bodily
while the other clamped my hands in the manacles above my
head, and then snapped the floor-chains round my ankles. I yelled
and swore, the chamberlain sank down fearfully on the bottom
step, and Ignatieff lit another cigarette.
"So much would not be necessary if I only sought information,"
says he, in that dreadful metallic whisper. "With such a
coward as you, the threat is sufficient. But you are going to tell
me why you are here, what treachery you intended, and for what
purpose you wished to see her highness. And when I am satisfied
that you have told me everything--" he stepped close up to me,
that awful eye staring into mine, and concluded in Russian, for
my benefit alone "--the racking will continue until you are
dead." He signed to the troopers, and stepped back.
"For Christ's sake, Ignatieff!" I screamed. "You can't do this!
I'm a British officer, a white man--let me go, you bastard! Please
--in God's name, I'll tell you!" I felt the drum turn behind me as
the troopers put their weight on the lever, drawing my arms taut
above my head. "No, no! Let me go, you foul swine! I'm a gentleman,
damn you--for pity's sake! We've had tea with the Queen!
No, please--"
There was a clank from the huge wheel, and the chains
wrenched at my wrists and ankles, sending shoots of pain
through my arm and thigh muscles. I howled at the top of my
voice as the wheel turned, stretching me to what seemed the limit
of endurance, and Ignatieff stepped closer again.
"Why did you come?" says he.
"Let me go! You vile bloody dog, you!" Behind him I saw that
the chamberlain was on his feet, white with horror. "Run!" I
yelled. "Run, you stupid fat sod! Get your mistress--quickly!"
But he seemed rooted to the spot, and then the drum clanked
again, and an excruciating agony flamed through my biceps and
shoulders, as though they were being hauled out of my body
(which, of course, they were). I tried to scream again, but nothing
W
came out, and then his devil's face was next to mine again, and I
was babbling:
"Don't--don't, for Jesus' sake! I'll tell you--I'll tell you!"
And even through the red mist of pain I knew that once I did, I
was a dead man. But I couldn't bear it--I had to talk--and then
inspiration came through the agony, and I let my head loll sideways,
with a groan that died away. If only I could buy a moment's
time--if only the chamberlain would run for help--if only
Ignatieff would believe I'd fainted, and I could keep up the pretence
with my whole body shrieking in pain. His palm slapped
across my face, and I couldn't restrain a cry. His hand went up to
the troopers, and I gasped:
"No--I'll tell you! Don't let them turn it again! I swear it's
the truth--only don't let them do it again--oh. God, please, not
again!"
"Well?" says he, and I knew I couldn't delay any longer. I
couldn't bear another turn.
"General Rose--" My voice seemed to be a whisper from miles
away. "I'm on his staff--he sent me--to see the Rani--please, it's
the God's truth! Oh, make them let me down!"
"Go on," says that dreadful voice. "What was your message?"
"I was to ask her ..." I was staring into his horrible eye,
seeing it through a blur of tears, and then somewhere in the
obscured distance behind him there was a movement, at the top
of the steps, and as I blinked my vision was suddenly clear, and
my voice broke into a shuddering sigh of relief, and I let my head
fall back. For the door at the top of the steps was open, with my
red-coated guard sergeant, that wonderful, bearded genius of a
Pathan who spat on shadows, holding it back, and a white figure
was stepping through, stopping abruptly, staring down at us. I
had always thought she was beautiful, but at that moment
Lakshmibai looked like an angel pavilioned in splendour.
I was in such anguish that it was even an effort to keep my
eyes open, so I didn't, but I heard her cry of astonishment, and
then the chamberlain babbling, and Ignatieff swinging round.
And then, believe it or not, what she said, in a voice shrill with
anger, was:
"Stop that at once! Stop it, do you hear?"
276
for all the world like a young school-mistress coming into class
and catching little Johnny piddling in the ink-well. I'll swear she
stamped as she said it, and even at the time, half-fainting with
pain that I was, I thought it sounded ridiculous; and then suddenly
with an agonising jerk that made me cry out, the fearful
traction on my limbs was relaxed, and I was sagging against the
wheel, trying to stop my tortured legs from buckling under me.
But I'm proud to say I still had my wits about me.
"You won't get anything out of me!" I groaned. "You Russian
hound--I'll die first!" I fluttered an eye open to see how this was
received, but she was too busy choking back her fury as she confronted
Ignatieff.
"This is by your order?" Lord, it was a lovely voice. "Do you
know who this is?"
I'll say this for him, he faced her without so much as a blink--
indeed, he even tossed his blasted cigarette aside in deference
before giving his little bow to her.
"It is a spy, highness, who stole into your city in disguise--as
you can see."
"It is a British officer!" She was blazing, trembling from her
white head-veil all down her shapely sari-wrapped body to her
little pearled sandals. "An envoy of the Sirkar, who brings a
message for me. For me!" And she stamped again. "Where is it?"
Ignatieff pulled the note from his girdle, and handed it to her
without a word. She read it, and then folded it deliberately, and
looked him in the face.
"Sher Khan tells me he had orders to deliver it into my hands
alone." She was holding in her anger still, with an effort. "But
seeing him with it, you asked what it might be, and the fool gave
it you. And having read it, you dared to question this man without
my leave--"
"It was a suspicious message, highness," says Ignatieff, dead
level, "And this man was obviously a spy--"
"You bloody liar!" croaks I. "You knew damned well what I
was! Don't listen to him, Lakshmi--highness--the swine's got it
in for me! He was trying to murder me, out of spite!"
She gave me one look, and then fronted Ignatieff again. "Spy
or not, it is I who rule here. Sometimes I think you forget it,
277
Count Ignatieff." She faced him eye to eye for a long moment,
and then turned away from him. She looked at me, and then
away, and we all waited, in dead silence. Finally she said quietly:
"I shall see to this man, and decide what is to be done with
him." She turned to Ignatieff. "You may go. Count."
He bowed, and said: "I regret if I have offended your highness.
If I have done so, it was out of zeal for the cause we both serve--
your highness's government--" he paused-- "and my imperial
master's. I would be failing in my duty to both if I did not remind
you that this man is a most dangerous and notorious British
agent, and that--"
"I know very well who and what he is," says she quietly, and
at that the gotch-eyed son-of-a-bitch said no more, but bowed
again and took himself off, with the two troopers sidling hastily
after him, salaaming nervously as they passed her. They clattered
up the steps behind Ignatieff, and Sher Khan closed the door
after them, and that left the four of us, all cosy as ninepence--
Lakshmibai standing like a glimmering white statue, the little
chamberlain twitching in anxious silence, Sher Khan on the door,
and H. Flashman, Esq., doing his celebrated imitation of a
Protestant martyr. Damned uncomfortable, too, but something
told me grateful babblement wouldn't be in order, so I said as
steadily as I could:
"Thank you, your highness. Forgive me if I don't make my
bow, but in the circumstances ..."
Very gallant, you see, but the truth was that fiery pains were
still shooting through my arms and legs, and it was all I could do
to keep from gasping and groaning. She was standing looking at
me, quite expressionless, so I added hopefully:
"If your havildar would release me..."
But she didn't move a muscle, and I felt a sudden thrill of
unease under the steady gaze of those dark eyes, the whites so
clear against her dusky skin. What the hell was she up to, keeping
me strung up on this bloody machine, and not so much as a
glimmer of a smile, or recognition even? I palpitated while she
stood, watching me and thinking, and then she came up within a
yard of me, and spoke, in a flat hard voice.
"What did he want to know from you?"
278
The tone took my breath away, but I held my head up. "He
wanted to know my business with your highness."
Her glance went to the chains on my wrists, then back to my
face.
"And did you tell him?"
"Of course not." I thought a brave smile mightn't be out of
place, so I tried one. "I like people to ask me questionspolitely."
She turned her head towards the little chamberlain.
"Is this true?"
He puffed and flapped his arms, all eagerness. "Indeed, exalted
highness! Not a word did the colonel sahib saynot even under
the cruel torture! He did not even cry outmuch ... oh, he is an
officer sahib, of course, and"
Poor little bastard was hoping to butter his bread on the right
. side, of course, but I wasn't sure he was backing a winner here;
% she was still looking at me as if I was some carcase on a butcher's
slab. The chilling thought struck me that it probably wasn't the
first time she'd contemplated some poor devil in my situation ...
God, perhaps even Murray .. . and then she turned her head and
called to Sher Khan, and he came tumbling down the steps double
quick, while the sweat broke out on me. Surely she wasn't going
to order him to
"Release him," says she, and I near fainted with relief. She
watched impassively while he undamped me, and I took a few
staggering and damned painful steps, catching at that hellish
wheel for support. Then:
"Bring him," says she curtly. "I shall question him myself,"
and without another word she turned and walked up the steps,
out of the dungeon, with the little chamberlain bobbing nervously
behind her, and Sher Khan spitting and grunting as he assisted
me to follow.
"Speak well of me to her highness, husoor," he muttered as he
gave me a shoulder. "If I blundered in giving thy kitab to the
Ruski sahib, did I not make amends? I went for her, when I saw
he meant to ill-use thee ... I had not recognised thee. God
knows"
I reassured himhe could have had a knighthood and the town
hall clock for my partas he conducted me up through the
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guard-room to a little spiral stair, and then along a great stone
passage of the fort, which gave way to a carpeted corridor where sentries of her guard stood in their steel caps and backs-andbreasts.
I limped along, relieved to find that apart from a few
painfully-pulled muscles and badly skinned wrists and ankles, I
wasn't much the worse ... yet, and then Sher Khan was ushering
me through a door, and I found myself in a smaller version of the
durbar-room at the palace--a long, low richly-furnished apartment,
all in white, with a quilted carpet, and silk hangings on the
walls, divans and cushions and glowing Persian pictures, and even
a great silver cage in which tiny birds cheeped and fluttered. The
air was heavy with perfume, but I still hadn't got the stink of
fear out of my nostrils, and the sight of Lakshmibai waiting did
nothing to cheer me up.
She was sitting on a low backless couch, listening to the little
chamberlain, who was whispering fifteen to the dozen, but at
sight of me she stopped him. There were two of her ladies with
her, and the whole group just looked at me, the women curiously,
and Lakshmibai with the same damned disinheriting stare she'd
used in the dungeon.
"Set him there," says she to Sher Khan, pointing to the middle
of the floor, "and tie his hands behind him." He jumped to it,
wrenching the knots with no thought for my flayed wrists. "He
will be safe enough so," she added to the little chamberlain. "Go,
all of you--and Sher Khan will remain beyond the door within
call."
Dear God, was she going to set about me herself, I wondered,
as the ladies swiftly rustled out, and the chamberlain hurried by,
eyeing me apprehensively. I heard Sher Khan withdraw, and the
door close, leaving me standing and her sitting erect, staring at
me--and then to my amazement she sprang from the seat and was
flying across the room towards me, with her arms out and her
face trembling, throwing herself against me, clinging to me, and
sobbing:
"Oh, my darling one, my darling, my darling! You have come
back--oh, I thought I should never see you again!" And her
arms were round my neck, and that lovely dark face, all wet with
tears was upturned to mine, and she was kissing me any old how,
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on the cheeks and chin and eyes and mouth, sobbing out endearments
and shuddering against me.
I'm an easy-going chap, as you know, and can take things
pretty well as they come, but I'll admit that I wondered if I was
mad or dreaming. Not much above two hours ago I'd been in
Rose's tent in the safety of British lines, gulping down a last
brandy and trying to read the advertisements in an old copy of The Times to take my mind off the ordeal ahead, with young
Lyster humming a popular song--and since then I'd taken part
in a cavalry skirmish, and skulked through a hostile nigger city in
disguise, and been scared out of my senses by that fiend Ignatieff's
appearance, and stretched on a rack in fearful physical and even
worse mental agony, and been rescued at the last minute and
dragged and bound in the presence of a female despot--and here
she was clinging and weeping and slobbering over me as though
I were Little Willie the Collier's Dying Child. It was all a shade
more than enough for my poor bemused brain, and body, and I
just sank to my knees under the weight of it all, and she sank
with me, crying and kissing.
"Oh, my sweet, have they hurt you? I thought I should swoon
when I saw--ah, your poor flesh!" Before I knew it she was down
at my legs, soothing my scraped ankles with one hand while she
kept the other behind my head, and kissed me long and lingeringly
on the mouth. My amazement was giving way to the most
wonderful mixture of relief and joy, and pure ecstatic pleasure in
that scented dark skin pressed against my face, her open mouth
trembling on mine. I could feel her breasts hard against me--and,
dammit, my hands were tied, and I could only strain against her
until she freed her lips and looked at me, holding my face between
her hands.
"Oh, Lucky--lucky Lakshmi!" I was babbling out of sheer
delight. "Oh, you wonderful, beautiful creature!"
"I thought you were dead," says she, cradling my head down
against her bosom--by George, that was the place to be, and I
struggled my hands desperately to try to free them. "All these
months I have mourned you--ever since that dreadful day when
they found the dead dacoits near the pavilion, and I thought..."
She gave a little sob and pulled up my face to kiss me again. "And
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you are safe, and back again with me ... my darling." The great
eyes were brimming with tears again. "Ah, I so love you!"
Well, I'd heard it before, of course, expressed with varying
degrees of passion by countless females, and it's always gratifying,
but I couldn't recall a moment when it had been more welcome
than now. If ever I needed a woman to be deeply affected with
my manly charms, this was the moment, and being half in love
with her myself it required no effort at all to play up and make
the most of it. So I put my mouth on hers again, and used my
weight to bear her down on the cushions--damned difficult with
my hands bound, but she was all for it, and lay there drinking me in, teasing with her tongue and stroking my face gently with her
fingertips until I thought I'd burst.
"Lakshmi, chabdi--untie my hands!" I croaked, and she disengaged
herself, glancing towards the door and then smiling at
me longingly.
"I cannot... not now. You see, no one must know... yet.
To them, you are a prisoner--a spy sent by the British soldiers
...'
"I can explain all that! I had to come secretly, in disguise, to
bring you a message from General Rose. Lakshmi, dearest, you've
got to accept it--it's an offer of life! Please, untie me and let me
tell you!"
