In the meantime, I had Pam’s other business to attend to, so I spent the afternoon in the Native Infantry lines, looking at the Company sepoys to gauge for myself what their temper was. I did it idly enough, for they seemed a properly smart and docile lot, and yet it was a momentous visit. For it led to an encounter that was to save my life, and set me on one of the queerest and most terrifying adventures of my career, and perhaps shaped the destiny of British India, too.
I had just finished chatting to a group of the jawans,c and telling ’em that in my view they’d never be called on to serve overseas, in spite of the new act,9 when the officer with me – fellow called Turnbull – asked me if I’d like to look at the irregular horse troop who had their stables close by. Being a cavalryman, I said yes, and a fine mixed bunch they were, too, Punjabis and frontiersmen mostly, big, strapping ruffians with oiled whiskers and their shirts inside their breeches, laughing and joking as they worked on their leather, and as different from the smooth-faced infantry as Cheyennes are from hottentots. I was having a good crack with them, for these were the kind of scoundrels with whom I’d ridden (albeit reluctantly) in my Afghan days, when their rissaldard came up – and at the sight of me he stopped dead in the stable door, gaping as though he couldn’t believe his eyes. He was a huge, bearded Ghazi of a fellow, Afghan for certain by the devil’s face of him – I’d have said Gilzai or Dourani – with a skull cap on the back of his head, and the old yellow coat of Skinner’s riders over his shoulders.10
“Jehannum!” says he, and stared again, and then stuck his hands on his hips and roared with laughter.
“Salaam, rissaldar,” says I, “what do you want with me?”
“A sight of thy left wrist, Bloody Lance,” says he, grinning like a death’s head. “Is there not a scar, there, to match this? –” and he pulled up his sleeve, while I stared in disbelief at the little puckered mark, for the man who bore it should have been dead, fifteen years ago – and he’d been a mere slip of a Gilzai boy when it had been made, with his bleeding fore-arm against mine, and his mad father, Sher Afzul, doing the honours and howling to heaven that his son’s life was pledged eternally to the service of the White Queen.
“Ilderim?” says I, flabbergasted. “Ilderim Khan, of Mogala?” And then he flung his arms round me, roaring, and danced me about while the sowarse grinned and nudged each other.
“Flashman!” He pounded my back. “How many years since ye took me for the Sirkar? Stand still, old friend, and let me see thee! Bismillah, thou hast grown high and heavy in the service – such a barra sahib,f and a colonel, too! Now praise God for the sight of thee!”
And then he was showing me off to his fellows, telling them how we’d met in the old Kabul days, when his father had held the passes south, and how I’d killed the four Gilzais (strange, the same lying legend coming up twice in a day), and he’d been pledged to me as a hostage, and we’d lost sight of each other in the Great Retreat. It’s all there, in my earlier memoirs, and pretty gruesome, too, even if it was the basis of my glorious career.g
So now it was Speech Day with a vengeance, while we relieved old memories and slapped each other on the shoulder for half an hour or so. And then he asked me what I was doing here, and I answered vaguely that I was on a mission to the Rani, but soon to go home again; and at this he looked at me shrewdly, but said nothing more until I was leaving.
“It will be palitikal, beyond doubt,” says he. “Do not tell me. Listen, instead, to a friend’s word. If ye speak with the Rani, be wary of her; she is a Hindoo woman, and knows too much for a woman’s good.”
“What d’you know about her?” says I.
“Little enough,” says he, “except that she is like the silver krait, in that she is beautiful and cunning and loves to bite the sahibs. The Company have made a cutch-ranih of her, Flashman, but she still has fangs. This,” he added bitterly, “comes of soft government in Calcutta, by ducks and mullsi who have been too long in the heat. So beware of her, and go with God, old friend. And remember, while thou art in Jhansi, Ilderim is thy shadow – or if not me, then these loose-wallahs and jangli-admisj of mine. They have their uses –” And he jerked a thumb towards his troopers.
