Flashman In The Great Game fp-5

by George MacDonald Fraser

  One of the sowars says: "There will be a red thread round her wrist, as for a Ghazi."

  "And I," says Ilderim, "fought like a tiger and foamed and swore as they held me. And I cried out: ‘Shabash, mem-sahib!’ and ‘Heep-heep-heep-hoora’, as the sahibs do, to comfort her. And they cut her down." He was crying openly now, his mouth working. "And then they took the children — twenty of them — little children, that cried out and called for their dead mothers, and they cut them all in pieces, with axes and butchers' knives. And there they left them all, in the Jokan Bagh, without burial."28

  Hearing something, however horrible, can never be as ghastly as seeing it; the mind may take it in, but mercifully the imagination can't. Even while I shuddered and felt sickened, listening, I couldn't conjure up the hideous scene he was describing — all I could think of was McEgan's jolly red face as he told his awful jokes, and little Mrs Skene so anxious in case her dress was wrong for the Collector's dinner, and Andrews talking about Keats's poetry, and Skene saying it wasn't a patch on Burns, and that dainty little Wilton girl singing "bobbity-bobbity-bob" along with me and laughing till she was breathless. It didn't seem possible they were all dead — cut down like beasts in a slaughter-house. Yet what shocked me most, I think, was to see that great Gilzai warrior, whom you could have roasted alive and got nothing but taunts and curses, sobbing like a child. There was nothing to say; after a moment I asked him how he came to be still alive.

  "They put Muhammed and me in the jail, with promises of death by torture, but these others of my troop broke us out at night, and we escaped. Until yesterday we hid in the woods, but then the mutineers departed, God knows whither, and we came here. Shadman and two others have gone for horses; we wait for them — and for thee, brother." He wiped his face and forced a grin, and gripped me by the shoulder.

  "But the Rani, then?"

  "God send that fair foulness a lover made of red-hot metal to bed her through eternity," says he, and spat. "She is in her citadel yonder, while Kala Khan marshals her guard on the maidan — perchance ye heard his bugles? and sends out for levies to raise her an army. For why? — hear this and laugh. Some of the mutineers chose Sadasheo Rao of Parola as their leader — he has taken Karera Fort, and calls himself Raja of Jhansi in defiance of her." He laughed harshly. "They say she will crucify him with his own bayonets — God send she does. Then she will march against Kathe Khan and the Dewan of Orcha, to bring t them under her pretty heel. Oh, an enterprising lady, this Rani, who knows how to take advantage of a world upside down — and meanwhile they say she sends messages to the British protesting her loyalty to the Sirkar — rot her for a lying, faithless, female pi-dog!"

  "Maybe she is," says I. "Loyal, I mean. Very well, I don't doubt your story, or what you saw and were told — but, look here, Ilderim. I know something of her — and while I'll allow she's deep, I'll not credit that she would have children slaughtered — it isn't in her. Do you know for a fact that she joined the mutineers, or encouraged them — or could have prevented them?" The fact is, I didn't want to believe she was an enemy, you see.

  Ilderim glanced at me witheringly, and bit his nail in scorn.

  "Bloody Lance," says he, "ye may be the bravest rider in the British Army, and God knows thou art no fool — but with women thou art a witless infant. Thou has coupled this Hindoo slut, hast thou not?"

  "Damn your impudence —"

  "I thought as much. Tell me, blood-brother, how many women hast thou covered, in thy time?" And he winked at his mates.

  "What the devil d'you mean?" I demanded.

  "How many? Come, as a favour to thy old friend."

  "Eh? What's it to you, dammit? Oh, well, let's see … there's the wife, and … er … and, ah —"

  "Aye — ye have fornicated more times than I have passed water," says this elegant fellow. "And just because they let thee have thy way, didst thou trust them therefore? Because they were beautiful or lecherous — well thou fool enough to think it made them honest? Like enough. This Rani has beglamoured thee — well then, go thou up and knock on her palace gate tonight, and cry ‘Beloved, let me in.’ I shall stand under the wall to catch the pieces."

