01 - Flashman fp-1

by George MacDonald Fraser

  So the clouds began to gather on the mountains, and in Kabul the British army played cricket and Elphinstone and McNaghten wrote letters to each other remarking how tranquil everything was. The summer wore on, the sentries drowsed in the stifling heat of the cantonment, Burnes yawned and listened idly to my reports, dined me royally and took me off whoring in the bazaar - and one bright day McNaghten got a letter from Calcutta complaining at the cost of keeping our army in Kabul, and looked about for economies to make.

  It was unfortunate that he happened, about this time, to | be awaiting his promotion and transfer to the Governor-ship of Bombay; I think the knowledge that he was leaving may have made him careless.

  At any rate, seeking means of reducing expenditure, he recalled the idea which had appalled General Nott, and decided to cut the Gilzais'

  subsidy.

  I had just come back to Kabul from a visit to Kandahar garrison, and learned that the Gilzai chiefs had been summoned and told that instead of 8,000 rupees a year for keeping the passes open, they were now to receive 5,000. Ilderim's fine young face fell when he heard it, and he said: "There will be trouble, Flashman huzoor. He would have been better offering pork to a Ghazi than cheat the Gilzais of their money."

  He was right, of course: he knew his own people. The Gilzai chiefs smiled cheerfully when McNaghten delivered his decision, bade him good afternoon, and rode quietly out of Kabul - and three days later the munitions convoy from Peshawar was cut to ribbons in the Khoord-Kabul pass by a force of yelling Gilzais and Ghazis who looted the caravan, butchered the drivers, and made off with a couple of tons of powder and ball.

  McNaghten was most irritated, but not concerned. With Bombay beckoning he was not going to alarm Calcutta over a skirmish, as he called it.

  "The Gilzais must be given a drubbing for kicking up this kind of row," said he, and hit on another bright idea: he would cut down expense by sending a couple of battalions back to India, and they could take a swipe at the Gilzais on their way home. Two birds with one stone. The only trouble was that his two battalions had to fight ..

  damned nearly every inch of the way as far as Gandamack, with the Gilzais potting at them from behind rocks and sweeping down in sudden cavalry charges. This was bad enough, but what made it worse was that our troops fought badly. Even under the command of General Sale -the tall, handsome "Fighting Bob" who used to invite his men to shoot him when they felt mutinous - clearing the passes was a slow, costly process.

  I saw some of it, for Burnes sent me on two occasions with messages to Sale from McNaghten, telling him to get on with it.

  It was a shocking experience the first time. I set off thinking it was something of a joy-ride, which it was until the last half-mile into Sale's rearguard, which was George Broadfoot's camp beyond Jugdulluk. Everything had been peaceful as you please, and I was just thinking how greatly exaggerated had been the reports arriving in Kabul from Sale, when out of a side-nullah came a mounted party of Ghazis, howling like wolves and brandishing their knives.

  I just clapped in my spurs, put my head down, and cut along the track as if all the fiends of hell were behind me -which they were. I tumbled into Broadfoot's camp half-dead with terror, which he fortunately mistook for exhaustion. George had the bad taste to find it all rather funny; he was one of those nerveless clods, and was in the habit of strolling about under the snipers' fire polishing his spectacles, although his red coat and even redder beard made him a marked man.

  He seemed to think everyone else was as unconcerned as he was, too, for he sent me back to Kabul that same night with another note, in which he told Burnes flatly that there wasn't a hope of keeping the passes open by force; they would have to negotiate with the Gilzais. I backed this up vehemently to Burnes, for although I had had a clear run back to Kabul, it was obvious to me that the Gilzais meant business, and at all the way stations there had been reports of other tribesmen massing in the hills above the passes.

  Burnes gave me some rather odd looks as I made my report; he thought I was scared and probably exaggerating.