"Wait," says she. "Come, sit here." And she helped me up,
pausing on the way to fondle me again and kiss me before seating
me on the edge of a divan. "It is best for the moment that we
leave you bound--oh, beloved, it will not be for long, I promise
. . . but in case someone comes suddenly. See, I shall get you a
drink--you must be parched--ah, and your poor wrists, so cruelly
torn!" The tears welled up again, and then such a look of blazing
hatred passed across her face that I shrank where I sat. "That
beast of Russia!" says she, clenching her tiny fist. "He will pay
for it--I will have him drawn apart, and make him eat that
hideous eye of his! And the Tsar his master may go straight to
hell, and look for him!"
Excellent sentiments, I thought, and while she filled a goblet
with sherbet I thought I'd improve the shining hour.
"It was Ignatieff who set the Thugs on me that night--he's
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f
been dogging me ever since I came to India, spying and trying .to
stir up rebellion..."
I suddenly stopped there; she, after all, was now one of the
leaders of that rebellion, and obviously Ignatieff was her ally,
whatever her personal feelings towards him. She put the cup to
my lips, and I drank greedilybeing put on the rack's the way to
raise a thirst, you knowand when I'd finished she stood up, with
the cup between her hands, looking down at me.
"If I had only listened to you," says she. "If there had only
been more time! I did not know ... if only I could make you
understandall the years of waiting, and trying to right injustice
to... to me, and my son, and my Jhansi..."
"How is the young fella, by the way? Well, eh, and thriving
fine lad, that..."
"... and waiting turns to despair and despair to hatred, and I
thought you were another cold and unfeeling creature of the
Sirkarand yet..." she suddenly knelt down in front of me,
and caught my hands, and there was a look in her great almond
eyes that made even my experienced old heart skip a beat
"... and yet, I knew that you were not like the others. You were
gentle, and kind, and you seemed to understand. And then . . .
that day when we fenced, in the durbar room ... I felt something
inside me thatthat I had not known before. And later ..."
"In the pavilion," says I, hoarsely. "Oh, Lakshmi, that was the
most wonderful moment in my life! Really capital, don't ye know
. . . beat everything . . . darling, couldn't you untie my hands a
second... ?"
Just for an instant there was a strange, distant look in her eyes,
and then she turned her head away, and her hands tightened on
mine.
"... and when you disappeared, and I thought you dead, there
was such an emptiness." She was trying not to cry. "And nothing
eke seemed to matternot I, or Jhansi, even. And then came
news of the red wind, sweeping through the British garrisons in
the northand even here, in my own state, they killed them all,
and I was helpless." She was biting her Up, staring pleadingly at
me, and if she'd been before the House of Lords the old goats
would have been roaring "Not guilty, on my honour!" with
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three times three. "And what could I do? It seemed that the Raj--
and I hated the Raj!--was falling, and my own cousin, Nana,
was raising the standard of revolt, and to stand idle was to lose
Jhansi, to the jackals of Orcha or Gwalior, or even to the sepoys
themselves... oh, but you are British, and you cannot understand!"

"Dearest," says I, "you don't have to excuse yourself to me, of
all people. What else could you do?" It wasn't an idle question,
either; the only treason is to pick the wrong side, which, in the
long run, she had done. "But it doesn't matter, you see--that's
why I'm here! It can all come right again--at least, you can be
saved, and that's what counts."
She looked at me and said simply: "I do not care, now that you
have come back." And she leaned forward and kissed me again,
gently, on the lips.
"You must care," says I. "See here--I've come from General
Rose, and what he says comes straight from Lord Canning in
Calcutta. They want to save you, my dear, if you'll let them."
"They want me to surrender," says she, and stood up. She
walked away to set the cup down on a table, and the sight of the
tight-wrapped sari stirring over those splendid hips set my fingers
working feverishly at the knots behind my back. She turned,
with her bosom going up like balloons, and her face was set and
sad. "They want me to give up my Jhansi."
"Darling--it's lost anyway. Any day now they'll storm the
walls, and that's the end. You know it--and so must your
advisers. Even Ignatieff--what the devil's he doing here, anyhow?"

"He has been here--and at Meerut and Delhi--everywhere,
since the beginning. Promising Russian help--making rebellion,
as you say, on his master's behalf." She made a little helpless
gesture. "I do not know ... there has been talk of a Russian army
over the Khyber--some would welcome it; myself ... I fear it--
but it does not matter, now. He remains, I suppose, as long as he
may do your government some harm ... if Jhansi falls, he will go
to Tantia or Nana." And she added, with a shrugged afterthought
that somehow prickled my spine. "Unless I have him killed, for
what he has done to you."
< 284
All in good time, thinks I, happily, and got back to the matter
in hand.
"But it isn't Jhansi they wantit's you." She opened her eyes
at that, and I hurried on. "They can't make terms with rebels
why, half your garrison must be pandies, with nothing to hope
for; there's no pardon for them, you see. So they'll storm the city,
whatever you do. But they want to save you aliveif you will
give yourself up, alone, then . . . then they won't" I couldn't
meet her eye, though "punish you." - ^
"Why should they spare me?" For a minute the fire was back
in her eye. "Who else have they spared? Why should they want
to keep me alivewhen they blow men away from guns, and
hang them without trial, and bum whole cities? Will they spare
Nana or Tantia or Azeemoolahthen why the Rani of Jhansi?"
It wasn't an easy one to answernot truthfully, anyway. She
wouldn't take it too kindly if I said it was just politics, to keep
the public happy.
"Does it matter?" says I. "Whatever their reasons ..."
"Is it because I am a woman?" She said it softly, and came to
stand in front of me. "And the British do not make war on
women." She looked steadily at me for several seconds. "Is it
because I am beautiful? And do they wish to take me to London,
as the Romans did with their captives, and show me as a spectacle
to the people"
"That ain't our style," says I, pretty sharp. "Of course, we
don't make war on women . . . and, well, you see, you'rewell,
you're different"
"To them? To Lord Canning? To General Rose? They do not
know me. Why should they care? Why should any of you ..."
And then she stopped, and dropped to her knees again, and her
lip was trembling. "You? Have you spokenfor me? You came
from Lord Palmerstonhave you asked them to save me?"
By George, here was an unexpected ball at my foot, with a
vengeance. It hadn't crossed my mind that she'd think I was
j behind Rose's remarkable offer. But when the chance arises, I hope
11 know how to grasp it as well as the next mancarefully. So I
looked at her, steady and pretty grim, and made myself go red in
the face, and then looked down at the carpet, all dumb and noble
285
and unspoken emotion. She put out a hand and lifted my chin,
and she was absolutely frowning at me.
"Did youand have you risked so much, to come herefor
me? Tell me."
"You know what I think about you," says I, trying to look
romantically stuffed. "I've loved you since the moment I clapped
eyes on youon that swing. More than anything else in the
world."
At that moment, mind you, it wasn't all gammon. I did love
herpretty well, anyway, just then. Not as much as Elspeth, I
dare sayalthough, mind you, put 'em together, side by side,
both stripped down, and you'd think hard before putting England
in to bat. Anyway, I'd no difficulty in looking sincerenot with
that flimsy bodice heaving almost under my nose.
She looked at me in silence, with strange, grave eyes, and then
said, almost in a whisper:
"TonightI did not think ... I only knew that you were here
with me againwhen I had thought you lost. It did not matter to
me, whether you loved me truly or notonly that you were with
me again. But now..." she was looking at me in the strangest
way, sorrowfully almost, and with a kind of perplexity "... now
that you tell me that it was ... for love of me, that you have done
this ..." I wondered if she was going to fling herself on me again
in tears, but after a moment she just kissed me, quite gently, and
.then said:
"What do they wish me to do?"
"To surrender, yourself. No more than that."
"But how? If the city is to be taken, and there is no pardon for
the mutineers, how can I"
"Don't fret about that," says I. "It can all be arranged. If I tell
you howwill you do it?"
"If you will stay with meafterwards." Her eyes were fixed on
mine, soft but steady. "I will do whatever they ask."
Persuasively urged, Rose had said, but I'll bet he'd never
envisaged the likes of thisby George, his randy staff men
wouldn't have been able to believe their eyes.
"When the city is stormed," says I, "our fellows will fight thenway in to the fortress. You must be ready to make an escape
'iS6
through the Orcha Gate. We'll have drawn off our cavalry picket
just there, so it can be done in safety. You must ride out on the
Orcha road--and then, you will be captured. It will look as
though... well, it will look all right."
"I see." She nodded gravely. "And the city?"
"Well, it'll be taken, of course--but there'll be no looting--"
Rose had promised that, for what it was worth "--and of course,
the people will be all right, provided they lie low and don't resist.
The mutineers ... well, it'll all be the same for them, anyway."
"And what will they do ... with me? Will they ... imprison
me?"
I wasn't sure about this, and had to go careful. They'd exile
her for certain, at least to a distant part of India where she could
do no harm, but there was no point in telling her that. "No,"
says I. "They'll treat you very well, you'll see. And then--it'll all
blow over, don't you know? Why, I can think of a score of nig--
native chieftains and kings, who've been daggers drawn with us,
but their wars have got by, and then we've been the best of
friends, and so forth. No hard feelings, you see--we ain't vindictive,
even the Liberals..."
I was smiling to reassure her, and after a while she began
smiling back, and gave a great sigh, and settled against me,
| seemingly content, and I suggested again that it might be a
capital notion to unslip my hands, just for a moment--I was most
monstrously horny with her nestling up against me--but at this
she shook her head, and said we had delayed already, and must
not excite suspicion. She kissed me a lingering good-bye, and told
me to be patient a little longer; we must bide our time according
to Rose's plan, and since her people must have no inkling of it I
would have to be treated as a prisoner, but she would send for me
when the time was ripe.
"And then we shall go together .. , with only a trusted few?"
She held my face in her hands, looking down at me. "And you
will . . . protect me, and love me ... when we come to the Sirkar?"
Till
you're blue in the face, you darling houri, thinks I--but
for answer all I did was kiss her hands. Then she straightened her
veil, and fussed anxiously with her mirror before seating herself
287
on her divan, and it was the charmingest thing to see her give me
a last radiant smile and then compose her face in that icy mask, while I waited suitably hang-dog, standing in the middle of the
floor at a respectful distance. She struck her little gong, which
brought Sher Khan in like the village fire brigade, with chamberlain
and ladies behind him.
"Confine this prisoner in the north tower," says she, as if I
were so much dross. "He is not to be harshly used, but keep him
close--your head on it, Sher Khan."
I was bustled away forthwith--but it's my guess that Sher
Khan, with that leery Pathan nose of his, guessed that all was not
quite what it seemed, for he was a most solicitous jailer in the
days that followed. He kept me well provisioned, bringing all my
food and drink himself, seeing to it that I was comfortable as my
little cell permitted, and showing me every sign of respect--mind
you, in view of my Afghan reputation, that might have been
natural enough.
It took me a few hours to settle down after what I had been
through, but when I came to cast up the score it looked none
so bad. Bar my aching joints and skinned limbs, I was well
enough, and damned thankful for it. As to the future--well, I'd
thought Rose's plan was just moonshine, but then I'd never
dreamed that Lakshmibai was infatuated with me. Attracted,
well enough--it's an odd woman that ain't, but the force of her
passion had been bewildering. And yet, why not? I'd known it
happen before, after all, and often as not with the same kind of
woman--the high-bom, pampered kind who go through their
young lives surrounded by men who are forever deferring and
toadying, so that when a real plunger like myself comes along,
and treats 'em easy, like women and not as queens, they're taken
all aback. It's something new to them to have a big likely chap
who ain't abashed by their grandeur, but looks 'em over with a
warm eye, perfectly respectful but daring them just the same.
They resent it, and like it, too, and if you can just tempt them
into bed and show them what they've been missing--why, the
next thing you know they're head over heels in love with you.
That's how it had been with Duchess Irma, and that wild black
bitch Ranavalona in Madagascar (though she was so stark crazy
188
it was difficult to be sure), so why not the Rani of Jhansi? After
all, her only husband had been as fishy as Dick's hatband, by all
accounts, and however many young stalwarts she'd whistled up
since then, they wouldn't have my style. Well, it was a damned
handy stroke of luck--as well as being most flattering.
As to the surrender--well, she wasn't a fool. Here was a way
out for her, with more credit and safety than she could have
expected, under the wing of the adored Flashy, who she imagined
would protect and cherish her happy ever after. I was all for that
--for a few months, anyway, which was more than most females
could expect from me. Mark you, I was famously taken with her
(I still am, somehow) but I guessed I'd cool after a spell. Couldn't
take her home, anyway--she'd just have to reconcile herself to
waving me good-bye when the time came, like all the others.
In the meantime, I could only wait, in some excitement, for
Rose to mount his assault. When a tremendous cannonading in
the city broke out on the following day, with native pipes and
drums squealing and thundering, I thought the attack had begun,
but it was a false alarm, as Sher Khan informed me later. It
seemed that Tantia Tope had suddenly have in sight with a rebel
army twenty thousand strong, to try to relieve Jhansi; Rose, cool
as a trout as usual, had left his heavy artillery and cavalry to
continue the siege, and had turned with the rest of his force and
thrashed Tantia handsomely on the Betwa river, a few miles away.
At the same time he'd ordered a diversionary attack on Jhansi to
keep the defenders from sallying out to help Tantia; that had
been the noise I'd heard."
"So much for our stout-hearted mutineers in Jhansi," sneers
Sher Khan. "If they had sallied out, your atmy might have been
caught like a nut between two stones, but they contented themselves
with howling and burning powder." He spat. "Let the
Sirkar eat them, and welcome."
I reminded him he was on the rebel side, and that it would be
short shrift for mutineers when Jhansi fell.
"I am no mutineer," says he, "but a paid soldier of the Ram.
I have eaten her salt and fight for her like the Yusufzai I am--
even as I fought for the Sirkar in the Guides. The sahibs know
the difference between a rebel and a soldier who keeps faith; they
289
will treat me with honour--if I live," he added carelessly. He was
another Ilderim, in his way--shorter and uglier, with a smashed
nose and pocked face, but a slap-up Pathan Khyberie, every
inch.
"With any luck they will have hanged thy Ruski friend by
now," he went on, grinning. "He rode out to join Tantia in the
night, and has not returned. Is that good news, Iflass-man
husoor?"
Wasn't it just, though? Of course, Ignatieff would have been
daft to stay in Jhansi--we'd have hanged him high enough for the
foreign spy he was. He'd be off to assist the leading rebels in the
field; I felt all the better for knowing he was out of distance, but
I doubted if he'd allow himself to be killed or taken--he was too
downy a bird for that.
