Flashman and the Mountain of Light

When I sport my tin on dress occasions, I have clasps lor 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 con-fusion 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,*(*Native bed.) 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 he 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—hum-bug 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 con-founded 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 mean-time." 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? Good-night, old chap!"

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

You'll have difficulty finding Ferozeshah (or Pheeroo Shah, as we Punjabi purists call it) in the atlas nowadays. It's a scrubby little hamlet about halfway between Ferozepore and Moodkee, but in its way it's a greater place than Delhi or Calcutta or Bombay, for it's where the fate of India was settled—appropriately by treachery, folly, and idiot courage beyond belief. And most of all, by blind luck.

It was where Lal Singh, on my advice, had left half his force when he marched to meet Gough, and it was where his battered advance guard retired after Moodkee. So there he was now, twenty thousand strong with a hundred splendid guns, all nicely entrenched and snug as bugs. And Gough must attack him at once, for who could tell when Tej Singh, loafing before Ferozepore a mere dozen miles away, would be forced by his colonels to do the sensible thing and join Lal, thereby facing Paddy with a Khalsa of over fifty thousand, outnumbering us more than three to one?

So it was bundle and go at Moodkee next day, with the last of the dead being shovelled under, the Native Infantry deploying for a night march, the 29th marching in from the Umballa track, their red coats as yellow as their facings with the rolling dust, and the band thumping out "Royal Windsor", the elephant teams squealing as they hauled up the heavy pieces, camels braying in the lines, fellows shouting and waving papers in every tent opening, the munition carts rolling through, and Gough in his shirt-sleeves at an open-air table with his staff scampering round him. And the discerning eye would also have noted a stalwart figure propped up on a charpoy with his leg swathed to the knee in an enormous bandage, cursing the luck which kept him out of the fun.

"I say, Cust," cries Abbott, "have you seen? Flashy's got the gout! Has to have beef tea and sal volatile, and kameela drenches twice a day!"

"Comes of boozin' with maharanis at Lahore, I dare say," says Cust, "while the rest of us poor politicals have to work for a living."

"When did politicals ever work?" says Hore. "You stay where you are, Flashy, and keep out of the sun, mind! If the goin' gets sticky we'll haul you up to wave your crutch at the Sikhs!"

"Wait till I'm walking and I'll wave more than a crutch!" cries I. "You fellows think you're clever—I'll be ahead of you all yet, you'll see!" At which they all made game of me, and said they'd leave a few Sikh wounded for me to cut up. Cheery stuff, you see. Broadfoot himself had pronounced me hors de combat, and I got a deal of sympathy among all the chaff, but Gough insisted that I should be brought along to Ferozeshah anyway, to deal with casualty returns, of which there were likely to be a-plenty. "If he can't ride he can still write," says Paddy. "Besides, if I know the boy he'll be in at the death before all's done." Live in hope, old Paddy, thinks I; I'd expected to be left behind at Moodkee with the wounded, but at least I'd be well out of the way at advance headquarters while the rest of them got on with the serious work.

Broadfoot and his Afghans were out all day, scouting the Sikh position, so I never saw him. I went hot and cold by turns when I thought of the awful prospect he'd unfolded to me the previous night—sneaking back to Lahore in disguise, no doubt to carry treasonable mess-ages to Jeendan, and keep an eye on her and her court of snakes … how the devil was it to be done, and why? But sufficient unto the day; I'd find out soon enough.

We marched, after a broiling day of confused preparation, in the freezing small hours, the army in column of route and your humble obedient borne in a dooli*(*Stretcher) by minions, which caused much hilarity among the staff-wallopers, who kept stopping by to ask if I needed any gruel or a stone pig to warm my toes. I responded with bluff repartee—and noticed that as the march progressed the comedians fell silent; we came within earshot of the Sikh drums soon after dawn, and by nine were deploying within sight of Ferozeshah. I bade my dooli-bearers set me down in a little grove not far from the headquarters group, to be out of the heat—with interesting results, as you'll see. For while most of what I tell you of that momentous day is hearsay, one vital incident was played out under my nose alone. This is what happened.

The scouts had reported that the place was heavily entrenched on all sides, in a rough mile square about the village, with the Sikhs' heavy guns among the mounds and ditches that enclosed it. On three sides there were jungly patches which would hinder our attack, but on the eastern side facing us it was flat maidan, and Gough, honest man, could see only one way—open up with the guns and sweep straight in, trusting to the bayonets of his twelve thousand to do the trick against twenty thousand Khalsa. During the night Littler had slipped out of Ferozepore with almost his whole seven thousand, leaving Tej guarding an empty town; Paddy's notion may have been to drive the Sikhs out of Ferozeshah and into Littler's path, but I ain't sure.

At all events, I was reclining in my dooli in the shade, discussing beef and hardtack and coughing contentedly over my cheroot, admiring the view of our army deployed across my front and feeling patriotic, when there was a commotion fifty yards off, where the HQ staff were at breakfast—Hardinge trying to hog the marmalade again, thinks I, but when I peeped out, here was the man himself striding towards my grove, looking stern, and five yards behind, Paddy Gough with his white coat flapping and bright murder in his eye. Hardinge stops just inside the grove and says: "Well, Sir Hugh?"

"Well, indeed, Sorr Hinry!" cries Paddy, Irish with fury. "I'11 tell ye again—you're lookin' at the foinest victory that ever was won in India, bigad, an' —"

"And I tell you, Sir Hugh, it is not to be thought of! Why, you are outnumbered two to one in men, and even more in cannon—and they are in cover, sir!"

"And don't I know that, then? I tell ye still, I'll put Ferozeshah in your hand by noon! Dear man, our infantry aren't Portuguese!"

That was a dig at Hardinge, who'd served with the Portugoosers in the Peninsula. His tone was freezing as he replied: "I cannot entertain it. You must wait for Littler to come up."

"An' if I wait that long, sure'n the rabbits'll be runnin' through Ferozeshah! 'Tis the shortest day o' the year, man! And will ye tell me, plain now—who commands this army?"

"You do!" snaps Hardinge.

"And did ye not offer me your services, as a soldier, in whutsoivver capacity, now? Ye did! And I accepted, gratefully! But it seems ye won't take my orders —"

"In the field, sir, I shall obey you implicitly! But as Governor-General I shall, if necessary, exert my civil authority over the Commander-in-Chief. And I will not hazard the army in such a risk as this! Oh, my dear Sir Hugh," he went on, trying to smooth things, but Paddy wasn't at home.

"In short, Son Hinry, ye're questionin' my military judgment!"

"As to that, Sir Hugh, I have been a soldier as long as you —"

"I know it! I know also ye haven't smelt powder since Waterloo, an' all the staff college lectures in creation don't make a battlefield general! So, now!"

Hardinge was a staff college man; Paddy, you may suspect, was not.

"This is unseemly, sir!" says Hardinge. "Our opinions differ. As Governor-General, I positively forbid an attack until you are supported by Sir John Littler. That is my last word, sir."

"And this is mine, son—but I'll be havin' another one later!" cries Paddy. "If we come adrift through this, with our fellows shootin' each other in the dark, as they did at Moodkee—well, son, I won't hold myself responsible unless I am!"

"Thank you, Sir Hugh!"

"Thank you, Son Hinry!"

And off they stumped, after a conference unique, I believe, in military history.³⁴ As to which was right, God knows. On the one hand, Hardinge had to think of all India, and the odds scared him. Against that, Paddy was the fighting soldier—daft as a brush, granted, but he knew men and ground and the smell of victory or defeat. Heads or tails, if you ask me.

So Hardinge had his way, and the army set off again, south-west, to meet Littler, crossing the Sikh front with our flank wide as a barn door if they'd care to come out and fall on us. They didn't, thanks to Lal Singh, who refused to budge while his staff tore their hair at the missed chance. Littler hove in view at Shukoor, and our force turned north again, now eighteen thousand strong, and stormed Ferozeshah.

I didn't see the battle, since I was installed in a hut at Misreewallah, more than a mile away, surrounded by clerks and runners and sipping grog while I waited for the butcher's bill. So I shan't elaborate the bare facts—you can read the full horror in the official accounts if you're curious. I heard it, though, and saw the results; that was enough for me.

It was shockingly botched, on both sides. Gough had to launch his force in frontal assault on the south and west entrenchments, which were the strongest, just as the sun was westering. Our fellows were caught in a hail of grape and musketry, with mines going off under them, but they stormed in with the bayonet, and drove the Sikhs from their camp and the village beyond. Just on dusk, the Sikhs' magazine exploded, and soon there were fires everywhere, and it was slaughter all the way, but there was such confusion in the dark, with regiments going astray, and Harry Smith, as usual, miles ahead of the rest, that Gough decided to re-form—and the retire was sounded. Our fellows, with Ferozeshah in their hands, came out again—and the Sikhs walked back in, resuming the entrenchments we'd taken at such fearful cost. And they wonder why folk go to sea. So we were back where we began, in the freezing night, with the Khalsa sharp-shooters hammering our bivouacs and wells. Oh, aye, and Lumley, the Adjutant-General, went off his rocker and ran about telling everyone we must retire on Ferozepore. Luckily no one minded him.

