The Flashman Papers: The Complete 12-Book Collection

by George MacDonald Fraser

  Elphy could, of course, have crushed the mobs by firm action, but he didn’t; he just wrung his hands and took to his bed, and McNaghten wrote him stiff little suggestions about the provisioning of the cantonment for the winter. Meanwhile the Kabulis, who at first had been scared stiff when they realised what they had done in murdering Burnes, got damned uppish, and started attacking the outposts near the cantonment, and shooting up our quarters at night.

  One attempt, and only one, was made to squash them, and that foul-tempered idiot, Brigadier Shelton, bungled it handsomely. He took a strong force out to Beymaroo, and the Kabulis – just a damned drove of shopkeepers and stablehands, mark you, not real Afghan warriors – chased him and his troops back to the cantonment. After that, there was nothing to be done; morale in the cantonment went to rock-bottom, and the countryside Afghans, who had been watching to see what would happen, decided they were on a good thing, and came rampaging into the city. The signs were that if the mobs and the tribesmen really settled down to business, they could swarm over the cantonment whenever they felt like it.

  All this I learned later, of course. Colin Mackenzie, who was through it all, said it was pathetic to see how old Elphy shilly-shallied and changed his mind, and McNaghten still refused to believe that disaster was approaching. What had begun as mob violence was rapidly developing into a general uprising, and all that was wanting on the Afghan side was a leader who would take charge of events. And, of course, unknown to Elphy and McNaghten and the rest of them, there was such a leader, watching events from a house in Kabul, biding his time and every now and then asking me questions. For after a fortnight’s lapse Akbar Khan came to me again, polite and bland as ever, and talked about it and about, speculating on such various matters as British policy in India and the rate of march of British troops in cold weather. He came ostensibly to gossip, but he pumped me for all he was worth, and I let him pump. There was nothing else I could do.

  He began visiting me daily, and I got tired of demanding my release and having my questions deftly ignored. But there was no help for it; I could only be patient and see what this jovial, clever gentleman had in mind for me. Of what he had in mind for himself I was getting a pretty fair idea, and events proved me right.

  Finally, more than a month after Burnes’s murder, Akbar came and told me I was to be released. I could have kissed him, almost, for I was fed up with being jailed, and not even an Afghan bint to keep me amused. He looked mighty serious, however, and asked me to be seated while he spoke to me “on behalf of the leaders of the Faithful”. He had three of his pals with him, and I wondered if he meant them.

  One of them, his cousin, Sultan Jan, he had brought before, a leery-looking cove with a fork beard. The others were called Muhammed Din, a fine-looking old lad with a silver beard, and Khan Hamet, a one-eyed thug with the face of a horse-thief. They sat and looked at me, and Akbar talked.

  “First, my dear friend Flashman,” says he, all charm, “I must tell you that you have been kept here not only for your own good but for your people’s. Their situation is now bad. Why, I do not know, but Elfistan Sahib has behaved like a weak old woman. He has allowed the mobs to rage where they will, he has left the deaths of his servants unavenged, he has exposed his soldiers to the worst fate of all – humiliation – by keeping them shut up in cantonments while the Afghan rabble mock at them. Now his own troops are sick at heart; they have no fight in them.”

  He paused, picking his words.

  “The British cannot stay here now,” he went on. “They have lost their power, and we Afghans wish to be rid of them. There are those who say we should slaughter them all – needless to say, I do not agree.” And he smiled. “For one thing, it might not be so easy—”

  “It is never easy,” said old Muhammed Din. “These same feringhees took Ghuznee Fort; I saw them, by God.”

  “—and for another, what would the harvest be?” went on Akbar. “The White Queen avenges her children. No, there must be a peaceful withdrawal to India; this is what I would prefer myself. I am no enemy of the British, but they have been guests in my country too long.”

  “One of ’em a month too long,” says I, and he laughed.

  “You are one feringhee, Flashman, who is welcome to stay as long as he chooses,” says he. “But for the rest, they have to go.”

  “They came to put Sujah on the throne,” says I. “They won’t leave him in the lurch.”

