The Flashman Papers: The Complete 12-Book Collection

by George MacDonald Fraser

  Chapter 4

  I’ve set out on my country’s service more times than I can count, always reluctantly, and often as not in a state of alarm; but at least I’ve usually known what I was meant to be doing, and why. The Punjab business was different. As I wended my sweltering, dust-driven way to Ferozepore on the frontier, the whole thing seemed more unlikely by the mile. I was going to a country in uproar, whose mutinous army might invade us at any moment. I was to present a legal case at a court of profligate, murderous intriguers on whom, war or no war, I was also to spy – both being tasks for which I was untrained, whatever Broadfoot might say. I had been assured that the work was entirely safe – and told almost in the same breath that when all hell broke loose I had only to holler “Wisconsin!” and a genie or Broadfoot’s grandmother or the Household Brigade would emerge from a bottle and see me right. Just so. Well, I didn’t believe a word of it.

  You see, tyro though I was, I knew the political service and the kind of larks it could get up to, like not telling a fellow until it was too late. Two fearsome possibilities had occurred to my distrustful mind: either I was a decoy to distract the enemy from other agents, or I was being placed in the deep field to receive secret instructions when war started. In either case I foresaw fatal consequences, and to make matters worse, I had dark misgivings about the native assistant Broadfoot had assigned to me – you remember, the “chota-wallah” who was to carry my green bag.

  His name was Jassa, and he wasn’t chota. I had envisaged the usual fat babu or skinny clerk, but Jassa was a pock-marked, barrel-chested villain, complete with hairy poshteen,a skull-cap, and Khyber knife – just the man you’d choose, as a rule, to see you through rough country, but I was leery of this one from the start. For one thing, he pretended to be a Baloochi dervish, and wasn’t – I put him down for Afghan chi-chi,b for he was grey-eyed, had no greater a gap between his first and second toes than I did, and possessed something rare among Europeans at that time, let alone natives – a vaccination mark. I spotted it at Ferozepore when he was washing at the tank, but didn’t let on; he was from Broadfoot’s stable, after all, and plainly knew his business, which was to act as orderly, guide, shield-on-shoulder, and general adviser on country matters. Still, I didn’t trust him above half.

  Ferozepore was the last outpost of British India then, a beastly hole not much better than a village, beyond which lay the broad brown flood of the Sutlej – and then the hot plain of the Punjab. We had just built a barracks for our three battalions, one British and two Native Infantry, who garrisoned the place, God help them, for it was hotter than hell’s pavement; you boiled when it rained, and baked when it didn’t. In my civilian role, I didn’t call on Littler, who commanded, but put up with Peter Nicolson, Broadfoot’s local Assistant. He was suffering for his country, that one, dried out and hollow-cheeked with the worst job in India – nursemaiding the frontier, finding shelter for the endless stream of refugees from the Punjab, sniffing out the trouble-makers sent to seduce our sepoys and disaffect the zamindars,c chasing raiding parties, disarming badmashes,d ruling a district, and keeping the Queen’s peace – all this, mind you, without provoking a hostile power which was spoiling for trouble.

  “It can’t last,” says he cheerfully – and I wondered how long he could, with that impossible task and the mercury at 107. “They’re just waitin’ for an excuse, an’ if I don’t give ’em one – why, they’ll roll over the river as soon as the cold weather comes, horse, foot an’ guns, you’ll see. We ought to go in an’ smash ’em now, while they’re in two minds an’ gettin’ over the cholera – five thousand of the Khalsa have died in Lahore, but it’s past its worst.”

  He was seeing me down to the ferry at daybreak; when I mentioned the great assembly of our troops I’d seen above Meerut he laughed and pointed back to the cantonment, where the 62nd were drilling, the red and buff figures like dolls in the heat haze.

  “Never mind what’s on the Grand Trunk,” says he. “That’s what’s here, my boy – seven thousand men, one-third British, an’ only light guns. Up there,” he pointed north, “is the Khalsa – one hundred thousand of the finest native army in Asia, with heavy guns. They’re two days’ march away. Our nearest reinforcements are Gilbert’s ten thousand at Umballa, a week’s march away, and Wheeler’s five thousand at Ludhiana – only five days’ march. Strong on mathematics, are you?”

