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

by George MacDonald Fraser

  "Thirty thousand infantry, with heavy guns, behind us along the river." He shuddered. "Thank God I have only light artillery—with heavy pieces I should have no excuse for not blowing Littler's position to rubble!"

  "Never mind Littler! What news of Gough?"

  "Two days ago he was at Lutwalla, a hundred miles away! He will be here in two days—but word is that he has scarcely ten thousand men, only half of them British! If he comes on, we are sure to defeat him!" He was almost crying, wrenching off his beard net and trembling like a fever case. "What can I do to prevent it? Even if I give reasons for not taking Ferozepore, I cannot avoid battle with the Jangi lat! Help me, Flashman bahadur! Tell me what I must do!"

  Well, this was a real facer, if you like. Gardner, for all his misgivings about Lal, had been sure that he and Tej would have some scheme for leading their army to destruction—that was what I was here for, dammit, to carry their plans to Gough! And it was plain as a pikestaff that they hadn't any. And Lal expected me, a junior officer, to plot his own defeat for him. And as I stared at that shivering, helpless clown, it came to me with awful clarity that if I didn't, no one else would.

  It ain't the kind of problem you meet every day. I doubt if it's ever been posed at Staff College … "Now then, Mr Flashman, you command an army fifty thousand strong, with heavy guns, well supplied, their lines of communication protected by an excellent river. Against you is a force of only ten thousand, with light guns, exhausted after a week's forced marching, short of food and fodder and damned near dying of thirst. Now then, sir, answer directly, no hedging—how do you lose, hey? Come, come, you've just given excellent reasons for not taking a town that's lying at your mercy! This should be child's play to a man with your God-given gift of catastrophe! Well, sir?"

  Lal was gibbering at me, his eyes full of terrified entreaty—and I knew that if I wavered now it would be all up with him. He'd break, and his colonels would either hang or depose him, and put a decent soldier in his place—the very thing that Gardner had feared. And that would be the end of Gough's advancing force, and perhaps the war, and British India. And no doubt, of me. But if I could rally this spineless wreck, and think of some plan that would satisfy his colonels and at the same time bring the Khalsa to destruction … Aye, just so.

  To gain time, I asked for a map, and he pawed among his gear and produced a splendid illuminated document with all the forts in red and the rivers in turquoise, and little bearded wallahs with tulwars chasing each other round the margin on elephants. I studied it, trying to think, and gripping my belt to keep my hand from trembling.

  I've told you I didn't know much about war, in those days. Tactically, I was a novice who could bungle a section flanking movement with the worst of them—but strategy's another matter. At its simplest, it's mere common sense—and if the First Sikh War was anything, it was simple, thank God. Also, strategy seldom involves your own neck. So I conned the map, weighing the facts that Lal had given me, and applied the age-old laws that you learn in the school playground.

  To win, the Khalsa need only take Ferozepore and wait for Gough to come and be slaughtered by overwhelming odds and big guns. To lose, they must be divided, and the weaker part sent to meet Gough with as little artillery as possible. If I could contrive that the first battle was on near level terms, or even odds of three to two against us, I'd have given Gough victory on a lordly dish. Daft he might, be, but he could still out-manoeuvre any Sikh commander, and if they didn't have their big guns along, British cavalry and infantry would do the business. Gough believed in the bayonet: give him a chance to use it, and the Khalsa were beat—in the first battle, at least. After that, Paddy would have to take care of the war himself.

  So I figured, with the sweat cold on my skin, my ankle giving me hell's delight, and Lal mumping at my elbow. D'you know, that steadied me—encountering a liver whiter than my own. Well, it don't happen that often. This is what I told him:

  "Call your staff together—generals and brigadiers, no colonels. Tej Singh as well. Tell 'em you won't attack Ferozepore, because it's mined, you don't trust the deserters' tale of Littler's weakness, and as Wazir it's beneath your dignity to engage anyone but the Jangi lat himself. Also, there's a risk that if you get embroiled with Littler, and Gough arrives early, you may be caught between two fires. Don't let 'em argue. Simply say that Ferozepore don't matter, d'you see—it can be wiped up when you've settled Gough. Lay down the law, high-handed. Very good?"

  He nodded, rubbing his face and biting his knuckle—he had the wind up to such a tune that I swear if I'd told him to march on Ceylon, he'd have cried amen.

