01 - Flashman fp-1

by George MacDonald Fraser

  "As to that," he said, "I am the master of this house. My close friends call me Bakbook, because I incline to talk. Others call me by various names, as they choose." He bowed. "You may call me by my given name, which is Akbar Khan. Good night, Flashman huzoor, and a pleasant rest. There are servants within call if you need them."

  And with that he was gone, leaving me gaping at the doorway, and feeling no end of a fool.

  In fact, Akbar Khan did not return next day, or for a week afterwards, so I had plenty of time to speculate. I was kept under close guard in the room, but comfortably enough; they fed me well and allowed me to exercise on a little closed verandah with a couple of armed Barukzis to keep an eye on me. But not a word would anyone say in answer to my questions and demands for release. I couldn't even discover what was going on in Kabul, or what our troops were doing -

  or what Akbar Khan himself might be up to. Or, most important of all, why he was keeping me prisoner.

  Then, on the eighth day, Akbar returned, looking very spruce and satisfied. When he had dismissed the guards he inquired after my wounds, which were almost better, asked if I was well cared for and so forth, and then said that if there was anything I wished to know he would do his best to inform me.

  Well, I lost no time in making my wishes known, and he listened smiling and stroking his short black beard. At last he cut me off with a raised hand.

  "Stop, stop, Flashman huzoor. I see you are like a thirsty man; we must quench you a little at a time. Sit down now, and drink a little tea, and listen."

  I sat, and he paced slowly about the room, a burly, springy figure in his green tunic and pyjamys which were tucked into short riding boots. He was something of a dandy, I noticed; there was gold lace on the tunic, and silver edging to the shirt beneath it. But again I was impressed by the obvious latent strength of the man; you could see it even in his stance, with his broad chest that looked always as though he was holding a deep breath, and his long, powerful hands.

  "First," he said, "I keep you here because I need you. How, you shall see later - not today. Second, all is well in Kabul. The British keep to their cantonment, and the Afghans snipe at them from time to time and make loud noises. The King of Afghanistan, Shah Sujah" -

  here he curled his lip in amusement - "sits doing nothing among his women in the Bala Hissar, and calls to the British to help him against his unruly people. The mobs rule Kabul itself, each mob under its leader imagining that it alone has frightened the British off. They do a little looting, and a little raping, and a little killing - their own people, mark you - and are content for the moment. There you have the situation, which is most satisfactory. Oh, yes, and the hill tribes, hearing of the death of Sekundar Burnes, and of the rumoured presence in Kabul of one Akbar Khan, son of the true king Dost Mohammed, are converging on the capital. They smell war and plunder. Now, Flashman huzoor, you are answered."

  Well, of course, in answering half a dozen questions he had posed a hundred others. But one above all I had to be satisfied about.

  "You say the British keep to their cantonment," I cried. "But what about Burnes's murder? D'you mean they've done nothing?"

  "In effect, nothing," says he. "They are unwise, for their inaction is taken as cowardice. You and I know they are not cowards, but the Kabuli mobs don't, and I fear this may encourage them to greater excesses than they have committed already. But we shall see.

  However, all this leads me to my purpose in visiting you today - apart from my desire to inquire into your welfare." And he grinned again, that infectious smile which seemed to mock but which I couldn't dislike. "You understand that if I satisfy your curiosity here and there, I also have questions which I would wish answered." "Ask away," says I, rather cautious.

  "You said, at our first meeting - or at least you implied - that Elfistan Sahib and McLoten Sahib were . . . how shall I put it? ...

  sometimes less than intelligent. Was that a considered judgement?"

  "Elphinstone Sahib and McNaghten Sahib," says I, "are a pair of born bloody fools, as anyone in the bazaar will tell you."

  "The people in the bazaar have not the advantage of serving on Elfistan Sahib's staff," says he drily. "That is why I attach importance to your opinion. Now, are they trustworthy?"

  This was a deuced odd question, from an Afghan, I thought, and for a moment I nearly replied that they were English officers, blast his eyes. But you would have been wasting your time talking that way to Akbar Khan. "Yes, they're trustworthy," I said.

  "One more than the other? Which would you trust with your horse, or your wife - I take it you have no children?"

  I didn't think long about this. "I'd trust Elphy Bey to do his best like a gentleman," I said. "But it probably wouldn't be much of a best."

  "Thank you, Flashman," says he, "that is all I need to know. Now, I regret that I must cut short our most interesting little discussion, but I have many affairs to attend to. I shall come again, and we shall speak further."

  "Now, hold on," I began, for I wanted to know how long he intended to keep me locked up, and a good deal more, but he turned me aside most politely, and left. And there I was, for another two weeks, damn him, with no one but the silent Barukzis for company.

  I didn't doubt what he had told me about the situation in Kabul was true, but I couldn't understand it. It made no sense - a prominent British official murdered, and nothing done to avenge him. As it proved, this was exactly what had happened. When the mob looted the Residency and I Sekundar was hacked to bits, old Elphy and McNaghten had gone into the vapours, but they'd done virtually nothing. They had written notes to each other, wondering whether to march into the city, or move into the Bala Hissar fort, or bring Sale -

  who was still bogged down by the Gilzais at Gandamack - back to Kabul. In the end they did nothing, and the Kabuli mobs roamed the city, as Akbar said, doing what they pleased, and virtually besieging our people in the cantonment.

  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 out-posts 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 stable hands, 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 th
ere 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 Kuzzil-bashies, 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 fare-well 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." Doubt-less 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 Mackenzie(16) 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."