Flashman and the Mountain of Light

"Sure people" would meet us, Gardner had said, and like a simpleton I'd taken his word without a thought. He was such a square-shooting white man, you see, and I was so used to thinking of him as a faithful ally and friend—well, he'd saved my hide twice—that I'd clean overlooked that he had other allegiances in the tangled web of Punjabi politics. Well, he'd done me brown—and Hardinge and Lawrence; we'd plucked Dalip Singh out of Lahore just so that he could be dropped into the lap of the whiskered old bandit beaming at me across the fire.

"Think not harshly of Gurdana Khan," says he soothingly. "He has not betrayed thee—or the Malki lat; rather has he done thee a service."

"I can see me convincing Sir Henry Hardinge of that!" says I. "Of all the double-dyed Yankee fakers —"

"Nay, nay now! Only consider: Mai Jeendan, rightly fearing for her son's safety, wished to put him under British protection—good! On her behalf, Gurdana Khan set the thing in train with your folk—good! But then, as my friend and agent, he bethought him that the child would be even better in the keeping of … myself. Why? Because once the Khalsa heard that their king was in the hands of the British, they would smell treason—aye, they might even cut Mai Jeendan's pretty throat, and set up some new Maharaja who would carry on this plaguey war for years." He wagged his wicked head, looking smug, "But now, when they learn that I, the admired Goolab, hold the child, they will think no evil. Why, they have lately offered me the throne, and the Wazirship, and command of the Khalsa, and I know not what, so well do they respect me! But I have no such ambitions—what, to king it in Lahore, and find a quick grave like Jawaheer, and all those other fortunate occupants of that throne of serpents? Not I, friend! Kashmir will do for me—the British will confirm me there, but never in Lahore —"

You think they will—after this? You've used us, and Gardner's aided and abetted you —"

"And what harm is done? The child is as safe with me as in his mother's bosom—safer, by God, there is less traffic—and when this war is over I shall have the credit of leading him by the hand into the presence of the Malki-lat!" crows the old villain. "Think of the good will I shall earn! I shall have proved my loyalty to my Maharaja and the British alike!"

And I'd been sneaking about Lahore Fort in peril of my life, conspiring and kidnapping and being hounded by Khalsa lancers, just so that this ancient iniquity could cut a dash in the last act.

"Why the devil did Gardner have to bring us into it at all? Couldn't you have lifted the boy for yourself?"

"Mai, Jeendan would never have allowed it. She trusts me not," says he, shrugging, all innocent-like. "Only to Flashman bahadur would she yield up her precious ewe lamb—ah, what it is to be young and straight and lusty … and British!" He twinkled at me approvingly, shaking with laughter, and refilled my cup with brandy. "Your health, soldier! What, we have stood together, you and I, and heard the cold steel sing! You'll never grudge old Goolab the chance to stand well with your masters!"

That was gammon. For one thing, I'd no choice, and the plain fact was that in Dalip, the only Maharaja acceptable to all parties, he now held the trump card. He'd been trafficking with us for months, while hedging his bets with the Khalsa, and now that the dice had finally fallen in our favour, he was making sure that he could dictate his own terms. And Hardinge could only swallow it and look pleasant—why shouldn't he? With Dalip and Jeendan secure in Lahore, and Goolab confirmed in Kashmir, the north-west frontier would be safe as never before.

"And it will be only for a day or two at most," he went on. "Then I shall take Dalip Maharaja and place him in the Sirkar's arms. Aye, Flashman, the war is done. The Khalsa is bought and sold, and not by Tej Singh only. They think themselves secure in their strong position at Sobraon, where even the Jangi fat can hardly assail them, be his guns ever so big—they still dream of sweeping on to Delhi!" He leaned forward, grinning like a fat tiger. "And even now, plans of those fine fortifications are on their way to White Coat Gough—aye, by tomorrow your engineers will know every trench and tower, every rampart and gun emplacement, in that fine trap the Khalsa have built for themselves in. the elbow of the river! Their fortress? Their coffin, rather! For not a man of them shall escape … and the Khalsa will be no more than an evil memory!" He filled his cup again, drank, and licked his lips, Pickwick in a puggaree, nodding benevolently at me. "That is my gift to your government, bahadur! Is it enough, think you? Will it set the seal on Kashmir for me?⁴⁵

There's a point, you know, where treachery is so complete and unashamed that it becomes statesmanship. Given a shift of fortune, at Moodkee or Ferozeshah, and this genial, evil old barbarian would have been heart and soul with the Khalsa, leading 'em on to Delhi, no doubt. As it was, he was ensuring their slaughter, and revelling in the prospect, like the cruel savage that he was. I often wish I could have introduced him to Otto Bismarck; a fine matched pair they'd have made.

Well, he had shored up his credit with our side, sure enough, with little Dalip in his hands for good measure. That was his affair, and I wished him joy of it; my own concern was that I'd failed in my own immediate mission, thanks to him and Gardner, and what was I going to tell Hardinge?

"Why, that ye had the child safe, but were hard pressed by Khalsa riders, when in the nick of time came loyal Goolab to snatch thee and him to safety! Is it not true, after all? And perforce ye must leave the lad with Goolab, who would nowise part with him, fearing for his safety with all these Khalsa bravos loose about the country!" He chuckled and drank again, wiping his whiskers; you never saw roguery so pleased with itself. "it will make a brave tale … so that ye tell it right." He fixed me with a meaning eye. "It will profit us all, Flash-man sahib."

I asked, pretty sour, how it could profit me, and he gave me a leery look. "What would ye have that the King of Kashmir can give … when he comes into his own? There Is rich employment, if you wish it, up yonder. Aye, and a warm welcome from that bonny widow, my good-sister. Think on it, bahadur.

Ironic, wasn't it—a queen hoping to wed me, a king offering me golden rewards, when all my worldly ambition was to step from Colaba Causeway to the deck of a homeward-bound Indiaman, and never see their dirty, Dangerous country again. I could just thank my stars I'd come this far, to this snug camp under Jupindar rocks, testing and boozing by Goolab's fire, with little Dalip fast asleep in a tent close by (Goolab had fairly grovelled to him, but the lordly mite had been too fagged to do more than accept it coolly and curl up), and the Khalsa lancers disarmed and under guard; they'd taken it without a Murmur, once they'd discovered who their captor was. Thus far in safety, and in the meantime all I could do was slope off over the river and report failure to Hardinge—he'd enjoy that.

To my surprise, I slept sound at Jupindar, and it was after noon when I broke the news to Dalip that he would not be coming with me to the Sirkar's army after all, but must stay awhile with his kinsman, Goolab Singh, until it was safe for him to go home to Mama. I'd expected a royal tantrum, but he took it without a blink of those great brown eyes, nodding gravely as he looked about the camp, aswarm with Goolab's followers.

"Aye, I see how it is—they are many, and you are but three," says he. "May I have my pistol now, Flashman bahadur?

That rattled me, I confess. Here he was, not two chamberpots high, lifted in disguise from his mother's palace, fired on and pursued through the dark and cold, left in the hands of a ruffian of whom he could have heard nothing but evil—and all that concerned him was the promised pepperbox. No doubt Sindiawalla princelings were used alarm and excursion from the cradle, and God knows how much children understand, anyway -- but it struck me that whatever faults Dalip Singh developed in later years, funk wouldn't be one of them. Quite awe-inspiring, he was.

We were standing apart from the others, while Goolab drank his morning toddy on a rug outside his tent, watching slantendicular, and Jassa and Ahmed lounged by the horses. I beckoned Ahmed and took out the Cooper, Dalip watching round-eyed as I drew the six loads. I showed him the mechanism, and set the gun in his small fist; he had to grip well up the stock to get his finger near the ring.

"Ahmed Shah will keep these rounds for you, maharaj'," says I, "and load them at your need."

"I can load!" says majesty, struggling manfully with the cylinder. "And I would have the pistol charged—I cannot shoot thieves and badmashes with an empty toy!"

I assured him there were no thieves about, and he gave me a forty-year-old look. "And that fat bearded one yonder, the Dogra whom you call my kinsman? Mangla says he would steal the droppings from a goat!"

This boded well for Goolab's guardianship, no error. "Now, see here, maharaj', Raja Goolab is your friend, and will guard you until your return to Lahore, which will be soon. And Ahmed Shah here will bide with you also -he is a soldier of the Sirkar, and my comrade, so you must obey him in all things." Which was stretching it, for I hardly knew Ahmed, but he was a Broadfoot Pathan, and the best I could do. To him I said: "On thy head, 'Yusufzai," and he nodded and tapped his hilt. Dalip looked at him critically.

"Can he help me to shoot the gun, at need? Well then, so be it. But that great belly yonder is still a thief. I will stay with him, and mind him, but I will not trust him. He may guard me and yet rob me too, because I am little." I le was examining the Cooper as he delivered his judgment, sotto voce, on Goolab's character, but then he stuck the pistol in his sash and spoke clear, in his shrill treble.

"A gift for a gift, bahadur! Bow your head!"

Wondering, I stooped towards him, and to my amazement he lifted the heavy silver locket from about his neck mid threw the chain over my head, and for a moment his little arms locked tight, holding me, and I felt' him tremble and his tears suddenly wet on my face. "I will be brave! I will be brave, bahadur! whispers he, sobbing. "But you must keep it for me, till you come again to Lahore!" Then 1 set him down, and he stood rubbing his eyes angrily, while Goolab came limping, to apologise for intruding on his majesty, but it was time we were all on our various roads.

Did asked where he would take the Maharaja, and he said no farther than Pettee, a few miles off, where his fighting men were assembling; he had brought forty thousand down from Jumoo "- in case the Jangi lat should need assistance against these rebel dogs of the Khalsa; haply we may cut them up as they flee from Sobraon! Then," and he bowed as far as his belly would let him, "we must see to it that your majesty has a new army, of true men!" Dalip took this with a good grace, whatever he may have been thinking.

It was time to go, and Jassa mounted alongside me -that was the moment when I knew for certain that he hadn't been party to Gardner's little plot. He'd seemed as stunned as I was to find Goolab Singh waiting at Jupindar, but that might have been acting—the fact that he was riding back to Hardinge with me was proof of his innocence. I gave a last salutation to Dalip, standing very small and steady apart from old Goolab, and then Jassa and I rode south from Jupindar rocks—with our tails between our legs, if you like … and two million pounds' worth of crystallised carbon round my neck.

He was a canny infant and wise beyond his years, young Dalip—wasn't he just? He knew Goolab wouldn't dare harm his person—but his property was another matter. If the old fox had guessed the Koh-i-Noor was within reach, then that wondrous treasure would surely have found its way to Kashmir. And in his infant innocence, Dalip had passed it to me, for safe-keeping …

I brooded on that as we trotted south over the doab in the misty afternoon, with Jupindar fading from sight behind us, and the distant green that marked the Sutlej coming into view ahead. By rights I should have been deciding where to cross, and calculating our bearing from Sobraon, where presently all hell would be let loose. But having the most precious object in the world bobbing against your belly concentrates the mind wonderfully; it ain't just the fearful responsibility, either. All kinds of mad fancies flit by not to be taken seriously, you under-stand, but food for wild imaginings—like bleaching your hair and striking out for Valparaiso under the name of Butterworth and never looking near England again … two million quid, Lord love us! Aye, but how d'you dispose of a diamond the size of a tangerine? Not in Amsterdam … probably to some swindling shark who'd set the traps after you … I could picture myself going mad in a garret, gibbering at a treasure I was too windy to sell … But if you could, and disappear … Gad, the life you could lead—estates, palaces, luxury by the bucket, gold cigar-boxes and silk drawers, squads of slaves and battalions of willing women, visions of Xanadu and Babylon and unlimited boozing and frolic …

No steak and kidney ever again, though—and no Elspeth. No sunny days at Lord's or strolls along the Haymarket, no hunt suppers or skittle pool or English rain or Horse Guards or quarts of home-brewed … oh, for Elspeth bare and bouncing and a jug of October and bread and cheese by the bed! All the jewels of Golconda can't buy you that, even supposing you had the nerve to bolt with them—which I knew I had not. No, pinching Koh-i-Noor is like putting t'other side in to bat—you won't do it, but there's no reason why you shouldn't think hard about it.

