Flashman Papers 3-Book Collection 2: Flashman and the Mountain of Light, Flash For Freedom!, Flashman and the Redskins
Singh came after me, taking my arm, all smiles, and insisting on giving me a conducted tour of the arsenal and foundry, which were close by the Sleeping Palace. Since I’d spent half the night sporting with his lady love, I found this affability disconcerting, until he took me flat aback by speaking of her with alarming frankness.
“Mai Jeendan had hoped to come out from purdah to greet you after the durbar,” confides he. “Alas, she is a little drunk from toasting her abominable brother, in a vain effort to put some courage into him. You can have no notion what a poltroon he is! The thought of facing the Khalsa quite unmans him, even now when all is settled. But she will certainly send for you afterwards; she has important messages for the envoy of the Sirkar.”
I said I was at her majesty’s service, and he smiled.
“So I have heard.” Seeing me stare, he laughed aloud. “My dear friend, you look at me as though I were a rival! Believe me, with Mai Jeendan there is no such thing! She is no one’s mistress but her own. Let us fortunate fellows thank God for it. Now, you shall give me your opinion of our Punjabi muskets – are they not a match for Brown Bess?”
At the time, I was all suspicion; only later did I realise that Lal Singh meant every word he said – and Mai Jeendan was the least of what he wanted to tell me that day. When we’d examined the small arms, stocked in impressive numbers, and the forges, and the casting of a great white-hot nine-pounder gun, and the rain of lead hitting the steaming vats in the shot tower, and I’d agreed that the Khalsa’s armoury compared well with our own, he took me by the arm as we walked, most confidential.
“You are right,” says he, “but arms are not everything. On the day, victory and defeat rest with the generals. If ever the Khalsa took the field, it might well be under my leadership, and Tej Singh’s.” He sighed, smiling, and shook his head. “Sometimes I wonder how we should acquit ourselves against … oh, against such a seasoned campaigner as your Sir Hugh Gough. What would you think, Flashman sahib?”
Wondering, I said that Gough wasn’t the most scientific soldier since Boney, but he was probably the toughest. Lal Singh nodded, stroking his beard, and then laughed merrily. “Well, we must hope it is never put to the test, eh? Now, we set out for Maian Mir in an hour – may I offer you some refreshment?”
They’re so devious, these folk, you never know what they’re up to. Was he hinting that if it came to war, he was ready to fight a cross? Or trying a bamboozle? Or just gassing? Whatever his purpose, he must know that nothing he said could make Gough drop his guard. It was all most interesting, and gave me food for thought until the horns sounded to signal the departure of the royal progress to Maian Mir.
The procession was drawn up outside the Bright Gate, and when I saw it I thought: that’s India. It was Arabian Nights come to life: two battalions of the Palace Guard in their red and yellow silks, and in their midst half a dozen elephants, gorgeously caparisoned in blue and gold saddle-cloths that swept the ground, jewelled harness on their heads, their tusks and even the mahouts’ goads tipped with gold. The howdahs were little coloured palaces topped with minarets and silk canopies which stirred as the great beasts swayed and bellowed, the keepers quieting them as they waited for their royal freight. Horsemen in steel casques that shone like silver in the sunlight rode up and down the elephant line, their sabres drawn; they converged like clockwork to form a lane from the gate for porters who came bearing enormous panniers brimming with coin, preceded by chamberlains who supervised the strapping of the panniers to the howdahs of the third and second elephants. When some of the coins fell in a tinkling shower to the dust, there was a great “Oo-h!” from the crowd assembled to see the show; two or three of the horsemen leaned from their saddles, scooping up the rupees and hurling them over the heads of the rigid guardsmen to the mob, who yelled and scuffled for them – for a country that was supposed to be short of blunt, there seemed to be no lack of picea to fling to the beggars.
