Flashman In The Great Game fp-5

by George MacDonald Fraser

  This sounded to me like a man riding his pet hobby; I couldn't see why any of this should do anything but please the people.

  "The people don't count! They never do. It's the rulers that matter, the rajas and the nabobs — like this rani of yours in Jhansi. They've squeezed this country for centuries, and Dalhousie put a stop to it. Of course it's for the benefit of the poor folk, but they don't know that — they believe what their princes tell 'em. And what they tell 'em is that the British Sirkar is their enemy, because it stops them burning their widows, and murdering each other in the name of Kali, and will abolish their religion and force Christianity on them if it can."

  "Oh, come, John," says I, "they've been saying that for years."

  "Well, there's something in it." He looked troubled, in a stuffy religious way. "I'm a Christian, I hope, or try to be, and I pray I shall see the day when the Gospel is the daily bread of every poor benighted soul on this continent, and His praise is sung in a thousand churches. But I could wish our people went more carefully about it. These are a devout people, Flashman, and their beliefs, misguided though they are, must not be taken lightly. What do they think, when they hear Christianity taught in the schools — in the jails, even — and when colonels preach to their regiments?5 Let the prince, or the agitator, whisper in their ears ‘See how the British will trample on thy holy things, which they respect not. See how they will make Christians of you.’ They will believe him. And they are such simple folk, and their eyes are closed. D'you know," he went on, "there's a sect in Kashmir that even worships me?"

  "Good for you," says I. "D'ye take up a collection?"

  "I try to reason with them — but it does no good. I tell you, India won't be converted in a day, or in years. It must come slowly, if surely. But our missionaries — good, worthy men — press on apace, and cannot see the harm they may do." He sighed. "Yet can one find it in one's heart to blame them, old fellow, when one considers the blessings that God's grace would bring to this darkened continent? It is very hard." And he looked stern and nobly anguished; Arnold would have loved him. Then he frowned and growled, and suddenly burst out:

  "It wouldn't be so bad, if we weren't so confounded soft! If we would only carry things with a high hand — the reforms, and the missionary work, even. Either let well alone, or do the thing properly. But we don't, you see; we take half-measures, and are too gentle by a mile. If we are going to pull down their false gods, and reform their old and corrupt states and amend their laws, and make 'em worthy men and women — then let us do it with strength! Dalhousie was strong, but I don't know about Canning. I know if I were he, I'd bring these oily, smirking, treacherous princes under my heel —" his eyes flashed as he ground his boot in the dust. "I'd give 'em government, firm and fair. I'd be less soft with the sepoys, too — and with some of our own people. That's half the trouble — you haven't been back long enough, but depend upon it, we send some poor specimens out to the army nowadays, and to the Company offices.‘Broken-down tapsters and serving men's sons’, eh? Well, you'll see 'em — ignorant, slothful fellows of poor class, and we put 'em to officer high-caste Hindoos of ten years' service. They don't know their men, and treat 'em like children or animals, and think of nothing but drinking and hunting, and — and … " he reddened to the roots of his enormous beard and looked aside. "Some of them consort with … with the worst type of native women." He cleared his throat and patted my arm. "There, I'm sorry, old fellow; I know it's distasteful to talk of such things, but it's true, alas."

  I shook my head and said it was heart-breaking.

  "Now you see why your news concerns me so? These omens at Jhansi — they may be the spark to the tinder, and I've shown you, I hope, that the tinder exists in India, because of our own blindness and softness. If we were stronger, and dealt firmly with the princes, and accompanied our enlightenment of the people with proper discipline — why, the spark would be stamped out easily enough. As it is —" he shook his head again. "I don't like it. Thank God they had the wit to send someone like you to Jhansi — I only wish I could come with you, to share whatever perils may lie ahead. It's a strange, wild place, from all I've heard," says this confounded croaker with pious satisfaction, as he shook my hand. "Come, old fellow, shall we pray together — for your safety and guidance in whatever dangers you may find yourself?"