"Where you aim to cross, lieutenant?" says Jassa, and I realised he'd been gassing since we left Jupindar, full of bile against Gardner, and I'd hardly taken in a blessed word. I asked him, as one who knew the country, where we were.

"About five miles nor'east of Nuggur Ford," says he.

The Sobraon ghat's less than ten miles due east—see, that smoke'll be from the Sikh lines." He pointed to our left front, and on the horizon, above the distant green, you could see it hanging like a dark mist. "We can scout the Nuggur, an' if it ain't clear, we can cast downriver a piece." He paused. "Leastways, you can."

Something in his tone made me look round—into the six barrels of his pistol. He'd reined in about ten feet behind me, and there was a hard, fixed grin on his ugly face.

"What the hell are you about?" cries I. "Put that damned thing up!"

"No, sir," says he. "Now you sit right still, 'cos I don't wish to harm you. No, don't start to holler an' tear your hair, neither! Just slip off that locket an' chain, an' toss 'em over this way—lively, now!" For a moment I'd been all at sea—I'd forgotten, you see, that he'd been there when Jeendan had shown the stone to Dalip and put it round his neck, and again when Dalip had passed the locket to me. Then:

"You confounded fool!" I yelped, half-laughing. "You can't steal this!"

"Don't bet on it! Now, you do as -I say, d'ye hear?"

I was riding Ahmed Shah's screw, with two long horse pistols in the saddle holsters, but I'd no notion of reaching for them. For the thing was wild—hadn't I been turning it over, academic-like, for the past hour?

"Harlan, you're daft!" says I. "Look, man, put up that pepperbox and see reason! This is the Koh-i-Noor—and the Punjab! Why, you'ld not get twenty miles—you'ld be running your head into a noose —"

"Mr Flashman, you can shut up!" says he, and the harsh face with its ghastly orange whiskers looked like a scared ape's. "Now, sir, you pass that item across directly, or —"

"Hold on!", says I, and lifted the tarnished silver case in my hand. "Hear me a moment. I don't know how many carats this thing weighs, or how you think you can turn it into cash—even if you get clear of the Sikhs, let alone the British Army! Good God, man, the mere sight of it and you'll be clapped in irons—you can't hope to sell —"

"You're trying my patience, mister! An' you're forgetting I know this territory, for a thousand miles around, better'n any man alive! I know Jews in every town from Prome to Bokhara who can have that rock in twenty bits quicker'n you can spit!" He threw back his puggaree impatiently and raised the pistol, and for all his brag his hand was shaking. "I don't want to shoot you out of the saddle, but I will, by the holy!

"Will you?" says I. "Gardner said you wouldn't do murder—but he was right about your being a thief —"

"That he was!" cries he. "An' if you paid heed to him, you know my story!" He was grinning like a maniac. "I've followed fortune half a lifetime, an' taken every chance I found! I ain't about to miss the best one yet! An' you can set the British an' the Punjab in a roar after me—there's a war to finish, an' more empty trails between Kabul an' Katmandu an' Quetta than anybody's ever thought of—'cept me! I'll count to three!"

His knuckle was white on the ring, so I slipped the chain over my neck, weighed the locket a moment, and tossed it to him. He snapped it up by the chain, his feverish eyes never leaving me for a second, and dropped the locket into his boot. His chest was heaving, and he licked his lips highway robbery wasn't his style, I could see.

"Now you climb down, an' keep your hands clear o' those barkers!" I dismounted, and he side-stepped in and seized my reins.

"You're not leaving me afoot—and unarmed, for God's sake!" I cried, and he backed his horse away, covering me still, and drawing my mount with him.

"You're less'n two hours from the river," says he, grinning more easy now. "You'll make it safe enough. Well, lieutenant … we had our ups an' downs, but no hard feelings my side. Fact, I'm almost sorry to part—you're my sort, you know." He gave a high-pitched laugh. "'That's why I'm not offering you a partnership in Koh-i-Noor Unlimited!"

"Did wouldn't take it. How long have you been planning this?"

'Bout twenty minutes. Here—catch hold!" He unslung the Maggie from Ahmed's saddle, and threw it towards me. "Hot day—have a drink on me!"

He wheeled his horse and was off at the gallop, making north, with my screw behind, leaving me alone on the doab. I waited until the scrub hid him, and then turned and ran at full speed in the direction of Nuggur Ford. There was a belt of jungle that way, and I wanted to be in cover. As I ran, I kept my hand cupped to my side, feeling the reassuring bulge of the Koh-i-Noor under my sash. I may day-dream occasional, but when I'm carrying price-less valuables in the company of the likes of Dr Josiah Harlan, I slip 'em out of sight in the first five minutes, you may be sure.

If he'd had the wit to open the locket—well, that would have been another story. But if he'd had that much wit, he'd not have been reduced to running errands for Broad-foot in the first place. The fact is, for all his experience of rascality, Jassa was a 'prentice hand. The Man Who Would Be King … but never was.

Only the other day my little great-niece Selina—the pretty one whose loose conduct almost led me to commit murder in Baker Street, but that's another story—remarked to me that she couldn't abide Dickens because his books were full of coincidences. I replied by telling her about the chap who lost a rifle in France and tripped over it in West Africa twenty years later,⁴⁶ and added for good measure an account of my own strange experience after I parted from Harlan in the doab. That was coincidence, if you like, and damnably mixed luck, too, for while it may have saved my life it also landed me centre stage in the last act of the Punjab war.

Once I reached the jungle belt, chortling at the thought of Jassa stopping presently to gloat over his booty, I went to ground. Even when he found out he'd been diddled, he'd never dare come back to look for me, so I decided to stay put and cross the river when night fell. In my Kabuli attire I could pass for a gorrachar' well enough, but the less I was seen the better, so I planned to leave my jungly lair a couple of hours before dusk, slip down to the river, swim across—it wasn't above four hundred yards wide—and lie up on the far shore until daylight.

It began to rain heavily towards evening, so I was glad enough of my shelter, and only when the light began to fade did I venture out, onto a beaten track leading down to the Sutlej. It took me through a little wood, and I was striding boldly along, eager to catch a glimpse of the river, when I rounded a bend in the trees, and there, not twenty yards ahead, was a troop of regular Khalsa cavalry, with their beasts picketed and a fire going, It was too late to turn back, so I walked on, prepared to pass the time of day and pick up the shave, and only when I was almost on them did I notice six or seven bodies hanging from trees within the wood. I bore up in natural alarm—and that was fatal. They were already looking towards me, and now someone yelled an order, and before I knew it I had been seized by grinning sowars and hauled into the presence of a burly daffadar*(*Cavalry commander of ten.) standing by the fire, a mess-tin in his hand and his tunic unbuttoned. He eyed me malevolently, brushing crumbs from his beard.

"Another of them!" growls he. Gorracharra, are you? Aye, the faithless rabble! And what tale have you got to tell?"

"Tale, daffadar sahib?" says I, bewildered. "Why, none! I —"

"Here's a change! Most of you have sick mothers!" At which all his louts hooted with laughter. "Well, gorrachar', ,where's your horse? Your arms? Your regiment?" He suddenly threw the mess-tin aside and slapped me across the face, back and forth. "Your honour, you cowardly scum!"

It struck the sense out of me for a moment, and I was starting to babble some nonsense about being waylaid by bandits when he hit me again.

"Robbed, were you? And they left you this?" He snatched the silver-hilted Persian knife from my boot. "Liar! You're a deserter! Like those swine there!" He jerked a thumb at the swinging corpses, and I saw that most of them were wearing some remnants of uniform. "Well, you can muster with them again, carrion! Hang him up!"

It was so brutally sudden, so impossible—I wasn't to know that for weeks they'd been hunting down deserters from half the regiments of the Khalsa, stringing them up on sight without charge, let alone trial. They were dragging me towards the trees before I recovered my wits, and there was only one way to stop them.

"Daffadar!" I shouted, "you're under arrest! For assault on a superior officer and attempted murder! I am Katte Khan, captain and aide to the Sirdar Heera Sing Topi, of Court's Division —" it was a name from months ago, the only one I could think of. "You!" I snapped at the goggling sowar holding my left arm. "Take your polluting hand away or I'll have you shot! I'll teach you to lay hands on me, you damned Povinda brigands!"

It paralysed them—as the voice of authority always does. They loosed me in a twinkling, and the daffadar, open-mouthed, even began to button his tunic. "We are not of the Povinda division —"

"Silence! Where's your officer?"

"In the village," says he, sullenly, and only half-convinced. "If you are what you say —"

"If! Give me the lie, will you?" I dropped my voice from a bellow to a whisper, which always rattles them. "Daffadar, I do not explain myself to the sweepings of the gutter! Bring your officer—jao!"

Now he was convinced. "I'll take you to him, Captain sahib —"

"You'll bring him!" I roared, and he leaped back a yard and sent one of the sowars off at the gallop, while I turned on my heel and waited with my back to them, so that they shouldn't see that I was shaking like a leaf. It had all been so quick—carefree one minute, condemned the next—that there hadn't been time for fear, but now I was fit to faint. What could I say to the officer? I cudgelled my wits—and then there was the sound of hooves, and I turned to see the coincidence riding towards me.

He was a tall, fine-looking young Sikh, his yellow tunic stained with weeks of campaigning. He reined in, demanding of the daffadar what the devil was up, swinging out of the saddle and striding towards me—and to my consternation I knew him, and any hope of maintaining my disguise vanished. For it was long odds he'd recognise me, too, and if he did … A wild thought suddenly struck me, and before he could speak I had drawn myself up, bowed, and In my best verandah manner asked him to send his men out of earshot. My style must have impressed him, for he waved them away.

"Sardul Singh," says I quietly, and he started. "I'm Flashman. You escorted me from Ferozepore to Lahore six months ago. It's vital that these men should not know I'm a British officer."

He gasped, and stepped closer, peering at me in the gathering dark. "What the devil are you doing here?"

I took a deep breath,. and prayed. "I've come from Lahore—from the Maharani. This morning I was with Raja Goolab Singh, who is now at Pettee, with his army. I was on my way to the Malki lat, with messages of the highest importance, when by ill chance these fellows took me for a deserter—thank God it's you who —"

"Wait, wait!" says he. "You are from Lahore .. on an embassy? Then, why this disguise? Why —"

"Envoys don't travel in uniform these days," says I, and pitched my tale as. urgent as I knew how. "Look, I should not tell you, but I must—there are secret negotiations in hand! I can't explain, but the whole future of the state depends on them! I must get across the river without delay—matters are at a most delicate stage, and my mess-ages —"

"Where are they?"

