Flashman In The Great Game fp-5

by George MacDonald Fraser

  So that was the course I followed, half-blind with pain, and constantly losing my bearings, even in the bright moonlight, so that I had to stop and cast about among the groves and hamlets. I forged ahead, and when I came on the Delhi road at last, what did I see but two companies of sepoys tramping along under the moon, in fair order, singing and chanting as they went, with their muskets slung and the havildars calling the step. For an instant I thought they must be reliefs from Delhi, and then it dawned on me that they were marching in the wrong direction — but I was too done up to care; I just sat my pony by the roadside, and when they spotted me half a dozen of them broke ranks, crying that it was a 3rd Cavalryman, and cheering me until they saw the blood on my face and coat. Then they helped me down, and sponged my head and gave me a drink, and their havildar says:

  "You're in no case to catch your pultan tonight, bhai.*(* Brother.) They must be half-way to Delhi by now," at which the rest of them cheered and threw up their hats.

  "Are they so?" says I, wondering what the devil he meant.

  "Aye, first among the loot, as usual," cries another. "They have the advantage of us, on their ponies — but we'll be there, too!" And they all cheered and laughed again, black faces with grinning white teeth looking down at me. Even in my bemused state this seemed to mean only one thing.

  "Has Delhi fallen, then?" I asked, and the havildar says, not yet, but the three regiments there would surely rise, and with the whole of the Meerut garrison marching to help them the sahibs would be overthrown and slaughtered within the day.

  "We were only the beginning!" says he, sponging away at my wound. "Soon Delhi — then Agra, Cawnpore, Jaipur — aye, and Calcutta itself! The Madras army is on the move also, and from one end of the Grand Trunk to the other the sahibs have been driven into their compounds like mice into their holes. The North is rising — there, lie still, man — there will be sahibs enough for your knife-edge, when your wound is healed. Best come with us, if you can travel; see, we hold together in good company, like soldiers — lest the sahibs send out riders who may snap us up piecemeal."

  "No — no," says I, struggling up. "I'll ride on to join my pultan." And despite their protests I clambered on to my pony again.

  "He thirsts for white blood!" shouts one. "Shabash, sowar! But leave enough for the rest of us to drink!"

  I shouted something incoherent, about wanting to be first in at the death, and as they halloed encouragement after me I put my pony to a trot, hanging on grimly, and set off down the road. The other company was yelling and singing as I passed — I remember noting that they were wearing flower garlands round their necks. I carried on until I had distanced them, my head splitting at every step and swelling up like a balloon, and then I remember swinging off into the forest, and blundering until I slumped out of the saddle and lay where I fell, utterly exhausted.

  When I came to — if you can call it that — I was extremely ill. I've no clear idea of what followed, except that there were long periods of confused dreaming, and moments of vivid clarity, but it's difficult to tell one from the other. I'm sure that at one point I was lying face-down in a tank, gulping down brackish water while a little girl with a goat stood and watched me — I can even remember that the goat had a red thread round its horns. On the other hand, I doubt if Dr Arnold truly did come striding through the trees in an enormous turban, crying: "Flashman, you have been fornicating with Lakshmibai during first lesson; how often must I tell you there is to be no galloping after morning prayers, sir!" Or that John Charity Spring stood there four-square shouting: "Amo, amas, amat! Lay into him, doctor! The horny young bastard is always amo-ing! Hae nugae in seria ducent mala, *(*These trifles will lead to grave evils.) by God!" And then they changed into a wrinkled old native woman and a scrawny nigger with a white moustache; she was holding a chatti*(*Pot, drinking cup.) to my mouth — it felt hard and cold, but it became suddenly soft and warm, and the chatti was Mrs Leslie's lips against mine, and what was running into my mouth wasn't water, but blood, and I screamed silently while all the grinning faces whirled round me, and the whole world was burning while a voice intoned: "Cartridge is brought to the left hand with right elbow raised" … and then the old man and woman were there again, peering anxiously down at me while I slipped into black unconsciousness.

  It was in their hut that I finally came to myself, with a half-healed wound on my temple, having lost heaven knows how much blood and weight, verminous and stinking and weak as a kitten — but with my head just clear enough to remember what had happened. Unfortunately, it wasn't to prove quite so clear about thinking ahead.