  And he plumped down there and then on his knees, with me alongside, and gave God his marching orders in no uncertain fashion, telling him to keep a sharp eye on his servant. I don't know what it was about me, but holy fellows like Nicholson were forever addressing heaven on my behalf — even those who didn't know me well seemed to sense that there was a lot of hard graft to be done if Flashy was ever to smell salvation. I can see him yet — his great dark head and long nose against the sunset, his beard quivering with exhortation, and even the freckles on the back of his clasped hands. Poor wild John — he should have canvassed the Lord on his own behalf, perhaps, for while I'm still here after half a century, he was stiff inside the year, shot in the midriff by a pandy sniper in the attack on Delhi, and left to die by inches at the roadside. That's what his duty earned for him; if he'd taken proper precautions he'd have made viceroy. And Delhi would have fallen just the same.6

  Whatever his prayers accomplished for my solid flesh, his talk about Jhansi had done nothing for my spirits. "A strange wild place," he'd said, and talked of the Pindari bandits and Thugs and Maharatta scoundrels — well, I knew it had been hell's punch-bowl in the old days, but I'd thought since we'd annexed it that it must be quieter now. Mangles, at the Board of Control in London, had described it as "tranquil beneath the Company's benevolent rule", but he was a pompous ass with a talent for talking complete bosh about subjects on which he was an authority.

  As I pushed on into Bandelkand it began to look as though he was wrong and Nicholson was right — it was broken, hilly country, with jungle on the slopes and in the valleys, never a white face to be seen, and the black ones getting uglier by the mile. The roads were so atrocious, and the hackery jolted and rolled so sickeningly, that I was forced to take to my Pegu pony; there was devil a sign of civilisation, but only walled villages and every so often a sinister Maharatta fort squatting on a hilltop to remind you who really held the power in this land. "The toughest nut south of the Khyber" — I was ready to believe it, as I surveyed those unfriendly jungly hills, seeing nothing cheerier than a distant tiger skulking among the waitabit thorn. And this was the country that we were "ruling" — with one battalion of suspect sepoy infantry and a handful of British civilians to collect the taxes.

  My first sight of Jhansi city wasn't uplifting either. We rounded a bend on the hill road, and there it was under a dull evening sky — a massive fort, embattled and towered, on a great steep rock, and the walled city clustered at its foot. It was far bigger than I'd imagined; the walls must have been four miles round at least, and the air over the city was thick with the smoke of a thousand cooking fires. On this side of the city lay the orderly white lines of the British camp and cantonment — God, it looked tiny and feeble, beneath that looming vastness of Jhansi fort. My mind went back to Kabul, and how our camp had seemed dwarfed by the Bala Hissar — and even at Kabul, with an army of ten thousand, only a handful of us had escaped. I told myself that here it was different — that less than a hundred miles ahead of me there were our great garrisons along the Grand Trunk, and that however forbidding Jhansi might look, it was a British state nowadays, and under the Sirkar's protection. Only there wasn't much sign of that protection — just our pathetic little village like a flea on the lion's lip, and somewhere in that great citadel, where our troops never went, that brooding old bitch of a Rani scheming against us, with her thousands of savage subjects waiting for her word. Thus my imagination — as if it hadn't been full enough already, what with Ignatieff' and Thugs and wild Pindaris and dissident sepoys and Nicholson's forebodings.

  My first task was to look up Skene, the political whose reports had started the whole busines
s, so I headed down to the cantonment, which was a neat little compound of perhaps forty bungalows, with decent gardens, and the usual groups already meeting on the verandahs for sundown pegs and cordials; there were a few carriages waiting with their grooms and drivers to take people out for dinner, and one or two officers riding home, but I drove straight through, and got a chowkidar's direction to the little Star Fort, where Skene had his office — he'd still be there, the chowkidar said, which argued a very conscientious political indeed.

  Frankly, I hoped to find him scared or stupid; he wasn't either. He was one of these fair, intent young fellows who fall over themselves to help, and will work all the hours God sends. He hopped from one leg to another when I presented myself, and seemed fairly overwhelmed to meet the great Flashy, but the steady grey eye told you at once that here was a boy who didn't take alarm at trifles. He had clerks and bearers running in all directions to take my gear to quarters, saw to it that I was given a bath, and then bore me off for dinner at his own bungalow, where he lost no time in getting down to business.