  When he put it that way, of course, it was ridiculous. Whether she was loyal or not — and I could hardly credit that she wasn't — it didn't seem quite the best time to test the matter, with her state running over at the edges with mutineers. Good God, was there nowhere safe in this bloody country? Delhi, Meerut, Jhansi — how many garrisons remained, I asked Ilderim, and told him the stories I'd heard, and the sights I'd seen, on my way south.

  "No one knows," says he grimly. "But be sure the sepoys have not won, as they would have the world believe. They have made the land between Ganges and Jumna a ruin of fire and blood, and gone undefeated — as yet. They range the country in strength — but already there is word that the British are marching on Delhi, and bands of sahibs who escaped when their garrisons were overthrown are riding abroad in growing numbers. Not only men who have lost their regiments, but civilian sahibs also. The Sirkar still has teeth — and there are garrisons that hold out in strength. Cawnpore for one — a bare four days' ride from here. They say the old General Wheeler sahib is in great force there, and has shattered an army of sepoys and badmashes. When Shadman brings our horses, it is there we will ride."

  "Cawnpore?" I almost squeaked the word in consternation, for it was back in the dirty country with a vengeance. Having come out of that once, I'd no wish to venture in again.

  "Where else?" says he. "There is no safer road from Jhansi. Farther south ye dare not go, for there are few sahib places, and no great garrisons. Nor are there to the west. Over the Jumna the country may be hot with mutineers, but it is where thine own folk are — and they are mine, too, and my lads'."

  I looked at the ugly villains round the fire, hard-bitten frontier rough-necks to a man in their dirty old poshteens and the big Khyber knives in their belts — by George, I'd be a sight safer going north again in their company than striking out anywhere else on my own. What Ilderim said was probably true, too; Cawnpore and the other river strongholds would be where our generals would concentrate — I could get back among my own kind, and shed this filthy beard and sepoy kit and feel civilised again. Wouldn't have to spin any nonsense about why I'd disappeared from Jhansi, either, in supposed pursuit of Ignatieff- my God, I'd forgotten him entirely, and the Thugs, and all the rest. My mission to Jhansi — Pam and his cakes and warnings — it was all chaff in the wind now, forgotten in this colossal storm that was weeping through India. No one was going to fret about where I'd sprung from, or what I'd been doing. I felt my spirits rising by the minute — when I thought of the escape I'd had, leaving Jhansi in the first place, I could say that even my horrible experience at Meerut had been worth while.

  That's another thing about being a windy beggar — if you scare easily, you usually cheer up just as fast when the danger is past. Well, not past yet, perhaps — but at least I was with friends again, and by what Ilderim said the Mutiny wasn't by any means such a foregone thing as I'd imagined — why, once our people got their second wind, it would be the bloody rebels who'd be doing the running, no doubt, with Flashy roaring on the pursuit I tom a safe distance. And I might have been rotting out yonder with the others at Jokan Bagh — I shuddered at the ghastly memory of Ilderim's story — or burned alive with the Dawsons at Meerut. By Jove, things weren't so bad after all.

  "Right," says I. "Cawnpore let it be." How was I to know I was almost speaking my own epitaph?

  In the meantime, I had one good night's sleep, feeling safe for the first time in weeks with Ilderim's rascals around me, and next day we just lay up in the temple ruins while one sowar went to scout for Shadman Khan, who was meant to be out stealing horses for us. It was the rummest fix to be in, for all day we could hear the bugles tootling out on the plain where the Rani's army was mustering for her own private little wars with Jhansi's neighbours; Ilderim reported in the evening that she had assembled s
everal hundred foot soldiers, and a few troops of Maharatta riders, as well as half a dozen guns — not a bad beginning, in a troubled time, but of course with a treasury like Jhansi's she could promise regular pay for her soldiers, as well as the prospect of Orcha's loot when she had dealt with the Dewan.

  With the second dawn came Shadman himself, cackling at his own cleverness: he and his pals had laid hands on six horses already, they were snug in a thicket a couple of miles from the town, and he had devised a delightful plan for getting another half dozen mounts as well.