My memories of that night are a mixture of confused pictures: Ferozeshah, two miles away, like a vision of hell, a sea of flames under red clouds with explosions everywhere; men lurching out of the dark, carrying wounded comrades; the long dark mass of our bivouacs on the open ground, and the unceasing screams and groans of the wounded all night long; bloody hands thrusting bloody papers before me under the storm-lantern—Littler had lost 185 men in only ten minutes, I remember; the crash of our artillery at the Sikh sharpshooters; Hardinge, his hat gone and his coat bloody, calling: "Charles, where are the Ninth—I must visit all my old Peninsulars! See if they have a lady in barracks, what?³⁵ a corporal of the 62nd, his trousers soaked in blood, sitting at my hut door with his hussif open, carefully stitching a tear in the white cover of his hat; the sudden blare of bugles and rattle of drums sounding the alarm as a regiment was mustered to make a sortie against a Sikh gun emplacement; a Light Dragoon, face black with powder, and a skinny little bhisti,*(*Water-carrier.) buckets in their hands, and the Dragoon crying who'd make a dash with them for the well, 'cos Bill must have water and the chaggles*(*Canvas water-bags.) were dry; the little German prince who'd played billiards while I romped Mrs Madison, putting in his head to ask ever so politely if Dr Hoffmeister, of whom I'd never heard, was on my lists—he wasn't, but he was dead, anyway; and a hoarse voice singing softly in the dark:

Wrap me up in my tarpaulin jacket, jacket, An' say a poor buffer lies low, lies low,

An' six stalwart lancers shall carry me, carry me, With steps that are mournful an' slow.

Then send for six brandies an' soda, soda, An' set 'em up all in a row, a row …

I hobbled across to headquarters on my unnecessary crutch, to sniff the wind. It was a big bare basha,*(*Native house.) with fellows curled up asleep on the earth, and at the far end Gough and Hardinge with a map across their knees, and an aide holding a light. By the door Baxu the butler and young Charlie Hardinge were packing a valise; I asked what was to do.

"Off to Moodkee," says Charlie. "Currie must be ready to burn his papers."

"What—is it all up, then?"

"Touch an' go, anyway. I say, Flashy, have you seen the cabbage-walloper—Prince Waldemar? I've to take him out of it, confound him! Blasted civilians," says Charlie, who was one himself, secretarying Papa, "seem to think war's a sightseein' tour!" Baxu handed him a dress sword, and Charlie chuckled.

"I say—mustn't forget that, Baxu!"

"Nay, sahib! Wellesley sahib would be dam-displeased!"

Charlie tucked it under his coat. "Wouldn't mind havin' its owner walk in this minute, though."

"Who's that, then?" I asked.

"Boney. Wellington gave it to the guv'nor after Water-loo. Can't let the Khalsa get hold of Napoleon's side-arm, can we?"

I didn't care for this—when the swells start sending their valuables down the road, God help the rest of us. I asked Abbott, who was smoking by the door, with his arm in a bloody sling, what was afoot.

"We're goin' in again at dawn. Nothin' else for it, with only half a day's fodder for us an' the guns. It's Ferozeshah—or six feet under. Some asses were talkin' about terms, or cuttin' out for Ferozepore, but the G.G. an' Paddy gave 'em the rightabout." He lowered his voice. "Mind you, I don't know if we can stand another gruellin' like today … how's the pension parade?"

He meant our casualties. "At a guess … maybe one in ten."

"Could be worse … but there ain't a whole man on the staff," says he. "Oh, I say, did you hear?—Georgie Broadfoot's dead."

I didn't take it in at all. I heard the words, but they meant nothing at first, and I just stood staring at him while he went on: "I'm sorry … he was a chum o' yours, wasn't he? I was with him, you see … the damnedest thing! I'd been hit …" he touched his sling "… an' thought I was gone, when old Georgie rides up, shouting: `Get up, Sandy! Can't go to sleep, you know!' So up I jumped, an' then Georgie tumbled out of his saddle, shot in the leg, but he popped straight up again, an' says to me: `There you are, you see! Come on!' It was fairly rainin' grape from the south entrenchment, an' a second later, he went down again. So I yelled: `Come on, George! Sleepyhead yourself!' He fumbled inside his shirt. "And … so he is now, for keeps, the dear old chap. You want these? Here, take 'em."

They were George's spectacles, with one lens broken. I took them, not believing it. Seeing Sale dead had been bad enough—but Broadfoot! The great red giant, always busy, always scheming—nothing could kill him, surely? No, he'd walk in presently, damning someone's eyes—mine, like enough. For no reason I took a look through the remaining glass, and couldn't see a thing; he must have been blind as a bat without them … and then it dawned on me that if he was dead, there'd be no one to send me to Lahore again—and no need! Whatever ploy he'd had in mind would have died with him, for even Hardinge wouldn't know the ins and outs of it … So I was clear, and relief was flooding through me, making me tremble, and I choked between tears and laughter -

"Here, don't take on!" cries Abbott, catching my wrist. "Never fret, Flashy—George'll be paid for, you'll see! Why, if he ain't, he'll haunt us, the old ruffian, gig-lamps an' all! We're bound to take Ferozeshah!"

And they did, a second time. They went in, Briton and sepoy, in ragged red lines under the lifting mist of dawn, with the horse guns thundering ahead of them and the Khalsa trenches bright with flame. The Sikh gunners fairly battered the advancing regiments and picked off our ammunition wagons, so that our ranks seemed to be moving through pillars of fiery cloud, with the white trails of our Congreves piercing the black smoke. It's the last madness, thinks I, watching awestruck from the rear, for they'd no right to be on their feet, even, let alone marching into that tempest of metal, exhausted, half-starved, frozen stiff, and barely a swallow of water among them, with Hardinge riding ahead, his empty sleeve tucked into his belt, telling his aides he'd seen nothing like it since the Peninsula, and Gough leading the right, spreading the tails of his white coat to be the better seen. Then they had vanished into the smoke, the scarecrow lines and the tattered standards and the twinkling cavalry sabres—and I thanked God I was here and not there as I led the rocketeers in three cheers for our gallant comrades, before being borne back into the shade to a well-earned breakfast of bread and brandy.

Being new to the business, I half-expected to see 'em back shortly, in bloody rout—but beyond our view they were storming the defences again, and going through Ferozeshah like an iron fist, and by noon there wasn't a live Punjabi in the position, and we'd taken seventy guns. Don't ask me how—they say some of the Khalsa infantry cut stick in the night, and the rest were all at sea because Lal Singh and his cronies had fled, with the Akalis howling for his blood—but that don't explain it, not to me. They still weren't outnumbered, and had the defensive advantage, and fought their guns to the finish—so how did we beat 'em? I don't know, I wasn't there—but then, I still don't understand the Alma and Balaclava and Cawnpore, and I was in the thick of them, God help me, and no fault of mine.

I ain't one of your by jingoes, and I won't swear that the British soldier is braver than any other—or even, as Charley Gordon said, that he's brave for a little while longer. But I will swear that there's no soldier on earth who believes so strongly in the courage of the men along-side him—and that's worth an extra division any day. Provided you're not standing alongside me, that is.

All morning the wounded kept coming back, but fewer by far than yesterday, and now they were jubilant. Twice they'd beaten the Khalsa against the odds, and there wouldn't be a third Ferozeshah, not with Lal's forces in flight for the Sutlej, and our cavalry scouting their retreat. Tik hai, Johnnie!" roars a sergeant of the 29th, limping down with a naik of Native Infantry; they had two sound legs between them, and used their muskets as crutches. "'Oo's got a tot o' rum for my Johnnie, then? 'E may 'ave fired wide at Moodkee, but you earned yer chapattis today, didn't yer, ye little black bugger!" And everyone roared and cheered and helped them along, the tow-headed, red-faced ruffian and the sleek brown Bengali, both of them grinning with the same wild light in their eyes. That's victory—it was in all their eyes, even those of a pale young cornet of the 3rd Lights with his arm off at the elbow, raving as they carried him past at the run, and of a private with a tulwar gash in his cheek, spitting blood at every word as he told me how Gough was entrenched in the Sikhs' position in case of counter-attack, but there was no fear of that.

"We done for 'em, sir!" cries he, and his yellow facings were as red as his coat with his own gore. "They won't stop runnin' till they gets to La'ore, I reckon! You should 'ear 'em cheer ole Daddy Gough—ain't 'e the boy, though?" He peered at me, holding a grimy cloth to his wound. 'Ere, you orl right, sir? Fair done in you looks, if you'll 'scuse my sayin' so …"

It was true—I, who hadn't been near the fight, and had been right as rain, was all at once ready to keel over where I sat. And it wasn't the heat, or the excitement, or the sight of his teeth showing through his cheek (other folks' blood don't bother me), or the screaming from the hospital basha, or the stench of stale blood and acrid smoke from the battle, or the dull ache in my ankle—none of that. I believe it was the knowledge that at last it was all over, and I could give way to the numbing fatigue that had been growing through one of the worst weeks of my life. I'd had one night's sleep out of eight, counting from the first which I'd spend galloping Mangla; then there'd been my Khalsa frolic, the Sutlej crossing, the ride from Lal and Tej to Ferozepore, the vigil as we listened to distant Moodkee, uneasy slumber after Broadfoot had given me his bad news, the freezing march to Misreewallah, and finally, the first night of Ferozeshah. Oh, I was luckier than many, but I was beat all to nothing—and now it was past, and I was safe, and could lurch from my stool and fall face-down on the charpoy, dead to the world.

