Flashman In The Great Game fp-5

by George MacDonald Fraser

  Pam and Mangles, you see, had given me no proper directions at all: I was supposed to wheedle her into being a loyal little British subject, but I'd no power to make concessions to any of her grievances. And it wasn't going to be easy; an unexpected stunner she might be, and therefore all the easier for me to talk to, but there was a directness about her that was daunting. This was a queen, and intelligent and experienced (she even knew French perfume when she smelled it); she wasn't going to be impressed by polite political chat. So what must I say? The devil with it, thinks I, there's nothing to lose by being as blunt as she is herself.

  So when she'd settled herself on a daybed, and I'd forced myself to ignore that silky midriff and the shapely brown ankle peeping out of her sari, I set my helmet on the ground and stood up four-square.

  "Your highness," says I, "I can't talk like Mr Erskine, or Captain Skene even. I'm a soldier,. not a diplomat, so I won't mince words." And thereafter I minced them for all I was worth, telling her of the distress there was in London about the coolness that existed between Jhansi on the one hand and the Company and Sirkar on the other; how this state of affairs had endured for four years to the disadvantage of all parties; how it was disturbing the Queen, who felt a sisterly concern for the ruler of Jhansi not only as a monarch, but as a woman, and so on — I rehearsed Jhansi's grievances, the willingness of the Sirkar to repair them so far as was possible, threw in the information that I came direct from Lord Palmerston, and finished on a fine flourish with an appeal to her to open her heart to Flashy, plenipotentiary extraordinary, so that we could all be friends and live happy ever after. It was the greatest gammon, but I gave it my best, with noble compassion in my eye and a touch of ardour in the curl shaken down over my brow. She heard me out, not a muscle moving in that lovely face, and then asked:

  "You have the power to make redress, then? To alter what has been done?"

  I said I had the power to report direct to Pam, and she said that so, in effect, had Skene. Her agents in London had spoken direct to the Board of Control, without avail.

  "Well," says I, "this is a little different, highness, don't you see? His lordship felt that if I heard from you at ftorst-hand, so to speak, and we talked —"

  "There is nothing to talk about," says she. "What can I say that has not been said — that the Sirkar does not know? What can you —"

  "I can ask, maharaj', what actions by the Sirkar, short of removing from Jhansi and recognising your adopted son, would satisfy your grievances — or go some way to satisfying them."

  She came up on one elbow at that, frowning at me with those magnificent eyes. For what I was hinting at — without the least authority, mind you — was concessions, and devil a smell of those she'd had in four years.

  "Why," says she, thoughtfully. "They know well enough. They have been told my grievances, my just demands, for four years now. And yet they have denied me. How can repetition serve?"

  "A disappointed client may find a new advocate," says I, with my most disarming smile, and she gave me a long stare, and then got up and walked over to the balustrade, looking out across the city. "If your highness would speak your mind to me, openly —"

  "Wait," says she, and stood for a moment, frowning, before she turned back to me. She couldn't think what to make of this, she was suspicious, and didn't dare to hope, and yet she was wondering. God, she was a black beauty, sure enough — if I'd been the Sirkar, she could have had Jhansi and a pound of tea with it, just for half an hour on the daybed.

  "If Lord Palmerston," says she at last — and old Pam himself would have been tempted to restore her throne just to hear the pretty way she said "Lud Pammer-stan" —"wishes me to restate the wrongs that have been done me, it can only be because he has discovered some interest to serve by redressing them — or promising redress. I do not know what that interest is, and you will not tell me. It is no charitable desire to set right injustices done to my Jhansi " and she lifted her head proudly. "That is certain. But if he wishes my friendship, for whatever purpose of his own, he may give an earnest of his good will by restoring the revenues which should have come to me since my husband's death, but which the Sirkar has confiscated." She stopped there, chin up, challenging, so I said:

  "And after that, highness? What else?"

  "Will he concede as much? Will the Company?"

  "I can't say," says I. "But if a strong case can be made — when I report to Lord Palmerston …"

  "And you will put the case, yourself?"

  "That is my mission, maharaj'."

  "And such other … cases … as I may advance?" She looked the question, and there was just a hint of a smile on her mouth. "So. And I must first put them to you — and no doubt you will suggest to me how they may best be phrased … or modified. You will advise, and … persuade?"

  "Well," says I, "I'll help your highness as I can …"

  To my astonishment she laughed, with a flash of white teeth, her head back, and shaking most delightfully.

  "Oh, the subtlety of the British!" cries she. "Such delicacy, like an elephant in a swamp! Lord Palmerston wishes, for his own mysterious reasons of policy, to placate the Rani of Jhansi. So he invites her to repeat the petition which has been repeatedly denied for years. But does he send a lawyer, or an advocate, or even an official of the Company? No — just a simple soldier, who will discuss the petition with her, and how it may best be presented to his lordship. Could not a lawyer have advised her better?" She folded her hands and came slowly forward, sauntering round me. "But how many lawyers are tall and broad-shouldered and … aye, quite handsome — and persuasive as Flashman bahadur?*(*Title of honour, champion.) Not a doubt but he is best fitted to convince a silly female that a modest claim is most likely to succeed — and she will abate her demands for him, poor foolish girl, and be less inclined to insist on fine points, and stand upon her rights. Is this not so?"