That, coming from an Afghan upper rogerk who was also a friend, was the best kind of insurance policy you could wish – not that I now had any fears, fool that I was, about my stay in Jhansi. As to what he’d said of the Rani – well, I knew it already, and Afghans’ views on women are invariably sour – beastly brutes. Anyway, I didn’t doubt my ability to handle Lakshmibai, in every sense of the word.
Still, I found his simile coming to mind next day, when I attended her durbar again, and watched her sitting enthroned to hear petitions, dressed in a cloth-of-silver sari that fitted her like a skin, with a silver-embroidered shawl framing that fine dark face; when she moved it was for all the world like a great gleaming snake stirring. She was very grave and queenly, and her courtiers and suppliants fairly grovelled, and scuttled about if she raised her pinky; when the last petitioner had been heard, and a gong had boomed to end the durbar, she sat with her chin in the air while the mob bowed itself out backwards, leaving only me and her two chief councillors standing there – and then she slipped out of her throne with a little cry of relief, hissed at one of her pet monkeys and chased it out on to the terrace, clapping her hands in mock anger, and then returned, perfectly composed, to lounge on her swing.
“Now we can talk,” says she, “and while my vakeell reads out the matter of my ‘petition’, you may refresh yourself, colonel –” and she indicated a little table with flasks and cups on it. “Ah, and see,” she added, flicking a flimsy little handkerchief from her sari, “I am wearing French perfume today – do you care for it? My lady Vashki thinks I am no better than an infidel.”
It was my perfume, right enough; I bowed acknowledgement while she smiled and settled herself, and the vakeel began to drone out her petition in formal Persian.
It’s worth repeating, perhaps, for it was a fair sample of the objections that many Indian princes had to British rule – the demand for restoration of her husband’s revenues, compensation for the slaughter of sacred cows, reappointment of court hangers-on dismissed by the Sirkar, restitution of confiscated temple funds, recognition of her authority as regent, and the like. All a waste of time, had she but known it, but splendid stuff for me to talk to her about over the next week or two while I pursued the really important work of charming her into a recumbent position.
I had no doubt she was willing enough for me to make the running there – she was wearing my scent, and letting me know it, and she was as pleasant as pie in her cool way at that meeting – nodding graciously as I talked to her wise men about the petition, smiling if I ventured a joke, inviting them to admire my reasoning (which they fell over themselves to do, absolutely), even asking my advice occasionally, and always considering me languidly with those dark slanting eyes as I talked. All of which might have seemed suspiciously amiable after her frankness at our first encounter – but since then she’d had time to weigh the political advantages of being pleasant to me, and was setting out to make me enjoy my work.
But I knew politics wasn’t the half of it – I know when a woman’s got that little flutter in her midriff about me, and in our ensuing meetings I could watch her enjoying using her beauty on me – and she could do that with a touch that Montez might have envied. I’ll admit it now, I found her enchanting; she had the advantage of being a queen, of course, which makes a beauty all the more tantalising – well, even I, on short acquaintance, could hardly have taken her belly in one hand, her bum in the other, and fondled her flat on her back with passionate murmurs, as one would do in ordinary circumstances. No, with royalty you have to wait a little. Not that I wasn’t tempted, in those early talks, when she had dismissed her councillors, and we were alone, and just once or twice, from the warm gleam in her eye as she swayed on her swing or lay on her daybed, I wondered if perhaps … but I decided to make haste slow
ly, and play the bowling as it came down.
It came mighty fast, too, sometimes, for if she was generally content just to politick flirtatiously, I soon discovered that she could be dead serious when Jhansi and her own ambitions were concerned; let the talk turn that way, and you saw the passion of her feeling.
“Five years ago, how many beggars were on the streets?” she rounded on me once. “One for every ten today. And who has accomplished this? Who but the Sirkar, by assuming the affairs of the state, so that one white sahib comes to do the work that employed a dozen of our people, who must be turned out to starve. Who guards the state? Why, the Company soldiers – so Jhansi’s army must be disbanded, and they, too, can shift or steal or go hungry!”
