Читать книгу Flashman Papers 3-Book Collection 1: Flashman, Royal Flash, Flashman’s Lady - George Fraser MacDonald - Страница 16

Travelling, I think, is the greatest bore in life, so I’ll not weary you with an account of the journey from Calcutta to Kabul. It was long and hot and damnably dull; if Basset and I had not taken Muhammed Iqbal’s advice and shed our uniforms for native dress, I doubt whether we would have survived. In desert, on scrubby plain, through rocky hills, in the forests, in the little mud villages and camps and towns – the heat was horrible and ceaseless; your skin scorched, your eyes burned, and you felt that your body was turning into a dry bag of bones. But in the loose robes and pyjamy trousers one felt cooler – that is, one fried without burning quite black.

Basset, Iqbal and I rode horses, the servants tramped behind with Fetnab in a litter, but our pace was so slow that after a week we got rid of them all but the cook. The servants we turned off, amid great lamentations, and Fetnab I sold to a major in the artillery, whose camp we passed through. I regretted that, for she had become a habit, but she was peevish on the journey and too tired and mopish at night to be much fun. Still, I can’t recall a wench I enjoyed more.

We pushed on faster after that, west and then northwest, over the plains and great rivers of the Punjab, through the Sikh country, and up to Peshawar, which is where India ends. There was nothing to remind you of Calcutta now; here the heat was dry and glaring, and so were the people – lean, ugly, Jewish-looking creatures, armed and ready for mischief by the look of them. But none was uglier or looked readier for mischief than the governor of the place, a great, grey-bearded ox of a man in a dirty old uniform coat, baggy trousers, and gold-tasselled forage cap. He was an Italian, of all things, with the spiky waxed moustache that you see on organ-grinders nowadays, and he spoke English with a dreadful dago American accent. His name was Avitabile,¹¹ and the Sikhs and Afghans were more scared of him than of the devil himself; he had drifted to India as a soldier of fortune, commanded Shah Sujah’s army, and now had the job of keeping the passes open to our people in Kabul.

He did it admirably, in the only way those brutes understood – by fear and force. There were five dead Afghans swinging in the sunlight from his gateway arch when we rode through, which was both reassuring and unnerving at once. No one minded them more than if they had been swatted flies, least of all Avitabile, who had strung them up.

“Goddam, boy,” says he, “how you think I keep the peace if I don’ keep killing these bastards? These are Gilzais, you know that? Good Gilzais, now I’ve ’tended to them. The bad Gilzais are up in the hills, between here and Kabul, watchin’ the passes and lickin’ their lips and thinkin’ – but thinkin’s all they do just now, ’cos of Avitabile. Sure, we pay ’em to be quiet; you think that would stop them? No, sir, fear of Avitabile” – and he jerked a huge thumb at his chest – “fear’s what stops ’em. But if I stopped hangin’ ’em now and then, they’d stop bein’ afraid. See?”

He had me to dinner that night, and we ate an excellent stew of chicken and fruit on a terrace looking over the dirty rooftops of Peshawar, with the sounds and smells of the bazaar floating up to us. Avitabile was a good host, and talked all night of Naples and women and drink; he seemed to take a fancy to me, and we got very drunk together. He was one of your noisy, bellowing drunkards, and we sang uproariously, I remember, but at dawn, as we were staggering to our beds, he stopped outside my room, with his great dirty hand on my shoulder, and looked at me with his bright grey eyes, and said in a very sober, quiet voice:

“Boy, I think you are another like me, at heart: a condottieri, a rascal. Maybe with a little honour, a little courage. I don’t know. But, see now, you are going beyond the Khyber, and some day soon the Gilzais and others will be afraid no longer. Against that day, get a swift horse and some Afghans you can trust – there are some, like the Kuzzilbashis – and if the day comes, don’t wait to die on the field of honour.” He said it without a sneer. “Heroes draw no higher wages than the others, boy. Sleep well.”

And he nodded and stumped off down the passage, with his gold cap still firmly on his head. In my drunken state I took little heed of what he had said, but it came back to me later.

In the morning we rode north into one of the world’s awful places – the great pass of the Khyber, where the track twists among the sun-scorched cliffs and the peaks seem to crouch in ambush for the traveller. There was some traffic on the road, and we passed a commissary train on its way to Kabul, but most of those we saw were Afghan hillmen, rangy warriors in skull caps or turbans and long coats, with immensely long rifles, called jezzails, at their shoulders, and the Khyber knife (which is like a pointed cleaver) in their belts. Muhammed Iqbal was gay at returning to his own place, and had me airing my halting Pushtu on those we spoke to; they seemed taken aback to find an English officer who had their own tongue, however crudely, and were friendly enough. But I didn’t like the look of them; you could see treachery in their dark eyes – besides, there is something odd about men who look like Satan and yet wear ringlets and love-locks hanging out beneath their turbans.

We were three nights on the road beyond the Khyber, and the country got more hellish all the way – it beat me how a British army, with all its thousands of followers and carts and wagons and guns had ever got over those flinty paths. But at last we came to Kabul, and I saw the great fortress of Bala Hissar lowering over the city, and beyond it to the right the neat lines of the cantonment beside the water’s edge, where the red tunics showed like tiny dolls in the distance and the sound of a bugle came faintly over the river. It was very pretty in the summer’s evening, with the orchards and gardens before us, and the squalor of Kabul Town hidden behind the Bala Hissar. Aye, it was pretty then.