  “They have already agreed to do so,” said Akbar smoothly. “Myself, I have arranged the terms of withdrawal with McLoten Sahib.”

  “You’ve seen McNaghten?”

  “Indeed. The British have agreed with me and the chiefs to march out to Peshawar as soon as they have gathered provisions for the journey and struck their camp. Sujah, it is agreed, remains on the throne, and the British are guaranteed safe conduct through the passes.”

  So we were quitting Kabul; I didn’t mind, but I wondered how Elphy and McNaghten were going to explain this away to Calcutta. Inglorious retreat, pushed out by niggers, don’t look well at all. Of course, the bit about Sujah staying on the throne was all my eye; once we were out of the way they’d blind him quietly and pop him in a fortress and forget about him. And the man who would take his place was sitting watching how I took the news.

  “Well,” says I at last, “there it is, but what have I to do with it? I mean, I’ll just toddle off with the rest, won’t I?”

  Akbar leaned forward. “I have made it sound too simple, perhaps. There are problems. For example, McLoten has made his treaty to withdraw not only with myself, but with the Douranis, the Gilzais, the Kuzzilbashies, and so on – all as equals. Now, when the British have gone, all these factions will be left behind, and who will be the master?”

  “Shah Sujah, according to you.”

  “He can rule only if he has a united majority of the tribes supporting him. As things stand, that would be difficult, for they eye each other askance. Oh, McLoten Sahib is not the fool you think him, he has been at work to divide us.”

  “Well, can’t you unite them? You’re Dost Mohammed’s son, ain’t you – and all through the passes a month ago I heard nothing but Akbar Khan and what a hell of a fellow he was.”

  He laughed and clapped his hands. “How gratifying! Oh, I have a following, it is true—”

  “You have all Afghanistan,” growls Sultan Jan. “As for Sujah—”

  “I have what I have,” Akbar interrupted him, suddenly chilly. “It is not enough, if I am to support Sujah as he must be supported.”

  There was a moment of silence, not very comfortable, and Akbar went on:

  “The Douranis dislike me, and they are powerful. It would be better if their wings were clipped – theirs and a few others. This cannot be done after the British have left. With British help it can be done in time.”

  Oho, I thought, now we have it.

  “What I propose is this,” says Akbar, looking me in the eye. “McLoten must break his treaty so far as the Douranis are concerned; he must assist me in their overthrow. In return for this, I will allow him – for with the Douranis and their allies gone I shall have the power – to stay in Kabul another eight months. In that time I shall become Sujah’s Vizier, the power at his elbow. The country will be so quiet then – so quiet, that the cheep of a Kandahar mouse will be heard in Kabul – that the British will be able to withdraw in honour. Is not this fair? The alternative now is a hurried withdrawal, which no one here can guarantee in safety, for none has the power to restrain the wilder tribes. And Afghanistan will be left to warring factions.”

  I have observed, in the course of a dishonest life, that when a rogue is outlining a treacherous plan, he works harder to convince himself than to move his hearers. Akbar wanted to cook his Afghan enemies’ goose, that was all, and perfectly understandable, but he wanted to look like a gentleman still – to himself.

  “Will you carry my proposal secretly to McLoten Sahib, Flashman?” he asked.

  If he’d asked me
to carry his proposal of marriage to Queen Victoria I’d have agreed, so of course I said “Aye” at once.

  “You may add that as part of the bargain I shall expect a down payment of twenty lakhs of rupees,” he added, “and four thousand a year for life. I think McLoten Sahib will find this reasonable, since I am probably preserving his political career.”

  And your own, too, thinks I. Sujah’s Vizier, indeed. Once the Douranis were out of the way it would be farewell Sujah, and long live King Akbar. Not that I minded; after all, I would be able to say I was on nodding terms with a king – even if he was only a king of Afghanistan.

  “Now,” went on Akbar, “you must deliver my proposals to McLoten Sahib personally, and in the presence of Muhammed Din and Khan Hamet here, who will accompany you. If it seems” – he flashed his smile – “that I don’t trust you, my friend, let me say that I trust no one. The reflection is not personal.”

