Flashmans' Lady fp-6

by George MacDonald Fraser

  "Paradise!" exclaims Stuart, breathing in the warm air, "and I don't give a damn if I never see Dover cliffs again. Look at it - half a million square miles of the loveliest land in the world, unexplored, except for this little corner. Sarawak's where civilization begins and ends, you know - go a day's march in yonder"— he pointed towards the mountains -

  "and if you're still alive you'll be among head-hunters who've never seen a white man. Ain't it capital, though?"

  I couldn't say it was. The river, as we went slowly up it, was broad enough, and the land green and fertile, but it had that steamy look that spells fever, and the air was hot and heavy. We passed by several villages, some of them partly built over the water on stilts, with long, primitive thatched houses; the water itself was as warm with canoes and small boats, manned by squat, ugly, grinning little men like Jingo; I don't suppose one of them stood more than five feet, but they looked tough as teak. They wore simple loin-cloths, with rings round their knees, and head-cloths; some had black and white feathers in their hair. The women were fairer than the men, although no taller, and decidedly good-looking, in an impudent, pug-nosed way; they wore their hair long, down their backs, and went naked except for kilts, swinging their bums and udders in a way that did your heart good to see. (They couple like stoats, by the way, but only with men of proved bravery. In a country where the usual engagement ring is a human head, it follows that you have to be bloodthirsty in order to get your muttons.)

  "Sea Dyaks," says Stuart. "The bravest, cheeriest folk you'll ever see - fight like tigers, cruel as the grave, but loyal as Swiss. Listen to 'em jabber - that's the coast lingua franca, part Malay, but with Portuguese, French, Dutch, and English thrown in. Amiga sua!" cries he, waving to one of the boatmen - that, I learned, means "my friend", which gives you some notion.

  Sarawak, as Stuart said, might be the civilized corner of Borneo, but as we drew closer to Kuching you could see that it was precious like an armed camp. There was a huge log boom across the river, which had to be swung open so that Dido could warp through, and on the low bluffs either side there were gun emplacements, with cannon peeping through the earthworks; there were cannon, too, on the three strange craft at anchor inside the boom - they were like galleys, with high stern and forecastles, sixty or seventy feet long, with their great oars resting in the water like the legs of some monstrous insect.

  "War praus," cries Stuart. "By Jove, there's something up - those are Lundu boats. J. B.'s mustering his forces with a vengeance!"

  We rounded a bend, and came in sight of Kuching proper; it wasn't much of a place, just a sprawling native town, with a few Swiss cottages on the higher ground, but the river was jammed with ships and boats of every description - at least a score of praus and barges, light sailing cutters, launches, canoes, and even a natty little paddle-steamer. The bustle and noise were tremendous, and as Dido dropped anchor in mid-stream she was surrounded by swarms of little boats, from one of which the enormous figure of Paitingi Ali came swinging up to the deck, to present himself to Keppel, and then come over to us.

  "Aye, weel," says he, in that astonishing accent which sounded so oddly with his occasional pious Muslim exclamations. "He was right again. The Praise tae the One."

  "What d'ye mean?" cries Stuart.

  "A spy-boat came in frae Budraddin yesterday. A steam-brig - which cannae be any other than the Sulu Queen - put into Batang Lupar four days ago, and went upriver. Budraddin's watching the estuary, but there's nae fear she'll come out again, for the word along the coast is that the great Suleiman Usman is back, and has gone up tae Fort Linga tae join Sharif Sahib. He's in there, a' richt; a' we have tae do is gang in an' tak' him."

  "Huzza!" roars Stuart, capering and seizing his hand. "Good old J.B.! Borneo he said it would be, and Borneo it is!" He swung to me. "You hear that, Flashman - it means we know where your lady is, and that kidnapping rascal, too! J.B. guessed exactly right - now do you believe that he's the greatest man in the east?"

  "Will ye tell me how he does it?" growled Paitingi. "If I didnae ken he was a guid Protestant I'd say he was in league wi' Shaitan. Come awa' - he's up at the hoose, gey pleased wi' himsel'. Bismillah! Perhaps when he's told you in person he'll be less insufferable."

