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 22

Unusual chap, Littler, and not only because he came from Cheshire, which not many people do, in my experience. I can’t recall a man who so scared the innards out of me, and yet was so reassuring, all in one go. For he was right, you know. I had done the proper thing, and done it well – and much good it’d do me, whatever befell. If Gough was wiped up, they’d need a scapegoat, and who so handy as one of those cocky politicals whom the rest of the Army detested? Contrariwise, if the Khalsa was beat, the last thing John Bull would want to hear was that it had been managed by a dirty deal with two treacherous Sikh generals – where’s the glory to Britannia’s arms in that? So it would be kept quiet … as it has been, to this very day.

You may wonder, then, how I found any reassurance in Littler’s tirade. Well, the thought of having that acid little iceberg in my corner, if it came to a court-martial, was decidedly comforting; I’ve prosecuted myself, and God be thanked I never ran into a defence witness like him. And Broadfoot would stand by me, and Van Cortlandt – and my Afghan reputation must tell in my favour. I got a whiff of that later in the day, when I was nursing my leg and chewing my nails on the verandah after tiffen, and heard Littler’s three brigadiers talking behind the chick; Nicolson must have been spreading the tale of my exploits, and they were full of it.

“Sikhs are doin’ what Flashman told ’em? Off his own bat? I’ll be damned! No end to the cheek o’ these politicals.”

“Not to Flashman’s, anyway. Ask any woman in Simla.”

“Oh? In the skirt line, is he? Odd, that … wife’s a regular stunner. Seen her. Blonde gel, blue eyes.”

“She does sound a stunner, is she?”

“Tip-top, altogether.”

“I say … lady’s name. Not in the mess.”

“Haven’t mentioned her name. Just that she’s a stunner. Money, too, I’m told.”

“Scamps like Flashman always seem to get both. Noticed that.”

“Popular chap, of course.”

“Not with Cardigan. Kicked him out o’ the Cherrypickers.”

“Somethin’ in the lad’s favour. What for?”

“Don’t recall. Feller like that, might be anythin’.”

“True. Well, God help him if Gough gets bowled out.”

“God will, you’ll see. They can’t break the man who saved Jallalabad.”

“When did Cardigan do that?”

“Didn’t. Flashman did. In ’42. You were in Tenasserim.”

“Was I? Ah, yes, I recollect now. He held some fort or other. Oh, they can’t touch him, then.”

“Dam’ well think not. Public wouldn’t stand for it.”

“Not if his wife’s a stunner.”

All of which was heartening, though I didn’t care to hear Elspeth bandied about quite so freely. But it was still a long day, waiting in the baking heat of the Ferozepore lines, with the 62nd sweating in their red coats in the entrenchments, and the blue-jacketed sepoy gunners lying in the shade of their pieces, while only two miles away the sun twinkled on the arms of Tej Singh’s mighty host. Littler and his staff spent all day in the saddle, riding out south-east to scan the hazy distance: Gough was somewhere out yonder, marching to meet the gorracharra that Lal Singh had dispatched against him – if he had dispatched them. Suppose he hadn’t – suppose he’d ignored my plan, or bungled it? Suppose Littler’s fear was well-founded, and Lal had been humbugging me – but, no, that couldn’t be, the fellow had been almost out of his wits. He must be advancing to meet Gough … but would he mind what I’d said about detaching regiments along the way, so as to even the odds? Suppose … oh, suppose any number of things! All I could do was wait, keeping out of Littler’s way, limping gamely around the mess, aware of the eyes that glanced and looked away.

It was about four, and the sun was starting to dip, when we heard the first rumble to eastward, and Huthwaite, the gunner colonel, stood stock-still on the verandah, mouth open, listening, and then cries: “Those are big fellows! 48s! Sikh, for certain!”

“How far?” asks someone.

“Can’t tell – twenty miles at least, might be thirty …”

“That’s Moodkee, then!”

“Quiet, can’t you?” Huthwaite had his eyes closed. “Those are howitzers!³¹ That’s Gough!”

