Flashman In The Great Game fp-5

by George MacDonald Fraser

  Three folk went mad, as I remember, in those forty-eight hours; I only wonder now that we all didn't. In the furnace of the barrack the women and children were too reduced by famine even to cry; even the younger officers seemed to be overcome by the lethargy of approaching certain death. For that, Wheeler now admitted, was all that remained.

  "I have sent a last message out to Lawrence," he told us senior men on the second night. "I have told him that we have nothing left but British spirit, and that cannot last forever. We are like rats in a cage. Our best hope is that the rebels will come in again, and give us a quick end; better that than watch our women and little ones die by inches. "29

  I can still see the gaunt faces in the flickering candlelight round his table; someone gave a little sob, and another swore softly, and after a moment Vibart asked if there was no hope that Lawrence might yet come to our relief.

  Wheeler shook his head. "He would come if he could, but even if he marched now he could not reach us in under two days. By then … well, you know me, gentlemen. I haven't croaked in fifty years' soldiering, and I'm not croaking now, when I say that short of a miracle it is all up. We're in God's hands, so let each one of us make his preparations accordingly."

  I was with him there, only my preparations weren't going to be spiritual. I still had my Pathan rig-out stowed away, and I could see that the time was fast approaching when, game ankle or no, Flashy was going to have to take his chance over the wall. It was that or die in this stinking hole, so I left them praying and went to my place on the parapet to think it out; I was in a blue funk at the thought of trying to decamp, but the longer I waited, the harder it might become. I was still wrestling with my fears when someone hove up out of the gloom beside me, and who should it be but East.

  "Flashman," says he, "may I have a word with you?" "If you must," says I. "I'll be obliged if you'll make it a brief one."

  "Of course, of course," says he. "I understand. As Sir Hugh said, it is time for each of us to make his own soul; I won't intrude on your meditations a moment longer than I must, I promise. The trouble is … my own conscience…. I need your help, old fellow."

  "I:h?" I stared at him, trying to make out his face in the dark. "What the deuce — ?"

  "Please … bear with me. I know you're bitter, because you think I abandoned you in Russia … left you to die, while I escaped. Oh, I know it was my duty, and all that, to get to Raglan … but the truth is —" he broke off and had a gulp to himself " — the truth is, I was glad to leave you. There — it's out at last … oh, if you knew how it had been tormenting me these two years past! That weight on my soul — that I abandoned you in a spirit of hatred and sinful vengeance. No … let me finish! I hated you then … because of the way you had treated Valla … when you flung her from that sledge, into the snow! I could have killed you for it!"

  He was in a rare taking, no error; a Rugby conscience pouring out is a hell of a performance. He wasn't telling me a thing I hadn't guessed at the time — I know these pious bastards better than they know themselves, you see.

  "I loved her, you see," he went on, talking like an old man with a hernia. "She meant everything to me … and you had cast her away so … brutally. Please, please, hear me out! I'm confessing, don't you see? And … and asking for your forgiveness. It's late in the day, I know — but, well, it looks as though we haven't much longer, don't it? So … I wanted to tell you … and shake your hand, old school-fellow, and hear from you that my … my sin is forgiven me. If you can find it in your heart, that is." He choked resoundingly. "I … I trust you can."

  I've heard some amazing declarations in my time, but this babbling was extraordinary. It comes of Christian upbringing, of course, and taking cold baths, all of which implants in the impressionable mind the notion that repentance can somehow square the account. At any other time, it would have given me some malicious amusement to listen to him; even in my distracted condition, it was interesting enough for me to ask him:

  "D'ye mean that if I hadn't given you cause to detest me, you'd have stayed with me, and let Raglan's message go hang?"

  "What's that?" says he. "I … I don't know what you mean. I … I … please, Flashman, you must see my agony of spirit … I'm trying to … make you understand. Please — tell me, even now, what I can do."

  "Well," says I, thoughtfully, "you could go and fart in a bottle and paint it."

  "What?" says he, bewildered. "What did you say?"