  "No one knows why you're here, sir, except me," says he. "I believe Carshore, the Collector, suspects, but he's a sound man, and will say nothing. Of course, Erskine, the Commissioner at Saugor, knows all about it, but no one else." He hesitated. "I'm not quite clear myself, sir, why they sent you out, and not someone from Calcutta."

  "Well, they wanted an assassin, you see," says I, easily, just for bounce. "It so happens I'm acquainted with the Russian gentleman who's been active in these parts — and dealing with him ain't a job for an ordinary political, what?" It was true, after all; Pam himself had said it. "Also, it seems Calcutta and yourself and Commissioner Erskine — with all respect — haven't been too successful with this titled lady up in the city palace. Then there are these cakes; all told, it seemed better to Lord Palmerston to send me."

  "Lord Palmerston?" says he, his eyes wide open. "I didn't know it had gone that far."

  I assured him he'd been the cause of the Prime Minister's losing a night's sleep, and he whistled and reached for the decanter.

  "That's neither here nor there, anyway," says I. "You cost me a night's sleep, too, for that matter. The first thing is: have any of these Russian fellows been back this way?"

  To my surprise, he looked confused. "Truth is, sir — I never knew they'd been near. That came to me from Calcutta — our frontier people traced them down this way, three times, I believe, and I was kept informed. But if they hadn't told me, I'd never have known."

  That rattled me, if you like. "You mean, if they do come back — or if they're loose in your bailiwick now — you won't know of it until Calcutta sees fit to tell you?"

  "Oh, our frontier politicals will send me word as soon as any suspected person crosses over," says he. "And I have my own native agents on the look-out now — some pretty sharp men, sir."

  "They know especially to look out for a one-eyed man?"

  "Yes, sir — he has a curious deformity which he hides with a patch, you know — one of his eyes is half-blue, half-brown."

  "You don't say," says I. By George, I hadn't realised our political arrangements were as ramshackle as this. "That, Captain Skene, is the man I'm here to kill — so if any of your … sharp men have the chance to save me the trouble, they may do it with my blessing."

  "Oh, of course, sir. Oh, they will, you know. Some of them," says he, impressively, "are Pindari bandits — or used to be, that is. But we'll know in good time, sir, before any of these Ruski fellows get within distance."

  I wished I could share his confidence. "Calcutta has no notion what the Russian spies were up to down here?" I asked him, but he shook his head.

  "Nothing definite at all — only that they'd been here. We were sure it must be connected with the chapattis going round, but those have dried up lately. None have passed since October, and the sepoys of the 12th N.I. — that's the regiment here, you know — seem perfectly quiet. Their colonel swears they're loyal — has done from the first, and was quite offended that I reported the cakes to Calcutta. Perhaps he's right; I've had some of my men scouting the sepoy lines, and they haven't heard so much as a murmur. And Calcutta was to inform me if cakes passed at any other place, but none have, apparently."

  Come, thinks I, this is decidedly better; Pam's been up a gum-tree for nothing. All I had to do was make a show of brief activity here, and then loaf over to Calcutta after a few weeks and report nothing doing. Give 'em a piece of my mind, too, for causing me so much inconvenience.

  "Well, Skene," says I, "this is how I see it. There's nothing to be done about what the Prime Minister calls ‘those blasted buns’ — unless they make a reappearance, what? As to the Russians — well, when we get word of them, I'll probably drop out of sight, d'you see?" I would, too — to some convenient haven which the Lord would provide, and emerge when the coast was clear. But I doubted it would even come to that. "Yes, you won't see me — but I'll be about, never fear, and if our one-eyed friend, or any of his creatures, shows face … well …"

  He looked suitably impressed, with a hint of that awe which my fearsome reputation inspires. "I understand, sir. You'll wish to … er, work in your own way, of course." He blinked at me, and then exclaimed reverently: "By jove, I don't envy those Ruski fellows above half — if you don't mind my saying so, sir."

