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So that was Ferozeshah as I saw it – the “Indian Waterloo”, the bloodiest battle we ever fought in the Orient, and certainly the queerest – and while other accounts may not tally with mine (or with each other’s) on small points, all are agreed on the essentials. We took Ferozeshah, at terrible cost, in two days of fighting, and were at the end of our tether when Tej Singh hove in view with an overwhelming force, and then sheered off when he could have eaten us for dinner.

The great controversy is: why did he do it? Well, you know why, because I’ve told you – he kept his word to us, and betrayed his army and his country. Yet there are respected historians who won’t believe it, to this day – some because they claim the evidence isn’t strong enough, others because they just won’t have it that victory was won by anything other than sheer British valour. Well, it played its part, by God it did, but the fact is it wouldn’t have been enough, without Tej’s treachery.

One of the things which confuses the historians is that Tej himself, who could lie truth out of India when he wanted to, told so many different stories afterwards. He assured Henry Lawrence that he didn’t push home his attack because he was sure it must fail; having seen the losses we’d taken in capturing Ferozeshah, he decided it was a hopeless position to assail now that we were defending it. He told the same tale to Sandy Abbott. Well, that’s all my eye: he knew his strength, and he knew we were at the last gasp, so that won’t wash.

Another lie, repeated to Alick Gardner, was that he was off collecting reserves at the time. If that’s so, and he wasn’t even there, who gave the Khalsa the order to turn about?

The truth, I believe, is what he told me many years later. He’d have stayed before Ferozepore till the Sutlej froze, if his colonels hadn’t forced him to march to the battle – and once in sight of Ferozeshah he was in a pickle, because he could see that victory was his for the taking. He had to think up some damned fine excuse for not overwhelming us, and Chance provided it, at the last moment, when our guns and cavalry inexplicably withdrew, leaving our infantry as lonely as the policeman at Herne Bay. “Now’s your time, Tej!” cries the Khalsa, “give the word and the day is ours!” “Not a bit of it!” says clever Tej. “Those crafty bastards ain’t withdrawing at all – they’re circling round to take us flank and rear! Back to the Sutlej, boys, I’ll show you the way!” And the Khalsa did as they were told.

Well, you can see why. The three days of Moodkee and Ferozeshah had given their rank and file a great respect for us. They didn’t realise what poor fettle we were in, or that the withdrawal of our horse and artillery was in fact an appalling mistake. It looked as though it might have some sinister purpose to it, as Tej was suggesting, and while they suspected his courage and character (rightly), they also knew he wasn’t a bad soldier, and might be right for once. So they obeyed him, and we were saved when we should have been massacred.

You may ask why our cavalry and guns unexpectedly flew off into the blue, giving Tej his excuse for retreating. Well, that was a gift from the gods. I told you that Lumley, the Adjutant-General, had gone barmy during the first day’s fighting, and kept saying we must retire on Ferozepore; well, on the second day, all his screws came loose together, he got Ferozepore on the brain entirely, and at the height of the battle he ordered our guns and cavalry away – in Hardinge’s name, if you please, so off they went, with the great loony urging them to make haste. So that’s how it was – Mickey White, Tej Singh, and Lumley, each doing his little bit in his own way. Odd business, war.³⁸

We’d lost 700 dead, and close on 2000 wounded, including your humble obedient who spent the night under a tree, almost freezing to death, and utterly famished, with Hardinge and what was left of his staff. There was no sleep to be had, with my hand throbbing in agony, but I daren’t bleat, for Abbott alongside me had three wounds to my one, and was cheerful enough to sicken you. Round about dawn Baxu the butler rolled up with some chapattis and milk, and when we’d wolfed it down and Hardinge had prayed a bit, we all crawled aboard an elephant and lumbered down to Ferozepore, which was to be our seat of government henceforth, while Gough and most of the army camped near Ferozeshah. It was a great procession of wounded and baggage all the way to Ferozepore, and when we reached the entrenchments who should emerge but the guns and cavalry who had abandoned ship at the fatal moment. Hardinge was in a bate to know why, and one of the binky-nabobs^a assured him it had been on urgent orders from Hardinge himself, transmitted by the Adjutant-General.