  I’d heard vague talk in Simla, as you know, about our weakness on the frontier, but it’s different when you’re on the spot, and hear the figures. “But why –?” I was beginning, and Nicolson chuckled and shook his head.

  “– doesn’t Gough reinforce now?” he mimicked me. “Because it would provoke Lahore – my goodness, it provokes Lahore if one of our sepoys walks north to the latrines! I hear they’re goin’ to demand that we withdraw even the troops we have up here now – perhaps that’ll start the war, even if your Soochet legacy doesn’t.” He knew about that, and had twitted me about how I’d be languishing at the feet of “the fair sultana” while honest soldiers like him were chasing infiltrators along the river.

  “Mind you, she may be out of office by the time you get there. There’s talk that Prince Peshora – he’s another of old Runjeet’s by-blows – is goin’ to have a try for the throne; they say he has most of the Khalsa on his side. What price a palace revolution, what? Why, if I were you, I’d apply for the job!”

  There was a great crowd of refugees camped about the ghate on the water’s edge, and at the sight of Nicolson they set up a howl and swarmed round him, women mostly and fly-blown chicosf clamouring with hands stretched up. His orderlies pushed them back to let us through. “A few hundred more mouths to feed,” sighs Nicolson, “an’ they ain’t even ours. Easy there, havildar!g Oh, chubbarao,h you noisy heathen – Papa’ll bring your bread and milk in a moment! God knows how we’re goin’ to house ’em, though – I’ve screwed as much canvas out of stores as the Q.M. will bear, I think.”

  The ferry itself was a huge barge crewed by native boatmen, but with a light gun in the bows, manned by two sepoys. “That’s another provocation,” says Nicolson. “We’ve sixty of these tubs on the river, an’ the Sikhs suspect we mean to use ’em as a bridge for invasion. You never know, one o’ these days … Ah, see yonder!” He shaded his eyes, pointing with his crop across the swollen river; the mist was hanging on the far shore, but through it I could see a party of horsemen waiting, arms gleaming in the sun.

  “There’s your escort, my boy! The vakil sent word they was coming to see you into Lahore in style. Nothin’ too good for an envoy with the scent of cash about him, eh? Well, good luck to you!” As we pushed off he waved and shouted: “It’ll all come out right, you’ll see!”

  I don’t know why I remember those words, or the sight of him with that great mob of niggers chattering about him while his orderlies cuffed and pushed them up to the camp where they’d be fed and looked after; he was for all the world like a prepostor marshalling the fags, laughing and swearing by turns, with a chico perched on his shoulder – I’d not have touched the verminous imp for a pension. He was a kindly, cheery ass, working twenty hours a day, minding his frontier. Four months later he got his reward: a bullet. I wonder if anyone else remembers him?

  The last time I’d crossed the Sutlej had been four years earlier, where there was a British army ahead, and we had posts all the way to Kabul. Now there were no friends before me, and no one to turn to except the Khyberie thug Jassa and our gaggle of bearers – they were there chiefly because Broadfoot had said I should enter Lahore in a jampan, to impress the Sikhs with my consequence. Thanks, George, but I felt damned unimportant as I surveyed my waiting escort (or captors?), and Jassa did nothing to raise my spirits.

  “Gorracharra,” grunts he, and spat. “Irregular cavalry – it is an insult to thee, husoor.i These should have been men of the palace, pukka cavalry. They seek to put shame on us, the Hindoo swine!”

  I told him pretty sharp to mind his manners, but I saw what he
meant. They were typical native irregulars, splendid cavalry undoubtedly, but dressed and armed any old how, with lances, bows, tulwars,j and ancient firearms, some in mail coats and helmets, others bare-legged, and all grinning most familiarly. Not what you’d call a guard of honour – yet that’s what they were, as I learned when their officer, a handsome young Sikh in a splendid rigout of yellow silk, addressed me by name – and by fame.

  “Sardul Singh, at your service, Flashman bahadur,”k cries he, teeth flashing through his beard. “I was by the Turksalee Gate when you came down from Jallalabad, and all men came to see the Afghan Kush.” So much for Broadfoot’s notion that shaving my whiskers would help me to pass unnoticed – mind you, it was famous to hear myself described as “the slayer of Afghans”, if quite undeserved. “When we heard you were coming with the book and not the sword – may it be an omen of peace for our peoples – I sought command of your escort – and these are volunteers.” He indicated his motley squadron. “Men of the Sirkarl in their time. A fitter escort for Bloody Lance than Khalsa cavalry.”

