Flashman In The Great Game fp-5

by George MacDonald Fraser

  I doubt if any commander in the old days would have done what Carmichael-Smith did in the way of preaching-parades, either. I hadn't believed it in the barrack gossip, but sure enough, the next Sunday this coffin-faced Anglican fakir, the Rev. Reynolds, had a muster on the maidan, and we had to listen to him expounding the Parable of the Prodigal Son, if you please. He did it through a brazen-lunged rissaldar who interpreted for him, and you never heard the like. Reynolds lined it out in English, from the Bible, and the rissaldar stood there with his staff under his arm, at attention, with his whiskers bristling, bawling his own translation:

  "There was a zamindar,* with two sons. He was a mad zamindar, for while he yet lived he gave to the younger his portion of the inheritance. Doubtless he raised it from a moneylender. And the younger spent it all whoring in the bazaar, and drinking sherab.* And when his money was gone he returned home, and his father ran to meet him, for he was pleased — God alone knows why. And in his foolishness, the father slew his only cow — he was evidently not a Hindoo — and they feasted on it. And the older son, who had been dutiful and stayed at home, was jealous, I cannot tell for what reason, unless the cow was to have been part of his inheritance. But his father, who did not like him, rebuked the older son. This story was told by Jesus the Jew, and if you believe it you will not go to Paradise, but instead will sit on the right-hand side of the English Lord God Sahib who lives in Calcutta. And there you will play musical instruments, by order of the Sirkar. Parade — dismiss!"

  I don't know when I've been more embarrassed on behalf of my church and country. I'm as religious as the next man — which is to say I'll keep in with the local parson for form's sake and read the lessons on feast-days because my tenants expect it, but I've never been fool enough to confuse religion with belief in God. That's where so many clergymen, like the unspeakable Reynolds, go wrong — and it makes 'em arrogant, and totally blind to the harm they may be doing. This idiot was so drunk with testaments that he couldn't conceive how ill-mannered and offensive he was making himself look; I suppose he thought of high-caste Hindoos as being like wilful children or drunken costermongers — perverse and misguided, but ripe for salvation if he just pointed 'em the way. He stood there, with his unctuous fat face and piggy eyes, blessing us soapily, while the Muslims, being worldly in their worship, tried not to laugh, and the Hindoos fairly seethed. I'd have found it amusing enough, I dare say, if I hadn't been irritated by the thought that these irresponsible Christian zealots were only making things harder for the Army and Company, who had important work to do. It was all so foolish and unnecessary — the heathen creeds, for all their nonsensical mumbo jumbo, were as good as any for keeping the rabble in order, and what else is religion for?

  In any event, this misguided attempt to cure Hindoo souls took place, not just at Meerut but elsewhere, according to the religious intoxication of the local commanders, and in my opinion was the most important cause of the mischief that followed.18 I didn't appreciate this at the time — and couldn't have done anything if I had. Besides, I had more important matters to engage my attention.

  A few days after that parade, there was a gymkhana on the maidan, and I rode for the skirmishers in the nezabazi.*(*Tent-pegging with a lance.) Apart from languages and fornication, horsemanship is my only accomplishment, and I'd been well-grounded in tent-pegging by the late Muhammed Iqbal, so it was no surprise that I took the greatest number of pegs, and would have got even more if I'd had a pony that I knew, and my lance hadn't snapped in a touch peg on the last round. It was enough to take the cup, though, and old Bloody Bill Hewitt, the garrison commander, slipped the handle over my broken lance-point in front of the marquee where all the top numbers of Meerut society were sitting applauding politely, the ladies in their crinolines and the men behind their chairs.

  "Shabash, sowar," says Bloody Bill. "Where did you learn to manage a lance?"

  "Peshawar Valley, hussor," says I.

  "Company cavalry?" says he, and I said no, Peshawar police.

  "Didn't know they was lancers," says he, and Carmichael-Smith, who was on hand, laughed and said to Hewitt in English:

  "No more they are, sir. It's a rather delicate matter, I suspect — this bird here pretends he's never served the Sirkar before, but he's got Guide written all over him.

  Shouldn't wonder if he wasn't rissaldar — havildar at least. But we don't ask embarrassing questions, what? He's a dam' good recruit, anyway."