Now, when I'm dog-tired with shock, I have nightmares worthy of cheese and lobster, but this one laid it over them all, for I fell slowly through the charpoy, into a bath of warm water, and when I rolled over I was staring up at a ceiling painting of Gough and Hardinge and Broadfoot, all figged out like Persian princes, having dinner with Mrs Madison, who tilted her glass and poured oil all over me, which made me so slippery that I couldn't hope to transfer the whole Soochet legacy, coin by coin, from my navel to Queen Ranavalona's as she pinned me down on a red-hot billiard-table. Then she began to pummel and shake me, and I knew she was trying to make me get up because Gough wanted me, and when I said I couldn't, because of my ankle, the late lamented Dr Arnold, wearing a great tartan puggaree, came by on an elephant, crying that he would take me, for the Chief needed a Greek translation of Crotchet Castle instanter, and if I didn't take it to Tej Singh, Elspeth would commit suttee. Then I was following him, floating across a great dusty plain, and the smell of burning was everywhere, and filthy ash was falling like snow, and there were terrible bearded faces of dead men, smeared with blood, and corpses all about us, with ghastly wounds from which their entrails spilled out on earth that was sodden crimson, and there were great cannon lying on their sides or tumbled into pits, and everywhere the char-red wreckage of tents and carts and huts, some of them still in flames.

There was a mighty tumult, too, a great cannonading, and the shriek and crash of shot striking home, the rattle of musketry, and bugles blowing. There were voices yelling on all sides, in a great confusion of orders: "By sections, right—walk-march, trot!" and "Battalion, halt! Into line—left turn!" and "Troop Seven—left incline, forward!" But Arnold wouldn't stop, though I shouted to him, and I couldn't see where the troops were, for the horse I was riding was going too fast, and the sun was in my eyes. I raised my left hand to shield them, but the sun's rays burned more fiercely than ever, causing me such pain that I cried out, for it was burning a hole in my palm, and I clutched at Arnold with my other hand—and suddenly he was Mad Charley West, gripping me round the shoulders and yelling to me to hold on, and my left hand was pumping blood from a ragged hole near the thumb, causing excruciating agony, and all hell was loose around me.

That was the moment when I realised that I wasn't dreaming.

An eminent medico has since explained that exhaustion and strain induced a trance-like state when I sank down on the charpoy, and that while my nightmares turned to reality, I didn't come to properly until I was wounded in the hand—which is the most immediately painful place in the whole body, and I should know, since I've been hit in most others. In between, Mad Charley had wakened me, helped me to mount (bad ankle and all), and we'd ridden at speed through the carnage of the recent battle to Gough's position beyond Ferozeshah village—and all I'd taken in were those disjointed pictures I've just described. The sawbones had an impressive medical name for it, but I doubt if there's one for the sensation I felt as I gripped my wounded hand to crush the pain away, and took in the scene about me.

Directly before me were two troops of Native horse artillery, firing as fast as they could load, the little brown gunners springing aside to avoid the recoil, the crash of the salvoes staggering my horse by its very violence. To my left was a ragged square of British infantry—the 9th, for I saw the penny badge on their shakos—and beyond them others, sepoy and British, kneeling and standing, with the reserve ranks behind. To my right it was the same, more squares, inclined back at a slight angle, with their colours in the centre, like the pictures of Waterloo.

Red squares, with the dust boiling round them, and shot screaming overhead or ploughing through with a clap like thunder; men were falling, sometimes singly, sometimes hurtled aside as a shot tore into the ranks; I saw a great swathe, six files wide, cut by grape at the corner of the 9th's square, and the air filled with red spray. Before me a horse gun suddenly stood up on end, its muzzle split like a stalk of celery, and then it crashed down in a hellish tangle of fallen men and stricken horses. It was as though a gale of iron rain was sweeping the ranks, coming God knew whence, for the dust and smoke enveloped us—and Mad Charley was hauling at my bridle, urging me through it.

There's never a time when pain and fear don't matter, but sometimes shock is so bewildering that you don't think of them. One such time is when you wake up to find that good artillery has got your range and is pounding you to pieces; there's nothing to be done, no time even to hope you won't be hit, and you can't hurl yourself to the ground and lie there squealing—not when you find you're alongside Paddy Gough himself, and he's pulling off his bandana and telling you to wrap it round your fin and pay attention.

"Put your finger on the knot, man! There, now—look ahead and take close note of what ye see!"

He yanked the bandage tight, and pointed, and through tears of anguish and terror I looked beyond the clouds of settling dust.

A bare half-mile away the plain was alive with horsemen. The artillery teams who'd been shelling us, light camel swivels and heavier field pieces, were wheeling away through the advancing ranks of a great tide of cavalry cantering towards us knee to knee. It must have been five hundred yards from wing to wing, with lancer regiments on the flanks, and in the centre the heavy squadrons in tunics of white and red, tulwars at the shoulder, the low sun gleaming on polished helms from which stiff plumes stood up like scarlet combs—and only when I remembered those same plumes at Maian Mir did I realise the full horror of what I was seeing. These were Sikh line cavalry, and dazed and barely half-awake as I was, I knew that could mean only one thing, even if it was impossible: we were facing the army of Tej Singh, the cream of the Khalsa thirty thousand strong, who should have been miles away in futile watch on Ferozepore. Now they were here—beyond the approaching storm of horsemen I could see the massed ranks of infantry, regiment on regiment, with the great elephant guns before them. And we were a bare ten thousand, dropping with exhaustion after three battles which had decimated us, and out of food, water, and shot.

Historians say that on that one moment, as the Khalsa's spearhead was rushing at our throat, rested the three centuries of British India. Perhaps. It was surely the moment in which Gough's battered little army stared certain death and destruction in the face, and whatever may have settled our fate later, one man turned the hinge then and there. Without him, we (aye, and perhaps all India) would have been swept away in bloody ruin. I'll wager you've never heard of him, the forgotten brigadier, Mickey White.

It happened in split seconds. Even as I dashed the sweat from my eyes and stared again, the bugles blared along those surging lines of Khalsa horsemen, the tulwars rose in a wave of steel and the great forest of lance-points dipped as the canter became a gallop. Gough was roaring to our men to hold their fire, and I heard Huthwaite yelling that the guns were at the last round, and the muskets of the infantry squares came to the present in a ragged fence of bayonets that must be ridden under as that magnificent sea of men and horses engulfed us. I never saw the like in my life, I who watched the great charge against Campbell's Highlanders at Balaclava—but those were only Russians, while these were the fathers of the Guides and Probyn's and the Bengal Lancers, and the only thing to stop them at full tilt was a horse soldier as good as themselves.

He was there, and he chose his time. A few more seconds and the gallop would have been a charge—but now a trumpet sounded on the right, and wheeling out before our squares came the remnant of our own mounted division, the blue tunics and sabres of the 3rd Lights and the black fezzes and lances of the Native Cavalry, with White at their head, launching themselves at the charge against the enemy's flank. They didn't have the numbers, I hey didn't have the weight, and they were spent, man and beast—but they had the time and the place to perfection, and in a twinkling the Khalsa charge was a struggling confusion of rearing beasts and falling riders and flashing steel as the Lights tore into its heart and the sowar lancers raked across its front.³⁶

My female and civilian readers may wonder how this could be—that a small force of horsemen could confound one far greater. Well, that's the beauty of the flank attack think of six hearty chaps racing forward in line, and one artful dodger barges into the end man, from the side. They're thrown out of kilter, tumbling into one another, and though they're six to one, five of 'em can't come at their attacker. At its best a good flank movement can "roll up" the enemy like a window blind, and while White's charge didn't do that, it threw them quite off course, and when that happens to cavalry in formation their momentum's gone, and good loose riders can play the devil with them.

So what happened under our noses was a deuce of a scrimmage, and though White's horse went down, he was here and there like a wild-cat on foot, with the Lights closing round him, the sabres swinging, and Gough up in his stirrups shouting: "You'll do, Mick! That's your sort, my boy! And who," he roars at me, "are those fellows, will ye tell me?"

I shouted that they were Khalsa regulars, not gorracharra—Mouton's and Foulkes's regiments, for certain, and Gordon's, too, though I couldn't be sure.

"That's the pick of 'em, then!" snaps he. "Well, White's put a flea in their ear, so he has! Now, take you this glass, and tell me about their infantry! West, note it down!"

So while the cavalry rumpus petered out, with the Khalsa horsemen drawing off, and our own fellows, half of them dismounted, limping back to reform, I surveyed that mass of infantry with a sinking heart, calling them off by name—Allard's, Court's, Avitabile's, Delust's, Alvarine's, and the rest of the divisions. The standards were easy to read, and so were those grim bearded faces, sharp in my glass—I could even make out the silver buckles on the black cross-belts, the aigrets in the turbans, and the buttons on the tunics, white and red and blue and green, just as I'd seen them on Maian Mir. How the devil came they here had Tej's colonels lost patience and made him march to the sound of the guns? That must be it, and now that White had played our last card, we could only wait for them to advance and swallow us. The victory of Ferozeshah had become a death-trap—and I remembered Gardner's words: "They reckon they can whip John Company." And now John Company could barely stand up in his shot-torn squares, his pouches and magazines empty, his guns silent, his cavalry lame, and only his bayonets left.

