Scindia lapsed immediately into silence and seemed to sulk. The woman, who could not have been much more than four feet tall, looked at us with black, glittering eyes. There was no hint of fear in her face, but instead a look of mild amusement.
Looking around, I could see nothing amusing. The front ranks of both contingents glared at each other across the carpet, just a few yards apart. Whether Scindia gives the order or not, I thought, it will take just an ill-judged gesture or insult from either side for this to explode into violence. Surjee Rao, the father-in-law, must have thought so too, for having got Scindia’s consent he ordered the Pathans to withdraw. There was a furious growl from that side of the carpet but Surjee Rao shouted at them again and reluctantly they started to get up and move away. They looked at us hungrily like gluttons dragged away from a feast, while those on our side of the carpet laughed and jeered in triumph.
Without his protection Scindia appeared more conciliatory, and food and drink was served for all and gifts exchanged between Scindia and the senior men of the army.
We all started to relax, and while I declined the betel leaves that were passed around for chewing (disgusting stuff that tastes foul and involves a lot of spitting), I did partake of some skins of arrack that were also circulated among the crowd. After the tension at the start of the meeting the sense of relief now was almost palpable. My travelling companions had been proved right: we were not going to be attacked. Amongst them, even with Scindia just a few yards away, I felt deceptively safe and drank more than I should. Little did I know that I was not nearly as safe as I thought.
“Who is the short person sitting next to Scindia?” I asked one of my companions.
“Why, that is the begum of Samru. Where have you been not to know her?” said a stout havildar beside me.
“I am new here, but I have heard of her, of course, just not seen her before. I had not realised she was quite so short.”
“Aye, don’t be fooled by her size for she has courage that one. More than once she has led her troops to victory when heavily outnumbered. She can be ruthless too, for I heard she once had two servant girls buried alive for displeasing her.”
“Ha,” said his neighbour, “she is small like a scorpion with a sharp sting, as her second husband found out when she tricked him into blowing his brains out for her.”
At this they all laughed at her cunning.
“She is good to her troops, though,” added another from the group. “Unlike Lord Scindia, she actually pays them occasionally and she does not waste their lives in pointless folly on the battlefield.”
This comment kicked them off into a long debate on soldier’s grievances, for pay in any army is invariably in arrears, if it comes at all. I drank more arrack and watched those at the end of the carpet. Scindia was back to looking petulant and bored, but the begum sat there still with her amused smile and her eyes were darting amongst the men sitting on the carpet. Occasionally she would give a nod of greeting and twice men got up to salaam back at her in return. There was clearly a lot of respect for her amongst the soldiers, and if there had been a riot with the Pathans, while Scindia might have been killed, I had a shrewd suspicion that she would have been spared.
It was starting to drift into the evening before we were finally given leave to go, but at this the general stood up and went to stand in front of Scindia and, taking off his sword, still sheathed, he laid it at the prince’s feet.
“I have grown old in your service,” the general said loudly for us all to hear, “and it does not become me to be disgraced by dissolute knaves and bullies.” Here he gestured broadly at the courtiers around the prince, although we all knew he meant the prince himself. “I will therefore take my discharge.” He turned to the men and said clearly, “From now on you must look to the Lord Scindia for guidance.”
On hearing this both Scindia and his father-in-law gave a smile of triumph. Scindia stepped forward and embraced the general, insisting that he regarded him as an uncle. With the five hundred Pathans still milling around the outskirts of the town he even had the nerve to say that he was sure he had no idea what could have offended him. But neither the prince nor the father-in-law made any attempt to change the general’s mind.
