Читать книгу Flashman Papers 3-Book Collection 2: Flashman and the Mountain of Light, Flash For Freedom!, Flashman and the Redskins - George Fraser MacDonald - Страница 15

Since I’ve seen a Welshman in a top hat leading a Zulu impi, and have myself ridden in an Apache war party in paint and breech-clout, I dare say I shouldn’t have been surprised to find that Gurdana Khan, the complete Khyberie hillman, could talk the lingo of Brother Jonathan – there were some damned odd fellows about in the earlies, I can tell you. But the circumstances were unusual, you’ll allow, and I probably gaped for several seconds before scrambling into my robe. Then reaction seized me, and I vomited, while he stood glowering like a Nonconformist at the three hooded bodies, and the naked white corpse of the poor little Kashmiri slut with the bloody water lapping round her. I say poor slut – she’d done her damnedest to have me squashed flatter than a fluke. The man I’d shot was writhing about, wailing in agony.

“Let him linger,” growls Gurdana Khan. “Mistreatment of women is something I cannot endure! Come away.”

He strode off to a staircase hidden in the shadows on the other side of the bath-house, ushering me impatiently ahead of him. We ascended, and he chivvied me along miles of turning passages, ignoring my incoherent questions, then across a lofty hall, through a guardroom where black-robed irregulars lounged, and at last into a spacious, comfortable room for all the world like a bachelor’s den at home, with prints and trophies on the walls, book cases, and fine leather easy chairs. I was shivering with chill and shock and bewilderment; he sat me down, threw a shawl over my legs, and poured out two stiff pegs – malt whisky, if you please. He laid by his Khyber knife and pulled off his puggaree – he was a Pathan, though, with that close-cropped skull, hawk face, and grizzled beard, for all he grunted “Slàinte” as he lifted his tumbler, first clamping his neck in that strange iron collar I’d seen in the afternoon – dear God, was it only twelve hours ago? Having drunk, he stood scowling down at me like a headmaster at an erring fag.

“Now see here, Mr Flashman – where the devil were you this evening? We combed the palace, even looked under your bed, godammit! Well, sir?”

I made no sense of this – all I knew was that someone was trying to murder me, but plainly it wasn’t this cross-grained fellow … so I’d risked horrible death hanging out of windows while he and his gang had been looking for me to protect me, by the sound of it! I removed the glass from my chattering teeth.

“I … I was out. But … who on earth are you?”

“Alexander Campbell Gardner!” snaps he. “Formerly artillery instructor to the Khalsa, presently guard commander to the Maharaja, and recently at your service – and think yourself lucky!”

“But you’re an American!”

“That I am.” He fixed me with an eye like a gimlet. “From the territory of Wisconsin.”

I must have been a picture of idiocy, for he clapped that iron object to his neck again, gulped whisky, and rasped:

“Well, sir? You passed that word, as Broadfoot instructed you should, in an emergency. When, you ask? Dammit, to the little Maharaja, and again to old Ram Singh! It reached me – no matter how – and I came directly to help you, and not a hair of you in sight! Next I hear, you’re with the Maharani, playing the Devil and Jenny Golightly! Was that intelligent conduct, sir, when you knew Jawaheer Singh was out to cut your throat?” He emptied his glass, clashed his iron clamp on the table, and glared. “How the dooce did you know he was after you, anyway?”

This tirade had me all adrift. “I didn’t know any such thing! Mr Gardner, I’m at a loss –”

“Colonel Gardner! Then why the blue blazes did you sound the alarm? Hollering Wisconsin to everyone you met, concern it!”

“Did I? I may have said it inadvertently –”

“Inadvertently? Upon my soul, Mr Flashman!”