Across the plain spurts of flame flickered along the Khalsa batteries like an electric storm, followed by the thunder of the discharge, the howl of shot overhead, and a hideous crashing and screaming as it burst open our squares. They were making sure, the bastards, pounding us to death at leisure before sending in their foot regiments to cut up the remains; again the dust boiled up as the grape and roundshot tore through the entrenchments; we could stand or we could run. John Company chose to stand, God knows why. In my case, he stood as close behind Gough as might be, too scared even to pray—and a bad choice of position it was, too. For as the bombardment reached its height, and the squares vanished in the rolling red clouds, and our army died by inches, with men going down like skittles and the blood running under our hooves, and some heroic ass bawling: "Die hard, Queen's Own!", and Flashy wondering if he dared cut out under the eye of his Chief, and knowing I hadn't the game for it, and even my wound forgotten as the deadly hail swept through us—suddenly Gough wheeled his horse, looking right and left at the wreck of his army, and the old fellow was absolutely weeping! Then he flung away his hat, and I heard him growl:

"Oi nivver wuz bate, an' Oi nivver will be bate! West, Flashman—follow me!"

And he wheeled his charger and went racing out into the plain.

You fall on your bloody sword if you want to, Paddy, thinks I, and would have stood my ground or dived for cover, more like—but Charley was away like a shot, my beast followed suit like the idiot cavalry screw he was, I clutched at the bridle with my shattered hand, near fainted at the pain, and found myself careering in their wake. For a moment I thought the old fellow had gone crazy, and was for charging the Khalsa on his own, but he veered away right, making for the flank square—and as he gal-loped clear of it and suddenly reined in on his haunches, and rose in his stirrups with his arms wide, I saw what he was at.

All India knew that white coat of Gough's, the famous "fighting coat" that the crazy old son-of-a-bitch had been flaunting at his foes for fifty years, from South Africa and the Peninsula to the Northwest Frontier. Now he was using it to draw the fire from his army to himself (and the two unlucky gallopers whom the selfish old swine had dragged along). It was the maddest-brained trick you ever saw—and, damnation, it worked! I can see him still, holding the tails out and showing his teeth, his white hair streaming in the wind, and the earth exploding round him, for the Sikh gunners took the bait and hammered us with everything they had. And of course, we weren't hit—try turning your batteries on three men at a thousand yards, and see what it gets you.³⁷

But you don't reckon mathematical probabilities with a hurricane of shot whistling about your ears. I forced my beast alongside him, and yelled:

"Sir Hugh, you must withdraw! The army cannot spare you, sir!" Which was inspiration, if you like, but wasted on that Irish idiot. He yelled something that I couldn't hear … and then the miracle happened. And if you don't believe it, look in the books.

All of a sudden, the firing died away, and across the plain the bugles rang out, and the drums rolled, the great gold banners were raised in the rays of the setting sun, and the Khalsa began to move. It came on in column by regiments, with a line of Jat light infantry leading, green figures with their pieces at the trail—and suddenly Charley West was shouting:

"Look, Sir Hugh! Our cavalry! The guns—my God, they're retiring!"

Not before time, thinks I, 'though it shocked me, I can tell you. For he was right: where we sat, perhaps a furlong ahead of our right flank, we had a clear view of the appal-ling ruin of our army—the dozen battered squares of red figures, with great gaps in their ranks, the regimental col-ours stirring in the evening wind, the bodies sprawled on the earthworks, the plain before them littered with dead and dying beasts and men, the whole hideous scene mantled in dust and smoke from the charred wreckage.

And the cavalry, what was left of it, was trotting away southward, across the front of our left-hand squares, which were inclined slightly back from those on the right. They were in column by troops, Native lancers and Irregular Horse, and then the 3rd Lights, with the horse guns following, bouncing along behind the teams.

"They—they can't be runnin'!" cries West. "Sir Hugh shall I ride to 'em, sir? It must be a mistake, surely!"

Gough was staring after them as though he'd seen a ghost. I guess it was something he'd not seen in half a century—horse and guns leaving the infantry to their fate. But he didn't stare more than a moment.

"After 'em, West! Bring 'em back!" he snapped, and Mad Charley was away, head down and heels in, drumming up the dust, while Gough turned to look again towards the Khalsa.

They were well out on the plain now, in splendid style, infantry in the centre with the horse guns at intervals among them, cavalry on the wings. Gough motioned to me, and we began to trot back towards our position. For the first time I saw Hardinge, with a little knot of officers, just in front of the right-hand squares. He was looking through a glass, and turning his head to call an order. The kneeling squares stood up, the men closing on each other, pieces at the present, the dying sun flickering on the line of bayonets. Gough reined up.

"Here'll do as well as any place," says he, and shaded his eyes to look across the plain. "Man, but there's a fine sight, is it not? Fit to gladden a soldier's heart, so it is. Well, here's to them—and to us." He nodded to me. "Thank you, me son." He threw back the tail of his coat and drew his sabre, loosing the frog to let the scabbard fall to the ground.

"I think we're all goin' home," says he.

I glanced over my shoulder. Behind me the plain was open beyond our right flank, with jungle not a mile away. My screw wasn't blown or lame, and I was damned if I'd wait here to be butchered by that juggernaut tramping inexorably towards us; the blare of their heathen music came before them, and behind it the measured thunder of forty thousand feet. From the squares came the hoarse shouts of command; I stole another look at the distant jungle, tightening my sound hand on the bridle …

"Dear God!" exclaims Gough, and I started guiltily round. And what I saw was another impossibility, but … there it was.

The Khalsa had halted in its tracks. The dust was eddying up before the advance line of Jats, they were turning to look back at the main body, we could hear voices shrilling orders, and the music was dying away in a discordant wail. The great standards seemed to be wavering, the whole vast army was stirring like a swarm, the rattle of a single kettle-drum was taken up, repeated from regiment to regiment, and then it was as though a Venetian blind had opened and closed across the front of the great host—it was the ranks turning about, churning up the dust, and then they were moving away. The Khalsa was in full retreat.

There wasn't a sound from our squares. Then, from somewhere behind me, a man laughed, and a voice called angrily for silence. That's the only noise I remember, but I wasn't paying much heed. I could only watch in stricken bewilderment as twenty thousand of the best native troops in the world turned their backs on an exhausted, helpless enemy … and left the victory to us.

Gough sat his horse like a statue, staring after them. A full minute passed before he chucked the reins, turning his mount. As he walked it past me towards the squares, he nodded and says:

"You get that hand seen to, d'ye hear? An' when ye're done with it, I'll be obliged for the return of my neckercher."

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 with-drew, 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*(*Artillery commanders.) 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* 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* this minute!"

Not what I care to hear from my medical man in war-time; 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 Nerve 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.

Ile 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.I.

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; coining 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 Ripply 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 some-thing 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, olden-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 sup-per, 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 Arm the frosty dark, listening to our artillery firing a royal .lute 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 glow 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 m_-e 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 some time must be lost. Then Gough's voice:

"Well, then, a flyin' column! Under cover o' dark, an' goin' like billy-be-damneed! 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, usher-mg 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 our-selves 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 under-takes 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 fat-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 k now, 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 hitch 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 under-stand 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."

You never can say you've seen anything for the last time. I'd have laid a million to one that I'd not return to that little stand of white poplars south of the Moochee Gate where I'd sat by the fire with Gardner—yet here I was, only a few weeks later, with the flames crackling under the billy-can resting on the self-same red stone With the crack in it. To our right the road was busy with the wayfarers of daybreak; under the great Moochee arch the gates were swung back, they were dousing the night torches, and the guard was changing: an uncommon heavy one, it seemed to me, for I counted twenty helmets in and shout the archway, and since our arrival in the small hours there had been endless cavalry patrols circling the city walls, red lancers with green puggarees, and great activity of matchlockmen on the parapets.

"Muslim brigade," says Jassa. "Yes, sir, she's got this old town laced up tighter'n Jemima's stays. Waste o' time, since any plotters'll be on the inside—prob'ly in the Fort itself, among her own people, Say, I bet Alick Gardner's sleepin' light, though!"

It was our third morning on the road, for we had taken a wide cast south, crossing the Sutlej at a ghat near Mundole to avoid any enemy river watchers, and keep clear of the Khalsa's main traffic on the upper road through Pettee to Sobraon. We'd ridden in cautious stages, Jassa and I and a trusted Pathan ruffian of Broadfoot's old bodyguard, Ahmed Shah; Gough had wanted to send an N.C. squadron disguised as gorracharra, but Lawrence had turned it down flat, insisting that they'd be bound to give themselves away, and anyway, if all went well three would be enough, while if it went ill a brigade would be too few. No one would give any heed to three obvious Afghan horse-copers with a string of beasts—and thus far, no one had.

