Flashman Papers 3-Book Collection 2: Flashman and the Mountain of Light, Flash For Freedom!, Flashman and the Redskins
patrols circling the city walls, red lancers with green puggarees, and great activity of matchlockmen on the parapets.
“Muslim brigade,” says Jassa. “Yes, sir, she’s got this old town laced up tighter’n Jemima’s stays. Waste o’ time, since any plotters’ll be on the inside – prob’ly in the Fort itself, among her own people. Say, I bet Alick Gardner’s sleepin’ light, though!”
It was our third morning on the road, for we had taken a wide cast south, crossing the Sutlej at a ghat near Mundole to avoid any enemy river watchers, and keep clear of the Khalsa’s main traffic on the upper road through Pettee to Sobraon. We’d ridden in cautious stages, Jassa and I and a trusted Pathan ruffian of Broadfoot’s old bodyguard, Ahmed Shah; Gough had wanted to send an N.C. squadron disguised as gorracharra, but Lawrence had turned it down flat, insisting that they’d be bound to give themselves away, and anyway, if all went well three would be enough, while if it went ill a brigade would be too few. No one would give any heed to three obvious Afghan horse-copers with a string of beasts – and thus far, no one had.
I shan’t weary you with my emotions as we waited, shivering in the frosty dawn, round our fire. I’ll say only that in addition to the blue funk I felt at the mere sight of Lahore’s frowning gates and brooding towers, I had the liveliest misgivings about the plan whereby we were to spirit young Dalip out of the cobra’s nest. It was Gardner’s invention, lined out precisely to Jassa, who had repeated it to Lawrence and Van Cortlandt with Flashy palpitating attentively, and since our tartan Pathan wasn’t there to be argued with, it was a case of take it or leave it. I know which I’d ha’ done, but Lawrence had said it should serve admirably – he wasn’t going to be the one sneaking in and out of Lahore Fort in broad daylight, after all.
That seemed to me an unnecessary lunacy: why the devil couldn’t Gardner, with all his powers as governor, have contrived to smuggle the brat out to us? Jassa had explained that the city was tight as a tanner by night, and the panches’ spies had their eye on little Dalip most of the day; the only hour to lift him was his bedtime, to be out and away before curfew, and have all night to make tracks. And we must go into the Fort to do it, for his mother wouldn’t rest unless she saw him placed under my protective wing. (They’d all avoided my eye at this; myself, I hadn’t liked the sound of it above half.) As to our coming and going at the Fort, Gardner would provide; all we need do was be in the vicinity of Runjeet’s Tomb at noon of this, the third day.
So now you see three Kabuli copers herding their beasts through the dust and bustle of the Rushnai Gate, and setting up shop in a crowded square by the Buggywalla Doudy at midday. Ahmed Shah cried our wares, asking exorbitant prices, since the last thing we wanted was to sell our transport, and I held the brutes’ heads and spat and looked ugly, praying that no one would recognise Jassa with a patch over his eye, and his hair and five-day beard dyed orange. He had no such fears, but loafed about freely with the other idlers, gossiping; as he said, there’s no concealment like open display.
I didn’t see the touch made, but presently he ambled off, and I passed the halters to Ahmed and followed across the great square by the marble Barra Deree to the palace gateway where I’d first seen Gardner months before. There were no Palace Guards on the parapet now, only green-jacketed Muslim musketeers with great curling moustachioes, watchful as vultures, who scowled down at the crowds loitering in the square. There must have been several thousand gathered, and enough Sikhs in assorted Khalsa coats among them to set my innards churning; they did nothing but stare up at the walls, muttering among themselves, but you could feel the sullen hostility hanging over the place like a cloud.
“She ain’t venturing abroad this weather, I reckon,” murmurs Jassa as I joined him in the lee of the gateway. “Yep, there’s a sizeable Republican majority right here. Our guide is right behind us, in the palki; when I give the nod, we’ll tote it through the gate.”