We crossed the Kabul River bridge and when I had reported myself and bathed and changed into my regimentals I was directed to the general commanding, to whom I was to deliver despatches from Elphy Bey. His name was Sir Willoughby Cotton, and he looked it, for he was round and fat and red-faced. When I found him he was being hectored by a tall, fine-looking officer in faded uniform, and I at once learned two things – in the Kabul garrison there was no sense of privacy or restraint, and the most senior officers never thought twice about discussing their affairs before their juniors.

“… the biggest damned fool this side of the Indus,” the tall officer was saying when I presented myself. “I tell you, Cotton, this army is like a bear in a trap. If there’s a rising, where are you? Stuck helpless in the middle of a people who hate your innards, a week from the nearest friendly garrison, with a bloody fool like McNaghten writing letters to that even bloodier fool Auckland in Calcutta that everything’s all right. God help us! And they’re relieving you –”

“God be thanked,” said Cotton.

“– and sending us Elphy Bey, who’ll be under McNaghten’s thumb and isn’t fit to command an escort anyway. The worst of it is, McNaghten and the other political asses think we are safe as on Salisbury Plain! Burnes is as bad as the rest – not that he thinks of anything but Afghan women – but they’re all so sure they’re right! That’s what upsets me. And who the devil are you?”

This was to me. I bowed and presented my letters to Cotton, who seemed glad of the interruption.

“Glad to see you, sir,” says he, dropping the letters on the desk. “Elphy’s herald, eh? Well, well. Flashman, did you say? Now that’s odd. There was a Flashman with me at Rugby, oh, forty years ago. Any relation?”

“My father, sir.”

“Ye don’t say? Well, I’m damned. Flashy’s boy.” And he beamed all over his red face. “Why, it must be forty years … He’s well, I trust? Excellent, excellent. What’ll you have, sir? Glass of wine? Here, bearer. Of course, your father will have spoke of me, eh? I was quite a card at school. Got expelled, d’ye know.”

This was too good a chance to miss, so I said: “I was expelled from Rugby, too, sir.”

“Good God! You don’t say! What for, sir?”

“Drunkenness, sir.”

“No! Well, damme! Who’d have believed they would kick you out for that? They’ll be expellin’ for rape next. Wouldn’t have done in my time. I was expelled for mutiny, sir – yes, mutiny! Led the whole school in revolt!¹² Splendid! Well, here’s your health, sir!”

The officer in the faded coat, who had been looking pretty sour, remarked that expulsion from school was all very well but what concerned him was expulsion from Afghanistan.

“Pardon me,” said Cotton, wiping his lips. “Forgot my manners. Mr Flashman, General Nott. General Nott is up from Kandahar, where he commands. We were discussing the state of the army in Afghanistan. No, no, Flashman, sit down. This ain’t Calcutta. On active service the more you know the better. Pray proceed, Nott.”

So I sat, a little bewildered and flattered, for generals don’t usually talk before subalterns, while Nott resumed his tirade. It seemed that he had been offended by some communication from McNaghten – Sir William McNaghten, Envoy to Kabul, and head British civilian in the country. Nott was appealing to Cotton to support him in protest, but Cotton didn’t seem to care for the idea.

“It is a simple question of policy,” said Nott. “The country, whatever McNaghten may think, is hostile, and we have to treat it as such. We do this in three ways – through the influence which Sujah exerts on his unwilling subjects, which is little enough; through the force of our army here, which with respect is not as all-powerful as McNaghten imagines, since you’re outnumbered fifty to one by one of the fiercest warrior nations in the world; and thirdly, by buying the good will of important chiefs with money. Am I right?”

“Talking like a book,” said Cotton. “Fill your glass, Mr Flashman.”

“If one of those three instruments of policy fails – Sujah, our strength, or our money – we’re done for. Oh, I know I’m a ‘croaker’, as McNaghten would say; he thinks we are as secure here as on Horse Guards. He’s wrong, you know. We exist on sufferance, and there won’t be much of that if he takes up this idea of cutting the subsidy to the Gilzai chiefs.”

“It would save money,” said Cotton. “Anyway, it’s no more than a thought, as I understand.”

“It would save money if you didn’t buy a bandage when you were bleeding to death,” said Nott, at which Cotton guffawed. “Aye, laugh, Sir Willoughby, but this is a serious matter. Cutting the subsidy is no more than a thought, you say. Very good, it may never happen. But if the Gilzais so much as suspect it might, how long will they continue to keep the passes open? They sit above the Khyber – your lifeline, remember – and let our convoys come and go, but if they think their subsidy is in danger they’ll look for another source of revenue. And that will mean convoys ambushed and looted, and a very pretty business on your hands. That is why McNaghten’s a fool even to think of cutting the subsidy, let alone talk about it.”

“What do you want me to do?” says Cotton, frowning.

“Tell him to drop the notion at all costs. He won’t listen to me. And send someone to talk to the Gilzais, take a few gifts to old what’s-his-name at Mogala – Sher Afzul. He has the other Gilzai khans under his thumb, I’m told.”

“You know a lot about this country,” said Cotton, wagging his head. “Considering this ain’t your territory.”

“Someone’s got to,” said Nott. “Thirty years in the Company’s service teaches you a thing or two. I wish I thought McNaghten had learned as much. But he goes his way happily, seeing no farther than the end of his nose. Well, well, Cotton, you’re one of the lucky ones. You’ll be getting out in time.”

