Flashman and the Cobra

by Robert Brightwell

  I staggered off as he suggested. It was a grim walk punctuated by the occasional screams and yells from wounded men and barks and yelps from jackals that were now prowling for meat. I heard the odd shot too; whether they were from guards shooting jackals or despatching the hopelessly wounded I did not know and nor did I want to.

  As I got closer to them, the fires revealed a scene like one of those religious paintings of hell. Four tables had been set up between the two fires to give the surgeons light and more orderlies with burning torches stood around them. There were rows of men lying on the ground waiting to be seen and other rows of men who, judging from the bandaging, had been treated, and in between were those awful tables. There was the odd bubbling scream or whimper from the men on those altars of pain and grunts of exertion from the surgeons or men that were holding the patients down. By far the worst noise, though, was the sound of the saws as they cut through human flesh and bone. It wasn’t a loud noise, just grating when they hit bone, but because you knew what it was it made every fibre of your being clench in revulsion and relief that it was not you on the table.

  I was going to walk past to the tents beyond but a voice called out to me from nearby: “I say, could you give me a hand?”

  I looked round and saw two heavily bandaged men sitting against a log nearby.

  “He can get you one from the bucket,” said the second man, who chortled with laughter at his own joke. I turned to where the laughing man was gesturing and was sickened to see a large pail by one of the tables that was full of severed arms, legs, hands and feet.

  I moved towards the two men. “What can I do for you?”

  “There is a chap over there cooking horse. Could you get me some? I am famished.”

  “Me too,” said his mate, who was wearing a cavalry trooper uniform. “I just hope it is not my nag we are eating.”

  I had not thought about food all day but now realised that I had not eaten anything apart from a handful of rice at breakfast. I went over to the enterprising soul who was now cooking strips of horse in a Mahratta breastplate balanced on some half-buried bayonets over a small fire. There was a group of men sitting around the fire and they were happy to give me three strips. I went back and shared them with the other two and sat down next to them. The man who had first spoken to me was an infantry officer and he had lost a leg at the knee while the trooper had bandages around his shoulder.

  “You’re that gentleman who joined us with Major Malcolm for the last charge, aren’t you?” said the trooper.

  “That’s right but I did not last long. The horse went mad and pushed into the front rank and then we were hit and it went down.”

  “Ah, Lieutenant Fairfax always rode in the front rank, so that is where the horse thought it should be,” said the trooper. “I still don’t understand how we did not ride right through them, though. They were brave bastards, I’ll say that for them, but if the colonel had not signalled to wheel away we would still have had them.”

  “Maxwell is dead,” said the infantry officer. “Half his chest shot away. I saw his body. God, it was a close run thing today, though, wasn’t it? If their cavalry had half the balls of our old seamstress, we would have been slaughtered.”

  “Your old seamstress had balls,” laughed the trooper.

  “She did too,” confirmed the officer. “Worked for the family for twenty years, damn good seamstress too – she made all my early clothes. Then when she died the undertaker told us she had a cock and balls.”

  “Get away!” said the trooper, astonished.

  “You are not half as shocked as Mother,” said the officer. “The seamstress had been measuring her for underwear for years!”

  We laughed and told tales and I began to relax, helped by a flask of brandy that the infantry officer passed around. We did not even notice as much the odd scream or wail that came from the surgeons’ tables. Even in that hellish scene there could be humour; it was a relief valve for those who were just desperately glad to still be alive. I remember being greatly amused when a surgeon got a shock looking for more bandages. The fires had been set up near where the 74th had been slaughtered as that was where most of the wounded were, but the ground was well littered with Mahratta corpses as well. Running out of cloth, the surgeon looked around and saw a Mahratta with a long white sash around his waist. He went over, untied it and was yanking it off the body when the ‘corpse’ came round. Both the Mahratta and the surgeon shrieked in alarm. Then the Mahratta, minus his sash, leapt to his feet and ran into the darkness while the surgeon sank to his knees, clutching his heart. No one moved to stop the Mahratta, we were all too busy laughing, and for the rest of the night the surgeon was ribbed about how he was now a resurrectionist.

  The good thing about being frightened out of your wits is that when the danger is past you feel a strong sense of elation. This was my first land battle, although God knows it was not the last. I felt ebullient as I sat there with my comrades in arms – well, they had probably used their weapons, though all I had done was drop mine. The battle was definitely over now and I had survived. I was going home, and with that happy thought I must have settled down on the ground and gone into a deep sleep.

  I was shaken awake by the cavalry trooper in the morning. “He’s dead,” he whispered to me, pointing to the infantry officer who was now slumped to one side. Sure enough, he was. I found out later that people often went like that when they lost a limb. The shock, I think, kills them. Still, it was a bit of a shock to us too as he had seemed fine joking and telling stories earlier. It was an unwelcome reminder of how fragile the strand of life can be.

