Flashman and the Mountain of Light

Notes

1. "A very extraordinary and interesting sight", as the Queen recorded in her journal on May 11, 1887.

2. Whether at Flashman's prompting or not, the Queen engaged two Indian attendants in the following month, one of whom was the pushing and acquisitive Abdul Karim, known as "Munshi" (teacher); he became almost as great a royal favourite as the celebrated ghillie, John Brown, had been, and was even more unpopular at Court. "Munshi" not only tutored the Queen in Hindustani, which she began to learn in August 1887, but was given access to her correspondence, blotted her signature, and even buttered her toast at tea-time. He claimed to be the son of an eminent physician (one rumour said a Surgeon-General of the Indian Army) but investigation showed that his father was a prison pharmacist at Agra. There was, as Flashman says, a very Indian flavour to the Queen's Jubilee celebrations of 1887. During her reign, the population of the rest of the Empire had increased from 4,000,000 to 16,000,000, while that of the sub-continent had risen from 96,000,000 to a staggering 254,000,000. The Indian festivities began on February 16, and ranged from illuminations and banquets to the opening of new libraries, schools, hospitals, and colleges all over the country; in Gwalior, all arrears of land-tax (Ł1,000,000 in all) were remitted. In Britain itself the celebrations did not reach their climax until June 21, when the Queen, at the head of a procession led by the Indian Princes, attended a service in Westminster Abbey; there were loyal demonstrations everywhere (except in Cork and Dublin, where there were riotous demonstrations), and much rejoicing in the United States, where the Mayor of New York presided over a great Festival of Thanksgiving. (See The Life and Times of Queen Victoria, vol. ii (1888), by Robert Wilson, which has a detailed account of the Jubilee; Victoria, by Stanley Weintraub (1987).)

3. Flashman's memory is slightly at fault here. He was not, as he says, "retired on half-pay" at this time; in fact, he had been in Singapore inspecting Australian horses for the East India Company army, and it was during this visit that his wife, Elspeth, was kidnapped by Borneo pirates, and the adventure began which culminated in the Flashmans' rescue from Madagascar in June, 1845. In the circumstances, his failure to remember his exact military status is understandable. As to his allowing himself to be bullied into going to India, he may not have been quite as reluctant as he suggests; the Governor of Mauritius certainly had no power to compel him, and it may well have been that the Punjab crisis (which had not yet assumed serious proportions) seemed a less daunting prospect than returning to face his ill-willers in England.

4. "Elphy Bey" was Major-general William Elphinstone, commander of the British force which was wiped out on the retreat from Kabul in 1842, in which Flashman ingloriously won his first laurels. A fine soldier who distinguished himself at Waterloo, Elphinstone was hopelessly inept in Afghanistan; crippled by gout, worn out, and according to one historian, prematurely senile, he was incapable of opposing either his political advisers or the Afghans, but in fairness he was less to blame than those who appointed him to a post for which he was unfitted. Flashman gives a perceptive but characteristically uncharitable sketch of him in the first volume of the Flashman Papers. (See also J. W. Fortescue's History of the British Army, vol. xii (1927); Subedar Sita Ram's From Sepoy to Subedar (1873), and Patrick Macrory's Signal Catastrophe (1966).)

5. "John Company"—the Honourable East India Company, described by Macaulay as "the strangest of all govermnents .. for the strangest of all empires", was Britain's presence in India, with its own armed forces, civil service, and judiciary, until after the Indian Mutiny of 1857, when it was replaced by direct rule of the Crown. Flashman's definition of its boundaries in 1845 is roughly correct, and although at this period it controlled less than half of the subcontinent, his expression "lord of the land" is well chosen: the Company was easily the strongest force in Asia, and at its height had a revenue greater than Britain's and governed almost one-fifth of the world's population. (See The East India Company, by Brian Gardner (1971))

Flashman, writing in the early years of the present century, occasionally uses the word Sirkar when referring to the British power; the word in this sense means "government", but it was probably not applied exclusively to British authority as early as 1845.

6. The origins and development of the Sutlej crisis are controversial, and it is difficult even today to give an account that will satisfy everyone; nevertheless, Flashman's summary seems an eminently fair one. His racy little narrative of the power struggle at Lahore after the death of Runjeet Singh is accurate so far as it goes; indeed, it spares readers some of the gorier details (no doubt only because Flashman was unaware of them). His view of the gathering storm, the precarious position of the Lahore durbar, the menace of the Khalsa, and the misgivings of the British authorities about the loyalty of their native troops, and their ability to deal with an invasion, are reflected in the journals and letters of his contemporaries. Other points and personalities he mentions will be dealt with more fully in subsequent Notes. (See Appendix I, and G. Carmichael Smyth, History of the Reigning Family of Lahore (1847); W. Broadfoot, The Career of Major George Broadfoot (1888); Charles, Viscount Hardinge, Viscount Hardinge (1891); W. L. M'Gregor, History of the Sikhs, vol. ii (1846); Khushwant Singh, History of the Sikhs, vol. 2 (1966); J. D. Cunningham, History of the Sikhs (1849); George Bruce, Six Battles for India (1969); Fortescue; Vincent Smith, Oxford History of India (1920).)

7. Sir Hugh Gough (1779-1869) was that not unusual combination: a stern and ruthless soldier, but a kindly and likeable man. He was also entirely "Irish"—reckless, good-humoured, careless of convention and authority, and possessed of great charm; as a general, he was unpredictable and unorthodox, preferring to engage his enemy hand-to-hand and trust to the superiority of the British bayonet and sabre rather than indulge in the sophistications of manoeuvre. He attracted numerous critics, who drew attention to his shortcomings as a military organiser and tactician but could not deny his saving grace as a commander—he kept on winning. By 1845 he had a combat record unequalled by any soldier living, Wellington included, having been commissioned at 13, fought against the Dutch in South Africa and Surinam, pursued brigands in Trinidad, served throughout the Peninsular War (in which he received various wounds and a knighthood), commanded a British expedition to China, stormed Canton, forced the surrender of Nanking, and beaten the Mahrattas in India. At the time of the Sutlej crisis he was 66 years old, but sprightly in body and spirit, handsome, erect, with long receding white hair and fine moustaches and side-whiskers. The best-known portrait shows him in his famous white "fighting coat", pointing with an outstretched arm: it is said to illustrate one of the many critical moments in his career when, at Sobraon, he shouted: "What? Withdraw? Indeed I will not! Tell Sir Robert Dick to move on, in the name of God!" (See R. S. Rait, Life and Campaigns of Hugh, 1st Viscount Gough (1903); Byron Farwell, Eminent Victorian Soldiers (1985) and other works cited in these Notes.)