  "I'm trying to indicate that you can take yourself off," says I. "You're a selfish little swine, East. You admit you've behaved like a scoundrel to me, and if that wasn't enough, you have the cheek to waste my time — when I need it for prayer. So go to hell, will you?"

  "My God, Flashman … you can't mean it! You can't be so hard. It only needs a word! I own I've wronged you, terribly … maybe in more ways than I know. Sometimes … I've wondered if perhaps you too loved Valla … if you did, and placed duty first …" He gulped again, and peered at me. "Did you … love her, Flashman?"

  "About four or five times a week," says I, "but you needn't be jealous; she wasn't nearly as good a ride as her Aunt Sara. You should have tried a steam-bath with that one.

  He gave a shocked gasp, and I absolutely heard his teeth chatter. Then: "God, Flashman! Oh … oh, you are unspeakable! You are vile! God help you!"

  "Unspeakable and vile I may be," says I, "but at least I'm no hypocrite, like you: the last thing you want is for God to help me. You don't want my forgiveness, either; you just want to be able to forgive yourself. Well, you run along and do it, Scud, and thank me for making it easy for you. After what you've heard tonight, your conscience needn't trouble you any longer about having left old Flashy to his fate, what?"

  He stumbled off at that, and I was able to resume my own debate about whether it was best to slide out or stay. In the end, my nerve failed me, and I curled up in the lee of the parapet for the night. Thank God I did, for on the next morning Wheeler got his miracle.

  She was the most unlikely messenger of grace you ever saw — a raddled old chee-thee*(*Half-caste.) biddy with clanking earrings and a parasol, drawn in a rickshaw ghari by two pandies, with another couple marching as guard, and a havildar out in front brandishing a white flag. Wheeler ordered a stand-to when this strange little procession was seen approaching the east corner of the entrenchment, and went off himself with Moore to meet it, and a few minutes later word was passed for me and Vibart, who was up at my end of the parapet, to present ourselves.

  Wheeler and the other senior men were grouped inside the parapet, while the old wife, fanning herself with a leaf and sipping at a chatti, was sitting just outside with her escort squatting round her. Wheeler was holding a paper, and glancing in bewilderment from it to the old woman; as we came up someone was saying: "I wouldn't trust it a blasted inch! Why should they want to treat, at this time o'day? Tell me that!", and Wheeler shook his head and passed the paper to Vibart.

  "Read that," says he. "If what it says is true, the Nana wishes to make terms."

  It didn't sink in, at first; I studied the paper over Vibart's shoulder, while he read it out half-aloud. It was a brief, simple note, written in a good hand, in English, and addressed to Wheeler. As near as I recall, it said:

  To subjects of Her Most Gracious Majesty, Queen Victoria — all who are not connected with the acts of Lord Dalhousie and are willing to lay down their arms, shall receive a safe passage to Allahabad.

  It was signed on behalf of Nana Sahib, with a name I couldn't make out, until Vibart muttered it out: "Azeemoolah Khan". He looked at Wheeler, then at the old woman, and Wheeler flapped a hand and says:

  "This is Mrs Jacobs, of … ah, Cawnpore city. She has this note from Azeemoolah himself, in the presence of the Nana."

  "How-dee-do, gentlemen," says Mrs Jacobs, bowing with a great creak of stays from her seat in the ghari. "Such jolly weather we are having, yess?"

  "I don't like it," says Wheeler quietly, turning his back so that she shouldn't
hear; the others grouped round us. "As Whiting says, why should he offer terms when he must know we're at his mercy? All he needs do is wait."

  "Perhaps, sir," says Vibart, "he don't know how reduced we are." He let out a deep breath. "And we have our women and children to think of —"

  At this the others broke in, in a fierce babble of low voices: "It's a plot!" "No, it ain't!" "We've stood the bastards off this long —" "It's false — I can smell nigger treachery a mile away." "Why should it be treachery — my God, what have we to lose? We're done for as it is …", while I tried to keep my face straight and the delicious hope began to break over me — we were saved! For it seemed to me in that moment that whatever anyone said, whatever Wheeler felt, he was going to have to accept any terms the pandies offered — he couldn't refuse, and doom the women and children in that stinking barrack to certain death, however fearful of treachery he might be. We were being offered at least a chance of life against the certainty of death: he had to take it.

