I couldn't have moved, if I'd wanted to. It was a night-mare, unbelievable, but in those few minutes, while dreadful grunts and an occasional choked-off scream came out of the dark, I strove to make some sense of it. Lakshmibai had plainly left me asleep — or drunk, or drugged, or both — in the pavilion, and shortly after the Thugs had arrived. But why — why should she seek my death? It made no sense — no, by God, because if she had just been luring me out for assassination, she'd have had me ambushed on the way — she'd certainly not have pleasured me like a crazy spinster first. And there was no earthly reason why she should want me killed — what had I done to merit that? She'd been so friendly and straight and kind — I could have sworn she'd been falling in love with me for two weeks past. Oh, I've known crafty women, sluts who'd tickle your buttons with one hand and reach for a knife with the other — but not her. I couldn't swallow that; I wouldn't.
I could even understand her slipping out and leaving me — it had been a clandestine gallop, after all; she had a reputation to consider. What better way of concluding it than by vanishing swiftly back to the palace, leaving her partner to find his own way home — I reflected moodily that she'd probably done the same thing, countless times, in that very pavilion, whenever she felt like it. She was no novice, that was certain — no wonder her late husband had lost interest and curled up and died: the poor devil must have been worn to a shadow.
But who then had set Thugs on me? Or were they just stray, indiscriminate killers — as Thugs usually were, slaying anyone who happened in their way, for fun and religion? Had they just spotted me, out at night, and decided to chalk up another score for Kali — and then Ilderim came striding out of the dark, whipping his knife into the turf, and squatting down beside me.
"Stubborn," says he, rubbing his beard, "but not too stubborn. Flashman — it is ill news." He stared at me with grave eyes. "There is a fellowship — hunting thee. They have been out this week past — the brotherhood of deceivers, whom everyone thought dead or disbanded these years past — with orders to seek out and slay the Colonel Flashman sahib at Jhansi. That one yonder is a chief among them — six nights since he was at Firozabad, where his lodge met to hear a strange fakir who offered them gold, and —" he tapped my knee " — an end to the Raj in due time, and a rebirth of their order of thugee. They were to prepare against the day — and as grace before meat they were to sacrifice thee to Kali. I knew all along," says he with a grim satisfaction, "that this was palitikal, and ye walked a perilous road. Well, thou art warned in time — but it must be a fast horse to the coast, and ship across the kala pani,* (*Black water, i.e., the ocean.) for if these folk are riding thy tail, then this land is death to thee; there will not be a safe nook from the Deccan to the Khyber Gate."
I sat limp and trembling, taking this horror in; I was afraid to ask the question, but I had to know.
"This fakir," I croaked. "Who is he?"
"No one knows — except that he is from the north, a one-eyed man with a fair skin from beyond the passes. There are those who think he is a sahib, but not of thy people. He has money, and followers in secret, and he preaches against the sahib-log*(* lord-people, i.e., the British.) in whispers …"
Ignatieff — I almost threw up. So it had happened, as Pam had thought it might: the bastard was back, and had tracked me down — and devil a doubt he knew all about my mission, too, somehow — and he and his agents were spreading their poison everywhere, and seeking to revive the devilish thugee cult against us, with me at the top of the menu — and Ilderim was right, there wasn't a hope unless I could get out of India — but I couldn't! This was what I was meant to be here for — why Pam in his purblind folly had sent me out: to tackle Ignatieff at his own game and dispose of him. I couldn't run squealing to Bombay or Calcutta bawling "Gangway — and a first-class ticket home, quick!" This was the moment I was meant to earn my corn — against bloody dacoits and Ruski agents? I gulped and sweated — and then another thought struck me.
Was Lakshmibai part of this? God knew she'd no cause to love the Sirkar — was she another of the spiders in this devilish web, playing Delilah for the Russians? — but no, no, even to my disordered mind one thing remained clear: she'd never have walloped the mattress with me like that if she'd been false. No, this was Ignatieff, impure and anything but simple, and I had to think as I'd never thought before, with Ilderim's eye on me while I took my head in my hands and wondered, Christ, how can I slide out this time. And then inspiration dawned, slowly — I couldn't leave India, or be seen to be running away, but I'd told Skene that if the crisis came I might well vanish from sight, locally, to go after Ignatieff in my own way — well, now I would vanish, right enough; that shouldn't be difficult. I schemed it fast, as I can when I'm truly up against it, and turned to Ilderim.