“Well now, highness,” says I, “it’s hard to blame the Sirkar for being efficient, and as for your unemployed soldiers, they’ll be more than welcome in the Company service –”
“In a foreign army? And will there be room in its ranks, too, for the Indian craftsmen whom the Sirkar’s efficiency has put out of work? For the traders whose commerce has decayed under the benevolent rule of the Raj?”
“You must give us a little time, maharaj’,” says I, humouring her. “And it ain’t all bad, you know. Banditry has ceased; the poor folk are safe from dacoits and Thugs – why, your own throne is secure against greedy neighbours like Kathe Khan and the Dewan of Orcha –”
“My throne is safe?” says she, stopping the swing on which she had been swaying, and lifting her brows at me. “Oh, very safe – for the Sirkar to enjoy its revenues, and usurp my place, and disinherit my son – ha! As to Kathe Khan and that jackal of Orcha, whom the Company in their wisdom allow to live – if I ruled this state, and had my soldiers, Kathe Khan and his fellow-viper would come against me once –” she picked up a fruit from the tray at her elbow, considered it, and nibbled daintily “– and crawl home again – without their hands and feet.”
“No doubt, ma’am,” says I. “But the fact is that when Jhansi ruled itself, it couldn’t deal with these foes. Nor were the Thugs put down –”
“Oh, aye – we hear much of them, and how the Company suppressed their wickedness. And why – because they slew travellers, or was it because they served a Hindoo god and so offended the Christian Company?” She eyed me contemptuously. “Belike had the Thugs been Jesus-worshippers, they would have been roaming yet – especially if they had chosen Hindoo victims.”
You can’t argue with gross prejudice, so I just looked amiable and said:
“And doubtless had suttee, that fine old Hindoo custom whereby widows were tortured to death, been a Christian practice, we would have encouraged it? But in our ignorance and spite, we forbade it – along with the law which condemned those widows who had escaped burning to a life of slavery and degradation with their heads shaved and heaven knows what else. Come, maharaj’ – can we do nothing right?” And without thinking I added: “I’d have thought your highness, as a widow, would have cause to thank the Sirkar for that at least.”
As soon as the words were out, I saw I’d put my foot in it. The swing stopped abruptly, and she sat upright, with a face like a mask, staring at me.
“I?” says she. “I? Thank the Sirkar?” And she suddenly flung her fruit across the room and stood upright, blazing at me. “You dare to suggest that?”
Well, I could grovel, or face it out – but I don’t hold with grovelling to pretty women, not unless the danger’s desperate or I’m short of cash. So I started to hum and haw placatingly, while she snapped in a voice like ice:
“I owe the Company nothing! If the Company had never been, do you think I would have submitted to suttee, or allowed myself to be made a menial? Do you take me for a fool?”
“By God, no, ma’am,” says I hastily. “Anything but, and if I’ve offended, I beg your pardon. I simply thought that the law was binding on all, ah … ladies, you see, and …’
“The Maharani makes the law,” says she, all Good Queen Bess damning the dagoes, and I hurriedly cried thank heaven for that, at which she looked down her nose at me.
“That is not the view of your Company or your country. Why should you be different? Why should you care?”
That was my cue, of course; I hesitated a second, and then looked at her, very frank and manly. “Because I’ve seen your highness,” says I quietly. “And … well … I do care, a great deal, you see.” I stopped there, giving her my steadiest smile, with a touch of ardent admiration thrown in, and after a long moment her stare softened, and she even smiled as she sat down again and said:
“Shall we return to the confiscated temple funds?”
Altogether it was a rum game in those first few days – rum for her, because she was a fair natural tyrant, yet whenever a disagreement in our discussions arose, she would allow it to smooth over, with that warm mysterious smile, and rum for me, because here I was day after day closeted with this choice piece of rump, and not so much as touching her, let alone squeezing and grappling. But I had to bide my time, and since she took such obvious and natural pleasure in my company, I contained my horniness for the moment, in the interests of diplomacy.