Two of the chamberlains mounted the third elephant, and now came a little knot of courtiers, led by Lal Singh, all brave in green and gold; they mounted into the fifth howdah, and a chamberlain who’d been shepherding Jassa and me indicated that we should mount the ladder on the fourth beast. We climbed up and as I seated myself the muted grumble of the crowd took on a new note – I knew exactly why: they were asking each other, who’s the foreigner, then, who takes precedence over the royal courtiers? He must be an infidel of note, doubtless the English Queen’s son, or a Jewish moneylender from Karachi; well, give the unbelieving swine a cheer. I doffed my tile, looking out over that astonishing scene: ahead, the great mammoths with their swaying howdahs, and either side the horsemen, the yellow Guards, and beyond a vast sea of brown faces; the walls flanking the Bright Gate were black with spectators, as were the buildings behind, with the great column of the Summum Boorj towering over all. The baying of the crowd rose again, and now there was a disturbance below my elephant, the yellow line of Guardsmen breaking to let in a wild figure who capered and waved to me: he was a burly Ghazi of a fellow, bandoliered and bearded to the eyebrows, yelling in Pushtu:
“Ai-ee, Bloody Lance! It is I, Shadman Khan! Remember me? Salaam, soldier, heep-heep-heep-hoorah!”
Well, I didn’t remember him, but plainly he was someone from the old days, so I lifted my lid again, calling: “Salaam, Shadman Khan!” and he shouted with delight and yelled, in English: “Stand fast, foortee-foorth!” – and in an instant I was looking down on the bloody snow over Gandamack, with the remnants of the 44th being cut down by the tribesmen swarming over their position … and I wondered which side he’d been on then. (I’ve since remembered that there was a Shadman Khan among those ruffians who held me in Gul Shah’s dungeon, and yet another among the band who saved me from the Thugs at Jhansi in ’57 and stole our horses on the way to Cawnpore. I wonder if they were all the same man. It has no bearing on my present tale, anyway; it was just an incident at the Bright Gate. But I think it was the same man; everybody changed sides in the old days.)
Now there was a sudden hush, broken by the strains of sweet music, and out from the Bright Gate came a native band, followed by a tiny figure in cloth of gold, mounted on a white pony; a thunderous salaam rolled out from the waiting crowd: “Maharaj’! Maharaj’!” as little Dalip was lifted from his saddle by a richly-clad courtier whom I recognised with a shock as Jawaheer Singh. He seemed sober enough now, and I’ve never seen a man grin so eagerly as he perched Dalip on his shoulder and gestured to the crowd, inviting their acclaim. They roared willingly enough, but I detected an undertone of groans which I imagine were meant for Jawaheer himself. He mounted with Dalip to the first elephant, and then out from the gate stalks Gardner, staring grimly right and left, and followed by a party of his black robes, guarding a palkib beside which Mangla walked unveiled. It stopped, and she drew the curtains and handed out the Maharani Jeendan: she was all in shimmering white, and although she wore a gauzy purdah veil I believe I’d have recognised that hourglass figure anywhere. She’d got over her drunk, by the looks of it, for she walked steadily to the second elephant, and Gardner handed her up to an absolute bellow of cheering – there’s no doubt about it, all the world loves Nell Gwynn. Mangla mounted beside her, and then Gardner stepped back and surveyed the procession, your good bodyguard alert for trouble. His eye passed over me and lingered for a moment on Jassa; then he had given the signal, the band struck up a march, the elephant lurched and bellowed beneath us, and off we swayed with a great creaking of harness and jingling of outriders, while the mob roared again and the dust swirled up from the tramp of the Guardsmen.
We skirted under the high city walls, thronged with folk who threw blossoms and shouted blessings on the little Maharaja; they were swarming like bees on the ramparts of the Kashmir Gate, and then as we rounded the angle of the wall beneath the huge Half-moon Battery there came from far ahead the report of cannon – a continuous rumble of firing, one gun after another (a hundred and eighty, I’m told, though I didn’t count ’em). The elephants squealed in alarm, and the howdahs bucked from side to side so hard that we had to cling on to prevent being pitched out, with the mahouts flat on their beasts’ heads, steadying them with goad and voice. As we came under the Delhi Gate the firing ceased, to be replaced by a distant measured tread,