"Where? Eh? Oh, Lord above, they're not written. They're here!" I tapped my head, which you'll agree was an appropriate gesture.

"But you have some passport, surely?"

"No, no … I can't carry anything that might betray me. This is the most confidential affair, you see. Believe me, Sardul Singh, every moment is precious. I must cross secretly to —"

"A moment," says he, and my heart sank, for while the fine young face wasn't suspicious, it was damned keen. "If you must pass unseen, why have you come so close to our army? Why not by Hurree-ke, or south by Ferozepore?"

"Because Hardinge sahib is with the British army across from Sobraon! I had to come this way!"

"Yet you might have crossed beyond our patrols, and lost little time." He considered me, frowning. "Forgive me, but you might be a spy. There have been many, scouting our lines."

"I give you my word of honour, I'm no spy. What I say is true … and if you hold me here, you may be dooming your army to death—and mine—and your country to ruin."

By God, I was doing it purple, but my only hope was that, being a well-educated aristocrat, he must know the desperate intrigue and dealing that were woven into this war—and if he believed me, he'd be a damned bold subaltern to hamper a diplomatic courier on such a vital errand. Alas, though, subalterns' minds travel a fixed road, and his was no exception: faced with a momentous decision, my dashing escort of the Lahore road had turned into a Slave of Duty—and Safety.

"This is beyond me!" He shook his handsome head. "It may be as you say … but I cannot let you go! I have not the authority. My colonel will have to decide —"

I made a last desperate cast. "That would be fatal! If word of the negotiations gets out, they're bound to fail!"

"There is no fear of that—my colonel is a safe man. And he will know what to do." Relief was in his voice at the thought of passing the parcel to higher authority. "Yes, that will be best—I'll go to him myself, as soon as our watch is ended! You can stay here, so that if he decides to release you, it can be done without trouble, and you will have lost little time."

I tried again, urging the necessity for speed, imploring him to trust me, but it was no go. The colonel must pronounce, and so while he trotted back to his squadron post in the village, I must wait under guard of the glowering daffadar and his mates, resigned to capture. Of all the infernal luck, at the last fence! For it mattered not a bean whether his colonel believed my cock-and-bull story or not—he'd never speed me on my way without going higher still, and God alone knew where that might end. They'd hardly dare mistreat me, in view of the tale I'd told; even if they disbelieved it, they'd not be mad enough to shoot me as a spy, at this stage of the war, surely … mind you, some of those Akali fanatics were bloodthirsty enough for anything …

On such jolly reflections I settled down to wait in that dripping little camp—for it was raining heavily again—and either the colonel had gone absent without leave or Sardul spent an unconscionable time gnawing his nails in indecision, for it must have been well into the small hours before he returned. By that time, worn out with wet and despair, He had sunk into a doze, and when I came to, with Sardul shaking my shoulder, I didn't know where I was for a moment.

"All is_ well!" cries he, and for a blessed second I thought he was going to speed me on my way. "I have spoken with the colonel sahib, and told him … of your diplomatic duty." He dropped his voice, glancing round in the firelight. "The colonel sahib thinks it best that he should not see you himself." Another reckless mutton-head ripe for Staff College, plainly. "He says this is a high political matter … so I am to take you to Tej Singh. Come, I have a horse for you!"

If he'd told me they were going to send me on shooting leave to Ooti I'd have been less astonished, but his next words provided the explanation.

"The colonel sahib says that since Tej Singh is commander-in-chief, he will surely know of these secret negotiations, and can decide what should be done. And since he is in the camp below Sobraon, he will be able to send you to the Malki lat with all speed. Indeed, you will be there sooner than if I released you now."

That was what I'd talked myself into … Sobraon, the very heart of the doomed Khalsa. Yet what else could I have done? When you've just been within an ace of being hanged out of hand, you're liable to say the first thing that comes to mind, and I'd had to tell Sardul something. Still, it could have been worse. At least with Tej I'd be safe, and he'd see me back to Hardinge fast enough … flag of truce, a quick trot across no man's land, and home in time for breakfast. Aye, provided the dogs of war didn't come howling out of the kennel in the meantime … what had Goolab said? "A day or two at most" before Gough stormed the Khalsa lines in the last great battle …

"Well, let's be off, hey?" cries I, jumping up. "The sooner the better, you know! How far is it—can we be there before first light?" He said it was only a few miles along the river bank, but since that way was heavy with military traffic, we would be best to take a detour round their positions (and prevent wicked Flashy from spying out the land, you understand). Still, we should be there soon after dawn.

We set off in the rainy dark, the whole troop of us—he was taking no chances on my slipping my cable, and my bridle was tied firmly to the daffadar's pommel. It was black as sin, and no hope of a moon in this weather, so we went at little better than a walk, and before long I had lost all sense of time and direction. It was my second night in the saddle, I was weary and sore and sodden and fearful, and every few moments I nodded off only to wake with a start, clutching at the mane to save myselffrom falling. How far we came before the teeming down-pourceased and the sky began to lighten, I can't tell, but presently we could see the doab about us, with wraiths of vapour hanging heavy over the scrub. Ahead a few lights were showing dimly, and Sardul reined up: "Sobraon."

But it was only the village of that name, which lies a mile or two north of the river, and when we reached it we must turn sharp right to come down to the Khalsa's reserve positions on the northern bank, beyond which the bridge of boats spanned the Sutlej to the main Sikh fortifications on the southern side, hemmed in by Gough's army. As we wheeled and approached the rear of the reserve lines, fires were flickering and massive shadows looming in the mist ahead, and now we could see the entrenchments on either flank, with heavy gun emplacements commanding the river, which was still out of sight to our front. As we trotted through a sea of churned mud to the lines, trumpets were blaring the stand-to, the Sikh drums were beginning to rattle, troops were swarming in the trenches, and from all about us came the clamour and bustle of an army stirring, like a giant rousing from sleep.

I didn't know, nor did they, as drum and trumpet called them, that the Khalsa was answering its last reveille. But even as we entered the rearmost line, from somewhere far beyond the grey blanket mantling the northern shore ahead of us, came another sound, stunning in its suddenness: the thunder of gunfire echoing along the Sutlej valley in a continuous roar of explosions, shaking the ground underfoot, reverberating through the mists of morning. Beyond our view, on the southern shore, an old Irishman in a white coat was beating his shillelagh on the Khalsa's door, and with a sinking heart I realised that I had come a hare hour too late. The battle of Sobraon had begun.

The best way to view a clash of armies is from a hot-air balloon, for not only can you see what's doing, you're safely out of the line of fire, I've done it once in Paraguay, and there's nothing to beat it, provided some jealous swine of a husband doesn't take a cleaver to the cable. The next best place is an eminence, like the Sapoune at Balaclava or the bluffs above Little Bighorn, and if I can speak with authority about both those engagements it's not so much because I was lashing about in the thick of them, as that I had the opportunity of overlooking the ground beforehand.

Sobraon was like that. The northern bank of the Sutlej at that point is higher than the southern, giving a sweeping view of the whole battlefield, and miles beyond. I wasn't to see it for another hour or so, for when the cannonade began Sardul called a halt, and left me in the care of his troop while he dashed off to see what was up. We waited in the clammy dawn, while the Sikh support troops stood to inspection in the trenches and gun emplacements about us and the gunners stripped the aprons from their heavy pieces, piling the cartridges and rolling the big 48-pound shot on to the stretchers, all ready to load. They were cool hands, those artillerymen, manning their positions quiet and orderly, the brown bearded faces staring ahead towards the battle of barrages hidden beyond the river mist.

Sardul came spurring back, spattering the mud, wild with excitement. Gough's batteries were hammering the fortifications on the southern shore, but doing little harm, and the Sikh gunners were giving him shot for shot. "Presently he will attack, and be thrown back!" cries Sardul exultantly. "The position is secure, and we may go down in safety to Tej Singh. Come, bahadur, it is a splendid sight! A hundred and fifty great guns thunder against each other—but your Jangi lat has blundered! His range is too long, and he wastes his powder! Come and see!"

I believed him. Knowing Paddy, I could guess he was banging away just to please Hardinge, but couldn't wait for the moment when he would turn his bayonets loose. That must be soon, by the sound of it; even if he'd brought the whole magazine from Umballa, he couldn't keep up such a barrage for long.

"Never in all India has there been such a fight of heavy suns!" cries Sardul. "Their smoke is like a city burning! Oh, what a day to see! What a day!"

He was like a boy at a fair as he led the way down through the silent gun positions, and presently we came to a little flat promontory, where a group of Sikh staff officers were mounted, very brave in their dress coats. They spared us not so much as a glance, for at that moment the mist lifted from the river like a raised curtain, and an astonishing sight was unfolded before us.

Twenty feet below the bluff the oily flood of the Sutlej was swirling by in full spate, the bubbling brown surface strewn with ramage which was piling up against the great bridge of boats, four hundred yards long and anchored by massive chains, that spanned the river to the southern shore. There, in a half-moon a full mile in extent, the Khalsa lines lay in three huge concentric semi-circles of ramparts, ditches, and bastions; there were thirty thousand fighting Sikhs in there, the cream of the Punjab, with their backs to the river and seventy big guns crashing out their reply to our artillery positions a thousand yards away. Over the whole Sikh stronghold hung an enormous pall of black gunsmoke, and above the widespread distant arc of our guns a similar pall was hanging, thinner and dispersing more quickly than theirs, for while their batteries were concentrated within that mile-wide fortress, our sixty pieces were scattered in a curved line twice as long—and Sardul was right, their range was too great. I could see our mortar shells bursting high over the Sikh positions, and the heavy shot throwing up fountains of red earth, but causing little damage; far to the right we had a rocket battery in action, the long white trails criss-crossing the black clouds, and some fires were burning at that end of the Sikh lines, but all along the forward fortifications the Khalsa gunners were blazing away in style—Paddy wasn't going to win the shooting-match, that was certain.

Even amidst the din of the cannonade we could hear them cheering in the entrenchments across the river, and the blare of their military bands, with drums throbbing and cymbals clashing, and then the salvoes from the British guns died away, and the smoke cleared over our distant positions; the trumpets in the Sikh camp were sounding the cease-fire, and presently the last wraiths dispersed above their positions also, and Sam Khalsa and John Company looked each other in the eye across a half-mile of scrubby plain and patchy jungle, like two boxers when their seconds and supporters have left off yelling abuse, and each scrapes his feet and flexes his arms for the onset.

With the enemy snug behind his ramparts, it was for Gough to make the first move, and he did it in classic style, with a straight left. Sardul caught at my arm, pointing, and sure enough, far off on our right front, steel was glinting through the last of the mist; he had a little spy-glass clapped to his eye, but now he passed it to me and my heart raced as I saw the white cap-covers and red coats spring into close vision in the glass circle, the fixed bayonets gleaming in the first sunlight, the officers and drummers to the fore, the colour stirring in the breeze—I could even make out the embroidered "X", but it can only have been in imagination that I heard the fifes sounding:

The gamekeeper was watching us, For him we did not care,

For we can wrestle and fight, my boys, And jump o'er anywhere … as the Tenth Lincoln came on in line, their pieces at the port, with the horse guns bounding past their flank, and alongside them the shakos and white belts of the Native Infantry, and then another British colour, but I couldn't make out which, and again our guns began to crash as Paddy poured his last rounds of covering fire over their heads and the dust billowed up on the Khalsa's right front.