In the meantime, I occasionally paid attention to the other side of Pam’s business, talking with Skene, and Carshore the Collector, and reassuring myself that all continued to go well among the sepoys. There wasn’t a hint of agitation now, my earlier fears about Ignatieff and his scoundrels were beginning to seem like a distant nightmare, and now that I was so well established in the Rani’s good graces, the last cloud over my mission appeared to have been dispelled. Laughable, you may think, when you recollect that this was 1856 drawing to a close – you will ask how I, and the others, could have been so blind to the fact that we were living on the very edge of hell, but if you’d been there, what would you have seen? A peaceful native state, ruled by a charming young woman whose grievances were petty enough, and who gave most of her time to seducing the affections of a dashing British colonel; a contented native soldiery; and a tranquil, happy, British cantonment.
I was about it a great deal, and all our people were so placid and at ease – I remember a dinner at Carshore’s bungalow, with his family, and Skene and his pretty little wife so nervous and pleased in her new pink gown, and jolly old Dr McEgan with his fund of Irish stories, and the garrison men with their red jackets, slung on the backs of their chairs, matching their smiling red faces, and their gossipy wives, and myself raising a laugh by coaxing one of the Wilton girls to eat a “country captain”m with the promise that it would make her hair curl when she grew older.
It was all so comfy and easy, it might have been a dinner-party at home, except for the black faces and gleaming eyes of the bearers standing silent against the chick-screens, and the big moths fluttering round the lamps; afterwards there was a silly card game, and Truth or Consequences, and local scandal, and talk of leave and game-shooting with our cheroots and port on the verandah. Trivial enough memories, when you think what happened to all of them – I can still feel the younger Wilton chit pulling at my arm and crying:
“Oh, Colonel Flashman, Papa says if I ask you ever so nicely you will sing us ‘The Galloping Major’ – will you please, oh, please do!” And see those shining eyes, and the ringlets, as she tugged me to where her sister was sitting at the piano.
We couldn’t see ahead, then, and life was pleasant – especially for me, with my diplomatic duties to attend to, and they became more enjoyable by the hour; I’ll say that for Rani Lakshmibai, she knew how to make business a pleasure. Much of the time we didn’t talk in the palace at all; she was, as Skene had told me, a fine horsewoman, and loved nothing better than to put on her jodhpurs and turban, with two little silver pistols in her sash, and gallop on the maidan, or go hawking along a wooded river not far from the city. There was a charming little pavilion there, of about a dozen rooms on two storeys, hidden among the trees, and once or twice I was taken on picnics with a few of her courtiers and attendants. At other times we would talk in the pa
lace garden, among the scores of pet beasts and birds which she kept, and once she had me into one of her hen-parties in the durbar room, at which she entertained all the leading ladies of Jhansi to tea and cakes, and I found myself called on to discourse on European fashions to about fifty giggling Indian females in saris and bangles and kohl-dark eyes – excellent fun, too, although the questions they asked about crinolines and panniers would have made a sailor blush.
But her great delight was to be out of doors, riding or playing with her adopted son Damodar, a grave-faced imp of eight, or inspecting her guards at field exercise; she even watched their wrestling-matches in the courtyard, and a race-meeting in which some of our garrison officers took part – I was intrigued to see that on this occasion she wore a purdah veil and an enveloping robe, for about the palace she went bare-faced – and pretty bare-bodied, too. And if she could be as formal as a stockbroker with a new-bought peerage, she had a delightful way with the ordinary folk – she was never so gay and happy as when she held a party for children from the city in her garden, letting them run among the birds and monkeys, and at one of her almsgivings I saw her quite concerned as her treasurer scattered coins among the mob of hideous and stinking beggars clamouring at her gate. Not at all like a Rani, sometimes – she was a queer mixture of schoolgirl and sophisticated woman, all scatter one moment, all languor and dignity the next. Damned unpredictable – oh, and captivating; there were times when even I found myself regarding her with an interest that wasn’t more than four-fifths lustful – and that ain’t like me. It was directly after that alms-giving, when we rode out to her pavilion among the trees, and I had just remarked that what was needed for India was a Poor Law and a few parish workuses, that she suddenly turned in her saddle, and burst out:
Flashman Papers Omnibus Page 264