  "Now, your gorracharra are deployed already—send them against Gough with their horse artillery, pointing out that they outnumber him two to one. You'll meet him somewhere between here and Woodnee, and if you detach some of your force to entrench at Ferozeshah or Sultan Khan Wallah, you'll reduce the odds, d'you see? Gough will do the rest —"

  "But Tej Singh?" he bleated. "He has thirty thousand infantry, and the heavy guns —"

  "He's to sit down here and watch Littler, in place of your gorracharra. Yes, yes, I know—that don't take thirty thousand men. He must divide his force in turn, leaving only enough to watch Ferozepore, while the rest follow you as slowly as Tej can decently arrange—it'll take him time to bring 'em down here from the river, and if he sets about it in the right spirit he can waste the best part of a week, I dare say —"

  "But to divide the Khalsa?" goggles he. "It is not good strategy, surely? The generals will not permit —"

  "To hell with the generals—you're the Wazir!" cries I. "It's bloody good strategy, you can tell 'em, to send your most mobile troops to meet the Jangi lat when he leasts expects 'em and his own men are so fagged they'll be marching on their chinstraps! Tej Singh will back you up, if you prime him first —"

  "But suppose … suppose we beat the Jangi lat—he has only ten thousand, and as you say, they will be tired —"

  "Tired or not, they'll tear your gorracharra to pieces if the odds ain't too heavy! And I doubt if Gough's as weak as you think. Good God, man, he's got another twenty thousand somewhere between Ludhiana and Umballa—he ain't going to send 'em on furlough, you know! And the Khalsa will be in three parts, don't you see? Well, none of those three parts is going to be a match for Paddy Gough's boys, let me tell you!"

  I believed it, too, and if I wasn't altogether right it was because I lacked experience. I was trusting to the old maxim that one British soldier is worth any two niggers any day. It's a fair rule of thumb, mind you, but I can look back now on my military career and count four exceptions who always gave Atkins a damned good run for his money. Three of them were Zulu, John Gurkha, and Fuzzy-wuzzy. I wasn't to know, then, that the fourth one was the Sikh.

  It took me another hour of explanation and argument to convince Lal that my scheme was his only hope of getting his army properly leathered. It was hard sledding, for he was the kind of coward who's too far gone even to clutch at straws—not my kind of funk at all. In the end I gave him Jeendan's recipe to Jawaheer, which you'll recall was to rattle a wench to put him in fighting trim, but whether Lal took it or not I can't say, for I caulked out in an alcove of his pavilion, and didn't wake until noon. By that time Tej Singh had arrived, still fat as butter and quite as reliable, to judge from the furtive enthusiasm with which he greeted me. But while he was every bit as windy as Lal, he was a sight smarter, and once the Flashman Plan had been expounded he hailed it as a masterpiece; let my directions be followed and Gough would have the Khalsa looking like a Frenchman's knapsack in no time, was Tej's view. I guessed that what really commended my scheme to him was that he'd be well away from the firing, but he showed a good grasp of the details, and had some sound notions of his own: one, I remember, was that he would take care to keep his guarding force on the north and west of Ferozepore, so that Littler would be able to slip away and join Gough without hindrance if he wanted to. That, as you'll see, proved to be of prime importance, so
I reckon Tej earned himself a Ferozeshah medal for that alone, if everyone had his due.

  You must imagine our conference being carried on in lowered voices in Lal's sleeping quarters, and a bonny trio we were. Our gallant Wazir, when he wasn't peeping out to make sure there were no eavesdroppers, was brisking himself up with copious pinches of Peshawar snuff which I suspect contained something a sight more stimulating than powdered tobacco; he seemed to take heart from the confidence of Tej Singh, who paced the apartment like Napoleon at Marengo, heaving his guts before him and tripping over his sabre while describing to me, in a gloating whisper, how the Khalsa would flee in disorder at the first setback; I lay nursing my ankle, trying to forget my own perilous situation and praying that Lal Singh could brow-beat his staff into obedience before the effect of the snuff wore off. I wonder if there was ever such a conspiracy in the history of war: two generals intent on scuppering their own army, confabulating sotto voce with an agent from the enemy, while their commanders waited impatiently out-side for the word that (with luck) would send them marching to ruin? You would think not, but knowing human nature and the military mind, I'd not wager on it.