“But I don’t understand … it’s all mad! Why should Jawaheer want to kill me? He don’t even know me – barely met the fellow, and he was tight as Dick’s hatband!” An appalling thought struck me. “Why, they weren’t his people – they were the Maharani’s! Her slave-girls! They lured me to that bloody bathroom – they knew what was to happen! She must have ordered them –”

“How dare you, sir!” So help me, it’s what he said, with his whiskers crackling. “To suggest that she would … What, after the … the kindness she had shown you? A fine thing that would be! I tell you those Kashmiris were bribed and coerced by Jawaheer and by Jawaheer alone – those were his villains down there, sent to silence the girls once you’d been disposed of! D’you think I don’t know ’em? The Maharani, indeed!” He was in a fine indignation, right enough. “I’m not saying,” he went on, “that she’s the sort of young woman I’d take home to meet mother … but you mind this, sir!” He rounded on me. “With all her weaknesses – of which you’ve taken full advantage – Mai Jeendan is a charming and gracious lady and the best hope this god-abandoned territory has seen since Runjeet Singh! You’ll remember that, by thunder, if you and I are to remain friends!”

I wasn’t alone in my enthusiasm for the lady, it seemed, although I guessed his was of a more spiritual variety. But I was as much in the dark as ever.

“Very well, you say it was Jawaheer – why the devil should he want to murder me?”

“Because he wants a war with the British! That’s why! And the surest way to start one is to have a British emissary kiboshed right here in Lahore! Why, man, Gough would be over the Sutlej with fifty thousand bayonets before you could say Jack Robinson – John Company and the Khalsa would be at grips … that’s what Jawaheer wants, don’t you see?”

I didn’t, and said so. “If he wants a war – why doesn’t he just order the Khalsa to march on India? They’re spoiling for a fight with us, ain’t they?”

“Sure they are – but not with Jawaheer leading them! They’ve never had any use for him, so the only way he can get ’em to fight is if the British strike first. But dammit, you won’t oblige him, however much he provokes you along the border – and Jawaheer has gotten desperate. He’s bankrupt, the Khalsa hates and distrusts him and is ready to skin him alive for Peshora’s death, they hold him prisoner in his own palace, his balls are in the mangle!” He took a deep breath. “Don’t you know anything, Mr Flashman? Jawaheer needs a war, now, to keep the Khalsa occupied and save his own skin. That’s why he tried to put you out with the bath water tonight, confound it, don’t you see?”

Well, put that way, it made sense. Everyone seemed to want a bloody war except Hardinge and yours truly – but I could see why Jawaheer’s need was more urgent than most. I’d heard the Khalsa’s opinion of him that afternoon, and seen the almighty funk he was in. That’s what he’d meant, by God, when he’d pointed at me and yelled that the British would have cause to come – the evil, vicious bastard! He’d been lying in wait for my arrival … and suddenly a dreadful, incredible suspicion rushed in on me.

“My God! Did Broadfoot know that Jawaheer would try to kill me? Did he send me here to –”

He gave a barking laugh. “Say, you have a high opinion of your betters, don’t you? First Mai Jeendan, now Major Broadfoot! No, sir – that is not his style! Why, if he had foreseen such a thing …” He broke off, frowning, then shook his head. “No, Jawaheer hatched his plot in the last few hours, I reckon – your arrival must have seemed to him a heaven-sent opportunity. He’d have taken it, too, if I hadn’t been on your tail from the moment you arrived in the durbar room.” He blew out his cheeks in disbelief. “I still can’t get over that damned bath! You won’t linger among the soap-suds again, I reckon.”

That was enough to bring me to my feet, reaching for his decanter without even a by-your-leave. God, what a tarantula’s nest Broadfoot had plunged me into! I still couldn’t put it straight in my mind, numb with the whirlwind of the last few hours. Had I fallen asleep over Crotchet Castle and dreamed it all – my balcony acrobatics, Mangla and Jawaheer and the dazzling spectacle of the durbar room, the drunken ecstatic coupling with Jeendan, the horror of the descending stone, the furious bloody scramble in which five lives were snuffed out in a bare minute, this incredible tartan Nemesis with his Khyber knife and Yankee twang,²² eyeing me bleakly as I punished his malt? Belatedly, I mumbled my thanks, adding that Broadfoot was lucky to have such an agent in Lahore. He snapped my head off.