With Tantia whipped, it seemed to me Rose would lose no
further time assaulting Jhansi, but another day and night passed
in which I waited and fretted, and still there was nothing but the
distant thump of cannon-fire to disturb my cell. It wasn't till
the third night that the deuce of a bombardment broke out, in the
small hours, and lasted until almost dawn, and then I heard what
I'd been waiting for--the crash of volley-firing that signified
British infantry, and the sound of explosions within the town
itself, and even distant bugle calls.
"They are in the city," says Sher Khan, when he brought my
breakfast. "The mutineers are fighting better than I thought, and
it is hot work in the streets, they say." He grinned cheerfully and
tapped the hilt of his Khyber knife. "Will her highness order me
to cut thy throat when the last attack goes home, think ye? Eat
well, husoor," and the brute swaggered out, chuckling.
Plainly she hadn't confided her intentions to him. I guessed
she'd wait for nightfall and then make her run; by that time our
fellows would be thumping at the gates of the fort itself. So I
contained myself, listened to the crackle of firing and explosion,
drawing always nearer, until by nightfall it seemed to be only a
few hundred yards off--I was chewing my nails by then, I may
tell you. But the dark came, and still the sound of battle went on,
and I could even hear what I thought were English voices shouting
in the distance, among the yells and shrieks. Through the one
290
high window of my cell the night-sky was glaring red--Jhansi
was dying hard, by the look of it.
I don't know what time it was when I heard the sudden rattle
of the bolt in my cell-door, and Sher Khan and two of his guardsmen
came in, carrying torches. They didn't stand on ceremony,
but hustled me out, and down narrow stone stairs and passages to
a little courtyard. The moon wasn't up yet, but it was light
enough, with the red glare above the walls, and the air was heavy
with powder-smoke and the drift of burning; the crashing of
musketry was close outside the fort now.
The yard seemed to be full of red-coated troopers of the Rani's
guard, and over by a narrow gateway I saw a slim figure mounted
on a white horse which I recognised at once as Lakshmibai. There
were mounted guardsmen with her, and a couple of her ladies,
also mounted, and heavily veiled; one of the mounted men had a
child perched on his saddle-bow: Damodar, her stepson. I was
about to call out, but to my astonishment Sher Kahn suddenly
stooped beside me, there was a metallic snap, and he had a
fetter clasped round my left leg. Before I could even protest, he
was thrusting me towards a horse, snarling: "Up, busoor!" and I
was no sooner in the saddle than he had passed a short chain from
Bmy fetter under the beast's belly, and secured my other ankle, so
that I was effectively shackled to the pony.
"What the hell's this?" I cried, and he chuckled as he swung
aboard a horse beside me.
"Heavy spurs, busoor!" says he. "Peace!--it is by her order,
and doubtless for your own safety. Follow!" And he shook my
bridle, urging me across the square; the little party by the gate
were already passing out of sight, and a moment later we were
riding single file down a steep alleyway, with towering walls
either side, Sher Khan just ahead of me and another Pathan
immediately behind.
I couldn't think what to make of this, until it dawned on me
that she wouldn't have let her entourage into the whole secret--
they would know she was escaping, but not that she intended to
give herself up to the British. So for form's sake I must appear to
be a prisoner still. I wished she'd given me the chance of a secret
word beforehand, though, and let me ride with her; I didn't want
ZQl
us blundering into the besieging cavalry in the dark, and perhaps
being mistaken.
However, there was nothing for it now but to carry on. Our
little cavalcade clattered down the alleyways, twisting and turning,
and then into a broader street, where a house was burning,
but there wasn't a soul to be seen, and the sound of firing was
receding behind us. Once we'd passed the fire it was damned dark
among the rickety buildings, until there were torches and a high
gateway, and more of her guardsmen in the entry-way; I saw her
white horse stop as she leaned from the saddle to consult with
the guard-commander, and waited with my heart in my mouth
until he stepped back, saluting, and barked an order. Two of his men threw open a wicket in the main gate, and a moment later
we were filing through, and I knew we were coming out on to the
Orcha road.
It was blacker than hell in November under the lee of the great
gateway, but half a mile ahead there was the twinkling line of
our picket-fires, and flashes of gunfire as the artillery pieces joined
in the bombardment of the city. Sher Khan had my bridle in his
fist as we moved forward at a walk, and then at a slow trot; it
was easy going on the broad road surface at first, but then the dim
figures of the riders ahead seemed to be veering away to the right,
and as we followed my horse stumbled on rough ground--we
were leaving the road for the flat maidan, and I felt the first
prickle of doubt in my mind. Why were we turning aside? The
path to safety lay straight along the road, where Rose's pickets
would be waiting--she knew that, even if her riders didn't.
Didn't she realise we were going astray--that on this tack we
would probably blunder into pickets that weren't expecting us?
The time for pretence was past, anyhow--it was high time I was
up with her, taking a hand, or God knew where we would land.
But even as I stiffened in my saddle to shove my heels in and
forge ahead, Sher Khan's hand leaped from my wrist to my bridle,
there was a zeep of steel, and the Khyber knife was pricking my
ribs with his voice hissing out of the dark:
"One word. Bloody Lance--one word, and you'll say the next
one toShaitan!"
The shock of it knocked my wits endways--but only for a
292 '"moment. There's nothing like eighteen inches of razor-edged steel
for turning a growing doubt into a stone-ginger certainty, and
before we'd gone another five paces I had sprung to the most
terrifying conclusion--she was escaping, right enough, but not
the way Rose and I had planned it--she was using the information
I'd given her, but in her own way! It rushed in on me in a mad
whirl of thoughts--all her protestations, her slobbering over me,
those tear-filled eyes, the lips on mine, the passionate endearments--all
false? They couldn't be, in God's name! Why, she'd
been all over me, like a crazy schoolgirl . . . but now we were
pacing still faster in the wrong direction, the knife was scoring
my side, and suddenly there was a shouted challenge ahead, and
a cry, the riders were spurring forward, a musket cracked, and
Sher Khan roared in my ear:
"Ride, feringhee--and ride straight, or I'll split your backbone!"

He slashed his reins at my pony, it bounded forward, and in a
second I was flying along in the dark, willy-nilly, with him at my
elbow and the thundering shadows surging ahead. There was a
fusilade of shots, off to the left, and a ball whined overhead; as I
loosed the reins, trusting to my pony's feet, I saw the picket-fires
only a few hundred yards off. We were racing towards a gap
between one fire and the next, perhaps two furlongs across; all I
could do was career ahead, with Sher Khan and a Pathan either
side of me--I couldn't roll from the saddle, even if I'd dared,
with that infernal chain beneath my horse's belly; I daren't
swerve, or his knife would be in my back; I could only gallop,
cursing in sick bewilderment, praying to God I wouldn't stop a
blade or a bullet. Where the hell were we going--was it some
ghastly error after all? No, it was treachery, and I knew it--and
now the picket-fires were on our flanks, there were more shots, a
horse screamed ahead of us, and my pony swerved past the dim
struggling mass on the ground, with Sher Khan still knee to knee
with me as we sped on. A trumpet was sounding behind, and
faint voices yelling; ahead was the drumming of hooves and the
dim shapes of the Rani's riders, scattered now as they galloped for
their lives. We were clear through, and every stride was taking us
farther from Jhansi and Rose's army, and safety.
293
How long we kept up that breakneck pace I don't know, or
what direction we took--I'd been through too much, my mind
was just a welter of fear and bewilderment and rage and stark
disbelief. I didn't know what to think--she couldn't have sold me
so cruelly, surely--not after what she'd said, and the way she'd
held my face and looked at me? But I knew she had--my disbelief
was just sheer hurt vanity. God, did I think I was the only sincere
liar in the world? And here I was, humbugged to hell and beyond,
being kidnapped in the train of this deceitful rebel bitch--or was
I wrong, was there some explanation after all? That's what I still
wanted to believe, of course--there's nothing like infatuation for
stoking false hope.
However, there's no point in recounting all the idiot arguments
I had with myself on that wild ride through the night, with the
miles flying by unseen, until the gloom began to lighten, the
scrub-dotted plain came into misty view, and Sher Khan still
clung like a bearded ghost at my elbow, his teeth bared as he
crouched over his pony's mane. The riders ahead were still driving
their tired beasts on at full stretch; about a hundred yards in
front I could see Lakshmibai's slim figure on her white mare, with
the Pathans flanking her. It was like a drunken nightmare--on
and on, exhausting, over that endless plain.
There was a yell from the flank, and one of the Pathans up in
his stirrups, pointing. A shot cracked, I saw a sudden flash of
scarlet to our left, and there was a little cloud of horsemen bursting
out of a nullah--only half our numbers, but Company
cavalry, by God! They were careering in to take our leaders in the
flank, pukka light cavalry style, and I tried to yell, but Sher Khan
had my bridle again, wrenching me away to the right, while the
Pathan guardsmen drew their sabres and wheeled to face the
attackers head on. I watched them meet with a chorus of yells
and a clash of steel; the dust swirled up round them as Sher Khan
and his mate herded me away, but half-slewed round in my saddle
I saw the sabres swinging and the beasts swerving and plunging
as the Company men tried to ride through. A Pathan broke from
the press, shepherding away a second rider, and I saw it was one
of the Rani's ladies--and then more figures were wheeling out of
the dust, and one of them was Lakshmibai, with a mounted man
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bearing down on her, his sabre swung aloft. I heard Sher Khan's
anguished yell as her white mare seemed to stumble, but she
reined it up somehow, whirling in her tracks, there was the glitter
of steel in her hand, and as the Company man swept down on her
she lunged over her beast's head--the sabres clashed and rang,
and he was past her, wheeling away, clutching at his arm as he half-slipped from his saddle.46
That was all I saw before Sher Khan and the other herded me
down a little nullah, where we halted and waited while the noise
of the skirmish gradually died away. I knew what was happening
as well as if I was seeing it--the Company riders, out-sabred,
would be drawing off, and sure enough presently the Pathans
came down the nullah in good order, clustered round Damodar
and the Rani's women; among the last to come was Lakshmibai.
It was the first clear look at her that I'd had in all that fearful
escape. She was wearing a mail jacket under her long cloak, with
a mail cap over her turban, and her sabre was still in her hand,
blood on its blade. She stopped a moment by the rider who carried
Damodar, and spoke to the child; then she laughed and said
something to one of the Pathans and handed him her sabre, while
she wiped her face with a handkerchief. Then she looked towards
me, and the others looked with her, in silence.
As you know, I'm a fairly useful hand on social occasions,
ready with the polite phrase or gesture, but I'll confess that in
that moment I couldn't think of anything appropriate to say.
When you've just been betrayed by an Indian queen who has
previously professed undying love for you, and she confronts you
--having just sabred one of your countrymen, possibly to death--
and you are in the grip of her minions, with your feet chained
under your horse . . . well, the etiquette probably takes some
thinking about. I suppose I'd have come out with something in a
minute or two--an oath, or a squeal for mercy, or a polite inquiry,
perhaps, but before I had the chance she was addressing Sher
Khan.
"You will take him to Gwalior." Her voice was quiet and perfectly
composed. "Hold him there until I send for you. At the
last, he will be my bargain."
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You may say it served me right, and
I can't disagree. If I weren't such a susceptible, trusting chap
where pretty women are concerned, I daresay I'd have smelled a
rat on the night when Lakshmibai rescued me from Ignatieff's
rack and then flung herself all over me in her perfumed lair. A
less warm-blooded fellow might have thought the lady was protesting
rather too much, and been on his guard when she
slobbered fondly over him, vowing undying love and accepting
his proposal for her escape. He might--or again, he mightn't.
For myself, I can only say I had no earthly reason to suppose
her false. After all, our last previous meeting had been that monumental
roll in her pavilion, which had left me with the impression
that she wasn't entirely indifferent to me. Secondly, her acceptance
of Rose's proposal seemed natural and sensible. Thirdly, I'll
admit to being enthralled by her, and fourthly, having just
finished a spell on the rack I was perhaps thinking less clearly
than usual. Finally, m'lud, if you'd been confronted by Lakshmibai,
with that beautiful dusky face looking pleadingly up at
you, and those tits quivering under your nose, I submit that you
might have been taken in yourself, and glad of it.
In any event, it didn't make a ha'porth of difference. Even if I'd
suspected her then, I was in her power, and she could have wrung
all the details of Rose's scheme out of me and made her escape
anyway. I'd have been dragged along at her tail, and finished
up in the Gwalior dungeons just the same. And mind you,
I'm still not certain how far she was humbugging me; all I know
is that if she was play-acting, she seemed to be enjoying her
work.
More than I enjoyed Gwalior, at any rate. That's a fearful
place, a huge, rocky fortress of a city, bigger than Jhansi, and
said to be the most powerful hold in India. I can speak with
authority only about its dungeons, which were a shade worse
296
than a Mexican jail, if you can imagine that. I spent the better
part of two months in them, cooped in a bottle-shaped cell with
my own filth and only rats, fleas and cockroaches for company,
except when Sher Khan came to have a look at me, about once a
week, to make sure I hadn't up and died on him.
He and his fellow-Pathan took me there on Lakshmibai's orders,
and it was one of the most punishing rides I've ever endured. I
was almost unconscious in the saddle by the time we reached it,
for the brutes never took my chain off once in the hundred miles
we covered; I think, too, that my spirit had endured more than I
could stand, for after all I'd gone through there were moments
now when I no longer cared whether I lived or died--and I have
to be pretty far down before that happens. When they brought
me to Gwalior by night, and half-carried me into the fortress, and
dropped me into that stinking, ill-lit cell, I just lay and sobbed
like an infant, babbling aloud about Meerut and Cawnpore and
Lucknow and Thugs and crocodiles and evil bitches--and now
this. Would you believe it, the worst was yet to come?
I don't care to dwell on it, so I'll hurry along. While I was in
that dungeon at Gwalior, waiting for I didn't know what, and
half-believing that I'd rot there forever, or go mad first, the final
innings of the Mutiny was being played out. Campbell was
settling things north of the Jumnah, and Rose, having captured
Jhansi, was pushing north after Tantia Tope and my ministering
angel, Lakshmibai, who'd taken the field with him. He beat them
at Calpee and Ranch, driving them towards Gwalior where I was
enjoying the local hospitality. The odd thing was, that at the time
I was incarcerated there, Gwalior's ruler, Maharaja Scindia, had
remained neutral in the rebellion, and had no business to be
allowing his prison to be used for the accommodation of captured
British officers. In fact, of course, he (or his chief advisers) were
sympathetic to the rebels all along, as was proved in the end. For
after their defeat at Calpee, Tantia and Lakshmibai turned to
Gwalior, and the Maharaja's army went over to them, almost without
firing a shot. So there they were, the last great rebel force in
India, in possession of India's greatest stronghold--and with Rose
closing inexorably in on them.