The Sikh batteries exploded in a torrent of flame, and I saw our line stagger and recover and come on again before the clouds of smoke and dust hid them from sight. On the extreme right a great body of horse emerged from the entrenchments, swinging wide to charge our rocket batteries whose missiles were weaving in above the advancing infantry and exploding on the breastworks. The Sikh horse rounded our flank and went for the rocket stand like Irishmen on holiday, but the battery commander must have seen his danger and given the word to raise the frames, for he let them come to point-blank range before loosing the whole barrage at ground level, whizzing in to burst among the horsemen, and the charge dissolved in a cloud of white smoke and orange flame.

_ The staff men beside us were suddenly shouting and pointing: while Gough's left wing was closing through the smoke on the Sikhs' right front, out on the plain, beyond the scrub and jungle, there was a stirring in the heat haze; tiny figures, red, blue, and green, were coming into view, long extended lines of them, with the horse guns in the intervals between. I swung the glass on them, and here were the yellow facings of the 29th, there the buff of the 31st, everywhere the red coats and cross-belts of the Native Infantry … the red and blue of the Queen's Own … on the flank the dark figures of the 9th Lancers and the blue coats and puggarees of the Bengali horsemen … the crimson-streaked plumes of the 3rd Lights … the little goblin figures of the Gurkhas, trotting to keep up, and even as I watched there was a flash of silver rippling along their front as the great leaf-bladed knives came out. The whole of our army was on the move towards the centre and left of the Khalsa's position—twenty thousand British and Native foot, horse, and guns coming in against odds of three to two, and the Sikhs' heavy metal was ranging on them, kicking up the dust-plumes all along the great arc of our advance,

Now all the forward entrenchments were exploding, sweeping the ground with a hail of grape and canister, blotting out the scene in a thick haze of dust and smoke. I caught my breath in horror, for it was Ferozeshah all over again, with that raving old spud-walloper risking every-thing on the sabre and the bayonet, hand to hand—but then the Sikhs had been groggy from Moodkee, in positions hastily dug and manned, while now they were entrenched in a miniature Tones Vedras, with ditch-and-dyke works twenty feet high, enfiladed by murderous camel-swivels and packed with tulwar-swinging lunatics fairly itching to die for the Guru. You can't do it, Paddy, thinks I, it won't answer this time, you'll break your great t hick Irish head against this fortress of shot and steel, and have your army torn to ribbons, and lose the war, and never see Tipperary again, you benighted old bog-trotter, you -

"Come!" calls Sardul, and I tore my eyes away from that billowing mirk beyond which our army was advancing to certain death, and followed him down the muddy slope to the bridge of boats. They were big barges, lashed thwart to thwart and paved with heavy timbers which made a road as straight and solid as dry ground—hollo, says I, there's a white sapper in the woodpile, damn him, for no Punjabi ever put this together. We drummed across with the troop at our heels and came into the rear of the Khalsa position—their last line of defence where the general staff directed operations, aides hurried to and fro between the tents and hutments, carts of wounded rum-bled through to the bridge, and all was activity and uproar—but it was a disciplined bedlam, I noticed, in spite of the deafening crash of guns and musketry rolling back from the lines.

There was a knot of senior men grouped round a great scale model of the fortifications—I caught only a glimpse of it, but it must have been twenty feet across, with every trench and parapet and gun just so—and a splendid old white-bearded sirdar with a mail vest over his silk tunic was prodding it with a long wand and bellowing orders above the din, while his listeners despatched messengers into the sulphurous reek which blotted out everything beyond fifty yards, and made the air nigh unbreathable. This was clearly the high command—but no sign of Tej Singh, general and guiding spirit of the Khalsa, God help it, until I heard his voice piercing the uproar, at full screech.

"Three hundred and thirty-three long grains of rice?" he was shouting, "Then get them, idiot! Am I a storekeeper? Fetch a sack from the kitchen—run, you pervert son of a shameless mother!"

Close by the bridgehead was a curious structure like a huge beehive, about ten feet high and built of stone blocks. Before it, in full fig of gold coat, turbaned helmet, and jewelled sword-belt, stood Tej himself—he wasn't above ten yards from the staff conference, but they might have been in Bombay for all the heed each paid to the other. Before him cringed a couple of attendants, a chico held a coloured brolly over his head, and at a table near the beehive's entrance an ancient wallah in an enormous puggaree was studying charts through a magnifying glass, and making notes. Watching the scene with some amusement was an undoubted European in kepi, shirt-sleeves, and a goatee beard.

That is what I saw, through the drifting smoke and confusion; the following, above the thunder of the great battle in which India was being lost and won, is what I heard—and it's stark truth:

Ancient wallah: The inner circumference is too small! According to the stars, it must be thirteen and a half times the girth of your excellency's belly.

Tej: My belly? What in God's name has my belly to do with it?

A.W.: It is your excellency's shelter, and must be built in relation to your proportions, or the influence of your planets will not sustain it. I must know your circumference, taken precisely about the navel.

European (producing foot-rule): A metre and a half, at least. Here, this is marked in English inches.

Tej: I am to measure my belly, at such a time?

European: What else have you to do? The sirdars have the defence in hand, and my fortifications will not be overrun if they are properly manned. By the way, three hundred and thirty-three long grains of rice make about three and a quarter English yards.

A.W. (agitated): The measurement must be exact!

European: A grain of rice may be exact in the stars, astrologer, but not on earth. Anyway, three yards of stone will stop any missile the British are likely to throw at us.

A.W.: Not if the circumference is too small! It must be enlarged -

European (shrugging): Or the general must lose weight. Tej (enraged): Damn you, Hurbon … And who in Satan's name are you, and what do you want?

For by this time Sardul Singh was before him, saluting and then whispering urgently. Tej gave a start, and turned an uncomprehending stare at me, as though I'd been a ghost. Then he recovered, beckoned me urgently, and dived into the beehive.⁴⁷ I followed and found myself in a tiny circular chamber, stuffy and stinking from a single oil lamp. Tej wrenched the door to, and the sound of battle died to a distant murmur. He fairly clutched at me, his chops wobbling.

"Is it you, my dear friend? Ah, thank God! Is this thing true? Is there a secret negotiation?"

I told him there wasn't, that it was a lie I'd told Sardul on the spur of the moment, and he let out a great wail of dismay.

"Then what am I to do? I cannot control these mad-men! You saw them out yonder—they pretend that I do not exist, and take my command away, the mutinous swine! Sham Singh directs the defence, and your army will be dashed to pieces! I did not seek this engagement! Why, oh why, did Gough sahib force it upon me!" He began to rave and curse, beating his fat fists on the stone. "If the Jangi lat is beaten, what will become of me! I am lost! I am lost!" And he subsided on the floor, a quaking blubber in his gold coat, weeping and railing against Gough and Sham Singh and Jeendan and Lal Singh, and anyone else he could call to mind.

I didn't interrupt him. It may have been the sudden quiet of that little refuge, but for the first time in hours I found myself able to think, and was deep in fearful calculation. For here I was, by the strangest turn of fate, prisoner in the heart of the enemy's camp, at the supreme moment of imperial crisis, while all yet hung in the balance—and a small voice in my coward soul was telling me what had to be done. Only to think of the risk set me shaking … anyway, it all depended on one thing. I waited until Tej's lamentation reached a high pitch, slid quietly out of the beehive, closed the door, and looked about me, my heart racing.

Everywhere was choking confusion, with visibility a poor twenty yards, but round the command group was a cheering press of Sikhs, dancing and waving tulwars—so our first attack had failed, although the pounding of gun-fire was as deafening as ever. A horse artillery team came clattering from the bridge; a wounded officer, his blue coat sodden with blood, was being carried past by servants; the European, Hurbon,⁴⁸ was mounting a pony and riding off into the smoke; the old astrologer was still muttering over his charts—but the one thing for which I'd been hoping had come to pass: Sardul Singh and his troop, having done their duty by delivering me, were gone. And with all attention directed towards the death-struggle just up the road, no one was paying the least heed to the big Kabuli badmash scratching himself furtively outside the Commander-in-Chief's funkhole.

It was my heaven-sent chance to act on the inspiration which had come to me while Tej blubbered at my feet. I braced myself, breathed a silent prayer, took a dozen flying strides, gathering speed as I went, and with one last almighty bound hurled myself from the bank and plunged into the boiling flood of the Sutlej.

According to the Morning Post, or the Keswick Reminder, I forget which (or it may even have been the Lincoln, Rutland and Stamford Mercury) I was pursued by "a horde of furious foes, whose discharges rent the waters about my head", but the truth is that no one saw my "spirited dash for freedom" except a couple of dhobiwallahs slapping laundry in the shallows (cool hands, those, to be doing the wash while the battle raged), which just shows that you should never trust what you read in the papers. Why, they even credited me with "breaking free from my bonds" and cutting down a couple of "swarthy foemen" in the course of my escape "from the jaws of the Seekh Khalsa"; well, I never said so. The facts are as I've stated, and while I may have embroidered 'em a little for Henry Lawrence's benefit, the lurid press accounts were pure gammon. But it's a journalistic law, you see, that heroes can never do anything ordinary; when Flashy, the Hector of Afghanistan, beats a reluctant retreat, there must be an army howling at his heels, or the public cancel their subscriptions.

You, knowing the truth of my inglorious evasion, may cry out in disgust at my desertion in the hour of need; well, good luck to you. I shan't even remark that 'twould have served no purpose to stay, or pretend that if there had been a bomb handy I'd have paused to heave it at the Khalsa's high command before lighting out—someone would have been sure to notice. I was intent only on flight, and the Sutlej called to me; as I ploughed frantically away from the bank I was prepared to drift all the way to Ferozepore if need be, rejoicing in the knowledge that the flood was carrying me beyond the reach of foe and friend alike. And so it might have done, if the river hadn't been swollen seven feet above its normal level, developing cur-rents that bore me almost diagonally to the northern bank; struggle as I might I couldn't stay in midstream, for there was a terrific undertow that kept sucking me down, and it was all I could do to stay afloat. I'm a good swimmer, but a river in spate is a fearsome thing, and I was half-drowned when I found myself in the northern shallows, and struggled, spewing and gasping, on to the muddy shore.

I lay for a couple of minutes, taking breath, and when I peeped out from among the reeds, there before me on the far side was the extreme flank of the Khalsa fortifications, with the bridge of boats a bare half-mile upstream. Which meant that on the bluff directly above me were the Sikh reserve batteries we'd passed through on the way in—and if an idle gunner chanced to look over the edge, there was I, like a fish on a slab.

I burrowed through the reeds, cursing my luck, and crawled into the lee of the bluff, which was about thirty feet high. Above me, just below the overhanging lip, was what looked like a sandy ledge. If I could clamber up to it I should be hidden both from above and below, so I began to climb the almost perpendicular bank, gouging holds in the wet clay. It was heavy going, but my one fear was that at any moment a dusky head would pop over and challenge me. Nearing the top, I could hear them chattering in the emplacements, which fortunately were about twenty yards back from the edge; I scrambled the last few feet with my heart in my mouth, gained the ledge, and was overjoyed to find that it extended back a good yard beneath the overhang; in two shakes I was prone beneath the lip, safe hidden but with a clear view for a mile upriver and across the Khalsa position on the southern shore. And there before my eyes was the great Battle of Sobraon.