“I’m not his confounded agent! I’m his friend – and so far as my duty to the Maharaja allows, I’m sympathetic to British interest. Broadfoot knows I’ll help, which is why he gave you my watchword.” He restrained himself with difficulty. “Inadvertently, by jiminy! But that’s all, Mr Flashman. You and I will now go our separate ways, you won’t address or even recognise me henceforth except as Gurdana Khan –”

“Henceforth? But I’ll be going back – man alive, I can’t stay here now, with Jawaheer –”

“The devil you can’t! It’s your duty, isn’t it? Just because the war isn’t going to start tomorrow doesn’t mean it won’t happen eventually. Oh, it will – and that’s when Broadfoot needs you here.” For someone who wasn’t Broadfoot’s man, he seemed to know a deal about my duty. “Besides, after tonight you’re in clear water. That bath-house will tell its own story: everyone will know Jawaheer tried to rub you out – and why. But no one will breathe a word about it – including yourself.” Seeing me about to protest, he cut in: “Not a word! It would cause a scandal that might start Jawaheer’s war for him – so mum, Mr Flashman. And don’t fret yourself – now that you’re under Mai Jeendan’s protection, the worst Jawaheer’ll dare give you is a black look.”

I’d heard this kind of assurance before. “Why the blazes should she protect me?”

“Now, don’t come the delicate with me, sir!” He stabbed a lean finger at me, Uncle Sam with a Kandahar haircut. “You know right well why, and so does every tattle-tale in this blasted royal bordello! Oh, sure, she has her political reasons, too. Well, just keep your mouth shut and be thankful.” He nodded grimly. “And now, if you’re recovered, we’ll return you to your quarters. And don’t say Wisconsin again unless you mean it. Jemadar, idderao!”^a

An under-officer appeared like magic, and Gardner told him I was to have a couple of discreet shadows henceforth. He asked if anyone had been seeking me, and the jemadar said only my orderly.

Gardner frowned. “Who’s he – one of Broadfoot’s Pathans? I didn’t see him arrive with you.”

I explained that Jassa had a habit of vanishing when most needed, and that he wasn’t a Pathan – or the dervish he claimed to be.

“A dervish?” He stared. “What does he look like?”

I described Jassa, down to the vaccination mark, and he swore in astonishment and took a turn round the room.

“I’ll be … no, it couldn’t be! I haven’t heard of him for years – and even he wouldn’t have the hard neck … You’re sure he’s a Broadfoot man? And no beard, eh? Well, we’ll see! Jemadar, find the orderly, tell him the husoor wants him, double quick – and if he asks, say I’m out at Maian Mir. You sit down, Mr Flashman … I suspect this may interest you.”

After the events of the night, I doubted if Lahore could hold any further surprises – but d’you know, what followed was perhaps the most astonishing encounter between two men that ever I saw – and I was at Appomattox, remember, and saw Bismarck and Gully face to face with the mauleys, and held the shotgun when Hickok confronted Wesley Hardin. But what took place in Gardner’s room laid over any of them.

We waited in silence until the jemadar knocked, and Jassa slid in, shifty as always. The moment his eye fell on the grim tartan figure he started as though he’d trod on hot coals, but then he recovered and looked inquiringly to me while Gardner viewed him almost in admiration.

“Not bad, Josiah,” says he. “You may have the guiltiest conscience east of Suez, but by God you’ve sure got the brazenest forehead to go with it. I’d never ha’ known you, clean-shaven.” His voice hardened to a bark. “Now then – what’s the game? Speak up, jildi!”

“None o’ your goddam’ business!” snaps Jassa. “I’m a political agent in British service – ask him if you don’t believe me! And that puts me outside your touch, Alick Gardner! So now!”

Said in Pushtu, I’d have held it a good answer – reckless, from what I’d seen of Gardner, but about what you’d expect from a Khyberie tough. But it was said in English – with an accent even more American than Gardner’s own! I couldn’t credit my ears – one bloody Yankee promenading about in Afghan fig was bad enough – but two? And the second one my own orderly, courtesy of Broadfoot … if I sat open-mouthed, d’you wonder? Gardner exploded.

“British political, my eye! Why, you crooked Quaker, you, if you’re working for Broadfoot it must mean he doesn’t know who you are! And he doesn’t, I’ll bet! No, because you’re before his time, Josiah – you skipped out of Kabul before the British arrived, and wise you were! Sekundar Burnes knew you, though – for the double-dealing rascal you are! Pollock knows you, too – he ran you out of Burma, didn’t he? Damn me if there’s a town between Rangoon and Basra that you haven’t left a shirt in! So, let’s have it – what’s your lay this time?”