  Well, this was altogether grand, so I thanked him, raised my civilian kepi to his grinning bandits, saying “Salaam, bhai’”,m which pleased them no end. I took the first chance to remind Jassa how wrong he’d been, but the curmudgeon only grunted: “The Sikh speaks, the cobra spits – who grows fat on the difference?” There’s no pleasing some folk.

  Between the Sutlej and Lahore lie fifty of the hottest, flattest, scrubbiest miles on earth, and I supposed we’d cover them in a long day’s ride, but Sardul said we should lie overnight at a serain a few miles from the city: there was something he wanted me to see. So we did, and after supper he took me through a copse to the loveliest place I ever saw in India – there, all unexpected after the heat and dust of the plain, was a great garden, with little palaces and pavilions among the trees, all hung with coloured lanterns in the warm dusk; streams meandered among the lawns and flower-beds, the air was fragrant with night-blooms, soft music sounded from some hidden place, and everywhere couples were strolling hand in hand or deep in lovers’ talk under the boughs. The Chinese Summer Palace, where I walked years later, was altogether grander, I suppose, but there was a magic about that Indian garden that I can’t describe – you could call it perfect peace, with its gentle airs rustling the leaves and the lights winking in the twilight; it was the kind of spot where Scheherazade might have told her unending stories; even its name sounds like a caress: Shalamar.16

  But this wasn’t the sight that Sardul wanted me to see – that was something unimaginably different, and we viewed it next morning. We left the serai at dawn, but instead of riding towards Lahore, which was in full view in the distance, we went a couple of miles out of our way towards the great plain of Maian Mir where, Sardul assured me mysteriously, the true wonder of the Punjab would be shown to me; knowing the Oriental mind, I could guess it was something designed to strike awe in the visiting foreigner – well, it did all of that. We heard it long before we saw it, the flat crash of artillery at first, and then a great confused rumble of sound which resolved itself into the squealing of elephants, the high bray of trumpets, the rhythm of drums and martial music, and the thunder of a thousand hooves making the ground tremble beneath us. I knew what it was before we rode out of the trees and halted on a bundo to view it in breathtaking panorama: the pride of the Punjab and the dread of peaceful India: the famous Khalsa.

  Now, I’ve taken note of a few heathen armies in my time. The Heavenly Host of Tai’ping was bigger, the black tide of Cetewayo’s legions sweeping into Little Hand was surely more terrifying, and there’s a special place in my nightmares for that vast forest of tipis, five miles wide, that I looked down on from the bluffs over Little Bighorn – but for pure military might I’ve seen nothing outside Europe (and dam’ little inside) to match that great disciplined array of men and beasts and metal on Maian Mir. As far as you could see, among the endless lines of tents and waving standards, the broad maidanp was alive with foot battalions at drill, horse regiments at field exercise, and guns at practice – and they were all uniformed and in perfect order, that was the shocking thing. Black, brown, and yellow armies in those days, you see, might be as brave as any, but they didn’t have centuries of drill and tactical movement drummed into ’em, not even the Zulus, or Ranavalona’s Hova guardsmen. That was the thing about the Khalsa: it was Aldershot in turbans. It was an army.17

  That’s worth bearing in mind when you hear some smart alec holding forth about our imperial wars being one-sided massacres of poor club-waving heathen mown down by Gatlings. Oh, it happened, at Ulundi and Washita and Omdurman – but more often than not the Snider and Martini and Brown Bess were facing odds of ten to one against in country where shrapnel and rapid fire don’t count for much; your savage with his blowpipe or bow or jezzailq behind a rock has a deuce of an advantage: it’s his rock, you see. Anyway, our detractors never mention armies like the Khalsa, every bit as well-armed and equipped as we were. So how did we hold India? You’ll see presently.