  I stayed hidden when Lal and Tej went out in the after-noon to announce their intentions to the divisional commanders. Lal was brave in silver armour, with a desperate glitter in his eye—half fear, half hashish, I would guess—and they held their conference on horseback, with Ferozepore in view. Tej told me later that the Wazir was in capital form, lining out my plan like a drill sergeant and snarling down any hint of opposition, of which there was less than I'd feared. The fact was, you see, that the strategy looked sound enough, but what impressed them most, apparently, was Lal's refusal to engage any commander except Gough himself. That argued pride and confidence, and they cheered him to the echo, and couldn't wait to get under way. The gorracharra were riding east before dusk, and Tej, by his own account, made a great meal of sending orders to mobilise his foot and guns, with gallopers riding in all directions, bugles blowing, and the Commander-in-Chief finally retiring to Lal's tent, having issued orders which with luck would take days to untangle.

  The final scene of the comedy took place that night before I rode out. Lal was keen that I should make straight for Gough, to let him know what good boys Lal and Tej were being, offering up the Khalsa for destruction, but I wasn't having that. Gough might be anywhere over the eastern horizon, and I had no intention of hunting him through country which by now was swarming with gorracharra; far better, I said, if I rode the couple of miles to Ferozepore, where Littler would see that Gough got the glad news in good time (and Flashy could take a well-earned repose). Tej agreed, and said I should go under a flag of truce, ostensibly carrying the Wazir's final demand to Littler to surrender. Lal boggled at that, but Tej grew excited, pointing out the risk if I tried to sneak into Littler's lines unobserved.

  "Suppose he were shot by a sentry?" squeaks he, waving his podgy hands. "Then the Jangi Iat would never know of our good will to him, or the plans we have made for the destruction of these Khalsa swine! And our dear friend"—that was me—"would have died in vain! It is not to be thought of!" I found myself liking Tej Singh's style better by the minute.

  "But will the colonels not suspect treason, if they see a courier sent to Littler Sahib?" cries Lal. The puggle had worn off by now, and he was lying exhausted on his silken bed, fretting himself witless.

  "They will not even know!" cries Tej. "And only think—once our dear bahadur has spoken with Littler Sahib, our credit with the Sirkar is assured! Whatever may hap-pen, our friendship will have been made plain!"

  That was the great thing with him—to stand well with Simla, whatever happened to the Khalsa. He even pro-posed that I carry a written message, expressing Lal's undying devotion to the Sirkar; it would be so much more convincing than mere word of mouth. This so horrified Lal that he almost hid under the sheets.

  "A written message? Are you mad? What if it went astray? Am I to sign my own death-warrant?" He flung about in a passion. "You write it, then! You announce your treason, over your signature! Why not, you're Commander-in-Chief, you fat tub of dung —"

  "You are Wazir!" retorts Tej. "This is a high political affair, and what am I but a soldier?" He shrugged complacently. "You need say nothing of military matters; a mere expression of friendship will suffice."

  Lal said he'd see him damned first, and they snarled and whined, with Lal weeping and tearing the bedclothes. Finally he gave in, and penned the following remarkable note to Nicolson, the political: "I have crossed with the Khalsa. You know my friendship for the British. Tell me what to do. 30 He bilked at signing, though, and after more shrill bickering Tej turned to me.

  "It will have to do. Tell Nicolson Sahib it is from the Wazir!"

  "From both of us, you greasy bastard!" yelps Lal. "Make that clear, Flashman bahadur! Both of us! And tell them, in God's name, that we and the bibi sahiba*(*Jeendan.) are their loyal friends, and that we beg them to cut up these badmashes and burchast*(*Ruffians.) of the Khalsa, and free us all from this evil! Tell them that!"

  So it was that in the small hours a gorracharra rider with a game leg and a white flag on his lance rode out of the Khalsa lines and down to Ferozepore, leaving behind two Sikh generals, one fat and frightened and t'other having hysterics with a pillow over his face, both conscious of duty well done, I don't doubt. As for me, I went half a mile and sat down under a thorn tree to wait for dawn; for one thing, now that I was so nearly home, I wanted a moment to study how best to wring credit out of my unexpected arrival with such momentous news, and for another, flag of truce or not, I wasn't risking a bullet from a nervous sepoy in the half-light. I was dog-tired, what with lack of sleep, funk, and bodily anguish, but I was a happy man, I can tell you—and happier yet, three hours later, when I'd been admitted by a sentry of the 62nd whose Whitechapel challenge was music to my ears, and hobbled painfully into the presence of Peter Nicolson, who'd seen me off across the Sutlej three months ago.

