01 - Flashman fp-1

by George MacDonald Fraser

  What was obvious was that nothing must now happen to spoil Sale's lovely dream for him; it would have been cruel to the old fellow.

  So I addressed myself to the task at once.

  "We did our duty, sir," says I, looking uncomfortable, and Havelock nodded again, while old Bob came back to the bed.

  "And I have done mine," says he, fumbling in his pocket. "For I conceived it no less, in sending my latest despatch to Lord Ellenborough - who now commands in Delhi - to include an account of your action. I'll read it," says he, "because it speaks more clearly than I can at present, and will enable you to see how others judged your conduct."

  He cleared his throat, and began.

  "Humph - let's see - Afghans in strength - demands that I surrender - aye, aye - sharp engagement by Dennie - ah, here we have it. 'I had despatched a strong guard under Captain Little to Piper's Fort, commanding an eminence some way from the city, where I feared the enemy might establish gun positions. When the siege began, Piper's Fort was totally cut off from us, and received the full force of the enemy's assault. In what manner it resisted I cannot say in detail, for of its garrison only five now survive, four of them being sepoys, and the other an English officer who is yet unconscious with his wounds, but will, as I trust, soon recover. How he came in the fort I know not, for he was not of the original garrison, but on the staff of General Elphinstone. His name is Flashman, and it is probable that he and Dr Brydon are the only survivors of the army so cruelly destroyed at Jugdulluk and Gandamack. I can only assume that he escaped the final massacre, and so reached Piper's Fort after the siege began."

  He looked at me. "You shall correct me, my boy, if I go wrong, but it is right you should know what I have told his excellency."

  "You're very kind sir," says I, humbly. Too kind by a damned sight, if you only knew.

  "'The siege continued slowly on our own front, as I have already informed you," says Sale, reading on, "'but the violence of the assaults on Piper's Fort was unabated. Captain Little was slain, with his sergeant, but the garrison fought on with the utmost resolution.

  Lieutenant Flash-man, as I learn from one of the sepoys, was in a case more suited to a hospital than to a battlefield, for he had evidently been prisoner of the Afghans, who had flogged him most shockingly, so that he was unable to stand, and must lie in the fort tower. His companion, Sergeant Hudson, assisted most gallantly in the defence, until Lieutenant Flashman, despite his wounds, returned to the action.

  "'Charge after charge was resisted, and the enemy most bloodily repulsed. To us in Jallalabad, this un-expected check to the Sirdar's advance was an advantage beyond price. It may well have been decisive.'"

  Well, Hudson, thinks I, that was what you wanted, and you got it, for all the good it did you. Meanwhile, Sale laid off for a minute, took a wipe at his eye, and started in again, trying not to quaver. I suspect he was enjoying his emotion.

  "'But there was no way in which we could succour Piper's Fort at this time, and, the enemy bringing forward cannon, the walls were breached in several places. I had now resolved on a sortie, to do what could be done for our comrades, and Colonel Dennie advanced to their relief. In a sharp engagement over the very ruins of the fort - for it had been pounded almost to pieces by the guns - the Afghans were entirely routed, and we were able to make good the position and withdraw the survivors of the garrison which had held it so faithfully and well.'"

  I thought the old fool was going to weep, but he took a great pull at himself and proceeded:

  '"With what grief do I write that of these there remained only five? The gallant Hudson was slain, and at first it seemed that no European was left alive. Then Lieutenant ? Flashman was found, wounded and unconscious, by the ruins of the gate, where he had taken his final stand in defence not only of the fort, but of his country's honour. For he was found, in the last extremity, with the colours clutched to his broken body, his face to the foemen, defiant even unto death.'"

  Hallelujah and good-night, sweet prince, says I to myself, what a shame I hadn't a broken sword and a ring of my slain around me. But I thought too soon.