  "Ah," says Hewitt, grinning; he was a fat, kindly old buffer. " 'Nough said, then." And I was in the act of saluting when a little puff of wind sprang up, scattering the papers which were on the table behind him, and blowing them under the pony's hooves. Like a good little toady, I slipped out of the saddle and gathered them up, and without thinking set them on the table and put the ink-pot on top of them, to hold them steady — a simple, ordinary thing, but I heard an exclamation, and looked up to see Duff Mason, one of the infantry colonels, staring at me in surprise. I just salaamed and saluted and was back in my saddle in a second, while they called up the next man for his prize, but as I wheeled my pony away I saw that Mason was looking after me with a puzzled smile on his face, and saying something to the officer next to him.

  Hollo, thinks I, has he spotted something? But I couldn't think I'd done anything to give myself away — until next morning, when the rissaldar called me out of the ranks, and told me to report to Mason's office in the British lines forthwith. I went with my heart in my mouth, wondering what the hell I was going to do if he had seen through my disguise, only to find it was the last thing my guilty conscience might have suspected.

  "Makarram Khan, isn't it?" says Mason, when I stood to attention on his verandah and went through the ritual of hilt-touching. He was a tall, brisk, wiry fellow with a sharp eye which he cast over me. "Hasanzai, Peshawar policeman — but only a few weeks' Army service?" He spoke good Urdu, which suggested he was smarter than most, and my innards quaked.

  "Well, now, Makarram," says he, pleasantly. "I don't believe you. Nor does your own Colonel. You're an old soldier — you ride like one, you stand like one, and what's more you've held command. Don't interrupt — no one's trying to trap you, or find out how many throats you've cut in the Khyber country in your time: that's nothing to me. You're here now, as an ordinary sowar — but a sowar who gathers up papers as though he's as used to handling 'em as I am. Unusual, in a Pathan — even one who's seen service, don't you agree?"

  "In the police, husoor," says I woodenly, "are many kitabs*(*Books.) and papers."

  "To be sure there are," says he, and then added, ever so easily, in English, "What's that on your right hand?"

  I didn't look, but I couldn't help my hand jerking, and he chuckled and leaned back in his chair, pleased with himself.

  "I guessed you understood English when the commander and your Colonel were talking in front of you yesterday," says he. "You couldn't keep it out of your eyes. Well, never mind; it's all to the good. But see here, Makarram Khan — whatever you've done, whatever you've been, where's the sense in burying yourself in the ranks of a native cavalry pultan?*(*Regiment.) You've got education and experience; why not use 'em? How long will it take you to make subedar,*(*Native officer.) or havildar even, in your present situation? Twenty years, thirty — with down-country cavalry? I'll tell you what — you can do better than that."

  Well, it was a relief to know my disguise was safe enough, but the last thing I wanted was to be singled out in any way. However, I listened respectfully, and he went on:

  "I had a Pathan orderly, Ayub Jan; first-class man, with me ten years, and now he's gone back home, to inherit. I need someone else — well, you're younger than he was, and a sight smarter, or I'm no judge. And he wasn't a common orderly — never did a menial task, or anything of that order; wouldn't have asked him to, for he was Yusufzai — and a gentleman, as I believe you are, d'you see?" He looked at me very steady, smiling. "So what I want is a man of affairs who is also a man of his hands — someone I
can trust as a soldier, messenger, steward, aide, guide, shield-on-shoulder —" He shrugged. "When I saw you yesterday, I thought ‘That's the kind of man.’ Well — what d'ye say?"

  I had to think quickly about this. If I could have looked at myself in the mirror, I suppose I was just the sort of ruffian I'd have picked myself, in Duff Mason's shoes. Pathans make the best orderly-bodyguards-comrades there are, as I'd discovered with Muhammad Iqbal and Ilderim. And it would be a pleasant change from barracks — but it was risky. It would draw attention to me; on the other hand my character was established by now, and any lapses into Englishness might be explained from the past which Mason and Carmichael-Smith had wished upon me. I hesitated, and he said quietly:

  "If you're thinking that coming out of the ranks may expose you to greater danger of — being recognised by the police, say, or some inconvenient acquaintance from the past … have no fear of that. At need, there'll always he a fast horse and a dustuck*(*Permit.) to see you back to the Black Mountain again."

  It was ironic — he thought I went in fear of discovery as a deserter or Border raider, when my only anxiety was that I'd be unmasked as a British officer. Bit of a lark, really — and on that thought I said very good, I'd accept his offer.