Sir Robert ("Fighting Bob") Sale was another highly combative general, celebrated for leading from the front, and once, when his men were mutinous, inviting them to shoot him. He fought in Burma, and in the Afghan War, where he was second-in-command of the army, and earned distinction as the defender of Jallalabad. (See also Note 9.)

8. War with the Gurkhas in 1815 brought the British to Simla, and the first European house was built there in the 1820s by one Captain Kennedy, the local superintendent, whose hospitality may have laid the foundations of its popularity as a resort. Emily Eden was the sister of Lord Auckland, Governor-General 1835-41. (See the excellently-illustrated Simla: a British Hill Station, by Pat Barr and Ray Desmond (1978).)

9. Adapting Raleigh's famous judgment on Henry VIII, one may say that "if all the patterns and pictures of the memsahibs of British India were lost to the world, they might be painted to the life from Lady Sale". Born Florentia Wynch, she was 21 when she married the dashing young Captain Robert Sale, by whom she had twelve children, one of whom, as Mrs Alexandrine Sturt, shared with her mother the horrors of the march from Kabul. Lady Sale was then 54, but although she was twice wounded and had her clothing shot through by jezzail bullets, she worked tirelessly for the sick and wounded, and for the women and children who took part in that fearful journey over the snowbound Afghan passes. Throughout the march, and during the months which she suffered in Afghan captivity, she kept the diary which is the classic account of the Kabul retreat in which all but a handful died out of 14,000. It is one of the great military journals, and a remarkable personal memoir of an indomitable woman, who recorded battle, massacre, earthquake, hardship, escape, and everyday detail with a sharp and often caustic eye. Her reaction, when soldiers were reluctant to take up their muskets to form an advance guard was: "You had better give me one, and I will lead the party." Other typical observations are: "I had, fortunately, only one ball in my arm," and the brisk entry for July 24, when she was a prisoner: "At two p.m. Mrs Sturt presented me with a grand-daughter—another female captive." During the march her son-in-law, Captain Sturt, had died beside her in the snow. Her heroism on the march was rewarded by an annual pension of Ł500 from Queen Victoria, and when she died, in her sixty-sixth year, her tombstone was given the appropriate inscription: "Under this stone reposes all that could die of Lady Sale".

Flashman writes of her with considerable affection; no doubt her forthright and unconventional style appealed to him. Her habit of putting a foot on the table to ease her gout (not rheumatism) is also recorded by one of Simla's medical officers, Henry Oldfield. (See her Journal of the Disasters in Affghanistan (1843), ed. Patrick Macrory (1969); Barr and Desmond; DNB.) [p, 29]

10. Eugene Sue's The Wandering Jew was published in 1845, and may conceivably have been available in Simla that September, but Flashman's memory has probably confused it with the author's equally popular Mysteries of Paris which appeared in 1842-3. Dumas's The Three Musketeers was first published in 1844; Flashman may well have borrowed it from one of the French officers who rescued him from Madagascar in June, 1845.

11. George Broadfoot, a large, red-haired, heavily-bespectacled and pugnacious Orcadian, was one of the early paladins of the North-West Frontier. He had distinguished himself in the Afghan War as a ferocious fighter, engineer, and military organiser, and it was in large part due to him that Jallalabad was successfully defended after the disastrous Kabul retreat.

He was awarded a C.B. and a special mention in despatches, and went on to serve in Burma before being appointed North-West Agent in 1845. He and Flashman served together on the Kabul road, and Broadfoot's brother William had been killed in the residency siege of November, 1841, in which Flashman took a reluctant part. The reference to Broadfoot's "Scotch burr" is interesting, since although he was born in Kirkwall he had lived in London and India from the age of ten.

Captain (later Sir) Henry Havelock, known to Flashman as "the Gravedigger", no doubt because of his grim appearance and religious zeal, was to become famous in the Indian Mutiny, where he relieved and was besieged in Luc-know. Flashman knew him there, and also during the Afghan campaign.

The "cabbage-eating nobleman" with the lisp was certainly Prince Waldemar of Prussia, who visited Simla in 1845 and subsequently accompanied the British army in the field. He travelled under the name of Count Ravensburg, but his hosts seem to have addressed him by his real title.

12. The rate of pay for an East India Company sepoy at this time was 7 rupees a month. The Khalsa was paying 14, and 45 rupees for cavalrymen.

13. Sind, the territory lying between the Punjab and the sea, was annexed in 1843 by Lord Ellenborough, Sir Henry Hardinge's predecessor as Governor-General; this gave Britain control of the Indus, and an important buffer against possible Moslem invasion from the north-west (see map). It was a cynical piece of work, in which Ellenborough goaded the Sind Amirs by forcing an unacceptable treaty on them; when this provoked an attack by the Baluchi warriors, Sir Charles Napier promptly conquered the country, winning the battles of Miani and Hyderabad. Public reaction to the annexation was reflected by the House of Commons, which postponed for a year the normal vote of thanks to the successful general, and by Punch, which gleefully accepted a contribution from a Miss Catherine Winkworth, aged 17, suggesting that Napier's despatch to Ellenborough must have read: "Peccavi", "I have Scinde", (sinned)." (See under. Foreign Affairs, Punch, May 18, 1844.) The annexation did not pass unnoticed in Lahore, and no doubt convinced many Sikhs that it would be their turn next.

14. Young as he was, Flashman should have known that Afghanistan was not an exception, and that political officers, who were usually Army, normally fought along with the rest. It is true that no post in battle was more dangerous than general's aide, and he may well have been right to assume that it would be especially perilous when the general was Hugh Gough.

Alexander Burnes had been Flashman's political chief at Kabul, where Sir William McNaghten was head of the Political Mission; he saw both of them murdered by the Afghans. (See Flashman.)

