The Flashman Papers: The Complete 12-Book Collection

by George MacDonald Fraser

  Well, Goolab had said each for himself, but I won’t pretend that I’ve ever needed leave to bolt. I hadn’t been given the precious gift of life to cast it away in back alleys, brawling on behalf of fat rajas and randy widows, and I was going like a startled fawn and rejoicing in my youth when I saw a glare of torchlight ahead of me, and realised with horror that round the next corner running feet were approaching. Serve you right, poltroon, says you, for leaving pals in the lurch, now you’ll get your cocoa – but we practised absconders don’t give up so easy, I can tell you. I came to a slithering halt, and as the powers of darkness came surging into view, full of spite and action, I was stock-still and pointing back to the little court, where Goolab and the widow could be seen apparently disembowelling the Second Robber, who wasn’t taking it quietly.

  “Here they are, brothers!” I shouted. “On, on, and take them! They’re ours!”

  I even started back towards the court, stumbling artistically to let them catch up – and if you think it was a desperate stratagem … well, it was, but it seldom fails, and it would have succeeded then if I’d had the wit to follow a yard or two farther as they raced past me. But I was too quick to turn again and flee; one of them must have seen me from the tail of his eye and realised that this vociferous badmash wasn’t one of the gang, for he pulled up, yelling, and came after me. I held my lead round one corner and the next, saw a convenient opening and dodged through it, and crouched gasping in the shadows as the pursuit went tearing by. I leaned against the wall, eyes closed, utterly done with fear and exertion, getting my breath back, and only when I took a cautious peep out did it strike me that the scenery was familiar … the little wicket in the opening … I squealed aloud, wheeling round, and sure enough, there before me was the outside stairway up to the porch, and two fellows were carrying down the earthly remains of Sefreen Singh, and from various parts of Bibi Kalil’s garden about a dozen bearded faces were regarding me with astonishment. Among them, not ten feet away, arms akimbo and scowling like a teetotal magistrate, was General Maka Khan, and beside him, exclaiming with unholy delight, was the Akali fanatic.

  I’ve said I don’t give up easy, and it’s with pride that I recall tumbling out into the alley and tottering away, calling for the police, but they were on me within five yards, bearing me bodily into the garden, while I announced my name and consequence at the top of my voice, until they stuffed a gag into my mouth. They dragged me round to the garden room and thrust me into a chair, two holding my arms and a third my hair; they were street rascals, but the others who crowded in were Khalsa to a man, some in uniform; apart from Maka and the Akali there were Sikh officers, a burly naikk of artillery with a hideously-pitted face, and Imam Shah, knives and all. He threw my bloodstained short sword on the table.

  “Two dead in the street, lord general,” says he. “And your aide, Sefreen. The others who were with this one have not yet been found –”

  “Then stop the search,” says Maka Khan. “We have what we want – and if one of the others is who I think he is … the less we see of him the better.”

  “And the widow?” cries the Akali. “That practising slut who has betrayed us?”

  “Let them both go! They’ll do us less harm alive than if we had their deaths to answer for.” He pointed at me. “Remove the gag.”

  They did, and I choked down my fear and was beginning my diplomatic bluster, demanding release and safe-conduct and immunity and the rest, but I’d barely got the length of warning them of the consequences of assaulting an accredited envoy when Maka Khan snapped me off short.

  “You are no envoy – and you’ve forgotten what it is to be a soldier!” barks he. “You are a murderer and a spy!”

  “It’s a lie! I didn’t kill him, I swear! It was Goolab Singh! Damn you all, loose me this instant, you villains, or it’ll be the worse for you! I’m an agent of Sir Henry Hardinge –”

  “An agent of Black-coat Broadfoot!” blazes the Akali, shaking his fist. “You send out cyphers, betraying the secrets of our durbar! You put them in the Holy Book by your bed – blaspheming your own putrid faith! – whence your old punkah-wallah took them to a courier for Simla! Aye, until we found him out two weeks ago, and questioned him,” gloats this maniac, “and learned enough to nail your guilt to your forehead! Aye, gape, spy! We know!”