  I've since calculated that I lay ill and delirious in their hovel for nearly three weeks, perhaps longer. They didn't seem to know — apart from being the lowest kind of creatures, they were scared stiff of me, and it wasn't until I'd prevailed on them to fetch someone from a nearby village that I could get any notion of what was happening. They finally drummed up an ancient pensioner, who shied off as soon as he saw me — my cavalry coat and gear, and my filthy appearance must have marked me as a mutineer par excellence — but before he could get out of the door I had soothed him with my revolver, held in a shaky hand, and in no time he was crouching beside my charpoy, babbling like the man from Reuters, while the rest of his village peeped through cracks in the walls, shivering.

  Delhi had fallen — he had been there, and there had been a terrible slaughter of sahibs, and all their folk. The King of Delhi had been proclaimed and now ruled all India. It had been the same everywhere — Meerut, Bareilly, Aligarh, Etawah, Mainpuri (all of which were within a hundred miles or so), the splendid sepoys had triumphed all along the line, and soon every peasant in the land would receive a rupee and a new chicken. (Sensation.) The sahibs had tried to fall treacherously on the native soldiers at Agra, Cawnpore and Lucknow; but there was no doubt that these places would succumb also — two regiments of mutineers had passed through his own village last night, with cannon, to assist in the overthrow of Agra — everywhere there were dead sahibs, obviously there would soon be none left in the world. Bombay had risen, Afghan fighters were pouring in from the north, a great Muslim jihad had been proclaimed, fort after fort of the hated gora-log was going down, with fearful slaughter. Doubtless I had already borne my part? — excellent, I would certainly be rewarded with a nawab's throne and treasure and flocks of amorous women. What less did I deserve? 3rd Cavalry, was I not? Doughty fighters — he had been in the Bombay Sappers, himself, thirty-one years' service, and not so much as a naik's stripes to swell his miserable pinshun — aieee, it was time the mean, corrupt and obscene Sirkar was swept away …

  Some of his news would be exaggerated bosh, of course, but I couldn't judge how much, and I didn't doubt his information about the local mutinies (which proved accurate enough, by the way: half the stations between Meerut and Cawnpore had been overrun by this time). Perhaps I was too ready to swallow his gammon about Afghan invasion and Bombay being in flames — but remember, I'd seen the stark, staring impossible happen at Meerut — after that, anything was credible. After all, there was only one British soldier in India for every fifty sepoys, to say nothing of banditti, frontiersmen, dacoits, bazaar ruffians and the like — dear God, if the thing spread there wasn't an earthly damned reason why they shouldn't swallow every British garrison, cantonment and residency from Khyber to Coromandel. And it would spread — I didn't doubt it, as I sat numb and shaking on my charpai.

  Coward's reasoning, if you like, but I don't know any other kind, thank heaven; at least it prepares you for the worst. And there couldn't be much worse than my present situation, plumb in the eye of the storm — damnation, of all the places to hide in, what malign fate had taken me to Meerut? And how to get away? — my native disguise was sound enough, but I couldn't skulk round India forever as a footloose nigger. I'd have to fmd a British garrison — a large, safe one … Cawnpore? Not by a mile — the whole Ganges valley seemed to be ablaze. North wasn't any good, Delhi was gone and Agra on the brink �
�� South? Gwalior? Jhansi? Indore? I found myself chattering the names aloud, and repeating one over and over —"Jhansi, Jhansi!"

  Now, you must remember I was in my normal state of great pusillanimity, and half-barmy to boot, as a result of shock and the clout I'd taken. Otherwise I'd never have dreamed of Jhansi, two hundred and fifty miles away — but Ilderim was at Jhansi, and if there was one thing certain in this dreadful world, it was that he'd keep his tryst, and would either wait for me at Bull Temple as he'd promised, or leave word. And Jhansi must be safe — dammit, I'd spent weeks with its ruler, in civilised discussion and hectic banging; she was a lovely, wonderful girl, and would have her state well in hand, surely? Yes, Jhansi — it was madness, and I know it now, but in my weak, feverish state it seemed the only course at the time.