15. The details which Flashman gives of the Soochet legacy case are substantially correct. Raja Soochet had sent his fortune, amounting to 14 lakhs of rupees (about Ł140,000), to Ferozepore shortly before his death in March 1844; it was buried there in three huge copper vessels and dug up by Captain Saunders Abbott. Dispute as to the ownership then arose, with the Lahore durbar claiming its return, and the British government holding that it was the property of Soochet's heirs. (See Broadfoot, pp. 229-32, 329.)

16. The famous Shalamar or Shalimar gardens and pleasure grounds were laid out in the seventeenth century by Shah Jehan, creator of the Taj Mahal. Originally there were seven gardens, representing the seven divisions of Paradise, but now only three remain, covering about 80 acres. The Lahore Shalamar is not to be confused with the gardens of the same name in Kashmir.

17. When Flashman talks of the Khalsa he means simply the Punjabi army, but the term has much deeper significance, The Sikhs ("disciples") founded by Nanak in the fifteenth century as a peaceful religious sect, were transformed two hundred years later by their tenth and last Guru, Gobind Singh, into a military power to resist Muslim persecution. Gobind founded the Khalsa, the Pure, a baptised brother-hood which has been likened to the Templars and the Praetorian Guard, and rapidly became the leading order of Sikhism and the embodiment of Sikh nationhood. Among Gobind's institutions were the abolition of caste, the adoption of the surnames Singh and Kaur (lion and lioness), and the famous five k's (bangle, shorts, comb, dagger, and uncut hair). It was a fighting order, soon numbering 80,000, and under Runjeet Singh it reached the height of its power.

Contact with the British seems to have inspired him to build an army on European lines, with the assistance of French, Italian, British, American, German, and Russian instructors. The result was a superb force, quite as disciplined and formidable as Flashman describes it, well trained and equipped, and (a point not to be overlooked in examining the origins of the Sikh War) bent on conquest. Once Runjeet's iron hand was gone, the Khalsa was the real power in the Punjab, whose rulers could only hope to conciliate it. The panches which controlled it were elected by the men in accordance with village tradition.

At Runjeet's death, the numerical strength of the Khalsa was estimated at 29,000, with 192 guns. By 1845 this had risen to 45,000 regular infantry, 4000 regular cavalry, and 22,000 irregular horse (gorracharra), with 276 guns. That this figure rose further during the year seems certain; Flash-man and his contemporaries mention both 80,000 and 100,000, but how many of these would be effectives it is impossible to say. He also uses the terms Khalsa, Sikhs, and Punjabis loosely when referring to the Punjab army; it should be remarked that the Khalsa as he knew it was not composed exclusively of Sikhs. (For a breakdown of the Khalsa's strength in 1845, see Carmichael Smyth, Reigning Family, appendix; for notes on the foreign mercenaries employed by Runjeet Singh, see Gardner's Memoirs. Also works already cited in Note 6.)

18. The Akalis were the commandos of the Khalsa, a strict sect known variously as the Timeless Ones, the Children of God the Immortal, and the Crocodiles; a footnote to George Broadfoot's biography typically describes them as "devoted to misrule and plunder".

19. Since Flashman refers later in the manuscript to a Cooper pepperbox, it is probable that the pistol he drew on Dalip Singh was a Cooper also. They were manufactured from about 1840 by J. R. Cooper, a British gunsmith, and fired six rounds. (See The Revolver, 1818-65, by A. W. F. Taylerson, R. A. N. Andrews, and J. Frith (1968))

20. There is a mystery here: the "tough, shrewd-looking heavyweight" who called on Flashman with Bhai Ram Singh hardly sounds like the "good, kind, and polite old Fakir Azizudeen" who had been Runjeet Singh's foreign minister, and was still to the fore at this time, although he died of natural causes a few weeks later. Both the physical description and the style are inconsistent; indeed, the only way in which Bhai Ram's companion resembles Azizudeen is in his uncompromising honesty. Either Flashman's visitor was another courtier altogether, and he has simply got the name wrong, or his descriptive memory is playing him false for once.

21. Flashman has caught the spirit but slightly misquoted the letter of Robert Herrick's "Upon Julia's Clothes":

Next, when I cast mine eyes and see

That brave vibration each way free;

O how that glittering taketh me!

He quotes Herrick again (p. 277), but it is doubtful if he had any special affection for the poet, or would even have recognised his name. The Flashman Papers abound in erratic literary allusions—the present volume contains echoes of Donne, Shakespeare, Macaulay, Coleridge. Voltaire, Dick-ens, Scott, Congreve, Byron, Pope, Lewis Carroll, Norse mythology, and obscure corners of the Old Testament—but it would be rash to conclude that Flashman had any close acquaintance with the authors; more probably the allusions were picked up second hand from conversations and casual reading, with two exceptions. He knew Macaulay personally, and had certainly read his Lays, and he seems to have had a genuine liking for Thomas Love Peacock, whose caustic humour and strictures on Whiggery, political economy, and academics probably appealed to him. For the rest, we may judge that Flashman's frequent references to Punch, Pierce Egan's Tom and Jerry, and sensational fiction like Varney the Vampire, more fairly reflect his literary taste; we know from an earlier volume that the word Trollope meant only one thing to him, and it was not the author.