Cotton protested at this that he was a “croaker” after all – I soon discovered that the word was applied to everyone who ventured to criticise McNaghten or express doubts about the safety of the British force in Kabul. They talked for a while, and Cotton was very civil to me and seemed intent on making me feel at home. We dined in his headquarters, with his staff, and there for the first time I met some of the men, many of them fairly junior officers, whose names were to be household words in England within the next year – “Sekundar” Burnes, with his mincing Scotch voice and pretty little moustache; George Broadfoot, another Scotsman, who sat next to me; Vincent Eyre, “Gentleman Jim” Skinner, Colonel Oliver, and various others. They talked with a freedom that was astonishing, criticising or defending their superiors in the presence of general officers, condemning this policy and praising that, and Cotton and Nott joined in. There was not much good said about McNaghten, and a general gloom about the army’s situation; it seemed to me they scared rather easily, and I told Broadfoot so.

“Wait till ye’ve been here a month or two, and ye’ll be as bad as the rest,” he said brusquely. “It’s a bad place, and a bad people, and if we don’t have war on our hands inside a year I’ll be surprised. Have you heard of Akbar Khan? No? He’s the son of the old king, Dost Mohammed, that we deposed for this clown Sujah, and he’s in the hills now, going from this chief to that, gathering support for the day when he’ll raise the country against us. McNaghten won’t believe it, of course, but he’s a gommeril.”

“Could we not hold Kabul?” I asked. “Surely with a force of five thousand it should be possible, against undisciplined savages.”

“These savages are good men,” says he. “Better shots than we are, for one thing. And we’re badly placed here, with no proper fortifications for the cantonment – even the stores are outside the perimeter – and an army that’s going downhill with soft living and bad discipline. Forbye, we have our families with us, and that’s a bad thing when the bullets are flying – who thinks of his duty when he has his wife and weans to care for? And Elphy Bey is to command us when Cotton goes.” He shook his head. “You’ll know him better than I, but I’d give my next year’s pay to hear he wasn’t coming and we had Nott instead. I’d sleep at nights, anyway.”

This was depressing enough, but in the next few weeks I heard this kind of talk on all hands – there was obviously no confidence in the military or political chiefs, and the Afghans seemed to sense this, for they were an insolent crowd and had no great respect for us. As an aide to Elphy Bey, who was still on his road north, I had time on my hands to look about Kabul, which was a great, filthy sprawling place full of narrow lanes and smelling abominably. But we seldom went there, for the folk hardly made us welcome, and it was pleasant out by the cantonment, where there was little attention to soldiering but a great deal of horseracing and lounging in the orchards and gossiping on the verandahs over cool drinks. There were even cricket matches, and I played myself – I had been a great bowler at Rugby, and my new friends made more of the wickets I took than of the fact that I was beginning to speak Pushtu better than any of them except Burnes and the politicals.

It was at one of these matches that I first saw Shah Sujah, the king, who had come down as the guest of McNaghten. He was a portly, brown-bearded man who stood gravely contemplating the game, and when McNaghten asked him how he liked it, said:

“Strange and manifold are the ways of God.”

As for McNaghten himself, I despised him on sight. He had a clerk’s face, with a pointed nose and chin, and peered through his spectacles suspiciously, sniffing at you. He was vain as a peacock, though, and would strut about in his tall hat and frock-coat, lording it greatly, with his nose turned up. It was evident, as someone said, that he saw only what he wanted to see. Anyone else would have realised that his army was in a mess, for one thing, but not McNaghten. He even seemed to think that Sujah was popular with the people, and that we were honoured guests in the country; if he had heard the men in the bazaar calling us “kaffirs” he might have realised his mistake. But he was too lofty to hear.

However, I passed the time pleasantly enough. Burnes, the political agent, when he heard about my Pushtu, took some interest in me, and as he kept a splendid table, and was an influential fellow, I kept in with him. He was a pompous fool, of course, but he knew a good deal about the Afghans, and would go about from time to time in native dress, mixing with the crowds in the bazaar, listening to gossip and keeping his nose to the wind generally. He had another reason for this, of course, which was that he was forever in pursuit of some Afghan woman or other, and had to go to the city to find them. I went with him on these expeditions frequently, and very rewarding they were.

Afghan women are handsome rather than pretty, but they have this great advantage to them, that their own men don’t care for them overmuch. Afghan men would as soon be perverts as not, and have a great taste for young boys; it would sicken you to see them mooning over these painted youths as though they were girls, and our troops thought it a tremendous joke. However, it meant that the Afghan women were always hungry for men, and you could have your pick of them – tall, graceful creatures they were, with long straight noses and proud mouths, running more to muscle than fat, and very active in bed.

Of course, the Afghans didn’t care for this, which was another score against us where they were concerned.

The first weeks passed, as I say, pleasantly, and I was beginning to like Kabul, in spite of the pessimists, when I was shaken out of my pleasant rut, thanks to my friend Burnes and the anxieties of General Nott, who had gone back to Kandahar but left his warnings ringing in Sir Willoughby Cotton’s ears. They must have rung an alarm, for when he sent for me to his office in the cantonment he was looking pretty glum, with Burnes at his elbow.

“Flashman,” says Cotton. “Sir Alexander here tells me you get along famously with the Afghans.”

Thinking of the women, I agreed.

“Hm, well. And you talk their frightful lingo?”

“Passably well, sir.”

