“Cawnpore?” I almost squeaked the word in consternation, for it was back in the dirty country with a vengeance. Having come out of that once, I’d no wish to venture in again.
“Where else?” says he. “There is no safer road from Jhansi. Farther south ye dare not go, for there are few sahib places, and no great garrisons. Nor are there to the west. Over the Jumna the country may be hot with mutineers, but it is where thine own folk are – and they are mine, too, and my lads’.”
I looked at the ugly villains round the fire, hard-bitten frontier rough-necks to a man in their dirty old poshteens and the big Khyber knives in their belts – by George, I’d be a sight safer going north again in their company than striking out anywhere else on my own. What Ilderim said was probably true, too; Cawnpore and the other river strongholds would be where our generals would concentrate – I could get back among my own kind, and shed this filthy beard and sepoy kit and feel civilised again. Wouldn’t have to spin any nonsense about why I’d disappeared from Jhansi, either, in supposed pursuit of Ignatieff – my God, I’d forgotten him entirely, and the Thugs, and all the rest. My mission to Jhansi – Pam and his cakes and warnings – it was all chaff in the wind now, forgotten in this colossal storm that was sweeping through India. No one was going to fret about where I’d sprung from, or what I’d been doing. I felt my spirits rising by the minute – when I thought of the escape I’d had, leaving Jhansi in the first place, I could say that even my horrible experience at Meerut had been worth while.
That’s another thing about being a windy beggar – if you scare easily, you usually cheer up just as fast when the danger is past. Well, not past yet, perhaps – but at least I was with friends again, and by what Ilderim said the Mutiny wasn’t by any means such a foregone thing as I’d imagined – why, once our people got their second wind, it would be the bloody rebels who’d be doing the running, no doubt, with Flashy roaring on the pursuit from a safe distance. And I might have been rotting out yonder with the others at Jokan Bagh – I shuddered at the ghastly memory of Ilderim’s story – or burned alive with the Dawsons at Meerut. By Jove, things weren’t so bad after all.
“Right,” says I. “Cawnpore let it be.” How was I to know I was almost speaking my own epitaph?
In the meantime, I had one good night’s sleep, feeling safe for the first time in weeks with Ilderim’s rascals around me, and next day we just lay up in the temple ruins while one sowar went to scout for Shadman Khan, who was meant to be out stealing horses for us. It was the rummest fix to be in, for all day we could hear the bugles tootling out on the plain where the Rani’s army was mustering for her own private little wars with Jhansi’s neighbours; Ilderim reported in the evening that she had assembled several hundred foot soldiers, and a few troops of Maharatta riders, as well as half a dozen guns – not a bad beginning, in a troubled time, but of course with a treasury like Jhansi’s she could promise regular pay for her soldiers, as well as the prospect of Orcha’s loot when she had dealt with the Dewan.
With the second dawn came Shadman himself, cackling at his own cleverness: he and his pals had laid hands on six horses already, they were snug in a thicket a couple of miles from the town, and he had devised a delightful plan for getting another half dozen mounts as well.
“The Hindoo bitch needs riders,” says he. “So I marched into her camp on the maidan this afternoon and offered my services. ‘I can find six old Company sowars who will ride round Jehannum and back for a rupee a day and whatever spoil the campaign promises,’ says I to the noseless pig who is master of her cavalry, ‘if ye have six good beasts to put under them.’ ‘We have horses and to spare,’ says he, ‘bring me your six sowars and they shall have five rupees a man down payment, and a carbine and embroidered saddle-cloth apiece.’ I beat him up to ten rupees each – so tomorrow let six of us join her cavalry, and at nightfall we shall unjoin, and meet thee, rissaldar, and all ride off rejoicing. Is it not a brave scheme – and will cost this slut of a Rani sixty rupees as well as her steeds and furniture?”
There’s nothing as gleeful as a Pathan when he’s doing the dirty; they slapped their knees in approval and five of them went off with him that afternoon. Ilderim and I and the remaining three waited until nightfall, and then set off on foot to the thicket where we were to rendezvous – there were the first six horses and a sowar waiting, and round about midnight Shadman and his companions came clattering out of the dark to join us, crowing with laughter. Not only had they lifted the six horses, they had cut the lines of a score more, slit the throat of the cavalry-master as he lay asleep, and set fire to the fodder-store, just to keep the Rani’s army happy.