Any soldier will tell you that, in the heat of a fight, sights and sounds imprint themselves on your memory and stay vivid for fifty years … but you lose all sense of time. Did can still see George Paget's cheroot clamped in his teeth as he leaned from the saddle to haul me to my feet in the Balaclava battery; I can hear Custer's odd little cough as he rocked back on his heels with the blood trickling over his lip—but how long those actions lasted, God alone knows. Balaclava was twenty minutes, they tell me, and Greasy Grass about fifteen—well, I was through both, start to finish, and I'd have put them at an hour at least. At Sobraon, where admittedly I was more spectator than actor, it was t'other way round. From the moment Sardul and I rode down to the bridge, to the time I reached my ledge, I'd have reckoned half an hour at most; in fact it was between two hours and three, and in that space, while Tej was bickering about the size of his hideyhole, and I was swallowing the Sutlej by the gallon, Sobraon was being lost and won. This is how it was.

The attack by our left wing, which I'd witnessed, had been beaten back with heavy loss. Our advance on the other flank and centre had been intended as a feint, but when Paddy saw our left come adrift he changed the feint into a pukka assault, through a murderous hail of fire; somehow our men survived it and stormed the Sikh defences along almost the whole curved front of two and a half miles, and for nigh on an hour it was a hideous hacking-match over the ditches and ramparts. Our people were repulsed time and again, but still they forged ahead, British and Indian bayonets and Gurkha knives against the tulwars, with shocking slaughter; no manoeuvring or scientific soldiering, but hand-to-hand butchery—that was fighting as Paddy Gough understood it, and weren't the Sikhs ready to oblige him?

They fought like madmen—and perhaps that was their undoing, for whenever an attack was beaten back they leaped down into the ditches to mutilate our wounded. Well, you don't do that to Atkins and Sepoy and Gurkha if you know what's good for you; our people stormed back at 'em in a killing rage, and when the scaling-ladders wouldn't reach they climbed on each other's shoulders and on the piled dead, and fairly pitchforked the Sikhs out of their first line entrenchments, almost without firing a shot. Good bayonet fighters will beat swordsmen and spearmen every time, and they ran the Sikhs back over two furlongs of rough ground to the second line, where the Khalsa gunners made a stand—and then Paddy showed that he was a bit of a general as well as a hooligan.

From my eyrie to the Sikhs' second line was a bare half-mile, and I could see their gunners plain as day, for the wind was streaming their smoke away downriver. They were working their field pieces and camel-swivels and musketry until they must have been red-hot; the line looked as though it was on fire, so constant was the roar of the discharges, sweeping the ground and almost blotting out in a dust-storm the outer entrenchments from which our infantry and horse-guns were trying to advance. Between the Sikhs' second line and the river the Khalsa horse and foot were re-forming in their thousands, preparing to counter-attack if the chance arose. Gough made sure it never did.

Directly across from me there was a sudden colossal explosion in the flank entrenchments of the second line; bodies were flying like dolls, a field-gun went cartwheeling end over end, and a huge pillar of dust arose, like a genie from a bottle. As it cleared I saw that our sappers had driven a great cleft in the ramparts, and through it who should come trotting but old Joe Thackwell, as easy as though he were in the Row, with a single file of 3rd Lights at his heels, wheeling into line as they cleared the gap. Behind them were the blue puggarees and white pants of the Bengali Irregulars, and before the Sikhs knew what was up Joe was rising in his stirrups, waving his sabre, and the 3rd Lights were sweeping down the rear of the gun positions, brushing aside the supporting infantry, sabring and riding down everything in their path. In a moment the rear of the second line was a turmoil of men and horses, with the sabres rising and falling in the sunlight, and into it the Bengalis drove like a thunderbolt. Farther down the line our infantry were pouring over the ramparts, a wave of red coats and bayonets, and all in a moment the whole line had caved in, and the Khalsa battalions were falling back to the third line of entrenchments a bare two hundred yards from the river. They weren't running, though; they retired like guardsmen, pouring volley after volley into our advance, while the Bengalis and Dragoons harried them front and flank, and our horse-guns came careering through the outer lines to unlimber and turn their fire on the doomed Sikh army.

For it was done at last. Solid as a rock it looked as it stood in the elbow of the river, squares formed, squadrons ordered, standards raised, and the ground before it heaped with its dead—but it was hemmed in by an enemy who had overcome odds of three to two by sheer refusal to be stopped … and it had lost its guns. Now, as the horse artillery and field pieces cut great lanes in its ranks, it could reply only with musketry and steel to the charges of our horse and the steady advance of our infantry; it swayed and fell back, almost step by step, contesting every inch—and I looked to see the standards come down in token of surrender. But they didn't. The Khalsa, the Pure, was dying on its feet, with its sirdars and generals scrambling up on the broken entrenchments, willing it to stand firm. I even made out the tall figure of the old war-horse I'd seen directing the high command; he was up on a shattered gun carriage, his white robes gleaming in the sunlight, shield on arm and tulwar raised, like some spirit of the Khalsa, and then the smoke enveloped him, and when it cleared, he was gone.⁴⁹

Then they broke. It was like a dyke bursting, with first a trickle of men making for the river, and then the main body giving back, and suddenly that magnificent host that I'd gaped at on Maian Mir had dissolved into a mass of fugitives pouring back to the bridge of boats, spilling into the river on either side of it, or trying to escape along the banks. In a few moments the whole length of the bridge was jammed with struggling men and horses and even gun-teams, vainly trying to win across; the sheer weight of them and the force of the stream caused the great line of barges to bend downriver like a gigantic bow drawn to the limit. It swayed to and fro, half-submerged, with the brown water boiling over it like a weir, and then it snapped, the two ends surged apart, and the milling thousands were pitched into the flood.

In an instant the whole width of the river beneath me was alive with men and beasts and wreckage, sweeping past. It was like a lumber-jam when great areas of the water cannot be seen for the whirling mass of logs, but here the logs were men and horses and a great tangle of gear bound together by the force of the current. Upturned barges, black with men clinging to them, were dashed against each other, rolling over and over to be lost in the spray or flung onto the mudbanks; for the first time above the din of the firing I could hear human sounds, the shrieks of wounded and drowning men. Some may have lived through that first appalling maelstrom when the bridge gave way, but not many, for even as they were carried downstream our horse artillery were tearing along the southern shore, unlimbering, and wheeling their pieces to rake the river from bank to bank with grape and canister, churning it into a foaming slaughterhouse. The Yankees talk of "shooting fish in a barrel"; that was the fate of the Khalsa, floundering and helpless, in the Sutlej. Farther up, beyond the bridge, the carnage was even worse, for there the water was shallower, and as the great close-packed mass of fugitives struggled neck-deep to cross the ford they were caught in a murderous cross-fire of musketry and artillery. Even those who managed to reach the north bank were caught in the deadly hail of grape as they struggled ashore, and only a few, I'm told, managed to scramble away to safety.

Below me, bodies both still and struggling were being borne past or swept ashore by a brown tide hideously streaked with red, while the shot lashed the water around them; close to the shore, where the current bore in most strongly, the Sutlej was running blood.

Directly across from my position, I could see the red coats of our infantry, British and Indian, lining the banks, firing as fast as they could load; among them were horse-guns and captured camel-swivels pouring their fire into the stricken wreck of an army. Shots were slapping into the bank below me, and I huddled back into my refuge, flat on my face and instinctively clawing the soil as though to burrow into it. How long it lasted, I can't say; ten minutes, perhaps, and then that hellish cannonade began to slacken, a bugle on the far side was blowing the cease-fire, and gradually the guns fell silent, and the only sound in my half-deafened ears was the river rushing past.

I lay for a good half-hour, too shaken to drag myself from the bosom of Mother Earth, and then I inched my way forward on the ledge and looked down. Below me, as far as I could see on either hand, the shore was thick with corpses, some on the bank itself, others washing to and fro in the crimson shallows, more drifting by on the current.

Out in the stream, the low mud-banks were covered with them. Here and there a few were stirring, but I don't recall hearing a single cry; that was the uncanny part of it, for on every other battle-field I've seen there's been a ceaseless chorus of screams and wails above the groaning hum of the wounded and dying. Here, there was nothing but the swish of the stream through the reeds. I lay, staring down in the noon sunlight, too used up to move, and by and by there were no more bodies drifting down from the upper ford and the shattered bridgeheads and the smoking lines of Sobraon. Then the vultures came, but you won't care to hear of that, and I didn't care to watch; I closed my stinging eyes and rested my head on my arms, listening to the distant thump of explosions from the other shore as the fires burning in the Sikh lines reached the abandoned magazines. The hutments at the bridgehead were burning, too, and the smoke was hanging low over the river.

If you wonder why I continued to lie there, it was part exhaustion, but mostly caution. I knew there must be some survivors on my side of the water, doubtless full of spleen and resentment, and I'd no wish to meet them. There was no sound from the reserve positions behind me, and I imagined the Sikh gunners had taken their leave, but I wasn't stirring until I was sure of a clear coast and friends at hand. I doubted if our lot would cross the river today; John Company would be dog-tired, binding his wounds, taking off his boots, and thanking God that was the end of it.

For it was over now, no question. In most wars, you see, killing is only the means to a political end, but in the Sutlej campaign it was an end in itself. The war had been fought to destroy the Khalsa, root and branch, and the result was lying in uncounted thousands on the banks below Sobraon. The Sikh rulers and leaders had engineered it, John Company had executed it … and the Khalsa had gone to the sacrifice. Well, salaam Khalsa ji. Sat-sree-akal. High time, mind you.

"For that little boy. And for their salt." Gardner's words came back to me as I lay on that sandy ledge, letting the pictures of memory have their way, as they will on the edge of sleep … the bearded faces of those splendid battalions, in review at Maian Mir, and swinging down to the war through the Moochee Gate … Imam Shah staring down at the petticoat draped across his boot … Maka Khan grim and straight while the panches roared behind him … "To Delhi! To London!" … that raging Akali, arm outflung in denunciation … Sardul Singh shouting with excitement as we rode to the river … the old rissaldar-major, tears streaming down his face …

… and a red and gold houri wantoning it in her durbar, teasing them in her cups, cajoling them, winning them, so that she could betray them to this butchery … standing half-naked above the bleeding rags of her brother's body, sword in hand … "I will throw the snake in your bosom!" Well, she'd done all of that. Jawaheer was paid for.

And if you ask me what she'd have thought if she could have gazed into some magic crystal that day, and seen the result of her handiwork along the banks of the Sutlej . well, I reckon she'd have smiled, drunk another slow draught, stretched, and called in Rai and the Python.

They say ten thousand Khalsa died in the Sutlej. Well, I didn't mind, and I still don't. They started it, and hell mend them, as old Colin Campbell used to say. And if you tell me that every man's death diminishes me, I'll retort that it diminishes him a hell of a sight more, and if he's a Khalsa Sikh, serve him right.