“That means a dam’ sight better than most of us. Well, I daresay I shouldn’t do it, but on Sir Alexander’s suggestion” – here Burnes gave me a smile, which I felt somehow boded no good – “and since you’re the son of an old friend, I’m going to give you some work to do – work which’ll help your advancement, let me say, if you do it well, d’you see?” He stared at me a moment, and growled to Burnes: “Dammit, Sandy, he’s devilish young, y’know.”

“No younger than I was,” says Burnes.

“Umph. Oh, well, I suppose it’s all right. Now, look here, Flashman – you know about the Gilzais, I suppose? They control the passes between here and India, and are devilish tricky fellows. You were with me when Nott was talking about their subsidy, and how there were rumours that the politicals would cut it, dam’ fools, with all respect, Sandy. Well, it will be cut – in time – but for the present it’s imperative they should be told that all’s well, d’you see? Sir William McNaghten has agreed to this – fact is, he’s written letters to Sher Afzul, at Mogala, and he’s the leader of the pack, so to speak.”

This seemed to me a pretty piece of duplicity on McNaghten’s part, but it was typical of our dealings with the Afghans, as I was to discover.

“You’re going to be our postman, like Mr Rowland Hill’s fellows at home. You’ll take the messages of good will to Sher Afzul, hand ’em over, say how splendid everything is, be polite to the old devil – he’s half-mad, by the way – set his mind at rest if he’s still worried about the subsidy, and so forth.”

“It will all be in the letters,” says Burnes. “You must just give any added reassurances that may be needed.”

“All right, Flashman?” says Cotton. “Good experience for you. Diplomatic mission, what?”

“It’s very important,” says Burnes. “You see, if they thought there was anything wrong, or grew suspicious, it could be bad for us.”

It could be a damned sight worse for me, I thought. I didn’t like this idea above half – all I knew of the Gilzais was that they were murderous brutes, like all country Afghans, and the thought of walking into their nests, up in the hills, with not the slightest hope of help if there was trouble – well, Kabul might not be Hyde Park, but at least it was safe for the present. And what the Afghan women did to prisoners was enough to start my stomach turning at the thought – I’d heard the stories.

Some of this must have showed in my face, for Cotton asked fairly sharply what was the matter. Didn’t I want to go?

“Of course, sir,” I lied. “But – well, I’m pretty raw, I know. A more experienced officer …”

“Don’t fret yourself,” says Burnes, smiling. “You’re more at home with these folk than some men with twenty years in the service.” He winked. “I’ve seen you, Flashman, remember. Hah-ha! And you’ve got what they call a ‘fool’s face’. No disrespect: it means you look honest. Besides, the fact that you have some Pushtu will win their confidence.”

“But as General Elphinstone’s aide, should I not be here …”

“Elphy ain’t due for a week,” snapped Cotton. “Dammit, man, this is an opportunity. Any young feller in your shoes would be bursting to go.”

I saw it would be bad to try to make further excuses, so I said I was all eagerness, of course, and had only wanted to be sure I was the right man, and so forth. That settled it: Burnes took me to the great wall map, and showed me where Mogala was – needless to say, it was at the back of nowhere, about fifty miles from Kabul, in hellish hill country south of the Jugdulluk Pass. He pointed out the road we should take, assuring me I should have a good guide, and produced the sealed packet I was to deliver to the half-mad (and doubtless half-human) Sher Afzul.

“Make sure they go into his own hands,” he told me. “He’s a good friend to us – just now – but I don’t trust his nephew, Gul Shah. He was too thick with Akbar Khan in the old days. If there’s ever trouble among the Gilzais, it will come from Gul, so watch out for him. And I don’t have to tell you to be careful of old Afzul – he’s sharp when he’s sane, which he is most of the time. He’s lord of life and death in his own parish, and that includes you. Not that he’s likely to offer you harm, but keep on his good side.”

I began to wonder if I could manage to fall ill in the next hour or two – jaundice, possibly, or something infectious. Cotton set the final seal on it.

“If there’s trouble,” says he, “you must just ride for it.”

To this fatherly advice he and Burnes added a few words about how I should conduct myself if the matter of subsidy was discussed with me, bidding me be reassuring at all costs – no thought of who should reassure me, I may say – and dismissed me. Burnes said they had high hopes of me, a sentiment I found it difficult to share.

However, there was nothing for it, and next morning found me on the road east, with Iqbal and an Afghan guide on either side and five troopers of the 16th Lancers for escort. It was a tiny enough guard to be useless against anything but a stray robber – and Afghanistan never lacked for those – but it gave me some heart, and what with the fresh morning air, and the thought that all would probably be well and the mission another small stepping stone in the career of Lieutenant Flashman, I felt rather more cheerful.

The sergeant in charge of the Lancers was called Hudson, and he had already shown himself a steady and capable man. Before setting out he had suggested I leave behind my sabre – they were poor weapons, the Army swords, and turned in your grip¹³ – and take instead one of the Persian scimitars that some of the Afghans used. They were light and strong, and damned sharp. He had been very business-like about it, and about such matters as rations for the men and fodder for the horses. He was one of those quiet, middle-sized, square-set men who seem to know exactly what they are doing, and it was good to have him and Iqbal at my back.

