The Flashman Papers: The Complete 12-Book Collection

by George MacDonald Fraser

  This was little enough, and we had no way of telling how true it was. The big jezzailchi was the most talkative, but mostly he would only recall how badly the British had been cut up on the march from Kabul, so that not a single man had been left alive, and how there would soon be no feringhees left in Afghanistan at all. Akbar Khan was advancing on Jallalabad, he said, and would put the whole garrison to the sword, and then they would sweep down through the Khyber and drive us out of India in a great jehad that would establish the True Faith from Peshawar to the sea. And so on, all bloody wind and water, as I told Hudson, but he considered it very thoughtfully and said he didn’t know how long Sale could hold out in Jallalabad if they laid proper siege to it.

  I stared at this, an ordinary trooper passing opinion on a general’s business.

  “What do you know about it?” says I.

  “Not much, sir,” says he. “But with respect to General Elphinstone, I’m powerful glad it’s General Sale that’s laying in Jallalabad and not him.”

  “Is that so, and be damned to you,” says I. “And what’s your opinion of General Elphinstone, if you please?”

  “I’d rather not say, sir,” says he. And then he looked at me with those grey eyes. “He wasn’t with the 44th at Gandamack, was he, sir? Nor a lot of the officers wasn’t. Where were they, sir?”

  “How should I know? And what concern is that of yours?”

  He sat looking down for a moment. “None at all, sir,” says he at last. “Beg pardon for asking.”

  “I should damned well think so,” says I. “Anyway, whatever you think of Elphy Bey, you can rely on General Sale to give Akbar the right about turn if he shows his nose at Jallalabad. And I wish to God we were there, too, and away from this hellish hole, and these stinking Afridis. Whether it’s ransom or not, they don’t mean us any good, I can tell you.” I didn’t think much of Hudson’s questions about Gandamack and Elphy at the time; if I had done I would have been as much amused as angry, for it was like a foreign language to me then. But I understand it now, although half our modern generals don’t. They think their men are a different species still – fortunately a lot of ’em are, but not in the way the generals think.

  Well, another week went by in that infernal cell, and both Hudson and I were pretty foul by now and well bearded, for they gave us nothing to wash or shave with. My anxieties diminished a little, as they will when nothing happens, but it was damned boring with nothing to do but talk to Hudson, for we had little in common except horses. He didn’t even seem interested in women. We talked occasionally of escape, but there was little chance of that, for there was no way out except through the door, which stood at the top of a narrow flight of steps, and when the Afridis brought our food one of them always stood at the head of them covering us with a huge blunderbuss. I wasn’t in any great hurry to risk a peppering from it, and when Hudson talked of trying a rush I ordered him to drop it. Where would we have got to afterwards, anyway? We didn’t even know where we were, except that it couldn’t be far to the Kabul road. But it wasn’t worth the risk, I said – if! had known what was in store for us I’d have chanced that blunderbuss and a hundred like it, but I didn’t. God, I’ll never forget it. Never.

  It was late one afternoon, and we were lying on the straw dozing, when we heard the clatter of hooves at the gate outside, and a jumble of voices approaching the door of the cell. Hudson jumped up, and I came up on my elbow, my heart in my mouth, wondering who it might be. It might be a messenger bringing news of ransom – for I believed the Afridis must be trying that game – and then the bolts scraped back and the door burst open, and a tall man strode in to the head of the steps. I couldn’t see his face at first, but then an Afridi bustled past him with a flaring torch which he stuck in a crevice in the wall, and its light fell on the newcomer’s face. If it had been the Devil in person I’d have been better pleased, for it was a face I had seen in nightmares, and I couldn’t believe it was true, the face of Gul Shah.

  His eye lit on me, and he shouted with joy and clapped his hands. I believe I cried out in horror, and scrambled back against the wall.

  “Flashman!” he cried, and came half down the steps like a big cat, glaring at me with a hellish grin. “Now, God is very good. When I heard the news I could not believe it, but it is true. And it was just by chance – aye, by the merest chance, that word reached me you were taken.” He sucked in his breath, never taking his glittering eyes from me.