I glanced over my shoulder; there was a palki, with its curtains drawn, set down by the wall, but no bearers in sight. So that was how we were to get past the gate guard, who were questioning all incomers; even under my posh-teen I could feel the sweat icy on my skin, and for the twentieth time I fingered the Cooper hidden in my sash – not that six shots would buy much elbow-room if we came adrift.
All of a sudden the mutter of the crowd grew to a babble and then to a roar; they were giving back to make way for a body of marching men advancing across the square from the Hazooree gate on the town side – Sikhs almost to a man, from half the divisions of the Khalsa, some of them with bandaged wounds and powder burns on their coats, but swinging along like Guardsmen behind their golden standard which, to my amazement, was borne by the white-whiskered old rissaldar-major I’d seen at Maian Mir, and again at Jeendan’s durbar. And he was weeping, so help me, the tears running down to his beard, his eyes fixed ahead – and there behind him was Imam Shah, he of the ivory knives, bare-headed and with his arm in a sling. I was in behind Jassa double-quick, I can tell you.
The crowd were in a frenzy, waving and wailing and yelling: “Khalsa-ji! Khalsa-ji!”, showering them with petals as they marched by, but not a man so much as glanced aside; on they went, in column of fours, under the palace archway, with the mob surging behind up to the gate, taking up another cry: “See Delhi! See Delhi, heroes of the Khalsa! Wa Guru-ji – to Delhi, to London!”
“Now, who the hell are they?” whispers Jassa. “I guess maybe we got here just in time – I hope! Come on!”
We laid hold on the palki and shouldered our way through the mob to the gateway, where a Muslim subedara barred our way and stooped to question our passenger. I heard a woman’s voice, quick and indistinct, and then he had waved us on, and we carried the palki through the gate – and for all my dread at re-entering that fearsome den, I found myself remembering Stumps Harrowell, who’d been the chairman at Rugby when I was a boy, and how we’d run after him, whipping his enormous fat calves, while he could only rage helplessly between the shafts. You should see your tormentor now, Stumps, thinks I; hoist with his own palki, if you like.
Our passenger was calling directions to Jassa, who was between the front shafts, and presently we bore up in a little secluded court, and out she jumped, walking quickly to a low doorway which she unlocked, motioning us to follow. She led us up a long, dim passage, several flights of stairs, and more passages – and then I knew where we were: I had been conducted along this very way to Jeendan’s rose boudoir, and I knew that pretty little rump stirring under the tight sari …
“Mangla!” says I, but she only beckoned us on, to a little ill-furnished room where I’d never been. Only when she had the door closed did she throw off her veil, and I looked again on that lovely Kashmiri face with its slanting gazelle eyes – but there was no insolence in them now, only fear.
“What’s amiss?” snaps Jassa, scenting catastrophe.
“You saw those men of the Khalsa – the five hundred?” Her voice was steady enough, but quick with alarm. “They are a deputation from Tej Singh’s army – men of Moodkee and Ferozeshah. They have come to plead with the Rani for arms and food for the army, and for a leader to take Tej’s place, so that we may still sweep the Jangi lat back to the gates of Delhi!” The way she spat it out, you would have wondered which side she was on; even traitors still have patriotic pride, you see. “But they were not to have audience of the durbar until tomorrow – they have come before their time!”
“Well, what of it?” says I. “She can fob them off – she’s done it before!”
“They were not a beaten army then. They had not been led to defeat by Tej and Lal – or learned to mistrust Mai Jeendan herself. Now, when they come to durbar and find themselves ringed in by Muslim muskets, and call to her for aid which she cannot give them – what then? They are hungry men, and desperate.” She shrugged. “You say she has wheedled them before – aye, but she is not given to soft words these days. She fears for Dalip and herself, she hates the Khalsa for Jawaheer’s sake, and she feeds her rage on wine. She’s like to answer their mutinous clamour by blackening their faces for them – and who knows what