I knew nothing of all this, of course; mouldering in my cell,
297
with my beard sprouting and my hair matting, and my pandy
uniform foul and stinking (for I'd never had it off since I put it
on in Rose's camp), I might as well have been at the North Pole.
Day followed day, and week followed week without a cheep from
the outside world, for Sher Khan hardly said a word to me,
although I raved and pleaded with him whenever he poked his
face through the trap into my cell. That's the worst of that kind
of imprisonment--not knowing, and losing count of the days,
and wondering whether you've been there a month or a year, and
whether there is really a world outside at all, and doubting if you
ever did more than dream that you were once a boy playing in the
fields at Rugby, or a man who'd walked in the Park, or ridden by
Albert Gate, saluting the ladies, or played billiards, or followed
hounds, or gone up the Mississippi in a side-wheeler, or watched
the moon rise over Kuching River, or--you can wonder if any of
it ever existed, or if these greasy black walls are perhaps the only
world that ever was, or will be ... that's when you start to go
mad, unless you can find something to think about that you know is real.
I've heard of chaps who kept themselves sane in solitary confinement
by singing all the hymns they knew, or proving the
propositions of Euclid, or rearing poetry. Each to his taste: I'm
no hand at religion, or geometry, and the only repeatable poem I
can remember is an Ode of Horace which Arnold made me learn
as a punishment for farting at prayers. So instead I compiled a
mental list of all the women I'd had in my life, from that sweaty
kitchen-maid in Leicestershire when I was fifteen, up to the halfcaste
piece I'd been reprimanded for at Cawnpore, and to my
astonishment there were four hundred and seventy-eight of them,
which seemed rather a lot, especially since I wasn't counting
return engagements. It's astonishing, really, when you think how
much time it must have taken up.
Perhaps because I'd been listing them I had a frightful dream
one night in which I had to dance with all of them at a ball on
the slave-deck of the Balliol College, with the demoniac Captain
Spring conducting the music in a cocked hat and white gloves.
They were all there--Lola Montez and Josette and Judy (my
guvnor's mistress, she was), and the Silk One and Susie from New
298
Orleans and fat Baroness Pechmann and Nareeman the nautch,
and all the others, and each one left her slave-fetters with me so
that I must dance on loaded and clanking, crying out with
exhaustion, but when I pleaded for rest Spring just rolled his eyes
and made the music go faster, with the big drum booming.
Elspeth and Palmerston waltzed by, and Pam gave me his fake
teeth and cried: "You'll need 'em for eating chapattis with your
next partner, you know"--and it was Lakshmibai, naked and
glitter-eyed over her veil, and she seized me and whirled me
round the floor, almost dead with fatigue and the cruel weight of
the chains, while the drum went boom-boom-boom faster and
faster--and I was awake, gasping and clutching at my filthy straw
with the sound of distant gunfire in my ears.
It went on all that day, and the next, but of course I couldn't
tell what it meant or who was firing, and I was too done to care.
All through the morning of the third day it continued, and then
suddenly my trap was thrown open, and I was being dragged out
by Sher Khan and another fellow, and I hardly knew where I
was. When you're hauled out of a dead captivity like that, everything
seems frighteningly loud and fast--I know there was a
courtyard, full of nigger soldiers running about and shouting,
and their pipes blaring, and the gunfire crashing louder than
ever--but the shock of release was too much for me to make
sense of it. I was half-blinded just by the light of the sky, although
it was heavy with red and black monsoon clouds, and I remember
thinking, it'll be capital growing weather soon.
It wasn't till they thrust me on a pony that I came to myself--
instinct, I suppose, but when I felt the saddle under me, and the
beast stirring, and the smell of horse in my nostrils and my feet
in stirrups, I was awake again. I knew this was Gwalior fortress,
with the massive gate towering in front of me, and a great gun
being dragged through it by a squealing elephant, with a troop of
red-coated nigger-prince's cavalry waiting to ride out, and a bedlam
of men shouting orders: the din was still deafening, but as
Sher Khan mounted his pony beside me I yelled:
"What's happening? Where are we going?"
"She wants you!" cries he, and grinned as he tapped his hilt.
"So she shall have you. Come!"
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He thrust a way for us through the crowd milling in the gateway,
and I followed, still trying to drink in the sights and sounds
of this madhouse that I had all but forgotten--men and carts and
bullocks and dust and the clatter of arms: a bhisti running with
his water-skin, a file of pandy infantry squatting by the roadside
with their muskets between their knees, a child scrambling under
a bullock's belly, a great-chested fellow in a spiked cap with a green
banner on a pole over his shoulder, a spindly-legged old nigger
shuffling along regardless of them all, the smell of cooking ghee, and through it all that muffled crash of cannon in the distance.
I stared ahead as we emerged from the gate, trying to understand
what was happening. Gunfire--that meant that British
troops were somewhere near, and the sight that met my eyes
confirmed it. Before me there was miles of open plain, stretching
to distant hills, and the plain was alive with men and animals
and all the tackle of war. Perhaps a mile ahead, in the haze, there
were tents, and the unmistakable ranks of infantry, and gun
emplacements, and squadrons of horse on the move--a whole
army stretched across a front of perhaps two miles. I steadied
myself as Sher Khan urged me forward, trying to take it in--it
was a rebel army, no error, for there were pandy formations
moving back towards us, and native state infantry and riders in
uniforms I didn't know, men in crimson robes with little shields
and curved tulwars, and gun-teams with artillery pieces fantastically
carved in the native fashion.
That was the first fact: the second was that they were retreating,
and on the edge of rout. For the formations were moving
towards us, and the road itself was choked with men and beasts
and vehicles heading for Gwalior. A horse-artillery team was
careering in, the gunners clinging to the limbers and their officer
lashing at the beasts, a platoon of pandies was coming at the
double-quick, their ranks ragged, their faces streaked with dust
and sweat, and all along the road men were running or hobbling
back, singly and in little groups: I'd seen the signs often enough,
the gaping mouths, the wide eyes, the bloody bandages, the highpitched
voices, the half-ordered haste slipping into utter confusion,
the abandoned muskets at the roadside, the exhausted men
sitting or lying or crying out to those who passed by--this was
300
the first rush of a defeat, by gum! and Sher Khan was dragging
me into it.
"What the blazes is happening?" I asked him again, but all I
got was a snarl as he whipped my pony to a gallop, and we clattered
down the roadside, he keeping just to rear of me, past the
mob of men and beasts streaming back to Gwalior. The formations
were closer now, and not all of them were retreating: we passed
artillery teams who were unlimbering and siting their guns, and
regiments of infantry waiting in the humid heat, their faces
turned towards the distant hills, their ranks stretched out in good
order across the plain. Not far in front artillery was thundering
away, with smoke wreathing up in the still air, and bodies of
cavalry, pandy and irregular, were waiting--I remember a squadron
of lancers, in green coats, with lobster-tail helmets and long
ribbons trailing from their lance-heads, and a band of native
musicians, squealing and droning fit to drown the gunfire. But
less than half a mile ahead, where the dust-clouds were churning
up, and the flashes of cannon shone dully through the haze, I
knew what was happening--the army's vanguard was slowly
breaking, falling back on the main body, with the weaker vessels
absolutely flying down the road.
We crossed a deep nullah, and Sher Khan wheeled me off along
its far lip, towards a grove of palm and thorn, where tents were
pitched. A line of guns to my left was crashing away towards the
unseen enemy on the hills--enemy, by God, that was my army!--
and round the oasis of tents and trees there was a screen of horsemen.
With a shock I recognised the long red coats of the Jhansi
royal guard, but for the rest they were only the ragged ghosts of
the burly Pathans I remembered, their uniforms torn and filthy,
their mounts lean and ungroomed. We passed through them, in
among the tents, to where a carpet was spread before the biggest
pavilion of all; there were guardsmen there, and a motley mob of
niggers, military and civilian, and then Sher Khan was pulling
me from the saddle, thrusting me forward, and crying out:
"He is here, highness--as you ordered."
She was in the doorway of the tent, alone--or perhaps I just
don't remember any others. She was sipping a glass of sherbet as
she turned to look at me, and believe it or not I was suddenly
301
conscious of the dreadful, scarecrow figure I cut, in my rags and
unkempt hair. She was in her white jodhpurs, with a mail jacket
over her blouse, and a white cloak; her head was covered by a
cap of polished steel like a Roman soldier's, with a white scarf
wound round it and under her chin. She looked damned elegant,
I know, and even when you noticed the shadows on that perfect
coffee-coloured face, beneath the great eyes, she was still a vision
to take your breath away. She frowned at sight of me, and snapped
at Sher Khan:
"What have you done to him?"
He mumbled something, but she shook her head impatiently
and said it didn't matter. Then she looked at me again, thoughtfully,
while I waited, wondering what the devil was coming,
dimly aware that the volume of gunfire was increasing. Finally
she said, simply:
"Your friends are over yonder," and indicated the hills. "You
may go to them if you wish."
That was all, and for the life of me I couldn't think of anything
to say. I suppose I was still bemused and in a shocked condition--
otherwise I might have pointed out that there was a battle
apparently raging between me and those friends of mine. But it
all seemed unreal, and the word which I finally managed to croak
out was: "Why?"
She frowned again at that, and then put her chin up and
snapped her cloak with one hand and said quickly:
"Because it is finished, and it is the last thing I can do for you
--colonel." I couldn't think when she'd last called me that. "Is
that not enough? Your army will be in Gwalior by tomorrow.
That is all."
It was at this moment that I heard shouting behind us, but I
paid it no heed, not even when some fellow came running and
calling to her, and she called something to him. I was wrestling
with my memory, and it will give you some notion of how
foundered I was when I tell you that I absolutely burst out
"But you said I would be your bargain--didn't you?"
She looked puzzled, and then she smiled and said to Sher Khan:
"Give the colonel sahib a horse", and was turning away, when I
found my tongue.
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"But... but you! Lakshmibai! I don't understand... what are
you going to do?" She didn't answer, and I heard my own voice
hoarse and harsh: "There's still time! I mean--if you ... if you
think ifs finished--well, dammit, they ain't going to hang you,
yon know! I mean Lord Canning has promised . . . and-and
General Rose!" Sher Khan was growling at my elbow, but I shook
him off. "Look here, if I'm with you, it's sure to be all right. I'll
tell 'em--"
God knows what else I said--I think I was out of my wits )'ust
then. Well, when the shot's flying I don't as a rule think of much
but my own hide, and here I was absolutely arguing with the
woman. Maybe the dungeon had turned my brain a trifle, for I
babbled on about surrender and honourable terms while she just
stood looking at me, and then she broke in:
"No--you do not understand. You did not understand when
you came back to me at Jhansi. But it was for me you came--for
my sake. And so I pay my debt at the end."
"Debt?" I shouted. "You're havering, woman! You said you
loved me--oh, I know now you were tricking me, too, but... but
don't it count for anything, then?"
Before she could answer there was a flurry of hooves, and some
damned interfering scoundrel in an embroidered coat flung himself
off his horse and started shouting at her; behind me there was
a crackle of musketry, and shrieks and orders, and a faint trumpet
note whispering beyond the cannon. She cried an order, and a
groom hurried forward, pulling her little mare. I was roaring
above the noise, at her, swearing I loved her and that she could
still save herself, and she shot me a quick look as she took the
mare's bridle--it was just for an instant, but it's stayed with me
fifty years, and you may think me an old fool and fanciful, but
I'll swear there were tears in her eyes--and then she was in the
saddle, shouting, and the little mare reared and shot away, and I
was left standing on the carpet.
Sher Khan had disappeared. I was staring and yelling after her,
as her riders closed round her, for beyond them the gunners were
racing towards us, with pandy riflemen in amongst them, turning
and firing and running again. There were horsemen at the guns,
and sabres flashing, and above the hellish din the trumpet was
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blaring clear in the "Charge!" and over the limbers came blue
tunics and white helmets, and I couldn't believe my eyes, for they
were riders of the Light Brigade, Irish Hussars, with an officer up
in his stirrups, yelling, and the troopers swarming behind him.
They came over the battery like a wave, and the scarlet-clad
Pathan horsemen were breaking before them. And I'll tell you
what I saw next, as plain as I can.
Lakshmibai was in among the Pathans, and she had a sabre in
her hand. She seemed to be shouting to them, and then she took a
cut at a Hussar and missed him as he swept by, and for a moment
I lost her in the melee. There were sabres and pistols going like
be-damned, and suddenly the white mare was there, rearing up,
and she was in the saddle, but I saw her flinch and lose the reins;
for a moment I thought she was gone, but she kept her seat as the
mare turned and raced out of the fight--and my heart stopped
as I saw that she was clutching her hands to her stomach, and
her head was down. A trooper drove his horse straight into the
mare, and as it staggered he sabred at Lakshmibai backhanded--
I shrieked aloud and shut my eyes, and when I looked again she
was in the dust, and even at that distance I could see the crimson
stain on her jodhpurs.
I ran towards her--and there must have been riders charging
past me as I ran, but I don't remember them--and then I
stumbled and fell. As I scrambled up I saw she was writhing in
the dust; her scarf and helmet were gone, she was kicking and
clawing at her body, and her face was twisted and working in
agony, with her hair half across it. It was hideous, and I could
only crouch there, gazing horrified. Oh, if it were a novel I could
tell you that I ran to her, and cradled her head against me and
kissed her, while she looked up at me with a serene smile and
murmured something before she closed her eyes, as lovely in
death as she'd been in life--but that ain't how people die, not
even the Rani of Jhansi. She arched up once, still tearing at herself,
and then she flopped over, face down, and I knew she was a
goner.47
It was only then, I believe, that I began to think straight again.
There was one hell of a skirmish in progress barely twenty
yards away, and I was unarmed and helpless, on all fours in the
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dirt. Above all other considerations, I'm glad to say, one seemed
paramount--to get to hell out of this before I got hurt. I was on
my feet and running before the thought had consciously formed
--running in no particular direction, but keeping a weather eye
open for a quiet spot or a riderless horse. I dived into the nullah,
barged into someone, stumbled up and raced along it, past a group
of pandies in pill-box hats who were scrambling into position at
the nullah's edge to open fire, leaped over a wrecked cart--and
then, wondrous sight, there was a horse, with a wounded nigger
on his knees holding the bridle. One kick and he was sprawling,
I was aboard and away; I put my head down and fairly flew--a fountain of dirt rose up just ahead of me as a cannon-shot from
somewhere ploughed into the nullah bank, and the last thing I
remember is the horse rearing up, and something smashing into
my left arm with a blinding pain; a great weight seemed to be
pressing down on my head and a red smoke was drifting above
me, and then I lost consciousness.