  But when we went ashore to Brooke's house, "The Grove", as it was called, the great man hardly referred to Paitingi's momentous news - I discovered later that this was delicacy on his part; he didn't want to distress me by even talking about Elspeth's plight. Instead, when we had been conducted to that great shady bungalow on its eminence, commanding a view of the teeming river and landing-places, he sat us down with glasses of arrack punch, and began to talk, of all things, about - roses.

  "I'm goin' to make 'em grow here if it kills me," says he. "Imagine that slope down to the river below us, covered with English blooms; think of warm evenings in the dusk, and the perfume filling the verandah. By George, if I could raise Norfolk apples as well, that would be perfect - great, red beauties like the ones that grow on the roadside by North Walsham, what? You can keep your mangoes and paw-paws, Stuart - what wouldn't I give for an honest old apple, this minute! But I might manage the roses, one day." He jumped up. "Come and see my garden, Flashman - I promise you won't see another like it in Borneo, at any rate!"

  So he took me round his place, pointing out his jasmine and sundals and the rest, exclaiming about their night scents, and suddenly snatching up a trowel and falling on some weeds. "These confounded Chinese gardeners!" cries he. "I'd be better served by Red Indians, I believe. But I suppose it's asking too much to expect," he cries, trowelling away, "that a people as filthy, ugly, and ungraceful as the Chinks should have any feeling for flowers. Mind you, they're industrious and cheery, but that ain't the same."

  He chattered on, pointing out how his house was built carefully on palm piles to defy the bugs and damp, and telling me how he had come to design it. "We'd had the deuce of a scrap with Lundu head-hunters just across the river yonder, and were licking our wounds in a dirty little kampong, waiting for 'em to attack again - it was evening, and we were out of water altogether, and pretty used up, down to our last ounces of powder, too - and I thought to myself, what you need, J.B. my boy, is an easy chair and an English newspaper and a vase of roses on the table. It seemed such a splendid notion - and I resolved that I'd make myself a house, with just those things, so that wherever I went in Borneo, it would always be here to return to." He waved at the house. "And there she is - all complete, except for the roses. I'll get those in time."

  It was true enough; his big central room, with the bedrooms arranged round it, and an opening on to his front verandah, was for all the world like a mixture of drawing-room and gun-room at home, except that the furniture was mostly bamboo. There were easy chairs, and old copies of The Times and Post neatly stacked, couches, polished tables, an Axminster, flowers in vases, and all manner of weapons and pictures on the walls.

  "If ever I want to forget wars and pirates and fevers and ong-ong-ongs - that's my own word for anything Malay, you know - I just sit down and read about how it rained in Bath last year, or how some rascal was jailed for poaching at Exeter Assizes," says he. "Even potato prices in Lancashire will do - oh, I say … I'd meant to put that away … "

  I'd stopped to look at a miniature on the table, of a most peachy blonde girl, and Brooke jumped up and reached out towards it. I seemed to know the face. "Why," says I, "that's Angie Coutts, surely?"

  "You know her?" cries he, and he was pink to the gills, and right out of countenance for once. "I have never had the honour of meeting her," he went on, in a hushed, stuffed way, "but I have long admired her, for her enlightened opinions, and unsparing championship of worthy causes." He looked at the miniature like a contemplative frog. "Tell me - is she as … as … well - ah - as her portrait suggests?"

  "She's a stunner, if that's what you mean," says I, for like every other grown male in London I, too, had admired little Angie, though not entirely for her enlightened opinions -
more for the fact that she had a superb complexion, tits like footballs, and two million in the bank, really. I'd taken a loving fumble at her myself, during blind-man's-buff at a party in Stratton Street, but she'd simply stared straight ahead of her and dislocated my thumb. Wasteful little prude.20

  "Perhaps, one of these days, when I return to England, you will present me," says he, gulping, and shovelled her picture into a drawer. Well, well, thinks I, who'd have thought it: the mad pirate-killer and rose-fancier, spoony on Angie Coutts's picture - I'll bet that every time he contemplates it the local Dyak lasses have to scamper for cover.

  I must have said something to this effect, in my tasteful way, that same evening to Stuart, no doubt with my lewd Flashy nudge and leer, but he was such an innocent that he just shook his head and sighed deeply.

  "Miss Burdett-Coutts?" says he. "Poor old J.B. He has told me of his deep regard for her, although he's a very secret man about such things. I dare say they'd make a splendid match, but it can't be, of course - even if he realized his ambition to meet her."