22. Alexander Haughton Campbell Gardner, "Gurdana Khan" (1785-1877), is an extraordinary figure even for an age and region which saw such adventurers as "Sekundar" Burnes, Count Ignatieff, Yakub Beg, Pottinger, Connolly, Avitabile, and John Nicholson. He was born on the shore of Lake Superior, in what is now Wisconsin, the son of a Scottish surgeon and his Anglo-Spanish wife; Dr Gardner had served on the American side in the War of Independence, and knew both Washington and Lafayette. Young Alexander spent some years in Ireland, where he seems to have learned military gunnery, possibly in the British Army, went to Egypt, and travelled by caravan from Jericho to Russia, where his brother was a government engineer. Thence he went to Central Asia, where for several years his life was one of continual warfare, raid, ambush, escape and exploration among the wild tribes; he fought as a mercenary, and for a time appears to have been little more than a wandering bandit—"Food we obtained by levying contributions from everyone we could master," he writes in his Memoirs, "but we did not slaughter except in self-defence." He seems to have had to defend himself with fatal frequency, both as soldier and freebooter, as well as escaping from slave-traders, being attacked by a wolf-pack, leading an expedition against Peshawar under the sacred banner of the Khalifa ("all burning with religious zeal and the desire to work their will in the rich city") and spending nine months in an under-ground dungeon. He rose to command a hill region with his own private fort under the rebel Habibullah Khan, who was opposing the Afghan monarch, Dost Mohammed, and it was on a foray to kidnap a princess from Dost Mohammed's harem (with her treasure) that he met his first wife—an incident described in his best laconic style:

In the course of the running fight to our stronghold I was enabled to see the beautiful face of a young girl who accompanied the princess. I rode for a consider-able time beside her, pretending that my respect for the elder lady made me choose that side of her camel … On the following morning Habibulla Khan richly rewarded his followers, but I refused my share of the gold and begged for this girl to be given to me in marriage .

She was, and for two years they lived happily, until Gardner returned from an action in which he had lost 51 men out of 90, to find that his fort had been attacked, and his wife had stabbed herself rather than be taken prisoner; their baby son had also been murdered. Although he continued in Afghanistan for some years, and was reconciled with Dost Mohammed, he eventually took service in the Punjab with Runjeet Singh, training the Khalsa in gunnery, fought in various actions, and was in Lahore in the six years of bloodshed and intrigue following Runjeet's death. He was guard commander to the infant Dalip Singh and Rani Jeendan at the time of his meeting with Flashman, but he was strongly pro-British (his friends included Henry Lawrence) and believed that India's future would be best served by ever closer communion with the United Kingdom. In his letter "from John Bull of India to John Bull of England", he envisaged the development of India as a great industrial nation, with Indians playing their part in the highest posts in civil and military life, and being represented in both Houses at Westminster. Physically, Gardner was as Flashman describes him—six feet tall, fierce, lean, and of iron constitution. As a result of one of his numerous wounds he was unable to swallow solid food, and could drink only with the help of an iron collar, but even in his eightieth year he was said to be as active as a man of fifty, lively and humorous, and speaking an English which was "quaint, graphic, and wonderfully good considering his fifty years among Asiatics". The photograph in his Memoirs shows a splendid old war-horse, beak-nosed and with bristling whiskers, seated sword in hand and clad in a full suit of tartan, even to his plumed turban. He bought the cloth from a Highland regiment in India, but which tartan it is cannot be told from the monochrome picture, and thereby hangs a small mystery.

Flashman says it was the tartan of the 79th (Cameron) Highlanders, and describes it as red or crimson—which is slightly puzzling, since the 79th's kilt is largely dark blue, being a hybrid of the MacDonald and a crimson element from the Lochiel Cameron. It may be that Flashman, who knew his military tartans, regarded it as "red" only by contrast with those of the four other Highland regiments, which are predominantly dark blue-green. The only other explanation is that he was entirely mistaken, and Gardner was wearing not the 79th tartan but the red and resplendent Lochiel Cameron—in which case the Colonel must have been a sight to behold. (See Memoirs of Alexander Gardner, ed. Hugh W. Pearse (1890).)

23. It is quite possible that Kipling based Daniel Dravot, the hero of The Man Who Would Be King, on Dr Harlan. He would surely have heard of the American, and there is a strong echo, in Dravot's fictional Kafiristan adventure (published in 1895), of Harlan's aspirations first to the throne of Afghanistan, and later successfully to the kingship of Ghor, as described in Gardner's Memoirs (published in 1890); whether Harlan's story was true is beside the point. Like many passages in his astonishing career, it lacks corroboration; on the other hand it was accepted, along with the rest, by such authorities as Major Pearse, who was Gardner's editor, and the celebrated Dr Wolff.

Josiah Harlan (1799-1871) was born in Newlin Township, Pennsylvania, the son of a merchant whose family came from County Durham. He studied medicine, sailed as a supercargo to China, and after being jilted by his American fiancee, returned to the East, serving as surgeon with the British Army in Burma. He then wandered to Afghanistan,—where he embarked on that career as diplomat, spy, mercenary soldier, and double (sometimes treble) agent which so enraged Colonel Gardner. The details are confused, but it seems that Harlan, after trying to take Dost Mohammed's throne, and capturing a fortress, fell into the hands of Runjeet Singh. The Sikh maharaja, recognising a rascal of genius when he saw one, sent him as envoy to Dost Mohammed; Harlan, travelling disguised as a dervish, was also working to subvert Dost's throne on behalf of Shah Sujah, the exiled Afghan king; not content with this, he ingratiated himself with Dost and became his agent in the Punjab—in effect, serving three masters against each other. Although, as one contemporary remarks with masterly understatement, Harlan's life was now somewhat complicated, he satisfied at least two of his employers: Shah Sujah made him a Companion of the Imperial Stirrup, and Runjeet gave him the government of three provinces which he administered until, it is said, the maharaja discovered that he was running a coining plant on the pretence of studying chemistry. Even then, Runjeet continued to use him as an agent, and it was Harlan who successfully suborned the Governor of Peshawar to betray the province to the Sikhs. He then took service with Dost Mohammed (whom he had just betrayed), and was sent with an expedition against the Prince of Kunduz; it was in this campaign that the patriotic doctor "surmounted the Indian Caucasus, and unfurled my country's banner to the breeze under a salute of 26 guns …the star-spangled -banner waved gracefully among the icy peaks." What this accomplished is unclear, but soon after-wards Harlan managed to obtain the throne of Ghor from its hereditary prince. This was in 1838; a year later he was acting as Dost's negotiator with the British invaders at Kabul; Dost subsequently fled, and Harlan was last seen having breakfast with "Sekundar" Burnes, the British political agent.