“Well enough,” growls Ilderim, when he had snarled them to silence. “It will do – till we ride to Jhansi again, some day. There is a debt to pay, at the Jokan Bagh. Is there not, blood-brother?” He gripped my shoulder for a moment as we sat our mounts under the trees, and the others fell in two by two behind us. In the distance, very black against the starlit purple of the night sky, was the outline of the Jhansi fortress with the glow of the city beneath it; Ilderim was staring towards it bright-eyed – I remember that moment so clearly, with the warm gloom and the smell of Indian earth and horse-flesh, the creak of leather and the soft stamping of the beasts. I was thinking of the horror that lay in the Jokan Bagh – and of that lovely girl, in her mirrored palace yonder with its swing and soft carpets and luxurious furniture, and trying to make myself believe that they belonged in the same world.
“It will take more than one dead rebel and a few horses to settle the score for Skene sahib and the others,” says he. “Much more. So – to Cawnpore? Walk-march, trot!”
He had said it was a bare four days’ ride, but it took us that long to reach the Jumna above Haminpur, for on my advice we steered clear of the roads, and kept to the countryside, where we sighted nothing bigger than villages and poor farms. Even there, though, there was ample sign of the turbulence that was sweeping the land; we passed hamlets that were just smoking, blackened ruins, with buzzing carcases, human and animal, lying where they had been shot down, or strung up to branches; and several times we saw parties of mutineers on the march, all heading north-east like ourselves. That was enough to set me wondering if I wasn’t going in the wrong direction, but I consoled myself that there was safety in numbers – until the morning of the fourth day, when Ilderim aroused me in a swearing passion with the news that eight of our party had slipped off in the night, leaving only the two of us with Muhammed Din and Rafik Tamwar.
“That faithless thieving, reiving son of a Kabuli whore, Shadman Khan, has put them up to this!” He was livid with rage. “He and that other dung-beetle Asaf Yakub had the dawn watch – they have stolen off and left us, and taken the food and fodder with them!”
“You mean they’ve gone to join the mutineers?” I cried.
“Not they! We would never have woken again if that had been their aim. No – they will be off about their trade, which is loot and murder! I should have known! Did I not see Shadman licking his robber’s lips when we passed the sacked bungalows yesterday? He and the others see in this broken countryside a chance to fill their pockets, rather than do honest service according to their salt. They will live like the bandits they were before the Sirkar enlisted them in an evil hour, and when they have ravaged and raped their fill they will be off north to the frontier again. They have not even the stomach to be honest mutineers!” And he spat and stamped, raging.
“Never trust an Afridi,” says Tamwar philosophically. “I knew Shadman was a badmash the day he joined. At least they have left us our horses.”
That was little consolation to me as we saddled up; with eleven hardy riders round me I’d felt fairly secure, but now that they were reduced to three – and only one of those really trustworthy – I fairly had the shakes again. However, having come this far there was nothing for it but to push on; we weren’t more than a day’s ride from Cawnpore by my reckoning, and once we were behind Wheeler’s lines
we would be safe enough. My chief anxiety was that the closer we got, the more likely we would be to find mutineers in strength, and this was confirmed when, a few hours after sun-up, we heard, very faint in the distance, the dull thump of gunfire. We had stopped to water our beasts at a tank beside the road, which at that point was enclosed by fairly thick forest either side; Ilderim’s head came up sharp at the sound.
“Cawnpore!” says he. “Now what shall that shooting mean? Can Wheeler sahib be under siege? Surely –”
Before I could reply there was a sudden drumming of hooves, and round a bend in the road not two hundred yards ahead came three horsemen, going like hell’s delight; I barely had time to identify them as native cavalrymen of some sort, and therefore probably mutineers, when into view came their pursuers – and I let out a yell of delight, for out in the van was an undoubted white officer, with his sabre out and view-hallooing like a good ’un. At his heels came a motley gang of riders, but I hadn’t time to examine them – I was crouched down at the roadside with my Colt out, drawing a bead on the foremost fugitive. I let blaze, and his horse gave a gigantic bound and crashed down, thrashing in the dust; his two companions swung off to take to the woods, but one of the mounts stumbled and threw its rider, and only the other won to the safety of the trees, with a group of the pursuers crashing after him.
