Flashman Papers 3-Book Collection 2: Flashman and the Mountain of Light, Flash For Freedom!, Flashman and the Redskins
the same way, with good reason, which was disconcerting, but I sat grimly on, wishing I’d gone into Holy Orders and ignoring the blandishments of sundry viragos of the sort you can have for fourpence with a mutton pie and a pint of beer thrown in, but better not, for the pie meat’s sure to be off. They sulked or snarled at me, according to taste, but the last one, a henna’d banshee with bad teeth, said I was choosy, wasn’t I, and what had I expected in a place like this – Bibi Kalil?
There was so much noise that I doubted if anyone else had heard her, but I waited till she’d flounced off, and another ten minutes for luck. Then I rose and shouldered my way to the door, taking my time; sure enough, she was waiting in the shadow of the porch. Without a word she led on up the alley, and I followed close, my heart thumping and my hand on the pepperbox under my poshteen as I scanned the shadows ahead. We went by twisting ways until she stopped by a high wall with an open wicket. “Through the garden and round the house. Your friend is waiting,” she whispered, and vanished into the dark.
I glanced about to mark lines of flight, and went cautiously in. A small bushy enclosure surrounded a tall well-kept house, and directly before me a steep outside stair led up to a little arched porch on the upper floor, with a dimly-lit doorway beyond. Round the angle of the house to my left light was spilling from a ground-floor room that I couldn’t see – that was my way, then, but even as I set forward the light in the arch overhead shone brighter as the door beyond was fully opened, and a woman came out silently on to the little porch. She stood looking down into the garden, this way and that, but by then I was in the bushes, taking stock.
Peering up through the leaves I could see her clearly, and if this was Bibi Kalil I didn’t mind a bit. She was tall, fine-featured as an Afghan, heavy of hip and bosom in her fringed trousers and jacket, a matronly welterweight and just my style. Then she moved back inside, and since my immediate business was round the corner on the ground floor (alas!), I heaved a sigh and turned that way … and stopped dead as I recalled a word that my guide had used.
“Friend”? That wasn’t political talk. “Brother” or “sister” was usual … and whoever had instructed her would have told her the exact words to say. Back to my mind came that other queer phrase in Broadfoot’s message: “Say nothing to your orderly …” That hadn’t been quite pukka, either. They were just two tiny things, but all of a sudden the dark seemed deeper and the night quieter. Coward’s instinct, if you like, but if I’m still here and in good health, bar my creaky kidneys and a tendency to wind, it’s because I shy at motes, never mind beams – and I don’t walk straight in where I can scout first. So instead of going openly round the house as directed, I skulked round, behind the bushes, until I was past the angle and could squint through the foliage into that well-lit ground floor room with its open screens … and have a quiet apoplectic fit to myself, holding on to a branch for support.
There were half a dozen men in the room, armed and waiting, and they included, inter alia, General Maka Khan, his knife-toting sidekick Imam Shah, and that crazy Akali who’d denounced Jeendan at the durbar. Leading men of the Khalsa, sworn enemies of the Sirkar, waiting for old Flash to roll in … “friends”, bigod! And I was meant to believe that Broadfoot had directed me to them?
Well, I didn’t, not for an instant – which was the time it took me to realise that something was hellishly, horribly wrong … that this was a trap, and my head was all but in its jaws, and nothing for it but instant flight. You don’t stop to reason how or why at times like that – you grit your teeth to keep ’em from chattering, and back away slowly through the bushes with your innards dissolving, taking care not to rustle the leaves, until you’re close by the gate, when you think you hear furtive movement out in the alley, and start violently, treading on a stick that snaps with a report like a bloody howitzer, and you squeal and leap three feet – and if you’re lucky an angel of mercy in fringed trousers reappears on the porch overhead, hissing: “Flashman sahib! This way, quickly!”
I was up that stair like a fox with an arseful of buckshot, tripping on the top step and falling headlong past the woman and slap into the arms of a burly old ruffian who was hobbling nimbly out of the inner doorway. I had a glimpse of huge white whiskers and glaring eyes under a black turban, but before I could exclaim I was in a bear’s grip with a hand like a ham over my mouth.
“Chub’rao! Khabadar!”i growls he. “A thousand hells – get your great infidel foot off my toe! Don’t you English know what it is to have the gout, then?” And to the woman: “Have they heard?”
She stood a moment on the porch, listening, and then slid in, closing the door softly. “There are men in the alley, and sounds from the garden room!” Her voice was deep and husky, and in the dim light I could see her poonts bouncing with agitation.
“Shaitan take them!” snarls he. “It’s now or not at all, then! Down, chabeli,j by the secret stair – look for Donkal and the horses!” He was bundling me into the room. “Haste, woman!”
“He won’t be there yet!” whispers the woman. “With their look-outs in the streets he must even wait!” She shot me a swift look, moistening her full lips. “Besides, I fear the dark. Do you go, while I wait here with him.”
“God, she would flirt on the edge of the Pit!” fumes the old buck. “Have ye no sense of fitness, with the house crawling with foes and my foot like to burst? Away and look out from the street window, I say! You can ravish him another time!”
She glared but went, flitting across the shadowy chamber to a low door in the far wall, while he stood gripping my arm, the great white-whiskered head raised to listen, but the only sounds were my heart hammering and his own gusty breathing. He glanced at me, and spoke hoarse and low.
“Flashman the Afghan killer – aye, ye have the beastly look! They are down there – rats of the Khalsa, lying in wait for you –”
“I know – I saw them! How –”
“You were lured, with a false message. Subtle fellows, these.”
I stared, horror-stricken. “But that’s impossible! It … it can’t be false! No one could –”
“Oho, so you’re not here, and neither are they!” says he, grinning savagely. “Wait till their flayers set about you, fool, and you’ll change your mind! Are you armed?”
I showed him, and would you believe it, he fell into whispered admiration of my pepperbox? “It turns so? Six shots, you say? A marvel! With one of these, who needs rent collectors? By God, at need we can cut our way out, you with shot and I with steel! Fiend take the woman, where is she? Ogling some prowler, like as not! Ah, my poor foot – they say drink inflames it, but I believe it comes of kneeling at prayer! Alas, why did I rise from my bed this day?”
All this in muttered whispers in the gloom, and me beside myself with fear, not knowing what the devil was up, except that the hosts of Midian were after me, but that I seemed to have found two eccentric friends, thank God – and whoever they might be, they weren’t common folk. You don’t take careful note at such times, but even in the grip of funk I was aware that while the lady might have a wanton eye, she talked like a sultana; the tiny room was opulent as a palace, with dim lamps shining on silk and silver; and my gouty old sportsman could only be some tremendous swell. Command was in every line of the stout, powerful figure, bold curved nose, and bristling beard, and he was dressed like a fighting raja – a great ruby in his turban, silver studs on the quilted leather jack, black silk pyjamys tucked into high boots, and a jewel-hilted broadsword on his hip. Who on earth was he? Keeping my voice down, I asked him, and he chuckled and answered in his growling whisper, his eye on the door.
“You cannot guess? So much for fame! Ah, but you know me well, Flashman sahib – and that sweet hussy whose tardiness perils our safety. Aye, ye’ve been busy about our affairs these two months!” He grinned at my bewilderment. “Bibi Kalil is only her pet name – she is the widow of my brother, Soochet Singh, peace be on him. And I am Goolab Singh.”
If I stared, it wasn’t