So now the cry was “Lumley”, and presently he appeared, very brisk and with a wild glint in his eye, lashing the air with a fly-whisk and giving sharp little cries; he was dressed in pyjamys and a straw boater, and was plainly on his way to the Hatter’s for tea. Hardinge demanded why he’d sent off the guns, and Lumley looked fierce and said they had needed fresh magazines, of course, and damned if he’d known where they could get any, bar Ferozepore. He sounded quite indignant.

“Twelve miles away?” cries Hardinge. “What service could they hope to do in time, supposing they had replenished?”

Lumley snapped back, about as much as they’d ha’ done at Ferozeshah, with no charges left. He seemed quite pleased with this, and laughed loudly, swatting flies, while Hardinge went purple. “And the cavalry, then?” cries he. “Why did you bid them retire?”

“Escort,” says Lumley, picking imaginary mice off his shirt. “Can’t have guns goin’ about unguarded. Desperate fellows everywhere – Sikhs, don’t you know? Swoop, pounce, carry ’em off, I assure you. Besides, cavalry needed a rest. Quite played out.”

“And you did this in my name, sir?” cries Hardinge. “Without my authority?”

Lumley said, impatiently, that if he hadn’t, no one would have paid him any heed. He grew quite agitated in describing how on the first night he’d told Harry Smith to retreat, and Harry had told him to go to hell. “Usin’ foulest language, sir! ‘Damn the orders!’ – his very words, though I said ’twas in your name, and the battle was lost, and we must buy the Sikhs if we were to come off. He wouldn’t listen,” says Lumley, looking ready to cry.

Well, everyone except Hardinge could see that the fellow was liable to start plaiting his toes into door-mats, but our pompous G.G. wouldn’t let him alone. Why, he demanded, was Lumley improperly dressed in pyjamys instead of uniform? Lumley gave a great guffaw and says: “Ah, well, you see, my overalls were so riddled with musket-balls, they dropped off me!”³⁹

They sent him home, which made me wonder if he was quite as tap^b as he sounded, for at least he got out of it, while the rest of us must soldier on, waiting for Paddy to plan his next bloodbath. I had hopes of keeping clear, with my hand shot through and my supposedly bad leg, but once we’d settled in Ferozepore and taken stock, blowed if I wasn’t the fittest junior in view. Munro, Somerset, and Hore of Hardinge’s staff were dead, Grant and Becher were wounded, Abbott wouldn’t recover for weeks, and the toll among the politicals had been frightful, with Broadfoot and Peter Nicolson dead and Mills and Lake badly wounded. It’s a damned dangerous game, campaigning, especially with a sawbones as heartily callous as old Billy M’Gregor. “Man, that’s a grand hole in your hand!” cries he, sniffing it. “Nae gangrene or broken bones – ye’ll be grippin’ a glass or a gun inside the week! Your ankle? Ach, it’s fine – ye could play peever^c this minute!”

Not what I care to hear from my medical man in wartime; I’d been looking for a ticket to Meerut at least. But with politicals so scarce there was no hope of that, and when saintly Henry Lawrence turned up to take Broadfoot’s place, I was kept hard at it – among other duties, seeing to the provision of fur boots for our elephants against the winter cold. Capital, thinks I, this is the way to serve out the war in comfort.

For one thing now seemed plain: the Khalsa couldn’t whip John Company. The bogy had been laid at Ferozeshah, India was safe, and while they were still in strength beyond the river, it remained only to bring them to one final action to break them for good and all. So for the present we sat and watched them, Gough awaiting his chance to strike, and Hardinge turning his mind to great affairs of state and political settlements, with Lawrence, who knew the Punjab better even than Broadfoot, at his elbow.

He was shockingly Christian, Lawrence, but an Al political for all that. He turned me inside out about Lahore, and wanted me in at the high pow-wows, but Hardinge said I was far too junior, and “over-zealous”. The truth was he couldn’t abide me, and wanted to forget my existence. Here’s why.

We’d had a bloody close call in India, and it was Hardinge’s fault. He’d failed to secure the frontier, through pussyfooting and hindering Gough, and the stark truth was that when the grip came, two men had saved the day – Gough and I. I ain’t bragging; you know I never do (well, maybe about women and horses, but never about small things). I’d instructed Lal and Tej’s treachery, and Paddy had held his ragbag army together, got it to the gate in time, and won his fights. Oh, they’d been costly, and he’d fought head on, and taken some hellish risks, but he’d done the business as few could have done it – Hardinge for one. But that wasn’t how Hardinge saw it: he believed he’d stopped Paddy from throwing the army away at Ferozeshah, and from that it was a short step to seeing himself as the Saviour of India. Well, he was Governor-General, after all, and India had been saved. Q.E.D.

