The Flashman Papers 09 - Flashman and the Mountain of Light fp-9

by George MacDonald Fraser

  "That's the pick of 'em, then!" snaps he. "Well, White's put a flea in their ear, so he has! Now, take you this glass, and tell me about their infantry! West, note it down!"

  So while the cavalry rumpus petered out, with the Khalsa horsemen drawing off, and our own fellows, half of them dismounted, limping back to reform, I surveyed that mass of infantry with a sinking heart, calling them off by name—Allard's, Court's, Avitabile's, Delust's, Alvarine's, and the rest of the divisions. The standards were easy to read, and so were those grim bearded faces, sharp in my glass—I could even make out the silver buckles on the black cross-belts, the aigrets in the turbans, and the buttons on the tunics, white and red and blue and green, just as I'd seen them on Maian Mir. How the devil came they here had Tej's colonels lost patience and made him march to the sound of the guns? That must be it, and now that White had played our last card, we could only wait for them to advance and swallow us. The victory of Ferozeshah had become a death-trap—and I remembered Gardner's words: "They reckon they can whip John Company." And now John Company could barely stand up in his shot-torn squares, his pouches and magazines empty, his guns silent, his cavalry lame, and only his bayonets left.

  Across the plain spurts of flame flickered along the Khalsa batteries like an electric storm, followed by the thunder of the discharge, the howl of shot overhead, and a hideous crashing and screaming as it burst open our squares. They were making sure, the bastards, pounding us to death at leisure before sending in their foot regiments to cut up the remains; again the dust boiled up as the grape and roundshot tore through the entrenchments; we could stand or we could run. John Company chose to stand, God knows why. In my case, he stood as close behind Gough as might be, too scared even to pray—and a bad choice of position it was, too. For as the bombardment reached its height, and the squares vanished in the rolling red clouds, and our army died by inches, with men going down like skittles and the blood running under our hooves, and some heroic ass bawling: "Die hard, Queen's Own!", and Flashy wondering if he dared cut out under the eye of his Chief, and knowing I hadn't the game for it, and even my wound forgotten as the deadly hail swept through us—suddenly Gough wheeled his horse, looking right and left at the wreck of his army, and the old fellow was absolutely weeping! Then he flung away his hat, and I heard him growl:

  "Oi nivver wuz bate, an' Oi nivver will be bate! West, Flashman—follow me!"

  And he wheeled his charger and went racing out into the plain.

  You fall on your bloody sword if you want to, Paddy, thinks I, and would have stood my ground or dived for cover, more like—but Charley was away like a shot, my beast followed suit like the idiot cavalry screw he was, I clutched at the bridle with my shattered hand, near fainted at the pain, and found myself careering in their wake. For a moment I thought the old fellow had gone crazy, and was for charging the Khalsa on his own, but he veered away right, making for the flank square—and as he gal-loped clear of it and suddenly reined in on his haunches, and rose in his stirrups with his arms wide, I saw what he was at.

  All India knew that white coat of Gough's, the famous "fighting coat" that the crazy old son-of-a-bitch had been flaunting at his foes for fifty years, from South Africa and the Peninsula to the Northwest Frontier. Now he was using it to draw the fire from his army to himself (and the two unlucky gallopers whom the selfish old swine had dragged along). It was the maddest-brained trick you ever saw—and, damnation, it worked! I can see him still, holding the tails out and showing his teeth, his white hair streaming in the wind, and the earth exploding round him, for the Sikh gunners took the bait and hammered us with everything they had. And of course, we weren't hit—try turning your batteries on three men at a thousand yards, and see what it gets you.37

  But you don't reckon mathematical probabilities with a hurricane of shot whistling about your ears. I forced my beast alongside him, and yelled:

  "Sir Hugh, you must withdraw! The army cannot spare you, sir!" Which was inspiration, if you like, but wasted on that Irish idiot. He yelled something that I couldn't hear … and then the miracle happened. And if you don't believe it, look in the books.

  All of a sudden, the firing died away, and across the plain the bugles rang out, and the drums rolled, the great gold banners were raised in the rays of the setting sun, and the Khalsa began to move. It came on in column by regiments, with a line of Jat light infantry leading, green figures with their pieces at the trail—and suddenly Charley West was shouting:

  "Look, Sir Hugh! Our cavalry! The guns—my God, they're retiring!"

