Presently the going was better, between high tenements and warehouses, and only a few night-lurkers hurrying by. Near the south wall the streets were wider, with decent houses set back behind high walls; a couple of palkis went by, swaying between their bearers, and there was even a chowkidarh patrolling with his lantern and staff. But I still felt damnably alone, with the squalid, hostile warren between me and home – that was how I now thought of the Fort which I’d approached with such alarm a couple of months ago. Very adaptable, we funks are.
The French Soldiers’ cabaret was close to the Buttee Gate, and if the Frog mercenaries whose crude portraits adorned its walls could have seen it, they’d have sought redress at law. They squinted out of their frames on a great, noisy, reek-filled chamber – Ventura, Allard, Court, and even my old chum Avitabile, looking like the Italian bandit he was with his tasselled cap and spiky moustachioes. I’d settle for you alongside this minute, thinks I, as I surveyed the company: villainous two-rupee bravos, painted harpies who should have been perched in trees, a seedy flute-and-tom-tom band accompanying a couple of gyrating nautches whom you wouldn’t have touched with a long pole, and Sikh brandy fit to corrode a bucket. I’ll never say a word against Boodle’s again, says I to myself; at least there you don’t have to sit with your back to the wall.
I found a stool between two beauties who’d evidently been sleeping in a camel stable, bought a glass of arrack that I took care not to drink, growled curtly when addressed, and sat like a good little political, using the signals – thumb between the first two fingers and scratching my right armpit from time to time. Half the clientele were clawing themselves in 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 admirati
on 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 in disbelief. He fitted the description in Broadfoot’s packets, even to the gout. But Goolab Singh, once pretender to the throne, the rebel who’d made himself king in Kashmir in defiance of the durbar, should have been “behind a rock up Jumoo way, with fifty thousand hillmen”, as George had put it. He must be the most wanted man in Lahore this minute, for while there had been some in the Khalsa who’d nominated him for Wazir, Jeendan had since exposed him as a British ally – which was fine by me just then, but didn’t explain his presence here.
“Let that explain it,” says he, as Bibi Kalil emerged from the low door. “This is her house, and the pretty widow has admirers –” he pointed downwards – “men high in the Khalsa panches. She makes them welcome, they talk freely, and I, lying close to Lahore in these days of trouble, hear it all from her. So when they hatch a plot to take you – why, here am I, gout and all, to prove my loyalty to the Sirkar by rescuing its servant –”
“What the hell do they want with me?”
“To talk with you – over a slow fire, I believe … well, little jujube, what of Donkal?”
“No sign of him – Goolab, there are men in the streets, and others in the garden!” Her voice shook, and her eyes were wide in alarm, but she wasn’t one of your vapouring pieces. “I heard Imam Shah call for the wench who brought you,” she adds to me.
“Aye, well, there’s an end to waiting,” says Goolab cheerfully. “She’ll tell them you entered, they’ll beat the bushes – then they’ll bethink them of upstairs …” He cocked an ear as distant voices came from the garden below. “Maka Khan grows impatient. Have your revolving gun ready, Englishman!”
Bibi Kalil gave a little gasp, and pressed close to me, trembling, but I was in no case to enjoy it; she put an arm round me, and I clasped her instinctively – for reassurance, not lust, I can tell you. The questions that had been racing pell-mell through my mind – how I’d come to be trapped in this gilded hell-hole, how those Khalsa swine had known I was coming, why Goolab and this palpitating armful were on hand to aid me – mattered nothing beside those terrible words “slow fire”, uttered almost idly by this crazy old bandit who, with fifty thousand hillmen at his call, had apparently brought only one who was farting about in the dark … and then my blood froze and I clutched the widow for support, as footsteps sounded on the outside stair.
She clung in return, Goolab’s hand dropped to his hilt, and we waited there still as death, until a sharp knock fell on the door. A moment’s pause, and then a man’s voice:
“Lady? Are you there? My lady?”
She turned those fine eyes on me, helplessly, and then Goolab stepped close, his lips at her ear. “Who is he? D’ye know him?”
Her reply was a faint perfumed breath. “Sefreen Singh. Aide to Maka Khan.”
“An admirer?” The old devil was bright with mischief, even now, and it was a moment before she shrugged and whispered: “From a distance.”
Another knock. “Lady?”
“Ask him what he wants,” whispers Goolab.
I felt her tremble, but she did it well, calling out in a sleepy voice: “Who is it?”
“Sefreen Singh, my lady.” A pause. “Are you … pardon me … are you alone?”
She waited and then called: “I’m asleep … what was that? Of course I’m alone …” Goolab grimaced over her head at me – he was enjoying this, rot him!
