“Where the devil did you come by this, Hudson?” says I, for there had been nothing but dried mutton and a few scraps of biscuit on the last few days of the march.
“Foraged, sir,” says he, cool as you please, so I asked no more questions, but sipped contentedly as I lay in my blankets.
“Hold on, though,” I said, as he dropped more sticks on his fire. “Suppose some damned Ghazi sees your smoke; we’ll have the whole pack of’em down on us.”
“Beg pardon, sir,” says he, “but this hardwood don’t make no smoke worth mentioning.” And neither it did, when I came to look at it.
A moment later he was begging my pardon again, and asking if I intended we should ride on shortly, or perhaps rest for that day where we were. He pointed out that the ponies were used up, what with lack of fodder, but that if they were rested and given a good feed next morning, we should be out of the snow soon and into country where we might expect to come by grazing.
I was in two minds about this, for the more distance we put between ourselves and Akbar’s ruffians – and Gul Shah especially – the better I would like it. On the other hand, both the beasts and ourselves would be the better of rest and in this broken country it didn’t seem likely that we would be spotted, except by sheer chance. So I agreed, and found myself considering this Sergeant Hudson for the first time, for beyond noting that he was a steady man I had given him not much notice before. After all, why should one notice one’s men very much?
He was about thirty, I suppose, powerfully built, with fair hair that had a habit of falling over one eye, when he would brush it away. He had one of those square tough faces that you see on working men, with grey eyes and a cleft in his chin, and he did everything very deft and smartly. By his accent I would have said he was from somewhere in the west, but he was well spoken enough, and, although he knew his place, was not at all your ordinary trooper, half-yokel, half-guttersnipe. It seemed to me as I watched him tending the fire, and presently rubbing down the ponies, that I had made a lucky choice in him.
Next morning we were up and off before dawn, Hudson having given the beasts the last of the fodder which he confessed he had been hoarding in his bags – “just in case we was going to need one last good day’s gallop”. Using the sun, I set off south-east, which meant we had the main road from Kabul to India somewhere away to our right; it was my intention to follow this line until we came to the River Soorkab, which we would ford and follow along its southern bank to Jallalabad, about sixty miles away. That should keep us well clear of the road, and of any wandering bands of Afghans.
I was not greatly concerned about what tale we would tell when we got there; God knew how many folk had become separated from the main army, like Hudson and myself, or how many would eventually turn up at Jallalabad. I doubted if the main force would ever get there, and that would give everyone too much to think about to worry about a few strays like us. At need I could say we had become separated in the confusion; Hudson wasn’t likely to blab my remark about being despatched on orders from Elphy – and God knew when Elphy would return to India, if he ever did.
So I was in excellent fettle as we threaded our way through the little snowy passes, and well before noon we crossed the Soorkab and made capital speed along its southern shore. It was rocky enough, to be sure, but there were occasional places where we could raise a gallop, and it seemed to me that at this rate we should soon be out of the snows and on to easier, drier going. I pressed on hard, for this was Gilzai country, and Mogala, where Gul Shah lorded it when he was at home, was not far away. The thought of that grim stronghold, with the crucifixes at the gates, cast a shadow over my mind, and at that moment Sergeant Hudson edged his pony up beside mine.
“Sir,” says he. “I think we’re being followed.”
“What d’ye mean?” says I, nastily startled. “Who is it?”
“Dunno,” says he, “but I can feel it, if you know what I mean, sir.” He looked round us; we were on a fairly clear stretch, with the river rumbling away to our left, and broken hills to our right. “Mebbe this way isn’t as lonely as we thought.”
I’d been long enough in the hills to know that when a seasoned soldier has that instinct, he is generally right; a less experienced and less nervous officer might have pooh-poohed his fears, but I knew better. At once we turned away from the river and up a narrow gully into the hill country; if there were Afghans behind us we would let them pass on while we took a long loop into the hills. We could still hold our course for Jallalabad, but midway between the Soorkab and the main road.
It was slower going, of course, but after an hour or so Hudson said he felt we were clear of whoever had been behind us. Still I kept well away from the river, and then another interruption came: from far away to our right, very faint on the afternoon air, came the sound of firing. It was ragged, but there was enough of it to suggest that a fair-sized force was involved.