Thus far Harlan's story rests largely on a biographical sketch by the missionary, Dr Joseph Wolff; they met briefly during Harlan's governorship of Gujerat, but Wolff (who of course never had the advantage of reading the present packet of the Flashman Papers) confesses that he knows nothing of the American after 1839. In fact, Harlan returned to the U.S. in 1841, married in 1849, raised Harlan's Light Horse for the Union in the Civil War, was invalided out, and ended his days practising medicine in San Francisco; obviously he must have revisited the Punjab in the 1840s, when Flashman knew him. Of his appearance and character other contemporaries tell us little; Dr Wolff describes "a fine tall gentleman" given to whistling "Yankee Doodle", and found him affable and engaging. Gardner mentions meeting him at Gujerat in the 1830s, but speaks no ill of him at that time.

His biographer, Dr Joseph Wolff, D.D., LL.D (1795-1862), was a scholar, traveller, and linguist whose adventures were even more eccentric than Harlan's. Known as "the Christian Dervish", and "the Protestant Xavier", he was born in Germany, the son of a Jewish rabbi, and during his "extraordinary nomadic career" converted to Christianity, was expelled from Rome for questioning Papal infallibility, scoured the Middle and Far East in search of the Lost Tribes of Israel, preached Christianity in Jerusalem, was shipwrecked in Cephalonia, captured by Central Asian slave-traders (who priced him at only Ł2.50, much to his annoyance), and walked 600 miles through Afghanistan "in a state of nudity", according to the Dictionary of National Biography. He made a daring return to Afghanistan in search of the missing British agents, Stoddart and Connolly, and narrowly escaped death at the hands of their executioner. At other times Dr Wolff preached to the U.S. Congress, was a deacon in New Jersey, an Anglican priest in Ireland, and finally became vicar of a parish in Somerset. As Flashman has remarked, there were some odd fellows about in the earlies. (See Gardner; The Travels and Adventures of Dr Wolff (1860); Dictionary of American Biography; D.N.B.)

24. Flashman's is by far the fullest of the many descriptions of the murder of Jawaheer Singh on the 6th of Assin (September 21), 1845. He differs from other versions only in minor details: obviously he was unaware that two of the Wazir's attendants were also killed, and that for a time Dalip Singh was a prisoner of the troops. But his description of the Rani's reaction, while more graphic in detail, is borne out by other writers, who testify to her hysteria and threats of vengeance. (It has been suggested that she was a party to her brother's death, but this seems most improbable, although on one occasion she had contemplated his arrest.) That Jawaheer knew of his peril is certain; he had, as Flashman says, attempted to buy his security on the previous evening, but on the fatal day he seems to have believed that he would escape with his life. In fact, he was foredoomed, not only because of Peshora Singh's death, but (according to Cunningham) because the Khalsa believed he would "bring in the British". (See Cunningham, Carmichael Smyth, Khushwant Singh, Gardner, and others.)

At first glance, Flashman's comparison of Jeendan to Clytemnestra would seem to refer to the Hon. J. Collier's celebrated painting of Agamemnon's queen, but this cannot be the case. Flashman wrote the present memoir before 1902—so much is clear from his noting on p. 20 that it was written before his Borneo adventure, which he set down in or soon after that year. Since Collier's painting was not exhibited until the Royal Academy of 1914, Flashman must be refer-ring to some earlier, as yet unidentified, painting of Clytemnestra.

25. Confirmation of the details of this deplorable episode is to be found in Carmichael Smyth.

26. Flashman's detailed eye-witness account of this durbar can-not be confirmed in all its particulars, but its substance is to be found in other authorities, including such contemporaries as Broadfoot and Carmichael Smyth. Jeendan plainly knew how to manage her troops, whether by overawing them with royal dignity, or captivating them by appearing unveiled and dressed as a dancing-girl. Carmichael Smyth describes her initial refusal to listen to their entreaties after Jawaheer's death, her dictation of terms at the Summum Boorj, her insistence on Lal Singh as Wazir rather than Goolab, and her dispersal of the Khalsa on the understanding that she would soon launch it across the Sutlej. Broadfoot's account, quoting Nicolson, speaks for itself:

Court's brigade was in favour of making Raja Gulab Singh minister; the other brigades seemed disposed to support the Rani, who behaved at this crisis with great courage. Sometimes as many as two thousand of these reckless and insubordinate soldiers would attend the Darbar at one time. `The Ranee, against the remonstrances of the chiefs, receives them unveiled, with which they are so charmed that even Court's brigade agreed to confirm her in the government if she would move to their camp and let them see her unveiled whenever they thought proper.' These strange disorderly ruffians, even when under the direct influence of her great beauty and personal attractions, reproved her for her unconcealed misconduct with Raja Lal Singh, and recommended her, as she seemed to dislike solitude, to marry; they told her she might select whom she pleased out of three classes, namely, chiefs, akalis, or wise men. She adopted a bold tone with the troops, and not only reproached them, but abused them in the grossest language, whilst they listened with pretended humility.

27. Flashman is consistently vague about dates, and does nothing to clear up the longstanding mystery of when exactly the Sikhs invaded across the Sutlej. December 11 is the favourite date, but estimates by both British and Indian historians vary from the 8th to the 15th. Sir Henry Hardinge formally declared war on the 13th, and as Khushwant Singh points out, this almost certainly followed the crossing of the first Sikh units; the whole operation must have taken some days. Nicolson, at Ferozepore, says the invasion began on the 11th; Abbott, however, is definite that Broadfoot received word of it on the morning of the 10th.

28. If Flashman were not so positive, one might be tempted to regard this reference to "Drink, puppy, drink" as another misplaced musical memory; elsewhere in the Papers he occasionally errs in "remembering" tunes (e.g. "The Gal-loping Major", "Old Folks at Home") before they have been written. At first sight, "Drink, puppy, drink" and "The Tarpaulin Jacket", which he quotes on p. 233, look like similar cases of faulty recollection; both were written by Flashman's fellow-officer, George Whyte-Melville (1821-78), none of whose writings appear to have been published before his first retirement from the Army in 1849. So how can Flashman have known them in 1845, and be so sure of "Drink, puppy, drink" that he refers to it no fewer than three times in his memoirs of that year?