And it was, white fighting coat and all, with an exhausted army at his heels, ill-fed, ill-watered, and in no kind of order, out-gunned but not, thank God, outnumbered, and going for his enemy in the only style he knew, bull-at-a-gate and damn the consequences. We knew nothing of that, at the time; we could only stand on the verandah, with the moths clustering round the lamps, listening to the distant cannonade which went on hour after hour, long after sunset, when we could even see the flashes reflected on the distant night sky. Not until one of Harriott’s light cavalry scouts came back, choked with dust and excitement, did we have any notion of what was happening in that astonishing action, the first in the great Sikh War: Midnight Moodkee.

When I sport my tin on dress occasions, I have clasps for a score of engagements, from “Cabul 42” to “Khedive Sudan 96” – but not for that one, the battle I started. I don’t mind that; I wasn’t there, praise the Lord, and it wasn’t a famous victory for anyone, but I like to think I prevented it from being a catastrophe. Gough’s army, which a well-managed Khalsa should have smothered by sheer weight, lived to fight another day because I’d squared the odds for them – and because there are no better horse soldiers in the world than the Light Brigade.

Between them, Hardinge and Gough came damned near to making a hash of it, one by his old-wife caution, t’other by his Donnybrook recklessness. Thanks to Hardinge, we were ill-prepared for war, with regiments held back from the front, no proper supply stations on their line of march (so that Broadfoot and his politicals had to plunder the countryside to improvise them), not even a field hospital ready to move, and Paddy having to drive ahead with his fighting force, forced-marching thirty miles a day, and devil take the transport and auxiliaries straggling behind him all the way to Umballa. Meanwhile Hardinge had decided to stop being Governor-General and become a soldier again – he went careering off to Ludhiana and brought the garrison down to join the march, so that when they reached Moodkee they had about twelve thousand men, pretty fagged out after a day’s march – and there were Lal’s gorracharra waiting for them, ten thousand strong and a couple of thousand infantry.

Now it was Paddy’s turn. The Sikhs had stationed their foot and guns in jungle, and Gough, instead of waiting for them to come on, must fly at their throats in case they escaped him – that was all he knew. The artillery duelled away, kicking up a deuce of a dust – Hardinge’s son told me later that it was like fighting in London fog, and the fact is that no two accounts of the battle agree, because no one could see a damned thing for most of the time. Certainly the gorracharra were in such numbers that they threatened to envelop us, but our own cavalry took ’em in flank, both sides, and broke them. The 3rd Lights were riding in among the Sikh guns and infantry, but when Paddy launched a frontal infantry assault they ran into a great storm of grape, and it was touch and go for a while, for when they reached the jungle the Sikh guns were still doing great execution, and there was horrid scrimmaging among the trees. It was dark by now, and fellows were firing on their comrades, some of our sepoy regiments were absolutely blazing into the air, everything was confusion on both sides – and then the Sikhs withdrew, leaving seventeen guns behind them. We lost over 200 dead and three times as many wounded; the Sikhs’ losses, I’m told, were greater, but nobody knows.

You might call it a draw in our favour,³² but it settled a few things. We’d taken the ground and the guns, so the Khalsa could be beaten – at a cost, for they’d fought like tigers among the trees, and took no prisoners. Our sepoys had lost some of their fear of the Sikhs, and our cavalry, British and Indian, had seen the backs of the gorracharra. If Gough could follow up quickly enough, and dispose of the rest of Lal’s force which was concentrated on Ferozeshah, twelve miles away, before Tej’s host came to reinforce it, we’d be in a fair way to settling the whole business. But if the Khalsa reunited … well, that would be another story.

Some of this was clear as early as next morning, but by then I had other concerns. One of the gallopers whom Littler had sent with news of my arrangement with Lal and Tej, had reached Gough at the height of the battle; it had been an astonishing sight, with twenty thousand horse, foot and guns tearing at each other in the starlight, and the old madman himself raging because he couldn’t take part personally in the 3rd Lights’ charge on the Sikh flank: “It’s damnable, so it is! Here’s me, an’ there’s them, an’ I might as well be in me bed! Away ye go, Mickey, an’ give ’em one for me – hurroo, boys!”