  "Thank you, Makarram Khan," says he, and nodded to a table that was set behind his chair, against the chick: there was a drawn sabre lying on it, and I knew what was expected of me. I went past him, and put my hand on the blade — it had been so arranged that with my body in between, he couldn't see from where he sat whether I was touching the steel or not. The old dodge, thinks I, but I said aloud:

  "On the haft and hilt, I am thy man and soldier." "Good," says he, and as I turned he held out his hand. I took it, and just for devilment I said:

  "Have no fear, husoor — you will smell the onion on your fingers." I knew, you see, that in anticipation of the oath, he would have rubbed onion on the blade, so that he could tell afterwards if I'd truly touched it while I swore. A Pathan who intended to break his oath wouldn't have put his hand on the steel, and consequently wouldn't have got the onion-smell on his fingers.

  "By Jove!" says he, and quickly sniffed his hand. Then he laughed, and said I was a Pathan for wiliness, all right, and we would get along famously.

  Which I'm bound to say we did — mind you, our association wasn't a long one, but while it lasted I thoroughly enjoyed myself, playing major-domo in his household, for that's what it amounted to, as I soon discovered. His bungalow was a pretty big establishment, you see, just off the east end of the Mall, near the British infantry lines, with about thirty servants, and since there was no proper mem-sahib, and his khansamah*(*Butler.) was almost senile, there was no order about the place at all. Rather than have me spend my time dogging him about his office, where there wasn't much for me to do except stand looking grim and impressive, Duff Mason decided I should make a beginning by putting his house and its staff into pukka order (as I gathered Ayub Jan had done in his time) and I set about it. Flashy, Jack-of-all-trades, you see: in the space of a few months I'd already been a gentleman of leisure, staff officer, secret political agent, ambassador, and sepoy, so why not a nigger butler for a change?

  You may think it odd — and looking back it seems damned queer to me, too — but the job was just nuts to me. I was leading such an unreal existence, anyway, and had become so devilish bored in the sepoy barracks, that I suppose I was ready enough for anything that occupied my time without too much effort. Duff Mason's employ was just the ticket: it gave me the run of a splendid establishment, the best of meat and drink, a snug little bunk of my own, and nothing to do but bully menials, which I did with a hearty relish that terrified the brutes and made the place run like clockwork. All round, I couldn't have picked a softer billet for my enforced sojourn in Meerut if I'd tried. (Between ourselves, I've a notion that had I been born in a lower station in life I'd have made a damned fine butler for some club or Town house, yes-me-lording the Quality, ordering flunkeys about, putting upstarts in their place, and pinching the port and cigars with the best of them.)

  I've said there were no proper mem-sahibs in the house, by which I mean that there was no colonel's lady to supervise it — hence the need for me. But in fact there were two white women there, both useless in management — Miss Blanche, a thin, twitchy little spinster who was Duff Mason's sister, and Mrs Leslie, a vague relative who was either a grass widow or a real one, and reminded me rather of a sailor's whore — she was a plumpish, pale-skinned woman with red frizzy hair and a roving eye for the garrison officers, with whom she went riding and flirting when she wasn't lolling on the verandah eating sweets. (I didn't do more than run a brisk eye over either of 'em when Duff Mason brought me to the house, by the way — we nigger underlings know our place, and I'd already spotted a nice fat black little kitchen-maid with a saucy lip and a rolling stern.)

  However, if neither of the resident ladies was any help in setting me about my duties, there was another who was — Mrs Captain MacDowall, who lived farther down the Mall, and who bustled in on my first afternoon on the pretext of taking tea with Miss Blanche, but in fact to see that Duff Mason's new orderly started off on the right foot. She was a raw-boned old Scotch trot, not unlike my mother-in-law; the kind who loves nothing better than to interfere in other folk's affairs, and put their lives in order for them. She ran me to earth just as I was stowing my kit; I salaamed respectfully, and she fixed me with a glittering eye and demanded if I spoke English.

  "Now then, Makarram Khan, this is what you'll do," says she. "This house is a positive disgrace; you'll make it what it should be — the best in the garrison after General Hewitt's, mind that. Ye can begin by thrashing every servant in the place — and if you're wise you'll do it regularly. My father," says she, "believed in flogging servants every second day, after breakfast. So now. Have you the slightest — the slightest notion — of how such an establishment as this should be run? I don't suppose ye have."

  I said, submissively, that I had been in a sahib's house before.