Indeed, he seemed to think he’d done it in spite of Gough – and inside a week of Ferozeshah he was writing to Peel in London urging that Paddy be given the sack. I saw the letter, accidental-like, when I was rummaging through his excellency’s effects in search of cheroots, and it was a beauty: Paddy wasn’t fit to be trusted with the war, the army was “unsatisfactory”, he’d no head for bandobast, he didn’t frame orders properly, etc. Well, dash my wig, thinks I, here’s gratitude – and the measure of Henry Hardinge. Framing orders, my foot – no doubt “On ye go, Mickey, give ’em one for me!” offended his staff college sensibilities, but he might have remembered another general of his acquaintance whose style wasn’t very different: “Stand up, Guards! Now, Maitland, now’s your time!” If I’d been a man I’d have scrawled it across his precious letter.

It was plain why he was tattling to Peel, though: shift the blame for the butcher’s bill and the near squeak we’d had onto Gough, and who’d think back to the incompetence and fear of offending Lahore and Leaden-hall Street that had helped bring on the war in the first place, and damned near lost it? It was artfully done, too, with a tribute to Paddy’s energy and courage; you could imagine Peel shuddering at the name of Gough, and thanking God that Hardinge had been on hand.

Don’t misunderstand. I ain’t championing the old Mick, who was a bloodthirsty savage, and a splendid chap to avoid – but I liked him, because he’d no side, and was jolly, and offended the Quality by commissioning rankers and damn the royal prerogative – aye, and by winning wars with his “Tipperary tactics”. Perhaps that was his greatest offence. Oh, I know Hardinge was an honourable man, who never stole a box-car in his life, and that most of what he said of Paddy was true. That ain’t the point. That letter would have been shabby if I’d written it, dammit; coming from a man of honour it was unpardonable. But it showed how the wind set, and I wasn’t surprised, on rooting farther through Hardinge’s satchels (most elusive, those cheroots were) to find a note in his day-book: “Politicals of no real use.” So there – plainly Flashy would get no credit, either; my work with Lal and Tej would be conveniently forgotten. Well, thank’ee, Sir Henry, and I hope your rabbit dies and you can’t sell the hutch.⁴⁰

I pondered about informing Paddy anonymously that he was being nobbled, but decided to let it be; mischief’s all very well, but you never know where it may end. So I lay low, running errands for Lawrence. He was a gaunt, ill-tempered scarecrow, but he’d known me in Afghanistan and thought I was another heroic ruffian like himself, so we dealt pretty well. He’d seen from Broadfoot’s papers that George had been meaning to send me back to Lahore, “but I can’t think why, can you? Anyway, I doubt if the G.G. would approve; he thinks you’ve meddled enough in Punjabi politics. But you’d best let your beard grow, just in case.”

So I did, and the weeks went by while we waited for the Khalsa to move, and our own army recovered and grew strong. We celebrated Christmas with the first decorated tree ever I saw,⁴¹ a great fir brought down from the hills and sprinkled with flour to represent snow, our Caledonians boozed in the New Year with raucous mirth and unspeakable song, the reinforcements arrived from Umballa, and we saw the scarlet and blue of British Lancer regiments, the green of the little Gurkha hillmen strutting by with their knives bouncing on their rickety arses, the Tenth Foot with band playing and Colours flying, and everyone pouring out of the tents to sing them in:

For ’tis my delight

Of a shining night,

In the season of the year!

Behind came Native Cavalry and marching sepoy battalions, with Sappers and artillery – Paddy had 15,000 men now, and the young Lancer bucks strutted and haw-hawed and asked when were these Sikh wallahs goin’ to show us some sport, hey? God, I love newcomers in at the death, don’t I just? There was one quiet Lancer, though, a black-whiskered Scotch nemesis who said never a word, and played the bull fiddle for his recreation. He caught my eye then, and again fifteen years later when he led the march to Peking, the most terrible killing gentleman you ever saw: Hope Grant.