  "The bodies of his enemies lay before him,"' says old Bob, "'At first it was thought he was dead, but to our great joy it was discovered that the flame of life still flickered. I cannot think that there was ever a nobler deed than this, and I only wish that our countrymen at home might have seen it, and learned with what selfless devotion their honour is protected even at the ends of the earth. It was heroic! and I trust that Lieutenant Flashman's name will be remembered in every home in England. Whatever may be said of the disasters that have befallen us here, his valour is testimony that the spirit of our young manhood is no whit less ardent than that of their predecessors who, in Pitt's words, saved Europe by their example.'"

  Well, thinks I, if that's how we won the battle of Waterloo, thank God the French don't know or we shall have them at us again. Who ever heard such humbug? But it was glorious to listen to, mind you, and I glowed at the thought of it. This was fame! I didn't understand, then, how the news of Kabul and Gandamack would make England shudder, and how that vastly conceited and indignant public would clutch at any straw that might heal their national pride and enable them to repeat the old and nonsensical lie that one Englishman is worth twenty foreigners. But I could still guess what effect Sale's report would have on a new Governor-General, and through him on the government and country, especially by contrast with the accounts of the inglorious shambles by Elphy and McNaghten that must now be on their way home.

  All I must do was be modest and manly and wait for the laurel wreaths.

  Sale had shoved his copy of the letter back in his pocket, and was looking at me all moist and admiring. Havelock was stern; I guessed he thought Sale was laying it on a deal too thick, but he couldn't say so. (I gathered later that .the defence of Piper's Fort wasn't quite so important to Jallalabad as Fighting Bob imagined; it was his own hesitation that made him hold off so long attacking Akbar, and in fact he might have relieved us sooner.)

  It was up to me, so I looked Sale in the eye, man to man.

  "You've done us great credit, sir," says I. "Thank'ee. For the garrison, it's no less then they deserve, but for myself, well you make it sound ... a bit too much like St George and the Dragon, if you don't mind my saying so. I just. . . well, pitched in with the rest, sir, that was all."

  Even Havelock smiled at this plain, manly talk, and Sale nearly burst with pride and said it was the grandest thing, by heaven, and the whole garrison was full of it. Then he sobered down, and asked me to tell him how I had come to Piper's Fort, and what had happened to separate Hudson and me from the army. Elphy was still in Akbar's hands, along with Shelton and Mackenzie and the married folk, but for the rest they had thought them all wiped out except Brydon, who had come galloping in alone with a broken sabre trailing from his wrist.

  With Havelock's eye on me I kept it brief and truthful. We had come adrift from the army in the fighting about Jugdulluk, I said, had escaped by inches through the gullies with Ghazis pursuing us, and had tried to rejoin the army at Gandamack, but had only been in time to see it slaughtered. I described the scene accurately, with old Bob groaning and damning and Havelock frowning like a stone idol, and then told how we had been captured and imprisoned by Afridis. They had flogged me to make me give information about the Kandahar force and other matters, but thank God I had told them nothing ("bravo!"

  says old Bob), and had managed to slip my fetters the same night. I had released Hudson and together we had cut our way past our captors and escaped.

  I said nothing of Narreeman - least said soonest mended - but concluded with an account of how we had skulked through the Afghan army, and then ridden into the fort hell-for-leather.

  There I left it, and old Bob exclaimed again about courage and endurance, but what reassured me most was that Havelock, without a word, shook my right hand in both of his. I can say that I told it well -

  off-hand, but not over-modest; jus
t a blunt soldier reporting to his seniors. It calls for nice judgement, this art of bragging; you must be plain, but not too plain, and you must smile only rarely. Letting them guess more than you say is the kernel of it, and looking uncomfortable when they compliment you.

  They spread the tale, of course, and in the next few days I don't suppose there was an officer of the garrison who didn't come in to shake hands and congratulate me on coming through safe. George Broadfoot was among the first, all red whiskers and spectacles, beaming and telling me what a devil of a fellow I was - and this from Broadfoot, mind you, whom the Afghans called a brave among braves.

  To have people like him and Mayne and Fighting Bob making much of me - well, it was first-rate, I can tell you, and my conscience didn't trouble me a bit. Why should it? I didn't ask for their golden opinions; I just didn't contradict 'em. Who would?