The galloper had wisely decided that there’d be no talking sense to him for a while, and it wasn’t until near midnight, when the fighting was done, that the news had been broken, to Gough and Hardinge, with Broadfoot in tow, as they left the field. The galloper said it was like a strange dream: a huge golden moon shining on the scrubby plain and jungle; the Sikh guns, with their dead crews heaped around them; the mutilated corpses of our Light Dragoons and Indian lancers marking the path of their charge through the heart of the Khalsa position; the great confused masses of men and horses and camels scattered, dead and dying, on the plain; the wailing chorus of the wounded, and the shouts of our people as they sought their fellows among the fallen; the mound of bodies piled up like a cairn where Harry Smith had ridden ahead on his Arab, Jim Crow, planted the Queen’s Own’s colour at the head of a Khalsa column, and roared to our fellows to come and get it – which they had; Gough and Hardinge standing a little apart, talking quietly in the moonlight, and Paddy finally giving the galloper his reply, and adding the words which brought my heart into my mouth.

“My respects to Sir John Littler, an’ tell him he’ll be hearin’ from me presently – an’ he’ll oblige me by sendin’ that young Flashman to me as soon as he likes! I want a word with that one!”

It wasn’t a hard word, though; indeed, the first thing he said, when I limped into his presence in the big mess-tent at Moodkee, was: “What’s amiss with your leg, boy? Sit ye down, an’ Baxu’ll get ye a glass of beer. Thirsty ridin’, these days!”

First, though, I must be presented to Hardinge, who was with him at dinner, a plain-faced, tight-mouthed sobersides with the empty cuff of his missing left hand tucked into his coat. I disliked him on sight, and it was mutual: he gave me a frosty nod, but Broadfoot was there, with a great grin and a hearty handclasp. That was welcome, I can tell you: the thirty-mile ride from Ferozepore, skirting south in case of gorracharra scouts, and with only six N.C. sowars for escort, had given me the blue devils and done my game ankle no good at all, and on reaching Moodkee I’d had a most horrid shock. We’d come in at sunset from the south, and so saw nothing of the battlefield, but they were burying the dead in scores, and I’d chanced to glance aside through an open tent-fly, and there, wrapped in a cloak, was the body of old Bob Sale.

It quite undid me. He’d been such a hearty, kind old soul – I could see him mopping the noble tears from his red cheeks at my bedside in Jallalabad, or grinning from his table-head at Florentia’s wilder flights, or thumping his knee: “There’ll be no retreat from Lahore, what?” Now they were blowing retreat over him, old Fighting Bob; the grapeshot had got him when they stormed the jungle – the Quartermaster-General charging with the infantry! Well, thank God I wouldn’t have to break the news to her.

But poor old Bob was soon forgotten in the presence of the G.G. and the army chief, for now I must tell my tale again, to that distinguished audience – Thackwell, the cavalry boss, was there, and Hardinge’s son Charlie, and young Gough, Paddy’s nephew, but only three faces counted: Hardinge, cold and grave, his finger laid along his cheek; Gough leaning forward, the brown, handsome old face alight with interest, tugging his white moustache; and Broadfoot, all red whiskers and bottle glasses, watching them to see how they took it, like a master while his prize boy construes. It sounded well, and I told it straight, with no false-modest tricks which I knew would be wasted here – bogus message, Goolab Singh, Maka Khan, gridiron, escape, Gardner’s intervention (I daren’t omit him, with George there), my meeting with Lal and Tej. When I’d done there was a silence, into which George stepped, laying down the law.

“May I say at once, excellency, that I support all Mr Flashman’s actions unreservedly. They are precisely such as I should have wished him to take.”

“Hear, hear,” says Gough, and tapped the table. “Good lad.”

Hardinge didn’t care for it. I guessed that, like Littler, he thought I’d taken a heap too much on myself, but unlike Littler he wasn’t prepared to admit that I’d been right.