We all got up and started milling about to find friends and make a general movement towards where the horses were tied. A number of the courtiers were mixed in with the throng and at first I walked past him without noticing. You must have done the same: walked past someone and then a pace or two later your brain tells you that you know that face. In this case my brain knew the face, and suddenly a whole lot of other things fell into place too. Of course if I had any common sense I would have just kept on walking while my mind worked it out and hoped that he had not noticed me. Unfortunately I was not that smart, and before I knew what I was doing I was turning around to stare. He had turned around too, and for a moment we both looked at each other in astonishment. Now I knew how the letter had disappeared on the indiaman ship from England. I also knew why I had not managed to find it searching cabins and why Scindia knew about it and was so confident in recognising my head. For there, standing in front of me wearing robes and a turban, was Lieutenant Harvey, the indiaman officer I had thought was my friend on the ship.
“Flashman... my God, it is you behind those whiskers.”
Even then I might have tried to bluff it out if I had thought fast enough, but I was still in shock. “Harvey!” I gasped, thus sealing my fate.
“Guards! Guards!” shouted Harvey, recovering first. “Arrest that man! He is the British spy Thomas Flashman.”
If I thought my army comrades would come to my rescue then I was destined to be disappointed. They started to shrink back, leaving a space around me as though I were still at school and accused of farting in chapel. One man did not shrink back, though: pushing through the crowd came James Skinner.
“Leave that man alone!” he cried. “He is Edward Carstairs and he is the commander of my bodyguard.”
Of course Skinner had to maintain the pretence to protect his own position, but he showed no hesitation in coming forward. Seeing his approach, the other soldiers stopped shrinking back, but they did not impede the royal guards who now pushed through them in my direction.
“His name is Thomas Flashman,” replied Harvey. “I know as I was at sea with him for four months. He is the man with the golden head and now I am going to claim my prize.”
The guards grabbed me by the arms and it was then that I started to panic. After all I had been through – the weeks with the Rajputs, escaping the pindaree, having to travel to the enemy heartland just to survive – now I was betrayed by the wildest of coincidences.
I started to struggle. “Let me go! I am one of you, I am Edward Carstairs.... Oh Jesus, they can’t kill me now.”
They were dragging me towards dais where Scindia and the others still sat, now staring curiously at the disturbance.
Suddenly Skinner was alongside me, pushing the guards back. “Listen, you must show courage. They will have no pity for the weak,” he whispered at me. “You must be strong. Tell them that you are a man of influence, a friend of the Wellesleys, that the brothers will avenge you if you are harmed.” The guards dragged me on closer to the dais. “It is your only chance,” Skinner called after me.
We were through the crowd of soldiers now, and looking up, I could see Scindia, his father-in-law and the begum all staring in my direction surrounded by their courtiers. They had been preparing to leave as well but now settled back down to see what this disturbance was all about.
“Sir!” shouted Harvey as he pushed past me. “Lord Scindia, I have found the spy Thomas Flashman. He was here disguised as one of your officers.”
“Are you sure?” asked Scindia in astonishment. “He was hiding in my own army?”
By now I had been dragged in front of them and one of my guards swept away my feet with his leg as he pushed me so that I sprawled before them in the dust. I could feel my face burning; it
went red when I was terrified, which people often mistook for anger. Luckily I looked up before I spoke, which may have saved me. I had not really been listening to Skinner as he had shouted at me as I was pulled through the crowd; my mind had been paralysed in terror. But now his words came back to me as I looked up at the faces of those who would decide my fate. I saw not a shred of mercy would come from that quarter. The begum was looking annoyed at having her departure delayed and glared at me stonily. Scindia coiled himself back into his chair and licked his lips while smiling in anticipation. His father-in-law grinned and rubbed his hands in delight and leaned over to whisper something to Scindia which made them both chuckle malevolently.
Skinner’s words came back to me then: bluff was my only hope. So instead of begging, pleading and grovelling for them to spare me, I stayed silent. The guards who had released me stood either side but did not move to stop me as I got back onto my knees and then stood up, brushing the dust from my clothes. I gazed at them red-faced and sweating but tried to look as cool as I could with my guts churning in terror.
“This is him, sir, definitely Thomas Flashman,” said Harvey again.