*  
I told you the worst was still to come, didn't I? Well, you've
read my chronicle of the Great Mutiny, and if you've any
humanity you're bound to admit that I'd had my share of sorrow
already, and more--even Campbell later said that I'd seen hard
service, so there. But Rose himself declared that if he hadn't been
told the circumstance of my awakening at Gwalior by an eyewitness,
he wouldn't have believed it--it was the most terrible
thing, he said, that he had ever heard of in all his experience of
war, or anybody else's, either. He wondered that I hadn't lost my
reason. I agreed then, and I still do. This is what happened.
I came back to life, as is often the case, with my last waking
moment clear in my mind. I had been on horseback, riding hard,
seeing a shot strike home in a sandy nullah--so why, I wondered
irritably, was I now standing up, leaning against something hard,
with what seemed to be a polished table top in front of me?
There was a shocking pain in my head, and a blinding glare of
light hurting my eyes, so I shut them quickly. I tried to move,
but couldn't, because something was holding me; my ears were
ringing, and there was a jumble of voices close by, but I couldn't make them out. Why the hell didn't they shut up, I wondered,
305
*,.
and I tried to tell them to be quiet, but my voice wouldn't work--
I wanted to move, to get away from the thing that was pressing
against my chest, so I tugged, and an unspeakable pain shot
through my left arm and into my chest, a stabbing, searing pain so
exquisite that I screamed aloud, and again, and again, at which a
voice cried in English, apparently right in my ear.
"'Ere's another as can't 'old 'is bleedin' row! Stick a gag in this
bastard an' all, Andy!"
Someone grabbed my hair and pulled my head back, and I
shrieked again, opening my eyes wide with the pain, to see a
blinding light sky, and a red, sweating face within a few inches of
mine. Before I could make another sound, a foul wet rag was
stuffed brutally into my mouth, choking me, and a cloth was
whipped across it and knotted tight behind my head. I couldn't
utter a sound, and when I tried to reach up to haul the filthy
thing away, I realised why I hadn't been able to move. My hands
were lashed to the object that was pressing into my body.
Stupefied, blinking against the glare, in agony with my arm and
head and the gag that was suffocating me, I tried to focus my
eyes; for a few seconds there was just a whirl of colours and
shapes--and then I saw.
I was tied across the muzzle of a cannon, the iron rim biting
into my body, with my arms securely lashed on either side of the
polished brown barrel. I was staring along the top of that barrel,
between the high wheels, to where two British soldiers were
standing by the breech, poking at the touch-hole, and one was
saying to the other:
"No, by cripes, none o' yer Woolwich models. No lanyards,
Jim my boy--we'll 'ave to stick a fuse in, an' stand well clear."
"She's liable to blow 'er flamin' wheels off, though, ain't she?"
says the other. "There's a four-pahnd cartridge in there, wiv a
stone shot. S'pose it'll splinter, eh?"
"Ask 'im--arterwards!" says the first, gesturing at me, and
they both laughed uproariously. "You'll tell us, won't yer,
Sambo?"
For a moment I couldn't make it out--what the devil were they
talking about? And how dared the insolent dogs address a colonel as "Sambo"--and one of 'em with a pipe stuck between his grin3306
ning teeth? Fury surged up in me, as I stared into those red yokel
faces, leering at me, and I shouted "Damn your eyes, you
mutinous bastards! How dare you--d'ye know who I am, you
swine? I'll flog the ribs out of you ..." but it didn't come out as
a shout, only as a soundless gasp deep in my throat behind that
stifling gag. Then, ever so slowly, it dawned on me where I was,
and what was happening, and my brain seemed to explode with
the unutterable horror of it. As Rose said afterwards, I ought to
have gone mad; for an instant I believe I did.
I don't have to elaborate my sensations--anyway, I couldn't. I
can only say that I was sane enough after that first spasm of
dreadful realisation, because behind the fog of panic I saw in a
second what had happened--saw it with blinding certainty.
I had been knocked on the head, presumably by a splinter of
flying debris, and picked up senseless by our gallant troops. Of
course they'd taken me for a pandy--with my matted hair and
beard and filthy and ragged sepoy uniform; they'd seen I wasn't
dead, and decided to execute me in style, along with other
prisoners. For as I flung my head round in an ecstasy of such fear
as even I had never known before, I saw that mine was only one
in a line of guns, six or seven of them, and across the muzzle of
each was strapped a human figure. Some were ragged pandies,
like me, others were just niggers; one or two were gagged, as I
was, the rest were not; some had been tied face to the gun, but
most had the muzzles in their backs. And shortly these brutes
who loafed about the guns at their ease, spitting and smoking and
chaffing to each other, would touch off the charges, and a mass of
splintering stone would tear through my vitals--and there was
nothing I could do to stop them! If I hadn't screamed when I
regained consciousness, I wouldn't have been gagged, and three
words would have been enough to show them their ghastly error
--but now I couldn't utter a sound, but only watch with bulging
eyes as one of the troopers, in leisurely fashion, pushed a length
of fuse into the touch-hole, winked at me, and then sauntered
back to rejoin his mates, who were standing or squatting in
the sunlight, obviously waiting for the word to start the carnage.

"Come on, come on, where the 'ell's the captain?" says one.
307
"Still at mess, I'll lay. Christ, it's 'ofI I want ter get on my charpoy,
I do, an' bang me bleedin' ear-'ole. 'E couldn't blow the
bloody pandies away arter supper, could 'e? Oh, no, not 'im."
"Wot we blowin' 'em up for?" says one pale young trooper.
"Couldn't they 'ang the pore sods--or shoot 'em? It 'ud be
cheaper."
"Pore sods my arse," says the first. "You know what they done,
these black scum? You shoulda bin at Delhi, see the bloody
way they ripped up wimmen an' kids--fair sicken yer, wot wi'
tripes an' innards all over the plice. Blowin' away's too ---- good
for 'em."
"Not as cruel as 'angin', neither," says a third. "They don't feel
nothin'." He strolled past my gun, and to my horror he patted
me on the head. "So cheer up. Sambo, you'll soon be dead. 'Ere,
wot's the matter wiv 'im, Bert, d'ye reckon?"
I was writhing frenziedly in my bonds, almost fainting with
the agony of my wounded arm, which was gashed and bleeding,
flinging my head from side to side as I tried to spit out that
horrible gag, almost bursting internally in my effort to make
some sound, any sound, that would make him understand the
ghastly mistake they'd made. He stood, grinning stupidly, and
Bert sauntered up, knocking his pipe out on the gun.
"Matter? Wot the 'ell d'yer think's the matter, you duffer? 'E
don't want 'is guts blew all the way to Calcutta--that's wot's the
matter! Gawd, 'e'll kill 'isself wiv apple-plexy by the look of 'im."
"Funny, though, ain't it?" says the first. "An' look at the rest
of 'em--jes' waitin' there, an' not even a squeak from 'em, as if
they didn't care. Pathetic, ain't it?"
"That's their religion," pronounced Bert. "They fink they're
goin' to 'eaven--they fink they're goin' to get 'arf-a-dozen rum hints apiece, an' bull 'em till Judgement Day. Fact."
"Go on! They don't look all that bleedin' pleased, then, do
they?"
They turned away, and I flopped over the gun, near to suffocation
and with my heart ready to burst for misery and fear. Only
one word--that was all I needed--Christ, if I could only get a
hand free, a finger even! Blood from my wounded arm had run on
to the gun, drying almost at once on the burning metal--if I
308
could even scrawl a message in it--or just a letter--they might
see it, and understand. I must be able to do something--think,
think, think, I screamed inside my head, fighting back the madness,
straining with all my power to tear my right wrist free,
almost dislocating my neck in a futile effort to work the gagbinding
loose. My mouth was full of its filthy taste, it seemed to
be slipping farther into my gullet, choking me--God, if they
thought I was choking, would they pull it out, even for a second?
. . that was all I needed, oh God, please, please, let them--I
couldn't die like this, like a stinking nigger pandy, after all I'd
suffered--not by such cruel, ghastly, ill-luck...
"Aht pipes, straighten up--orficer comin'," cries one of the
troopers, and they scrambled up hastily, adjusting their kepis,
doing up their shirt-buttons, as two officers came strolling across
from the tents a couple of hundred yards away. I gazed towards
them like a man demented, as though by staring I could attract
their attention; my right wrist was raw and bleeding with my
dragging at it, but the rope was like a band of steel round it, and
I couldn't do more than scrabble with my fingers at the hot metal.
I was crying, uncontrollably; my head was swimming--but no,
no, I mustn't faint! Anything but that--think, think, don't faint,
don't go mad! They've never got you yet--you've always slid out
somehow...
"All ready, sergeant?" The leading officer was glancing along
the line of guns, and my eyes nearly started from my head as I
saw it was Clem Hennidge48--Dandy Clem of the 8th Hussars,
whom I'd ridden with at Balaclava. He was within five yards of
me, nodding to the sergeant, glancing briefly round, while beside
him a fair young lieutenant was staring with pop-eyes at us
trussed victims, going pale and looking ready to puke. By heaven,
he wasn't the only one!
He shuddered, and I heard him mutter to Hennidge: "Christ!
I shan't be writing to mother about this, though!"
"Beastly business," says Hennidge, slapping his crop in his
palm. "Orders, though, what? Very good, sergeant--we'll touch
'em off all together, if you please. All properly shotted and
primed? Very good, then."
"Yessir! Beg pardon, sir, usual orders is to touch 'em off one
309
arter the other, sir. Leastways, that's 'ow we done it at Calpee,
sir!"
"Good God!" says Hennidge, and contained himself. "I'll be
obliged if you'll fire all together, sergeant, on this occasion!" He
muttered something to the lieutenant, shaking his head as in
despair.
Two men ran forward to my gun, one of them pulling matches
from his pocket. He glanced nervously back and called.
"Sam't--sir! This 'un ain't got no lock, nor lanyard, please!
See, sir, it's one o' them nigger guns--can't fire it 'cept with a
fuse, sir!"
"What's that?" cries Hennidge, coming forward. "Oh--I see.
Very well, then, light the fuse at the signal, then, and--Good
God, is this fellow having a fit?"
I had made one last desperate effort to pull free, hauling like a
mad thing, flinging myself as far as my lashings would allow,
tossing my head, jerking to and fro, my head swimming with the
pain of my arm. Hennidge and the boy were staring at me--the
boy's face was green.
'"E's been carryin' on like that since we triced "I'm up, sir,"
says one of the gunners. "Screamin', 'e was--we 'ad ter gag him,
sir."
Hennidge swallowed, and then nodded curtly, and turned away,
but the lieutenant seemed to be rooted with horrified fascination,
as though he couldn't tear his eyes away from me.
"Ready!" bawls the sergeant, and "Light the fuse now, Bert,"
says the man at my gun. Through a red haze I saw the match
splutter, and go out. Bert cursed, struck a second, and touched it
to the fuse. A moment, and it fizzed, and the gunners retreated.
"Best stand back, sir!" cries Bert. "Gawd knows what'll happen
when she goes orf--might blow wide open!"
The lieutenant shuddered, and seemed to collect himself, and
then the strangest thing happened. For I absolutely heard a voice,
and it seemed to be very close in my ear, and the oddest thing
was, it was Rudi Stamberg, my old enemy from Jotunberg, and as
clear as a bell across the years I heard him laughing: "The
comedy's not finished yet! Come on, play-actor!"
No doubt it was the product of a disordered mind, as I stared at
C 310
Death in the spluttering fuse, but just for a second I realised that
if there was the ghost of a chance left, it depended on keeping
ice-cold--as Rudi would have done, of course. The lieutenant's
eyes were just on mine for an instant before he turned away, and
in that instant I raised my brows and lowered them, twice, quickly. It stopped him, and very carefully, as he stared, I closed
one eye in an enormous wink. It must have been a grotesque
sight; his mouth dropped open, and then I opened my eye, turned
my head deliberately, and stared fixedly at my right hand. He
must look, he must! My wrist was as fast as ever, but I could just
turn my hand, palm upwards, fold the thumb and last three
fingers slowly into my palm, and beckon with my forefinger,
once, twice, thrice--and still beckoning, I stared at him again.
For a moment he just gaped, and closed his eyes, and gaped
again, and I thought, oh Christ, the young idiot's going to stand
there until the bloody fuse has burned down! He stared at me,
licking his lips, obviously flabbergasted, turned to glance at
Hennidge, looked back at me--and then, as I tried to bore into
his brain, and crooked my finger again and again, he suddenly
yelled "Wait! Sergeant, don't fire!" and striding forward, he
yanked the burning fuse from the touch-hole. Clever boys they
had in the Light Brigade in those days.
"What the devil? John--what on earth are you doing?" cries
Hennidge. "Sergeant, hold on there!" He came striding up,
demanding to know what was up, and the lieutenant, pale and
sweating, stood by the breech pointing at me.
"I don't know! That chap--he beckoned, I tell you! And he
winked! Look, my God, he's doing it again! He's ... he's trying to
say something!"
"Hey? What?" Hennidge was peering across at me, and I
wobbled my eyebrows as ludicrously as I could, and tried to
munch my lips at the same time. "What the deuce--I believe
you're right... you, there, get that gag out of his mouth--sharp,
now!"
"Arise, Sir Harry" was one of the sweetest sounds I ever heard;
so was Abe Lincoln's voice in that house at Portsmouth, Ohio,
asking "What do you want with me?" when the slave-catchers
were on my tail. I can think of many others, but so help me God,
_ 3"
none of them rang such peals of hope and joy in my ears as those
words of Hennidge's beside the guns at Gwalior. Even as the cloth was wrenched loose, though, and the gag was torn out of my
mouth, and I was gasping in air, I was thinking frantically what
I must say to prevent the appalling chance of their disbelieving
me--something to convince them instantly, beyond any doubt,
and what I croaked out when my breath came was:
"I'm Flashman--Flashman, d'ye hear! You're Clem Hennidge!
The curfew tolls the knell of parting day, God save the Queen.