Our first day’s march took us as far as Khoord-Kabul, and on the second we left the track at Tezeen and went south-east into the hills. The going had been rough enough on the path, but now it was frightful – the land was all sun-scorched rock and jagged peaks, with stony defiles that were like ovens, where the ponies stumbled over the loose stones. We hardly saw a living creature for twenty miles after we left Tezeen, and when night came we were camped on a high pass, in the lee of a cliff that might have been the wall of hell. It was bitter cold, and the wind howled up the pass; far away a wolf wailed, and we had barely enough wood to keep our fire going. I lay in my blanket cursing the day I got drunk at Rugby, and wishing I were snug in a warm bed with Elspeth or Fetnab or Josette.

Next day we were picking our way up a long stony slope when Iqbal muttered and pointed, and far ahead on a rocky shoulder I made out a figure which vanished almost as soon as I saw it.

“Gilzai scout,” said Iqbal, and in the next hour we saw a dozen more of them; as we rode upwards we were aware of them in the hills on either side, behind boulders or on the ledges, and in the last few miles there were horsemen shadowing us on either side and behind. Then we came out of a defile, and the guide pointed ahead to a height crowned with a great grey fortress, with a round tower behind its outer wall, and a cluster of huts outside its embattled gate. This was Mogala, stronghold of the Gilzai chieftain, Sher Afzul. I seldom saw a place I liked less at first sight.

We went forward at a canter, and the horsemen who had been following us galloped into the open on either side, keeping pace to the fort, but not approaching too close to us. They rode Afghan ponies, carried long jezzails and lances, and were a tough-looking crowd; some wore mail over their robes, and a few had spiked helmets; they looked like warriors from an Eastern fairy tale, with their outlandish clothes and fierce bearded faces – and of course, they were.

Close by the gate was a row of four wooden crosses, and to my horror I realised that the blackened, twisted things nailed to them were human bodies. Sher Afzul obviously had his own notions of discipline. One or two of the troopers muttered at the sight, and there were anxious glances at our shadowers, who had lined up on either side of the gateway. I was feeling a trifle wobbly myself, but I thought, to hell with these blackamoors, we are Englishmen, and so I said, “Come on, lads, ride to attention,” and we clattered under the frowning gateway.

I suppose Mogala is about a quarter of a mile from wall to wall, but inside its battlements, in addition to its huge keep, there were barracks and stables for Sher Afzul’s warriors, storehouses and armouries, and the house of the Khan himself. In fact, it was more of a little palace than a house, for it stood in a pretty garden under the shadow of the outer wall, shaded by cypress tress, and it was furnished inside like something from Burton’s Arabian Nights. There were tapestries on the walls, carpets on the paved floor, intricately carved wood screens in the archways, and a general air of luxury – he did himself well, I thought, but he took no chances. There were sentries all over the place, big men and well armed.

Sher Afzul turned out to be a man about sixty, with a beard dyed jet black, and a lined, ugly face whose main features were two fierce, burning eyes that looked straight through you. He received me civilly enough in his fine presence chamber, where he sat on a small throne with his court about him, but I couldn’t doubt Burnes’s assertion that he was half-mad. His hands twitched continuously, and he had a habit of jerking his turbanned head in a most violent fashion as he spoke. But he listened attentively as one of his ministers read aloud McNaghten’s letter, and seemed satisfied, and he and his people exclaimed with delight over the present that Cotton had sent – a pair of very handsome pistols by Manton, in a velvet case, with a matching shot pouch and powder flask. Nothing would do but we must go straight into the garden for the Khan to try them out; he was a rotten shot, but at the fourth attempt he managed to blow the head off a very handsome parrot which sat chained on a perch, screeching at the explosions until the lucky shot put an end to it.

There was loud applause, and Sher Afzul wagged his head and seemed well pleased.

“A splendid gift,” he told me, and I was pleased to find that my Pushtu was quite good enough for me to follow him. “You are the more welcome, Flashman bahadur, in that your guns are true. By God, it is a soldier’s weapon!”

I said I was delighted, and had the happy idea of presenting one of my own pistols on the spot to the Khan’s son, a bright, handsome lad of about sixteen, called Ilderim. He shouted with delight, and his eyes shone as he handled the weapon – I was off to a good start.

Then one of the courtiers came forward, and I felt a prickle up my spine as I looked at him. He was a tall man – as tall as I was – with those big shoulders and the slim waist of an athlete. His coat was black and well fitting, he wore long boots, and there was a silk sash round his waist to carry his sabre. On his head he had one of those polished steel casques with vertical prongs, and the face under it was strikingly handsome in the rather pretty Eastern way which I personally don’t like. You have seen them – straight nose, very full lips, woman’s cheeks and jaw. He had a forked beard and two of the coldest eyes I ever saw. I put him down as a nasty customer, and I was right.

“I can kill parrots with a sling,” he said. “Are the feringhee pistols good for anything else?”

Sher Afzul damned his eyes, more or less, for casting doubts on his fine new weapons, and thrusting one into the fellow’s hand, told him to try his luck. And to my amazement, the brute turned straight about, drew a bead on one of the slaves working in the garden, and shot him on the spot.

I was shaken, I can tell you. I stared at the twitching body on the grass, and the Khan wagging his head, and at the murderer handing back the pistol with a shrug. Of course, it was only a nigger he had killed, and I knew that among Afghans life is dirt cheap; they think no more of killing a human being than you and I do of shooting a pheasant or catching a fish. But it’s a trifle unsettling to a man of my temperament to know that he is in the power – for, guest or no, I was in their power – of blackguards who kill as wantonly and readily as that. That thought, more than the killing itself, rattled me.

Young Ilderim noticed this, and rebuked the black-coated man – not for murder, mark you, but for discourtesy to a guest!