"Look, brother," says I. "This is a great political affair, as you guessed. I cannot tell thee, and I cannot leave India —"
"Then thou art dead," says he, cheerfully. "Kali's hand will be on thee, through these messengers —" and he pointed at the dead Thug.
"Hold on," says I, sweating. "They're looking for Colonel Flashman — but if Colonel Flashman becomes, say — a Khyekeen pony-pedlar, or an Abizai who has done his time in the Guides or lancers, how will they find him then? I've done it before, remember? Dammit, I speak Pushtu as well as you do, and Urdu even better — wasn't I an agent with Sekundar Sahib? All I need is a safe place for a season, to lie up and sniff the wind before —" and I started lying recklessly, for effect " — before I steal out again, having made my plans, to break this one-eyed fakir and his rabble of stranglers and loose-wallahs. D'you see?"
"Inshallah!" cries he, grinning all over his evil face. "It is the great game! To lie low in disguise, and watch and listen and wait, and conspire with the other palitikal sahibs of the Sirkar, until the time is ripe — and then go against these evil subverters in a secret razzia!*(*An attack on unbelievers.) And when that time comes — I may share the sport, and hallal*(*Ritual throat-cutting.) these Hindoo and foreign swine, with my lads? — thou wouldst not forget thy old friend then?" He grabbed my hand, the bloodthirsty devil. "Thou'd send me word, surely, when the knives are out — thy brother Ilderim?"
You'll wait a long time for it, my lad, thinks I; give me a good disguise and a pony and you'll not see me again — not until everything has safely blown over, and some other idiot has disposed of Ignatieff and his bravos. That's when I'd emerge, with a good yarn to spin to Calcutta (and Pam) about how I'd gone after him secretly, and dammit, I'd missed the blighter, bad luck. That would serve, and sound sufficiently mysterious and convincing — but for the moment my urgent need was a disguise and a hiding-place at a safe distance. Some jungly or desert spot might be best; I'd lived rough that way before, and as I'd told Ilderim, I could pass as a frontiersman or Afghan with any of 'em.
"When there are Ruski throats to be cut, you'll be the first to know," I assured him, and he embraced me, chuckling, and swearing I was the best of brothers.
The matter of disguise reminded me that I was still stark naked, and shivering; I told him I wanted a kit exactly like that of his sowars, and he swore I'd have it, and a pony, too.
"And you may tell Skene sahib from me," says I, "that the time has come — and he can start feeling sorry for the Ruskis — he'll understand." For I wasn't going back to the cantonment; I wanted to ride out tonight, wherever I was going. "Tell him of the one-eyed fakir, that the Thugs are abroad again, and the axles are getting hot. You may say I've had a brush with the enemy already — but you needn't tell him what else I was doing tonight." I winked at him. "Understand? Oh, aye — and if he has inquiries after me from the Rani of Jhansi, he may say I have been called away, and present my apologies."
"The Rani?" says he, and his eye strayed towards the pavilion. "Aye." He coughed and grinned. "That was some rich lady's palankeen I saw tonight, and many servants. Perchance, was it —
"‘A Gilzai and a grandmother for scandal’," I quoted. "Mind your ow
n dam' business. And now, be a good lad, and get me that outfit and pony."
He summoned one of his rascals, and asked if the tortured Thug was dead yet.
"Nay, but he has no more to tell," says the other. "For he said nothing when I —" You wouldn't wish to know what he said next. "Shall I pass him some of his own tobacco?"12 he added.
"Aye," says Ilderim. "And tell Rafik Tamwar I want all his clothes, and his knife, and his horse. Go thou."
For answer the sowar nodded, took out his Khyber knife, and stepped back under the trees to where his companions were guarding the prisoner, or what was left of him. I heard him address the brute — even at that time and place it was an extraordinary enough exchange to fix itself in my mind; one of the most astonishing things I ever heard, even in India.
"It is over, deceiver," says he. "Here is the knife — in the throat or the heart? Choose."
The Thug's reply was hoarse with agony. "In the heart, then — quickly!"
"You're sure? As you wish."
"No — wait!" gasps the Thug. "Put the point … behind … my ear — so. Thrust hard — thus I will bleed less, and go undisfigured. Now!"
There was a pause, and then the sowar's voice says: "He was right — he bleeds hardly at all. Trust a deceiver to know."
