Flashman Papers 3-Book Collection 2: Flashman and the Mountain of Light, Flash For Freedom!, Flashman and the Redskins
I feigned dismay, concealing the fact that she’d reduced me to a state where I didn’t care if I never saw a woman again.
My first act, when I’d staggered back to my quarters, was to scribble a report of her durbar and subsequent conversation with me, and commit it to Second Thessalonians. That report was what convinced Hardinge and Broadfoot that they had time in hand: no war before winter. I was right enough in that; fortunately I didn’t give them my further opinion, which was that there probably wouldn’t be a war even then.
You see, I was convinced that Jeendan didn’t want one. If she had, and believed the Khalsa could beat us and make her Queen of all Hindoostan, she’d have turned ’em loose over the Sutlej by now. By hocussing them into delay she’d spoiled their best chance, which would have been to invade while the hot weather lasted, and our white troops were at their feeblest; by the cold months, our sick would be on their feet again, dry weather and low rivers would assist our transport and defensive movement, and the freezing nights, while unpleasant for us, would plague the Khalsa abominably. She was also double-dealing ’em by warning us to stay on guard, and promising ample notice if they did break loose in spite of her.
Now there, you’ll say, is a clever lass who knows how to keep in with both sides – and will cross either of ’em if it suits her. But already she’d ensured that, if war did come, the odds were in our favour – and there was no profit to her in getting beat.
All that aside, I didn’t believe war was in her nature. Oh, I knew she was a shrewd politician, when she roused herself, and no doubt as cruel and ruthless as any other Indian ruler – but I just had to think of that plump, pleasure-sodden face drowsing on the pillow, too languid for anything but drink and debauchery, and the notion of her scheming, let alone directing, a war was quite out of court. Lord love us, she was seldom sober enough to plot anything beyond the next erotic experiment. No, if you’d seen her as I did, slothful with booze and romping, you’d have allowed that Broadfoot was right, and that here was a born harlot killing herself with kindness, a fine spirit too far gone to undertake any great matter.
So I thought – well, I misjudged her, especially in her capacity for hatred. I misjudged the Khalsa, too. Mind you, I don’t blame myself too much; there seems to have been a conspiracy to keep Flashy in the dark just then – Jeendan, Mangla, Gardner, Jassa, and even the Sikh generals had me in mind as they pursued their sinister ends, but I’d no way of knowing that.
Indeed, I was feeling pretty easy on the October morning when the court departed for Amritsar, and I turned out to doff my tile as the procession wound out of the Kashmir Gate. Little Dalip was to the fore on his state elephant, acknowledging the cheers of the mob as cool as you like, but twinkling and waving gaily at sight of me. Lal Singh, brave as a peacock and riding with a proprietary air beside Jeendan’s palki, didn’t twinkle exactly; when she nodded and smiled in response to my salute he gave me a stuffed smirk as much as to say, back to the pavilion, infidel, it’s my innings now. You’re welcome, thinks I; plenty of Chinese ginger and rhinoceros powder and you may survive. Mangla, in the litter following, was the only one who seemed to be sorry to be leaving me behind, waving and glancing back until the crowd swallowed her up.
The great train of beasts and servants and guards and musicians was still going by as Jassa and I turned away and rode round to the Rushnai Gate. Have a jolly Dasahra at Amritsar, all of you, thinks I, and by the time you get back Gough will have the frontier reinforced, and Hardinge will be on hand to talk sense to you face to face; among you all you can keep the Khalsa in order, everything can be peacefully settled, and I can go home. I said as much to Jassa, and he gave one of his Yankee-Pathan grunts.
“You reckon? Well, if I was you, lieutenant, I’d not say that till I was riding the gridiron again.”a
“Why not – have you heard something?”
“Just the barra choop,” says he, grinning all over his ugly mug.
“What the devil’s that?”
“You don’t know – an old Khyber hand like you? Barra choop – the silent time before the tempest.” He cocked his head. “Yes, sir, I can hear it, all right.”
“Oh, to blazes with your croaking! Heavens, man, the Khalsa’s scattered all over the place, and by the time they’re mustered again Gough will have fifty thousand bayonets at the river –”
“If he does, it’ll be a red rag to a Punjabi bull,” says this confounded pessimist. “Then they’ll be sure he means to invade. Besides, your lady friend’s promised the Khalsa a war come November – they’re going to be mighty sore if they don’t get it.”
“They’ll be a dam’ sight sorer if they do!”
“You know that – but maybe they don’t.” He turned in the saddle to look back at the long procession filing along the dusty Amritsar road, shading his eyes, and when he spoke again it was in Pushtu. “See, husoor, we have in the Punjab the two great ingredients of mischief: an army loose about the land, and a woman’s tongue unbridled in the house.” He spat. “Together, who knows what they may do?”
I told him pretty sharp to keep his proverbs to himself; if there’s one thing I bar it’s croakers disturbing my peace of mind, especially when they’re leery coves who know their business. Mind you, I began to wonder if he did, for now, after the terrors and transports of my first weeks in Lahore, there came a long spell in which nothing happened at all. We prosed daily about the Soochet legacy, and damned dull it was. The Inheritance Act of 1833 ain’t a patch on the Police Gazette, and after weeks of listening to the drivel of a garlic-breathing dotard in steel spectacles on the precise meaning of “universum jus” and “seisin” I was bored to the point where I almost wrote to Elspeth. Barra choop, indeed.
But if there was no sign of the tempest foretold by Jassa, there was no lack of rumour. As the Dasahra passed, and October lengthened into November, the bazaars were full of talk of British concentration on the river, and Dinanath, of all people, claimed publicly that the Company was preparing to annex Sikh estates on the south bank of the Sutlej; it was also reported that he had said that “the Maharani was willing for war to defend the national honour”. Well, we’d heard that before; the latest definite word was that she’d moved from Amritsar to Shalamar, and was rioting the nights away with Lal. I was surprised that he was still staying the course; doubtless Rai and the Python were spelling him.
Then late in November things began to happen which caused me, reluctantly, to sit up straight. The Khalsa began to reassemble on Maian Mir, Lal was confirmed as Wazir and Tej as commander-in-chief, both made proclamations full of fire and fury, and the leading generals took their oaths on the Granth, pledging undying loyalty to young Dalip with their hands on the canopy of Runjeet’s tomb. You may be sure I saw none of this; diplomatic immunity or not, I was keeping my head well below the parapet, but Jassa gave me eye-witness accounts, taking cheerful satisfaction at every new alarm, curse him.
“They’re just waiting for the astrologers to name the day,” says he. “Even the order of march is cut and dried – Tej Singh to Ferozepore with 42,000 foot, while Lal crosses farther north with 20,000 gorracharra. Yes, sir, they’re primed and ready to fire.”
Not wanting to believe him, I pointed out that strategically the position was no worse than it had been two months earlier.
“Except that there isn’t a rupee left in the Pearl Mosque, and nothing to pay ’em with. I tell you, they either march or explode. I just hope Gough’s ready. What does Broadfoot say?”
That was the most disquieting thing of all – for two weeks I hadn’t had a line from Simla. I’d been cyphering away until Second Thessalonians was dog-eared, without reply. I didn’t tell Jassa that, but reminded him that the final word lay with Jeendan; she’d charmed the Khalsa into delay before, and she could do it again.
“I’ve got ten chipsb says she can’t,” says he. “Once the astrologers say the word, it’d be more than her pretty little hide was worth to hold back. If those stars say ‘Go’,