So there we were, cocked and ready to fire, and beyond the river, although we didn’t know it, little Dalip’s throne was shaking, for it was touch and go whether the Khalsa, raging in defeat and convinced they’d been betrayed, would fight us or march on Lahore to slake their fury on Jeendan and the durbar. They’d have hanged Lal Singh if they could have caught him, but he’d hidden in a hayrick after Ferozeshah, and then in a baker’s oven, before sneaking back to Lahore, where Jeendan mocked and abused him when she was sober, and galloped him when she was drunk. Between bouts she was sending messages of encouragement to her half-mutinous army, telling them not to give up, but to march on and conquer; at the same time she shut the city gates against the fugitives from Lal’s contingent, who’d deserted in thousands, and even ordered Gardner to recall a Muslim brigade from the front to protect her in case the Khalsa Sikhs came looking for her. Resourceful lass, she was, egging on her army while she turned her capital into an armed camp against them.

Goolab Singh was playing the same game from Kashmir. The Khalsa pleaded with him to bring his hillmen to the war, and even offered to make him Maharaja, but the old fox saw we had the game won, and put them off with promises that he’d join once the campaign was fully launched, while making a great display of sending them supply convoys which he made sure were only quarter loaded and moved at a snail’s pace.

Meanwhile Tej Singh was scheming how to lead the Khalsa to final destruction. He had the bulk of them in hand, outnumbering us three to one, and must do something before they lost patience with him. So he threw a bridge of boats over the Sutlej at Sobraon and built a strong position on the south bank in a bend of the river where Paddy daren’t attack him without heavy guns, which we still lacked. At the same time, another Sikh army struck over the river farther up, threatening Ludhiana and our lines of communication, so Gough moved north to contain Tej’s bridgehead and sent Harry Smith to deal with the Ludhiana incursion. Smith, full of conceit and ginger as usual, stalked the invaders to and fro in the last week of January, and then handed them a fearful thrashing at Aliwal, killing 5000 and taking over fifty guns – and that did rattle the Khalsa, for the beaten commander, Runjoor Singh, was a first-class man, and Smith had licked him with a smaller force, and no excuse of treachery this time.

I was in Gough’s camp at Sobraon when the news came through, for Hardinge was in the habit of riding the twenty miles from Ferozepore every other day with his new staff of toadies, to have a sniff and a carp at Gough’s dispositions,⁴² and Lawrence always went along, with your correspondent bringing up the rear. A great roar of cheering ran through the lines, and Paddy fairly danced with joy, and then scudded off to his tent for a pray. Lawrence and other Holy Joes took their cue, and I was about to sidle off to the staff mess when I heard a great groan close by, and there was old Gravedigger Havelock, clasping his bony paws in supplication and looking like Thomas Carlyle with rheumatics – I never seemed to see that man but he was calling on God for something or other: possibly it was the sight of me that did it. He’d prayed over me like a mad monk at Jallalabad, but the last I’d seen of him had been his boots, viewed from under the pool table while I rogered Mrs Madison.

“Amen!” booms he, and left off addressing heaven to wring my hand, glaring joyfully. “It is Flashman! My boy, how long since last I saw you?”

“Sale’s billiard-room at Simla,” says I, not thinking, and he frowned and said I hadn’t been there that evening, surely?

“Neither I was!” says I hastily. “Must have been some other chap. Let’s see, when did we last meet? Church somewhere, was it?”

“I have thought of you often since Afghanistan!” cries he, still mangling my fin. “Ah, we smelled the battle afar off, the thunder of the captains, and the shouting!”

“Didn’t we just, though? Ah, yes. Well, now …”

“But come – will you not join your voice with that of our Chief, in gratitude to Him who hath vouchsafed us this victory?”

“Oh, rather! But, I say, you’ll have to give me a lead, Graved – skipper, I mean. You always put it so dashed well … praying, don’t you know?” Which tickled him no end, and in two shakes we were on our hams outside Gough’s tent, and it struck me as I looked at them – old Paddy, Havelock, Lawrence, Edwardes, Bagot, and I fancy Hope Grant was there, too – that I’d never seen such a pack of born blood-spillers at their devotions in my life. It’s an odd thing about deadly men – they’re all addicted either to God or the Devil, and I ain’t sure but what the holy ones aren’t the more fatal breed of the two.