  At any rate, he made no protest when McNaghten said Broadfoot was an ass and Sale an incompetent, and that they had better get a move on if they were to have cleared a way to Jallalabad - which was about two-thirds of the way from Kabul to Peshawar - before winter set in. So Sale's brigade was left to struggle on, and Burnes (who was much preoccupied with the thought of getting McNaghten's job as Envoy when McNaghten went to Bombay) wrote that the country was

  "in the main very tranquil". Well, he paid for his folly.

  A week or two later - it was now well into October - he sent me off again with a letter to Sale. Little progress was being made in clearing the passes, the Gilzais were as active as ever and out-shooting our troops all the time, and there were growing rumours of trouble brewing in Kabul itself. Burnes had sense enough to show a little concern, although McNaghten was still as placidly blind as ever, while Elphy Bey simply looked from one to the other, nodding agreement to whatever was said. But even Burnes showed no real urgency about it all; he just wanted to nag at Sale for not keeping the Gilzais quiet.

  This time I went with a good escort of my Gilzais, under young Ilderim, on the theory that while they were technically sworn to fight their own kinsfolk, they would be unlikely in practice to get into any shooting scrapes with them. However, I never put this to the test, for it became evident as we rode eastward through the passes that the situation was worse than anyone in Kabul had realised, and I decided that I, at any rate, would not try to get through to Sale. The whole country beyond Jugdulluk was up, and the hills were swarming with hostile Afghans, all either on their way to help beat up Sale's force, or else preparing for something bigger - there was talk among the villagers of a great jehad or holy war, in which the feringhees would be wiped out; it was on the eve of breaking out, they said. Sale was now hopelessly cut off; there was no chance of relief from Jallalabad, or even from Kabul - oh, Kabul was going to be busy enough looking after itself.

  I heard this shivering round a camp-fire on the Soorkab road, and Ilderim shook his head in the shadows and said:

  "It is not safe for you to go on, Flashman huzoor. You must return to Kabul. Give me the letter for Sale; although I have eaten the Queen's salt my own people will let me through."

  This was such obvious common sense that I gave him the letter without argument and started back for Kabul that same night, with four of the Gilzai hostages for company. At that hour I wanted to get as many miles as possible between me and the gathering Afghan tribes, but if I had known what was waiting for me in Kabul I would have gone on to Sale and thought myself lucky.

  Riding hard through the next day, we came to Kabul at nightfall, and I never saw the place so quiet. Bala Hissar loomed over the deserted streets; the few folk who were about were grouped in little knots in doorways and at street corners; there was an air of doom over the whole place. No British soldiers were to be seen in the city itself, and I was glad to get to the Residency, where Burnes lived in the heart of the town, and hear the courtyard gates grind to behind me. The armed men of Burnes's personal guard were standing to in the yard, while others were posted on the Residency walls; the torches shone on belt-plates and bayonets, and the place looked as though it was getting ready to withstand a siege.

  But Burnes himself was sitting reading in his study as cool as a minnow, until he saw me. At the sight of my evident haste and disorder - I was in Afghan dress, and pretty filthy after days in the saddle - he started up.

  "What the deuce are you doing here?" says he. I told him, and added that there would probably be an Afghan army coming to support my story.

  "My message to Sale," he snapped. "Where is it? Have you not delivered it?"

  I told him about Ilderim, and for once the dapper little dandy forgot his carefully cultivated calm.

  "Good God!" says he. "You've given it to a Gilzai to deliver?"

  "A friendly Gilzai," I assured him. "A hostage, you remember." />
  "Are you mad?" says he, his little moustache all a-quiver. "Don't you know that you can't trust an Afghan, hostage or not?"

  "Ilderim is a khan's son and a gentleman in his own way," I told him. "In any event, it was that or nothing. I couldn't have got through."

  "And why not? You speak Pushtu; you're in native dress - God knows you're dirty enough to pass. It was your duty to see that message into Sale's own hand - and bring an answer. My God, Flashman, this is a pretty business, when a British officer cannot be trusted ..."

  "Now, look you here, Sekundar," says I, but he came up straight like a little bantam and cut me off.

  "Sir Alexander, if you please," says he icily, as though I'd never seen him with his breeches down, chasing after some big Afghan bint.