  It was altogether a splendid few weeks. While I lay nursing my leg, the siege of Jallalabad petered out, and Sale finally made another sortie that scattered the Afghan army to the winds. A few days after that Pollock arrived with the relief force from Peshawar, and the garrison band piped them in amongst universal cheering. Of course, I was on hand; they carried me out on to the verandah, and I saw Pollock march in. Later that evening Sale brought him to see me, and expounded my gallantries once again, to my great embarrassment, of course. Pollock swore it was tremendous, and vowed to avenge me when he marched on to Kabul; Sale was going with him to clear the passes, brink Akbar to book, if possible, and release the prisoners -who included Lady Sale - should they still be alive.

  "You can stay here and take your well-earned repose while your leg mends," says Fighting Bob, at which I decided a scowl and a mutter might be appropriate.

  "I'd rather come along," says I. "Damn this infernal leg."

  "Why, hold on," laughs Sale, "we'd have to carry you in a palankeen. Haven't you had enough of Afghanistan?"

  "Not while Akbar Khan's above ground," says I. "I'd like to take these splints and make him eat 'em."

  They laughed at this, and Broadfoot, who was there, cries out:

  "He's an old war-horse already, our Flashy. Ye want tae be in at the death, don't ye, ye great carl? Aye, well, ye can leave Akbar tae us; forbye, I doubt if the action we'll find about Kabul will be lively enough for your taste."

  They went off, and I heard Broadfoot telling Pollock what a madman I was when it came to a fight - "when we were fighting in the passes, it was Flashman every time that was sent out as galloper to us with messages; ye would see him fleein' over the sangars like a daft Ghazi, and aye wi" a pack o' hostiles howling at his heels. He minded them no more than flies."

  That was what he made out of the one inglorious occasion when I had been chased for my life into his encampment. But you will have noticed, no doubt, that when a man has a reputation good or bad, folk will always delight in adding to it; there wasn't a man in Afghanistan who knew me but who wanted to recall having seen me doing something desperate, and Broadfoot, quite sincerely, was like all the rest.

  Pollock and Sale didn't catch Akbar, as it turned out, but they did release the prisoners he had taken, and the army's arrival in Kabul quieted the country. There was no question of serious reprisals; having been once bitten, we were not looking for trouble a second time. The one prisoner they didn't release, though, was old Elphy Bey; he had died in captivity, worn out and despairing, and there was a general grief in which I, for one, didn't share. No doubt he was a kindly old stick, but he was a damned disaster as a commander. He, above all others, murdered the army of Afghanistan, and when I reckon up the odds against my own survival in that mess - well, it wasn't Elphy's fault that I came through.

  But while all these stirring things were happening, while the Afghans were skulking back into their hills, and Sale and Pollock and Nott were showing the flag and blowing up Kabul bazaar for spite; while the news of the catalogue of disasters was breaking on a horrified England; while the old Duke of Wellington was damning Auckland's folly for sending an army to occupy "rocks, sands, deserts, ice and snow"; while the general public and Palmerston were crying out for vengeance, and the Prime Minister was retorting that he wasn't going to make another war for the sake of spreading the study of Adam Smith among that Pathans - while all this was happening I was enjoying a triumphal progress back to India. With my leg still splinted, I was being borne south as the hero - or, at least, the most convenient of a few heroes - of the hour.

  It is obvious now that the Delhi administration regarded me as something of a godsend. As Greville said later of the Afghan war, there wasn't much cause for triumph in it, but Ellenborough in Delhi was shrewd enough to see that the best way to put a good gloss on the whole horrible nonsense was to play up its few creditable aspects - and I was the first handy one.

  So while he was trumpeting in orders of the day about "the illustrious garrison" who had held Jallalabad under the noble Sale, he found room to beat the drum about "gallant Flashman", and India took its cue from him. While they drank my health they could pretend that Gandamack hadn't happened.