I shan't weary you with my emotions as we waited, shivering in the frosty dawn, round our fire. I'll say only that in addition to the blue funk I felt at the mere sight of Lahore's frowning gates and brooding towers, I had the liveliest misgivings about the plan whereby we were to spirit young Dalip out of the cobra's nest. It was Gardner's invention, lined out precisely to Jassa, who had repeated it to Lawrence and Van Cortlandt with Flashy palpitating attentively, and since our tartan Pathan wasn't there to be argued with, it was a case of take it or leave it. I know which I'd ha' done, but Lawrence had said it should serve admirably—he wasn't going to be the one sneaking in and out of Lahore Fort in broad daylight, after all.

That seemed to me an unnecessary lunacy: why the devil couldn't Gardner, with all his powers as governor, have contrived to smuggle the brat out to us? Jassa had explained that the city was tight as a tanner by night, and the panches' spies had their eye on little Dalip most of the day; the only hour to lift him was his bedtime, to be out and away before curfew, and have all night to make tracks. And we must go into the Fort to do it, for his mother wouldn't rest unless she saw him placed under my protective wing. (They'd all avoided my eye at this; myself, I hadn't liked the sound of it above half.) As to our coming and going at the Fort, Gardner would provide; all we need do was be in the vicinity of Runjeet's Tomb at noon of this, the third day.

So now you see three Kabuli copers herding their beasts through the dust and bustle of the Rushnai Gate, and setting up shop in a crowded square by the Buggywalla Doudy at midday. Ahmed Shah cried our wares, asking exorbitant prices, since the last thing we wanted was to tell our transport, and I held the brutes' heads and spat and looked ugly, praying that no one would recognise Jassa with a patch over his eye, and his hair and five-day heard dyed orange. He had no such fears, but loafed about freely with the other idlers, gossiping; as he said, there's no concealment like open display.

I didn't see the touch made, but presently he ambled off, and I passed the halters to Ahmed and followed across the great square by the marble Barra Deree to the Palace gateway where I'd first seen Gardner months fore. There were no Palace Guards on the parapet now, only green-jacketed Muslim musketeers with great curling moustachioes, watchful as vultures, who scowled down at the crowds loitering in the square. There must have been several thousand gathered, and enough Sikhs in assorted Khalsa coats among them to set my innards churning; they did nothing but stare up at the walls, muttering among themselves, but you could feel the sullen hostility hanging over the place like a cloud.

"She ain't venturing abroad this weather, I reckon," murmurs Jassa as I joined him in the lee of the gateway. "Yep, there's a sizeable Republican majority right here. Our guide is right behind us, in the palki; when I give the nod, we'll tote it through the gate."

I glanced over my shoulder; there was a palki, with its curtains drawn, set down by the wall, but no bearers in Night. So that was how we were to get past the gate guard, who were questioning all incomers; even under my posh-teen I could feel the sweat icy on my skin, and for the twentieth time I fingered the Cooper hidden in my sash—not that six shots would buy much elbow-room if we came adrift.

All of a sudden the mutter of the crowd grew to a babble and then to a roar; they were giving back to make way for a body of marching men advancing across the square from the Hazooree gate on the town side—Sikhs almost to a man, from half the divisions of the Khalsa, some of them with bandaged wounds and powder burns on their coats, but swinging along like Guardsmen behind their golden standard which, to my amazement, was borne by the white-whiskered old rissaldar-major I'd seen at Maian Mir, and again at Jeendan's durbar. And he was weeping, so help me, the tears running down to his beard, his eyes fixed ahead—and_ there behind him was Imam Shah, he of the ivory knives, bare-headed and with his arm in a sling. I was in behind Jassa double-quick, I can tell you.

The crowd were in a frenzy, waving and wailing and yelling: "Khalsa-ji! Khalsa-ji!", showering them with petals as they marched by, but not a man so much as glanced aside; on they went, in column of fours, under the palace archway, with the mob surging behind up to the gate, taking up another cry: "See Delhi! See Delhi, heroes of the Khalsa! Wa Guru-ji—to Delhi, to London!"

"Now, who the hell are they?" whispers Jassa. "I guess maybe we got here just in time—I hope! Come on!"

We laid hold on the palki and shouldered our way through the mob to the gateway, where a Muslim subedar*(*Senior subaltern.) barred our way and stooped to question our passenger. I heard a woman's voice, quick and indistinct, and then he had waved us. on, and we carried the palki through the gate—and for all my dread at re-entering that fearsome den, I found myself remembering Stumps Harrowell, who'd been the chairman at Rugby when I was a boy, and how we'd run after him, whipping his enormous fat calves, while he could only rage helplessly between the shafts. You should see your tormentor now, Stumps, thinks I; hoist with his own palki, if you like.

Our passenger was calling directions to Jassa, who was between the front shafts, and presently we bore up in a little secluded court, and out she jumped, walking quickly to a low doorway which she unlocked, motioning us to follow. She led us up a long, dim passage, several flights of stairs, and more passages—and then I knew where we were: I had been conducted along this very way to Jeendan's rose boudoir, and I knew that pretty little rump stirring under the tight sari …

"Mangla!" says I, but she only beckoned us on, to a little ill-furnished room where I'd never been. Only when she had the door closed did she throw off her veil, and I looked again on that lovely Kashmiri face with its slanting gazelle eyes—but there was no insolence in them now, only fear.

"What's amiss?" snaps Jassa, scenting catastrophe.

"You saw those men of the Khalsa—the five hundred?" Her voice was steady enough, but quick with alarm. "They are a deputation from Tej Singh's army—men of Moodkee and Ferozeshah. They have come to plead with the Rani for arms and food for the army, and for a leader 1o take Tej's place, so that we may still sweep the Jangi lat back to the gates of Delhi!" The way she spat it out, you would have wondered which side she was on; even traitors still have patriotic pride, you see. "But they were not to have audience of the durbar until tomorrow—they have come before their time!"

"Well, what of it?" says I. "She can fob them off—she's done it before!"

"'They were not a beaten army then. They had not been led to defeat by Tej and Lal—or learned to mistrust Mai Jeendan herself. Now, when they come to durbar and find themselves ringed in by Muslim muskets, and call to her for aid which she cannot give them—what then? They are hungry men, and desperate." She shrugged. "You say she has wheedled them before—aye, but she is not given to Null words these days. She fears for Dalip and herself, she hates the Khalsa for Jawaheer's sake and the feeds her rage on wine. She's like to answer their mutinous clamour by blackening their faces for them—and who knows what they may do if she provokes them?"

Red murder, like as not—and then we'd have some usurper displacing Tej Singh and reviving the Khalsa for another slap at us. And here was I, back on the lion's lip, thanks to Gardner's idiot plots . should I throw in now, and bolt for India? Or could we still get Dalip out before all hell broke loose …?

"When's the durbar?"

"In two hours, perhaps."

"Can Gardner bring the boy to us beforehand . . now?"

"Run in daylight?" cries Jassa. "We'd never make it!"

Mangla shook her head. "The Maharaja must be seen at the durbar. Who knows, Mai Jeendan may answer them well enough—and if she fails, they may still be quiet, with a thousand Muslims ready to fall on them at a word from Gurdana Khan. Then, when you have seen Mai Jeendan —"

"I don't need to see her—or anyone, except her blasted son! Tell Gardner —"

"Why, here's a change!" says she, with a flash of the old Mangla. "You were eager enough once. Well, she wishes to see you, Flashman bahadur, and she will have her way —"

"What the devil for?"

"Affairs of state, belike." She gave her insolent slow smile. "Meanwhile, you must wait; you are safe here. I shall tell Gurdana, and bring word when the durbar begins."

And she slipped out, having added bewilderment to my fears. What could Jeendan want with me? I'd thought it rum at the time, her insistence that I should be Dalip's rescuer—to be sure, the kid liked me, but she'd as good as made me a condition of the plan, to Paddy Gough's ribald amusement. Coarse old brute. But it couldn't be that, at such a time … mind you, with partial females, you never can tell, especially when they're foxed.

But all this was small beer beside the menace of the Khalsa deputies. Could she hocus them again, by playing her charms and beguiling them with sweet words and fair promises?

Well, she didn't even try, as we saw when Mangla returned, after two hours of fretful waiting, to conduct us to that same spyhole from which I'd watched an earlier durbar. This was a different indaba*(*Mauer, affair.) altogether; then, there had been tumult and high spirits, laughter even, but we heard the angry clamour of the deputation and their shrill replies even before we reached the eyrie, when I am at a glance that this was an ugly business, with the Mother of All Sikhs on her highest horse and damn the Consequences.

The five hundred were in uproar in the main body of the peat hall before the durbar screen, but keeping their ranks, and it was easy to see why. They were wearing their tulwars, but round the walls of the chamber there must have been a full battalion of Muslim riflemen, with their pieces at the high port, primed and ready. Imam Shah was standing forward, addressing the screen, with the old ris-Naldar-major a pace behind; the golden standard lay before the throne on which little Dalip sat in lonely state, the tiny figure brave in crimson, and with the Koh-i-Noor ablaze in his aigret.