  The sun was well over the horizon by then and so I helped the trooper to his feet and walked with him back to his troop. I had to return the jewelled sword; it was tempting to keep it as it must be worth a fortune but for that reason it was a loan that would not be forgotten. I did not want a pack of angry British horsemen on my tail. The battlefield looked little better in daylight. Stretchers were still moving the wounded to and from the surgeons and vultures still circled in the sky. Now that the dead were being gathered each regiment was preparing its own burial, but the Mahratta were mostly left where they lay. By the river, very much with the living, was bloody Carstairs, still without a scratch from the battle and full of his schoolboy enthusiasm.

  “Hello, Flash, I wondered what happened to you,” he cried, beaming with delight when he saw me. “What a day, eh? Did you enjoy your first cavalry charge?”

  You can imagine I was less enthusiastic in my response and most of the other cavalry officers were sombre too: Maxwell had been a popular commander and they had lost lots of others too. This included the fellow who had lent me the sword, but his effects would be auctioned for his widow and the jewelled sword would raise a tidy sum.

  Over the southern hills men and wagons could be seen coming towards us. It was the baggage train that Wellesley had left behind the previous day.

  Wellesley had set up his headquarters in an abandoned Mahratta tent near their original position. I wandered over but was intercepted by a gruff sergeant who poked me in the chest with a finger like a marlinspike and asked what my business was. I was still in my Mahratta uniform breeches and shirt with holes and bloodstains front and back.

  “My name is Thomas Flashman. I am here to see the general.”

  “Aye well,” he said, running a suspicious eye up and down my attire, “we will see about that. Wait here.” He went into the tent and a few moments later Wellesley himself came out to welcome me.

  “Thomas, I heard you had reappeared, back from the dead indeed. Are you wounded? No? Good. Come and meet my staff.”

  I stepped into the tent in which the rich Oriental carpets and silk hangings contrasted strongly with the haggard and dirty officers all still wearing the same clothes that they had fought in the previous day.

  “Gentlemen,” introduced Wellesley, “this is Thomas Flashman, who brought the letter from the begum we have just been discussing.”
/>   There were nods of greeting from the officers present including Jock Malcolm and Major Swinton.

  One of the officers I did not know asked, “Is it true Scindia considered murdering all of his officers?”

  “Well, he only originally planned to kill the Europeans, but once Perron heard about the plan he brought all his officers to a meeting, and yes, Scindia still considered it.”

  “You are being too modest, Flashman,” said Malcolm. “From what I read in the begum’s letter you worked with her to create considerable dissent amongst the officers against Scindia. Did he not sentence you to death for it?”

  “Yes, a particularly grisly death too,” added Wellesley.

  I knew that people who downplay their achievements generally earn more credit than those who brag about them, but I was being diffident because I did not know precisely what was in the begum’s letter. I had to tread carefully as if I contradicted it then things would unravel pretty quickly.

  “Oh, she did rescue me so all ended well on that score,” I said airily. I knew that the rescue at least was in the letter as she had told me that on the rooftop.

  “Well, I think you have achieved far more than we expected when we sent you into Mahratta country,” declared Wellesley. “The morale of their officers must have been affected and possibly that was why most of their cavalry avoided battle.”

  I knew that this was more to do with the fact that most of their cavalry were pindaree, who judging by recent performance would avoid battle with a blind orphan boy if he was armed with a sharp stick. So I just gave another modest shrug and moved on to what was for me the point of the visit.

  “I am glad to have been of service, but now my mission is done I had better be heading back to Madras. Would you be able to lend me a horse and perhaps a few men as an escort?”

  Wellesley reacted as though I had goosed him with a red-hot poker. “You are not serious, surely?”

  The others looked equally surprised at the request.

  This was not quite the reaction I had been hoping for. By their own admission I had done all I could, so now I thought they would let me go. “Well, I don’t see what more I can do. I am too well known to go behind enemy lines again and I am not army, you know.”

  “On the contrary,” cried Malcolm. “You spent a couple of months with a Company cavalry troop, then you were, according to the begum, a very capable officer in Scindia’s army before you spent six months in her forces, again serving with credit. You probably know more about the enemy than anyone. You are far too valuable to be allowed to go home in the middle of a war.”

  “And we can solve the problem of you being ‘not army’ right now,” said Wellesley, smiling. “I can give you a battlefield commission of lieutenant, no, captain, backdated to when you were first sent to the Mahratta. The 74th are desperate for officers. Major Swinton, would you put Captain Flashman on your regiment’s strength?”

  “I would be glad to, sir,” cried Swinton and, turning to me, he held out his hand to shake. “Welcome to the 74th Highlanders, Captain Flashman.”

  There are times when you just know it is not worth arguing, and they may have had a point about my unique knowledge of the enemy.

  While they were press-ganging me into the army I remembered one important fact I needed to pass on. “Before we go any further I must tell you that your guide and Stevenson’s both work for the Mahratta.”

  “That explains why he has disappeared,” growled Wellesley. “I was beginning to suspect as much yesterday when he insisted that the only ford was in front of the Mahratta position. See, you are showing your value already. Now, gentlemen, to business.”