“A thousand pardons, lady.” The voice was all apology. “I have orders to search. There is a badmash about. If you will please to open …”
“Well, he’s not here,” she was beginning, but Goolab was at her ear again:
“We must let him in! But first … beguile him.” He winked. “If he is to enter with a weapon ready, let it not be a steel one.”
She glared, but nodded, gave me a melting glance as she disengaged her right tit from my unwitting grasp, and called out impatiently. “Oh, very well … a moment …”
Goolab drew his sabre noiselessly, passed it to me, and took the short sword from my belt, pricking his thumb on the point. “He’s mine. If I miss … take off his head.” He limped swiftly to the latch side of the door, motioned me to stand behind it, and nodded to the widow. She set her hand on the bolt and spoke softly:
“Sefreen Singh … are you alone?” Honey wouldn’t have melted.
“Why … why, yes, my lady!”
“You’re sure?” She gave a little murmuring laugh. “In that case … if you promise to stay a while … you may come in …”
She slipped the bolt, opened the door, and turned away, glancing over her shoulder, and in steps Barnacle Bill, not believing his luck, to receive Goolab’s updriven point beneath his bearded chin before he’d gone a step. One savage, expert thrust into the brain – he went down without a sound, Goolab breaking his fall, and when I turned from fumbling the door to with a shaking hand the old ruffian was wiping his blade on the dead man’s shirt.
“Eighty-two,” chuckles he, and Bibi Kalil gave a long, shuddering sigh between clenched teeth; her eyes were shining with excitement. Aye, well, that’s India for you.
“Now, away!” snaps Goolab. “This buys us moments, no more! Do you show him the way down, chabeli! I’ll bide here until you’re at the street door –”
“Why?” cries the widow.
“Oh, to beguile my leisure!” snarls he. “In case others come knocking, you witless heifer! Can I keep up, with my foot afire? But I can hold a door – aye, or parley, perchance! They may think twice before putting steel into Goolab Singh!” He thrust us away. “Out with him, woman, so that he can sing the praise of this night’s work to Hardinge sahib! Go! Never fear, I’ll follow!”
But first she must embrace him, and he laughed and kissed her, saying that she was a good-sister to be proud of. Then she had me by the hand, and we were through the low door and down stone steps to a passage which ended in an iron grille. Beyond it the alley lay dark and deserted, but she shrank back, gasping that we must wait. Between the danger behind and the unknown perils out yonder, I was scared neutral, and in a moment Goolab came hobbling down, yelping at each step.
“I heard them on the outer stair! God’s love, if this doesn’t win me the White Queen’s seal on Kashmir, there’s no gratitude left! What, an empty street! Well, empty or not, we cannot wait! My sabre, Flashman – we stout bellies need a full sweep! Now, harken – b
ack to back if we must, but if it grows hot, each for himself!”
“I’ll not leave you, my lord!” cries Bibi Kalil.
“You’ll do as I bid, insolence! At all costs, he must win clear, or our labour’s wasted! Now – one either side of me, and open the gate, softly …”
“But Donkal is not come!” wails the widow.
“Donkal be damned! We have five feet among us, but we’ll lack three heads if we linger! Come on!”
We stumbled into the alley, the widow and I supporting his ponderous weight, and blundered ahead into the dark, myself in blind panic, Bibi Kalil whimpering softly, and the Lord of Kashmir gasping blasphemies and encouragement – all we needed was a bowl to put to sea in. From beyond the house we could hear voices raised, and the distant sound of hammering on a door, with someone calling for Sefreen Singh. We reached the alley end, and as Bibi Kalil sped ahead to scout, Goolab hung on my shoulder, panting.
“Aye, get up, Sefreen, and let them in!” croaks he. “All clear, sweetheart? Bless her plump limbs, when we come to Jumoo she’ll have a new emerald each day, and singing girls to tell her stories – aye, and twenty stalwart lads as bodyguards – on, on, quickly! Oh, for five sound toes again!”
We stumbled round the corner and on into a little court where four ways met, and a torch guttered in a bracket overhead, casting weird shadows. Bibi Kalil sped to one of the openings – and screamed suddenly, darting back, Goolab stubbed his gouty foot and tumbled down, cursing, and as I hauled him up two men came bounding out of the alley and hurled themselves on us.
If they’d been out to kill, we’d have been done for, with me hauling at the stranded Goolab – but capture was what they were after. The first clutched for my sword-arm, and got my point in the shoulder for his pains. “Shabash, Afghan killer!” roars Goolab, still on his knees, and ran him through the body, but even as the fellow went down, his comrade threw himself on Goolab, choking off the triumphant yell of “Eighty-three!” and bearing him to earth. Bibi Kalil ran in, screaming and tearing at the attacker’s face with her nails, while I danced about making shrill noises and looking for a chance to pink him – until it occurred to me that there were better uses for my time than this, and I turned tail up the nearest alley.
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