“I don’t answer to you,” says Jassa. “Mr Flashman, if you care for this, I don’t. You know I’m Major Broadfoot’s agent –”

“Hold your tongue or I’ll have it out!” roars Gardner. “Outside my touch, are you? We’ll see! You know this man as Jassa,” says he to me. “Well, let me perform the honours by presenting Dr Josiah Harlan of Philadelphia, former packet-rat, impostor, coiner, spy, traitor, revolutionary, and expert in every rascality he can think of – and can’t he think, just? No common blackguard, mind you – Prince of Ghor once, weren’t you, Josiah, and unfrocked governor of Gujerat, to say nothing of being a pretender (it’s the truth, Flashman) to the throne of Afghanistan, no less! You know what they call this beauty up in the high hills? The Man Who Would Be King!” He came forward, thumbs in his belt, and stuck his jaw in Jassa’s face. “Well, you have one minute to tell me what you would be in Lahore, doctor! And don’t say you’re an orderly, pure and simple, because you’ve never been either!”

Jassa didn’t move a muscle of his ugly, pock-marked face, but turned to me with a little inclination of his head. “Leaving aside the insults, part of what he says is true. I was Prince of Ghor – but Colonel Gardner’s memory is at fault. He hasn’t told you that Lord Amherst personally appointed me surgeon to His Britannic Majesty’s forces in the Burmese campaign –”

“Assistant surgeon, stealing spirits in an artillery field hospital!” scoffs Gardner.

“– or that I held high military command and the governorship of three districts under his late majesty, Raja Runjeet Singh –”

“Who kicked you out for counterfeiting, you damned scamp! Go ahead, tell him how you were ambassador to Dost Mohammed, and tried to start a revolution in Afghanistan, and sold him out more times than he could count! Tell him how you suborned Muhammed Khan to betray Peshawar to the Sikhs! Tell him how you lined your pockets on the Kunduz expedition, and cheated Reffi Bey, and had the gall to plant the Stars and Stripes on the Indian Caucasus, damn your impudence!” He paused for breath while Jassa stood cool as a trout. “But why waste time? Tell him how you passed yourself off on Broadfoot. I’d enjoy hearing that, myself!”

Jassa gave him an inquiring look, as though to make sure he was done, and addressed me. “Mr Flashman, I owe you an explanation, but not an apology. Why should I have told you what your own chief didn’t? Broadfoot enlisted me more than a year ago; how much of my history he knows, I can’t say – and I don’t care. He knows his business and he trusts me, or I wouldn’t be here. If you doubt me now, write to him, telling him what you’ve heard tonight … like everyone who’s mixed in diplomacy in these parts, I’m used to having my reputation blown upon –”

“So hard that it’s scattered all over the bloody Himalayas!” snarls Gardner. “If you’re so all-fired trustworthy … where were you tonight when Jawaheer tried to kill Flashman?”

He was clever, Gardner. Knowing his man as he did, the question must have been in his mind from the first, but he’d held it back to take Jassa off guard. He succeeded; Jassa gaped, stared from Gardner to me and back, and gasped hoarsely: “What the hell d’you mean?”

Gardner told him in a few fierce sentences, watching him lynx-eyed, and Jassa was a sight to see. The bounce had quite gone out of him, and all he could do was rub his face and mutter “Jesus!” before turning helplessly to me.

“I … I don’t know … I must have been asleep, sir! After I pulled you on to the balcony, and you went off to the durbar room … well, I reckoned you were there for the night …” He avoided my eye. “I … I went to bed, woke up an hour ago, saw you hadn’t returned, asked around for you, but no one had seen you … then the jemadar came for me just now. That’s the truth.” He rubbed his face again, and caught Gardner’s eye. “Christ, you don’t think –”

“No, I don’t!” growls Gardner, and shook his head at me. “Whatever else you are – and that’s plenty – you’re not a murderer. And if you were, you’d be in the tall timber this minute. No, Josiah,” says he with grim satisfaction, “you’re just a lousy bodyguard – and I suggest Mr Flashman reports that to Major Broadfoot, too. And until he gets a reply, you can cool your heels in a cell, doctor –”

“The hell I can!” cries Jassa, and turns to me. “Mr Flashman … I don’t know what to say, sir! I’ve failed you, I know that – and I’m sorry for it. If Major Broadfoot sees fit to recall me … well, so be it. But it’s not his business, sir!” He pointed at Gardner. “As far as he’s concerned, I’m under British protection, and entitled to immunity. And with respect, sir – in spite of my failure tonight … I’m still at your service. You mustn’t disown me, sir.”