Knowing me, you won't marvel at my callousness, but you may wonder why Paddy Gough, as kindly an old stick as ever patted a toddler's head, hammered 'em so mercilessly when they were beat and running. Well, he had good reasons, one being that you don't let up on a courageous adversary until he hollers "Uncle!", which the Sikhs ain't inclined to do—and I wouldn't trust 'em if they did. Nor do you feel much charity towards an enemy who never takes prisoners, and absolutely enjoys chop-ping up wounded, as happened at Sobraon and Ferozeshah both. Even if Gough had wanted to stop the slaughter, I doubt if anyone would have heeded him.⁵⁰

But the best reason for murdering the Khalsa was that if enough of the brutes had escaped, the whole beastly business would have been to do again, with consequent loss of British and Sepoy lives. That's something the moralists overlook (or more likely don't give a dam about) when they cry: "Pity the beaten foe!" What they're saying, in effect, is: "Kill our fellows tomorrow rather than the enemy today." But they don't care to have it put to them like that; they want their wars won clean and comfortable, with a clear conscience. (Their consciences being much more precious than their own soldiers' lives, you understand.) Well, that's fine, if you're sitting in the Liberal Club with a bellyful of port on top of your dinner, but if you rang the bell and it was answered not by a steward with a napkin but an Akali with a tulwar, you might change your mind. Distance always lends enlightenment to the view, I've noticed.

Being uncomfortable close, myself, my one concern when I'd slept the night away was to slide out in safety and rejoin the army. The difficulty was that when I crawled out of my refuge and stood up, I tumbled straight down again and almost rolled over the ledge. I had another go, with the same result, and realised that my head ached, I felt shockingly ill and dizzy, I was sweating like an Aden collier, and some infernal Sutlej bug was performing a polka in my lower bowels. Dysentery, in fact, which can be anything from fatal to a damned nuisance, but even at best leaves you weak as a rat, which is inconvenient when the nearest certain help is twenty miles away. For while I could hear our bugles playing Charlie, Charlie across the river, I wasn't fit to holler above a whimper, let alone swim.

By moving mostly on hands and knees I made a cautious scout of the emplacements on the bank behind me; luckily they were empty, the Sikh reserve having decamped, taking their guns with them. But that was small consolation, and I was considering the wild notion of crawling down to the corpse-littered bank, finding a piece of timber, and floating down to Ferozepore ghat, when out of the dawn mist came the prettiest sight I'd seen that year—the blue tunics and red puggarees of a troop of Native Cavalry, with a pink little cornet at their head. I waved and yelped feebly, and when I'd convinced him that I wasn't a fugitive gorrachar' and received the inevitable, heart-warming response ("Not Flashman—Flash-man of Afghanistan, surely? Well, bless me!") we got along famously.

They were 8th Lights from Grey's division which had been watching the river at Attaree, and had been ordered across the previous night as soon as Gough knew he had the battle won. More of our troops were invading over the Ferozepore ghat and Nuggur Ford, for Paddy was in a sweat to secure the northern bank and tidy up the remnants of the Khalsa before they could get up to mischief. Ten thousand had got away from Sobraon, with all their reserve guns, and there were rumoured to be another twenty thousand up Amritsar way, as well as the hill garrisons—far more than we had in the field ourselves.

"But they ain't worth a button now!" cries my pink lad. "The shave is that their sirdars have hooked it, and they're quite without supplies or ammunition. And the hidin' they got yesterday will have knocked all the puff out of 'em, I dare say," he added regretfully. "I say, were you in the thick of it? Lor', don't I just wish I'd had your luck! Of all the beastly sells, to be ploddin' up an' down on river patrol, and not so much as a smell of a Sikh the whole time! What I'd give for a cut at the rascals!"

Between his babble and having to totter into the bushes every half-mile while the troop tactfully looked the other way, I was in poor trim by the time we reached Nuggur Ford, where they slung me a hammock in a makeshift hospital basha, and a native medical orderly filled me with jalap. I gave my little fire-eater a note to be forwarded to Lawrence, wherever he was, describing my whereabouts and condition, and after a couple of days in that mouldering hovel, watching the lizards scuttle along the musty beams and wishing I were dead, received the following reply:

Political Department, Camp, Kussoor. February 13, 1846.

My dear Flashman—I rejoice that you are safe, and trust that when this reaches you, your indisposition will have mended sufficiently to enable you to join me here without delay. The matter is urgent. Yrs Lawrence.

It gave me qualms, I can tell you; "urgent matters" were the last thing I needed just then. But it was reassuring, too, for there was no reference to my Dalip fiasco, and I guessed that Goolab had lost no time in advising Lawrence and Hardinge that he was looking after the lad like a mother hen. Still, I hadn't covered myself with glory, and knowing Hardinge's dislike of me it was surprising to find myself in such demand; I'd have thought he'd be happy to keep me at arm's length until the peace settlement was concluded. I knew too much about the whole Punjabi mischief for anyone's comfort, and now that they'd be patching it all up to mutual satisfaction and profit, with lofty humbug couched in fair terms, neither side would want to be reminded of all the intrigue and knavery that had been consummated at Moodkee and Ferozeshah and Sobraon; things would be easier all round if the prime agent in the whole foul business wasn't leering coyly at the back of the durbar tent when they signed the peace.

And it wasn't just that I'd be a spectre at the diplomatic feast. I suspected that Hardinge's aversion to me was rooted in a feeling that I spoiled the picture he had in mind of the whole Sikh War. My face didn't fit; it was a blot on the landscape, all the more disfiguring because he knew it belonged there. I believe he dreamed of some noble canvas, for exhibition in the great historic gallery of public approval—a true enough picture, mind you, of British heroism and faith unto death in the face of impossible odds; aye, and of gallantry by that stubborn enemy who died on the Sutlej. Well, you know what I think of heroism and gallantry, but I recognise 'em as only a born coward can. But they would be there, rightly, on the noble canvas, with Hardinge stern and forbearing, planting a magisterial boot on a dead Sikh and raising a penitent, awe-struck Dalip by the hand, while Gough (off to one side) addressed heaven with upraised sword before a background of cannon-smoke and resolute Britons bayoneting gnashing niggers and Mars and Mother India floating overhead in suitable draperies. Dam' fine.

Well, you can't mar a spectacle like that with a Punch cartoon border of Flashy rogering dusky damsels and spying and conniving dirty deals with Lal and Tej, can you now?

However, Lawrence's summons had to be obeyed, so I struggled from my bed of pain, removed my beard, obtained a clean set of civilian linens, hastened down to Ferozepore by river barge, and tooled up to Kussoor looking pale and interesting, with a cushion on my saddle.

While I'd been laid up with the dolorous skitters, Gough and Hardinge had been prosecuting the peace with vigour. Paddy had the whole army north of the Sutlej within three days of Sobraon, and Lawrence had been in touch with Goolab, who now figured it was safe to accept openly the Wazirship which the Khalsa had been pressing on him, and come forward to negotiate on their behalf. There were still upward of thirty thousand of them under arms, you remember, and Hardinge was on fire to come to terms before the brutes could work up a new head of steam, For it was a ticklish position, politically: we simply hadn't the men and means, as Paddy had pointed out, to conquer the Punjab; what was needed was a treaty that would give us effective control, dissolve the last remnants of the Khalsa, and keep Goolab, Jeendan, and the rest of the noble scavengers content. So Hardinge, with a speed and zeal which would have been useful months ago, had his terms cut and dried and ready to shove down Goolab's throat a mere five days after the war ended.

Kussoor lies a bare thirty miles from Lahore, and Hardinge had installed himself and his retinue in tents near the old town, with the army encamped on the plain around. As I trotted through the lines I could feel that air of contented elation that comes at the end of a campaign: the men are tired, and would like to sleep for a year, but they don't want to miss the warm feeling of survival and comradeship, so they lie blinking in the sun, or rouse themselves to skylark and play leapfrog. I remember the Lancers at baseball, and a young gunner sitting on a limber, licking his pencil and writing to the dictation of a farrier-sergeant with his arm in a sling: "… an' tell Sammy 'is Dad 'as got a Sikh sword wot 'e shall 'ave if 'e's bin good, an' a silk shawl for 'is Mum—stay, make that 'is dear Mum an' my best gel …" Sepoys were at drill, groups of fellows in vests and overalls were boiling their billies on the section fires, the long tent-lines and ruined mosques drowsed in the heat, the bugles sounded in the distance, the reek of native cooking wafted down from the host of camp-followers, fifty thousand of them, camped beyond the artillery park, somewhere a colour sergeant was waking the echoes, and a red-haired ruffian with a black eye was tied to a gun-wheel for field punishment, exchanging genial abuse with his mates. 1 stopped for a word with Bob Napier the sapper,⁵¹ who had his easel up and was painting a Bengali sowar sweating patiently in full fig of blue coat, red sash, and white breeches, but took care to avoid Gravedigger Havelock, who sat reading out-side his tent (the Book of Job, most likely). It was all calm and lazy; after sixty days of fire and fury, in which they'd held the gates of India, the Army of the Sutlej was at peace.

They'd earned it, There were 1400 fewer of them than there had been, and 5000 wounded in the Ferozepore barracks; against that, they'd killed 16,000 Punjabis and broken the best army east of Suez. There was a great outcry at home, by the way, over our losses; having seen the savagery of two of the four battles, and knowing the quality of the enemy, I'd say we were lucky the butcher's bill was so small—with Paddy in charge it was nothing short of a miracle.

If there was an unbuttoned air about the troops, head-quarters resembled Horse Guards during a fire alarm. Hardinge had just issued a proclamation to say that the war was over, it had all been the Sikhs' fault, we desired no extension of territory and were fairly bursting with pacific forbearance, but if the local rulers didn't co-operate to rescue the state from anarchy, H.M.G. would have to make "other arrangements", so there. In consequence, messengers scurried, clerks sweated, armies of bearers ran about with everything from refreshments to furniture, and bouquets of new young aides lounged about looking bored. No doubt I'm uncharitable, but I've noticed that as soon as the last shot's fired, platoons of these exquisites arrive as by magic, vaguely employed, haw-hawing fortissimo, pinching the gin to make "cock-tails", and stinking of pomade. There was a group outside Lawrence's tent, all guffaws and fly-whisks.

"I say, you, feller," says one. "Can't go in there. Major ain't receivin' civilians today."

"Oh, please, sir," says I, uncovering, "it's most awfully important, you know."

"If you're sellin' spirits," says he, "go an' see the—what d'ye call him, Tommy? Oh, yaas, the khansamah—the butler to you, Snooks."

"Who shall I say sent me?" says I, humbly. "Major Lawrence's door-keepers?"

"Mind your manners, my man!" cries he. "Who the devil are you, anyway?"

"Flashman," says I, and enjoyed seeing them gape. "No, no, don't get up—you might land on your arse. And speaking of butlers, why don't you go and help Baxu polish the spoons?"

I felt better after that, and better still when Lawrence, at first sight of me, dismissed his office-wallahs and shook hands as though he meant it. He was leaner and more harassed than ever, in his shirt-sleeves at a table littered with papers and maps, but he listened intently to the recital of my adventures (in which I made no mention whatever of Jassa), and dismissed my failure to deliver Dalip as of no account. "Not your fault," snaps he, in his curt style. "Goolab writes that the boy is well -- that's all that matters. Anyway, that's past. My concern is the future—and what I have to tell you is under the rose. Clear?" He fixed me with that gimlet eye, pushed out his lantern jaw, and pitched in.

"Sir Henry Hardinge doesn't like you, Flashman. He thinks you're a whippersnapper, too independent, and careless of authority. Your conduct in the war—with which I'm well pleased, let me tell you—doesn't please him. `Broadfoot antics', you understand. I may tell you that when he learned that Goolab had got the boy, he spoke of court-martialling you. Even wondered if you had acted in collusion with Gardner. That's the curse of Indian politics, they make you suspect everyone. Anyway, I soon disabused him." For an instant I'll swear the dour horse face was triumphant, then he was glowering again. "At all events, he doesn't care for you, or regard you as reliable."