Behind the purdah more Muslims lined the walls, and before them stood Gardner, in his tartan fig, the point of his naked sabre resting between his feet. Close by the screen Jeendan was pacing to and fro, pausing from time to time to listen, then resuming her furious sentry-go—for she was in a great rage, and well advanced in liquor, by the look of her. She had a cup in hand, and a flagon on the table, but for once she was modestly clad—as modest, anyway, as a voluptuous doll can he in a tight sari of purple silk, with her red hair unbound to her shoulders and that Delilah face unveiled.

Imam Shah was in full grievance, shouting hoarsely at the screen. "For three days your faithful Khalsa have lived on grain and raw carrots—they are starving, kunwari, and eaten up wiith cold and want! Only send them the food and munitians you promised and they will sweep the host of the Jangilat to —"

"Sweep them as you swept them at Ferozeshah and Moodkee?" cries Jeendan. "Aye, there was a fine sweeping—my waiting women could have swept as heartily!" She waited, head thrown back, for the effect of this. Imam stood in silent anger, and she went on: "Goolab has sent you supplies enough—why, every wheat-porter in Kashmir makes an endless train from Jumoo to the river, laden -—"

She was drowned in a roar of derision from the five hundred, and Imam advanced a yard to bawl his answer. "Aye, in single file, on pain of mutilation by the Golden Hen, who makes a brave show of assistance, but sends not breakfast for a bird! Chiria-ki-hazrif That's what we get from Goolab Singh! If he vishes us well, let him come and lead us, in place of that bladder of lard you made our' general! Bid him come, kunwari—a word from you, and he'll be in the saddle for Sobraon!"

Uproar followed—"Goolab! Goolab! Give us the Dogra for general!"—but still they kept their ranks.

"Goolab is under the heel of the Malki lat, and you know it!" snaps Jeendan. "Even so, there are those among you who would make him Maharaja—my loyal Khalsa!" There was silence on the instant. "You send him ambassadors, they tell me … aye, in breach of your sacred oath! You whine for food on the one hand, and make treason on the other—you, the Khalsa, the Pure …" And she reviled them in fishwife terms, as she had at Maian Mir, until Gardner stepped swiftly forward and caught her by the arm. She shook him off, but took the hint—and none too soon , for beyond the screen the five hundred were fingering their hilts, and Imam was black with fury.

"That is a lie, kunwari! No man here would serve Goolab as Maharaja—but he can fight, by God! He does not skulk in his tent, like Tej, or flee like your bed-man Lull He can lead—so let him lead us! To Delhi! To victory!"

She let the shouting die, and spoke in a cold voice, ringing with scorn: "I have said I will not have Goolab Singh—and he will not have you! Who's to blame him? Are you worth having, you heroes who strut out to battle with your banners and brave songs—and crawl back whimpering that you are hungry? Can you do nothing but complain —"

"We can fight!" roars a voice, and in a moment they were echoing it, stirring forward in their ranks, shaking their fists, some even weeping openly. They'd come for supplies, and what they were getting was shame and insult. Keep a civil tongue in your head, can't you, I was whispering, for it was plain they'd had their fill of her abuse. "Give us guns! Give us powder and shot!"

"Powder and shot!" cries Jeendan, and for a moment I thought she was going to be out and at them. "Did I not give you both, and to spare? Arms and food and great guns—never was such an army seen in Hindoostan! And what did you make of it? The food you've guzzled, the British have your great guns, and the arms you flung away, doubtless, as you ran cheeping like mice—from what? From a tired old man in a white coat with a handful of red-faced infidels and Bengali sweepers!"

Her voice rose to a shriek as she faced the curtain, fists clenched, face contorted, and foot stamping—and beside me Jassa gasped and Mangla gave a little sob as we saw the ranks of the five hundred start forward, and there was steel glittering amongst them. She'd gone too far, the drunken slut, for Imam Shah was on the dais, the Khalsa coats were surging behind him, shouting with rage, Gardner was turning to snap an order, the Muslim muskets were dropping to the present—and Jeendan was fumbling beneath her skirt, swearing like a harpy, there was a rending of cloth, and in an instant she had whirled her petticoat into a ball and hurled it over the screen. It fell at Imam's feet, draping over his boot—there was no doubting what it was, and in the shocked silence her voice rang out:

"Wear that, you cowards! Wear it, I say! Or I'll go in trousers and fight myself!"

It was as though they'd been stricken by a spell. While you could count ten there wasn't a sound. I see them yet—an Akali, his sword half-out, poised like a gladiator's statue; Imam Shah staring down at the scarlet shift; the old rissaldar-major, mouth open, hands raised in dismay; little Dalip like a graven image on his throne; the mass of men still as death, staring at the screen—and then Imam Shah picked up the golden standard, raised it, and shouted in a voice of thunder:

"Dalip Singh Maharaja! We go to die for your kingdom! We go to die for the Khalsa-ji!" Then he added, almost in a whisper, though it carried round the hall: "We will go to the sacrifice."

He thrust the standard into the rissaldar-major's hand—and in that moment, unprompted, little Dalip stood up. A second's pause, and the whole five hundred roared: "Maharaja! Maharaja! Khalsa-ji!" Then they turned as one man and marched out of the open double doors behind them. Gardner was at the corner of the screen in four quick strides, staring after them, then coming out to take Dalip's hand. Behind the purdah, Jeendan yawned, shook her red hair and stirred her shoulders as though to ease them, took a deep drink, and began to straighten her sari.

Now that is exactly what I saw, and so did Alick Gardner, as his memoirs testify—and neither of us can explain it. Those Khalsa fanatics, stung to madness by her insults, would have rushed the purdah and cut her down, I'm certain, and been slaughtered by the Muslims; God knows what would have followed. But she threw her petticoat at them, and they went out like lambs, prepared to do or die. ""Intuition" on her part, Gardner calls it; very well, it did the business. Mind you, young Dalip stood up at exactly the right time.⁴³

Jassa was breathing relief, and Mangla was smiling. Ile low us came a series of thunderous crashes as the Muslims ordered arms and began to file out of the chamber. Little Dalip was behind the purdah, being enfolded in Mama's tipsy embrace, but Gardner had disappeared. Mangla touched my arm, and signing to Jassa to wait, led me up to the rose boudoir—I felt exhausted even looking at it and through to the passage beyond and a little room which I guessed must be the schoolroom of Dalip and his playfellows, for there were half a dozen little desks, and a Blackboard, and even a globe, and fairy-tale pictures on the walls. There she left me, and a moment later Gardner strode in, breathing fire and wonder.

"You saw that just now? Goddam, but that woman's a bearcat for nerve—a bearcat, sir! Petticoats, by thunder! I Wouldn't ha' credited it! Sometimes I think …" He used, eyeing me with a curious frown. "… I think she's a mite de-ranged, what with drink and … well, no matter. And George Broadfoot's dead? Well, that's hard hearing. You didn't see it? Well, you have one as good in Henry Lawrence, let me tell you that. Maybe even better, as an Agent. Not a better man, mind you. No, sir, they don't come better than the Black-coated Infidel."

He was standing, arms akimbo, staring at the floor, and I sensed disturbance—not because he hadn't greeted me, or made reference to my recent adventures, for that was never his style. But there was something on his mind, for aII that he tried to cover it with a show of briskness.

"It's past four, and you and Josiah must be clear of the gates before six. You'll go as you came, bearing the palki, but this time Dalip will be your freight, dressed as a girl. My subedar will have the palace gate, so you'll be clear there. Once beyond the Rushnai, keep to the doab, due south-east, and dawn should see you at Jupindar—it's about forty miles, and not on the map, but you'll see it clear enough. It's a big cluster of black rocks, among low hillocks, the only ones for miles around. There you'll be met —"

"By whom? Our people? Gough wanted to —"

"By sure people." He gave me a hard stare. "All you need do is get that far—and I don't have to tell you that you're carrying the Punjab on your back. Whoever gets that boy, it must not be the Khalsa, mallum? He's a good little horseman, by the way, so you can keep up the pace. Dawn, at Jupindar, mind that. Due south-east and you'll fall over it."

For the first time, I felt excitement rather than fear. He had it pat, and it would do. We were going to bring it off.

"What else?" says he. "Ah, yes, one thing … Dr Josiah Harlan. I gave him a bad name to you, and he deserved every word. But I allow he's played a straight hand this time, and I incline to revise my opinion. That being the case, you'd better keep a closer eye on him than ever. Well, that's all, I guess …" He paused, avoiding my eye. "Once you've paid your respects to the Maharani … you can be off."

Now there was something up. Gardner uneasy was a sight I'd never thought to see, but he was scratching his grizzled beard and keeping his face averted, and I felt a strange foreboding, He cleared his throat.

"Ah … did Mangla say nothing to you? No, well … oh, dooce take it!" He looked me full in the face. "Mai Jeendan wants to marry you! There, now!"

Heaven knows why, my first reaction was to look in the mirror on the classroom wall. A fierce-eyed Khyberie ruffian stared back at me, which was no help. Nor was my recollection of what I looked like when civilised. And possibly the Punjab had exhausted my capacity for astonishment, for once the first shock of that amazing proposal had been absorbed, I felt nothing but immense gratification—after all, it's one thing to win a maiden heart, and very fine, but when a man-eater who's sampled the best from Peshawar to Poona cries "Eureka!" over you, well, it's no wonder if you glance at the mirror. At the same time, it's quite a facer, and my first words, possibly instinctive, were:

"Christ, she ain't pregnant, is she?"