  "Highness, you misunderstand entirely … I assure you —"

  "Do I?" says she, scornfully, but laughing still. "I am not sixteen, colonel; I am an old lady of twenty-nine. And I may not know Lord Palmerston's purpose, but I understand his methods. Well, well. It may not have occurred to his lordship that even a poor Indian lady may be persuasive in her turn." And she eyed me with some amusement, confident in her own beauty, the damned minx, and the effect it was having on me. "He paid me a poor compliment, do you not think?"

  What could I do but grin back at her? "Do his lordship justice, highness," says I. "He'd never seen you. How many have, since you are purdah-nishin?"* (*Literally, "one who sits behind a curtain".)

  "Enough to have told him what I am like, I should have hoped. How did he instruct you — humour her, whatever she is, fair or foul, young and silly or old and ugly? Charm her, so that she keeps her demands cheap? Captivate her, as only a hero can." She stirred an eyebrow. "Who could resist the champion who killed the four Gilzais — where was it?"

  "At Mogala, in Afghanistan — as your highness heard at the gate. Was it to test me that you had the Pathan spit on my shadow?"

  "His insolence needed no instruction," says she. "He is now being flogged for it." She turned away from me and sauntered back into the durbar-room. "You may have the tongue which insulted you torn out, if you wish," she added over her shoulder.

  That brought me up sharp, I can tell you. We'd been rallying away famously, and I'd all but forgotten who and what she was — an Indian prince, with all the capricious cruelty of her kind under that lovely hide. Unless she was just mocking me with the reminder — whether or no, I would play my character.

  "Not necessary, highness," says I. "I had forgotten him."

  She nodded, and struck a little silver gong with her wrist-bangle. "It is time for my noon meal, and this afternoon I hold my court. You may return tomorrow, and we shall discuss the representations you are to make to the subtle Lord Palmerston." She smiled slightly in dismissal. "And I thank you for your gift, colonel."

  Her maids were coming in, and the little fat
chamberlain, so I made my bow.

  "Maharaj"", says I. "Your most humble obedient."

  She inclined her head regally, and turned away, but as I backed out round the screen I noticed that she had picked up my perfume-bottle from the table, and was inviting her maids to have a sniff at it.

  I came away from that audience thinking no small diplomatic beer of myself. At least I seemed to have got further with her than any other representative of the Sirkar had ever done, even if I'd had to lie truth out of Jhansi to do it. God knew I'd not the slightest right to promise redress of any of her grievances against the Raj, and if I trotted back a list of them to London the Board would turn 'em down flat again, no question. But she didn't know that, and if I could jolly her along for a week for two, hinting at this or that possible concession, she might grow more friendly disposed — which was what Pam wanted, after all. Her hopes would revive, and while they were sure to be dashed in the end, I'd be back snug in England by then.

  That was the official aspect, of course; the important thing was the delightful surprise that the old beldam of Jhansi was as prime a goer as ever wriggled a hip, and just ripe for my kind of diplomacy. She was a cocky bitch, with a fine sense of her queenly consequence, but I wasn't fooled by her airs, or the set-down she'd tried to give me by warning me not to try to come round her with whiskery blandishments. That was pure flirtation, to put me on my mettle — I know these beauties, you see, and it don't matter whether they're queens or commoners, when they start to play the cool, mocking grand dame it's a sure sign that they're wondering what kind of a mount you'll make. I'd seen the glint in this one's eye when she walked round me, and thought quietly to myself, we'll have you gasping for more, my girl, before this fortnight's out.

  You may think me a presumptuous ambassador on short notice, especially since the object of my carnal ambitions was royal, clever, dangerously powerful, and a high-caste Hindoo lady of reputed purity to boot. But that means nothing when a woman fancies a buck like me; besides, I knew about these high-born Indian wenches — randy as ferrets, the lot of them, and with all the opportunity to gratify it, too. A woman with a shape and face like Lakshmibai's hadn't let it go to waste in four years' widowhood (after being married to some prancing old quean, too), not with the stallions of her palace guard available at the crook of her little finger. Well, I'd make a rare change of bedding for her — and if her lusty inclinations needed any prompting, she might find it in the thought that being amiable to ambassador Flashy was the likeliest way of getting what she wanted for herself and her state. Dulce et decorum est pro patria rogeri, she could say to herself — and I cantered back to the cantonments full of cheery thoughts, imagining what that voluptuous tawny body would look like when I peeled the sari off it, and speculating on the novel uses to which the pair of us could put that swing of hers, in the interests of diplomatic relations.

  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,*(*Soldiers.) 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 rissaldar*(*Native officer commanding a cavalry troop.)- 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 sowars*(*Troopers.) 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,*(*Great lord, important man.) 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.*(*See Flashman)

  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-rani*(*"Cutch" in this sense means inferior, as opposed to "pukka", meaning first-rate. E. g. pukka road, a macadam surface, cutch road, a mere track. Thus cutch-rani, a nominal queen, without power.) of her, Flashman, but she still has fangs. This," he added bitterly, "comes of soft government in Calcutta, by ducks and mulls*(*Ducks and mulls — Bombay Anglo-Indians and Madras Anglo-Indians. Slang expressions current among the British in India, but probably seldom used by Indians themselves.) 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-admis*(*Thieves and jungle-men.) of mine. They have their uses —" And he jerked a thumb towards his troopers.

  That, coming from an Afghan upper roger*(*A young chief — Sansk., "yuva rajah". For this and other curiosities of Anglo-Indian slang, see Hobson-Jobson, by H. Yule (1886).) 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 vakeel*(*Legal representative (possibly used here ironically). 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.