“Not by Gardner!” snaps Van Cortlandt.
“The Maharani has good cause to fear for her child’s safety,” says Lawrence. “And her own. If anything befell them … well, when this war is past, we should find ourselves dealing with a state in anarchy. She and the boy are our only hope of a good political solution.”
Gough spoke up. “An’ if we don’t get one, we must conquer the Punjab. I tell ye, Sir Henry, we have not the means for that.”
Hardinge’s face was a study. He drummed his fingers and fretted. “I cannot like it. Suppose it were made to appear that we were kidnapping the boy – why, it might be charged that we made war on children –”
“Oh, never that!” cries Lawrence. “We’d be protecting him. But if we do nothing, and he is seized by the Khalsa – murdered, perhaps, and his mother with him … well, that would not be seen to our credit, I believe.”
I could have kicked him. He’d hit on the best argument to commit Hardinge to this dreadful folly. Credit, that was the thing! What would London think? What would The Times say? You could see our Governor-General imagining the outcry if blasted little Dalip got his weasand slit through our neglect. He went pale, and then his face cleared, while he pretended to ponder the thing.
“Certainly the child’s safety must weigh heavily with us,” says he solemnly. “Humanity and policy both demand it … Sir Hugh, what is your thought?”
“Get him out,” says Paddy. “Ye cannot do other.”
Even then Hardinge must make a show of careful judgment, frowning in silence while my heart sank to my boots. Then he sighed. “So be it, then. We must pray that we are not the dupes of some singular intrigue. But I insist, Lawrence, that either you or Van Cortlandt undertakes it.” He shot me a baleful glance. “An older head –”
“By your leave, sir,” says Lawrence. “Flashman, be good enough to wait in my tent. I’ll join you presently.”
So I left obediently – and was round the outside of Hardinge’s tent like a frightened stoat, tripping over guy-ropes and slithering in the frosty dark before bearing up in the shadows with an ear cocked under the muslin screen of his window. The man himself was in full cry, and I caught the end of it.
“… less suitable for such delicate work, I cannot conceive! His conduct with the Sikh leaders was irresponsible to a degree – taking it upon himself to determine policy, a mere junior political officer, flown with self-esteem –”
“Thank God he did,” says good old Paddy.
“Very well, Sir Hugh! Fortune favoured us, but his conduct might have brought us to catastrophe! I tell you what, the man’s a swaggerer! No,” says this splendid and far-sighted statesman, “Flashman shall not go to Lahore!”
“He must!” retorted Lawrence, for whom I was conceiving a poisonous dislike. “Who else can pass as a native, speaking Punjabi, and knows the ins and outs of Lahore Fort? And the little Maharaja worships him, Harlan tells me.” He paused. “Besides, the Maharani Jeendan has asked for him by name.”
“What’s that to the point?” cries Hardinge. “If she wishes her child safe, it is all one whom we send!”
“Perhaps not, sir. She knows Flashman, and …” Lawrence hesitated. “The fact is, there is a bazaar rumour that she … ah, formed an attachment for him, while he was in Lahore.” He coughed and hummed. “As you know, sir, she is a very lovely young woman … of an ardent nature, by all accounts …”
“Good God!” cries Hardinge. “You don’t mean –”
“The young devil!” chuckles Paddy. “Oh, well, decidedly he must go!”
“We’d best not neglect anything that will dispose her well to us,” says Van Cortlandt, damn him. “And as Lawrence says, there is no one else.”
Eavesdropping fearfully, my mind filled with the horrid prospect of Lahore and its gridirons and ghastly bathrooms and Akali fanatics and murderous swordsmen, I couldn’t help recalling that Broadfoot had counted on my manly charms just as these calculating wretches were doing. It’s too bad … but if you’re hell’s delight with the fair sex, what would you?
I’ve no doubt it’s what persuaded that pious hypocrite Hardinge, with his mind fixed on political accommodations after the war. By all means let Flashy humour the bitch while he plucked her bloody infant to safety, and wouldn’t she be obliged to us, just? He didn’t say as much, but you could hear him thinking it as he gave his reluctant consent.
“But hear me, Lawrence – Flashman must understand that he is to proceed in strict accordance to your instructions. He must have no room for independent action of any kind whatsoever – is that clear? This fellow Harlan has brought directions from … what is his name, Gardner? – a fine business, when we must rely on such people, let alone this hare-brained political! You must question Harlan closely on how it is to be effected. Above all, no harm must befall the young prince, Flashman must understand that – and the consequences should he fail.”