I ignored Harvey and looked Scindia in the eye, playing my part of the fearless British officer.
“Are you really Thomas Flashman?” Scindia asked quietly.
For a moment I weighed up whether to try to continue claiming to be Carstairs. It might buy some time while they checked that the real Carstairs still lived, but then I would be dead for certain. Looking at them, I did not think they would wait to check. They would believe Harvey whatever I said because he told them what they wanted to hear, which just happened to be the truth.
“Yes, I am,” I replied and there was a gasp of astonishment and murmuring from the surrounding soldiery. “I am a trusted aid to Lord Mornington, the governor general, and his brother, General Arthur Wellesley. If you harm me they will hear about it,” I said, gesturing at the three hundred soldiers watching this encounter. “The Wellesleys will not forget such an act when preparing for war or negotiating a peace. On the other hand,” I added hopefully, “I would be happy to take a message from you to the governor general.” I looked at their faces to see how this was going down but Scindia was staring past me into the crowd.
“Colonel Skinner,” he called. “Come and explain to me how a notorious British spy came to be commander of your bodyguard.”
Skinner marched forward a few paces to stand beside me. “He told me his name was Edward Carstairs, sir. He never gave me reason to think otherwise.”
“And where did you meet him?” enquired Scindia with exaggerated politeness.
“On the Deccan Plain. He was on his own, riding to join our forces,” said Skinner stolidly.
“And you did not think to connect this lone English horseman with the English spy who had escaped the pindaree nearby just days before...” Scindia’s voice now rose to a shout: “And who all my forces should have been looking for!”
“No, sir,” said Skinner woodenly. “He gave me no cause to doubt his identity.”
“Then you are either a liar or a fool,” hissed Scindia angrily. He sank back in his chair, reflecting on us both, and then glanced up at the sky where the sun was sinking towards the western horizon. Then he turned to me. “You wanted to help me send a message to the Wellesley brothers, didn’t you. Well, so you shall.”
You would think that my spirits would have risen at this, but they didn’t. There was a malevolence emanating from Scindia that left little room for hope. Every fibre of my being wanted to throw myself to the ground and beg for mercy, explain how I had been tricked and trapped and how I had wanted no part of the dastardly scheme that had got me in this mess; but looking at Scindia’s face, I knew that to do so would be pointless and fatal. I looked across at the others on the dais. The begum was showing complete disinterest and was whispering to one of her aides while the father-in-law was grinning in anticipation. Skinner had said that my only hope lay in showing courage; perhaps he was planning a jail break or knew people planning a coup. It did not seem much of a chance but it was all I had, and so I stood tall and looked him in the eye.
“We will send a message to the Wellesley brothers by executing you in the morning,” announced Scindia loudly to the crowd.
I heard a murmuring spread through the watching soldiers but at that exact moment I felt nothing; my mind went numb. I had been half-expecting it. After all, he was unlikely to have offered the keys to the local bun shop or a pardon after his forces had been trying to kill me for months. But if, dear reader, you are ever in the unfortunate position of being sentenced to death, and I speak from experience here as it has happened to me at least three times in my life, let me tell you it takes a while to sink in. I just stood there in shock and disbelief, as they then discussed the means of my despatch.
“Let me see now,” said Scindia, grinning at me and obviously waiting for some sort of reaction. “Shall we use an elephant or perhaps a tent mallet?”
“Rockets?” suggested the father-in-law hopefully. “We have not done that for a while. We have some here and they certainly make an impression.”
“Yes, rockets,” said Scindia.
He looked disappointed that I had not started raving and begging for mercy yet. Looking back, I am surprised myself. If he had said ‘hanging’ then that may have brought back memories of executions I had seen and triggered a reaction, but talk of elephants and tent mallets made the scene surreal. I just continued to stare at him while my mind tried to fully comprehend ‘execute’ and ‘tomorrow’.