But mainly I recall that impromptu prayer meeting because it set me thinking of Elspeth again, when Havelock invoked a blessing not only on our fallen comrades, “but on those yet to fall in the coming strife, and on those dear, distant homes which will be darkened with mourning under the wings of Death’s angel”. Amen, thinks I, but steer him clear of 13a Brook Street, oh Lord, if you don’t mind. Listening to Gravedigger, I could absolutely picture the melancholy scene, with the wreath on our knocker, and the blinds drawn, and my father-in-law whining about the cost of crepe … and my lovely, golden-haired Elspeth, her blue eyes dim with tears, in her black veil and black gloves and dainty black satin slippers, and long clocked stockings with purple rosettes on her garters and that shiny French corset with the patent laces that you just had to twitch and she came bursting out …

“Flashman was much moved, I thought,” Havelock said afterwards, and so I was, at the thought of all that voluptuous goodness so far away, and going to waste – at least, I hoped it was, but I had my doubts; heaven knew how many my melting little innocent had thrashed the mattress with in my absence. Brooding on that over supper, and finding no consolation in port and fond musings on my own indiscretions with Jeendan and Mangla and Mrs Madison, I found myself getting quite jealous – and hungry for that blonde beauty on t’other side of the world …

Time for a brisk stroll in the cold night air, I decided. We were stopping in Gough’s camp by Sobraon, so that he and Hardinge could bicker over the next move, and I sauntered along the lines in the frosty dark, listening to our artillery firing a royal salute in celebration of Smith’s victory at Aliwal; barely a mile away I could see the watch-fires of the Khalsa entrenchments in the Sutlej bend, and as the crash of our guns died away, hanged if the enemy didn’t reply with a royal salute of their own, and their bands playing … you’ll never guess what. In some ways it was the eeriest thing in that queer campaign – the silence in our own lines as the gunsmoke drifted overhead, the golden moon low in the purple sky, shining on the rows of tents and the distant twinkling fires, and over the dark ground between, the solemn strains of “God Save the Queen”! I never heard it played so well as by the Khalsa, and for the life of me I don’t know to this day whether it was in derision or salute; with Sikhs, you can never tell.

I was thinking about that, and the impossibility of ever knowing what goes on behind Indian eyes, and how I’d misread them all (especially Jeendan’s), and reflecting that with any luck I’d soon have seen the last of them, thank heaven – and in that very moment an orderly came running to say, please, sir, Major Lawrence’s compliments, and would I wait on the Governor-General at once?

It never occurred to me that my thoughts had been tempting fate, and as I waited in the empty annexe which served as an ante-room to Hardinge’s pavilion I felt only mild curiosity as to why he wanted me. Voices sounded in the inner sanctum, but I gave no heed to them at first: Hardinge saying that something was a serious matter, and Lawrence replying that no time must be lost. Then Gough’s voice:

“Well, then, a flyin’ column! Under cover o’ dark, an’ goin’ like billy-be-damned! Send Hope Grant wi’ two squadrons of the 9th, an’ he can be in and out before anyone’s the wiser.”

“No, no, Sir Hugh!” cries Hardinge. “If it is to be done at all, it must be secret. That is insisted upon – if, indeed, we are to believe that fellow. Suppose it is some infernal plot … oh, bring him in again, Charles! And find whatever has happened to Flashman! I tell you, it troubles me that he is named in this …”

I was listening now, all ears, as young Charlie Hardinge emerged, crying there I was, and bustling me in. Hardinge was saying that it was all most precarious, and no work for a junior man who had proved himself so headstrong … He had the grace to break off at sight of me, and sat looking peevish, with Lawrence and Van Cortlandt, whom I hadn’t seen since Moodkee, standing behind. Old Paddy, shivering in his cloak in a camp chair, gave me good evening, but no one else spoke, and you could feel the anxiety in the air. Then Charlie was back again, ushering in a figure whose un-expected appearance set my innards cartwheeling in nameless alarm. He sauntered in, no whit abashed by the exalted company, wearing his Afghan rags as though they were ermine, and his ugly face split into a grin as his eye lit on me.

“Why, hollo there, lieutenant!” says Jassa. “How’s tricks?”

“Stand there, under the lamp, if you please!” snaps Hardinge. “Flashman, do you know this man?”

