Flashman and the Cobra

by Robert Brightwell

  “That is the way, Flashman huzoor, lash them with your tongue.” Poorun loomed now out of the smoke and grinned at me as he moved on towards the gate. He was lucky I had not accidentally shot at him as well, but I did not answer him, for suddenly my prayers were answered.

  It was just a thought, an idea, and I immediately sprang into action, hauling on the rope to lower the bucket down the well as fast as I could go. There was no time to think things through – another splintering crash against the barricade and renewed shouting from that direction meant that there were only seconds to spare. Again there was a crash from the barricade and this time a big cloud of sparks could be seen through the smoke and a loud cheer signalled that the pindaree were coming through the gap.

  “Flashman huzoor, they are through. Come and wet the blade of your sword,” called Poorun from a few feet in front of me as he ran forward to meet the charge.

  “I will be right with you,” I shouted back as I grabbed hold of the rope and swung my legs over the edge to drop down into the well.

  I dropped six feet and then the rope held, caught on the spindle that was used to raise the bucket. I had been ready, holding it tightly with my hands and feet so that I did not slip, and now I went down it hand over hand. For at that very last minute I had remembered what Poorun said about the well when we had watered our horses on the northern side of the rock and how it was joined to the tank by a channel. I had no idea if that channel was just a pipe or a passage I could get through, or if it had been barred to stop people getting in or out of the castle. It was just an idea, a hope, which was more than I had before. The noise of battle continued above me but sounded even more eerie echoing down the stone shaft. I heard the clang of metal on metal and a blood-curdling scream above the general noise of the mêlée.

  Suddenly my feet were wet and I kicked the bucket out of the way and dropped into the water. I was starting to sink; I was still wearing my heavy cavalry sabre and a woollen coat that was now heavy with water. I had to hold on to the rope while I unbuckled the sword, took off my sash and shrugged off the heavy coat. I looked up and saw a small circle of sky which looked strangely peaceful in contrast with the continuing noise of battle above me, but at least no one was looking down the well. I had hoped that there would be a light showing where the tunnel was but it all seemed dark. Would I drown down here or would I be hauled up, defeated by the pindaree, only to be beheaded? I had to keep calm. There had to be a water channel of some kind. I held on to the rope and started to work my way around the wall of the well, feeling with my hands and feet for a break in the stone.

  I was just starting to panic when my foot kicked at nothing: there was a gap! Feeling with my hands and feet, I found it was big enough for me to get through. I took a deep breath and lowered myself underwater to see. I thought the distance from the well to the outside wall must be around sixty feet; it was hard to judge that in the tunnel, but there, at the end of it, was a dull green glow. I surfaced again and looked up. There was the circle of blue sky above me and the noise of battle was still raging. Waiting would serve no purpose. I had to act. I took three slow, deep breaths and on the third I dived and kicked into the tunnel.

  There was room to pull myself along by grabbing the walls but not room to turn around if I got stuck. I tried to concentrate on counting slowly to a sixty to keep calm while I steadily pulled away on the sides of the tunnel. A third of the way along a rock had fallen from the ceiling, but I managed to squeeze over it without wasting too much time. Now the light ahead was looking stronger and I could see that there were no bars or other obstructions between me and the daylight. I was only halfway into my count when I came to the end of the tunnel and saw that plants and reeds were partly obscuring its entrance.

  I surfaced in the foliage and concentrated on not making a noise. For a minute I just lay in the plants with my mouth wide open, gasping silently like a fish. The noise of battle was continuing fifty feet above me. Hopelessly outnumbered as they were, the Rajputs were clearly putting up one heck of a defence. Well, if I had anything to do with it, their efforts would not go to waste. I peered through the plants. There were rows of horses but initially I could see no people. Then I spotted a crowd of old men and young boys standing halfway up the path to the fort where they had a better view of the battle. I only saw the other old man as I nearly trod on him to get out of the tank. He had been dozing in the shade against the wall but was now coming awake as I had splashed him with water. I had no weapon and if he gave the alarm then the others would come running and I would be finished. Desperation can drive you to do terrible things. I reached down to the floor of the tank and picked up a large rock. As the old man struggled to turn round to see what had splashed him, I brought it down on his head with a sickening thud.

  I knew he was dead. I had heard the skull crunch under the rock. Now I might not be the bravest man you will meet, but I reckon that I can think pretty fast when death’s hot breath is blowing down the back of my neck. For I saw at once that this old man’s demise could actually help me escape. In a moment I was pulling off the dirty turban from his head, before it became soaked in blood. It was one of those lose ones with a tail that you can wrap around your face. I tore off my own turban and I quickly put his on to hide my features. Then I was hauling off his sword belt, loose coat and pyjama trousers. I was well hidden by the strings of horses and even someone looking down from the fort would not have seen the body hidden by the tank wall. I could not leave the corpse to be found, which was now stripped down to a loin cloth and some boots that were too small for me, and so I dragged him up over the tank wall. A few moments later I was pushing the body back up the tunnel towards the well and moving the plants to hide the tunnel entrance. Still I had not been seen, but I needed to get moving.