"How the devil should I know?" cries Gardner, astonished. "On my word! Now, sir, I've told you! So there you are!"

"Well, she can't! I'm married, dammit!"

"I know that—but she does not, and it's best she should not … for the moment." He glared at me, and took a turn round the room, while I sank on to one of the infants' stools, which gave way beneath me. Gardner swore, yanked me to my feet, and thrust me into the teacher's chair.

"See here, Mr Flashman," says he, "this is how it is. Mai Jeendan is a woman of strange character and damned irregular habits, as you're well aware—but she's no fool. For years now she's had it in mind to marry a British officer, as security for herself and her son's throne. Well, that's sound policy, especially now when Britain's hand is on the Punjab. For months past—this is sober truth—her agents in India have been sending her portraits of eligible men. She's even had young Hardinge's likeness in her well, 'twas the only one she took to Amritsar, and the rest, (a score of 'em) have been with the lumber ever since."

Nothing to say to that, of course. I kept a straight face, and he took station in front of me, mighty stern.

"Very well, it's impossible. You have a wife, and even if you hadn't, I dare say you'd not care to pass your days as consort to an Eastern queen. Myself, while I admire her many good qualities," says he with feeling, "I'd not hitch with Jeendan for all the cotton in Dixie, so help me Hannah! But she has a deep fondness for you—and this is no time to blight that affection! Northern India's in the balance, and she's the pivot—steady enough, but not to be disturbed … in any way." He stooped suddenly and seized my wrist, staring into my eyes, grim as a frost giant. "So when you see her presently … you will not disappoint her hopes. Oh, she'll make no direct proposal—that's not Punjabi royal style. But she'll sound you out—probably offer you employment in Sikh service, for after the war—with a clear hint of her intentions … to all of which you'd best give eager assent—for all our sakes, especially your own. Hell hath no fury, you remember." He let go, straightening up. "I guess you know how to…"

"Jolly her along? Oh, aye … by God, it's a rum go, though! What'll happen later, when she finds I ain't a starter?"

"The war'll be over then, and it won't signify," says he bleakly. "I dare say she'll get over it. Dirty game, politics … she's a great woman, you know, drunk and all as she is. You ought to be flattered. By the by, have you any aristocratic kinfolk?"

"My mother was a Paget."

"Is that high style? Better make her a duchess, then. Mai Jeendan likes to think that you're a lord—after all, she was once married to a Maharaja.⁴⁴

As it happened, my lineage, aristocratic and otherwise, was not discussed in the rose boudoir, mainly because there wasn't time. When Gardner had spoken of not disappointing her, I'd supposed (and have no doubt that he meant) that I must not dash her hopes of becoming Mrs Flashman; accordingly, I bowled in prepared for an exchange of nods and becks and coy blushes on her part, and ardent protestations on mine. Only when I stood blinking in the dark, and two 'plump arms encircled me from behind, that familiar drunken chuckle sounded in my ear, and she turned up the lamp to reveal herself clad only In oil and bangles, did I suspect that further proof of my devotion was required. "I liked you better shaven," whispers she (which settled that), and Dalip or no Dalip, there was nothing for it but to give eager consent, as Gardner had put it. Luckily she was no protractor of the capital act, as I knew, and I didn't even need to take my hoots off; a quick plunge round the room, horse artillery style, and she was squealing her soul out, and then it was beck to the wine-cup and exhausted ecstatic sighs, mingled with tipsy murmurs about the loneliness of widow-hood and what bliss it would be to have a man about the house again … fairly incoherent, you understand, but not to be misunderstood, so I responded with rapturous endearments.

"You will abide with me always?" whispers she, nuzzling in, and I said I'd like to see anyone stop me, just. Did Did love her truly? Well, to be sure I did. She muttered something about writing to Hardinge, and I thought, by George, that'll spoil his toast and coffee for him, no error, but mostly it was fond drunken babble and clinging kisses, before she turned over and began to snore.

Well, that's that, and you've done your duty, thinks I, its Did repaired the sweet disorder in my dress and slid out—with a last backward glance at that jolly rump glistening in the lamplight. I imagined, you see, that I was looking my last on her, and I do like to carry away happy memories—but twenty minutes later, when Jassa and I were fretting impatiently in the schoolroom, and Gardner was damning Mangla's tardiness in bringing young

Dalip, in comes a waiting woman to say that the kunwari and the Maharaja were awaiting us in her drawing-loom. This was a fine apartment close by the boudoir, and there was the Mother of All Sikhs, enthroned in her armchair, as respectable a young matron as ever you saw, and not more than half-soused; how the deuce she'd got into parade order in the time was beyond me.

She was soothing young Dalip, who was standing by in a black fury and a child's sari, with veil and bangles and a silk shawl round his small shoulders.

"Don't look at me!" cries he, turning his face away, and she petted him and kissed away his tears, whispering that he must be a Maharaja, for he was going among the White Queen's soldiers, and must do credit to his house and people.

"And this goes with you, the symbol of your kingship," says she, and held out a silver locket, with the great Koh-i-Noor glittering in a bed of velvet. She closed the case and hung its chain about his neck. "Guard it well, dearest, for it was your father's treasure, and remains your people's honour."

"With my life, mama," sobs he, and hung upon her neck. She wept a little, holding him close, and then stood up and led him to me.

"Flashman sahib will take care of you," says she, "so mind you obey him in all things. Farewell, my little prince, my own darling." She kissed him and put his hand in mine. "God speed you, sahib—until we meet again." She extended a hand, and I kissed it; one warm, glassy look she gave me, with that little curl of her thick lips; she was swaying slightly, and her waiting woman had to step lively to steady her.

Then Gardner was bustling us away, with Jassa carrying Dalip for greater speed, and it was bundle-and-go down to the palki in the little court, with Mangla at my elbow insisting that his majesty must eat no oranges, for they gave him the trots, and here was a lotion for the rash on his arm, and a letter for the governess who must be engaged for him in India—"a Kashmiri lady, gentle and well-read, if one can be found, but not some stern English mem-sahib, for he is but a little fellow; I have written of his diet and his lessons." Kidnapping ain't just a matter of lifting the infant, you see, and on my other side Gardner was snarling that the gates would be closing in half an hour. We bundled Dalip into the palki, and now he was blubbering that he didn't want to go, and clinging to Mangla, and Gardner was fuming while two of his black robes scouted ahead to see that all was clear, and Jassa and I got between the shafts, and Mangla kissed me quickly on the cheek, leaving a drift of perfume as she hurried away, and Gardner turned to me in the fading light of the little court.

"Due south-east, forty miles, Jupindar rocks," snaps he. "I guess we won't see you in Lahore again, Mr Flashman. If I was you, I'd stay well south of the Sutlej for the next fifty years or so. And that goes double for you, Josiah you stretched your luck, doctor; come nigh me again and I'm liable to snap it for you! Jao!"

"Yes, you an' the Continental Congress!" retorts Jessa. "Go change your sentries, Gardner—that's your sort!"

'Jao, I say!" growls Gardner, and the last I remember of him is the brown hawk face with its fierce moustache, twisted in a sour grin under the tartan puggaree.

We came down to the Buggywalla Doudy just as the sun was dipping behind the Badshai Musjit mosque, through the bustling noisy crowds all unaware that the two stalwart palki-bearers were spiriting their ruler away to the enemy, and him moping fretfully behind the curtains in his little sari and bangles. Ahmed Shah was in a foul humour because he'd had to sell two of our beasts, leaving only five besides our own screws, which meant only one remount for the four of us. We slung the palki between two of the led horses, and when I put my head in to see how Dalip did, he whimpered something piteous.

"Oh, Flashman sahib—when can I put off these garments of shame? See, Mangla has put my man's clothes in this bag … aye, and cakes and little sweets! She always remembers," says he, and his lip came out, "Why could she not come with us? Now I shall have no song before I sleep!" And he began to weep. "I wish Mangla were here!"

Mangla, you'll note, not Mama. Well, I'd not have turned her away myself. "See here, maharaj'," whispers I, "you'll put on your own clothes directly, and ride with us like a soldier, but now you must stay close and quiet. And when we come to journey's end—see what I have for you!" I was far enough within the palki to slip the Cooper from my sash for an instant, and he squeaked and fell back on the cushions, covering his eyes in joy.

We passed under the Rushnai arch even as the chowkidars were crying the curfew, and skirted the city walls to the little stand of white poplars, crimson in the last of the sunset. In the gloaming they were beyond eyeshot of the gate, and we lost no time in rousting out little Dalip, for I wanted him in the saddle without delay, so that we could abandon the cumbersome palki and put distance between us and Lahore.

He tumbled out eagerly, tearing off his sari and veil and scattering his bangles with childish curses, and was shivering in his vest while Jassa helped him into his little jodhpurs, when there was a clatter of hooves, and out of the deepening dusk came a troop of gorracharra, making for the city in haste before the gates closed. There was no time to hide the imp; we must stand pat while they cantered by—and then their officer reined up, staring at the sight of a half-clad infant surrounded by three burly copers and their beasts.