  He stared at me and took a pace or two round the table.

  "I think I understand," says he. "I have wondered about you lately, Flashman - whether you were to be fully relied on, or ... Well, it shall be for a court-martial to decide-"

  "Court-martial? What the devil!"

  "For wilful disobedience of orders," says he. "There may be other charges. In any event, you may consider yourself under arrest, and confined to this house. We are all confined anyway - the Afghans are allowing no one to pass between here and the cantonment."

  "Well, in God's name, doesn't that bear out what I've been telling you?" I said. "The country's all up to the east-ward, man, and now here in Kabul ..."

  "There is no rising in Kabul," says he. "Merely a little unrest which I propose to deal with in the morning." He stood there, cock-sure little ass, in his carefully pressed linen suit, with a flower in his button-hole, talking as though he was a schoolmaster promising to reprimand some unruly fags. "It may interest you to know - you who turn tail at rumours - that I have twice this evening received direct threats to my life. I shall not be alive by morning, it is said. Well, well, we shall see about that."

  "Aye, maybe you will," says I. "And as to your fine talk that I turn tail at rumours, you may see about that, too. Maybe Akbar Khan will come to show you himself."

  He smiled at me, not pleasantly. "He is in Kabul; I have even had a message from him. And I am confident that he intends no harm to us. A few dissidents there are, of course, and it may be necessary to read them a lesson. However, I trust myself for that."

  There was no arguing with his complacency, but I pitched into him hard on his threat of a court-martial for me. You might have thought that any sensible man would have understood my case, but he simply waved my pro-tests aside, and finished by ordering me to my room. So I went, in a rare rage at the self-sufficient folly of the man, and heartily hoping that he would trip over his own conceit. Always so clever, always so sure - that was Burnes. I would have given a pension to see him at a loss for once. But I was to see it for nothing.

  It came suddenly, just before breakfast-time, when I was rubbing my eyes after a pretty sleepless night which had dragged itself away very slowly, and very silently for Kabul. It was a grey morning, and the cocks were crowing; suddenly I became aware of a distant murmur, growing to a rumble, and hurried to the window. The town lay still, with a little haze over the houses; the guards were still on the wall of the Residency compound, and in the distance, coming closer, the noise was identifiable as the tramping of feet and the growing clamour of a mob.

  There was a shouted order in the courtyard, a clatter of feet on the stairs, and Burnes's voice calling for his brother, young Charlie, who lived in the Residency with him. I snatched my robe from its peg and hurried down, winding my puggaree on to my head as I went. As I reached the courtyard there was the crack of a musket shot, and a wild yell from beyond the wall; a volley of blows hammered on the gate, and across the top of the wall I saw the vanguard of a charging horde streaming out from between the nearest houses. Bearded faces, flashing knives, they surged up to the wall and fell back, yelling and cursing, while the guards thrust at them with their musket butts. For a moment I thought they would charge again and sweep irresistibly over the wall, but they hung back, a jostling, shrieking crowd, shaking their fists and weapons, while the guardsmen lining the wall looked anxiously back for orders and kept their thumbs poised on their musket-locks.

  Burnes strolled out of the front door and stood in full view at the top of the steps. He was as fresh and calm as a squire taking his first sniff of the morning, but at the sight of him the mob redoubled its clamour and rolled up to the wall, yelling threats and insults while he looked right and left at them, smiling and shaking his head.

  "No shooting, havildar," says he to the guard commander. "It will all quieten down in a moment."

  "Death to Sekundar!" yelled the mob. "Death to the feringhee pig!"

  Jim Broadfoot, who was George's younger brother, and little Charlie Burnes, were at Sekundar's elbow, both looking mighty anxious, but Burnes himself never lost his poise. Suddenly he raised his hand, and the mob beyond the wall fell quiet; he grinned at that, and touched his moustache in that little, confident gesture he had, and then he began to talk to them in Pushtu. His voice was quiet, and must have carried only faintly to them, but they listened for a little as he coolly told them to go home, and stop this folly, and reminded them that he had always been their friend and had done them no harm.