  "Why not?" says I. "He's a likely chap, and just the kind to fire a romantic piece like young Angie. Why, they'd go like duck and green peas." Kindly old match-maker Flash, you see.

  "Impossible," says Stuart, and then he went red in the face and hesitated. "You see- it's a shocking thing - but J.B. can never marry - it wouldn't do, at all."

  Hollo, thinks I, he ain't one of the Dick's hatband brigade, surely? - I'd not have thought it.

  "It is never mentioned, of course," says Stuart, uncomfortably, "but it is as well you should know - in case, in conversation, you unwittingly made any reference that might … well, be wounding. It was in Burma, you see, when he was in the army. He received an … incapacitating injury in battle. It was put about that it was a bullet in the lung … but in fact … well, it wasn't."

  "Good God, you don't mean to say," cries I, genuinely appalled, "that he got his knocker shot off?"

  "Let's not think about it," says he, but I can tell you I went about wincing for the rest of the evening. Poor old White Raja - I mean, I'm a callous chap enough, but there are some tragedies that truly wring the heart. Mad about that delectable little bouncer Angie Coutts, despot of a country abounding with the juiciest of dusky flashtails just itching for him to exercise the droit de seigneur, and there he was with a broken firing-pin. I don't know when I've been more deeply moved. Still, if J.B. was the first man in to rescue Elspeth, she'd be safe enough.21

  It was an appropriate thought, for that same evening, after dinner at The Grove, we held the council at which Brooke announced his plan of operations. It followed a dinner as formal in its way as any I've ever attended - but that was Brooke all over: when we had our pegs on the verandah beforehand he was laughing and sky-larking, playing leap-frog with Stuart and Crimble and even the dour Paitingi, the bet being that he could jump over them one after another with a glass in one hand, and not spill a drop - but when the bell sounded, everyone quieted down, and filed silently into his great room.

  I can still see it, Brooke at the head of the table in his big armchair, stiff in his white collar and carefully-tied black neckercher, with black coat and ruffled cuffs, the eager brown face grave for once, and the only thing out of place his untidy black curls - he could never get 'em to lie straight. On one side of him was Keppel, in full fig of uniform dress coat and epaulette, with his best black cravat, looking sleepy and solemn; Stuart and I in the cleanest ducks we could find; Charlie Wade, Keppel's lieutenant; Paitingi Ali, very brave in a tunic of dark plaid trimmed with gold and with a great crimson sash, and Crimble, another of Brooke's lieutenants, who absolutely had a frock coat and fancy weskit. There was a Malay steward behind each chair, and over in the corner, silent but missing nothing, the squint-faced Jingo; even he had exchanged his loin-cloth for a silver sarong, with hornbill feathers in his hair and decorating the shaft of his sumpitan*(* Blowpipe.) standing handy against the wall. I never saw him without it, or the little bamboo quiver of his beastly darts.

  I don't remember much of the meal, except that the food was good and the wine execrable, and that conversation consisted of Brooke lecturing interminably; like most active men, he had all the makings of a thoroughgoing bore.

  "There shan't be a missionary in Borneo if I can help it," I remember him saying, "for there are only two kinds, bad ones and Americans. The bad ones ram Christianity down the natives' throats and tell them their own gods are false—"

  "Which they are," says Keppel quietly.

  "Of course, but a gentleman doesn't tell 'em so," says Brooke. "The Yankees have the right notion; they devote themselves to medicine and education, and don't talk religion or politics. And they don't treat natives as inferiors - that's where we've gone wrong in India," says he, wagging his finger at me, as though I had framed British policy. "We've made them conscious of their inferiority, which is a great folly. After all, if you've a weaker younger brother, you encourage him to think he can run as fast as you can, or jump as far without a race, don't you? He knows he can't, but that don't matter. In the same way, natives know they're inferior, but they'll love you all the better if they think you are unconscious of it."

  "Well, you may be right," says Charlie Wade, who was Irish, "but I don't for the life of me see how you can ever expect 'em to grow up, at that rate, or achieve any self-respect at all."

  "You can't," says Brooke briskly. "No Asiatic is fit to govern, anyway.

  "And Europeans are?" says Paitingi, snorting.