  "Aye, well," says she, "attend to me. Your first charge is the kitchen — without a well-ordered kitchen, there's no living in a place. Now — I dined here two nights since, and I was disgusted. So I have lists here prepared —" she whipped some papers from her bag. "Ye can't read, I suppose? No, well, I'll tell you what's here, and you'll see to it that the cook — who is none too bad, considering — prepares her menus accordingly. I shouldn't need to be doing this —" she went on, with a withering glance towards the verandah, where Miss Blanche and Mrs Leslie were sitting (reading "The Corsair" aloud, I recall) " — but if I don't, who will, I'd like to know? Hmf! Poor Colonel Mason!" She glared at me. "That's none of your concern — you understand?" She adjusted her spectacles. "Breakfast … aye. Chops-steaks-quail-fried-fish-baked-minced- chickenprovided-the-bird's- no-more-than-a-day-old. No servants in the breakfast room — it can all be placed on the buffet.

  Can ye make tea — I mean tea that's fit to drink?"

  Bemused by these assaults, I said I could.

  "Aye," says she, doubtfully. "A mistress should always make the tea herself, but here …" She sniffed. "Well then, always two teapots, with no more than three spoonfuls to each, and a pinch of carbonate of soda in the milk. See that the cook makes coffee, very strong, first thing in the morning, and adds boiling water during the course of the day. Boiling, I said — and fresh hot milk, or cold whipped cream. Now, then —" and she consulted another list.

  "Luncheon — also on the buffet. Mutton-broth-almond-soup-mulligatawny-white-soup-cold-clear-soup-milk-pudding-stewed-fruit. No heavy cooked dishes —" this with a glare over her spectacles. "They're unhealthy. Afternoon tea — brown bread and butter, scones, Devonshire cream, and cakes. Have ye any apostle spoons?"

  "Mem-sahib," says I, putting my hands together and ducking my head. "I am only a poor soldier, I do not know what —"

  "I'll have two dozen sent round. Dinner — saddle-of-mutton-boiled-fowls-roast-beef … ach!"
says she, "I'll tell the cook myself. But you —" she wagged a finger like a marlin-spike "— will mind what I've said, and see that my instructions are followed and that the food is cleanly and promptly served. And see that the salt is changed every day, and that no one in the kitchen wears woollen clothes. And if one of them cuts a finger — straight round with them to my bungalow. Every inch of this house will be dusted twice a day, before callers come between noon and two, and before dinner. Is that clear?"

  "Han mem-sahib, han mem-sahib," says I, nodding vigorously, heaven help me. She regarded me grimly, and said she would be in from time to time to see that all was going as it should, because Colonel Mason must be properly served, and if she didn't attend to it, and see that I kept the staff hard at their duties, well … This with further sniffy looks towards the verandah, after which she went to bully the cook, leaving me to reflect that there was more in an orderly's duties than met the eye."19

  I tell you this, because although it may seem not to have much to do with my story, it strikes me it has a place; if you're to understand India, and the Mutiny, and the people who were caught up in it, and how they fared, then women like Mrs Captain MacDowall matter as much as Outram or Lakshmibai or old Wheeler or Tantia Tope. Terrible women, in their way — the memsahibs. But it would have been a different country without 'em — and I'm not sure the Raj would have survived the year '57, if they hadn't been there, interfering.

  At all events, under her occasional guidance and blistering rebukes, I drove Mason's menials until the place was running like a home-bound tea clipper. You'll think it trivial, perhaps, but I got no end of satisfaction in this supervising — there was nothing else to occupy me, you see, and as Arnold used to say, what thy hand findeth to do … I welted the backsides off the sweepers, terrorised the mateys,*(*Waiters.) had the bearers parading twice a day with their dusters, feather brooms, and polish bottles, and stalked grimly about the place pleased as punch to see the table-tops and silver polished till they gleamed, the floors bone-clean, and the chota hazri*(*Lit. "little breakfast" — early morning tea.) and darwazaband*(*Darwazaband, not at home. Presumably the salver used for calling-cards.) trays carried in on the dot. Strange, looking back, to remember the pride I felt when Duff Mason gave a dinner for the garrison's best, and I stood by the buffet in my best grey coat and new red sash and puggaree, with my beard oiled, looking dignified and watching like a hawk as the khansamah and his crew scuttled round the candle-lit table with the courses. As the ladies withdrew Mrs Captain MacDowall caught my eye, and gave just a little nod — probably as big a compliment, in its way, as I ever received.