There is a plausible explanation. Although no reference to Whyte-Melville has yet appeared in The Flashman Papers, it is quite possible that they met as early as their first year in the Army, when Flashman was stationed at Glasgow and Whyte-Melville was a subaltern in the 93rd (later Argyll, and Sutherland) Highlanders. In such a small society it would be strange if two young men with so much in common did not come together: they were the sons of landed gentlemen who had married into the aristocracy, were both outstanding horsemen, keen sportsmen, and popular convivialists, and may even have discovered a bond of suffering from their schooldays (Flashman at Arnold's Rugby, Whyte-Melville at Eton under the notorious Keate). And when it is remembered that Whyte-Melville's considerable literary talent was of that precocious, carefree kind which may be called amateur in the true sense (in later life he gave all his royalties to establishing reading-rooms for stable boys, and similar charities), it seems quite probable that such songs as "Drink, puppy, drink" were being sung in messes and clubs long before their genial author had even thought of looking for a publisher.

An interesting discovery, from Flashman's dungeon ordeal, is that in roasting Tom Brown so memorably before the schoolroom fire at Rugby (see Tom Brown's Schooldays), he was simply passing on a lesson learned from the deplorable Dawson, to whom he also refers in Flashman in the Great Game.

29. How many Sikhs crossed the Sutlej it is impossible to say, far less how many were in the field on both sides of the river. Flashman's.eventual figure of 50,000 may not be far out, but it can be regarded as a maximum; Cunningham's estimate is 35,000-40,000, plus another force of unspecified size advancing on Ludhiana. Against this Gough had about 30,000 at most, but only 22,000 of these were on or near the frontier, and they were widely dispersed. The Khalsa, according to Cunningham, had a superiority of almost two to one in artillery.

30. Lal Singh did send this note to Peter Nicolson, word for word except that where Flashman gives "Khalsa" Lal wrote "Sikh army". He also informed Nicolson of Jeendan's friendship, with the hope that the British would "cut up" the invaders. Nicolson's reply was that Lal should not attack Ferozepore, but delay and march to meet the British—thus confirming what Flashman had already told the Wazir. These proofs of treachery by the Khalsa's own leaders were not published immediately, as a result of Nicolson's death, but Dr M'Gregor, writing within a year of the event, obviously knew the truth: having pointed out that a leader like Runjeet Singh would have caused as much havoc as possible by burning and sacking on a wide front, he adds: "We are almost tempted to believe that the Sikh leaders wished to keep their troops together, in order that the British might have a full and fair opportunity of destroying them!" In 1849 Cunningham was stating bluntly that the object of the Sikh leaders was "to get their own troops dispersed by the [British]". He knew of Lal's correspondence with Nicolson, but not the details. In the light of what these two respected historians wrote at the time, it is remarkable to find William Broadfoot, forty years later, disputing the charge of treachery against Lal and Tej. Nor was he alone; at least one other British historian discounted it. If, in the light of the evidence available, any doubt remained, Flashman has surely dispelled it. (See Cunningham, Khushwant Singh, M'Gregor, Broadfoot, and Herbert Compton, "Mudki and Firozshah", in Battles of the Nineteenth Century (1896))

31. Flashman's memory is almost certainly at fault. Lieut.-Col. Huthwaite may well have been able to tell which guns were being used, but the British howitzers did not arrive at Mudki until the following day. (See Fortescue.)

32. A fair judgment, and Flashman had cause to be pleased with his strategy, for although the British force was only slightly larger than the Sikh, it had an advantage of four or five to one in infantry, which was decisive. "Unsatisfactory and unduly costly" is Fortescue's verdict, and he is rightly critical of Gough for attacking head-on an enemy stationed in jungle. But considering that the British force had covered sixty miles in two days before going into action, it could have been worse.

33. This remarkable observation, so characteristic of Broadfoot, was originally made by him after a skirmish in Afghanistan from which he emerged perspiring heavily and with a blood-stained sabre, having killed three men and been wounded himself. (See Broadfoot.)

34. This is the only existing account of the extraordinary exchange between Hardinge and Gough before Ferozeshah, although the gist of their conversation was communicated to intimates soon afterwards. Charles Hardinge, in his father's biography, was an eye-witness from a distance, but apparently out of earshot. Unique or not, the dispute arose from Hardinge's decision to place himself under the military command of Gough, while retaining overall authority as Governor-General. In theory it was a risky arrangement, but understandable; it would have been foolish not to use Hardinge's military experience. He had been twice wounded in the Peninsular War, losing a hand, served as deputy quartermaster-general of the Portuguese army, and been attached to Prussian headquarters in the Waterloo campaign, in which he was again badly wounded. He was active in politics, serving as Wellington's Secretary for War, before being sent to India as Governor-General. (See Hardinge, and Note 40.)

35. This military pleasantry was still going the rounds in the Second World War. Only the 9th Foot (Royal Norfolk) could take a lady into barracks, the "lady" being the figure of Britannia on their cap badge.

36. Historians disagree about the behaviour of the Sikh cavalry. One describes their advance as hesitant, Fortescue says they were stationary, but an eye-witness called it "the most splendid sight of the campaign, their horses caracoling and bounding, and the bright sunlight flashed from steel armour and spears … they came on at a rapid pace to within four hundred yards of the British line," Gough's biographer hardly mentions it. Obviously it depends on the point of view, but Flashman is probably right in thinking that White's intervention was decisive.

37. This incident is true. Gough "with my gallant aide" (C. R. Sackville West; he had obviously forgotten Flashman) deliberately rode ahead to draw the Khalsa's fire, and succeeded. He has been criticised for needlessly endangering himself; on the other hand, it has been argued that the effect on his troops' morale was considerable. Gough himself probably never gave a thought either to danger or morale; he seems to have acted emotionally, on the spur of the moment.

38. Flashman's account of the two days of Ferozeshah is so full and accurate that little need be added to it. For both sides, it was a battle of missed opportunities: the British should have had it won on the first day, but they ran out of daylight (thanks to Hardinge, according to Gough supporters) and in the confusion of the night fighting they lost the advantage they had gained. The Sikhs should have overwhelmed Gough's force on the second afternoon, but Tej's treachery robbed them of victory; a point Flashman does not mention is that Tej seems to have waited until he was sure Lal Singh's defending force had been thoroughly routed (some had deserted in the night, including Lal himself, whose personal headquarters had been attacked and looted by the furious Akalis).

