The Flashman Papers 09 - Flashman and the Mountain of Light fp-9

by George MacDonald Fraser

  Well, put that way, it made sense. Everyone seemed to want a bloody war except Hardinge and yours truly—but I could see why Jawaheer's need was more urgent than most. I'd heard the Khalsa's opinion of him that after-noon, and seen the almighty funk he was in. That's what he'd meant, by God, when he'd pointed at me and yelled that the British would have cause to come—the evil, vicious bastard! He'd been lying in wait for my arrival … and suddenly a dreadful, incredible suspicion rushed in on me.

  "My God! Did Broadfoot know that Jawaheer would try to kill me? Did he send me here to —"

  He gave a barking laugh. "Say, you have a high opinion of your betters, don't you? First Mai Jeendan, now Major Broadfoot! No, sir—that is not his style! Why, if he had foreseen such a thing …" He broke off, frowning, then shook his head. "No, Jawaheer hatched his plot in the last few hours, I reckon—your arrival must have seemed to him a heaven-sent opportunity. He'd have taken it, too, if I hadn't been on your tail from the moment you arrived in the durbar room." He blew out his cheeks in disbelief. "I still can't get over that damned bath! You won't linger among the soap-suds again, I reckon."

  That was enough to bring me to my feet, reaching for his decanter without even a by-your-leave. God, what a tarantula's nest Broadfoot had plunged me into! I still couldn't put it straight in my mind, numb with the whirlwind of the last few hours. Had I fallen asleep over Crotchet Castle and dreamed it all—my balcony acrobatics, Mangla and Jawaheer and the dazzling spectacle of the durbar room, the drunken ecstatic coupling with Jeendan, the horror of the descending stone, the furious bloody scramble in which five lives were snuffed out in a bare minute, this incredible tartan Nemesis with his Khyber knife and Yankee twang,22 eyeing me bleakly as I punished his malt? Belatedly, I mumbled my thanks, adding that Broadfoot was lucky to have such an agent in Lahore, He snapped my head off.

  "I'm not his confounded agent! I'm his friend—and so far as my duty to the Maharaja allows, I'm sympathetic to British interest. Broadfoot knows I'll help, which is why he gave you my watchword." He restrained himself with difficulty. "Inadvertently, by jiminy! But that's all, Mr Flashman. You and I will now go our separate ways, you won't address or even recognise me henceforth except as Gurdana Khan —"

  "Henceforth? But I'll be going back—man alive, I can't stay here now, with Jawaheer —"

  "The devil you can't! It's your duty, isn't it? Just because the war isn't going to start tomorrow doesn't mean it won't happen eventually. Oh, it will—and that's for years—and even he wouldn't have the hard neck . . You're sure he's a Broadfoot man? And no beard, eh? Well, we'll see! Jemadar, find the orderly, tell him the husoor wants him, double quick—and if he asks, say I'm out at Maian Mir. You sit down, Mr Flashman … I suspect this may interest you."

  After the events of the night, I doubted if Lahore could hold any further surprises—but d'you know, what followed was perhaps the most astonishing encounter between two men that ever I saw—and I was at Appomattox, remember, and saw Bismarck and Gully face to face with the mauleys, and held the shotgun when Hickok confronted Wesley Hardin. But what took place in Gardner's room laid over any of them.

  We waited in silence until the jemadar knocked, and Jassa slid in, shifty as always. The moment his eye fell on the grim tartan figure he started as though he'd trod on hot coals, but then he recovered and looked inquiringly to me while Gardner viewed him almost in admiration.

  "Not bad, Josiah," says he. "You may have the guiltiest conscience east of Suez, but by God you've sure got the brazenest forehead to go with it. I'd never ha' known you, clean-shaven." His voice hardened to a bark. "Now then—what's the game? Speak up, jildi!"

  "None o' your goddam' business!" snaps Jassa. "I'm a political agent in British service—ask him if you don't believe me! And that puts me outside your touch, Alick Gardner! So now!"

  Said in Pushtu, I'd have held it a good answer—reckless, from what I'd seen of Gardner, but about what you'd expect from a Khyberie tough. But it was said in English—with an accent even more American than Gardner's own! I couldn't credit my ears—one bloody Yankee promenading about in Afghan fig was bad enough—but two? And the second one my own orderly, courtesy of Broadfoot … if I sat open-mouthed, d'you wonder? Gardner exploded.