  Not before time, thinks I, 'though it shocked me, I can tell you. For he was right: where we sat, perhaps a furlong ahead of our right flank, we had a clear view of the appal-ling ruin of our army—the dozen battered squares of red figures, with great gaps in their ranks, the regimental col-ours stirring in the evening wind, the bodies sprawled on the earthworks, the plain before them littered with dead and dying beasts and men, the whole hideous scene mantled in dust and smoke from the charred wreckage.

  And the cavalry, what was left of it, was trotting away southward, across the front of our left-hand squares, which were inclined slightly back from those on the right. They were in column by troops, Native lancers and Irregular Horse, and then the 3rd Lights, with the horse guns following, bouncing along behind the teams.

  "They—they can't be runnin'!" cries West. "Sir Hugh shall I ride to 'em, sir? It must be a mistake, surely!"

  Gough was staring after them as though he'd seen a ghost. I guess it was something he'd not seen in half a century—horse and guns leaving the infantry to their fate. But he didn't stare more than a moment.

  "After 'em, West! Bring 'em back!" he snapped, and Mad Charley was away, head down and heels in, drumming up the dust, while Gough turned to look again towards the Khalsa.

  They were well out on the plain now, in splendid style, infantry in the centre with the horse guns at intervals among them, cavalry on the wings. Gough motioned to me, and we began to trot back towards our position. For the first time I saw Hardinge, with a little knot of officers, just in front of the right-hand squares. He was looking through a glass, and turning his head to call an order. The kneeling squares stood up, the men closing on each other, pieces at the present, the dying sun flickering on the line of bayonets. Gough reined up.

  "Here'll do as well as any place," says he, and shaded his eyes to look across the plain. "Man, but there's a fine sight, is it not? Fit to gladden a soldier's heart, so it is. Well, here's to them—and to us." He nodded to me. "Thank you, me son." He threw back the tail of his coat and drew his sabre, loosing the frog to let the scabbard fall to the ground.

  "I think we're all goin' home," says he.

  I glanced over my shoulder. Behind me the plain was open beyond our right flank, with jungle not a mile away. My screw wasn't blown or lame, and I was damned if I'd wait here to be butchered by that juggernaut tramping inexorably towards us; the blare of their heathen music came before them, and behind it the measured thunder of forty thousand feet. From the squares came the hoarse shouts of command; I stole another look at the distant jungle, tightening my sound hand on the bridle …

  "Dear God!" exclaims Gough, and I started guiltily round. And what I saw was another impossibility, but … there it was.

  The Khalsa had halted in its tracks. The dust was eddying up before the advance line of Jats, they were turning to look back at the main body, we could hear voices shrilling orders, and the music was dying away in a discordant wail. The great standards seemed to be wavering, the whole vast army was stirring like a swarm, the rattle of a single kettle-drum was taken up, repeated from regiment to regiment, and then it was as though a Venetian blind had opened and closed across the front of the great host—it was the ranks turning about, churning up the dust, and then they were moving away. The Khalsa was in full retreat.

  There wasn't a sound from our squares. Then, from somewhere behind me, a man laughed, and a voice called angrily for silence. That'
s the only noise I remember, but I wasn't paying much heed. I could only watch in stricken bewilderment as twenty thousand of the best native troops in the world turned their backs on an exhausted, helpless enemy … and left the victory to us.

  Gough sat his horse like a statue, staring after them. A full minute passed before he chucked the reins, turning his mount. As he walked it past me towards the squares, he nodded and says:

  "You get that hand seen to, d'ye hear? An' when ye're done with it, I'll be obliged for the return of my neckercher."

  So that was Ferozeshah as I saw it—the "Indian Waterloo", the bloodiest battle we ever fought in the Orient, and certainly the queerest—and while other accounts may not tally with mine (or with each other's) on small points, all are agreed on the essentials. We took Ferozeshah, at terrible cost, in two days of fighting, and were at the end of our tether when Tej Singh hove in view with an overwhelming force, and then sheered off when he could have eaten us for dinner.

  The great controversy is: why did he do it? Well, you know why, because I've told you—he kept his word to us, and betrayed his army and his country. Yet there are respected historians who won't believe it, to this day—some because they claim the evidence isn't strong enough, others because they just won't have it that victory was won by anything other than sheer British valour. Well, it played its part, by God it did, but the fact is it wouldn't have been enough, without Tej's treachery.