“Fortunately, no harm appears to have been done,” says he coldly. “However, the less said of this the better, I think. You will agree, Major Broadfoot, that any publication of the Sikhs’ treachery might have the gravest consequences.” Without waiting for George’s reply, he went on, to me: “And I would not wish your ordeal at the hands of the enemy to be noised abroad. It was a dreadful thing” – he might have been discussing the weather – “and I congratulate you on your deliverance, but if it were to become known it must have an inflammatory effect, and that could serve no good end.” Never mind the inflammatory effect it had had on my end; even in the middle of a war he was fretting about our harmonious relations with the Punjab when it was all over, and Flashy’s scorched arse mustn’t be allowed to mar the prospect. I hadn’t liked Henry Hardinge before, but now I loathed him. So I agreed at once, like a good little toady, and Gough, who’d been fidgeting impatiently, got a word in:

“Tell me this, my boy – an’ if you’re proved wrong I’ll not hold it against ye. This Tej Singh, now … ye know the man. Can we rely on him to do his worst, by his own side?”

“Yes, sir,” says I. “I believe so. He’d sit in front of Ferozepore forever. But his officers may force his hand for him.”

“I think, Sir Hugh,” drawls Hardinge, “that it would be wiser to weigh the facts we know, rather than Mr Flashman’s opinion.”

Gough frowned at the tone, but nodded. “No doubt, Sorr Hinry. But whatever, it must be Ferozeshah. And as soon as maybe.”

I was dismissed after that, but not before Gough had insisted on drinking my health – Hardinge barely lifted his glass from the table. The hell with him, I was too fagged to care, and ready to sleep for a year, but did I get the chance? I’d barely pulled my boots off, and was soaking my extremity in cold water, when my tent was invaded by Broadfoot, bearing a bottle and full of bounce and congratulations, which included himself for being so dam’ clever in sending me to Lahore in the first place. I said Hardinge didn’t seem to think so, and he snorted and said Hardinge was an ass, and a puffed-up snob who had no use for politicals – but never mind that, I must tell him all about Lahore, every word, and down he plumped on my charpoy,^a spectacles a-gleam, to hear it.

Well, you know it all, and by midnight, so did he – bar the jolly parts with Jeendan and Mangla, which I had too much delicacy to mention. I made much of my friendship with little Dalip, spoke in admiring terms of Gardner, and put in a word for Jassa – d’you know, he’d been aware of that remarkable rascal’s identity all along, but had kept it from me on principle. When I’d finished, he rubbed his hands with satisfaction.

“All this will be of the greatest value. What matters, of course, is that you have gained the confidence of the young Maharaja … and his mother …” He glanced sharply at me, and I met his eye with boyish innocence, at which he went pink, and polished his glasses. “Yes, and Goolab Singh, also. Those three will be the vital figures, when all this is over. Yes …” He went off into one of his Celtic trances for a moment, and then roused himself.

“Flashy – I’m going to ask you to do a hard thing. You won’t like it, but it must be done. D’ye see?”

Oh, Jesus, thinks I, what now? He wants me to go to Burma, or dye my hair green, or kidnap the King of Afghanistan – well, the blazes with it! I’ve run my mile, and be damned to him. So, of course, I asked him eagerly what it might be, and he glanced at my injured ankle which I’d laid, still pink and puffy, on a wet towel.

“Still painful, I see. But it didn’t stop ye riding thirty miles today – and if there’s a cavalry charge against the Khalsa tomorrow, you’ll be in it if it kills you, won’t you?”

“I should dam’ well hope so!” cries I, with my heart in my boots at the mere thought, and he shook his head in stern admiration.

“I knew it! No sooner out o’ the frying pan than you’re itching to be at the fire. Ye were just the same on the Kabul retreat.” He clapped me on the shoulder. “Well, I’m sorry, my boy – it’s not to be. Tomorrow, I don’t want you to be able to walk a step, let alone back a horse – d’ye follow?”

I didn’t – but I smelled something damned fishy.