Scindia evidently decided to give my imagination some help. “We will tie your left arm and right leg to one rocket and your right arm and left leg to the other. Sometimes two limbs are torn from the body, but if you manage to hold the rockets together in their cross, you are killed when the shells inside them explode.”
“What about the head?” asked a voice. “I need the weight of that in gold.”
I looked and there was Lieutenant Harvey in his robes talking about weighing bits of what would remain of my body and suddenly my mind seemed to catch up in a rush. The theft of the letter... Harvey, betrayal to Scindia... Harvey, enabling my head as a prize... Harvey, delivering me to Scindia... Harvey, and now here he was just two yards away arguing about the resulting offal from my destruction.
The rage welled in me like a volcano, completely out of control. The guards who stood either side were no longer holding me and were completely unprepared for what happened next. One moment I was standing still and erect and the next I had launched myself at Harvey with an animal growl. We fell to the ground and I got my hands around his throat and I crushed it for all I was worth while roaring at him, “You treacherous little bastard! I’ll rip your god damn head from your shoulders!”
It took four guards to pull me off him and I was still raving and kicking out like a mad thing. In the end three of them sat on me and to stop me shouting one of them shoved a gag in my mouth and rapped the back of my skull with something hard. I think I blacked out for a moment, but when I came to I remember seeing Harvey being helped to his feet. He was making choking noises and massaging his throat, while beyond him Scindia was laughing in delight at the reaction he had prompted. I was vaguely aware of chatter and shouting from the ranks of the army behind me, but no one seemed to intervene.
Eventually Harvey stood free and, having cleared his throat, he gave me a look of utter hatred and then turned to the dais. “Lord Scindia, I would like to ask permission to light the rocket fuses at the execution tomorrow.”
“No,” said Scindia, suddenly becoming serious again. “That will be done by Colonel Skinner, and if he refuses, he will be tied to another rocket cross himself.” He looked with a hint of contempt at Harvey before adding, “I might let you light them both if that happens.”
His final words were almost drowned out by an even louder chorus of shouts and cries from the soldiers behind but I don’t recall any more as I think I passed out ag
ain.
Chapter 17
I came to alone in some strange, stone-built, bottle-shaped cell, which must have been part of one of the buildings in Oojeine. There was a small barred window high up on the wall and I saw that the sky was now dark with the first few stars visible. I had been woken by the sound of a terrified scream which had been cut off suddenly with a choking gurgle. It had come from nearby and I shrank back, terrified in the darkness, listening to scuffling outside my cell door and the sound of two low voices muttering. Finally there was the noise of what sounded like a body being thrown on the floor. I wondered if it was some rescue party organised by Skinner, but that scream had sounded truly awful and I could not bring myself to call out. If it was a rescue party, they would call for me... and they didn’t.
It is strange what you find yourself grateful for at times. At that point I took some comfort from knowing that as I was due to be spectacularly blown apart by rockets in the morning, I was unlikely to be murdered by Scindia’s men in the night. It was not my first time in a prison cell and it would certainly not be my last. Bizarrely it was not even my only stay in a bottle-shaped cell, for they seem to be quite popular in some places. But whatever happened, it was destined to be one of my shortest spells of incarceration.
Now awake, I began to pace my cell and stare up at the small square of stars visible through the window. You have probably done the same in dire circumstances, wondering if you would see them again and if they were also shining down on someone you know. My only hope of rescue was some kind of revolt by the army officers, but they had shown no interest in stopping my arrest and had only expressed outrage at the idea of Skinner being blown up too. They would not put themselves out to save a British spy from a rocket-powered evisceration. If he had any sense, Skinner would touch off the fuses. I knew I would in the same situation.
I let my mind dwell on how I would die for a while and was nearly sick at the thought of it. The jets of flame burning my limbs while the awful rockets tried to tear me apart and all the while burning down to the explosive shells inside them. I had no idea what force a rocket could generate and whether I was likely to be blown up whole or in several pieces, and believe me when I say that it did not bear thinking about.
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