“By God!” says Hudson. “It’s the army, sir!”
The same thought struck me; it might be that the army, or what was left of it, would have got this far on the road. I guessed that Gandamack would be somewhere up ahead of us, and as I knew that the Soorkab swings south in that area, we had no choice but to ride towards the firing if we were not to risk running into our mysterious pursuers on the river.
So we pushed on, and always that damned firing came closer. I guessed it couldn’t be more than a mile off now, and was just about to call to Sergeant Hudson, who had forged ahead, when he turned in his saddle and waved to me in great excitement. He had come to a place where two great rocks reared up at the mouth of a gully that ran down steeply in the direction of the Kabul road; between them we had a clear view down from the heights, and as I reined in and looked I saw a sight I shall never forget.
Beneath us, and about a mile away, lay a little cluster of huts, with smoke rising from them, that I guessed must be Gandamack village. Close by, where the road swung north again, was a gentle slope, strewn with boulders, rising to a flat summit about a hundred yards across. That whole slope was crawling with Afghans; their yells came clearly up the gully to us. On the summit of the slope was a group of men, maybe a company strong; at first, seeing their blue poshteens, I took them for Afghans, but then I noticed the shakos, and Sergeant Hudson’s voice, shaking with excitement, confirmed me:
“That’s the 44th! Look at ’em, sir! It’s the 44th, poor devils!”
They were in a ragged square, back to back on the hilltop, and even as we watched I saw the glitter of bayonets as they levelled their pieces, and a thin volley crashed out across the valley. The Afghans yelled louder than ever, and gave back, but then they surged in again, the Khyber knives rising and falling as they tried to hack their way into the square. Another volley, and they gave back yet again, and I saw one of the figures on the summit flourishing a sword as though in defiance. He looked for all the world like a toy soldier, and then I noticed a strange thing; he seemed to be wearing a long red, white and blue weskit beneath his poshteen.
I must have said something of this to Hudson, for he shouted out: “By God, it’s the colours! Damn the black bastards, give it to ’em, 44th! Give ’em hot hell!”
“Shut up, you fool!” says I, although I needn’t have worried, for we were too far away to be heard. But Hudson stopped shouting, and contented himself with swearing and whispering encouragement to the doomed men on the hilltop.
For they were doomed. Even as we watched the grey and black robed figures came charging up the slope again, from all sides, another volley cracked out, and then the wave had broken over them. It boiled and eddied on the hilltop, the knives and bayonets flashing, and then it rolled slowly back with one great, wailing yell of triumph, and on the hilltop there were no figures standing up. Of the man with the colours round his waist there was no sign; all that remained was a confusion of vague shapes scattered among the rocks, and a haze of powder smoke that presently drifted off into nothing on the frosty air.
Somehow I knew
that I had just seen the end of the army of Afghanistan. Of course one would have expected the 44th to be the last remnant, as the only British regiment in the force, but even without that I would have known. This was what Elphy Bey’s fine army of more than fourteen thousand had come to, in just a week. There might be a few prisoners; there would be no other survivors. I was wrong, as it turned out; one man, Dr Brydon, cut his way out and brought the news to Jallalabad, but there was no way of knowing this at the time.
There is a painting of the scene at Gandamack,20 which I saw a few years ago, and it is like enough the real thing as I remember it. No doubt it is very fine and stirs martial thoughts in the glory-blown asses who look at it; my only thought when I saw it was, “You poor bloody fools!” and I said so, to the disgust of other viewers. But I was there, you see, shivering with horror as I watched, unlike the good Londoners, who let the roughnecks and jailbirds keep their empire for them; they are good enough for getting cut up at the Gandamacks which fools like Elphy and McNaghten bring ’em to, and no great loss to anybody.
Sergeant Hudson was staring down, with tears running over his cheeks. I believe, given a chance, he would have gone charging down to join them. All he would say was, “Bastards! Black bastards!” until I gave him the right about, pretty sharp, and we hurried away on our path, letting the rocks shut off the hellish sight behind us.