A few moments later and Rafik Tamwar appeared, grumbling, in a rag of loin-cloth, with his clothes over his arm, and leading a neat little pony. I told Ilderim that Skene sahib must see his kit replaced, and he could have my own Pegu pony, at which the good Tamwar grinned through his beard, and said he would willingly make such an exchange every day. I slipped into his shirt and cavalry breeches, drew on the soft boots, donned his hairy poshteen,*(*Sheepskin coat.) stuck the Khyber cleaver in my sash, and was winding the puggaree round my head and wishing I had a revolver as well, when Ilderim says thoughtfully:
"Where wilt thou go, Flashman — have ye an eyrie to wait in where no enemy can find thee?"
I confessed I hadn't, and asked if he had any suggestions, at which he frowned thoughtfully, and then smiled, and then roared with laughter, and rolled on his back, and then stood up, peering and grinning at me.
"Some juice for thy skin," says he. "Aye, and when thy beard has grown, thou'lt be a rare Peshawar ruiner — so ye swagger enough, and curl thy hair round thy finger, and spit from the back of thy throat —"
"I know all about that," says I, impatiently. "Where d'you suggest I do all these things?"
"In the last place any ill-willer would ever look for a British colonel sahib," says he, chortling. "Look now — wouldst thou live easy for a spell, and eat full, and grow fat, what time thou art preparing to play the game against these enemies of the Raj? Aye, and get well paid for it — 24 rupees a month, and batta*(*Field allowance.) also?" He slapped his hands together at my astonishment. "Why not — join the Sirkar's army! What a recruit for the native cavalry — why, given a month they'll make thee a daffadar!"*(*Cavalry commander of ten.) He stuck his tongue in his cheek. "Maybe a rissaldar in time — who knows?"
"Are you mad?" says I. "Me — enlist as a sowar? And how the devil d'you expect me to get away with that?"
"What hinders? Thou hast passed in Kabul bazaar before today, and along the Kandahar road. Stain thy face, as I said, and grow thy beard, and thou'lt be the properest Sirkar's bargain in India! Does it not meet thy need — and will it not place thee close to affairs — within reach of thine own folk, and ready to move at a finger-snap?"
It was ridiculous — and yet the more I thought of it, the more obvious it was. How long did I want to hide — a month? Two or three perhaps? I would have to live, and for the life of me I couldn't think of a more discreet and comfortable hiding-place than the ranks of a native cavalry regiment — I had all the qualifications and experience … if I was careful. But I'd have to be that, whatever I did. I stood considering while Ilderim urged me, full of enthusiasm.
"See now — there is my mother's cousin, Gulam Beg, who was malik*(*Headman.) in one of my father's villages, and is now woordy-major*(*Native adjutant of Indian irregular cavalry. (Since the 3rd were not irregulars, Flashman seems to have misused the term here.)) in the 3rd Cavalry at Meerut garrison. If thou goest to him, and say Ilderim sent thee, will he not be glad of such a fine sturdy trooper — ye may touch the hilt, and eat the salt, and belike he'll forget the assami*(*In this sense, a deposit paid by a recruit on enlistment.) for my sake. Let me see, now," says this mad rascal, chuckling as he warmed to his work, "thou art a Yusufzai Pathan of the Peshawar Valley — no, no, better still, we'll have thee a Hasanzai of the Black Mountain — they are a strange folk, touched, and given to wild fits, so much may be excused thee. Oh, it is rare! Thou art — Makarram Khan, late of the Peshawar police, and so familiar with the ways of the sahibs; thou hast skirmished along the line, too. Never fear, there was a Makarram Khan,13 until I shot him on my last furlough; he will give thee a shabash*(*Hurrah, bravo.) from hell, for he was a stout rider in his time. Careless, though — or he'd have watched the rocks as he rode. Well, Makarram —" says he, grinning like a wolf in the gloom " — wilt thou carry a lance for the Sirkar?"
I'd been determining even as he talked; I was in the greatest fix, and there was no other choice. If I'd known what it would lead to, I'd have damned Ilderim's notion to his teeth, but it seemed inspired at the time.
"Bind thy puggaree round thy jaw at night, lest thou babble in English in thy sleep," says he at parting. "Be sullen, and speak little — and be a good soldier, blood-brother, for the credit of Ilderim Khan." He laughed and slapped my saddle as we shook hands in the dark under the trees. "When thou comest this way again, go to Bull Temple, beyond the Jokan Bagh — I will have a man waiting for an hour at sunrise and sunset. Salaam, sowar!" cries he, and saluted, and I dug my heels into my pony and cantered off in the dawn, still like a man in a wild dream.