  “The wise son,” croaked Khan Hamet, opening his mouth for the first time, “mistrusts his mother.” Doubtless he knew his own family best.

  I pointed out that the plan might appear to McNaghten to be a betrayal of the other chiefs, and his own part in it dishonourable; Akbar nodded, and said gently:

  “I have spoken with McLoten Sahib, remember. He is a politician.”

  He seemed to think that was answer enough, so I let it be. Then Akbar said:

  “You will tell McLoten that if he agrees, as I think he will, he must come to meet me at Mohammed’s Fort, beyond the cantonment walls, the day after tomorrow. He must have a strong force at hand within the cantonment, ready to emerge at the word and seize the Douranis and their allies, who will be with me. Thereafter we will dispose matters as seems best to us. Is this agreed?” And he looked at his three fellows, who nodded agreement.

  “Tell McLoten Sahib,” said Sultan Jan, with a nasty grin, “that if he wills he may have the head of Amenoolah Khan, who led the attack on Sekundar Burnes’s Residency. Also, that in this whole matter we of the Barukzis have the friendship of the Gilzais.”

  If both Gilzais and Barukzis were in the plot, it seemed to me that Akbar was on solid ground; McNaghten would think so too. But to me, sitting looking at those four faces, bland Akbar and his trio of villains, the whole thing stank like a dead camel. I would have trusted the parcel of them as much as Gul Shah’s snakes.

  However, I kept a straight face, and that afternoon the guard at the cantonment’s main gate was amazed by the sight of Lieutenant Flashman, clad in the mail of a Barukzi warrior, and accompanied by Muhammed Din and Khan Hamet,15 riding down in state from Kabul City. They had thought me dead a month ago, chopped to bits with Burnes, but here I was larger than life. The word spread like fire, and when we reached the gates there was a crowd waiting for us, with tall Colin Mackenzie16 at their head.

  “Where the devil have you come from?” he demanded, his blue eyes wide open.

  I leaned down so that no one else should hear and said, “Akbar Khan”; he stared at me hard, to see if I was mad or joking, and then said: “Come to the Envoy at once,” and cleared a way through the crowd for us. There was a great hubbub and shouting of questions, but Mackenzie shepherded us all three straight to the Envoy’s quarters and into McNaghten’s presence.

  “Can’t it wait, Mackenzie?” says he peevishly. “I’m just about to dine.” But a dozen words from Mackenzie changed his tune. He stared at me through his spectacles, perched as always on the very tip of his nose. “My God, Flashman! Alive! And from Akbar Khan, you say? And who are these?” And he indicated my companions.

  “Once you suggested I should bring you hostages from Akbar, Sir William,” says I. “Well, here they are, if you like.”

  He didn’t take it well, but snapped to me to come in directly to dinner with him. The two Afghans, of course, wouldn’t eat at an unbeliever’s table, so they waited in his office, where food was brought to them. Muhammed Din reminded me that Akbar’s message must be delivered only in their presence, so I contented myself by telling McNaghten that I felt as though I was loaded with explosives, but that it must wait till after dinner.

  However, as we ate I was able to give him an account of Burnes’s murder and my own adventures with Gul Shah; I told it very plain and offhand, but McNaghten kept exclaiming “Good God!” all the way through, and at the tale of my tug-of-war his glasses fell into his curry. Mackenzie sat watching me narrowly, pulling at his fair moustache, and when I was done and McNaghten was spluttering his astonishment, Mackenzie just said: “Good work, Flash.” This was praise, from him, for he was a tough, cold ramrod of a man, and reckoned the bravest in the Kabul garrison, except maybe for George Broadfoot. If he told my tale – and he would – Flashy’s stock would rise to new heights, which was all to the good.

  Over the port McNaghten tried to draw me about Akbar, but I said it must wait until we joined the two Afghans; not that I minded, much, but it made McNaghten sniffy, which was always excuse enough for me. He said sarcastically that I seemed to have gone native altogether, and that I did not need to be so nice, but Mackenzie said shortly that I was right, which put His Excellency into the sulks. He muttered that it was a fine thing when important officials could be bearded by military whipper-snappers, and the sooner we got to business the better it would be.