  I couldn’t speak; the man struck me dumb with cold terror. Then he laughed again, and the hairs rose on my neck at the sound of it.

  “And here there is no Akbar Khan to be importunate,” says he. He signed to the Afridis and pointed at Hudson. “Take that one away above and watch him.” And as two of them rushed down on Hudson and dragged him struggling up the steps, Gul Shah came down into the room and with his whip struck the hanging shackles a blow that set them rattling. “Set him” – and he points at me – “here. We have much to talk about.”

  I cried out as they flung themselves on me, and struggled helplessly, but they got my arms over my head and set a shackle on each wrist, so that I was strung up like a rabbit on a poulterer’s stall. Then Gul dismissed them and came to stand in front of me, tapping his boot with his whip and gloating over me.

  “The wolf comes once to the trap,” says he at last. “But you have come twice. I swear by God you will not wriggle out of it this time. You cheated me once in Kabul, by a miracle, and killed my dwarf by foul play. Not again, Flashman. And I am glad – aye, glad it fell out so, for here I have time to deal with you at my leisure, you filthy dog!” And with a snarl he struck me backhanded across the face.

  The blow loosened my tongue, for I cried out:

  “Don’t, for God’s sake! What have I done? Didn’t I pay for it with your bloody snakes?”

  “Pay?” sneers he. “You haven’t begun to pay. Do you want to know how you will pay, Flashman?”

  I didn’t, so I didn’t answer, and he turned and shouted something towards the door. It opened, and someone came in, standing in the shadows.

  “It was my great regret, last time, that I must be so hurried in disposing of you,” says Gul Shah. “I think I told you then, did I not, that I would have wished the woman you defiled to share in your departure? By great good fortune I was at Mogala when the word of your capture came, so I have been able to repair the omission. Come,” says he to the figure at the top of the steps, and the woman Narreeman advanced slowly into the light.

  I knew it was she, although she was cloaked from head to foot and had the lower half of her face shrouded in a flimsy veil: I remembered the eyes, like a snake’s, that had glared up at me the night I took her in Mogala. They were staring at me again, and I found them more terrifying than all Gul’s threats. She didn’t make a sound, but glided down the steps to his side.

  “You do not greet the lady?” says Gul. “You will, you will. But of course, she is a mere slut of a dancing girl, although she is the wife of a prince of the Gilzai!” He spat the words into my face.

  “Wife?” I croaked. “I never knew … believe me, sir, I never knew. If I …”

  “It was not so then,” says Gul. “It is so now – aye, though she has been fouled by a beast like you. She is my wife and my woman none the less. It only remains to wipe out the dishonour.”

  “Oh, Christ, please listen to me,” says I. “I swear I meant no harm … how was I to know she was precious to you? I didn’t mean to harm her, I swear I didn’t! I’ll do anything, anything you wish, pay anything you like …”

  Gul leered at me, nodding, while the woman’s basilisk eyes stared at me. “You will pay indeed. No doubt you have heard that our Afghan women are delicately skilled in collecting payment? I see from your face that you have. Narreeman is very eager to test that skill. She has vivid recollections of a night at Mogala; vivid recollections of your pride …” He leaned forward till his face was almost touching mine. “Lest she forget it, she wishes to take certain t
hings from you, very slowly and cunningly, for a remembrance. Is it not just? You had your pleasure from her pain; she will have hers from yours. It will take much longer, and be infinitely more artistic … a woman’s touch.” He laughed. “That will be for a beginning.”

  I didn’t believe it; it was impossible, outrageous, horrible; it was enough to strike me mad just listening to it.

  “You can’t!” I shrieked. “No, no, no, you can’t! Please, please, don’t let her touch me! It was a mistake! I didn’t know, I didn’t mean to hurt her!” I yelled and pleaded with him, and he crowed with delight and mocked me, while she never moved a muscle, but still stared into my face.

  “This will be better than I had hoped,” says he. “Afterwards, we may have you flayed, or perhaps roasted over hot embers. Or we may take out your eyes and remove your fingers and toes, and set you to some slave-work in Mogala. Yes, that will be best, for you can pray daily for death and never find it. Is the price too high for your night’s pleasure, Flashman?”