You might think it impossible for a white man to pass himself off as a native soldier in John Company's army, and indeed I doubt if anyone else has ever done it. But when you've been called on to play as many parts as I have, it's a bagatelle. Why, I've been a Danish prince, a Texas slave-dealer, an Arab sheik, a Cheyenne Dog Soldier, and a Yankee navy lieutenant in my time, among other things, and none of 'em was as hard to sustain as my lifetime's impersonation of a British officer and gentleman. The truth is we all live under false pretences much of the time; you just have to put on a bold front and brazen it through.
I'll admit my gift of languages has been my greatest asset, and I suppose I'm a pretty fair actor; anyway, I'd carried off the role of an Asian-Afghan nigger often enough, and before I was more than a day's ride on the way to Meerut I was thoroughly back in the part, singing Kabuli bazaar songs through my nose, sneering sideways at anyone I passed, and answering greetings with a grunt or a snarl. I had to keep my chin and mouth covered for the first three days, until my beard had sprouted to a disreputable stubble; apart from that, I needed no disguise, for I was dark and dirty-looking enough to start with. By the time I struck the Grand Trunk my own mother wouldn't have recognised the big, hairy Border ruffian jogging along so raffishly with his boots out of his stirrups, and his love-lock curling out under his puggaree; on the seventh day, when I cursed and shoved my pony through the crowded streets of Meerut City, spurning the rabble aside as a good Hasanzai should, I was even thinking in Pushtu, and if you'd offered me a seven-course dinner at the Café Royal I'd have turned it down for mutton-and-rice stew with boiled dates to follow.
My only anxiety was Ilderim's cousin, Gulam Beg, whom I had to seek out in the native cavalry lines beyond the city; he would be sure to run a sharp eye over a new recruit, and if he spotted anything queer about me I'd have a hard job keeping up the imposture. Indeed, at the last minute my nerve slackened a little, and I rode about for a couple of hours before I plucked up the courage to go and see him — I rode on past the native infantry lines, and over the Nullah Bridge up to the Mall in the British town; it was while I was sitting my pony, brooding under the tr
ees, that a dog-cart with two English children and their mother went by, and one of the brats squealed with excitement and said I looked just like Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves. That cheered me up, for some reason — anyway, I had to have a place to eat and sleep while I shirked my duty, so I finally presented myself at the headquarters of the 3rd Native Light Cavalry, and demanded to see the woordy-major.
I needn't have worried. Gulam Beg was a stout, white-whiskered old cove with silver-rimmed spectacles on the end of his nose, and when I announced that Ilderim Khan of Mogala was my sponsor he was all over me. Hasanzai, was I, and late of the polis? That was good — I had the look of an able man, yes — doubtless the Colonel Sahib would look favourably on such a fine upstanding recruit. I had seen no military service, though? — hm … he looked at me quizzically, and I tried to slouch a bit more.
"Not in the Guides, perhaps?" says he, with his head on one side. "Or the cutch-cavalry? No? Then doubtless it is by chance that you stand the regulation three paces from my table, and clench your hand with the thumb forward — and that the pony I see out yonder is girthed and bridled like one of ours." He chuckled playfully. "A man's past in his own affair, Makarram Khan — what should it profit us to pry and discover that a new ‘recruit’ had once quit the Sirkar's service over some small matter of feud or blood-letting, eh? You come from Ilderim — it is enough. Be ready to see the Colonel Sahib at noon."
He'd spotted me for an old soldier, you see, which was all to the good; having detected me in a small deception, it never occurred to him to look for a large one. And he must have passed on his conclusion to the Colonel, for when I made my salaam to that worthy officer on the orderly-room verandah, he looked me up and down and says to the woordy-major in English:
"Shouldn't wonder if you weren't right, Gulam Beg — he's heard Boots and Saddles before, that's plain. Probably got bored with garrison work and slipped off one night with half-a-dozen rifles on his back. And now, having cut the wrong throat or lifted the wrong herd, he's come well south to avoid retribution." He sat back, fingering the big white moustache which covered most of his crimson face. "Ugly-looking devil, ain't he though? Hasanzai of the Black Mountain, eh? — yes, that's what I'd have thought. Very good …" He frowned at me and then said, very carefully:
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