It has been suggested that on the first night of the battle the British commanders had decided to surrender: one Sikh historian says it quite flatly, quoting the diary of Robert Cust, a young political officer who was not even at Ferozeshah. In fact, it is plain from the papers of both Gough and Hardinge that surrender was never contemplated. Hardinge says clearly that he was approached by some officers "with timid counsels of retreat" which he flatly rejected. Gough too was approached by officers ("some of rank and in important situations") who urged retreat, two of them claiming that they spoke for Hardinge. Gough did not believe them, stated his intention of fighting on, and consulted Hardinge, who repudiated the officers' statement, and agreed with Gough "that retreat was not to be considered for a moment". Plainly there were some in favour of retreat (apart from the unfortunate Lumley); just as plainly, Gough and Hardinge gave them short shrift.

Flashman has dealt fully with Tej Singh, subscribing to the general view that it was his treachery alone that turned the tide. That Tej was a traitor seems obvious, but it is just possible that the reasons he gave for not attacking Gough's exhausted force had some justification; he probably did not know, for example, that the British artillery was out of ammunition, and hesitated to attack their fortified position. It is also possible that some of his commanders agreed with him. for what seemed to them sound military reasons. At any rate, it is difficult to believe that the Sikh army were turned back against the united will of their regimental commanders, simply by Tej's word alone.

Napoleon's sword, which had been presented to Hardinge by Wellington, was sent back from Ferozeshah, and Dr Hoffmeister, one of Prince Waldemar's suite, was killed on the first day. (See Rait, Hardinge, Fortescue, Compton, Autobiography of Sir Harry Smith, ed. by G. C. Moore Smith, vol. ii (1901); Cunningham, Broadfoot, M'Gregor, and History of the Bengal European Regiment, by P. R. Innes (1885).)

39. This was, in fact, the excuse given to Hardinge by Lumley for appearing in informal dress. (See Hardinge.)

40. Flashman's attitudes to his military superiors vary from affection (Colin Campbell, Gough, Scarlett) to poisonous hatred (Cardigan), with degrees of respect (Ulysses Grant, Hugh Rose, Hope Grant), contempt (Raglan, Elphinstone), and amused anxiety (Custer) in between, and most of them are understandable. Why he so disliked Hardinge is less obvious, for the Governor-General seems to have been an amiable man enough, and not unpopular; his portrait gives no hint of the pomposity and coldness that Flashman found in him. It is quite likely that their instant mutual antipathy was our hero's fault; enjoying the euphoria of having done good service for once, he probably let his natural impudence show, and was less inclined than usual to toady (as witness his uncharacteristic outburst to Littler). The bouncy young political no doubt brought out the worst in Hardinge, and Flashman, a ready hater, has repaid with interest in a portrait which probably does the Governor-General less than justice, especially where Gough is concerned. Hardinge was surely sincere in writing to Peel that Gough was "not the officer who ought to be entrusted with the conduct of the war", and can hardly be blamed for seeking the appointment of a less mercurial C-in-C. Disaster had been avoided by a miracle, and the Governor-General might well be nervous of a general who was once heard to say, when his guns ran out of ammunition, "Thank God, then I'll be at them with the bayonet!" At the same time, Hardinge failed to recognise that many of Gough's difficulties had been created by Hardinge himself, and it may well be, as Gough's biographer suggests, that the Governor-General had a tendency "to attribute to himself all vigorous action" and to take all credit for success. Whether he was right to override Gough at Ferozeshah we cannot know; he may have averted a catastrophe or prevented Gough winning a victory at less cost in lives. It was a curious and difficult situation for both men, and it says much for them that they remained on good terms and co-operated efficiently throughout the campaign. Gough never knew of the letter to Peel, and while Flashman (smarting at the suggestion that politicals were of little use) would emphatically disagree, this was probably tact on Hardinge's part. (See Rait.)

41. Christmas trees were reintroduced into England by Prince Albert after his marriage to Queen Victoria in 1840.

42. Gough and Hardinge were repeating, at Sobraon, their quarrel at Ferozeshah: Gough wanted to make a frontal attack, but Hardinge insisted that he must wait for heavy artillery from Umballa (Gough had, in fact, asked for these guns weeks before, and been refused by Hardinge). The Governor-General proposed that an attack be made by crossing the river and falling on the Sikhs' reserve position, but this was vetoed by Gough.

43. This scene is described in detail by Gardner. He gives the strength of the Rani's guard as four battalions.

44. "The Rani used to wonder why a matrimonial alliance was not , . : formed for her with some officer … who would then manage State affairs with her. She used to send for portraits of all the officers, and in one especially she took great inter-est, and said that he must be a lord. This fortunate individual's name has not transpired, and, much to the Maharani's mortification, the affair went no further. She considered that such a marriage would have secured the future of herself and her son." (See Gardner, Memoirs, p. 298.)

45. Plans of the Khalsa fortifications certainly reached the British, but they apparently added little to their knowledge.

46. This certainly refers to the curious case of Captain Battreau who, as a young private soldier in the French Army, carried a Chassepot rifle, serial number 187017, in the Franco-German War of 1870; in 1891, during a skirmish in the Dahomey jungle, Battreau, now an officer in the Foreign Legion, dis-armed an enemy and discovered that the weapon he had captured was the same Chassepot he had handed in at the end of the 1870 campaign. The story was verified by P. C. Wren, himself an ex-Legionnaire, who included it in his book, Flawed Blades (1932). Flashman died in 1915, and his own Legion service preceded Battreau's by many years, so it seems probable that he read the story in a French newspaper in 1891.

47. The private shelter which Tej Singh had built for himself at Sobraon was as Flashman describes it. It was constructed according to the specifications laid down by a Brahmin astrologer: the inner circumference was thirteen and a half times Tej's waist measurement, and the wall itself had a thickness of 333 long grains of rice laid end to end. Tej spent more time supervising its building than he did on his duties as commander-in-chief, retiring within it frequently to pray. Assistance in measurement was lent by a European engineer (probably Hurbon) with a foot-rule. (See Carmichael-Smyth.)

48. Colonel Hurbon, a Spaniard, was the only European officer who served against the British in the Sikh war. He is said to have designed the fortifications at Sobraon, which the historian Cunningham, who was also an engineer, dismissed as unscientific. Perhaps they were, since superior numbers did not suffice to hold them. Gardner describes him simply as "a fine soldier" and remarks on his bravery.