  So I said nothing, while they wrangled in whispers there by the parapet, with every drawn face along the entrenchment on either side turned anxiously in our direction, and that painted old harridan sitting under the canopy of her ghari, nodding and bowing whenever anyone glanced at her. And sure enough, Wheeler finally says:

  "What's your opinion, Colonel Flashman?"

  The temptation to sing out: "Take it, you bloody old fool — offer to crawl on your belly the whole way to Allahabad!" was strong, but I mastered it and looked pretty cool. "Well, sir," says I. "It's an offer — no more. There's nothing to be decided until we've tested it."

  That shut them up. "True enough," says Wheeler, "but -

  "Someone must talk to Nana Sahib," says I. "It may be that all isn't well with him, or that he thinks this siege ain't worth the candle. Maybe his precious pandies have had enough -

  "That's it, by God!" broke in Delafosse, but I went on, very steady:

  "But we can't accept — or turn him down flat — till we've heard more than is written here," and I tapped the paper in Vibart's hand. "He hasn't approached us out of charity, we may be sure — well, it may be treachery, or it may be weakness. Let's look him in the eye."

  It must have sounded well — bluff Flashy talking calm sense while others went pink in the face. They weren't to know I'd made up my trembling mind in the moment I'd read the note; the trick now was to make sure that Wheeler made up his, and in the right direction. For he was obviously full of suspicion about the Nana, and half-inclined to listen to the hotheads who were urging him to throw the offer back in the mutineers' teeth — you never heard such appalling nonsense in your life. Here we were, doomed for certain, being offered an eleventh-hour reprieve, and more than half the idiots in that impromptu council were for rejecting it out of hand. It made my innards heave to listen; thinks I, this is going to need delicate handling.

  However, Wheeler saw the sense of what I'd said, and decided that Moore and I should go to sec the Nana and hear precisely what he had to say. Thank God he chose me — I don't care, as a rule, to put my head into the lion's den, even under a flag of truce, but this was one negotiation I wanted to have a large hand in. I didn't want any hitches about the surrender — for surrender, if I had anything to do with it, was what it was going to be. All that mattered besides was that I should keep my credit intact.

  So at noon Moore and I were escorted through the pandy lines, with Mrs Jacobs in her ghari jabbering about what a shame it was, oah yess, that the present unsettled state of affairs had prevented her getting up to the hills during the hot weather. Who she was, by the way, I never discovered; she looked like a typical half-caste bawd who'd been employed as a go-between because she was obviously neutral and inoffensive. But I may be misjudging the lady.

  The notorious Nana Sahib was waiting for us in front of a great day-tent in a grove of trees, with a pack of servitors and minions attending him, and a score of Maharatta guardsmen, in breastplates and helmets, ranged either side of the great Afghan carpet before his chair. That carpet gave me an uneasy twinge — it reminded me of the one on which I'd seen McNaghten seized and chopped up outside Kabul, at just such a meeting as this; however, Moore and I put out our chests and looked down our noses, as true Britons ought to do in the presence of rebellious niggers who happen to have the drop on them.

  Nana himself was a burly, fat-faced rascal with curly mustachioes and a shifty look — what they call a tung admi,*(*Literally, "a tight man".) dressed in more silks and jewels than a French whore, sliding his eyes across Moore and me and whispering behind a plump hand to the woman beside him. She was worth a lewd thought or two, by the way; one of your tall, heavy-hipped beauties with a drooping lower lip — Sultana Adala, they called her, and I'm sorry I never got closer to her than twenty feet. We exchanged a glance or two during that interview, and let our mutual imaginations work; ten minutes alone together would have done the rest. On Nana's other side sat a nondescript and nasty-looking rascal, who I gather was his brother-in-crime, Tantia Tope.