  No doubt I was gaping – in part, at the news that the mysterious messenger of Second Thessalonians was not Mangla, as I’d suspected, but that lean-shanked ancient who’d operated my fan so inefficiently … and who must have vanished without my noticing, to be replaced by the clown I’d leathered only last night. But they were bluffing; they could question the old buffoon until Hell froze – those cyphers were Greek to him, and to everyone else, save Broadfoot and me. I wasn’t reasoning too clearly, you understand, but I saw the line I must take.

  “General Maka Khan!” cries I, no doubt in indignant falsetto. “This is outrageous! I demand to be set free at once! To be sure I send coded messages to my chief – so does every ambassador, and you know it! But to suggest that they contain any … any secrets of the durbar, is … is, why, it’s a damnable insult! They … they were my confidential opinions on the Soochet legacy, for Sir Henry and his advisers –”

  “Including your opinion that the astrologers’ failure to find a date for our march was caused by ‘a lady’s fine Punjabi hand’?” says he, sternly. “Yes, Mr Flashman, we have read that message, and every other that you’ve sent this ten days past, as well as those coming to you from Simla.” So that was why George’s correspondence had dried up …

  “We have enough to hang you, spy!” shouts the Akali, spraying me with spittle. “But first we would know what else you’ve betrayed – and you’ll tell us, you sneaking dog!”

  I wasn’t hearing aright … or they were lying. They might have intercepted messages – but they couldn’t have deciphered them, not in a century. Yet Maka had just quoted my own words to Broadfoot … and Goolab had spoken of a false message to entrap me. I hadn’t had time to ponder that impossibility … no, it couldn’t be so! The key to that cypher was based on random words in an English novel that they’d never heard of – and even if they had, it would be as useless to them as a safe to which they didn’t know the combination.

  “It’s all false, I tell you!” I stammered. “General, I appeal to you! Those messages were innocent, on my honour!”

  He gave me a long cold stare while I babbled, and then he called out, and in trooped the oddest trio – a bespectacled little weed of a chi-chi in a soiled European suit, and two jelly-fat babus who smirked uneasily among all these rough military men. The chi-chi carried a sheaf of papers which, at a sign from Maka Khan, were thrust before my eyes … and my heart missed a beat. For it was a manuscript, in English, copied exactly, line for line, space for space, and the top sheet bore the unbelievable words:

  “Crotchet Castle. By Thomas Love Peacock”.

  And beneath the title, in a clerkly Indian hand, but again in English, were precise directions for using the book in the encoding of messages.

  * * *

  a Aboard an East Indiaman. The reference is to the Company’s flag.

  b Rupees.

  c Civilian trousers.

  d See Flashman in the Great Game.

  e Rumour.

  f Chemist.

  g Cos = one and a half miles.

  h Constable.

  i “Be quiet! Careful!”

  j Sweetheart.

  k Corporal.

  Chapter 10

  Reviewing my career in India, I’d say that of all the wonders I saw there, that was the greatest. I dare say one should be prepared for anything in a land where an illiterate peasant girl can give you the square root of a six-figure number at first glance, but when I reflect on the skill and speed of those copyists, and the analytical genius that penetrated that code … well, it can still rob me of breath. Not as entirely as it did at the time, though.

  “Your punkah-wallah confessed
how you wrote your cyphers with the aid of a book,” sneers the Akali. “It was copied in your absence, and compared with the intercepted cyphers by these men, who are skilled in cryptography – an Indian invention, as Major Broadfoot should have borne in mind!”

  “Oah, indeed! A veree simple cypher,” chirps the chi-chi, while the babus beamed and nodded. “Quite elementaree, you know, page numbers, dates of Christian calendar, initial letters of arl-tarnate lines –”

  “That will do,” says Maka Khan, and dismissed them, but one of the babus couldn’t resist a backward gleek at me. “Doctor Folliott and Mr McQuedy are jolly good fun!” squeaks he, and waddled out as fast as he could go.

  I sat sick and trembling. No wonder they’d been able to fake a message to trap me – with one tiny error of style which I’d been fool enough to ignore. What the devil had I written in my cyphers, though … they’d spotted the allusion to Jeendan, but I hadn’t named her … but what else had I said …?