“One does not bite the coin of the honoured stranger, Gul Shah,” was what he said, meaning you don’t look a gift horse in the mouth. For the moment I was too fascinated at what I had seen to pay much heed, but as the Khan, talking rapidly, escorted me inside again, I remembered that this Gul Shah was the customer Burnes had warned me about – the friend of the arch-rebel, Akbar Khan. I kept an eye on him as I talked with Sher Afzul, and it seemed to me he kept an eye on me in return.

Sher Afzul talked sanely enough, mostly about hunting and blood-letting of a sterner kind, but you couldn’t miss the wild gleam in his eye, or the fact that his evil temper was never far from the surface. He was used to playing the tyrant, and only to young Ilderim, whom he adored, was he more than civil. He snarled at Gul from time to time, but the big man looked him in the eye and didn’t seem put out.

That evening we dined in the Khan’s presence chamber, sitting about on cushions forking with our fingers into the bowls of stew and rice and fruit, and drinking a pleasant Afghan liquor which had no great body to it. There would be about a dozen there, including Gul Shah, and after we had eaten and belched accordingly, Sher Afzul called for entertainment. This consisted of a good conjurer, and a few weedy youths with native flutes and tom-toms, and three or four dancing girls. I had pretended to be amused by the conjurer and musicians, but one of the dancing girls struck me as being worth more than a polite look: she was a glorious creature, very tall and long-legged, with a sulky, cold face and hair that had been dyed bright red and hung down in a tail to her backside. It was about all the covering she had; for the rest she wore satin trousers clasped low on her hips, and two brass breastplates which she removed at Sher Afzul’s insistence.

He beckoned her to dance close in front of him, and the sight of the golden near-naked body writhing and quivering made me forget where I was for the moment. By the time she had finished her dance, with the tom-toms throbbing and the sweat glistening on her painted face, I must have been eating her alive with my eyes; as she salaamed to Sher Afzul he suddenly grabbed her by the arm and pulled her towards him, and I noticed Gul Shah lean forward suddenly on his cushion.

Sher Afzul saw it too, for he looked one way and the other, grinning wickedly, and with his free hand began to fondle the girl’s body. She took it with a face like stone, but Gul was glowering like thunder. Sher Afzul cackled and said to me:

“You like her, Flashman bahadur? Is she the kind of she-cat you delight to scratch with? Here, then, she is yours!”

And he shoved her so hard towards me that she fell headlong into my lap. I caught her, and with an oath Gul Shah was on his feet, his hand dropping to his hilt.

“She is not for any Frank dog,” he shouted.

“By God, is she not?” roared Sher Afzul. “Who says so?”

Gul Shah told him who said so, and there was a pretty little exchange which ended with Sher Afzul ordering him from the room – and it seemed to me that the girl’s eyes followed him with disappointment as he stamped off. Sher Afzul apologised for the disturbance, and said I must not mind Gul Shah, who was an impudent bastard, and very greedy where women were concerned. Did I like the girl? Her name was Narreeman, and if she did not please me I was not to hesitate to flog her to my heart’s content.

All this, I saw, was deliberately aimed at Gul Shah, who presumably lusted after this female himself, thus giving Sher Afzul a chance to torment him. It was a dilemma for me: I had no desire to antagonise Gul Shah, but I could not afford to refuse Sher Afzul’s hospitality, so to speak – also the hospitality was very warm and naked, and was lying across my lap, gasping still from the exertion of her dance, and causing me considerable excitement.

So I accepted at once, and waited impatiently while the time wore on with Sher Afzul talking interminably about his horses and his dogs and his falcons. At last it was over, and with Narreeman following I was conducted to the private room that had been allotted to me – it was a beautiful, balmy evening with the scents wafting in from the garden, and I was looking forward to a sleepless night. As it turned out, it was a tremendous sell, for she simply lay like a side of beef, staring at the roof as though I weren’t there. I coaxed at first, and then threatened, and then taking Sher Afzul’s advice I pulled her across my knees and smartened her up with my riding switch. At this she suddenly rounded on me like a panther, snarling and clawing, and narrowly missed raking my eyes. I was so enraged that I laid into her for all I was worth, but she fought like fury, naked as she was, and only when I got home a few good cuts did she try to run for it. I hauled her away from the door, and after a vicious struggle I managed to rape her – the only time in my life I have found it necessary, by the way. It has its points, but I shouldn’t care to do it regularly. I prefer willing women.

Afterwards I shoved her out – I’d no wish to get a thumbnail in my eye during the night – and the guards took her away. She had not uttered a word the whole time.

Sher Afzul, seeing my scratched face in the morning, demanded details, and he and his toadies crowed with delight when I told them. Gul Shah was not present, but I had no doubt willing tongues would bear the tale to him.

Not that I cared, and there I made a mistake. Gul was only a nephew of Sher Afzul, and a bastard at that, but he was a power among the Gilzais for his fighting skill, and was itching to topple old Sher Afzul and steal his throne. It would have been a poor look-out for the Kabul garrison if he had succeeded, for the Gilzais were trembling in the balance all the time about us, and Gul would have tipped the scale. He hated the British, and in Afzul’s place would have closed the passes, even if it had meant losing the lakhs that were paid from India to keep them open. But Afzul, although ageing, was too tough and clever to be deposed just yet, and Ilderim, though only a boy, was well liked and regarded as certain to succeed him. And both of them were friendly, and could sway the other Gilzai chieftains.