My own sentiments about Hardinge exactly, but I held my peace.

"Now, Goolab Singh comes here tomorrow, to learn the treaty terms—and I'm sending you to meet him and conduct him into camp. That's why I summoned you. You have the old fox's confidence, if anyone does, and I wish that to be seen and known. Especially by Sir Henry. He mayn't like it, but I want him to understand that you are necessary. Is that clear?"

I said it was, but why?

"Because when this treaty is settled—I can't tell you the terms; they're secret until Goolab hears them—it is likely that a British presence will be required at Lahore, with a Resident, to keep the durbar on a tight rein. I'll be that Resident—and I want you as my chief assistant."

Coming from the great Henry, I guess it was as high a compliment as Wellington's handshake, or one of Elspeth's ecstatic moans. But it was so unexpected, and ridiculous, that I almost laughed aloud.

"That's why I'm putting you forward now. Goolab will be the éminence grise, and if he is seen to respect and trust you, it will help me to win the G.G. over to your appointment." He gave a sour grin. "They don't call us politicals for nothing. I'll have to persuade Currie, too, and the rest of the Calcutta wallahs. But I'll manage it."

When I think of the number of eminent men—and women—who have taken me at face value, and formed a high opinion of my character and abilities, it makes me tremble for my country's future. I mean, if they can't spot me as a wrong 'un, who can they spot? Still, it's pleasant to be well thought of, and has made my fortune, at the expense of some hellish perils—and minor difficulties such as conveying tactfully to Henry Lawrence that I wouldn't have touched his disgusting proposal with a long pole. My prime reason being that I was sick to loathing of India, and the service, the Sikhs, and bloody carnage and deadly danger, and being terrified and bullied and harried and used, when all I wanted was the fleshpots of home, and bulling Elspeth and civilised women, and never to stir out of England again. I daren't tell him that, but fortunately there was a way out.

"That's most kind of you, sir," says I. "I'm honoured, 'deed I am. But I'm afraid I have to decline."

"What's that you say?" He was bristling in an. instant; ready to fight with his own shadow if it contradicted him, was H.M.L.

"I can't stay in the Punjab, sir. And now that the war's over, I intend to go home."

"Do you indeed? And may I ask why?" He was fairly boiling.

"It's not easy to explain, sir. I'd take it as a favour … if you'd just allow me to decline—with regret, I assure you—"

"I'll do no such thing! Can't stay in the Punjab, indeed!" He calmed abruptly, eyeing me. "Is this because of Hardinge?"

"No, sir, not at all. I'm simply applying to be sent home."

He sat back, tapping a finger. "You've never shirked—so there must be a good reason for this … this nonsense! Come, man—what is it? Out with it!"

"Very well, sir—since you press me." I figured it was time to explode my mine. "The fact is, you ain't the only one who wants me at Lahore. There is a lady there … who has intentions—honourable, of course—and … well, it won't do, you see. She's—"

"Good God!" I'm probably the only man who ever made Henry Lawrence take the name of the Lord in vain. "Not the Maharani?"

"Yes, sir. She's made it perfectly plain, I'm afraid. And I'm married, you know." For some reason, God knows what, I added: "Mrs Flashman wouldn't like it a bit."

He didn't say anything for about three minutes—d'you know, I'm sure the blighter was absolutely wondering what advantage there might be to having the Queen Mother of the Punjab panting for his assistant. They're all alike, these blasted politicals. Finally, he shook his head, and said he took my point, but while it ruled out Lahore, there was no reason why I should not be employed elsewhere -

"No, sir," says I, firmly. "I'm going home. If necessary, I'll sell out." Perhaps it was that I hadn't got over my illness, but I was sick and tired and ready for a stand-up tight if he wanted one. I think he sensed it, for he became quite reasonable, and said he would see to it. He wasn't a bad chap, you know, and quite half-human, as he showed towards the end of our conversation.

"I can see that you might furnish me with material for another romantic novel," says he, looking whimsical. "Tell me: is the lady as personable as they say?"

He wasn't the only one to ask me that kind of question. It has been my fate to make the acquaintance of several mysterious beauties who excited the randy interest of my superiors—I recall Elgin going quite pink with curiosity about the Empress of China, and the gleam in the eyes of Colin Campbell and Hugh Rose when they cross-examined me about the Rani of Jhansi. Lincoln and Palmerston, too. I told Lawrence she was a little stunner, but given to alcoholic excess, and on no account to be trusted—political information, you see, but no lascivious details. He said he'd be interested to meet her, and I advised him that Gardner was his man.⁵²

"You'll conduct Goolab Singh, at least," says he, which I didn't mind, since it was sure to infuriate Hardinge, and the next afternoon found me trotting out along the Lahore road, in uniform again, to meet the elephant train bringing the Khalsa emissaries down from Loolianee. Lawrence had told me that they were to be shown no ceremony, and I should wait about half a mile out and let them come to me, for form's sake. But they halted a good mile from the town, and I could see the mahouts picketing the beasts and tents being raised for the sirdars, while a small body of gorracharra mounted guard about them; I continued to sit my pony, waiting, and presently I saw a solitary horseman cantering down towards me, and it was Goolab himself. He gave a wave and a great bellow of "Salaam, soldier!" as he drew rein alongside, grinning all over his rogue's red face, and taking my hand. To my surprise he was wearing no armour or finery, only a simple robe and turban.

"It is not for the envoy of a beaten foe to come in state and pride!" says he. "I am but a poor suppliant, seeking mercy from the Malki lat, and so I dress the part. And a single soldier comes to meet me—albeit a distinguished one. Ah, well, these are hard times."

I asked him where Dalip was. "In good hands. A wilful child, who shows me no respect; he has been too much among women, so doubtless they will be his downfall some day. Presently I shall bring him—leading him by the hand, remember?" He chuckled and looked sly. "But only when the treaty is agreed beyond peradventure; until then I keep the bird in my hand."

We were moving at a walk towards the Kussoor lines, for he seemed in no hurry; indeed, fora man bound on a delicate embassy he was uncommon carefree, joking and making small talk, with an air of great contentment. Only when I mentioned that I'd be going home in a day or two, did he rein up in astonishment.

"But why? When fortune awaits you here? No—not that royal slut in Lahore Fort! Gurdana has told me of that; you would not be such a fool! As well mate with a krait.. But in Kashmir, with me!" He was grinning and frowning together. "Did you doubt me, when I promised you a golden future yonder? Regiments to command, a general's rank, lordships and revenues—Gurdana has accepted already! Aye, he leaves Lahore, to come to me! And why should not you? Is the Bloody Lance of Afghanistan less of a soldier than Gurdana, or that dog-dirt Harlan, who lorded it under Runjeet, or Avitabile and the rest?" He struck me on the shoulder. "And we have stood up together, you and I—and who stands with Goolab has a friend!"

If that was how he remembered our scuffle in the Lahore alleys, let him—but wasn't there a movement to recruit Flashy these days, just? Reputation and credit, there's no currency to touch them. Lawrence, Goolab . . even a queen setting her cap at me. Aye, but they ain't home. I thanked him, explaining politely that I wasn't a soldier of fortune, and he shook his head, threw up his great shoulders, and let it go. I asked him if he was so sure of getting Kashmir, and he said it was in the treaty. It was my turn to stare.

"But the terms are secret—you don't know 'em yet!"

"Do I not? Oh, not from Lawence Sahib, or any of your people." He rumbled with laughter. "Is this the Punjab, and shall I not know what passes? A treaty of sixteen articles, whereby the durbar will give up to Britain the Sutlej banks, and the Jullundur Doab, and keep only a kutch-*(*Inferior.) Khalsa of a mere 20,000 bayonets and 12,000 horse, and pay a mighty indemnity of a million and a half sterling …" He burst out laughing at my amazement. "You need not tell Lawrence Sahib and the Malki lat that I know it all—let them sleep at nights! But if you should, it is no matter—they will keep the bargain, because it is all they need—a rich province of the Punjab, to punish us and show the world the folly of challenging the Sirkar; a tiny, feeble Khalsa—oh, aye, to be commanded by that lion among warriors, Tej Singh, with Lal as Wazir; and a sub-missive durbar to do your bidding, with Dalip and his mother obedient puppets—handsomely subsidised, to be sure, So the Punjab remains free—but its mistress is the White Queen."

I didn't doubt his information—in a land of spies there are no secrets. And it was the best of bargains for us: control without conquest. One thing, though, I couldn't see.

"How on earth is the Lahore durbar to pay a fine of a million and a half? They're bankrupt, ain't they?"

"Assuredly. So, having no money, they will pay in kind—by ceding Kashmir and the hill country to the British."

"And we'll give you Kashmir, for services rendered?"

He sighed. "No … you will sell me Kashmir, for half a million. Your countrymen don't overlook opportunities for profit. And they say the Jews are sharp! The price is not mentioned in the treaty—nor is another item which is to be surrendered as a token of Punjabi good faith and loyalty."

"What's that?"

"You have heard of our Mountain of Light Koh-i-Noor, the great diamond of Golconda? Well, that too is to be taken from us, as a trophy for your Queen."

"Ye don't say? Her Majesty's share of the loot, eh? Well, well!"

"Let her have it," says Goolab magnanimously, "To the strong, the prize. And to the patient, gold-bought slave … Kashmir."

Hardinge evidently hadn't been warned that I was infesting headquarters again, for he started visibly when I ushered Goolab into the big durbar tent, and darted an indignant glance at Lawrence. There was a fine gallery, including Mackeson, who had narrowly lost the Agent's post to Lawrence after Broadfoot's death; Currie, the government secretary; and any number of "Calcutta wallahs", as Lawrence had called them. As I presented "His Highness, the Raja Goolab Singh", I could almost read Hardinge's mind: conspiracy, he was thinking, the little bugger's been wangling a 99-year lease on the Khyber Pass. He was all frost and dignity to Goolab, who truckled like a good 'un, leaning on a stick and making much of his gouty foot in the hope of being asked to sit, which he wasn't; Hardinge returned his greeting with a formal statement conveying (but without saying so, for he was a dab hand at diplomatic chat) that the terms which he would shortly hear had been designed to cut the Punjab down to size, and they could think themselves lucky to get off so lightly. He then turned the old chief over to Currie and Lawrence, who would explain the treaty, and they took him off. Hardinge gave me another cold glare, and for a moment I thought he was going to address me, but he changed his mind; from the way the Calcutta toadies sniffed and eyed me askance I could see that the word was out that Flashy was a Bad Penny, so I lit a cheroot, hoping to be rebuked; I wasn't, so I tooled out to take the air.

Lawrence had told me that morning that I should_ go down to Umballa the following day (and so home, thank God!), so when I left the durbar I made a few calls, to collect letters and any trinkets that my comrades might want transported—quicker and safer than the Army post, you see. There was general lamentation at my departure (for as Thomas Hughes has told you, I had a gift of popularity), and dear old Paddy Gough absolutely called me into his command tent and insisted on my having a glass with him.

"The best men always get kilt, or married, or retire!" says he, pledging me. "Ye've done the last two, Flash-man, my son—here's wishin' you never do the first! Which reminds me—did ye give that neckercher back after Ferozeshah? Ye did nott, ye light-fingered young divil! Would ye believe it, Smith—a staff galloper that plunders his own gineral's effects in the presence o' the inimy? He did, though! Ye nivver saw the like o' that in the Peninsula, I'll be bound!"