The others pounced on the two who’d come to grief, while I ran towards them, yelling:
“Hurrah! Bravo, you fellows! It’s me, Flashman! Don’t shoot!”
I could see now that they were Sikh cavalry, mostly, although there were at least half a dozen white faces among them, staring at me as I came running up; suddenly one of them, with a cry of warning, whips out his revolver and covers me.
“Don’t move,” he bawls. “Drop that pistol – sharp, now!”
“No, no!” cries I. “You don’t understand! I’m a British officer! Colonel Flashman!”
“The devil you are!” He stared from me to Ilderim, who had come up behind me. “You look like it, don’t you? And who the hell is he – the Duke of Cambridge?”
“He’s a rissaldar of irregular cavalry. And I, old fellow, believe it or not, beneath this fine beard and homely native garb, am Colonel Harry Paget Flashman – of whom I dare say you’ve heard?” I was positively burbling with relief as I held out my hand to him.
“You look bloody like a pandyc to me,” says he. “Keep your distance!”
“Well, you don’t exactly look straight from Horse Guards yourself, you know,” says I, laughing. None of them did; apart from the Sikhs, who were a fairly wild-looking bunch, his white companions were the oddest crowd, in bits and pieces of uniform from half a dozen regiments, with their gear slung any old how. Some had puggarees, some helmets, and one fat chap with a white beard had a straw hat and frock coat; they were all dirty and unshaven after weeks in the saddle, and the only thing uniform about them was that they were fairly bristling with weapons – pistols, carbines, swords, knives in their belts, and one or two with pig spears.
“May I ask who I have the honour of addressing?” says I, as they crowded up. “And if you have a commanding officer, perhaps you might convey my compliments to him.”
That impressed him, although he still looked suspicious.
“Lieutenant Cheeseman, of Rowbotham’s Mosstroopers,” says he. “But if you’re one of us, what the dooce are you going about dressed as a nigger for?”
“You say you’re Flashman?” says another – he was wearing a pith helmet and spectacles, and what looked like old cricket flannels tucked into his top-boots. “Well, if you are – an’ I must say you don’t look a bit like him – you ought to know me. Because Harry Flashman stood godfather to my boy at Lahore in ’42 – what’s my name, eh?”
I had to close my eyes and think – it had been on my triumphal progress south after the Jalallabad business. An Irish name – yes, by God, it was unforgettable.
“O’Toole!” says I. “You did me the honour of having your youngster christened Flashman O’Toole – I trust he’s well?”
“By God I did!” says he, staring. “It must be him, Cheeseman! Here, where’s Colonel Rowbotham?”
I confess I was curious myself – Rowbotham’s Mosstroopers was a new one on me, and if their commander was anything like his followers he must be a remarkable chap. There was a great rumpus going on in the road behind the group who surrounded me, and I saw that one of the fugitives was being dragged up between two of the Sikhs, and thrown forward in the dust before one of the riders, who was leaning down from his saddle looking at the still form of the fellow whose horse I’d shot.
“Why, this one’s dead!” he exclaimed, peevishly. “Of all the confounded bad luck! Hold on to that other scoundrel, there! Here, Cheeseman, what have you got – is it some more of the villains?”
He rode over the dead man, glaring at me, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen an angrier-looking man in my life. Everything about him was raging – his round red face, his tufty brindle eyebrows, his bristling sandy whiskers, even the way he clenched his crop, and when he spoke his harsh, squeaky voice seemed to shake with suppressed wrath. He was short and stout, and sat his pony like a hog on a hurdle; his pith helmet was wrapped in a long puggaree, and he wore a most peculiar loose cape, like an American poncho, clasped round with a snake-clasp belt. Altogether a most ridiculous sight, but there was nothing funny about the pale, staring eyes, or the way his mouth worked as he considered me.