A good deal of this I learned in the next two days, in which I and my party were the honoured guests of Mogala. I kept my eyes and ears open, and the Gilzais were most hospitable, from Afzul down to the villagers whose huts crouched outside the wall. This I will say for the Afghan – he is a treacherous, evil brute when he wants to be, but while he is your friend he is a first-rate fellow. The point is, you must judge to a second when he is going to cease to be friendly. There is seldom any warning.

Looking back, though, I can say that I probably got on better with the Afghans than most Britons do. I imagine Thomas Hughes would have said that in many respects of character I resembled them, and I wouldn’t deny it. However it may be, I enjoyed those first two days: we had horse races and other riding competitions, and I earned a good deal of credit by showing them how a Persian pony can be put over the jumps. Then there was hawking, in which Sher Afzul was an adept, and tremendous feasting at nights, and Sher Afzul gave me another dancing girl, with much cackling and advice on how to manage her, which advice proved to be unnecessary.

But while it was pleasant enough, you could never forget that in Afghanistan you are walking a knife-edge the whole time, and that these were cruel and blood-thirsty savages. Four men were executed on the second day, for armed robbery, in front of a delighted crowd in the courtyard, and a fifth, a petty chieftain, was blinded by Sher Afzul’s physician. This is a common punishment among the Afghans: if a man is too important to be slaughtered like an ordinary felon, they take away his sight so that he can do no more harm. It was a sickening business, and one of my troopers got into a fight with a Gilzai over it, calling them filthy foreigners, which they could not understand. “A blind man is a dead man,” was how they put it, and I had to make excuses to Sher Afzul and instruct Sergeant Hudson to give the trooper a punishment drill.

In all this I had nearly forgotten Gul Shah and the Narreeman affair, which was careless. I had my reminder on the third morning, when I was least expecting it.

Sher Afzul had said we must go boar-hunting, and we had a good hour’s sport in the thicketed gullies of the Mogala valley, where the wild pigs bred. There were about twenty of us, including Hudson, Muhammed Iqbal and myself, with Sher Afzul directing operations. It was exciting work, but difficult in that close country, and we were frequently separated. Muhammed Iqbal and I made one sortie which took us well away from the main body, into a narrow defile where the forest ended, and there they were waiting for us – four horsemen, with spears couched, who made not a sound but thundered straight down on us. Instinctively I knew they were Gul’s people, bent on murdering me – and no doubt compromising Sher Afzul with the British at the same time.

Iqbal, being a Pathan and loving a fight, gave a yell of delight, “Come on, huzoor!” and went for them. I didn’t hesitate; if he wanted to take on odds it was his affair; I wheeled my pony and went hell-for-leather for the forest, with one eye cocked over my shoulder for safety.

Whether he realised I was leaving him alone, I don’t know; it wouldn’t have made any difference to him. Like me, he had a lance, but in addition he had a sword and pistol in his belt, so he got rid of the lance at once, hurling it into the chest of the leading Gilzai, and driving into the other three with his sabre swinging. He cut one down, but the other two swerved past him – it was me they wanted.

I dug my spurs in as they came tearing after me, with Iqbal wheeling after them in turn. He was bawling at me to turn and fight, the fool, but I had no thought but to get away from those hellish lance-points and the wolf-like bearded faces behind them. I rode like fury – and then the pony stumbled and I went over his head, crashing into the bushes and finishing up on pile of stones with all the breath knocked out of me.

The bushes saved me, for the Gilzais couldn’t come at me easily. They had to swerve round the clump, and I scrambled behind a tree. One of the ponies reared up and nearly knocked the other off balance; the rider yelled and had to drop his lance to save being thrown, and then Iqbal was on them, howling his war-cry. The Gilzai who was clutching his pony’s mane was glaring at me and cursing, and suddenly the snarling face was literally split down the middle as Iqbal’s sabre came whistling down on his head, shearing through cap and skull as if they had been putty. The other rider, who had been trying to get in a thrust at me round the tree-trunk, wheeled as Iqbal wrenched his sword free, and the pair of them closed as their ponies crashed into each other.

For one cursing, frantic moment they were locked together, Iqbal trying to get his point into the other’s side, and the Gilzai with his dagger out, thrusting at Iqbal’s body. I heard the thuds as the blows struck, and Iqbal shouting: “Huzoor! huzoor!” and then the ponies parted and the struggling men crashed into the dust.

From behind my tree I suddenly noticed that my lance was lying within a yard of me, where it had dropped in my fall. Why I didn’t follow the instinct of a lifetime and simply run for it and leave them to fight it out, I don’t know – probably I had some thought of possible disgrace. Anyway, I darted out and grabbed the lance, and as the Gilzai struggled uppermost and raised his bloody knife, I jammed the lance-point squarely into his back. He screamed and dropped the knife, and then lurched into the dust, kicking and clutching, and died.

Iqbal tried to struggle up, but he was done for. His face was grey, and there was a great crimson stain welling through his shirt. He was glaring at me, and as I ran to him he managed to rear up on one elbow.

“Soor kabaj,” he gasped. “Ya, huzoor! Soor kabaj!”

Then he groaned and fell back, but as I knelt over him his eyes opened for a moment, and he gave a little moan and spat in my face, as best he could. So he died, calling me “son of a swine” in Hindi, which is the Muslim’s crowning insult. I saw his point of view, of course.