  There then followed what seemed to me to be a very tedious conversation on supplies, ammunition levels, bullock trains, wounded lists, burial arrangements and other administration details that would have sent me to sleep had I not been sitting on an uncomfortable camp stool. I remember a Lieutenant Serle of the 19th Dragoons was let off a court martial due to his gallantry, while the commissary of cattle for the army, a Captain Mackay, would have been reprimanded for leaving his post with the supply chain to join the battle were it not for the fact that he had been sabred to death by the Mahratta for his trouble. Of course in the months and years to come I was to learn that maintaining supplies and discipline in an army was at least as important as the army's placement in a battle, but back then it just seemed a boring frost. As Wellesley went through his written list of issues in his usual brusque style I found myself watching some flies circling the tent and reflecting on this most recent change in my career.

  When I was eighteen I had wanted to join the army, not to take part in battles but because Teddy Carstairs had written to George Berkeley to say what fun it was. Mess parties, plentiful women and back then there seemed little chance of seeing action, which suited me fine. But my father had intervened. He had been in the army and convinced me that survival was a fairly random affair and so since then he had been trying to get me safely into politics. Well, so far I had done a bloody poor job of keeping myself safe. While I had a patron in Lord Castlereagh, I had spent my first year sailing with Cochrane in the Mediterranean and now over a year risking life and limb in India. To cap everything, I now found myself in the army, the one place my father had engineered my career to avoid.

  I could see that there was no way I was going to get an escort to Madras and the country was still too wild to risk going it alone. To run now would also ruin my enhanced reputation and risk a charge of desertion. Whether I liked it or not, I was in the army, and so I should probably make the best of it. After all, the Mahratta had been given a proper beating at Assaye, the begum would not put her forces up against the British again and most of the Mahratta cavalry was much more interested in looting than fighting. Hopefully Pohlmann had got away as I liked him, but Scindia would hold other infantry officers responsible, doubtless with more executions, and their morale would sink even lower. To my ignorant mind this campaign seemed all over bar the shouting, and so joining the army now might not be so bad. The enemy was on the run and there would be towns and opulent palaces to capture, which meant loot for me. If that bastard Scindia fell into our hands then perhaps I could suggest a rocket crucifixion for him too.

  Looking back, I sometimes wonder how I have managed to live so long as my ability to foretell the future is truly shocking.

  Chapter 23

  “What do I have to do as a captain?” I asked Swinton as we walked back to the part of the battlefield where the 74th Highlanders were based. It was also the part where most of them had died and the bodies were now being collected in grim rows.

  “Do?” queried Swinton. “Oh, very little. The sergeants do most things, but you will need to sign off the company records and carry out inspections, that sort of thing. Sarn’t Fergusson is a very capable man. He will run a smart company for you.”

  “How many men are in the company?”

  “Well, we only have eighty-nine men listed as fit and that is roughly the size of one company. So I will leave you in charge of company affairs while I will look after the regimental matters.”

  As we walked I noticed that the baggage train was crossing the ford and the first wagons were beginning to spread out towards their regiments.

  “Ah, here is the only other surviving fit officer of the 74th,” said Swinton as we approached another grim officer coming to meet us. “Mr Grant, our quartermaster who was with the wagons. Mr Grant, can I introduce you to our newest and only other active officer, Captain Flashman.”

  Grant shook my hand automatically but he was still looking around the field. “It is true then about the casualties,” he said in a strong Scottish accent. “We heard the gunfire but had nae idea it would be this bad.”

  “Yes, Grant,” replied Swinton, “one hundred and thirty-four dead and two hundred and seventy-seven wounded, but many of those should recover in time.”

  “One hundred and thirty-seven dead, sir,” said a voice from behind us.

/>   Turning, I found myself looking into the flinty blue eyes of the sergeant I had seen gutting the Mahratta rider with his spontoon the day before.

  “Captain Blakeney and two privates died of their wounds earlier, sir.”

  “Ah, poor George. At least he was not married with children like some,” said Swinton. “Given the number of wounded I suppose we had better brace ourselves for more. But I still hope most will recover. Sarn’t Fergusson, I would like to introduce you to our new officer, Captain Flashman. The general has just given him a battlefield commission but he is unfamiliar with our ways, so I will leave you to show him the ropes, eh?”

  Swinton finished with what he thought was an encouraging smile to both of us. It was wasted on the sergeant, who shot me a look of pure venom before turning back to the major.

  “This is the same...” Fergusson paused as though struggling to get his tongue around the next word “... gentleman, who was fighting for the Mahratta yesterday, is it not, sir?”

  “Ah no,” said Swinton, trying but failing to sound firm with the sergeant. “I have just been with the general who confirmed that he himself sent Captain Flashman into Mahratta territory to cause dissent among their commanders. Indeed, Captain Flashman was sentenced to death by Prince Scindia himself, but managed to escape with the help of another of their leaders. He is quite loyal.”

  “As ye say, sir,” growled the sergeant, giving me a look that showed he was far from convinced.

  Swinton moved off, leaving the two of us alone, and for a second or two there was an awkward silence. I was trying to think of what I could say that would maintain an air of authority without antagonising him when the sergeant spoke.

  “There’ll be an auction of officers’ effects this afternoon, sir. You can buy uniforms and officer kit. It would be best for you to be in uniform before you are introduced to the men.”