  "British political, my eye! Why, you crooked Quaker, you, if you're working for Broadfoot it must mean he doesn't know who you are! And he doesn't, I'll bet! No, because you're before his time, Josiah—you skipped out of Kabul before the British arrived, and wise you were! Sekundar Burnes knew you, though—for the double-dealing rascal you are! Pollock knows you, too—he ran you out of Burma, didn't he? Damn me if there's a town between Rangoon and Basra that you haven't left a shirt in! So, let's have it—what's your lay this time?"

  "I don't answer to you," says Jassa. "Mr Flashman, if you care for this, I don't. You know I'm Major Broad-foot's agent -

  "Hold your tongue or I'll have it out!" roars Gardner. "Outside my touch, are you? We'll see! You know this man as Jassa," says he to me. "Well, let me perform the honours by presenting Dr Josiah Harlan of Philadelphia, former packet-rat, impostor, coiner, spy, traitor, revolutionary, and expert in every rascality he can think of—and can't he think, just? No common blackguard, mind you—Prince of Ghor once, weren't you, Josiah, and unfrocked governor of Gujerat, to say nothing of being a pretender (it's the truth, Flashman) to the throne of Afghanistan, no less! You know what they call this beauty up in the high hills? The Man Who Would Be King!" He came forward, thumbs in his belt, and stuck his jaw in Jassa's face. "Well, you have one minute to tell me what you would be in Lahore, doctor! And don't say you're an orderly, pure and simple, because you've never been either!"

  Jassa didn't move a muscle of his ugly, pock-marked face, but turned to me with a little inclination of his head. "Leaving aside the insults, part of what he says is true. I was Prince of Ghor—but Colonel Gardner's memory is at fault. He hasn't told you that Lord Amherst personally appointed me surgeon to His Britannic Majesty's forces in the Burmese campaign —"

  "Assistant surgeon, stealing spirits in an artillery field hospital!" scoffs Gardner.

  "- or that I held high military command and the governorship of three districts under his late majesty, Raja Runjeet Singh —"

  "Who kicked you out for counterfeiting, you damned scamp! Go ahead, tell him how you were ambassador to Dost Mohammed, and tried to start a revolution in Afghanistan, and sold him out more times than he could count! Tell him how you suborned Muhammed Khan to betray Peshawar to the Sikhs! Tell him how you lined your pockets on the Kunduz expedition, and cheated Reffi Bey, and had the gall to plant the Stars and Stripes on the Indian Caucasus, damn your impudence!" He paused for breath while Jassa stood cool as a trout. "But why waste time? Tell him how you passed yourself off on Broadfoot. I'd enjoy hearing that, myself!"

  Jassa gave him an inquiring look, as though to make sure he was done, and addressed me. "Mr Flashman, I owe you an explanation, but not an apology. Why should I have told you what your own chief didn't? Broadfoot enlisted me more than a year ago; how much of my history he knows, I can't say—and I don't care. He knows his business and he trusts me, or I wouldn't be here. If you doubt me now, write to him, telling him what you've heard tonight … like everyone who's mixed in diplomacy in these parts, I'm used to having my reputation blown upon —"

  "So- hard that it's scattered all over the bloody Himalayas!" snarls Gardner. "If you're so all-fired trust-worthy … where were you tonight when Jawaheer tried to kill Flashman?"

  He was clever, Gardner. Knowing his man as he did, the question must have been in his mind from the first, but he'd held it back to take Jassa off guard. He succeeded; Jassa gaped, stared from Gardner to me and back, and gasped hoarsely: "What the hell d'you mean?"

  Gardner told him in a few fierce sentences, watching him lynx-eyed, and Jassa was a sight to see. The bounce had quite gone out of him, and all he could do was rub his face and mutter "Jesus!" before turning helplessly to me.