  That morning on Maian Mir the confidence I’d felt, viewing our forces on the Grand Trunk, vanished like Punjabi mist. I thought of Littler’s puny seven thousand isolated at Ferozepore, our other troops scattered, waiting to be eaten piecemeal – by this juggernaut, a hundred thousand strong. A score of vivid images stay in my mind: a regiment of Sikh lancers wheeling at the charge in perfect dressing, the glittering points falling and rising as one; a battalion of Jat infantry with moustaches like buffalo horns, white figures with black crossbelts, moving like clockwork as they performed “at the halt on the left form companies”; Dogra light infantry advancing in skirmishing order, the blue turbans suddenly closing in immaculate line, the bayonet points ripping into the sandbags to a savage yell of “Khalsa-ji!”; heavy guns being dragged through swirling dust by trumpeting elephant teams while the gunners trimmed their fuses, the cases being thrust home, the deafening roar of the salvo – and damme! if those shells didn’t burst a mile away in perfect unison, all above ground. Even the sight of the light guns cutting their curtain targets to shreds with grape wasn’t as sickening as the precision of the heavy batteries. They were as good as Royal Artillery – aye, and with bigger shot.

  They made all their own material, too, from Brown Bess to howitzers, in the Lahore foundry, from our regulation patterns. Only one fault could I find with their gunners and infantry: their drill was perfect, but slow. Their cavalry … well, it was fit to ride over Napoleon.

  Sardul took good care to let me see all this, pour encourager les feringhees. We tiffened with some of their senior men, all courteous to a fault, and not a word about the likelihood that our armies would be at each other’s throats by Christmas – the Sikhs are damned good form, you know. There wasn’t a European mercenary in sight, by the way; having built an army, they’d retired for the best of reasons: disgust at the state of the country, and reluctance to find themselves fighting John Company.

  I saw another side to the Khalsa when we set out for Lahore after noon, Flashy now riding in state in his jampan, white topper and fly-whisk at the high port, with Jassa kicking the bearers’ arses to give tone to our progress. We were swaying along in fine style past the headquarters tents when we became aware of a crowd of soldiery gathered before the main pavilion, listening to some upper rojerr on a dais. Sardul reined in to listen, and when I asked Jassa what this might be he growled and spat. “The panchayats! If old Runjeet had seen the day, he’d have cut his beard!”

  So these were the Khalsa’s notorious military committees, of whom we’d heard so much. You see, while their field discipline was perfect, Khalsa policy was determined by the panches, where Jack Jawan was as good as his master, and all went by democratic vote – no way to run an army, I agreed with Jassa; small wonder they hadn’t crossed the Sutlej yet. They were an astonishing mixture: bare-legged sepoys, officers in red silk, fierce-eyed Akalis18 in peaked blue turbans and gold beard-nets, a portly old rissaldar-majors with white whiskers a f
oot wide, irregular sowars in lobster-tail helmets, Dogra musketeers in green, Pathans with long camel guns – there seemed to be every rank, caste, and race crowding round the speaker, a splendid Sikh, six and a half feet tall in cloth of silver, bellowing to make himself heard.

  “All that we heard from Attock is true! Young Peshora is dead, and Kashmiri Singh with him, taken in sleep, after the hunting, by Chuttur Singh and Futteh Khan –”

  “Tell us what we don’t know!” bawls a heckler, and the big fellow raised his arms to still the yells of agreement.

  “You don’t know the manner of it – the shame and black treachery! Imam Shah was in Attock Fort – let him tell you.”

  A burly bargee in a mail jacket, with a bandolier of ivory-hilted knives round his hips, jumps on the dais, and they fell silent.

  “It was foully done!” croaks he. “Peshora Singh knew it was his time, for they had him in irons, and bore him before the jackal, Chuttur Singh. Peshora looked him in the eye, and called for a sword. ‘Let me die like a soldier,’ says he, but Chuttur would not look on him, but wagged his head and made soft excuses. Again the young hawk cried for a sword. ‘You are thousands, I am alone – there can be but one end, so let it be straight!’ Chuttur sighed, and whined, and turned away, waving his hands. ‘Straight, coward!’ cries Peshora, but they bore him away. All this I saw. They took him to the Kolboorj dungeon, and choked him like a thief with his chains, and cast him in the river. This I did not see. I was told. God wither my tongue if I lie.”

  Peshora Singh had been the form horse in the throne stakes, according to Nicolson. Well, that’s politics for you. I wondered if this would mean a change of government, for Peshora had been the Khalsa’s idol, and while his death seemed to be old news, the manner of it seemed to put them in a great taking. They were all yelling at once, and the tall Sikh had to bellow again.