  So we adjourned to his study, and presently Muhammed and Hamet came in, greeted the Envoy courteously, and received his cool nod in reply. He was a conceited prig, sure enough. Then I launched into Akbar’s proposal.

  I can see them still: McNaughten sitting back in his cane chair, legs crossed, finger-tips together, staring at the ceiling; the two silent Afghans, their eyes fixed on him; and the tall, fair Mackenzie, leaning against the wall, puffing a cheroot, watching the Afghans. No one said a word as I talked, and no one moved. I wondered if McNaghten understood what I was saying; he never twitched a muscle.

  When I was finished he waited a full minute, slowly took off his glasses and polished them, and said quietly:

  “Most interesting. We must consider what the Sirdar Akbar has said. His message is of the greatest weight and importance. But of course it is not to be answered in haste. Only one thing will I say now: the Queen’s Envoy cannot consider the suggestion of bloodshed contained in the offer of the head of Amenoolah Khan. That is repugnant to me.” He turned to the two Afghans. “You will be tired, sirs, so we will detain you no longer. Tomorrow we will talk again.”

  It was still only early evening, so he was talking rot, but the two Afghans seemed to understand diplomatic language; they bowed gravely and withdrew. McNaghten watched the door close on them; then he sprang to his feet.

  “Saved at the eleventh hour!” cried he. “Divide and conquer! Mackenzie, I had dreamed of something precisely like this.” His pale, worn face was all smiles now. “I knew, I knew, that these people were incapable of keeping faith with one another. Behold me proved right!”

  Mackenzie studied his cigar. “You mean you’ll accept?”

  “Accept? Of course I shall accept. This is a heaven-sent opportunity. Eight months, eh? Much can happen in that time: we may never leave Afghanistan at all, but if we do it will be with credit.” He rubbed his hands and set to among the papers on his desk. “This should revive even our friend Elphinstone, eh, Mackenzie?”

  “I don’t like it,” says Mackenzie. “I think it’s a plot.”

  McNaghten stopped to stare at him. “A plot?” Then he laughed, short and sharp. “Oho, a plot! Let me alone for that – trust me for that!”

  “I don’t like it a bit,” says Mackenzie.

  “And why not, pray? Tell me why not. Isn’t it logical? Akbar must be cock o’ the walk, so out must go his enemies, the Douranis. He’ll use us, to be sure, but it is to our own advantage.”

  “There’s a hole in it,” says Mac. “He’ll never serve as Vizier to Sujah. He’s lying in that, at least.”

  “What of it? I tell you, Mackenzie, it doesn’t matter one per cent whether he or Sujah rules in Kabul, we
shall be secured by this. Let them fight among themselves as they will; it makes us all the stronger.”

  “Akbar isn’t to be trusted,” Mac was beginning, but McNaghten pooh-poohed him.

  “You don’t know one of the first rules of politics: that a man can be trusted to follow his own interest. I see perfectly well that Akbar is after undisputed power among his own people; well, who’s to blame him? And I tell you, I believe you wrong Akbar Khan; in our meetings he has impressed me more than any other Afghan I have met. I judge him to be a man of his word.”

  “The Douranis are probably saying that, too,” says I, and had the icy spectacles turned on me for my pains. But Mackenzie took me up fast enough, and asked me what I thought.

  “I don’t trust Akbar either,” says I. “Mind you, I like the chap, but he ain’t straight.”

  “Flashman probably knows him better than we do,” says Mac, and McNaghten exploded.

  “Now, really, Captain Mackenzie! I believe I can trust my own judgement, do you know? Against even that of such a distinguished diplomatist as Mr Flashman here.” He snorted and sat down at his desk. “I should be interested to hear precisely what Akbar Khan has to gain by treachery towards us? What purpose his proposal can have other than that which is apparent? Well, can you tell me?”

  Mac just stubbed out his cheroot. “If I could tell you, sir, – if I could see a definite trick in all this – I’d be a happier man. Dealing with Afghans, it’s what I don’t see and don’t understand that worries me.”