I'm English--English--I'm in disguise! Ask General Rose! I'm
Flashman, Harry Flashman! Cut me loose, you bastards! I'm
Flashman!"
You never saw such consternation in your life; for a moment
they just made pop-eyed noises, and then Hennidge cries out:
"Flashman? Harry Flashman? But. .. but it's impossible--you
can't be!"
Somehow I didn't start to rave, or swear, or blubber. Instead I
just leered up at him and croaked:
"You give me the lie, Hennidge, and I'll call you out, d'you
know? I called a man out in '39, remember? He was a cavalry
captain, too. So--would you mind just cutting these damned
ropes--and mind my arm, 'cos I think it's broken ..."
"My God, you are Flashman!" cries he, as if he was looking at
a ghost. Then he just stuttered and gaped, and signed to the gunners
to cut me loose, which they did, lowering me gently to the
ground, horror and dismay all over their faces, I was glad to see.
But I'll never forget what Hennidge said next, as the lieutenant
called for a water-bottle and pressed it to my lips; Hennidge stood
staring down at me appalled, and then he said ever so apologetically:

"I say, Flashman--I'm most frightfully sorry!"
Mark you, what else was there to say? Oh, aye, there was
something--I hadn't reasoned it, as you can imagine, but it
leaped into my mind as I sat there, almost swooning with relief,
not minding the pains in my head and arms, and happened to
glance along the guns. I was suddenly shuddering horribly, and
bowing my head in my sound hand, trying to hold back the sobs,
and then I says, as best I could:
312
"Those niggers tied to the guns. I want them cut looseall of
'em, directly!"
"What's that?" says he. "But they've been condem"
"Cut 'em loose, damn you!" My voice was shaking and faint.
"Bvery mother's son-of-a-bitch, d'you hear?" I glared up at him,
as I sat there in the dust in my rags, with my back to the gunwheelI
must have been a rare sight. "Cut 'em loose, and tell
'em to run awayaway, as far as they know howaway from
us, and never to get caught again! Blast you, don't stand there
gawpingdo as I say!"
"You're not well," says he. "You're distraught, and"
"I'm also a bloody colonel!" I hollered. "And you're a bloody
captain! I'm in my right mind, too, and I'll break you, by God, if
you don't attend to me this minute. So ... setthemloose! Be
a good chap, Clemvery well?"
So he gave the orders, and they turned them free, and the
young lieutenant knelt beside me with the water-bottle, very
respectful and moist-eyed.
"That was merciful," says he.
"Merciful be damned," says I. "The way things are hereabouts,
one of 'em's probably Lord Canning."
313
There isn't much more to tell. The
Great Mutiny ended there, under the walls of Gwalior, where
Rose broke the last rebel army, and Tantia Tope fled away. They
caught him and hanged him in the end, but they never found
Nana Sahib, and for the rest, a few bands of pandies roamed about like bandits for a month or two, but were gradually dispersed.
I was back in the pavilion then, with my pads off, recovering
from a broken arm and a battered head, to say nothing of a badly
disarranged nervous system. I was exhausted in body and mind,
but it's surprising how you pick up when you realise that it's all
over, and there's nothing to do but he back and put on weight,
and you can sleep sound at nights. In the weeks of my convalescence
at Gwalior I wrote my reports for Rose and Campbell,
and composed another, at great length, for Palmerston, in which
I detailed all my doings at Jhansi and elsewhere so far as they
concerned the mission he'd given me. I told him what had
happened with the Rani (the respectable bits, you understand, no
romantic nonsense) and how I had been there at the end; I also
warned him that Ignatieff had not been heard of again, and might
still be abroad, doing mischief, though I doubted it.
(I've met the gotch-eyed bastard on two occasions since, by the
way, both of 'em diplomatic bunfights, I'm happy to say. We used
each other with perfect civility, and I kept my back carefully to
the wall and left early.)
It was autumn before I was up and about again at Gwalior,
and had received word from Campbell that I was released from
my dudes and might go home. I was ready for it, too, but before
I left I found myself riding out on the road to Kota-ki-serai, to
have a look at the spot where her people had made a little shrine
to Lakshmibai, near the nullah--they thought no end of her, you
know, and still do.
Well, I could understand that; I hadn't been indifferent myself,
314
although it all seemed far past now, somehow. They had cremated
her, in the Hindoo fashion, but there was this little painted model
temple, which I took to be her memorial, and withered flowers
and wreaths and little pots round it, and I mooched about, scuffing
the dust with my boots, while a few old niggers squatted
under the thorns, watching me curiously, and the bullock-carts
went by. There wasn't much sign of the skirmish where she'd died
--a few trifles of broken gear, a rusty stirrup, that sort of thing.
I wondered why she'd done it all, and in spite of what she said to
me at the last, I believe I did understand. As I'd said in my report
to Pam, she didn't give up her Jhansi. That was what had mattered
to her, more than life. As to what she may have thought or
felt about me, truly--and for that matter, what I'd really felt
about her--I couldn't make up my mind.49 It didn't matter now,
anyway, but I could always make the best of it, and remember
those eyes above the veil, and the soft lips brushing my cheek.
Aye, well. Damned good-looking girl.
I went up the Agra trunk on my way home, and down to
Cawnpore, where there were letters waiting for me, including one
from Billy Russell, congratulating me on my escape and recovery,
which he said had been the talk of Simla, where he had been
taking things easy with a game leg. He was down at Allahabad
now, following the seat of government on its peregrinations, as he
put it, and I must stop off and celebrate with him. I didn't mind
that a bit; I was ready to start enjoying life again, after all the
nonsense I'd been through, and to put me in the best fettle there
were several letters from Elspeth, in her usual rattle-pated style,
full of loving slush about her dear, darling champion whom she
was yearning to clasp again to her Loving Bosom (hear! hear!
thinks I) when he returned with his Laurels fresh upon his Brow.
She absolutely did write like this; came from reading novels, I
suspect:
. . . the Town is full of talk of you and your Gallant Comrades,
especially Sir Hugh Rose and dear Sir Colin (or Lord
Clyde as we must now call him--I own I felt a Flush of Pride
when I thought that my Distinguished Countryman had
chosen for his title the name of the Beauteous Stream beside
> 3i5
which I--humble little Me--was born, and where I spent
such Blissful Hours with my Own True Love--yourself, dear,
dear. Harry!! Do you remember?
I did--and the thought of that first splendid gallop we'd had
together in the bushes brought sentimental tears to my eyes and
set me bursting to be at her again, back in green England, away
from this bloody beastly country and its stench of death and war
and dust. Elspeth, with her golden hair and blue eyes and adoring
idiot smile and resplendent--oh, that was certainty, and happiness
and jollity and be-damned!
. . . and even Lord Cardigan is dvil--altho' he thinks Sir
Colin was tardy, and can have made but poor use of his
Light Cavalry, I think it was, in punishing the Rascally
Sepoys--and Lord Cardigan was very full in his attentions to
me when we met in the Row, but I gave him the Right
About, for I was certain you would wish it, and he went off
not too pleased, I thought, but perhaps he is disposed to
Toady, for he sent me a new book as a gift for you, saying
he was sure it must interest you most particularly, but I have
glanced at it and don't care for it much, since it seems to be
about rustics, and quite without that Tender Passion which I
admire in writing, and which Fills my Thoughts whenever
they turn to my Dearest of Husbands and Lovers, as they do
every minute, and my legs go quite weak. Still, I send it to
you, with his Lordship's compliments. Now then, there is the
finest scandal about Daisy Marchmont's footman ...
I didn't care to hear about Cardigan--the mention of the name
was enough to set my jealous bile working, for it reminded me
that my darling Elspeth wasn't always the dutiful and loving
wife she pretended to be, and heaven knew how many randified
admirers had been beating our door-knocker in my absence. She'd
have no time or opportunity for dalliance when Flashy roared
back into residence, though ... I chuckled at the thought, threw
Cardigan's present into my valise without looking at it, and
316
caught the train to Allahabad, where Billy Russell was at the
station with a ghari to meet me.
He was all beams and whiskers as usual, full of fun, and
demanding my news of the Jhansi and Gwalior affairswhich he
knew already, of course, in their essentials, "but it's the spice and
colour I'm after, old fellow, and devil a bit of those d'ye get in
despatches. This business of your stealing into the Jezebel of
Jhansi's fortress in disguise, now, and being carried away prisoner
in the night, eh...? "
I parried his questions, grinning, as we bowled away towards
the Fort, and then he says:
"I've got your winnings from Lucknow safe, by the by, and
your prize-money. It's about all you've had out o' this campaign,
ain't itbar a few wounds an' grey hairs?"
I knew what he meant, blast him. While orders and ribbons
and medals and titles had been flying about like hail among the
Indian heroes, devil a nod had come my waynor would it. You
see, the irony was that while I'd seen more than my share of hell
and horror in the Mutiny, I knew that in official eyes, my service
must have been a pretty fair frost. I'd failed entirely in the original
mission Fam had given me, and Rose had been damned stuffy
that the plan to save Lakshmibai had come adrift; Lord Canning,
he'd said, would be profoundly disappointedas though it was
my fault, the ungrateful bastard. But these are the things that
matter, when they come to passing out the spoils, and I knew
that while the likes of Rose and Campbell were having honours
showered on them, and the prowess of Outram and Sam Browne
and the snirp Roberts were being trumpeted round the world,
poor old Flash would be lucky to get an address of welcome and a
knife-and-fork supper at Ashby Town Hall.
"There's others have been well rewarded," says Billy. "Slowcoach
is a lordbut ye know that. There must be about fifty
Crosses flying about, and God knows how many titles . . . they
might ha' done something for you. I wonder," says he, as we got
out at the Fort and went along the verandah, "if a leaderette in
the old Thunderer might stir 'em up, what? We can't have Horse
Guards neglectin' our best men."
I liked the sound of that, rather, but as he conducted me across
317
the hall, where Sikh sentries stood and the punkahs* hissed, I
thought it best to say I didn't mind, really--and then I found he
was grinning all over his whiskers as he ushered me through a
doorway, and I stopped dead in amazement.
It was a big, airy room, half office and half drawing-room, with
a score of people standing at the far end, beyond the fine Afghan
carpet, all looking in my direction, and it was sight of them that
had checked me--for there was Campbell, with his grizzled head
and wrinkled Scotch face, and Mansfield smiling, very erect, toying
with his dark whiskers, and Macdonald grinning openly, and
Hope Grant, stem and straight. In the middle was a slim, elegant
civilian in a white morning coat with a handsome woman smiling
beside him; it took me a moment to realise that they were Lord
and Lady Canning.
Then Russell was pushing me forward, and Canning was
smiling and shaking hands, and I was bowing to Lady Canning,
wondering what the devil this was all about, and then there was
silence, and Canning was clearing his throat and addressing me.
I wish I could remember all of it, but I was quite taken aback to
find myself thrust into this company, so unexpected . . . what
was this?--"distinguished conduct on many numerous occasions,
familiar to all ... Afghanistan, Crimea, Balaclava, Central Asia
. . . lately, and most exemplary, service in the insurrection of the
Bengal Army ... most gallant conduct in the defence and evacuation
of Cawnpore . . . and most signally, at the direction of Sir
Hugh Rose, in undertaking service of the most dangerous and
difficult nature in the Gwalior campaign ... warmest approval of
Her Majesty and of her Ministers and principal advisers . . .
recognition of conduct far beyond the call of duty ..."
I listened to all this in a daze, and then Canning was passing
something to Campbell, and he was coming up to me, glowering
under his brows, and harrumphing.
"It is at my perr-sonal request," growls he, "that I have been
purr-meeted taste bestow a disteenction that should rightly have
come from Her Majesty's ain--own--gracious hands."
He reached up, and I felt a sudden keen pain in my left tit as
he stuck a pin in it--I gasped and loowd down, and there it was,
*Fans.
3i8
on its ribbon, the shabby-looking little bronze cross against my
jacket; at first I didn't even recognise it, and then Lady Canning
was leading the clapping, and Campbell was pumping my right
hand and staring at me with his brows down.
"The Order o' the Victoria Cross," says he, and then he added,
"Flashman ...", but there he stopped and shook his head. "Aye,"
says he, and grinned at meand God knows he didn't often grin,
that one, and went on shaking his head and my hand, and the
clapping and laughter rang in my ears.
I couldn't speak; I was red in the face, I knew, and almost in
tears, as they clustered round me, Mansfield and Macdonald and
the rest of them, and Billy slapping me on the back (and then
scribbling quickly in his book and sticking it in his pocket) and I
was trembling and wanted ever so much to sit downbut what I
was thinking was/ by God, you don't deserve it, you know, you
shifty old bastard of a Flashynot if it's courage they're after ...
but if they hand out medals for luck, and survival through sheer
funk, and suffering ignobly borne . . . well, grab 'em with both
hands, my boyand then, in the august presence of the GovernorGeneral
and the Commander-in-Chief, someone started to sing,
"For he's a jolly good fellow", and there were happy faces all
round me, singing, until Canning led me out on to the verandah,
and in the garden there seemed to be crowds of soldiers, and
civiliansbearded Sikhs and ugly little Goorkhas, Devil's Own
and Highlanders, artillerymen and sappers, chaps in white coats
and sun-helmets, ladies in garden-party dresses, and as Canning
waved to them someone shouted "Hip-hip-hip!" and the crashing
"Hurrah!" sounded three times and a tigerand I looked out at
them through a mist of tears, and beyond them to the Gwalior
guns and the Cawnpore barricade and the burning lines of
Meerut and the battery reek of Balaclava and the bloody snow of
Gandamack, and I thought, by God, how little you know, or you
wouldn't be cheering me. You'd be howling for my blood, you
honest, sturdy assesand then again, maybe you wouldn't, for if
you knew the truth about me, you wouldn't believe it.
"What a gratifying experience to relate to your children,
colonel," says Canning, and on the other side Lady Canning
smiled at me and says: "And to Lady Flashman."
319
I mumbled yes, indeed, so it would be; then I noticed that she
was looking at me a trifle arch, and cudgelled my wits to think
why--she couldn't be wanting to get off with me, not with
Canning there--and then her last words sank in, my legs went
weak, and I believe I absolutely said, "Hey?"
They both laughed politely at my bewilderment. Canning looking
fond reproval at her. "That must be under the rose, my dear,
you know," says he. "But of course we should have informed you,
colonel, privately." He beamed at me. "In addition to the highest
decoration for valour, which has been justly bestowed on many
gallant officers in the late campaigns, Her Majesty wished to
distinguish your service by some additional mark of favour. She
has therefore been graciously pleased to create you a Knight of
the Bath."