Jassa grinned even wider, and just from the glance between Lawrence and Van Cortlandt I guessed they’d already identified him ten times over, but Hardinge, as usual, was proceeding by laborious rote. I said yes, he was Dr Harlan, an agent of Broadfoot’s, lately posing as my orderly, and formerly of H.M.’s service in Burma. Jassa looked pleased.

“Say, you remembered that! Thank’ee, sir, that’s proud!”

“That will do,” says Hardinge. “You may go.”

“How’s that, sir?” says Jassa. “But hadn’t I ought to stay? I mean, if the lieutenant is going to –”

“That will be all!” says Hardinge, down his nose, so Jassa shrugged, muttered as he passed me that it wasn’t his goddam’ pow-wow, and loafed out. Hardinge exclaimed in irritation.

“How came Broadfoot to employ such a person? He’s an American!” He said it as though Jassa were a fallen woman.

“Yes, and a slippery one,” says Van Cortlandt. “He bore a bad name in the Punjab in my time. But if he comes from Gardner –”

“That’s the point – does he?” Lawrence was brusque. He handed me a plain sealed note. “Harlan brought this, for you, from Colonel Gardner in Lahore. Says it will establish his bona fides. The seal hasn’t been touched.”

Wondering what the deuce this was about, I broke the seal – and had a sudden premonition of what I would read. Sure enough, there it was, one word: Wisconsin.

“He’s from Gardner,” says I, and they looked at it in turn. I explained it was a password known only to Gardner and me, and Hardinge sniffed.

“Another American! Are we to rely on a foreign mercenary in the employ of the enemy?”

“On this mercenary – yes,” says Van Cortlandt curtly. “He’s a sure friend. Without him, Flashman would not have left Lahore alive.” That’s no way to boost Gardner’s stock, thinks I. Hardinge raised his brows and sat back, and Lawrence turned to me.

“Harlan arrived an hour ago. It’s bad news out of Lahore. Gardner says the Maharani and her son are in grave peril, from their own army. There’s talk of plots – to murder her, to abduct the little Maharaja and place him in the heart of the Khalsa, so that the panches can do as they please, in his name. That would mean the end of Tej Singh, and the appointment of some trusted general, who might well give us a long war.” He didn’t need to add that it might be a disastrous war, for us; the Khalsa were still in overwhelming strength if they had a leader who knew how to use it.

“The boy’s the key,” says Lawrence. “Who holds him, holds power. The Khalsa knows it, and so does his mother. She wants him out of Lahore, and under our protection. At once. It will be a week at least before we can finish the Khalsa in battle –”

“Ten days, more like,” says Gough.

“That is the time the plotters have in which to strike.” Lawrence paused, and my mouth went dry as I realised they were all watching me, Gough and Van Cortlandt keenly, Hardinge with gloomy disapproval.

“The Maharani wants you to fetch him out, secretly,” says Lawrence. “That’s her message, given by Gardner to Harlan.”

Steady now, thinks I, mustn’t puke or burst into tears. Keep a straight face, and remember that the last thing Hardinge wants is to have Flashy stirring the Punjab pot again – that’s your hole card, my boy, if this beastly proposal is to be scotched. So I made a lip, thoughtful-like, choked down my supper, and said straight out:

“Very good, sir. I have a free hand, I suppose?”

That did the trick; Hardinge leaped as though he’d been gaffed. “No, sir, you do not! No such thing! You will keep your place, until …” He glared, flustered, from Lawrence to Gough. “Sir Hugh, I know not what to think! This scheme fills me with misgivings. What do we know of these … these Americans … and this Maharani? If this were a plot to discredit us –”

“Not by Gardner!” snaps Van Cortlandt.

“The Maharani has good cause to fear for her child’s safety,” says Lawrence. “And her own. If anything befell them … well, when this war is past, we should find ourselves dealing with a state in anarchy. She and the boy are our only hope of a good political solution.”

Gough spoke up. “An’ if we don’t get one, we must conquer the Punjab. I tell ye, Sir Henry, we have not the means for that.”

Hardinge’s face was a study. He drummed his fingers and fretted. “I cannot like it. Suppose it were made to appear that we were kidnapping the boy – why, it might be charged that we made war on children –”

“Oh, never that!” cries Lawrence. “We’d be protecting him. But if we do nothing, and he is seized by the Khalsa – murdered, perhaps, and his mother with him … well, that would not be seen to our credit, I believe.”