  So south I went, talking to myself most of the time, and shying away from everyone and everything except the meanest villages, where I put in for provisions; I didn't stand on ceremony, but just lurched in snarling and brandishing my Colt, kicking the cowed inhabitants aside, and lifting whatever I fancied — I've never been more grateful for my English public school upbringing than I was then. Whether I was unlucky or not I don't know, but as I worked my way south past Khurjah and Hathras and Firozabad, over the river and down past Gohad to the Jhansi border, everything I saw confirmed my worst fears. I must have skulked in the brush a dozen times to avoid bands of sepoys — one of 'em a full regiment, blow me, with colours and band tootling away, but plainly mutineers from the din they made and the slovenly way they marched. I know now that there were British-held towns and stations along the way, and even bands of our cavalry scouring the country, but I never ran across them. What I did see was a sickening trail of death — burned-out bungalows, looted villages, bodies all swollen up and half-eaten by vultures and jackals. I remember one little garden, beside a pretty house, and three skeletons among the flowers — picked clean by ants, I daresay. Two were full-grown, and one was a baby. Now and then I would see smoke on the horizon, or over the trees, and crowds of villagers fleeing with their miserable belongings — it was like the end of the world to me, then, and if you'd known India you'd have thought the same — imagine it in Kent or Hampshire, for that's how it seemed to us.

  Fortunately, thanks to my curiously light-headed condition, my recollections of that wandering ride are not too clear; it wasn't until the very morning that I came down out of the low hills to Jhansi city, and saw the distant fort-crowned rock above the town, that my mind seemed to give a little snap — I remember sitting my pony, with my brain clearing, understanding what I'd done, and why I was here, breaking out in a sweat at my own temerity, and then realising that I'd perhaps done the wise thing, after all. It all looked peaceful enough, although I was on the wrong side of the city to see the British cantonment; I decided to lie up during the afternoon, and then slip into Bull Temple, which was not far from the Jokan Bagh, a garden of little beehive temples not far outside the town. If Ilderim's messenger wasn't there by. sundown, I'd scout the cantonment, and if all was well I'd ride in and report myself to Skene.

  The sun was just slipping away and the shadows lengthening when I skirted the woods where Lakshmibai's pavilion lay — who knows, thinks I, perhaps we'll dance another Haymarket hornpipe before long — and came down to Bull Temple just after dusk. I didn't see a soul as I came, but I was cheered by the sound of a bugle-call in the distance, and I was pressing ahead more boldly up towards the temple ruin when someone clicked his tongue in the shadows, and I reined up sharply.

  "Who goes there?" says I, fingering the Colt, and a man lounged out, spreading his hands to show they were empty. He was a Pathan, skull-cap and pyjamys and all, and as he came to my horse's head I recognised the sowar who'd given me his gear and pony when I'd left Jhansi — Rafik Tamwar.

  "Flashman husoor," says he, softly. "Ilderim said you would come." And without another word he jerked his thumb towards the temple itself, put his hands to his mouth, and hooted softly like an owl; there was an answering hoot from the ruins, and Tamwar nodded to me to go ahead.

  "Ilderim is yonder," says he, and before I could ask him what the devil it meant, he had dissolved into the shadows and I was staring uneasily across the tangle of weeds and broken masonry that marked the old temple garden; there was a glare of fire-light from the doorway in the half-fallen shell of the dome, and a man was standing waiting — even at that distance I knew it was Ilderim Khan, and a moment later I was face to bearded grinning face with him, shaking with very relief as his one sound arm clasped me round the shoulders — the other was bound up in a sling — and he was chuckling in his throat and growling that I must have a pact with Shaitan since I was alive to keep the rendezvous.

  "For we have heard of Meerut," says he, as he drew me in to the fire, and the half-dozen sowars crouched round it made space for us. "And Delhi, Aligarh and the rest —"

  "But what the blazes are you doing here?" says I. "Since when have irregular cavalry taken to bivouacking in ruins when they have their own quarters?"

  He stared at me, stopping in the act of throwing a billet on the fire, and something in that look turned my blood to ice. They were all staring at me; I glanced from one grim bearded face to another, and in a voice suddenly hoarse I asked:

  "What does it mean? Your officer — Henry sahib? Has anything -

  Ilderim threw the billet on the fire, and squatted down beside me. "Henry sahib is dead, brother," says he quietly. "And Skene sahib. And the Collector sahib. And all their women, and their children also. They are all dead."

  I can see it now as vividly as I saw it then — the dark hawk-face silhouetted against the temple wall that glowed ruddy in the firelight, and the bright stream of a tear on his cheek. You don't often see a Pathan cry, but Ilderim Khan cried as he told me what had happened at Jhansi.