Well, I’d had a long day, and night. The shock of discovering that my Afghan orderly was an American medical man²³ (and no doubt as big a villain as Gardner said) was quite small beer after all the rest. No more of a shock than Gardner himself, really. One thing was sure: Jassa, or Josiah, was Broadfoot’s man, and he was right, I couldn’t disown him on Gardner’s suspicions. I said so, and much to my surprise, Gardner didn’t shout me down, although he gave me a long hard stare.

“After what I’ve told you about him? Well, sir, it’s on your own head. It’s possible you won’t rue the day, but I doubt it.” He turned to Jassa. “As for you, Josiah … I don’t know what brings you back to the Punjab in another of your disguises. I know it wasn’t Jawaheer, or anything as simple as British political work … no, it’s some dirty little frolic of your own, isn’t it? Well, you forget it, doctor – because if you don’t, immunity or not, I’ll send you back to Broadfoot by tying you over a gun and blowing you clear to Simla. You can count on that. Good-night, Mr Flashman.”

The jemadar led us back to my quarters through a maze of corridors that was no more confused than my mind; I was dog-tired and still mortally shaken, and had neither the wit nor the will to question my newly-revealed Afghan-American orderly, who kept up a muttered stream of apology and justification the whole way. He’d never have forgiven himself if any harm had come to me, and I must write to Broadfoot instanter to establish his bona fides; he wouldn’t rest until Gardner’s calumnies had been disproved.

“Alick means no harm – we’ve known each other for years, but truth is, you see, he’s jealous, us both being American and all, and he hasn’t risen any too high, while I’ve been prince and ambassador, as he said – course, fate hasn’t been too kind lately, which is why I took any honourable employment that came … God, I’ve no words of excuse or apology, sir, for my lapse tonight … what must you think, what will Broadfoot think? Say, though, I’d like him to understand about my losing my governorship – it wasn’t coining, no sir! I dabble in chemistry, see, and there was this experiment that went wrong …”

He was still chuntering when we reached my door, where I was reassured to see two stalwart constables, presumably sent by Bhai Ram Singh. Jassa – with that ugly frontier dial and dress I could think of him by no other name – swore he’d be on hand too, from this moment, closer than a brother, why, he’d bed down right here in the passage …

I closed my door, head swimming with fatigue, and rested a moment in blessed solitude and quiet before walking unsteadily through the arch to the bedchamber, where two lights burned dimly either side of the pillow – and stopped, the hairs rising on my neck. There was someone in the bed, and a drift of perfume on the air, and before I could move or cry out, a woman whispered out of the gloom.

“Mai Jeendan must have eaten her fill,” says Mangla. “It is almost dawn.”

I stepped closer, staring. She was lying naked beneath a flimsy veil of black gauze spread over her like a sheet – they’ve nothing to learn about erotic display in the Punjab, I can tell you. I looked down at her, swaying, and it shows how fagged out I was, for I asked, like a damfool:

“What are you doing here?”

“Do you not remember?” murmurs she, and I saw her teeth gleam as she smiled up from the pillow, her black hair spread across it like a fan. “After the mistress has supped, it is the maid’s turn.”

“Oh, my God,” says I. “I ain’t hungry.”

“Are you not?” whispers she. “Then I must whet your appetite.” And she sat up, slow and languid, stretching that transparent veil tight against her body, pouting at me. “Will you taste, husoor?”

For a moment I was tempted. Altogether used up, fit only for the knacker’s yard, I wanted sleep as I wanted salvation. But as I contemplated that magnificent substance stirring beneath the gauze, I thought: to thine own self be true, and put temptation aside.

“Right you are, my dear,” says I. “Got any more of that jolly drink, have you?”

She laughed softly and reached out for the cup beside the bed.

a “Lieutenant, come here!”