I suppose I was already numb with shock, for I didn't faint, or
cry "Whoops!" or even stand gaping at the man in disbelief. In
fact, I blew my nose, and what I was thinking as I mopped away
my emotion was: by God, she's got no taste, that woman. I mean,
who but little Vicky would have thought to pile a knighthood on
top of the V.C., all at one go? It didn't seem scarcely decent--
but, by God, wasn't it bloody famous! For over everything the
words were revolving in my mind in a golden haze--"Sir Harry
Flashman, V.C." It wasn't believable... Sir Harry... Sir Harry
and Lady Flashman... Flashman, V.C.... my stars, it had come to
this, and when least expected--oh, that astonishing little woman...
I remembered how she'd blushed and looked bashful when she'd
hung the Queen's Medal on me years before, and I'd thought,
aye, cavalry whiskers catch 'em every time . . . and still did,
apparently. Who'd have thought it?
"Well. . . God save the Queen," says I, reverently.
There was no taking it in properly at the time, of course, or
indeed in the hours that followed; they remain just a walking
dream, with "Sir Harry Flashman, V.C." blazing in front of my
eyes, through all the grinning faces and back-slapping and cheering
and adulation--all for the V.C., of course, for t'other thing
was to remain a secret. Canning said, until I got home. There was
a great dinner that evening, at the Eort, with booze galore and
speeches and cheering, and chaps rolling under the table, and they
320
poured me on to the Calcutta train that night in a shocking
condition. I didn't wake up till noon the following day, with a
fearful head; it took me another night to get right again, but on
the next morning I had recovered, and ate a hearty breakfast,
and felt in capital shape. Sir Harry FIashman, V.C.I could still
hardly credit it. They'd be all over me at home, and Elspeth
would go into the wildest ecstasies at being "My lady", and be
insufferable to her friends and tradesmen, and adoringly grateful
to meshe might even stay faithful permanently, you never
knew ... I fairly basked in my thoughts, grinning happily out at
the disgusting Indian countryside in the sunrise, reflecting that
with luck I'd never see or hear or smell it again, after this, and
then to beguile the time I fished in my valise for something to
read, and came on the book Cardigan had sent to Elspethwhat
could have possessed Jim the Bear, who detested me, to send me a
present?
I opened it at random, idly turning the pages ... and then my
eye lit on a paragraph, and it was as though a bucket of icy
water had been dashed over me as I read the words:
"But that blackguard FIashman, who never speaks to one
without a kick or an oath" "The cowardly brute," broke
| in East, "how I hate him! And he knows it, too; he knows
that you and I think him a coward."
I stared at the page dumbfounded. FIashman? East? What the
blind blue blazes was this? I turned the book over to look at the
title: "Tom Brown's School Days", it said, "by an Old Boy".
Who the hell was Tom Brown? I whipped quickly through the
pagesrubbish about some yokels at a village fair, as Elspeth had
said . . . Farmer Ives, Benjy . . . what the deuce? Tom trying his
skill at drop-kicks . . . "Rugby and Football" . . . hollo, here we
were again, though, and the hairs rose on my neck as I read:
"Gone to ground, eh?" roared FIashman. "Push them out
then, boys; look under the beds.. .Who-o-o-p!" he roared,
pulling away at the leg of a small boy... "Young howling
brute. Hold your tongue, sir, or I'll kill you!"
321
By God, it was me! I mean, it wasn't only my style, to a "t", I
even remembered doing it--years ago, at Rugby, when we flushed
the fags out and tossed them in blankets for a lark .. . Yes, here
it was--"Once, twice, thrice, and away" . . . "What a cursed
bully you are. Flashy!" I sped through the passage, in which the
horrible ogre Flashman, swearing foully, suggested they be tossed
two at a time, so that they'd struggle and fall out and get hurt--
it's true enough, that's the way to get the mealy little bastards
pitched out on to the floor.
But who on earth could have written this? Who had dared--
I tore the pages over, scanning each one for the dread name, and
by God wasn't it there, though, in plenty? My eyes goggled as I
read:
"Flashman, with an oath and a kick, released his prey ..."
". . . the tyranny of Flashman . . ." ". . . Flashman was on the
look-out, and sent an empty pickle-jar whizzing after them,
which narrowly missed Tom's head. 'He wouldn't mind killing
one, if he wasn't caught,' said East..." "... 'Was Flashman here
then?'--'Yes, and a dirty little snivelling sneaking fellow he was,
too ... used to toady the bullies by offering to fag for them, and
peaching against the rest of us...'"
I was red and roaring with rage by this time, barely able to see
the pages. By God, here was infamy! Page after foul page, traducing
me in the most odious terms--for there wasn't a doubt I was
the villain referred to; the whole thing stank of Rugby in my time,
and there was the Doctor, and East, and Brooke, and Crab Jones--
and me, absolutely by name, for all the world to read about and
detest! There was even a description of me as big and strong for
my age--and I "played well at all games where pluck wasn't
much wanted" if you please, and had "a bluff, offhand manner,
which passed for heartiness, and considerable powers of being
pleasant". Well, that settled it--and my reputation, too, for not
a page went by but I was twisting arms, or thrashing weaklings,
or swearing, or funking, or getting pissy drunk, or roasting small
boys over fires--oh, aye, that brought back Master Brown to
memory sharp enough. He was the mealy, freckled little villain
who tried to steal my sweepstake ticket, damn him--a pious,
crawling little toad-eater who prayed like clockwork and was for/
ever su^S "Pp to Arnold and Brooke-'-yes, sir, ^se' sir' rm
a bloody S^ sir'" ^g with his PB1 East Dow was dead' ; boat by Cawnpore. .
So^co^ ^s alive, though-alive and libelli^ ^J^
damnably' , that it wasn't trne, every vile word  1 ' ^ too true ^ ^ ^ ^th that, it
" foul, ma' .  , ,_ dear Chnst,
was a y .aucious blot on my good name.
was10
ere. . . ^an's brutality had disgusted ^st eveP of hls intlmate
fri^ " No, by God, there was one downrig^ shalllelul
Ue-tbe ^ ^ friends I had at Rugby you co^^have d.j
not Spei ,. ,  , - - J , ^ What nexu
eusted, " ^ :edicut and Rattle and that lot . .
"Coward^ he ^^ ^ such an m-
, ' and t, ,  , , . . r crfht, in which 1
suit . ,.then followed a description 01 a "e a- ,n --("in
poo^ition from his monstrous habit of st^S..^ soundly ^^d by a couple of fags and silked ^ whmmg "You sb^PY^r this..." , . ,
I belied I ^ed at the mouth at this point, and Y61 ^f"1 a the description ^ ^^^ expulsion from Rugb^, wa
- worse - . J:, . , , + ^nc little swabs,
was even was the scene in which the uflctuous ^
Brown a^ ast, were described as praying for "P^Jzv
I hurled the b< ^ ^ P ^^^ ^, ^ shmg my
bearer, ^d only ^ ^ ^^ ^ ^ ^  the carnageroof
did I ^ttle ^^ ^^ ^ ^ ^ ^^^, ^f what this vmdict^biogiz ^^^
He'd ^ullled me-half England must have read ^^ thing by ^- 5h, ^ was plain enough why Cardig^ had seQt it to me, ^Piteful swine How could I ever hold ^ ^ head again, after his ^ ^ack?-my God, Just in ^.momeDt
of ^PreIl;eg^ too! What would my Cross .nd ^ ^thood be worth."ow, ^^ ^^ l,y an U d
Boy"?, ;tloever the brute was . . .probably ^egTSLhtk sneak wbom I d^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^^Ked about m
boyish fu" __ eU, by heaven he'd pay for it! I'd s"e the wlcked;
scribbling ^.bitch through every court ill England'1 d have every lo^Y Pe he owned, and the shirt off his b<A and see him starve m tt ^ ^^ ^ ^ ^^^^ ^^^W'.
"Nol" I ^d, shaking my fist, 'Til kill the N^ thats
323
what I'll do--after I've sued him! I'll call him out, if he's a
civilian, and blow his mangy head off on Calais sands--I'll horsewhip
him publicly..."
[At this point, with a torn page and several explosive blots, the
fifth packet of the Flashman Papers comes to an end.]
[N.B.--Flashman apparently never took action against Thomas
Hughes, the author of Tow Brown's Schooldays, which first
appeared in 1857 and had achieved immense success before
Flashman saw it in India. Probably he came to realise, after his
first understandable indignation had subsided, that any harm it
did to his reputation was trifling, and that the publicity of litigation
could only make things worse. But it is possible that he
made the threat of legal action, and demanded some retraction;
it is at least interesting that when the sequel, Tom Brown at
Oxford, appeared in 1861, Hughes devoted a preface to denying
any identification of himself with Tom Brown: "... neither is the
hero a portrait of myself [he wrote] nor is there any other portrait
in either of the boohs, except in the case of Dr Arnold, where the
true name is given." The italics are the editor's; the satisfaction
was presumably Flashman's.]
 I
324
APPENDIX I: The Indian Mutiny
As far as it goes, and leaving aside those more personal experiences
and observations which there is no confirming or denying, Flashman's
account of his service in the Mutiny seems both generally
accurate and fair. His descriptions of Meerut, before and during
the outbreak, of Cawnpore and Lucknow and Jhansi and Gwalior,
are consistent with other eye-witness accounts; at worst, he differs
no more from them than they do from each other. As to causes
and attitudes, he seems to give a sound reflection of what was
being said and thought in India at the time.
It is still difficult to discuss certain aspects of the Mutiny without
emotion creeping in; it was an atrociously bloody business,
and it is not easy to appreciate entirely the immense intensity of
feeling on both sides. How to explain the conduct of Nana Sahib
at Cawnpore, on the one hand, or on the other, the attitude of the
Christian and personally kindly John Nicholson, who wanted
legislation passed for the flaying, impaling, and burning of
mutineers? Flashman's observations are not without interest, but
it is really superfluous to comment on them; there should not be,
for intelligent people, any question of trying to cast up the
atrocious accounts, or attempting to discover a greater weight of
"blame" on one side or the other. Fashions in these things
change, as Flashman remarks, and one should beware of fashionable
judgements. Sufficient to say that fear, shock, ignorance, and
racial and religious intolerance, on both sides, combined to produce
a hatred akin to madness in some individuals and groups--
British, Hindoo and Muslim--but by no means among all.
At the same tune, it is worth remembering that the struggle
which produced so much cruelty and shame was also marked by
countless examples of self-sacrifice and human kindness almost
beyond understanding, and by devotion and heroism which will
325
last as long as British and Indian memory: the spirit -which inspired
the last stand of a handful of unnamed mutineers in
Gwalior fortress was the same as that which held the wall of
Wheeler's entrenchment at Cawnpore.
}
y
326
APPENDIX II: The Rani of Jhansi
Lakshmibai, Maharani of Jhansi, was one of the outstanding
leaders of the Mutiny, and a heroine of Indian history. She has
been compared, not unjustly, to Joan of Arc; on the other hand,
while the evil reputation which propaganda gave her in her lifetime
has now been largely discounted, there remain some shadows
over her memory.
The general facts about her career, as Flashman learned them
from Palmerston and Skene, and as he himself describes them, are
accurate--her upbringing, marriage, political attitudes, part in the
Mutiny, escape, campaigning, and death. What is less clear is
when and why she became actively involved in the Mutiny, for
even after the Jhansi massacre (see Notes) she professed friendship
for the Sirkar; it may even be that, despite her bitterness towards
the British, she would have stayed clear of rebellion if she could.
What is certain is that, once committed, she led her troops with
great resolution and personal bravery--she was, in fact, a fine
swordswoman and rider, and a good shot, as a result of her upbringing
among boys (Nana Sahib among them) at the Peshawa's
court.
On a more everyday level, Flashman's impressions of Lakshmibai
and her court are borne out by contemporary accounts. He
seems to have given a fair picture of her conduct of affairs and
public behaviour, as well as of such details as her daily routine,
her apartments, private zoo, recreations and tea-parties, and even
clothing and jewellery. Other Britons who met her shared at least
some of his enthusiasm for her looks ("remarkably fine figure ...
beautiful eyes . . . voluptuous . . . beautiful shape", are among
the descriptions, although one added that he thought her "not
pretty"). The most apparently authentic surviving portrait shows
her much as Flashman first describes her. Her personality seems
327
to have been pleasant enough, if forceful (her two most quoted
remarks are "I will not give up my Jhansi", and the taunt thrown
at Nana Sahib when they were children: "When I grow up I'll
have ten elephants to your one!").
But her true character remains a mystery. Whether she is
regarded as a pure-hearted patriot, or as a devious and cruel opportunist
is a matter of choice--she may have been something of
each. Her epitaph was given by her most persistent enemy, Sir
Hugh Rose, speaking of the rebel leaders; he called Lakshmibai
"the best and bravest".
(For biographies see The Rebellious Rani, by Sir John Smyth,
V.C., and The Ranee of Jhansi, by D. V. Tahmankar. Also in
Sylvester, Forrest, Kaye/Malleson.)
328
NOTES
1. (p. 13) Lord Cardigan, who led the Charge of the Light Brigade, was
a popular hero after Balaclava, but a reaction set in against him in
1856, with rumours that he had shirked his duty, and even that he
had not reached the Russian guns at all. The law-suit did not take
place until 1863, when Cardigan sued Colonel Calthorpe for libel on
the subject; it was established that he had been at the guns, and also
that he had left his brigade during the action which, although it did
not reflect on his personal courage, left a large question-mark over his
fitness for command.
2. (p. 15) Punch also noted that at this dinner champagne was served
at the rate of only one bottle per three guests.
3. (p. 21) For once Flashman is exact with a date--it was on the 2ist
that Florence Nightingale had a two-hour meeting with the Queen at
Balmoral. In fact, his recollections of Balmoral are so exact, even down
to topics of conversation and the state of the weather on particular
days, that one suspects he is indebted to the detailed diary which his
wife Elspeth kept during their married life, and which forms part of
The Flashman Papers. (For corroboration, see Queen Victoria's Letters, 1827-61, ed. Benson and Fsher; The Queen at Balmoral by F. P.
Humphrey (1893); Life of the Prince Consort, 5 vols., by Sir T. Martin
(1875-80); Twenty Years at Court, by Eleanor Stanley (1916); and
A Diary of Royal Movements ... in the life of Queen Victoria (1883).