  I put on the old man’s clothes on top of my wet ones and looked for a good horse among those tied around the tank. I found a likely mount; it had a full water skin and a fodder sack tied to the saddle. I was just about to leave when I noticed something gleaming on the ground. It was the Company regimental badge by my old turban. I picked up the cloth and the shiny badge and swung myself up in the saddle and started to walk the horse away.

  When you are riding off in disguise from a bunch of hostiles, and I have done it more than once, it is important not to rush. Amble off looking casual as though you want to empty your bowels in private and you will earn little or no attention. I did hear someone call from the crowd on the path, but I did not look round and just gave a vague wave of my hand and kept plodding on. My heart was racing, though. I was slumped in the saddle like an old man, but my ears were straining for any sound of pursuit or further challenge. I could not risk looking back in case someone who knew the old man was looking in my direction.

  I headed north, directly away from the fort, and saw a short distance away one of the nullah river beds heading away in that direction. I ambled the horse across to it and we found a shallow slope to climb down. Now just my head and shoulders were visible above ground level and I risked a glance back. The fort was some two hundred and fifty yards away and the sound of fighting seemed to have been replaced with the sound of shouting. The old men and boys were now walking up the path towards the fort, which had evidently been subdued. I kicked the horse into a trot and lay down low in the saddle so that I could not be seen.

  I had made it! I had got away, and if you ask me whether I felt a shred of guilt at running out on Poorun and those gallant troopers, well, I didn’t then and I don’t now. If I had stayed and died with them, it would have made no difference: they would still be just as dead and some bandit leader would have been richer by the weight of my head in gold. I found out much later that after the pindaree had finally slain all the Rajputs they fell to arguing amongst themselves. They were not all from the same band, you see, and when I was not found among the dead they started accusing each other of hiding my corpse and head for themselves. One enterprising villain even decapitated one of the younger Rajput corps
es and gave it a European haircut and tried to claim the money, but it did him no good.

  But you can’t spend six weeks with a group of people and not mourn their loss. I felt very alone as I rode away and found myself turning the turban badge over in my hands as I thought of them. It says something that I have that badge still. I managed to hang on to it despite everything that followed and it rests now in a little box of mementoes that I have on my desk as I write this.

  Chapter 14

  I really should have checked what was in that water skin before I set off. To this day I don’t know what it was, but it smelt appalling and tasted worse. I nearly tipped it away when I first gagged on it, but luckily I didn’t, for I would not be here now if I had. It was mid-December then and the rainy season had ended there a couple of months ago. There was still green foliage around for the horse to graze on but the bed of the nullah was dry. For the first day we rode north inside the nullah, following it where it went. It kept us out of sight from the rest of the plain and I was convinced that a pursuit would soon start.

  It was cold at night, but that first evening I could not risk a fire and I kept warm by walking on with the horse alongside me. At dawn I climbed out of the nullah and onto some nearby rocks to survey the ground around and particularly to the south, where any pursuing riders were likely to come from. Initially I saw nothing. Then, after a while, I did see some clouds of dust, but they were moving west as far as I could tell. I stayed up there, watching and resting and warming myself in the dawn sun. Eventually I saw another smaller dust cloud moving east, and while I could not see it, I guessed that another was moving south. They were ignoring the north as only an idiot would head towards Mahratta country.

  That idiot was considering his options. Berar also lay to the north but I had no intention of trying to complete my mission. Scindia’s spies and killers would be all over the place. No, just getting out alive was my goal. I was not sure precisely where I was. I thought I was still in Hyderabad. There was a big river on the border and we had not crossed one. Going north or south would take me to enemies and west was where most of the pindaree were heading. East seemed the safest option: the east coast was friendly to the British and I should be able to get a boat to Madras and beyond. But as I took another swig of that foul liquid in the water skin I knew that water was my first priority and then food, for there had been nothing in the saddlebags for me to eat and I was starving.

  I stayed up on the plain for the next day and headed east. It was rough country with rocky ridges and outcrops and every now and then a nullah to cross. It was another cold night but I sheltered between some rocks and managed to sleep. The horse was struggling; it had not drunk for two days, the fodder sack was now empty and there had been few plants for grazing. I walked him at dawn and spotted a cart track heading north-east. A track meant people and it might lead to a village or a river where we could get food and water.

  I saw the first corpse an hour later. It was lying by the side of the road, or at least some of it was as jackals had torn the body apart. It was impossible to say how the man had died, but from the look of his remains it must have been at least a week ago. I saw two more bodies as I continued along the path during the next hour. At the second half-eaten skeleton we found, two jackals ran off into the scrub at the sight of us. As the sun climbed and the day warmed, three vultures could be seen circling in the air ahead. Finally, as we breasted a hill, I saw the little village spread out below us. I paused and studied it closely.