  "Only to govern Asiatics," says Brooke. "A glass of wine with you, Flashman. But I'll give you this, Paitingi - you can rule Asiatics only by living among them. You cannot govern them from London, or Paris, or Lisbon—"

  "Aye, but Dundee, now?" says Paitingi, stroking his red beard, and when the roar of laughter had died down Brooke cries:

  "Why, you old heathen, you have never been nearer to Dundee than Port Said! Observe," says he to me, "that in old Paitingi you have the ultimate flowering of a mixture of east and west - an Arab-Malay father and a Caledonian mother. Ah, the cruel fate of the half-caste - he has spent fifty years trying to reconcile the Kirk with the Koran."

  "They're no' that different," says Paitingi, "an' at least they're baith highly superior tae the Book o' Common Prayer."

  I was interested to see the way they railed at each other, as only very close friends do. Brooke obviously had an immense respect for Paitingi Ali; however, now that the talk had touched on religion, he began to hold forth again on an interminable prose about how he had recently written a treatise against Article 90 of the "Oxford Tracts", whatever they were, which lasted to the end of the meal. Then, with due solemnity, he proposed the Queen, which was drunk sitting down, Navy fashion, and while the rest of us talked and smoked, Brooke went through a peculiar little ceremony which, I suppose, explained better than anything else the hold he had on his native subjects.

  All through the meal, a most curious thing had been happening. While the courses and wine had come with all due ceremony, and we had been buffing in, I'd noticed that every few minutes a Malay, or Dyak, or half-breed would come into the room, touch Brooke's hand as they passed his chair, and then go to squat near the wall by Jingo. No one paid them any notice; they seemed to be all sorts, from a near-naked beggarly rascal to a well-dressed Malay in gold sarong and cap, but they were all armed - I learned later that it was a great insult to come into the White Raja's presence without your krees, which is the strange, wavy-bladed knife of the people.

  In any event, while the rest of us gassed, Brooke turned his chair, beckoned each suppliant in turn, and talked with him quietly in Malay. One after another they came to hunker down beside him, putting their cases or telling their tales, while he listened, leaning forward with elbows on knees, nodding attentively. Then he would pronounce, quietly, and they would touch hands again and go; the rest of us might as well not have been there. When I asked Stuart about it later, he said: "Oh, that's J.B. ruling Sarawak. Simple, ain
't it?"22

  When the last native had gone Brooke sat in a reverie for a moment or two, and then swung abruptly to the table.

  "No singing tonight," says he. "Business. Let's have that map, Crimble. " We crowded round, the lamps were turned up, shining on the ring of sunburned faces under the wreath of cigar smoke, and Brooke tapped the table. I felt my belly muscles tightening.

  "We know what's to do, gentlemen," cries he, "and I'll answer that the task is one that strikes a spark in the heart of every one of us. A fair and gentle lady, the beloved wife of one here, is in the hands of a bloody pirate; she is to be saved, and he destroyed. By God's grace, we know where the quarry lies, not sixty miles from where we sit, on the Batang Lupar, the greatest lair of robbers in these Islands, save Mindanao itself. Look at it"— his finger stabbed the map —"first, Sharif Jaffir and his slaver fleet, at Fort Linga; beyond him, the great stronghold of Sharif Sahib at Patusan; farther on, at Undup, the toughest nut of all - the fortress of the Skrang pirates under Sharif Muller. Was ever a choicer collection of villains on one river? Add to 'em now the arch-devil, Suleiman Usman, who has stolen away Mrs Flashman in dastardly fashion. She is the key to his vile plan, gentlemen, for he knows we cannot leave her in his clutches an hour longer than we must." He gave my shoulder a manly squeeze; everyone else was carefully avoiding my eye. "He realizes that chivalry will not permit us to wait. You know him, Flashman; is this not how his scheming mind will reason?"

  I didn't doubt it, and said so. "He's made a fortune in the City, too, and plays a d---d dirty game of single-wicket," I added, and Brooke nodded sympathetically.

  "He knows I dare not delay, even if it means going after him with only the piecemeal force I have here - fifty praus and two thousand men, a third of which I must leave to garrison Kuching. Even so, Usman knows I must take at least a week to prepare - a week in which he can muster his praus and savages, outnumbering us ten to one, and make ready his ambushes along the Lupar, confident that we'll stumble into them half-armed and ill-prepared—"