  However, the man who took things in hand was Azeemoolah Khan, a tall, handsome, light-skinned exquisite in a cloth-of-gold coat and with a jewelled aigret in his turban, who stepped smiling across the carpet with his hand out. Moore promptly put his hands behind his back, I contented myself by hooking my thumbs into my belt, and Azeemoolah smiled even wider and withdrew his hand with a graceful flutter — Rudi Starnberg couldn't have done it better. I gave him our names, and he opened his eyes wide.

  "Colonel Flashman! But this is an honour indeed! It has always been my regret that I missed you in the Crimea," says he, flashing his teeth. "And how is my dear old friend, Mr William Howard Russell?"

  It was my turn to stare, at that; I didn't know then that this Azeemoolah was a travelled man, who spoke French and English as well as I did, had done diplomatic work in London — and gone through our sillier society women like a mad stallion at the same time. A charming, clever politician, whose urbanity masked a nature as appealing as a hooded cobra's;30 for the occasion he was acting as interpreter for the Nana, who spoke no English.

  I told him, fairly cool, that we were there to receive his master's proposals, at which he sighed and spread his hands.

  "Well, gentlemen, it is a most distressing business, and no one is more deeply troubled by it than his highness, which is why he has sent his note to General Wheeler, in the hope that we can put an end to all this bloodshed and suffering -

  Moore interrupted at this to say that in that case it was a pity he hadn't sent his message earlier, or stayed loyal in the first place. Azeemoolah just smiled.

  "But we are not talking politics, are we, Captain Moore? We are looking at military reality — which is that your gallant resistance is at an end, one way or another. His highness deplores the thought of useless slaughter; he is willing, if you will quit Cawnpore, to allow your garrison to depart with the honours of war; you shall have all necessary food and comforts for your women and children (for whom his highness is particularly concerned), and safe passage to Allahabad. It seems to me not an ungenerous offer."

  The Nana, who obviously knew the purport of what was being said, leaned forward at this, smiling greasily, and gabbled in Maharatta. Azeemoolah nodded, and went on:

  "He says that baggage animals are already being collected to carry your wounded to the river, where boats will be waiting to take you all to Allahabad."

  I asked the question Wheeler wanted asked. "What guarantees of safe-conduct does he offer?"

  Azeemoolah lifted his brows. "But are any necessary? If we intended you harm, we have only to attack, or wait. We know your situation, you see. Believe me, gentlemen, his highness is moved simply by humanity, the spirit of mercy -

  Whether it was deliberately timed or not, I don't know, but his words were interrupted by the most hideous scream of agony — a drawn-out, bubbling wail from behind the grove of trees. It rang out again, and then died into an awful whimper of pain, and I felt the hairs rise on my neck. M
oore almost jumped out of his boots.

  "What in God's name was that?" says he.

  "Maharatta diplomacy, I imagine," says I, with a straight face and my innards dissolving. "Someone being flayed alive, probably, for our benefit — so that we could hear, and take note."

  "… but if his highness's word is not sufficient," Azecmoolah went on blandly, "he would raise no objection to your carrying away your personal arms and … shall we say, twenty rounds a man? With that, you will hardly be at a greater disadvantage in the open than behind that pathetic breastwork. But I repeat, gentlemen, his highness has nothing to gain by treachery — quite the reverse. It is repugnant to him, and would be politically damaging."

  I didn't trust the bastard an inch, but I was privately inclined to agree with him. Wiping out a British garrison entire was one thing, but he could do that anyway, without luring us into the open. On the other hand, getting a British garrison to haul down its flag would be a real feather in his cap — but Azeemoolah was a mile too shrewd to say so, for nothing would have been better calculated to stiffen Wheeler's resistance.

  Nana started to chatter again in Maharatta, while I tried to efface the memory of that awful scream by exchanging a long look or two with Sultana Adala — it never does any harm. Azeemoolah heard him out, and then addressed us again.