  I was trying to close my ears to this horror, trying not to believe it, and babbling to him to spare me. He listened, grinning, and then turned to the woman and said:

  “But business before pleasure. My dove, we will let him think of the joyous reunion that you two will have – let him wait for – how long? He must wonder about that, I think. In the meantime, there is a more urgent matter.” He turned back to me. “It will not abate your suffering in the slightest if you tell me what I wish to know; but I think you will tell me, anyway. Since your pathetic and cowardly army was slaughtered in the passes, the Sirdar’s army has advanced towards Jallalabad. But we have no word of Nott and his troops at Kandahar. It is suggested that they have orders – to march on Kabul? On Jallalabad? We require to know. Well?”

  It took a moment for me to clear my mind of the hellish pictures he had put there, and understand his question.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I swear to God I don’t know.”

  “Liar,” said Gul Shah. “You were an aide to Elfistan; you must know.”

  “I don’t! I swear I don’t!” I shouted. “I can’t tell you what I don’t know, can I?”

  “I am sure you can,” says he, and motioning Narreeman aside he flung off his poshteen and stood in his shirt and pyjamy trousers, skull-cap on head and whip in hand. He reached out and wrenched my shirt from my back.

  I screamed as he swung the whip, and leaped as it struck me. God, I never knew such pain; it was like a fiery razor. He laughed and swung again and again. It was unbearable, searing bars of burning agony across my shoulders, my head swam and I shrieked and tried to hurl myself away, but the chains held me and the whip seemed to be striking into my very vitals.

  “Stop!” I remember shrieking, and over and over again. “Stop!”

  He stepped back, grinning, but all I could do was mouth and mumble at him that I knew nothing. He lifted the whip again; I couldn’t face it.

  “No!” I screamed. “Not me! Hudson knows! The sergeant who was with me – I’m sure he knows! He told me he knew!” It was all I could think of to stop that hellish lashing.

  “The havildar knows, but not the officer?” says Gul. “No, Flashman, not even in the British army. I think you are lying.” And the fiend set about me again, until I must have fainted from the pain, for when I came to my senses, with my back raging like a furnace, he was picking his robe from the floor.

  “You have convinced me,” says he, sneering. “Such a coward as I know you to be would have told me all he knew at the first stroke. You are not brave, Flashman. But you will be even less brave soon.”

  He signed to Narreeman, and she followed him up the steps. At the door he paused to mock me again.

  “Think on what I have promised you,” says he. “I hope you will not go mad too soon after we begin.”

  The door slammed shut, and I was left sagging in my chains, sobbing and retching. But the pain on my back was as nothing to the terror in my mind. It wasn’t possible, I kept saying, they can’t do it … but I knew they would. For some awful reason, which I cannot define even now, a recollection came to me of how I had tortured others – oh, puny, feeble little tortures like roasting fags at school; I babbled aloud how sorry I was for tormenting them, and prayed that I might be spared, and remembered how old Arnold had once said in a sermon: “Call on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.”

  God, how I called; I roared like a bull calf, and got nothing back, not even echoes. I would do it again, too, in the same position, for all that I don’t believe in God and never have. But I blubbered like an infant, calling on Christ to save me, swearing to reform and crying gentle Jesus meek and mild over and over again. It’s a great thing, prayer. Nobody answers, but at least it stops you from thinking.

  Suddenly I was aware of people moving into the cell, and shrieked in fear, closing my eyes, but no one touched me, and when I opened them there was Hudson again, chained up beside me with his arms in the air, staring at me in horror.

  “My God, sir,” says he, “what have the devils done to you?”

  “They’re torturing me to death!” I roared. “Oh, dear saviour!” And I must have babbled on, for when I stopped he was praying, too, the Lord’s Prayer, I think, very quietly to himself. We were the holiest jail in Afghanistan that night.