49. Almost certainly this was Sham Singh Attariwala, a veteran of more than forty years' service, who led the Khalsa's last stand at Sobraon. (See Khushwant Singh, M'Gregor.)

50. Sobraon was the decisive battle of the Sikh War -- perhaps one of the decisive battles of history, for it secured Britain in India for another century, with all that that implied for the future of Asia. Gough described it as the Indian Waterloo (an appellation which Flashman attaches to Ferozeshah) and there are few controversies about it: for once, treachery played little part in what was a straight contest between the Khalsa and the Company. Luck was against the Sikhs insofar as the unusual rise of the Sutlej denied them any possibility of retreat and fighting another day; hemmed in, they could only fight it out, which they did with a discipline and courage which excited unanimous admiration from their enemy, Gough in particular "Policy precluded me publicly recording my sentiments on the splendid gallantry , .. or the acts of heroism displayed …'By the Sikh army," he wrote. "I could have wept to have witnessed the fearful slaughter of so devoted a body of men They who led the British cavalry, said simply: They never ran." Hardinge wrote: "Few escaped; none, it may be said, surrendered." There is hning a difference of collapse of the bridge of boats. Many believe that it was destroyed deliberately' Tej Singh, who fled during the battle and supposedly had one of the middle barges removed; on the other hd id Charles Hardinge actually saw it collapse, and his accours' like Flashman's, suggests that it was unbroken until the Weight of the fugitives caused it to carry away: "I saw the ridge at that moment overcrowded with guns, horses, and soldiers of all arms, swaying to and fro, till at last with a flash it disappeared … The river seemed alive with a struggling mass of men."

The Sikh losses were /bout 10,000, against 320 dead and more than 2000 wounded on the British side, but it has to be remembered that most e~ the Khalsa died in the river, and for a time the battle ha~ been on a knife-edge. After the repulse of his first attack9 Gough launched an assault on the right and centre, and has recorded comment, as he watched Gilbert's men storming the ramparts, was: "Good God, they'll be annihilated!" (the Hardinge, Inns, Rait, Khushwant Singh, and others.)

51. Later Field-Marshal Lord Napier of Magdala (1810-90), famous for perhaps the most successful campaign in British imperial history, the maI h on Magdala, Abyssinia (1868), in which Flashman is believed to have taken part. Napier was a brilliant soldier, organiser, and engineer, but his great devotion was to art, and he was still taking lessons at the age of 78.

52. Sir Henry Lawrence (1810`57) best known for his defence of Lucknow in the Indian Mutiny, in which he was killed, but he previously had a distinguished career in the army and the political service, serving in Burma and in the Afghan and Sikh wars. Tall, gaunt, hot-tempered and impatient of contradiction, he also had a romantic side, and was the author of a love story, Adventurer in the Punjaub, which, according to Dr M'Gregor, was also a mine of information about the country and its politics. And he succeeded in seeing the Maharani Jeendan in Lahore after the war, when Gardner persuaded her to show her head and shoulders over a garden wall, "to the gratification of the officers [Lawrence and Robert Napier]". (See M'Gregor, Gardner, D. N. B. )

53. As in previous volumes of the Papers, one is reminded of how small was the group of officers who shaped the course of empire in Africa and the Far East; the same names cross Flashman's path again and again—Napier, Havelock, Broadfoot, Lawrence; Herbert Edwardes, who was Lawrence's assistant and won great fame in the Mutiny; wild John Nicholson, who was literally worshipped as a divinity by a frontier sect, the Nickleseynites; Hope Grant, the monosyllabic, 'cello-playing Scot who led the march to Peking and was rated by Flashman the most dangerous fighting man alive; "Rake" Hodson, the violent ruffian who commanded the famous Guides and founded Hodson's Horse; and others whom he knew elsewhere, but not in the Punjab—Frederick ("Bobs") Roberts; Garnet Wolseley, the original "model of a modern major-general"; "Chinese" Gordon of Khartoum, and one-armed Sam Browne whose belt has made him the most famous of them all. A distinguished company who tended to go one of two ways: knighthood (or peerage) and general rank, or a grave in the outposts.

54. Dr W. L. M'Gregor, who served throughout the Sikh War, is one of its major historians, and an enthusiast on military medicine. Anyone wishing to study the war is recommended to him, and to Captain J. D. Cunningham, who also served in the campaign, and was in political intelligence. They do not always agree with each other, but their knowledge of the Punjab and its personalities makes them invaluable sources.

55. The terms of the first Treaty of Lahore, March 9, 1846, are to be found in Cunningham, M'Gregor, and Hardinge. They are as Goolab Singh predicted, with additional clauses giving Britain passage for troops through the Punjab, a pledge not to interfere in Punjabi internal affairs, and a prohibition on the enlistment of European or American mercenaries in the Punjab without British consent. Supplementary articles provided for the stationing of a British force at Lahore for one year—this was at the request of the Lahore durbar, who rightly conceived themselves to be in need of protection.

56. Goolab Singh, the "Golden Hen" and stormy petrel of Kashmir, was every bit as deplorable, and quite as personally engaging, as Flashman portrays him. He was born about 1788, and to describe his career of intrigue, murder, warfare, and knavery would take a long chapter; it suffices to say that as a leading light of the Dogra Hindus who opposed the Sikhs in the power struggle following Runjeet Singh's death, he not only survived but ended with a kingdom of his own, Kashmir. He did it by shameless duplicity, conspiring with the British while pretending sympathy for the Punjab cause, and no one was ever more expert at playing both ends against the middle. His character was admirably summed up by his friend and agent, Colonel Gardner, who described it as repulsive, ambitious, avaricious, and capable of the most inhuman systematic cruelty simply to invest his name with terror; at the same time he was charming, genial, opium-addicted, given to telling long stories, and hail-fellow with the poorest of his subjects. A fine soldier and sturdy fighter, he was also a wise and careful ruler, and perhaps the most revealing thing about him is that while Gardner published his character study in Goolab's lifetime, they remained the best of friends, (See Gardner, Carmichael Smyth, and others.)