I was shaken by what we had seen, and to get as far away from Gandamack as we could was the thought that drove me on that day at a dangerous pace. We clattered along the rocky paths, and our ponies scrambled down the screes in such breakneck style that I go cold to look back on it. Only darkness stopped us, and we were well on our way next morning before I would rein in. By this time we had left the snow-line far behind us, and feeling the sun again raised my spirits once more.
It was as certain as anything could be that we were the only survivors of the army of Afghanistan still moving eastward in good order. This was a satisfactory thought. Why shouldn’t I be frank about it? Now that the army was finished, there was little chance of meeting hostile tribesmen farther east than the point where it had died. So we were safe, and to come safe out of a disaster is more gratifying than to come safe out of none at all. Of course, it was a pity about the others, but wouldn’t they have felt the same gratification in my place? There is great pleasure in catastrophe that doesn’t touch you, and anyone who says there isn’t is a liar. Haven’t you seen it in the face of a bearer of bad news, and heard it in the unctuous phrases at the church gate after a funeral?
So I reflected, and felt mighty cheery, and perhaps this made me careless. At any rate, moralists will say I was well served for my thoughts, as our ponies trotted onwards, for what interrupted them was the sudden discovery that I was looking along the barrel of a jezzail into the face of one of the biggest, ugliest Afridi badmashes I have ever seen. He seemed to grow out of the rocks like a genie, and a dozen other ruffians with him, springing out to seize our bridles and sword-arms before we could say galloping Jesus.
“Khabadar, sahib!” says the big jezzailchi, grinning all over his villainous face, as though I needed telling to be careful. “Get down,” he added, and his mates hauled me from the saddle and held me fast.
“What’s this?” says I, trying to brave it put. “We are friends, on our way to Jallalabad. What do you want with us?”
“The British are everyone’s friends,” grins he, “and they are all going to Jallalabad – or were.” And his crew cackled with laughter. “You will come with us,” and he nodded to my captors, who had a thong round my wrists and tied to my own stirrup in a trice.
There was no chance of putting up a fight, even if all the heart had not gone out of me. For a moment I had hoped they were just broken men of the hills, who might have robbed us and let us go, but they were intent on holding us prisoner. For ransom? That was the best I could hope for. I played a desperate card.
“I am Flashman huzoor,” cries I, “the friend of Akbar Khan Sirdar. He’ll have the heart and guts of anyone who harms Bloody Lance!”
“Allah protect us!” says the jezzailchi, who was a humorist in his way, like all his lousy kind. “Guard him close, Raisul, or he’ll stick you on his little spear, as he did to the Gilzais at Mogala.” He hopped into my saddle and grinned down at me. “You can fight, Bloody Lance. Can you walk also?” And he set the pony off at a brisk trot, making me run alongside, and shouting obscene encouragement. They had served Hudson the same way, and we had no choice but to stumble along, jeered at by our ragged conquerors.
It was too much; to have come so far, to have endured so much, to have escaped so often, to be so close to safety – and now this. I wept and swore, called my captor every filthy name I could lay tongue to, in Pushtu, Urdu, English, and Persian, pleaded with him to let us go in return for a promise of great payment, threatened him with the vengeance of Akbar Khan, beseeched him to take us to the Sirdar, struggled like a furious child to break my bonds – and he only roared so hard with laughter that he almost fell from the saddle.
“Say it again!” he cried. “How many lakhs of rupees? Ya’llah, I shall be made for life. What was that? Noseless bastard offspring of a leprous ape and a gutter-descended sow? What a description! Note it, Raisul, my brother, for I have no head for education, and I wish to remember. Continue, Flashman huzoor; share the riches of your spirit with me!”
So he mocked me, but he hardly slackened pace, and soon I could neither swear nor plead nor do anything but stumble blindly on. My wrists were burning with pain, and there was a leaden fear in my stomach; I had no idea where we were going, and even after darkness fell the brutes still kept going, until Hudson and I dropped from sheer fatigue. Then we rested a few hours, but at dawn they had us up again, and we staggered on through the hot, hellish day, resting only when we were too exhausted to continue, and then being forced up and dragged onwards at the stirrups.