  It might have succeeded, for he had the gift of the gab, but show-off that he was, he carried it just too far, and patronised them, and first there were murmurs, and then the clamour swelled up again, more savage than before. Suddenly one Afghan started forward and hurled himself on to the wall, knocking down a sentry; the nearest guard drove at the Afghan with his bayonet, someone in the crowd fired his jezzail, and with one hellish roar the whole mob swept forward, scrambling up the wall.

  The havildar yelled an order, there was the ragged crash of a volley, and the courtyard was full of struggling men, crazy Afghans with their knives hacking and the guard falling back, stabbing with their bayonets and going down beneath the rush. There was no holding them; I saw Broadfoot grab Burnes and hustle him inside the house, and a moment later I was inside myself, slamming the side door in the face of a yelling Ghazi with a dozen of his fellows bounding at his heels.

  It was a stout door, thank God, like the others in the Residency; otherwise we should all have been butchered within five minutes.

  Blows shattered on the far side of it as I slipped the bar home, and as I hurried along the passage to the main hallway I could hear, above the shrieking and shooting outside, the crash and thud of countless fists and hilts on panels and shutters - it was like being inside a box with demented demons pounding on the lid. Suddenly above the din there was the crash of an ordered volley from the courtyard, and then another, and as the yelling subsided momentarily the havildar's voice could be heard urging the remnant of the guard into the house. Little bloody odds it would make, I thought; they had us cornered, and it was a case of having our throats cut now or later.

  Burnes and the others were in the hallway, and Sekundar as usual was showing off, affecting carelessness in a tight spot.

  "Wake Duncan with thy knocking," he quoted, cocking his head on one side at the pounding of the mob. "How many of the guard are inside, Jim?"

  Broadfoot said about a dozen, and Burnes said: "That's splendid.

  That makes, let's see, twelve, and the servants, and us three - hullo, here's Flashman! Mornin' Flash; sleep well? Apologise for this rude awakening - about twenty-five, I'd say; twenty fighting men, anyway."

  "Few enough," says Broadfoot, examining his pistols. "The niggers'll be inside before long - we can't cover every door and window, Sekundar."

  A musket ball crashed through a shutter and knocked a cloud of plaster off the opposite wall. Everyone ducked, except Burnes.

  "Nonsense!" says he. "Can't cover 'em from down here, I grant you, but we don't have to. Now Jim, take the guard, all of 'em, upstairs, and have 'em shoot down from the balconies. That'll clear these mad fellows away from the sides of the house. There ain't many guns a
mong them, I fancy, so you can get a good sight of them without fear of being hit - much. Up you go, laddie, look sharp!"

  Broadfoot clattered away, and a moment later the red-coated jawans were mounting the stairs, with Burnes shouting "Shabash!" to encourage them while he belted his sword over his suit and stuck a pistol in his belt. He seemed positively to be enjoying himself, the bloody ass. He clapped me on the shoulder and asked didn't I just wish I'd galloped on to Sale after all - but never a word of acknowledgement that my warning had proved correct. I reminded him of it, and pointed out that if he had listened then, we shouldn't be going to get our throats cut now, but he just laughed and straightened his button-hole.

  "Don't croak so, Flashy," says he. "I could hold this house with two men and a whore's protector." There was a sound of ragged firing over our heads. "You see? Jim's setting about 'em already. Come on, Charlie, let's see the fun!" And he and his brother hurried upstairs, leaving me alone in the hall.

  "What about my bloody court-martial?" I shouted after him, but he never heard.

  Well, his plan worked, at first. Broadfoot's men did clear away the rascals from round the walls, shooting down from the upper windows and balcony, and when I joined them on the upper floor there were about twenty Ghazi corpses in the courtyard. A few shots came the other way, and one of the jawans was wounded in the thigh, but the main mob had now retreated to the street, and con-tented themselves with howling curses from the cover of the wall.