I could have kicked him. He’d hit on the best argument to commit Hardinge to this dreadful folly. Credit, that was the thing! What would London think? What would The Times say? You could see our Governor-General imagining the outcry if blasted little Dalip got his weasand slit through our neglect. He went pale, and then his face cleared, while he pretended to ponder the thing.

“Certainly the child’s safety must weigh heavily with us,” says he solemnly. “Humanity and policy both demand it … Sir Hugh, what is your thought?”

“Get him out,” says Paddy. “Ye cannot do other.”

Even then Hardinge must make a show of careful judgment, frowning in silence while my heart sank to my boots. Then he sighed. “So be it, then. We must pray that we are not the dupes of some singular intrigue. But I insist, Lawrence, that either you or Van Cortlandt undertakes it.” He shot me a baleful glance. “An older head –”

“By your leave, sir,” says Lawrence. “Flashman, be good enough to wait in my tent. I’ll join you presently.”

So I left obediently – and was round the outside of Hardinge’s tent like a frightened stoat, tripping over guy-ropes and slithering in the frosty dark before bearing up in the shadows with an ear cocked under the muslin screen of his window. The man himself was in full cry, and I caught the end of it.

“… less suitable for such delicate work, I cannot conceive! His conduct with the Sikh leaders was irresponsible to a degree – taking it upon himself to determine policy, a mere junior political officer, flown with self-esteem –”

“Thank God he did,” says good old Paddy.

“Very well, Sir Hugh! Fortune favoured us, but his conduct might have brought us to catastrophe! I tell you what, the man’s a swaggerer! No,” says this splendid and far-sighted statesman, “Flashman shall not go to Lahore!”

“He must!” retorted Lawrence, for whom I was conceiving a poisonous dislike. “Who else can pass as a native, speaking Punjabi, and knows the ins and outs of Lahore Fort? And the little Maharaja worships him, Harlan tells me.” He paused. “Besides, the Maharani Jeendan has asked for him by name.”

“What’s that to the point?” cries Hardinge. “If she wishes her child safe, it is all one whom we send!”

“Perhaps not, sir. She knows Flashman, and …” Lawrence hesitated. “The fact is, there is a bazaar rumour that she … ah, formed an attachment for him, while he was in Lahore.” He coughed and hummed. “As you know, sir, she is a very lovely young woman … of an ardent nature, by all accounts …”

“Good God!” cries Hardinge. “You don’t mean –”

“The young devil!” chuckles Paddy. “Oh, well, decidedly he must go!”

“We’d best not neglect anything that will dispose her well to us,” says Van Cortlandt, damn him. “And as Lawrence says, there is no one else.”

Eavesdropping fearfully, my mind filled with the horrid prospect of Lahore and its gridirons and ghastly bathrooms and Akali fanatics and murderous swordsmen, I couldn’t help recalling that Broadfoot had counted on my manly charms just as these calculating wretches were doing. It’s too bad … but if you’re hell’s delight with the fair sex, what would you?

I’ve no doubt it’s what persuaded that pious hypocrite Hardinge, with his mind fixed on political accommodations after the war. By all means let Flashy humour the bitch while he plucked her bloody infant to safety, and wouldn’t she be obliged to us, just? He didn’t say as much, but you could hear him thinking it as he gave his reluctant consent.

“But hear me, Lawrence – Flashman must understand that he is to proceed in strict accordance to your instructions. He must have no room for independent action of any kind whatsoever – is that clear? This fellow Harlan has brought directions from … what is his name, Gardner? – a fine business, when we must rely on such people, let alone this hare-brained political! You must question Harlan closely on how it is to be effected. Above all, no harm must befall the young prince, Flashman must understand that – and the consequences should he fail.”

“I doubt if he needs instruction on that head, sir,” says Lawrence, pretty cool. “For the rest, I shall give him careful directions.”

“Very well. I shall hold you responsible. You have an observation, Sir Hugh?”

“Eh? No, no, Sorr Hinry, nothin’ of consequence. I was just after thinkin’,” chuckles old Paddy, “that I wish I was young again, an’ spoke Punjabi.”

a Artillery commanders.

b Mad, usually with sunstroke.

c Hop-scotch.