  I got my first taste of this when I left Jallalabad in a palankeen, to go down the Khyber with a convoy, and the whole garrison turned out to hurrah me off. Then at Peshawar there was old Avitabile, the Italian rascal, who welcomed me with a guard of honour, kissed me on both cheeks, and made me and himself riotously drunk in celebration of my return. That night was memorable for one thing - I had my first woman for months, for Avitabile had in a couple of lively Afghan wenches, and we made splendid beasts of ourselves. It isn't easy, I may say, handling a woman when your leg is broken, but where there's a will there's a way, and in spite of the fact that Avitabile was almost sick laughing at the spectacle of me getting my wench buckled to, I managed most satisfactorily.

  From there it was the same all the way - at every town and camp there were garlands and congratulations and smiling faces and cheering, until I could almost believe I was a hero. The men gripped my hand, full of emotion, and the women kissed me and sniffled; colonels had my health drunk in their messes, Company men slapped me on the shoulder, an Irish subaltern and his young wife got me to stand godfather to their new son, who was launched into life with the appalling name of Flashman O'Toole, and the ladies of the Church Guild at Lahore presented me with a silk scarf in red, white, and blue with a scroll embroidered "Steadfast". At Ludhiana a clergyman preached a tremendous sermon on the text, "Greater love hath no man than this that a man lay down his life for his friends" - he admitted, in a roundabout way, that I hadn't actually laid down mine, but it hadn't been for want of trying, and had been a damned near thing altogether.

  Better luck next rime was about his view of it, and meanwhile hosannah and hurrah for Flashy, and let us now sing "Who would true valour see".

  All this was nothing to Delhi, where they actually had a band playing "Hail the conquering hero comes", and Ellenborough himself helped me out of the palankeen and supported me up the steps. There was a tremendous crowd, all cheering like billy-o, and a guard of honour, and an address read out by a fat chap in a red coat, and a slap-up dinner afterwards at which Ellenborough made a great speech which lasted over an hour. It was dreadful rubbish, about Thermopylae and the Spanish Armada, and how I had clutched the colours to my bleeding breast, gazing proudly with serene and noble brow o'er the engorged barbarian host, like Christian before Apollyon or Roland at Roncesvalles, I forget which, but I believe it was both. He was a fearful orator, full of bombast from Shakespeare and the classics, and I had no difficulty in feeling like a fool long before he was finished. But I sat it out, staring down the long white table with all Delhi society gaping at me and drinking in Ellenborough's non-sense; I had just sense enough not to get drunk in public, and by keeping a straight face and frowning I contrived to look noble; I heard the women say as much behind their fans, peeping at me and no doubt wondering what kind of a mount I would make, while their husbands thumped the table and shouted

  "bravo!" whenever Ellenboro
ugh said something especially foolish.

  Then at the end, damned if he didn't start singing "For he's a jolly good fellow!" at which the whole crowd rose and roared their heads off, and I sat red-faced and trying not to laugh as I thought of what Hudson would have said if he could have seen me. It was too bad, of course, but they would never have made such a fuss about a sergeant, and even if they had, he couldn't have carried it off as I did, insisting on hobbling up to reply, and having Ellenborough say that if I must stand, it should be his shoulder I should lean on, and by God, he would boast about it ever after.

  At this they roared again, and with his red face puffing claret beside me I said that this was all too much for one who was only a simple English gentleman ("amen to that," cries Ellenborough, "and never was proud title more proudly borne") and that what I had done was my duty, no more or less, as I hoped became a soldier. And while I didn't believe there was any great credit to me in it (cries of "No! No!"), well, if they said there was, it wasn't due to me but to the country that bore me, and to the old school where I was brought up as a Christian, I hoped, by my masters. (What possessed me to say this I shall never understand, unless it was sheer delight in lying, but they raised the roof.) And while they were so kind to me they must not forget those others who had carried the flag, and were carrying it still ("hear!

  hear!"), and who would beat the Afghans back to where they came from, and prove what everyone knew, that Englishmen never would be slaves (thunderous applause). And, well, what I had done hadn't been much, but it had been my best, and I hoped I would always do it. (More cheering, but not quite as loud, I thought, and I decided to shut up.) So God bless them all, and let them drink with me to the health of our gallant comrades still in the field.