  I suspected that the bodies we had passed had been running from something and that thing would have been in the village. Now, though, the place was as still as a grave and, judging from the vultures I could see on the ground, that could be exactly what it was. We had to go in. I was parched as the foul stuff in the skin had run out the previous day and I had not eaten now for two days. I mounted the horse and we trotted down the hill, the horse picking up speed as it got closer. There was a well in the village with a stone trough beside it and both man and mount flung themselves beside it and drank greedily.

  After slaking my thirst I looked around. The village had around twenty buildings and several looked like they had been ransacked, with possessions strewn about. In the dried mud around the well there were lots of hoof-prints and more human remains were scattered around including those of a woman and two children. It was then that I noticed the three survivors. They were sitting on the ground with their backs to the wall of one of the huts and they were not far from death. The three men all looked middle-aged but it was hard to tell. Their eyes were sunken and their hollow stomachs and emaciated frames showed that they had not eaten properly for ages. Another corpse lay near them and it would not be long before they joined him. They took no notice of me, just staring blindly into the distance. It was only the movement of their chests and the visible pulse on the neck of one them that told me that they were alive.

  “What happened here?” I asked them in my best Hindi.

  Two ignored me completely, but the third slowly turned his head as though it was taking all his effort and fixed me with a pair of immensely sad black eyes. “Pindaree,” he croaked softly before fixing his gaze back into the distance.

  Looking around, it all made sense. A band of pindaree must have raided the village, taking all the food that they could find and anything else of value. Some villagers must have fled ahead of them on the road I had come in on and the rest were either killed or left to starve. The three men were just sitting there and waiting to die.

  What made no sense at all, though, was the thing that suddenly moved between two of the huts towards us. How could people let themselves starve to death when there was half a tonne of prime beef in the form of a lame ox there for the eating? Oh, I know cows are sacred to Hindus, but they ain’t sacred to Flashy. With a cry of delight, I sprang forward, drawing my sword as I went. The weapon was razor-sharp and I was so hungry I did not hesitate. Getting alongside the ox, I swung the blade up and across the beast’s throat as hard as I could. I half-expected the villagers to give some protest, but they made no move at all as the oxen staggered after making a truncated bellow at my attack. Blood was gushing from the deep wound, but it took a full minute to sink to its knees. I didn’t waste the time, but started hacking at the wooden wall of one of the nearby huts to gather some firewood and pulling dry straw off the roof for kindling. I had a flint and steel in my pocket and very soon I had a fire going. A search of the nearest hut brought an iron skillet and some earthenware bowls and by the time the ox had breathed its last I was on it again with the sword to cut myself a hunk of meat.

  If I was served the same mystery cut of ancient ox now in my London club, I would box the waiter’s ears and demand to see the maître d’. But then, not having eaten for two days and watching it roast in the flames, it was the sweetest meat I had ever tasted. I trimmed off the corners with my sword as they looked cooked and cut myself a large slice as soon as it was ready. I sat there gorging myself with the meat juices running down my chin. I was feeling much better.

  Then I looked up and saw those three faces staring at me and suddenly I felt angry. How dare they just give up on life? I cut them hunks of meat and put bowls of it before them. They didn’t even look at it and then I really lost my temper.

  “The beast is already dead, you stupid bastards,” I raved at them. “It won’t do it any harm if you eat it now.”

  They just ignored me and I kicked dust at them in frustration. It still makes me angry years later the way that they just gave up when things looked bleak. In my long and eventful career I have looked certain death in the eye an alarming number of times. I had done it twice already on that trip. I may have faced most of these times in a blind funk or panic, but I never gave up and just waited for death. That is the human spirit: to keep fighting to the end. An old India hand once told me that of all religions he thought that the Hindu was the bravest in facing death, with many showing absolutely no fear at all. Certainly the Rajputs showed no fear,
but they at least went down fighting.

  I slept fitfully that night, with gut ache as my stomach struggled to cope with the sudden change in its diet. I had the fire for warmth and cooked more of the ox, cut into strips that I planned to take with me when we left. As dawn came up I looked at the three survivors. They were still alive, now covered in dust and with the meat still untouched at their sides. I felt a twinge of guilt and took the meat away. Having interrupted their decline into oblivion, I knew that as soon as I left vultures and jackals would descend for the rest of the ox. I had only kept them away in the night by lighting more fires around the carcass. Thanks to me, the last sight the survivors would have on this earth was likely to be a foretaste of what would happen to their corpses when they died.

  I didn’t mount the horse as we left, as unlike me it had not eaten well. I had scavenged around the abandoned vegetable patches of the village and found it about half a bucket of useful food and it had found some light grazing. The water skin was full now with fresh water and I had also found a pottery jug and bowl so that I could water the horse. We set off again, following the road north-east.

  In the next three days we found two more villages like the first, only these had nothing alive in them and in one the well had been filled with rotting bodies. The horse was now on its last legs, and while I was better in body, my mind was despairing of the endless territory we were crossing that had been scoured of life. In five days I had heard just one word from another human: pindaree.