  He didn't know me at first, and then he was on his feet, steadying me as I staggered artistically, bravely gritting my teeth against the agony of my ankle (which was feeling much better, by the way).

  "Flashman! What on earth are you doin' here? Good lord, man, you're all in—are you wounded?"

  "That don't matter!" gasps I, subsiding on his cot. "Small memento from a Khalsa dungeon, what? See here, Peter, there's no time to lose!" I shoved Lal's note at him, and gave him the marrow of the business in a few brief sentences, insisting that a galloper must ride to Gough at once to let him know that the Philistines were on the move and ready to be smitten hip and thigh. I didn't add "courtesy of H. Flashman", just then; that was a conclusion they could leap to presently.

  He was a smart political, Nicolson: he grasped the thing at once, bawled for his orderly to fetch Colonel Van Cortlandt, pumped my hand in delight, said he could hardly credit it, but it was the finest piece of work he'd ever heard—I'd come through the Khalsa in disguise, been with Lal and Tej, made 'em split their forces, come away with their plans? Good God, he'd never heard the like, etc., etc.

  Jallalabad all over again, thinks I contentedly, and while he strode out shouting that a galloper must ride directly to Littler, who was out on a reconnoitre, I heaved up for a dekko in the mirror over his washstand. Gad, I looked like the last survivor of Fort Nowhere … capital! I slumped back on the cot, and had to be revived with brandy when he and Van Cortlandt arrived, full of questions. I rallied gamely, and described in detail what I'd told Lal and Tej to do; Van Cortlandt, whom I'd heard of as a former mercenary with Runjeet Singh, and a knowing bird, just nodded grimly, while Nicolson slapped his forehead.

  "Was ever such a pair of villains! Sellin' their own comrades, the dastards! My stars, it passes belief!"

  "No, it don't," says Van Cortlandt. "It fits exactly with our information that the durbar wants the Khalsa destroyed—and with what I know of Lal Singh." He eyed me, frowning. "When did you learn they were ready to sell out
? Did they approach you in Lahore?"

  This was the moment for my tired boyish grin, with a little gasp as I moved my leg. I could have told 'em the whole horrid tale, and made their hair stand on end—but that ain't the way to do it, you see. Offhand and laconic, that's the ticket, and let their imaginations do the rest. I shook my head, weary-like.

  "No, sir, I approached them … just a few hours ago, in their camp over there. I'd had word, two nights ago in Lahore, that they were ready to turn traitor —"

  "Who told you?" demands Van Cortlandt.

  "Perhaps I'd better not say, sir … just yet." I was shot if I was giving Gardner credit, when I'd done all the bloody work. "I reckoned I'd better get to Lal, and see what he was up to. But I had a spot o' trouble, getting clear of Lahore … fact is, if old Goolab Singh hadn't popped up in a tight corner —"

  "Goolab Singh!" cries he incredulously.

  "Why, yes—we had to cut our way out, you see, but he ain't as spry as he was … and I was rearguard, so to speak, and … well, the Khalsa's bulldogs laid hold of me —"

  "You said somethin' about a dungeon!" cries Nicolson.

  "Did I? Oh, aye …" I brushed it aside, and then bit my lip, shifting my foot. "No, no, don't fuss, Peter … I doubt if it's broken … just held me up a bit … ah!" I clenched my teeth, recovered, and spoke urgently to Van Cortlandt. "But, see here, sir … what happened in Lahore don't matter—or how I got to Lal! It's what he and Tej are doing now, don't you see? Sir Hugh Gough must be warned …

  "He will be, never fear!" says Van Cortlandt, looking keen and noble. "Flashman …" He hesitated, nodded, and gave me a quick clap on the shoulder. "You lie down, young feller. Nicolson, we must see Littler as soon as he returns. Have two gallopers ready—this is one message that mustn't miscarry! Let's see that map . . if Gough's approaching Maulah, and the Sikhs have reached Ferozeshah, they should meet about Moodkee … in a few hours! Well … touch wood! In the meantime, young Flashman, we'll have that leg seen too … good lord, he's gone fast asleep!"