  "I … I don't know … I must have been asleep, sir! After I pulled you on to the balcony, and you went off to the durbar room … well, I reckoned you were there for the night …" He avoided my eye. "I … I went to bed, woke up an hour ago, saw you hadn't returned, asked around for you, but no one had seen you … then the jemadar came for me just now. That's the truth." He rubbed his face again, and caught Gardner's eye. "Christ, you don't think —"

  "No, I don't!" growls Gardner, and shook his head at me. "Whatever else you are—and that's plenty—you're not a murderer. And if you were, you'd be in the tall timber this minute. No, Josiah," says he with grim satisfaction, "you're just a lousy bodyguard—and I suggest Mr Flashman reports that to Major Broadfoot, too. And until he gets a reply, you can cool your heels in a cell, doctor —"

  "The hell I can!" cries Jassa, and turns to me. "Mr Flashman . , . I don't know what to say, sir! I've failed you, I know that—and I'm sorry for it. If Major Broadfoot sees fit to recall me … well, so be it. But it's not his business, sir!" He pointed at Gardner. "As far as he's concerned, I'm under British protection, and entitled to immunity. And with respect, sir—in spite of my failure tonight … I'm still at your service. You mustn't disown me, sir."

  Well, I'd had a long day, and night. The shock of discovering that my Afghan orderly was an American medical man23 (and no doubt as big a villain as Gardner said) was quite small beer after all the rest. No more of a shock than Gardner himself, really. One thing was sure: Jassa, or Josiah, was Broadfoot's man, and he was right, I couldn't disown him on Gardner's suspicions. I said so, and much to my surprise, Gardner didn't shout me down, although he gave me a long hard stare.

  "After what I've told you about him? Well, sir, it's on your own head. It's possible you won't rue the day, but I doubt it." He turned to Jassa. "As for you, Josiah … I don't know what brings you back to the Punjab in another of your disguises. I know it wasn't Jawaheer, or anything as simple as British political work … no, it's some dirty little frolic of your own, isn't it? Well, you forget it, doctor—because if you don't, immunity or not, I'll send you back to Broadfoot by tying you over a gun and blowing you clear to Simla. You can count on that. Good-night, Mr Flashman."

  The jemadar led us back to my quarters through a maze of corridors that was no more confused than my mind; I was dog-tired and still mortally shaken, and had neither the wit nor the will to question my newly-revealed Afghan-American orderly, who kept up a muttered stream of apology and justification the whole way. He'd never have forgiven himself if any harm had come to me, and I must write to Broadfoot instanter to establish his bona fides; he wouldn't rest until Gardner's calumnies had been disproved.

  "Alick means no harm—we've known each other for years, but truth is, you see, he's jealous, us both being American and all, and he hasn't risen any too high, while I've been prince and ambassador, as he said—course, fate hasn't been too kind lately, which is why I took any honourable employment that came … God, I've no words of excuse or apology, sir, for my lapse tonight … what must you think, what will Broadfoot think? Say, though, I'd like him to understand about my losing my governorship—it wasn't coining, no sir! I dabble in chemistry, see, and there was this experiment that went wrong …"

  He was still chuntering when we reached my door, where I was reassured to see two stalwart constables, presumably sent by Bhai Ram Singh. Jassa—with that ugly frontier dial and dress I could think of him by no other name—swore he'd be on hand too, from this moment, closer than a brother, why, he'd bed down right here in the passage …

  I closed my door, head swimming with fatigue, and rested a moment in blessed solitude and quiet before walking unsteadily through the arch to the bedchamber, where two lights burned dimly either side of the pillow—and stopped, the hairs rising on my neck. There was someone in the bed, and a drift of perfume on the air, and before I could move or cry out, a woman whispered out of the gloom.

  "Mai Jeendan must have eaten her fill," says Mangla. "It is almost dawn."

  I stepped closer, staring. She was lying naked beneath a flimsy veil of black gauze spread over her like a sheet --they've nothing to learn about erotic display in the Punjab, I can tell you. I looked down at her, swaying, and it shows how fagged out I was, for I asked, like a damfool:

  "What are you doing here?"

  "Do you not remember?" murmurs she, and I saw her teeth gleam as she smiled up from the pillow, her black hair spread across it like a fan. "After the mistress has supped, it is the maid's turn."

  "Oh, my God," says I. "I ain't hungry."

  "Are you not?" whispers she. "Then I must whet your appetite." And she sat up, slow and languid, stretching that transparent veil tight against her body, pouting at me. "Will you taste, husoor?

  For a moment I was tempted. Altogether used up, fit only for the knacker's yard, I wanted sleep as I wanted salvation. But as I contemplated that magnificent sub-stance stirring beneath the gauze, I thought: to thine own self be true, and put temptation aside.

  "Right you are, my dear," says I. "Got any more of that jolly drink, have you?"

  She laughed softly and-reached out for the cup beside the bed.