  "Skene, old chap," says I, and winked at him. "Neither do I." And believe me, he was my slave for life, from that moment.

  "There's the other thing," I went on. "The Rani. I have to try to talk some sense into her. Now, I daresay there isn't much I can do, since I gather she's shown you and Erskine that she's not disposed to be friendly, but I'm bound to try, you see. So I'll be obliged to you if you'll arrange an audience for me the day after tomorrow — I'd like to rest and perhaps look around the city first. For the present, you can tell me your own opinion of her."

  He frowned, and filled my glass. "You'll think it's odd, sir, I daresay, but in all the time I've been here, I've never even seen her. I've met her, frequently, at the palace, but she speaks from behind a purdah, you know — and as often as not her chamberlain does the talking for her. She's a stickler for form, and since government granted her diplomatic immunity after her husband died — as a sop, really, when we assumed suzerainty — well, it makes it difficult to deal with her satisfactorily. She was friendly enough with Erskine at one time — but I've had no change out of her at all. She's damned bitter, you see – when her husband died, old Raja Gangadar, he left no children of his own — well, he was an odd bird, really," and Skene blushed furiously and avoided my eye. "Used to go about in female dress most of the time, and wore bangles and … and perfume, you see —"

  "No wonder she was bitter," says I.

  "No, no, what I mean is, since he left no legitimate heir, but only a boy whom he'd adopted, Dalhousie wouldn't recognise the infant. The new succession law, you know. So the state was annexed — and the Rani was furious, and petitioned the Queen, and sent agents to London, but it was no go. The adopted son, Damodar, was dispossessed, and the Rani, who'd hoped to be regent, was deprived of her power — officially. Between ourselves, we let her rule pretty well as she pleases — well, we can't do otherwise, can we? We've one battalion of sepoys, and thirty British civilians to run the state administration — but she's the law, where her people are concerned, absolute as Caesar."

  "Doesn't that satisfy her, then?"

  "Not a bit of it. She detests the fact that officially she only holds power by the Sirkar's leave, you see. And she's still wild about the late Raja's will — you'd think that with a quarter of a million in her treasury she'd be content, but there was some jewellery or other that Calcutta confiscated, and she's never forgiven us."

  "Interesting lady," says I. "Dangerous, d'you think?"

  He frowned. "Politically, yes. Given the chance, she'd pay our score off, double quick — that's why the chapatti business upset me. She's got no army, as such — but with every man in Jhansi a born fighter, and rob
ber, she don't need one, do she? And they'll jump if she whistles, for they worship the ground she treads on. She's proud as Lucifer's sister, and devilish hard, not to say cruel, in her own courts, but she's uncommon kind to the poor folk, and highly thought of for her piety — spends five hours a day meditating, although she was a wild piece, they say, when she was a girl. They brought her up like a Maharatta prince at the old Peshwa's court — taught her to ride and shoot and fence with the best of them. They say she still has the fiend's own temper," he added, grinning, "but she's always been civil enough to me — at a distance. But make no mistake, she's dangerous; if you can sweeten her, sir, we'll all sleep a deal easier at nights."

  There was that, of course. However withered an old trot she might be, she'd be an odd female if she was altogether impervious to Flashy's manly bearing and cavalry whiskers — which was probably what Pam had in mind in the first place. Cunning old devil. Still, as I turned in that night I wasn't absolutely looking forward to poodle-faking her in two days' time, and as I glanced from my bungalow window and saw Jhansi citadel beetling in the starlight, I thought, we'll take a nice little escort of lancers with us when we go to take tea with the lady, so we will.

  But that was denied me. I had intended to pass the next day looking about the city, perhaps having a discreet word with Carshore the Collector and the colonel of the sepoys, but as the syce*(*Groom.) was bringing round my pony to the dak-bungalow, up comes Skene in a flurry. When he'd sent word to the palace that Colonel Flashman, a distinguished soldier of the Sirkar, was seeking an audience for the following day, he'd been told that distinguished visitors were expected to present themselves immediately as a token of proper respect to her highness, and Colonel Flashman could shift his distinguished rump up to the palace forthwith.