  "When the news came of Meerut, that black Hindoo bitch who calls herself Maharani summoned Skene sahib, and says she needs must enlarge her bodyguard, for the safety of her person and the treasure in her palace. These being unquiet times. She spoke very sweetly, and Skene, being young and foolish, gave her what she wished — aye, he even said that we of the free cavalry might serve her, and Kala Khan (may he rot in hell) took her salt and her money, and two others with him. But most of her new guard were the scum of the bazaar — badmashes and klifti-wallahs* and street-corner ten-to-one assassins and the sweepings of the jail.

  "Then, two weeks ago, there was stirring among the sepoys of the 12th N.I., and chapattis and lotus flowers passed, and some among them burned a bungalow by night. But the colonel sahib spoke with them, and all seemed well, and a day and a night passed. Then Faiz Ali and the false swine Kala Khan, with a great rabble of sepoys and these new heroes of the Rani's guard, fell on the Star Fort, and made themselves masters of the guns and powder, and marched on the cantonment to put it to the fire, but Skene sahib had warning from a true sepoy, and while some dozen sahibs were caught and butchered by these vermin, the rest escaped into the little Town Fort, and the mem-sahibs and little ones with them, and made it good against the mutineers. And for five days they held it — do I not know? For I was there, with Rafik Tamwar and Shadman Khan and Muhammed Din, whom you see here. And I took this —" he touched his wounded arm " — the seventh time they tried to storm the wall."

  "They came like locusts," growls one of the sowars round the fire. "And like locusts they were driven."

  "Then the food was gone, and the water, and no powder remained for the bundooks,"*(*Firearms.) says Ilderim. "And Skene sahib — have ye seen a young man grow old in a week, brother? — said we could hold no longer, for the children were like to die. So he sent three men, under a white flag, to the Rani, to beg her help. And she — she told them she had no concern for the English swine."

  "I don't believe it," says I.

  "Listen, brother — and believe, for I was one of the three, and Muhammed Din here another, and we went with Murray sahib to her palace gate. Him only they admitted, and
flung us two in a stinking pit, but they told us what passed afterwards — that she had spurned Murray sahib, and afterwards he was racked to pieces in her dungeon." He turned to stare at me with blazing eyes. "I do not know — it is what I was told; only hear what followed, and then — judge thou."

  He stared into the fire, clenching and unclenching his fist, and then went on:

  "When no word went back to Skene sahib, and seeing the townsfolk all comforting the mutineers, and jeering at his poor few, he offered to surrender. And Kala Khan agreed, and they opened the fort gates, and trusted to the mercy of the mutineers."

  It was then I saw the tear run down into his beard; he didn't look at me, but just continued gazing at the flames and speaking very softly:

  "They took them all — men, and women, and children — to the Jokan Bagh, and told them they must die. And the women wept, and threw themselves on their knees, and begged for the children's lives — mem-sahibs, brother, you understand, such ladies as you know of, grovelled at the boots of the filth of the bazaar. I saw it!" He suddenly shouted. "And the untouchable scum — these high-caste worms who call themselves men, and will shudder away if a real man's shadow falls across their chattis — these creatures laughed and mocked the mem-sahibs and kicked them aside.

  "I saw it — I, and Muhammed Din here, for they brought us out to the jokan Bagh saying, ‘See thy mighty sahibs; see thy proud mem-sahibs who looked on us as dirt; see them crawl to us before they die.’"

  "‘There is a furnace thrice-heated waiting’," says one of the sowars. "Remember that, rissaldar sahib."

  "If they burn forever it will not be hot enough," says Ilderim. "They killed the sahibs first — the Collector sahib, Andrews sahib — Gordon, Burgess, Taylor, Turnbull — all of them. They held them in a row, and chopped them down with cleavers. Skene sahib they slew last of all; he asked to embrace his wife, but they laughed at him and struck him, and bade him kneel for the knife. ‘I will die on my feet,’ says he, ‘with no regret save that I am polluted by the touch of dishonoured lice like you. Strike, coward — see, my hands are tied.’ And Bakshish Ali, the jail daroga, cut him down. And through all this they made the women and children watch, crying ‘See, thy husband's blood! See, baby, it is thy father's head — ask him to kiss thee, baby!’ And then they killed the mem-sahibs, in another row, while the townsfolk watched and cheered, and threw marigolds at the executioners. And Skene mem-sahib said to Faiz Ali, ‘If it pleases you, you may burn me alive, or do what you will, if you will spare the children.’ But they threw dirt in her face, and swore the children should die."