So there I was, and there also were five dead men – at least, four were dead and the one whom Iqbal had sabred first was lying a little way up the defile, groaning with the side of his skull split. I was shaken by my fall and the scuffle, but it came to me swiftly that the quicker that one breathed his last, the better, so I hurried up with my lance, took a rather unsteady aim, and drove it into his throat. And I had just jerked it out, and was surveying the shambles, when there was a cry and a clatter of hooves, and Sergeant Hudson came galloping out of the wood.

He took it in at a glance – the corpses, the blood-stained ground, and the gallant Flashy standing in the middle, the sole survivor. But like the competent soldier he was, as soon as he realised that I was all right, he went round the bodies, to make sure no one was playing possum. He whistled sadly over Iqbal, and then said quietly: “Orders, sir?”

I was getting my wind and my senses back, and wondering what to do next. This was Gul’s work, I was sure, but what would Sher Afzul do about it? He might argue that here was his credit destroyed with the British anyway, and make the best of a bad job by cutting all our throats. This was a happy thought, but before I had time to digest it there was a crashing and hallooing in the woods, and out came the rest of the hunting party, with Afzul at their head.

Perhaps my fear sharpened my wits – it often does. But I saw in a flash that the best course was to take a damned high hand. So before they had done more than shout their astonishment and call on the name of God and come piling off their ponies, I had strode forward to where Afzul was sitting his horse, and I shook the bloody lance point under his nose.

“Gilzai hospitality!” I roared. “Look on it! My servant murdered, myself escaped by a miracle! Is this Gilzai honour?”

He glared at me like someone demented, his mouth working horribly, and for a minute I thought we were done for. Then he covered his face with his hands, and began bawling about shame and disgrace and the guests who had eaten his salt. He was mad enough at the moment, I think, and probably a good thing too, for he kept wailing on in the same strain, and tearing at his beard, and finally he rolled out of the saddle and began beating at the ground. His creatures hurried round him, lamenting and calling on Allah – all except young Ilderim, who simply gazed at the carnage and said:

“This is Gul Shah’s doing, my father!”

This brought old Afzul up short, and he set off on a new tack, raving about how he would tear out Gul’s eyes and entrails and hang him on hooks to die by inches, and more excellent ideas. I turned my back on him, and mounted the pony which Hudson had brought, and at this Afzul came hurrying up to me, and grabbed my boot, and swore, with froth on his lips, that this assault on my person and his honour would be most horribly avenged.

“My person is my affair,” says I, very British-officer-like, “and your honour is yours. I accept your apology.”

He raved some more at this, and then began imploring me to tell him what he could do to put things right. He was in a rare taking for his honour – and no doubt his subsidy – and swore that anything I named should be done: only let him and his be forgiven.

“My life! My son’s life! Tribute, treasure, Flashman bahadur! Hostages! I will go to McNaghten huzoor, and humble myself! I will pay!”

He went babbling on, until I cut him short by saying that we did not accept such things as payment for debts of honour. But I saw that I had better go a little easier while his mood lasted, so I ended by saying that, but for the death of my servant, it was a small matter, and we would put it from our minds.

“But you shall have pledges of my honour!” cries he. “Aye, you shall see that the Gilzai pay the debt! In God’s name! My son, my son Ilderim, I will give as a hostage to you! Carry him to McNaghten huzoor, as a sign of his father’s faith! Let me not be shamed, Flashman huzoor, in my old age!”

Now this business of hostages was a common one with the Afghans, and it seemed to me that it had great advantages in this case. With Ilderim in my keeping, it wasn’t likely that this hysterical old lunatic, when his madness took a new turn, would try any mischief. And young Ilderim looked pleased enough at the idea; he was probably thinking of the excitement of going to Kabul, and seeing the great Queen’s army, and riding with it, too, as my protégé.

So there and then I took Sher Afzul at his word, and swore that the dishonour would be wiped out, and Ilderim would ride with me until I released him. At this the old Khan grew maudlin, and hauled out his Khyber knife and made Ilderim swear on it that he would be my man, which he did, and there was general rejoicing, and Sher Afzul went round and kicked all the corpses of the Gilzais and called on God to damn them good and proper. After which we rode back to Mogala, and I resisted the old Khan’s entreaties to stay longer in proof of friendship: I had orders, I said, and must go back to Kabul. It would not do, I added, for me to linger when I had so important a hostage as the son of the Khan of Mogala to take back.

He took this most seriously, and swore that his son would go as befitted a prince (which was stretching it a bit), and gave him a dozen Gilzai riders as escort, to stay with him and me. So there was more oath-swearing, and Sher Afzul finished up in excellent humour, vowing it was an honour to the Gilzais to serve such a splendid warrior as Flashman huzoor, who had accounted for four enemies single-handed (Iqbal being conveniently forgotten), and who would forever be dear to the Gilzais for his courage and magnanimity. As proof of which he would send me Gul Shah’s ears, nose, eyes, and other essential organs as soon as he could lay hold of them.

So we left Mogala, and I had collected a personal following of Afghan tribesmen, and a reputation, as a result of the morning’s work. The twelve Gilzais and Ilderim were the best things I found in Afghanistan, and the nickname “Bloody Lance”, which Sher Afzul conferred, did me no harm either. Incidentally, as a result of all this Sher Afzul was keener than ever to maintain his alliance with the British, so my mission was a success as well. I was pretty pleased with myself as we set off for Kabul.

Of course, I had not forgotten that I had also made an outstanding enemy in Gul Shah. How bitter an enemy I was to find out in time.