"Where away at this hour, horse-sellers?" cries he.

I answered offhand, hoping to keep him at a distance, for even in the fading light it was ten to one he'd recognise his own monarch if he came any closer.

"Amritsar, captain sahib!" says I. "We take my master's son to his grandmother, who is ill, and calls for him. Hurry, Yakub, or the child will catch cold!" This to Jassa, who was helping Dalip into his coat, and thrusting him up into the saddle. I swung aboard my own screw, with my heart pounding, ignoring the officer, hoping to heaven the Inquisitive brute would ride on after his troop, who had vanished into the twilight.

"Wait!" He was sitting forward, staring harder than over—and with a thrill of horror I realised that Dalip's coat was his ceremonial cloth of gold, packed by that Imbecile Mangla, and even in that uncertain light pro-claiming its wearer a most unlikely companion for three frontier ruffians. "Your master's son, you say? Let's have a look at him!" He wheeled his horse towards us, his hand dropping to his pistol butt—and the three of us acted as one man.

Jassa vaulted into his saddle and snatched Dalip's bridle even as I slashed my reins across the beast's rump, and Ahmed Shah dug in his heels and charged slap into the advancing Sikh, rolling him from the saddle. Then we were away across the maidan, Dalip and Jassa leading, Ahmed and I behind, with the led horses thundering alongside. There was a shout from the dusk, and the crack III a shot, and little Dalip yelled with delight, dragging his bridle from Jassa's grip. "I can ride, fellow! Let me alone! Ai-cc, shabash, shabash!"

There had been nothing else for it, with detection certain, and as I pulled out my compass and roared to Jassa to change course to port, I was reckoning that no great harm had been done. We were on fresh horses, while the gorracharra had been in the saddle all day; it would take time to mount any kind of pursuit from the city supposing they thought it worth while, with night coming down; the odds were they'd make inquiry first to see if any child of a wealthy family was missing, for I was sure the officer had taken us for common kidnappers—he'd never have risked a shot at us if he'd known who Dalip was. And if, by some astonishing chance, it was discovered that the Mahajara had taken wing—well, we'd be over the river and far away by then.

I called a halt after the first couple of miles, to tighten girths, take stock, and make certain of my bearing, and then we rode on more slowly. It was pitch dark by now, and while we might have trotted on a road we daren't go above a brisk walk over open country. The moon wouldn't be up for six or seven hours yet, so we must contain ourselves in the sure knowledge that the dark was our friend, and no pursuers could hope to find us while it lasted. Meanwhile we bore on south-east, with Dalip asleep in the crook of my arm—what with distress and elation, he was quite used up, and being lulled by "Tom Bowling" instead of Mangla's song didn't trouble him a bit.

"Is this how soldiers sleep?" yawns he. "Then you must wake me when it is my time to ride guard, and you shall rest …"

It was a wearisome trek, and a cold one, hour after hour in the freezing dark, but at least it was without alarm, and by the time we had put twenty miles behind us I was convinced that there would be no pursuit. At about mid-night we pulled up to water the horses at a little stream, and stamp some warmth back into our limbs; there was a faint starshine over the doab now, and I was remarking to Jassa that we'd be able to raise the pace, when Ahmed Shah called to us.

He was squatting down by a big peepal tree, with his sabre driven into the trunk just above the ground, and his finger on the foible of the blade. I exclaimed, for I knew that trick of old, from Gentleman Jim Skinner on the road above Gandamack. Sure enough, after a moment Ahmed shook his head, looking grim.

"Horsemen, husoor. Twenty, perhaps thirty, coming south. They are a scant five cos behind us."

If I'm a firm believer in headlong flight as a rule, it's probably because I've known such a horrid variety of Pursuers in my time—Apaches in the Jornada, Udloko

Zulus on the veldt, Cossacks along the Arrow of Arabat, Amazons in the Dahomey forest, Chink hatchetmen through the streets of Singapore … no wonder my hair's white. But there are times when you should pause and consider, and this was one. No one was riding the Bari Doab that night for recreation, so it was a fair bet that the inquisitive officer had deduced who our costly-clad infant was and that every rider from the Lahore garrison was sweeping the land from Kussoor to Amritsar. Still, we had spare mounts, so a sprain or a cast shoe was no matter; our pursuers must be riding blind, since even an Australian bushman couldn't have tracked us, on that ground; seven miles is a long lead with only fifteen to go; and there were friends waiting at the finish. Even so, having your tail ridden is nervous work, and we didn't linger over the next few miles, not pausing to listen, and keeping steadily south-east.

When the moon came up we changed to our remounts; Ahmed's ear to the ground detected nothing, and there was no movement on the plain behind us. It was fairly open country now, with a few scrubby thickets, occasional belts of jungle, and now and then a village. When I reckoned we had only about five miles to go, and still three hours to dawn, we eased to a walk, for Dalip had awoken, demanding food, and after we'd halted for a bite and there was still no sign of pursuers, it seemed sensible to go at a pace that would let him sleep. Of course, he wouldn't, and kept up such a stream of questions and drivel that I came close to fetching him a clip over the head. I didn't, mind you, for it don't pay to offend royalty, however junior: they grow up.

There was still no sign of the Jupindar rocks, and I guessed we'd come a degree or two off course, so I climbed the first tall tree we came to, for a dekko about. The moonlight gave a clear sight for miles around, and sure enough, about three miles to our left, the ground rose in a long slope to a summit of tangled rocks—Jupindar, for certain. And I was just preparing to swing down when I took a last look astern, and almost fell out of the tree.

We'd just come through a jungly strip, and behind it the doab lay flat as a flagstone to the horizon. Halfway across it, a bare mile away, a line of horsemen were coming at the canter—a full troop, well spread in line. Only regular cavalry ride like that, and only when they're searching.

I was out of that tree like a startled monkey, yelling to Jassa, who was standing guard while young Dalip squatted in the bushes—the little bastard must have had an orange cached somewhere, for he'd done his bit three times since midnight. A precious minute was lost while he got himself to rights, bleating that he wasn't done yet, and Jassa fairly threw him into the saddle; then we were away, drumming across the doab for those distant rocks where, unless Gardner had lied, friends were waiting.

There was a mile of scrub and trees before the rocks came into view, at the top of a long incline dotted with sandy hillocks—and there, far off on our flank, the first of the pursuing horsemen were clearing the jungle. A faint halloo sounded on the frosty air, and now it was a straight race for Jupindar before they could head us off.

It was going to be close-run, for with our south-east course having carried us wide, we were having to cut back at an angle, while the pursuing troop had only to make straight forrard. There was nothing in it for distance; the best horsemen would be first to the post—and these were lancers; I could make out the long poles.

Thank God little Dalip could ride. Seven years old, spoiled, garrulous, and loose-bowelled he might be, but he could wear my colours in the National any day. He lay flat to his beast's neck, talking to it when he wasn't squealing with excitement, his long hair flying as he took the jumps over the little dry nullahs that crossed our course. He led me by a length, with Jassa and Ahmed pounding on my quarters; as we breasted the slope for the last mile we were gaining, but there wasn't a sign of life from the rocks looming ahead—God, had Gardner's people failed at the rendezvous? I loosed a warning shot from my Cooper, and in the same moment I saw Dalip's horse stumble. For a moment I thought he was gone, but there must have been a dash of Cumanche in him, for he let the bridle go, clutching the mane, the horse made a long stagger and recovered—but it was dead lame and hobbling, and as I swept by I swung him clear by his waistband, heaving him across before me. Out of the tail of my eye l saw the lancers swinging up the slope a bare furlong behind us, Jassa's pistol cracked—and dead ahead, glorious sight, riders were racing down from the Jupindar rocks, two long files at the gallop, riding wide, one circling in behind us, and the other swinging out in a great arc to envelop our pursuers.

I never saw it better done. There were five hundred of 'em if there was one—gorracharra, by the look of them, and going like thunderbolts. There were yells of confusion in our rear, and as I steadied my screw and looked back, the lancers were closing on each other in fair disorder, sewn heat as a cat in a bag by those two lines of irregular horsemen, enclosing them front, flanks, and rear. Well met by moonlight, thinks I; you have some capable pals, Gardner. Little Dalip had scrambled to a sitting position before me, clapping and piping cheers at the top of his voice, and Jassa and Ahmed were reining up alongside.

There was a hail from above and ahead of us, and I saw that there was a narrow gorge in the rocks, and at its mouth a little knot of horsemen in mail and with lanced pennons; overhead a standard was fluttering, and to the fore was a burly old stager in spiked helm and steel backand-breast who raised a hand and roared a greeting.

"Salaam, maharaj'! Salaam Flashman bahadur! Sat-sree-akal!"

His companions took up the cry, advancing to meet us, but Did had eyes only for their leader, grinning all over his ruddy face and white whiskers, sitting his pony at ease for all that he had only one foot in the stirrup; the other, swathed in bandages, rested in a silken sling hanging from his saddle-bow.

"Well met again, Afghan-killer!" cries Goolab Singh.