  "The Hindoo bitch needs riders," says he. "So I marched into her camp on the maidan this afternoon and offered my services. 'I can find six old Company sowars who will ride round Jehannum and back for a rupee a day and whatever spoil the campaign promises,' says I to the noseless pig who is master of her cavalry, 'if ye have six good beasts to put under them. "We have horses and to spare,' says he, 'bring me your six sowars and they shall have five rupees a man down payment, and a carbine and embroidered saddle-cloth apiece.' I beat him up to ten rupees each — so tomorrow let six of us join her cavalry, and at nightfall we shall unjoin, and meet thee, rissaldar, and all ride off rejoicing. Is it not a brave scheme — and will cost this slut of a Rani sixty rupees as well as her steeds and furniture?"

  There's nothing as gleeful as a Pathan when he's doing the dirty; they slapped their knees in approval and five of them went off with him that afternoon. Ilderim and I and the remaining three waited until nightfall, and then set off on foot to the thicket where we were to rendezvous; there were the first six horses and a sowar waiting, and round about midnight Shadman and his companions came clattering out of the dark to join us, crowing with laughter. Not only had they lifted the six horses, they had cut the lines of a score more, slit the throat of the cavalry-master as he lay asleep, and set fire to the fodder-store, just to keep the Rani's army happy.

  "Well enough," growls Ilderim, when he had snarled them to silence. "It will do — till we ride to Jhansi again, some day. There is a debt to pay, at the Jokan Bagh. Is there not, blood-brother?" He gripped my shoulder for a moment as we sat our mounts under the trees, and the others fell in two by two behind us. In the distance, very black against the starlit purple of the night sky, was the outline of the Jhansi fortress with the glow of the city beneath it; Ilderim was staring towards it bright-eyed — I remember that moment so clearly, with the warm gloom and the smell of Indian earth and horse-flesh, the creak of leather and the soft stamping of the beasts. I was thinking of the horror that lay in the Jokan Bagh — and of that lovely girl; in her mirrored palace yonder with its swing and soft carpets and luxurious furniture, and trying to make myself believe that they belonged in the same world.

  "It will take more than one dead rebel and a few horses to settle the score for Skene sahib and the others," says he. "Much more. So — to Cawnpore? Walk-march, trot!"

  He had said it was a bare four days' ride, but it took us that long to reach the Jumna above Haminpur, for on my advice we steered clear of the roads, and kept to the countryside, where we sighted nothing bigger than villages and poor farms. Even there, though, there was ample sign of the turbulence that was sweeping the land; we passed hamlets that were just smoking, blackened ruins, with buzzing carcases, human and animal, lying where they had been shot down, or strung up to branches; and several times we saw parties of mutineers on the march, all heading north-east like ourselves. That was enough to set me wondering if I wasn't going in the wrong direction, but I consoled myself that there was safety in numbers — until the morning of the fourth day, when Ilderim aroused me in a swearing passion with the news that eight of our party had slipped off in the night, leaving only the two of us with Muhammed Din and Rafik Tamwar.

  "That faithless thieving, reiving son of a Kabuli whore, Shadman Khan, has put them up to this!" He was livid with rage. "He and that other dung-beetle Asaf Yakub had the dawn watch — they have stolen off and left us, and taken the food and fodder with them!"

  "You mean they've gone to join the mutineers?" I cried.

  "Not they! We would never have woken again if that had been their aim. No — they will be off about their trade, which is loot and murder! I should have known! Did I not see Shadman licking his robber's lips when we passed the sacked bungalows yesterday? He and the others see in this broken countryside a chance to fill their pockets, rather than do honest service according to their salt. They will live like the bandits they were before the Sirkar enlisted them in an evil hour, and when they have ravaged and raped their fill they will be off north to the frontier again. They have not even the stomach to be honest mutineers!" And he spat and stamped, raging.

  "Never trust an Afridi," says Tamwar philosophically. "I knew Shadman was a badmash the day he joined. At least they have left us our horses."