“Who’s this?” he barked, and when Cheeseman told him, and O’Toole, who had been eyeing me closely, said he believed I was Flashman after all, he growled suspiciously and demanded to know why I was skulking about dressed as a native, and where had I come from. So I told him, briefly, that I was a political, lately from Jhansi, where I and my three followers had escaped the massacre.
“What’s that you say?” cries he. “Massacre – at Jhansi?” And the others crowded their horses round, staring and exclaiming, while I reported what had happened to Skene and the rest – even as I told it, I was uncomfortably aware of something not quite canny in the way they listened: it was a shocking story enough, but there was an excitement about them, in the haggard faces and the bright eyes, as though they had some fever, that I couldn’t account for. Usually, when Englishmen listen to a dreadful tale, they do it silently, at most with signs of disgust or disbelief, but this crowd stirred restlessly in their saddles, muttering and exclaiming, and when I’d finished the little chap burst into tears, gritting his teeth and shaking his crop.
“God in Heaven!” cries he. “Will it never cease? How many innocents – twenty children, you say? And all the women? My God!” He rocked in his saddle, dashing the tears away, while his companions groaned and shook their fists – it was an astonishing sight, those dozen scarecrows who looked as though they’d fought a long campaign in fancy-dress costume, swearing and addressing heaven; it occurred to me that they weren’t quite right in the head. Presently the little chap regained his composure, and turned to me.
“Your pardon, colonel,” says he, and if his voice was low it was shaking with emotion. “This grievous news – this shocking intelligence – it makes me forget myself. Rowbotham, James Kane Rowbotham, at your service; these are my mosstroopers – my column of volunteer horse, sir, banded after the rebellion at Delhi, and myself commissioned by Governor Colvin at Agra.”
“Commissioned … by a civilian?” It sounded deuced odd, but then he and his gang looked odd. “I gather, sir, that you ain’t … er, Army?”
He flew up at that. “We are soldiers, sir, as much as you! A month ago I was a doctor, at Delhi …” His mouth worked again, and his tongue seemed to be impeding his speech. “My … my wife and son, sir … lost in the uprising … murdered. These gentlemen … volunteers, sir, from Agra and Delhi … merchants, lawyers, officials, people of all classes. Now we act as a mobile column, because there are no regular cavalry to be spared from the garrisons; we strive to keep the road open between Agra and Cawnp
ore, but since the mutineers are now before Cawnpore in force, we scour the country for news of their movements and fall on them when we can. Vermin!” He choked, glaring round, and his eye fell on the prisoner, prone in the dust with a Sikh keeping a foot on his neck. “Yes!” cries he, “we may not be soldiers, sir, in your eyes, but we have done some service in putting down this abomination! Oh, yes! You’ll see – you’ll see for yourself! Cheeseman! How many have we now?”
“Seven, sir, counting this one.” Cheeseman nodded at the prisoner. “Here comes Fields with the others now.”
What I took to be the rest of Rowbotham’s remarkable regiment was approaching down the road at a brisk trot, a dozen Sikhs and two Englishmen in the same kind of outlandish rig as the others. Running or staggering behind, their wrists tied to the Sikhs’ stirrup-leathers, were half a dozen niggers in the last stages of exhaustion; three or four of them were plainly native infantry-men, from their coats and breeches.
“Bring them up here!” cries Rowbotham violently, and when they had been untied and ranged in a straggled line in front of him, he pointed to the trees behind them. “Those will do excellently – get the ropes, Cheeseman! Untie their hands, and put them under the branches.” He was bouncing about in his saddle in excitement, and there were little flecks of spittle among the stubble of his chin. “You’ll see, sir,” says he to me. “You’ll see how we deal with these filthy butchers of women and children! It has been our custom to hang them in groups of thirteen, as an appropriate warning – but this news of Jhansi which you bring – this new horror – makes it necessary … makes it necessary …” He broke off incoherently, twisting the reins in his hands. “We must make an immediate example, sir! This cancer of mutiny … what? Let these serve as a sacrifice to those dead innocent spirits so cruelly released at Jhansi!”
Flashman Papers Omnibus Page 274