It was just before dusk when we halted for the last time, at one of those rock forts that are dotted on half the hillsides of Afghanistan. I had a vision of a gateway, with a rickety old gate swung back on rusty hinges, and beyond it an earth courtyard. They did not take us so far, but cut the thongs that held us and shoved us through a narrow door in the gatehouse wall. There were steps leading down, and a most fearsome stink coming up, but they pushed us headlong down and we stumbled on to a floor of mixed straw and filth and God knows what other debris. The door slammed shut, and there we were, too worn out to move.
I suppose we lay there for hours, groaning with pain and exhaustion, before they came back, bringing us a bowl of food and a chatti of water. We were famished, and fell on it like pigs, while the big jezzailchi watched us and made funny remarks. I ignored him, and presently he left us. There was just light enough from a high grating in one wall for us to make out our surroundings, so we took stock of the cellar, or dungeon, whichever it was.
I have been in a great variety of jails in my life, from Mexico (where they are truly abominable) to Australia, America, Russia, and dear old England, and I never saw a good one yet. That little Afghan hole was not too bad, all round, but it seemed dreadful at the time. There were bare walls, pretty high, and a roof lost in shadow, and in the middle of the filthy floor two very broad flat stones, like a platform, that I didn’t like the look of. For above them, swinging down from the ceiling, was a tangle of rusty chains, and at the sight of them a chill stabbed through me, and I thought of hooded black figures, and the Inquisition, and torture chambers that I had gloated over in forbidden books at school. It’s very different when you are actually in one.
I told Hudson what I thought of them, and he just grunted and spat and then begged my pardon. I told him not to be such a damned fool, that we were in a frightful fix, and he could stop behaving as though we were on Horse Guards. I’ve never been one to stand on ceremony anywhere, and here it was just ridiculous. But it took Hudson time to get used to talking to an officer, and at first he just listened to me, nodding and saying, “Ye
s, sir,” and “Very good, sir,” until I swore with exasperation.
For I was in a funk, of course, and poured out my fears to him. I didn’t know why they were holding us, although ransom seemed most likely. There was a chance Akbar might get to hear of our plight, which was what I hoped – but at the back of my mind was the awful thought that Gul Shah might hear of us just as easily. Hudson, of course, didn’t understand why I should be so horrified at this, until I told him the whole story – about Narreeman, and how Akbar had rescued me from Gul’s snakes in Kabul. Heavens, how I must have talked, but when I tell you that we were in the cellar a week together, without ever so much as seeing beyond the door, and myself in a sweat of anxiety about what our fate might be, you will understand that I needed an audience. Your real coward always does, and the worse his fear the more he blabs. I babbled something sickening in that dungeon to Hudson. Of course, I didn’t tell him the story as I’ve told it here – the Bloody Lance incident, for example, I related in a creditable light. But I convinced him at least that we had every reason to fear if Gul Shah got wind that we were in Afghan hands.
It was difficult to tell how he took it. Mostly he just listened, staring at the wall, but from time to time he would look at me very steady, as though he was weighing me up. At first I hardly noticed this, any more than one does notice a common trooper looking at one, but after a while it made me feel uncomfortable, and I told him pretty sharp to leave off. If he was scared at the fix we were in, he didn’t show it, and I admit there were one or two occasions when I felt a sneaking regard for him; he didn’t complain, and he was very civil in his speech, and would ask me very respectfully to translate what the Afridi guards said when they brought us our food – for he had no Pushtu or Hindustani.
This was little enough, and we had no way of telling how true it was. The big jezzailchi was the most talkative, but mostly he would only recall how badly the British had been cut up on the march from Kabul, so that not a single man had been left alive, and how there would soon be no feringhees left in Afghanistan at all. Akbar Khan was advancing on Jallalabad, he said, and would put the whole garrison to the sword, and then they would sweep down through the Khyber and drive us out of India in a great jehad that would establish the True Faith from Peshawar to the sea. And so on, all bloody wind and water, as I told Hudson, but he considered it very thoughtfully and said he didn’t know how long Sale could hold out in Jallalabad if they laid proper siege to it.
Flashman Papers Omnibus Page 21