This was to Harry Smith, looking more like Wellington than usual. "Never trust a political," says he. "Health, Flashman." And as they drank, d'ye know, I felt quite moved, for Paddy had been having some conference or other, and his marquee was full of leading men -- Joe Thackwell, and Gilbert with his arm in a sling from Sobraon, and the Gravedigger, and younger fellows like Edwardes, and Johnny Nicholson, and Rake Hodson, and Hope Grant. Well, 'tisn't every day you have your health drunk by chaps like those.⁵³

Their talk was all of Sobraon, of course: the Grave-digger had had his fifth horse of the campaign shot out from under him, and Thackwell said they'd have to start charging him for remounts; Harry Smith said it was the fourth worst scrap he'd ever been in, the first three being Waterloo, Badajoz, and New Orleans, in that order, which set them arguing; old M'Gregor, the poultice-walloper, enthralled me with a charming dissertation on the different effects on the frame of a musket ball and a grapeshot, with a tasteful description of knee-wounds;⁵⁴ and I made them laugh with my account of Tej Singh's funkhole, and a modestly doctored version of my escape across the Sutlej.

"An' I thought it was just Sikhs we were shootin' at!" cries Hodson. "Oh, Flashy, if only we'd known!"

And in the midst of all the noise and laughter who should come mincing in but the little squirt of an aide with whom I'd bandied words outside Lawrence's tent the day before. In that company you'd have thought he'd have slipped in quietly, but he was fresh from Eton or Addiscombe or one of those shops, for he marched straight up to Paddy's table, took off his hat, and in a shrill voice asked permission to deliver a message from the Governor-General. No compliments, or anything of the sort, but Paddy, at ease with his glass, and supposing it was for him, told him to fire away. The squirt turned to me with a malicious glint in his eye.

"Mr Flashman!" squeaks he, and as he spoke the chatter died away altogether. "Sir Henry Hardinge under-stands that you are leaving the Army of the Sutlej tomorrow. He instructs me to tell you that your services are no longer required on his personal staff, and that you are to consider yourself withdrawn from all military and political duties forthwith. I am also to remind you that smoking in the durbar tent is strictly prohibited."

There wasn't a sound for a moment, except M'Gregor's wheezing. Then someone said "Good God!" And I, dumbfounded by that deliberate insult, uttered in the presence of the flower of the Army, somehow found the wit to reply quietly.

"My compliments to the Governor-General," says I, "and my thanks for his courtesy. That's all. You can go."

He couldn't, though. While everyone, after a stunned pause, was talking to his neighbour loudly as though nothing had happened, the Gravedigger was looming over the squirt like an avenging angel.

"Boy!" thunders he, and I'll swear the lad quivered. "Are you lost to propriety? Are you unaware that a personal communication is delivered in private? Outside, sir, this instant! And when you have purged your insolence, you may return, to offer your apology to this officer, and to the Commander-in-Chief! Now—go!"

"I was told —" pipes the oaf.

"Do you defy me'?" roars Havelock. "Go!"

And he went, leaving me with my cheeks burning, and black rage inside me. To be spoken to, in that company, by a niddering green from the nursery, and not a thing to be done about it. But it couldn't have happened before better men; in a moment they were laughing and prosing away, and Gough gave me a grin and a shake of the head. Harry Smith got to his feet, and as he passed out he clapped my arm and whispered: "Hardinge never intended that, you know." And Johnny Nicholson and Hodson rallied round, and M'Gregor told a joke about amputations.

Looking back, I don't blame Hardinge, altogether. With all his faults, he knew what was fitting, and I don't doubt that, in his irritation at seeing me to the fore with Goolab, he had muttered something like: "That damned pup is everywhere! Leaving tomorrow, is he? Not before time! Tell him he's suspended from duty, before he does any more mischief! And smoking, too, as though he were in a pot-house!" And Charlie, or someone, passed it on, and the squirt was given the message, and thought to hand me a set-down. He knew no better. Aye, but Hardinge should have seen that the thing was done decently—dammit, he could have sent for me himself, and coupled rebuke with a word of thanks for my services, whether he meant it or not. But he hadn't, and his creature had made me look a fool. Well, perhaps two could play at that game.

In the meantime, old Goolab Singh was closeted in talk with Currie and Lawrence, and no doubt holding up his paws in horror as each successive clause of the treaty was put to him." I'm sure he never let on that he knew it all beforehand, but had a jolly time shaking his grizzled beard and protesting that the durbar would never agree to such harsh terms. The negotiations went on all afternoon and evening—leastways, Goolab did, for Currie gave up after a few hours, and left him, and Lawrence lay down on his charpoy and pretended sleep. It was all gammon, for Goolab was bound to agree in the end, but he kept at it for appearance's sake, and didn't run out of wind till the small hours. I was on hand, indulging my 'satiable curiosity, when Lawrence saw him off, but didn't speak to him. He limped away from the tent, climbed stiffly aboard his pony, and trotted off towards the sirdars' camp, and that was the last I ever saw of him, a burly old buffer on horseback, looking like Ali Baba off to gather firewood in the moonlight.⁵⁵

"All right and tight, and ready to be signed when we come to Lahore," says Lawrence. "Prosy old beggar⁵⁶ . Well pleased, though, if I'm a judge. He should be—you don't have a kingdom dropped into your lap every day. He'll bring the little Maharaja to Hardinge in a day or two." He yawned and stretched, looking at the night sky. "But by then you'll be hasting home, you fortunate fellow. Stay a moment and we'll have a rum-shrub to set you on your way,"

This was condescension, for he wasn't sociable as a rule. I took a turn along the tent-lines as I waited, admiring the moon shadows drifting across the empty doab, and looking along the grey, straight ribbon of the Lahore road which, God willing, I'd never take again. Not long ago it had shaken to the tramp of a hundred thousand men, and the rumble of great guns … "Khalsa-ji! To Delhi, to London!" … and the march had ended in the burning ruins of Ferozeshah and the waters under Sobraon. The whirlwind had come raging out of the Five Rivers country, and now it was gone without a whisper … and as Lawrence put it, I was hasting home.

Hardinge had his peace, and his hand on the reins of the Punjab. Goolab had his Kashmir, Britain her frontier beyond the Sutlej where the hills began, and the northern door of India was fast against the Moslem tide. Little Dalip would have his throne, and his delectable mother the trappings of power and luxurious ease with all the booze and bed-men she desired (with one grateful exception). Tej Singh and Lal Singh could enjoy the fruits of their treachery, and old Paddy had still "nivver bin bate". Alick Gardner would have his fine estate in the high hills beyond Jumoo, dreaming no doubt of far Wisconsin, and Broadfoot and Sale and Nicolson their lines in the Gazette. Maka Khan and Imam Shah had their graves by Sobraon ghat (although I didn't know that, then). Mangla was still the richest slave-girl in Lahore, and like to be richer . . I could feel a twinge at the thought of her—and still do, whenever I see black gauze. And Jassa had got an open road out of town, which is usually the best his kind can ever hope for.

All in all … not a bad little war, would you say? Everyone had got what they wanted, more or less … perhaps, in their own mad way, even the Khalsa. Twenty thousand dead, Sikh, Indian, and British … a lot of good men, as Gardner said. But … peace for the rest, and plenty for the few. Which reminds me, I never did discover what happened to the Soochet legacy.

No one could foresee, then, that it would all be to do over, that in three short years the Sikhs would be in arms again, Paddy's white coat would come out of the closet reeking of camphor, and the bayonets and tulwars would cross once more at Chillianwalla and Gujerat. And after-wards, the Union Flag would fly over the Punjab at last, Broadfoot could rest easy, and the twice-beaten but never-conquered Khalsa would be reborn in the regiments which stood fast in the Mutiny and have held the Raj's northern border all through my time. For the White Queen … and for their salt. The little boy who'd exulted over my pepperbox and ridden laughing to Jupindar rocks would live out a wastrel life in exile, and Mai Jeendan, the dancing queen and Mother of all Sikhs, her appetite undiminished and her beauty undimmed, would pass away, of all places, in England.*(*See Appendix II.) But all that happened another day, when I was up the Mississippi with the bailiffs after me. My Punjab story ends here, and I can't croak, for like all the others I too had my heart's desire -- a whole skin and a clear run home. I wouldn't have minded a share of the credit, but I didn't care that much. Most of my campaigns have ended with undeserved roses all the way to Buckingham Palace, so I can even smile at the irony that when, for once, I'd done good service (funking, squealing, and reluctant, I admit) and come close to lying in the ground for it, all I received was the cold shoulder, to be meekly endured … well, more or less.

Lawrence and I walked over to the big marquee which served as mess and dining-room; everyone seemed to be there, for Hardinge had waited up for news of the treaty talk with Goolab, and he and the Calcutta gang were enjoying a congratulatory prose before turning in. Lawrence gave me a quick glance as we entered, as much as to say would I rather we went to his quarters, but I steered ahead; Gough and Smith and the best of the Army were there, too, and I chaffed with Hodson and Edwardes while Lawrence called up the shrub. I downed a glass to settle myself, and then took an amble over to where Hardinge was sitting, with Currie and the other diploma tics.

"Good evening, sir," says I, toady-like, "or good morning, rather. I'm off today, you know."

"Ah, yes," says he, stuffy offhand. "Indeed. Well, good-bye, Flashman, and a safe journey to you." He didn't offer his hand, but turned away to talk to Currie.

"Well, thank'ee, your excellency," says I. "That's handsome of you. May I offer my congratulations on a successful issue from our recent … ah, troubles, and so forth?"

He shot me a look, his brow darkening, suspecting insolence but not sure. "Thank you," snaps he, and showed me his shoulder.

"Treaty all settled, too, I believe," says I genially, but loud enough to cause heads to turn. Paddy had stopped talking to Gilbert and Mackeson, Havelock was frowning under his beetle-brows, and Nicholson and Hope Grant and a dozen others were watching me curiously. Hardinge himself came round impatiently, affronted at my familiarity, and Lawrence was at my elbow, twitching my sleeve to come away.

"Good bandobast all round,' says I, "but one of the clauses will need a little arrangement, I fancy. Well, 'tain't a clause, exactly … more of an understanding, don't you know —"

"Are you intoxicated, sir? I advise you to go to your quarters directly!"

"Stone cold sober, excellency , I assure you. The Leith police dismisseth us. British constitution. No, you see, one of the treaty clauses—or rather the understanding I mentioned—can't take effect without my assistance. So before I take my leave —"

"Major Lawrence, be good enough to conduct this officer —"

"No, sir, hear me out, do! It' the great diamond, you see—the Koh-i-Noor, which the Sikhs are to hand over. Well, they can't do that if they haven't got it, can they? So perhaps you'd best give it 'em back first—then they can present it to you all official-like, with proper ceremony … Here, catch!"

[The ninth packet of the Flashman Papers ends here, with typical abruptness. A few weeks later the Koh-i-Noor was again in the possesion of the Lahore durbar, and was shown round at t-he treaty ceremony, but it was not finally surrendered until the annexation of the Punjab in 1849 after the Second Sikh War. The diamond was then presented to Queen Victoria by Hardinge's successor, Lord Dalhousie. Doubtless on Flashman's advice, she did nod wear it in her crown at the 1887 Jubilee. See Appendix III.]