  That was little consolation to me as we saddled up; with eleven hardy riders round me I'd felt fairly secure, but now that they were reduced to three — and only one of those really trustworthy — I fairly had the shakes again.

  However, having come this far there was nothing for it but to push on; we weren't more than a day's ride from Cawnpore by my reckoning, and once we were behind Wheeler's lines we would be safe enough. My chief anxiety was that the closer we got, the more likely we would be to find mutineers in strength, and this was confirmed when, a few hours after sun-up, we heard, very faint in the distance, the dull thump of gunfire. We had stopped to water our beasts at a tank beside the road, which at that point was enclosed by fairly thick forest either side; Ilderim's head came up sharp at the sound.

  "Cawnpore!" says he. "Now what shall that shooting mean? Can Wheeler sahib be under siege? Surely -

  Before I could reply there was a sudden drumming of hooves, and round a bend in the road not two hundred yards ahead came three horsemen, going like hell's delight; I barely had time to identify them as native cavalrymen of some sort, and therefore probably mutineers, when into view came their pursuers — and I let out a yell of delight, for out in the van was an undoubted white officer, with his sabre out and view-hallooing like a good 'un. At his heels came a motley gang of riders, but I hadn't time to examine them — I was crouched down at the roadside with my Colt out, drawing a bead on the foremost fugitive. I let blaze, and his horse gave a gigantic bound and crashed down, thrashing in the dust; his two companions swung off to take to the woods, but one of the mounts stumbled and threw its rider, and only the other won to the safety of the trees, with a group of the pursuers crashing after him.

  The others pounced on the two who'd come to grief, while I ran towards them, yelling:

  "Hurrah! Bravo, you fellows! It's me, Flashman! Don't shoot!"

  I could see now that they were Sikh cavalry, mostly, although there were at least half a dozen white faces among them, staring at me as I came running up; suddenly one of dooce are you going about dressed as a nigger for?"

  "You say you're Flashman?" says another — he was wearing a pith helmet and spectacles, and what looked like old cricket flannels tucked into his top-boots. "Well, if you are an' I must say you don't look a bit like him — you ought to know me. Because Harry Flashman stood godfather to my boy at Lahore in '42 — what's my name, eh?"

  I had to close my eyes and think — it had been on my triumphal progress south after the Jalallabad business. An Irish name — yes, by God, it was unforgettable.

  "O'Toole!" says I. "You did me the honour of having your youngster christened Flashman O'Toole — I trust he's well?"

  "By God I did!" says he, staring. "It must be him, Cheeseman! Here, where's Colonel Rowbotham?"

  I confess I was curious myself — Rowbotham's Moss-troopers was a new one on me, and if their commander was anything like his followers he must be a remarkable chap. There was a great rumpus going on in the road behind the group who surrounded me, and I saw that one of the fugitives was being dragged up between two of the Sikhs, and thrown forward in the dust before one of the riders, who was leaning down from his saddle lookin
g at the still form of the fellow whose horse I'd shot.

  "Why, this one's dead!" he exclaimed, peevishly. "Of all the confounded bad luck! Hold on to that other scoundrel, there! Here, Cheeseman, what have you got — is it some more of the villains?"

  He rode over the dead man, glaring at me, and I don't think I've ever seen an angrier-looking man in my life. Everything about him was raging — his round red face, his tufty brindle eyebrows, his bristling sandy whiskers, even the way he clenched his crop, and when he spoke his harsh, squeaky voice seemed to shake with suppressed wrath. He was short and stout, and sat his pony like a hog on a hurdle; his pith helmet was wrapped in a long puggaree, and he wore a most peculiar loose cape, like an American poncho, clasped round with a snake-clasp belt. Altogether a most ridiculous sight, but there was nothing funny about the pale, staring eyes, or the way his mouth worked as he considered me.

  "Who's this?" he barked, and when Cheeseman told him, and O'Toole, who had been eyeing me closely, said he believed I was Flashman after all, he growled suspiciously and demanded to know why I was skulking about dressed as a native, and where had I come from. So I told him, briefly, that I was a political, lately from Jhansi, where I and my three followers had escaped the massacre.