  If you've read Robinson Crusoe you may recall a passage where he weighs up his plight on the desert island like a book-keeper, evil on one side, good on t'other. Dispiriting stuff, mainly, in which he croaks about solitude, but concludes that things might be worse, and God will see him through, with luck. Optimism run mad, if you ask me, but then I've never been shipwrecked, much, and philosophy in the face of tribulation ain't my line. But I did use his system on waking that second day in Lahore, because so much had happened in such short space that I needed to set my mind straight. Thus:

  I am cut off in a savage land which will be at war with my own country presently.

  An attempt has been made to assassinate me. These buggers would sooner murder people than eat their dinners.

  Broadfoot chose him, and since I see no reason why he should be hostile to me, I shall watch him like a hawk.

  Rations and quarters are A1, and Mangla sober is a capital mount, though she don't compare to Jeendan drunk.

  If I were a praying man, the Almighty would hear from me in no uncertain terms, and much good it would do me.

  Being a pagan (attached C of E) with no divine resources, I shall tread uncommon wary and keep my pepperbox handy.

  That was my accounting, cast up in the drowsy hour after Mangla slipped away like a lovely ghost at daybreak, and it could have been worse. My first task must be to make a searching examination of the bold Jassa, or Josiah, before sending off a cypher about him to Broadfoot, So I had him in while I shaved, watching that crafty hill figure-head in my mirror, and listening to the plausible Yankee patter that came out of it. Oddly enough, after the character Gardner had given him, I felt inclined to take him at face value. You see, Pm a knave myself, and know that we wrong 'uns ain't always bent on mischief; it seemed to me that Jassa, the professional soldier of fortune, was quite likely just marking time in Broadfoot's employ, as he'd claimed, until something better turned up. The queerest fish swim into the political mill, with not too many questions asked, and I felt I could accept if not trust him. Like Gardner, I was sure he'd had no hand in the plot against my life—if he'd wanted me dead he could have let me drop from the balcony instead of saving me.

  It was comforting, too, to have one of my own kind alongside me—and one who knew the Punjab and its politics inside out. "Though how you hoped to pass unrecognised, I don't see," says I. "If you were so high under Runjeet, half the country must know you, surely?"

  "That was six years ago, behind a full set o' beard an' whiskers," says he. "Clean-shaven, I reckoned to get by—'cept with Alick, but I planned to keep out o' his way. But it don't matter," he added coolly, "there are no reward notices out for Joe Harlan, here or anywhere else."

  He was such a patent rascal that I took to him—and even now I won't say I was wrong. He had a fine political nose, too, and had
been using it about the Fort that morning.

  "Jawaheer seems to be in luck. The whole palace knows he tried to get you, and the talk was that the Maharani would have him arrested. But she had him to her boudoir first thing today, all smiles, embraced him, and drank toasts to his reconciliation to the Khalsa, her maids say. It seems Dinanath and Azizudeen have made his peace for him; they were out talking to the panches at dawn, and Jawaheer's appearance this afternoon will be a formality. He and the whole royal family will review the troops—and you'll be invited, no doubt so that you can pass word to Broadfoot that all's well with the Lahore durbar." He grinned. "Yes, sir, you'll have quite a packet of news for Simla. How d'you send out your cyphers—through Mangla?"

  "As you said yourself, doctor, why should I tell you what Broadfoot didn't? Are you really a doctor, by the way?"

  "No diploma," says he frankly, "but I studied surgery back in Pennsylvania. Yep … I'll bet it's Mangla; that little puss is in everyone's pocket, so why not John Company's? A word of advice, though: cover her all you've a mind to, but don't trust her—or Mai Jeendan." And before I could damn his impudence he took himself off to change, as he put it, into his mess kit.

  That meant his best robes, for our durbar appearance at noon, with Flashy in full fig of frock coat and go-to-meeting roof, making my official bow to little Dalip enthroned in state; you'd not have recognised the lively imp of yesterday in the regal little figure all in silver, nodding his aigretted turban most condescendingly when I was presented by Lal Singh, who was second minister. Jawaheer was nowhere in sight, but Dinanath, old Bhai Ram Singh, and Azizudeen were present, solemn as priests. It was eerie, knowing that they were all well aware that their Wazir had tried to murder me a few hours earlier, and that I'd rioted with their Maharani in this very chamber. There wasn't so much as a flicker on the handsome, bearded faces; damned good form, the Sikhs.