  There was no question of sleep; even if my mind had not been full of the horrors ahead, I could not have rested with my arms fettered wide above my head. Every time I sagged the rusty manacles tore cruelly at my wrists, and I would have to right myself with my legs aching from standing. My back was smarting, and I moaned a good deal; Hudson did his best to cheer me up with the kind of drivel about not being done yet and keeping one’s head up which is supposed to raise the spirits in time of trouble – it has never done a damned thing for mine. All I could think of was that woman’s hating eyes coming closer, and Gul smiling savagely behind her, and the knife pricking my skin and then slicing – oh, Jesus, I couldn’t bear it, I would go raving mad. I said so, at the top of my voice, and Hudson says:

  “Come on, sir, we ain’t dead yet.”

  “You bloody idiot!” I yelled at him. “What do you know, you clod? They aren’t going to cut your bloody pecker off! I tell you I’ll have to die first! I must!”

  “They haven’t done it yet, sir,” says he. “Nor they won’t. While I was up yonder I see that half them Afridis have gone off – to join up wi’ the others at Jallalabad, I reckon – an’ there ain’t above half a dozen left, besides your friend and the woman. If I can just …”

  I didn’t heed him; I was too done up to think of anything except what they would do to me – when? The night wore away, and except for one visit at noon next day, when the jezzailchi came to give us some water and food, no one came near us before evening. They left us in our chains, hanging like stuck pigs, and my legs seemed to be on fire one minute and numb the next. I heard Hudson muttering to himself from time to time, as though he was working at something, but I never minded; then, just when the light was beginning to fade, I heard him gasp with pain, and exclaim: “Done it, by God!”

  I turned to look, and my heart bounded like a stag. He was standing with only his left arm still up in the shackle; the right one, bloody to the elbow, was hanging at his side.

  He shook his head, fiercely, and I was silent. He worked his right hand and arm for a moment, and then reached up to the other shackle; the wrist-pieces were kept apart by a bar, but the fastening of the manacles was just a simple bolt. He worked at it for a moment, and it fell open. He was free.

  He came over to me, an ear cocked towards the door.

  “If I let you loose, sir, can you stand?”

  I didn’t know if I could, but I nodded, and two minutes later I was crouched on the floor, groaning with the pain in my shoulders and legs that had been cramped in one position so long. He massaged my joints, and swore softly over the weals that Gul Shah’s whip had left.

  “Filthy nigger bastard,” says he.
“Look’ee, sir, we’ve got to look sharp they don’t take us unawares. When they come in we’ve got to be standing up, with the chains on our wrists, pretendin’ we’re still trussed up, like.”

  “What then?” says I.

  “Why, sir, they’ll think we’re helpless, won’t they? We can take ’em by surprise.”

  “Much good that’ll do,” says I. “You say there’s half a dozen apart from Gul Shah.”

  “They won’t all come,” says he. “For God’s sake, sir, it’s our only hope.”

  I didn’t think it was much of one, and said so. Hudson said, well, it was better than being sliced up by that Afghan tart, wasn’t it, begging my pardon, sir, and I couldn’t disagree. But I guessed we would only get slaughtered for our pains, at best.

  “Well,” says he, “we can make a bloody good fight of it. We can die like Englishmen, ’stead of like dogs.”

  “What difference does it make whether you die like an Englishman or like a bloody Eskimo?” says I, and he just stared at me and then went on chafing my arms. Pretty soon I could stand and move as well as ever, but we took care to stay close by the chains, and it was as well we did. Suddenly there was a shuffling at the door, and we barely had time to take our positions, hands up on the shackles, when it was thrown back.

  “Leave it to me, sir,” whispered Hudson, and then drooped in his fetters. I did the same, letting my head hang but watching the door out of the corner of my eye.

  There were three of them, and my heart sank. First came Gul Shah, with the big jezzailchi carrying a torch, and behind was the smaller figure of Narreeman. All my terrors came rushing back as they descended the steps.

  “It is time, Flashman,” says Gul Shah, sticking his sneering face up to mine. “Wake up, you dog, and prepare for your last love play.” And he laughed and struck me across the face. I staggered, but held tight to the chains. Hudson never moved a muscle.

  “Now, my precious,” says Gul to Narreeman. “He is here, and he is yours.” She came forward to his side, and the big jezzailchi, having placed the torch, came on her other side, grinning like a satyr. He stood about a yard in front of Hudson, but his eyes were fixed on me.