“It’s this way,” says he earnestly. “Last night we fought the sternest action I ever saw. These Sikhs are the starkest, bravest fellows on earth – worth two Ghazis, every man of ’em. I killed four myself,” says he solemnly, “and I tell ye, Flashy, they died hard! They did that.” He paused, frowning. “Have you ever noticed … how soft a man’s head is?³³ Aye, well … what we did last night, we’ll be doing again presently. Gough must destroy Lal’s half of the Khalsa at Ferozeshah – and unless I’m mistaken it’ll be the bloodiest day that ever was seen in India.” He wagged a finger. “It may well decide this war –”

“Yes, yes!” cries I, all eagerness, feeling ready to puke. “But what’s all this gammon about me not being able to walk –?”

“At all costs,” says he impressively, “you must be kept out of the fighting. One reason is that the credit and confidence you’ve achieved with the folk who’ll be ruling the Punjab under our thumb next year – is far too valuable to be risked. I won’t allow it. So, when Gough asks for you as a galloper tomorrow – which I know he will – well, he can’t have you. But I don’t choose to tell him why, because he has no more political sense than the minister’s cat, and wouldn’t understand. So we must hoodwink him, and the rest of the Army, and your game leg will serve our turn.” He laid a hand on my shoulder, owling at me. “It’s not a nice thing, but it’s for the good o’ the service. I know it’s asking a deal, from you of all men, that you stand back when the rest of us fall in, but … what d’ye say, old fellow?”

You can picture my emotion. That’s the beauty of a heroic reputation – but you must know how to live up to it. I assumed the right expression of pained, bewildered indignation, and put a catch into my voice.

“George!” says I, as though he’d struck the Queen. “You’re asking me … to shirk! Oh, yes, you are, though! Well, it won’t do! See here, I’ve done your job in Lahore, and all – don’t I deserve the chance to be a soldier again? Besides,” cries I, in a fine passion, “I owe those bastards something! And you expect me to hang back?”

He looked manly compassionate. “I said it was a hard thing.”

“Hard? Dammit, it’s … it’s the wrong side of enough! No, George, I won’t have it! What, to sham sick – humbug dear old Paddy? Of all the cowardly notions!” I paused, red in the face, fearful of coming it too strong in case he relented. I changed tack. “Why am I so confounded precious, anyway? When the war’s over, it’ll be all one who plays politics in Lahore –”

“I said that was one reason,” he cut in. “There’s another. I need you back in Lahore now! Or as soon as may be. While it’s all in the balance, I must have someone near the seat of power – and you’re the man. It’s the part I designed for you from the first, remember? But your return must be a secret known only to you, me, and Hardinge … well, if you sham sick no one will wonder why you’re being kept out of harm’s way in the meantime.” He grinned complacently. “Oh, I ken I’m a devious crater! I need tae be. So you’ll go on a crutch the morn – and let your beard grow. When you go north again it’ll be as Badoo the Badmash – well, ye can hardly ask admission to Lahore Fort as Mr Flashman, can ye?”

Fortunately, perhaps, I was speechless. I just stared at the red-whiskered brute – and he took silence for consent, when in truth it didn’t even signify comprehension. The whole thing was too monstrous for words, and while I sat open-mouthed he laughed and clapped me on the back.

“That puts things in a different light, does it not? You’ll be shirking your way into the lion’s den, you see – so you needn’t envy the rest of us our wee fight at Ferozeshah!” He stood up. “I’ll speak to Hardinge now, and in a day or two I’ll give you full particulars of what you’ll be doing when you get to Lahore. Until then – take care of that ankle, eh? Sleep well, Badoo!” He winked heavily, pulling back the tent-fly, and paused. “Here, I say, Harry Smith told me a good one today! Why is a soldier of the Khalsa like a beggar? Can you tell, eh? Give it up?”

“I give up, George.” And, by God, I meant it.

“Because he’s a Sikh in arms!” cries he. “You twig? A-seekin’ alms!” He guffawed. “Not bad, what? Goodnight, old chap!”

And he went off chortling. “A Sikh in arms!” They were the last words I ever heard him speak.

a Native bed.