  “You see?” says Maka Khan. “What you have written of late, we know. What else have you learned, up at the Fort yonder?”

  “Nothing, as God’s my witness!” I bleated. “General, upon my honour, sir! I protest … your cryptographers are mistaken – or lying! Yes, that’s it!” I hollered. “It’s a beastly plot, to discredit me – to give you an excuse for war! Well, it won’t serve, you scoundrels! What? Yes, it will, I mean – you’ll learn fast enough –”

  “Let’s have him below!” snarls the Akali. “He’ll babble as freely as his creature did!” There were growls of agreement from the others, and I fairly neighed in alarm.

  “What d’you mean, damn you? I’m a British Officer, and if you lay a finger –” They clapped the gag over my mouth again, and I could only listen in horror while the Akali swore that time was pressing, so the sooner they set about me the better, and they argued to and fro until Maka Khan turned them all out of the room, except for my three guards and the pock-marked naik – his face gave me the shudders, but I took some comfort from the fact that Maka had taken matters on himself; damned uncivil he’d been, what with “spy” and “murderer”, but he was a gentleman and a soldier, after all, and like calls to like, you know. Why, standing there tall and erect, glaring at me and twisting his grizzled moustache, he might have been any staff colonel at Horse Guards, bar the turban. Better still, he addressed me in English, so that the others should be none the wiser.

  “You spoke of war,” says he. “It has begun. Our advance guard is already across the Sutlej.27 In a few days there will be a general engagement between the Khalsa and the Company army under Sir Hugh Gough. I tell you this so that you may understand your position – you are now beyond help from Simla.”

  So it had finally come, and I was a prisoner of war. Well, better here than there – at least I’d be out of harm’s way.

  “No, you are not a prisoner!” snaps Maka Khan. “You are a spy! Be quiet!” He took a turn about, and leaned down to stare grimly into my face. “We of the Khalsa know that our queen regent has turned traitor. We also suspect the loyalty of Lal Singh, our Wazir, and Tej Singh, our field commander. You have been Mai Jeendan’s intimate – her lover. We know she has sent assurances through you to Broadfoot – so much is plain from your recent cyphers. But what has she betrayed, in detail, of our plan of campaign – numbers, dispositions, lines of march, objectives, equipment?” He paused, his black eyes boring into mine. “Your one hope, Flashman, lies in full disclosure … immediately.”

  “But I don’t know anything, I tell you! Nothing! I’ve not heard a word of … of plans or objectives or any such thing! And I haven’t even seen Mai Jeendan for weeks –”

  “Her woman Mangla visited you last night!” His words came out like rapid fire. “You spent hours together – what did she tell you? How have you passed it to Simla? Through her? Or the man Harlan, who poses as your orderly? Or by some other means? We know you sent no cypher today –”

  “As God’s my judge, it ain’t true! She told me nothing!”

  “Then why did she visit you?”

  “Why … why … because, well, we’ve grown friendly, don’t you know? I mean … we talk, you see, and … Not a word of politics, I swear! We just … converse … and so forth …”

  God, it sounded lame, as the truth often does, and it drove him into a rage. “Either you’re a fool, or you think I am!” he rasped. “Very well, I’ll waste no more time! Your punkah-wallah spoke under persuasion … in unspeakable pain, which I trust you will spare yourself. You have a choice: speak to me now, in this room … or to this fellow …” He indicated the pock-marked naik, who took a pace forward, scowling “… in the cellar below.”

  For a moment I didn’t believe my ears. Oh, I’d been threatened with torture before, by savages like Gul Shah and those beastly Malagassies – but this was a man of honour, a general, an aristocrat! I wouldn’t believe it, not from someone who might have been Cardigan’s own brother, dammit –

  “You don’t mean it!” I yelped. “I don’t believe you! It’s a trick … a mean, cowardly trick! You wouldn’t dare! But you’re trying to frighten me, damn you …”

  “Yes, I am.” His voice and eyes were dead level. “But it is no empty threat. There is too much at stake. We are beyond diplomatic niceties, or the laws of war. Very soon now, hundreds – perhaps thousands – of men will be dying in agony beyond the Sutlej, Indian and British alike. I cannot afford to spare you, when the fate of the war may depend on what you can tell me.”