“I doubt if he needs instruction on that head, sir,” says Lawrence, pretty cool. “For the rest, I shall give him careful directions.”
“Very well. I shall hold you responsible. You have an observation, Sir Hugh?”
“Eh? No, no, Sorr Hinry, nothin’ of consequence. I was just after thinkin’,” chuckles old Paddy, “that I wish I was young again, an’ spoke Punjabi.”
* * *
a Artillery commanders.
b Mad, usually with sunstroke.
c Hop-scotch.
Chapter 16
You never can say you’ve seen anything for the last time. I’d have laid a million to one that I’d not return to that little stand of white poplars south of the Moochee Gate where I’d sat by the fire with Gardner – yet here I was, only a few weeks later, with the flames crackling under the billy-can resting on the self-same red stone with the crack in it. To our right the road was busy with the wayfarers of daybreak; under the great Moochee arch the gates were swung back, they were dousing the night torches, and the guard was changing: an uncommon heavy one, it seemed to me, for I counted twenty helmets in and about the archway, and since our arrival in the small hours there had been endless cavalry 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 t
o 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 they may do if she provokes them?”
Red murder, like as not – and then we’d have some usurper displacing Tej Singh and reviving the Khalsa for another slap at us. And here was I, back on the lion’s lip, thanks to Gardner’s idiot plots … should I throw in now, and bolt for India? Or could we still get Dalip out before all hell broke loose …?
“When’s the durbar?”
“In two hours, perhaps.”
“Can Gardner bring the boy to us beforehand … now?”
“Run in daylight?” cries Jassa. “We’d never make it!”
Mangla shook her head. “The Maharaja must be seen at the durbar. Who knows, Mai Jeendan may answer them well enough – and if she fails, they may still be quiet, with a thousand Muslims ready to fall on them at a word from Gurdana Khan. Then, when you have seen Mai Jeendan –”
“I don’t need to see her – or anyone, except her blasted son! Tell Gardner –”
“Why, here’s a change!” says she, with a flash of the old Mangla. “You were eager enough once. Well, she wishes to see you, Flashman bahadur, and she will have her way –”
“What the devil for?”
“Affairs of state, belike.” She gave her insolent slow smile. “Meanwhile, you must wait; you are safe here. I shall tell Gurdana, and bring word when the durbar begins.”
And she slipped out, having added bewilderment to my fears. What could Jeendan want with me? I’d thought it rum at the time, her insistence that I should be Dalip’s rescuer – to be sure, the kid liked me, but she’d as good as made me a condition of the plan, to Paddy Gough’s ribald amusement. Coarse old brute. But it couldn’t be that, at such a time … mind you, with partial females, you never can tell, especially when they’re foxed.
But all this was
small beer beside the menace of the Khalsa deputies. Could she hocus them again, by playing her charms and beguiling them with sweet words and fair promises?
Well, she didn’t even try, as we saw when Mangla returned, after two hours of fretful waiting, to conduct us to that same spyhole from which I’d watched an earlier durbar. This was a different indabab altogether; then, there had been tumult and high spirits, laughter even, but now we heard the angry clamour of the deputation and her shrill replies even before we reached the eyrie, when I saw at a glance that this was an ugly business, with the Mother of All Sikhs on her highest horse and damn the consequences.
The five hundred were in uproar in the main body of the great hall before the durbar screen, but keeping their ranks, and it was easy to see why. They were wearing their tulwars, but round the walls of the chamber there must have been a full battalion of Muslim riflemen, with their pieces at the high port, primed and ready. Imam Shah was standing forward, addressing the screen, with the old rissaldar-major a pace behind; the golden standard lay before the throne on which little Dalip sat in lonely state, the tiny figure brave in crimson, and with the Koh-i-Noor ablaze in his aigret.
Behind the purdah more Muslims lined the walls, and before them stood Gardner, in his tartan fig, the point of his naked sabre resting between his feet. Close by the screen Jeendan was pacing to and fro, pausing from time to time to listen, then resuming her furious sentry-go – for she was in a great rage, and well advanced in liquor, by the look of her. She had a cup in hand, and a flagon on the table, but for once she was modestly clad – as modest, anyway, as a voluptuous doll can be in a tight sari of purple silk, with her red hair unbound to her shoulders, and that Delilah face unveiled.
Imam Shah was in full grievance, shouting hoarsely at the screen. “For three days your faithful Khalsa have lived on grain and raw carrots – they are starving, kunwari, and eaten up with cold and want! Only send them the food and munitions you promised and they will sweep the host of the Jangi lat to –”
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