  One of the things which confuses the historians is that Tej himself, who could lie truth out of India when he wanted to, told so many different stories afterwards. He assured Henry Lawrence that he didn't push home his attack because he was sure it must fail; having seen the losses we'd taken in capturing Ferozeshah, he decided it was a hopeless position to assail now that we were defending it. He told the same tale to Sandy Abbott. Well, that's all my eye: he knew his strength, and he knew we were at the last gasp, so that won't wash.

  Another lie, repeated to Alick Gardner, was that he was off collecting reserves at the time. If that's so, and he wasn't even there, who gave the Khalsa the order to turn about?

  The truth, I believe, is what he told me many years later. He'd have stayed before Ferozepore till the Sutlej froze, if his colonels hadn't forced him to march to the battle—and once in sight of Ferozeshah he was in a pickle, because he could see that victory was his for the taking. He had to think up some damned fine excuse for not overwhelming us, and Chance provided it, at the last moment, when our guns and cavalry inexplicably with-drew, leaving our infantry as lonely as the policeman at Herne Bay. "Now's your time, Tej!" cries the Khalsa, "give the word and the day is ours!" "Not a bit of it!" says clever Tej. "Those crafty bastards ain't withdrawing at all—they're circling round to take us flank and rear! Back to the Sutlej, boys, I'll show you the way!" And the Khalsa did as they were told.

  Well, you can see why. The three days of Moodkee and Ferozeshah had given their rank and file a great respect for us. They didn't realise what poor fettle we were in, or that the withdrawal of our horse and artillery was in fact an appalling mistake. It looked as though it might have some sinister purpose to it, as Tej was suggesting, and while they suspected his courage and character (rightly), they also knew he wasn't a bad soldier, and might be right for once. So they obeyed him, and we were saved when we should have been massacred.

  You may ask why our cavalry and guns unexpectedly flew off into the blue, giving Tej his excuse for retreating. Well, that was a gift from the gods. I told you that Lumley, the Adjutant-General, had gone barmy during the first day's fighting, and kept saying we must retire on Ferozepore; well, on the second day, all his screws came loose together, he got Ferozepore on the brain entirely, and at the height of the battle he ordered our guns and cavalry away—in Hardinge's name, if you please, so off they went, with the great loony urging them to make haste. So that's how it was—Mickey White, Tej Singh, and Lumley, each doing his little bit in his own way. Odd business, war.38

  We'd lost 700 dead, and close on 2000 wounded, including your humble obedient who spent the night under a tree, almost freezing to death, and utterly famished, with Hardinge and what was left of his staff. There was no sleep to be had, with my hand throbbing in agony, but I daren't bleat, for Abbott alongside me had three wounds to my one, and was cheerful enough to sicken you. Round about dawn Baxu the butler rolled up with some chapattis and milk, and when we'd wolfed it down and Hardinge had prayed a bit, we all crawled aboard an elephant and lumbered down to Ferozepore, which was to be our seat of government henceforth, while Gough and most of the army camped near Ferozeshah. It was a great procession of wounded and baggage all the way to Ferozepore, and when we reached the entrenchments who should emerge but the guns and cavalry who had abandoned ship at the fatal moment. Hardinge was in a bate to know why, and one of the binky-nabobs*(*Artillery commanders.) assured him it had been on urgent orders from Hardinge himself, transmitted by the Adjutant-General.

  So now the cry was "Lumley", and presently he appeared, very brisk and with a wild glint in his eye, lashing the air with a fly-whisk and giving sharp little cries; he was dressed in pyjamys and a straw boater, and was plainly on his way to the Hatter's for tea. Hardinge demanded why he'd sent off the guns, and Lumley looked fierce and said they had needed fresh magazines, of course, and damned if he'd known where they could get any, bar Ferozepore. He sounded quite indignant.

  "Twelve miles away?" cries Hardinge. "What service could they hope to do in time, supposing they had replenished?"

  Lumley snapped back, about as much as they'd ha' done at Ferozeshah, with no charges left. He seemed quite pleased with this, and laughed loudly, swatting flies, while Hardinge went purple. "And the cavalry, then?" cries he. "Why did you bid them retire?"

  "Escort," says Lumley, picking imaginary mice off his shirt. "Can't have guns goin' about unguarded. Desperate fellows everywhere—Sikhs, don't you know? Swoop, pounce, carry 'em off, I assure you. Besides, cavalry needed a rest. Quite played out."