  By God, he did mean it – and before that iron stare I broke down utterly, weeping and begging him to believe me.

  “But I don’t know a damned thing! For Christ’s sake, it’s the truth! Yes, yes, she’s betraying you! She promised to warn us … and, yes! she’s delayed, and made the astrologers bungle it –”

  “You tell me what I know already!” cries he impatiently.

  “But it’s all I know, blast you! She never said a word of plans – oh, if she had I’d tell you! Please, sir, for pity’s sake, don’t let them torture me! I can’t bear it – and it’d do no good, damn you, you cruel old bastard, because I’ve nothing to confess! Oh, God, if I had, I’d tell you, if I could –”

  “I doubt it. Indeed, I am sure you would not,” says he, and before those words and tone, suddenly so flat, almost weary, I left off blubbering to stare. He was standing ramrod straight, but not in disgust or contempt at my ravings – if anything, he looked regretful, with a touch of ruptured nobility, even. I couldn’t fathom it until, to my horrified amazement, he went on, in the same quiet voice:

  “You overplay the coward’s part too far, Mr Flashman. You would have me believe you an abject, broken thing, dead to honour, a cur who would confess everything, betray everything, at a mere threat – and on whom, therefore, torture would be wasted.” He shook his head. “Major Broadfoot does not employ such people – and your own reputation belies you. No, you will tell nothing … until pain robs you of your reason. You know your duty, as I know mine. It drives us both to shameful extremes – me, to barbarism for my country’s sake; you, to this pretence of cowardice – a legitimate ruse in a political agent, but not convincing from the man who held Piper’s Fort! I am sorry.” His mouth worked for a moment, and I won’t swear there wasn’t a tear in his blasted eye. “I can give you an hour … before they begin. For God’s sake, use it to see reason! Take him down!”

  He turned away, like a strong suffering man who’s had the last word. He hadn’t, though. “Pretence!” I screamed, as they hauled me from the chair. “You bloody old halfwit, it’s true! I’m not shamming, damn you, I swear it! I can’t tell you anything! Oh, Jesus! Please, please, let me be! Mercy, you foul old kite! Can’t you see I’m telling the truth!”

  By that time they were dragging me through the garden to the back of the house, thrusting me through a low iron-shod door and down an immensely long flight of stone steps into the depths of a great cellar, a dank tomb of rough stone walls with only a small window high up
on the far side. A choking acrid smell rose to meet us, and as the naik set a burning torch in a bracket by the stair foot, the source of that stench became horribly apparent.

  “Are you weary, Daghabazi Sahib?”a cries he. “See, we have a fine bed for you to rest on!”

  I looked, and almost swooned. In the centre of the earth floor lay a great rectangular tray in which charcoal glowed faintly under a coating of ash, and about three feet above it was a rusty iron grill like a bedstead – with manacles at head and foot. Watching my face, the naik cackled with laughter, and taking up a long poker, went forward and tapped open two little vents on either side of the tray. The charcoal near the vents glowed a little brighter.

  “Gently blows the air,” gloats he, “and slowly grows the heat.” He laid a hand on the grill. “A little warm, only … but in an hour it will be warmer. Daghabazi Sahib will begin to feel it, then. He may even find his tongue.” He tossed the poker aside. “Put him to bed!”

  I can’t describe the horror of it. I couldn’t even scream as they ran me forward and flung me down on that diabolic gridiron, snapping the fetters on my wrists and ankles so that I was held supine, unable to do more than writhe on the rusty bars – and then the pock-marked fiend picked up a pair of bellows from the floor, grinning with savage delight.

  “You will be in some discomfort when we return, Daghabazi Sahib! Then we shall open the vents a little more – your punkah-wallah cooked slowly, for many hours – did he not, Jan? Oh, he spoke long before he began to roast … that followed, though I think he had no more to tell.” He leaned down to laugh in my face. “And if you find it tedious, we may hasten matters – thus!”