4. (P. 35) No record can be found of a visit by Lord Palmerston to
Balmoral in late September, 1856; obviously it must have been kept
secret, along with the disturbing news that chapattis had appeared in
an Indian regiment: most histories of the Mutiny do not mention
chapattis as appearing until early in 1857.
For the rest, Flashman gives a fair picture of "Pam" as his contemporaries
saw him--a popular, warm-hearted, impulsive, and (to
some eyes) deplorable figure whom Disraeli described as a "painted
old pantaloon". Lord Ellenborough was a former Governor-General of
India, and Sir Charles Wood, although at the Admiralty when Flashman
met him, had been President of the Board of Control for India
from 1853-55, and was to return to the India Office from 185966.
I. (p. 60) The missionaries were greatly displeased at a government
decision in 1856-7 that education in Indian schools should be secular.
The fear of Christianisation was certainly present among Indians at
this time, and is considered to have been a main cause of the Mutiny.
Preaching army officers were regarded as especially dangerous:
Governor-General Canning, who was unjustly suspected of being an
ardent proselytiser, actually said of one religiously-minded colonel that
he was unfit to be trusted with his native regiment, and Lord Ellenborough
delivered a strong warning in the House of Lords on June 9,
1857, against "colonels connected with missionary operations.... You
will see the most bloody revolution which has at any time occurred in
W
India. The English will be expelled." This contrasts with the statement
of Mr Mangles, chairman of the Bast India Company: "Providence has
entrusted the empire of Hindoostan to England in order that the banner
of Christ should wave triumphant from one end of India to the other."
6. (p. 61) John Nicholson (1821-57) was one of the legendary figures of
British India, and an outstanding example of the type of soldieradministrator
who became known as "the desert English", possibly
because many of them were Scots or Irish. Their gift, and it was rare,
was of winning absolute trust and devotion from the people among
whom they worked in the East; Nicholson had it to an unusual degree,
and when he was only twenty-seven the religious sect of "Nikkulseynites"
was formed, worshipping him with a fervour which caused
him much annoyance. As a soldier and administrator he was brilliant;
as a Victorian case-study, fascinating. Since he served in the First
Afghan War he would certainly have known Flashman, but it is
interesting that they met as described here, since in late 1856 Nicholson
should have been far away on the frontier. However, as he was
about to enter on new duties at Peshawar about this time, it is conceivable
that he came south first, and that they met on the Agra
Trunk Road.
7. (p 70) The Guides was perhaps the most famous fighting unit in the
history of British India. Raised by Henry Lawrence in 1846, and commanded
by Harry Lumsden, it became legendary along the frontier as
an intelligence and combat force of both infantry and cavalry (Kipling,
it will be remembered, used the Guides' mystique in his "Ballad of
East and West"). It is interesting that Flashman recognised Sher Khan
as an ex-Guide by his coat, since the regiment normally wore nondescript
khaki rather than a military colour.
8- (P- 75) Flashman's assumption that the Rani would be much older
was not unnatural. He had heard Palmerston describe her as "old
when she married", which, by Indian standards, she was, being well
into her teens.
9. (p. 82) The General Service Enlistment Act (1856) required recruits
to serve overseas if necessary. This was one of the most important
grievances of the sepoys, who held that crossing the sea would break
their caste.
10. (p. 82) Irregular cavalry units of the British Indian armies occasionally
dressed in a highly informal style, so the Afghan rissaldar might conceivably have been wearing an old uniform coat of Skinner's
Horse ("The Yellow Boys"). But it is unlikely that he had ever served
in that unit--the Guides would have been more his mark.
11. (p. 101) The society of Thugs (lit. deceivers) were worshippers of the
goddess Kali, and practised murder as a religious devotion which
would ensure them a place in paradise. They preyed especially on
travellers, whom they would join on the road with every profession
of friendship before suddenly falling on them at a prearranged signal;
the favourite method of killing was strangulation with a scarf. The
cult numbered thousands before Sir William Sleeman stamped them out
in the i83os, but since many continued at large, and the Jhansi region
was traditionally a hotbed ofthugee, it is perfectly possible that ex-Thugs
were active as Flashman says. In some cases it was possible to identify
a former Thug by a tattoo on his eyelid or a brand on his back.
12. (p. 106) "Pass him some of his own tobacco"--a grim joke by
Ilderim's companion. "Pass the tobacco" was the. traditional verbal
signal of the Thugs to start killing, if
13. (p. 108) There was indeed a Makarram Khan, who served in the
Peshawar Police, and later became a notable frontier raider at the head

330
of a band of mounted tribesmen, fighting against the Guides cavalry.
(See History of the Guides, 18461922.)
14. (p. 111) The offering and touching of a sword hilt, in token of mutual
respect, was traditional in the Indian Cavalry. (See From Sepoy to Subedar, the memoirs of Sita Ram Pande, who served in the Bengal
Army for almost fifty years. They were first published a century ago,
and recently edited by Major-General James Lunt.)
15. (p. 115) It is curious that Flashman makes no reference to dyeing his
skin (as Ilderim had suggested) and indeed seems to imply that he
found it unnecessary. But dark as he was, and light-skinned as many
frontiersmen are, he must surely have stained his body, or he could
hardly have passed for long in a sepoy barrack-room.
16. (p. 117) Of the sepoys whom Flashman mentions by name, only two
can be definitely identified as serving in the 3rd N.C. skirmishers at
this time--Pir All and Kudrat Ah, who were both corporals, although
Flashman refers to Pir All as though he were an ordinary sepoy.
17. (p. 119) "Addiscombe tripe" refers to the officers, not the jemadars and n.c.o.s. Addiscombe was the military seminary which trained
East India Company cadets from 1809 to 1861. Flashman's prejudice
may be explained by the fact that Lord Roberts, among other famous
soldiers, went there.
18. (p. 121) The fears and grievances which Flashman recounts probably
give a fair reflection of the state of mind of many sepoys in early
1857. Rumours of polluted flour and greased cartridges, and stories like
that of the Dum-Dum sweeper, reinforced the suspicion that the
British were intent on interfering with their religion, breaking their
caste, altering terms of enlistment, and generally changing the established
order. To these were added the Oude sepoys' discontent at the
recent annexation of their state, which cost them certain privileges,
< and resentment at the changed attitude towards them (by no means
imaginary, according to some contemporary writers) of a new generation
of British officers and troops, who seemed more ignorant and contemptuous
than their predecessors; this unfortunately coincided with
the arrival in the Bengal Army of a better class of sepoys, possibly
quicker to take offence--or, according to some writers, more spoiled.
All these things combined to undermine confidence end cause unrest,
and there was no lack of agitators ready to play on the sepoys'
fears. The belief that the British intended to Christianise India (see
Note 5) was widespread, and reinforced by such reforms as the suppression
of thugee and suttee (widow-burning). The resentment which
reform had created among Indian princes has been referred to; in
addition, educational innovations created disquiet (see Lawrence's
evidence to the Select Committee on India, July 12, 1859, E.I. Parliamentary
Papers, vol. 18); so even did the development of the railway
and telegraph. With all these underlying factors, it will be seen that
the greased cartridge was eventually only the spark to the tinder.
(See also Sita Ram, Lord Roberts's Forty-one Years in India, Kaye and
Malleson's History of the Sepoy War and History of the Indian Mutiny (1864-80), G. W. Forrest's History of the Indian Mutiny
(1904-12), and the same author's Selections from the Letters, Despatches
and C.S.P. .. Government of India, 18578.)
19. (p. 127) Mrs Captain MacDowall's advice on the running of an Indian
household might serve as a model for its time. (See the Complete Indian Housekeeper, by G. G. and F. A. S. published in 1883.)
20. (p. 130) The i9th N.I., who had rioted in February, were disbanded at
the end of March, having refused the new cartridge. The paper which
Mangal showed to Flashman was undoubtedly the March 28 issue of
331
Ashruf-al-Akbar, of Lucknow, which predicted a great holy war
throughout India and the Middle East; however, it gave a warning
against relying on .Russian assistance, describing them as "enemies of
the faith".
21. (p. 132) Sepor Mangal Pandy (?-i8?7), of the 34th Native Infantry,
ran amok on the parade ground at Barrackpore on March 29, apparently
drugged with bhang, trying to rouse a religious revolt and
claiming that British troops were coming against the sepoys. He
attacked one of his officers, and then tried to kill himself. Pandy was
subsequently hanged, along with a native officer whose offence
apparently was that he did not try to stop the attack. However, this
first of the Indian sepoy rebels gained an appropriate immortality: the
British word for any native mutineer thereafter was "pandy".
22. (p. 138) For the loading drill, see Forrest's Selections, and J. A. B.
Palmer's The Mutiny Outbreak in Meerut in iSjy referring to the
Platoon Exercise Manual. While there is general agreement among
historians on what happened at the firing parade, some differ over
precise technical details; Flashman's account is sound on the whole.
He states that the cartridges were not greased, but waxed, and since
he does not refer to them as ball cartridges, this would seem to confirm
that they were ungreased blanks. However, this would not allay the
fears of the sepoys, who were apparently suspicious of any cartridge
with a shiny appearance. Nor do they seem to have been impressed by
the repeated assurances that it was unnecessary to bite the cartridge
(which, if it were greased, would be highly polluting); as early as
January, 1857, when it was announced that the sepoys could grease
their own loads with non-polluting substances, it was also stated that
they could tear the cartridges with their fingers (see Hansard, 3rd
series 145, May 22, 1857); the response of some sepoys to this was that
they might forget, and bite.
23. (p. 141) The British were, in fact, more considerate and humane
towards their native troops than they were to their white ones.
Flogging continued in the British Army long after it had been
abolished for Indian troops, whose discipline appears to have been
much more lax, possibly in consequence--a point significantly noted
by Subedar Sita Ram when he discusses in his memoirs the causes of
the Mutiny.
24. (p. 143) Lieutenant (later Lieutenant-General Sir Hugh) Gough was
warned by one of the native officers of his troop on May 9 that the
sepoys would rise to rescue their comrades from the jail. CarmichaelSmith
and Archdale Wilson both rejected the warning.
25. (p. 146) One of the first casualties of the Meerut mutiny was, in fact,
a British soldier murdered in a bazaar lemonade shop.
26. (p. 150) Hewitt and Archdale Wilson were extraordinarily slow in
getting the British regiments on the move after the outbreak; they did
not reach the sepoy lines until after the mutineers had set off for Delhi.
27. (p. 154) Altogether thirty-one Europeans are known to have been
murdered in the Meerut massacre, including the Dawson family, and
Mrs Courtney and her three children (all mentioned by Flashman).
The full list is given in the Records of the Intelligence Deportment of
the N.W. Provinces, 18.57, vol. ii, appendix. The circumstances of their
deaths are horrifying enough--Surgeon Dawson was shot on his
verandah, while Mrs Dawson was burned by thrown torches, and at
least one pregnant woman, Mrs Captain Chambers, was murdered--
but even so, greatly overstated reports of Meerut atrocities were
circulated, including tales of sexual vtolation. It is worth quoting the
statement of Sir William Muir, then head of the N.W. Intelligence
33
Department, in a letter to Lord Canning (Agra, December 30, 1857),
that several British witnesses at Meerut were confident that no rapes
took place, and they believed that the atrocities, appalling as they
were, had been exaggerated. It was alleged, for example, that RidingMaster
Langdale's (not Langley's, as Flashman says) little daughter
was tortured to death; she had, in fact, been killed by a tulwar blow
while sleeping on her charpoy (see the Rev. T. C. Smith's letter, dated
Meerut, December 16, 1857). This tendency of many British observers
to be strictly fair and impartial, even in the highly emotional atmosphere
of the Mutiny and its immediate aftermath, should not be
seen as playing down the atrocities; they were merely concerned to
correct the wilder stories, and give an honest account.
28. (p. 164) The mutiny and massacre at Jhansi took place exactly as
Ilderim Khan described it. The mass murder of the 66 Britons (30 men, 16 women, and 20 children) was carried out in the Jokan Bagh on
June 8, 1857; the only details which Ilderim's narrative adds to
historical record are the quoted remarks of the victims and their
killers. It was the second largest massacre in the entire Mutiny, and
in some ways the most cruel, although it has been overshadowed in
popular infamy by Cawnpore. What is by no means certain is how
far Rani Lakshmibai was responsible, if at all: she protested her
innocence afterwards, and there is considerable doubt about what her
attitude was to Skene's three envoys before the Town Fort surrendered.
(No record exists of the death of "Murray sahib" as described by
Ilderim Khan, and the quotation that the Rani "had no concern with
English swine", which is to be found in at least one other contemporary
source, appears to rest on the evidence of a suspect Indian
witness.) It is possible that Lakshmibai was powerless to prevent
either the mutiny or the massacre; on the other hand, there is no
evidence that she tried to, and there is no doubt that soon afterwards
she was most-effectively in control of Jhansi, and capable of dealing
with any threat to her sovereignty.
29. (p. 200) The quotation given by Flashman is the substance of the last
letter which Wheeler sent out of Cawnpore after one of the most
heroic defences in the history of war. Later events were to overshadow
it, but it remains an epic of the Mutiny, for the conditions
within the entrenchment, the figures of casualties, and even small
details of the siege, were as Flashman describes them: for example,
Bella Blair did die, John McKillop of the Civil Service did draw water
under constant fire for a week before he was killed, and the reference
to shooting horses for food, rather than riders, is authentic.
30. (p. 208) Azeemoolah Khan had been sent to London in 1854 by Nana
Sahib, the adopted son of the Maharatta Peshawa, to petition against
the disallowance of Nana's pension and title after his father's death.
The petition tailed, but Azeemoolah, by his own account, had
immense success in his pursuit of London society women--a boast
which did not endear him to W. H. Russell of The Times when the
two met at Missirie's Hotel, Constantinople, in 1856, and subsequently
in the Crimea. Apart from being a nobleman, Azeemoolah is also
believed to have worked as a teacher and as a waiter. Nana Sahib,
who had joined the rebellion on the outbreak at Cawnpore, was to become
the most famous of the Mutiny leaders, but Tantia Tope, whom
Flashman barely noticed, was to be a far greater menace in the field.
31. (p 212) While Flashman's account of the council of war is new, it
supports the known facts: Wheeler wanted to fight on, and his
younger officers supported him; the older men wished to surrender
for the sake of the women and children, and Wheeler finally agreed,
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