  "And you did this in my name, sir?" cries Hardinge. "Without my authority?"

  Lumley said, impatiently, that if he hadn't, no one would have paid him any heed. He grew quite agitated in describing how on the first night he'd told Harry Smith to retreat, and Harry had told him to go to hell. "Usin' foulest language, sir! `Damn the orders!'—his very words, though I said 'twas in your name, and the battle was lost, and we must buy the Sikhs if we were to come off. He wouldn't listen," says Lumley, looking ready to cry.

  Well, everyone except Hardinge could see that the fellow was liable to start plaiting his toes into door-mats, but our pompous G.G. wouldn't let him alone. Why, he demanded, was Lumley improperly dressed in pyjamys instead of uniform? Lumley gave a great guffaw and says: "Ah, well, you see, my overalls were so riddled with musket-balls, they dropped off me!39

  They sent him home, which made me wonder if he was quite as tap* as he sounded, for at least he got out of it, while the rest of us must soldier on, waiting for Paddy to plan his next bloodbath. I had hopes of keeping clear, with my hand shot through and my supposedly bad leg, but once we'd settled in Ferozepore and taken stock, blowed if I wasn't the fittest junior in view. Munro, Somerset, and Hore of Hardinge's staff were dead, Grant and Becher were wounded, Abbott wouldn't recover for weeks, and the toll among the politicals had been frightful, with Broadfoot and Peter Nicolson dead and Mills and Lake badly wounded. It's a damned dangerous game, campaigning, especially with a sawbones as heartily callous as old Billy M'Gregor. "Man, that's a grand hole in your hand!" cries he, sniffing it. "Nae gangrene or broken bones—ye'll be grippin' a glass or a gun inside the week! Your ankle? Ach, it's fine—ye could play peever* this minute!"

  Not what I care to hear from my medical man in war-time; I'd been looking for a ticket to Meerut at least. But with politicals so scarce there was no hope of that, and when saintly Henry Lawrence turned up to take Broadfoot's place, I was kept hard at it—among other duties, seeing to the provision of fur boots for our elephants
against the winter cold. Capital, thinks I, this is the way to Nerve out the war in comfort.

  For one thing now seemed plain: the Khalsa couldn't whip John Company. The bogy had been laid at Ferozeshah, India was safe, and while they were still in strength beyond the river, it remained only to bring them to one final action to break them for good and all. So for the present we sat and watched them, Gough awaiting his chance to strike, and Hardinge turning his mind to great affairs of state and political settlements, with Lawrence, who knew the Punjab better even than Broadfoot, at his elbow.

  Ile was shockingly Christian, Lawrence, but an Al political for all that. He turned me inside out about Lahore, and wanted me in at the high pow-wows, but Hardinge said I was far too junior, and "over-zealous". The truth was he couldn't abide me, and wanted to forget my existence. Here's why.

  We'd had a bloody close call in India, and it was Hardinge's fault. He'd failed to secure the frontier, through pussyfooting and hindering Gough, and the stark truth was that when the grip came, two men had saved the day—Gough and I. I ain't bragging; you know I never' do (well, maybe about women and horses, but never about small things). I'd instructed Lal and Tej's treachery, and Paddy had held his ragbag army together, got it to the gate in time, and won his fights. Oh, they'd been costly, and he'd fought head on, and taken some hellish risks, but he'd done the business as few could have done it—Hardinge for one. But that wasn't how Hardinge saw it: he believed he'd stopped Paddy from throwing the army away at Ferozeshah, and from that it was a short step to seeing himself as the Saviour of India. Well, he was Governor-General, after all, and India had been saved. Q.E.I.

  Indeed, he seemed to think he'd done it in spite of Gough—and inside a week of Ferozeshah he was writing to Peel in London urging that Paddy be given the sack. I saw the letter, accidental-like, when I was rummaging through his excellency's effects in search of cheroots, and it was a beauty: Paddy wasn't fit to be trusted with the war, the army was "unsatisfactory", he'd no head for bandobast, he didn't frame orders properly, etc. Well, dash my wig, thinks I, here's gratitude—and the measure of Henry Hardinge. Framing orders, my foot—no doubt "On ye go, Mickey, give 'em one for me!" offended his staff college sensibilities, but he might have remembered another general of his acquaintance whose style wasn't very different: "Stand up, Guards! Now, Maitland, now's your time!" If I'd been a man I'd have scrawled it across his precious letter.