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

by George MacDonald Fraser

  Wrap me up in my tarpaulin jacket, jacket, An' say a poor buffer lies low, lies low,

  An' six stalwart lancers shall carry me, carry me, With steps that are mournful an' slow.

  Then send for six brandies an' soda, soda, An' set 'em up all in a row, a row …

  I hobbled across to headquarters on my unnecessary crutch, to sniff the wind. It was a big bare basha,*(*Native house.) with fellows curled up asleep on the earth, and at the far end Gough and Hardinge with a map across their knees, and an aide holding a light. By the door Baxu the butler and young Charlie Hardinge were packing a valise; I asked what was to do.

  "Off to Moodkee," says Charlie. "Currie must be ready to burn his papers."

  "What—is it all up, then?"

  "Touch an' go, anyway. I say, Flashy, have you seen the cabbage-walloper—Prince Waldemar? I've to take him out of it, confound him! Blasted civilians," says Charlie, who was one himself, secretarying Papa, "seem to think war's a sightseein' tour!" Baxu handed him a dress sword, and Charlie chuckled.

  "I say—mustn't forget that, Baxu!"

  "Nay, sahib! Wellesley sahib would be dam-displeased!"

  Charlie tucked it under his coat. "Wouldn't mind havin' its owner walk in this minute, though."

  "Who's that, then?" I asked.

  "Boney. Wellington gave it to the guv'nor after Water-loo. Can't let the Khalsa get hold of Napoleon's side-arm, can we?"

  I didn't care for this—when the swells start sending their valuables down the road, God help the rest of us. I asked Abbott, who was smoking by the door, with his arm in a bloody sling, what was afoot.

  "We're goin' in again at dawn. Nothin' else for it, with only half a day's fodder for us an' the guns. It's Ferozeshah—or six feet under. Some asses were talkin' about terms, or cuttin' out for Ferozepore, but the G.G. an' Paddy gave 'em the rightabout." He lowered his voice. "Mind you, I don't know if we can stand another gruellin' like today … how's the pension parade?"

  He meant our casualties. "At a guess … maybe one in ten."

  "Could be worse … but there ain't a whole man on the staff," says he. "Oh, I say, did you hear?—Georgie Broadfoot's dead."

  I didn't take it in at all. I heard the words, but they meant nothing at first, and I just stood staring at him while he went on: "I'm sorry … he was a chum o' yours, wasn't he? I was with him, you see … the damnedest thing! I'd been hit …" he touched his sling "… an' thought I was gone, when old Georgie rides up, shouting: `Get up, Sandy! Can't go to sleep, you know!' So up I jumped, an' then Georgie tumbled out of his saddle, shot in the leg, but he popped straight up again, an' says to me: `There you are, you see! Come on!' It was fairly rainin' grape from the south entrenchment, an' a second later, he went down again. So I yelled: `Come on, George! Sleepyhead yourself!' He fumbled inside his shirt. "And … so he is now, for keeps, the dear old chap. You want these? Here, take 'em."

  They were George's spectacles, with one lens broken. I took them, not believing it. Seeing Sale dead had been bad enough—but Broadfoot! The great red giant, always busy, always scheming—nothing could kill him, surely? No, he'd walk in presently, damning someone's eyes—mine, like enough. For no reason I took a look through the remaining glass, and couldn't see a thing; he must have been blind as a bat without them … and then it dawned on me that if he was dead, there'd be no one to send me to Lahore again—and no need! Whatever ploy he'd had in mind would have died with him, for even Hardinge wouldn't know the ins and outs of it … So I was clear, and relief was flooding through me, making me tremble, and I choked between tears and laughter -

  "Here, don't take on!" cries Abbott, catching my wrist. "Never fret, Flashy—George'll be paid for, you'll see! Why, if he ain't, he'll haunt us, the old ruffian, gig-lamps an' all! We're bound to take Ferozeshah!"

  And they did, a second time. They went in, Briton and sepoy, in ragged red lines under the lifting mist of dawn, with the horse guns thundering ahead of them and the Khalsa trenches bright with flame. The Sikh gunners fairly battered the advancing regiments and picked off our ammunition wagons, so that our ranks seemed to be moving through pillars of fiery cloud, with the white trails of our Congreves piercing the black smoke. It's the last madness, thinks I, watching awestruck from the rear, for they'd no right to be on their feet, even, let alone marching into that tempest of metal, exhausted, half-starved, frozen stiff, and barely a swallow of water among them, with Hardinge riding ahead, his empty sleeve tucked into his belt, telling his aides he'd seen nothing like it since the Peninsula, and Gough leading the right, spreading the tails of his white coat to be the better seen. Then they had vanished into the smoke, the scarecrow lines and the tattered standards and the twinkling cavalry sabres—and I thanked God I was here and not there as I led the rocketeers in three cheers for our gallant comrades, before being borne back into the shade to a well-earned breakfast of bread and brandy.

  Being new to the business, I half-expected to see 'em back shortly, in bloody rout—but beyond our view they were storming the defences again, and going through Ferozeshah like an iron fist, and by noon there wasn't a live Punjabi in the position, and we'd taken seventy guns. Don't ask me how—they say some of the Khalsa infantry cut stick in the night, and the rest were all at sea because Lal Singh and his cronies had fled, with the Akalis howling for his blood—but that don't explain it, not to me. They still weren't outnumbered, and had the defensive advantage, and fought their guns to the finish—so how did we beat 'em? I don't know, I wasn't there—but then, I still don't understand the Alma and Balaclava and Cawnpore, and I was in the thick of them, God help me, and no fault of mine.

  I ain't one of your by jingoes, and I won't swear that the British soldier is braver than any other—or even, as Charley Gordon said, that he's brave for a little while longer. But I will swear that there's no soldier on earth who believes so strongly in the courage of the men along-side him—and that's worth an extra division any day. Provided you're not standing alongside me, that is.

  All morning the wounded kept coming back, but fewer by far than yesterday, and now they were jubilant. Twice they'd beaten the Khalsa against the odds, and there wouldn't be a third Ferozeshah, not with Lal's forces in flight for the Sutlej, and our cavalry scouting their retreat. Tik hai, Johnnie!" roars a sergeant of the 29th, limping down with a naik of Native Infantry; they had two sound legs between them, and used their muskets as crutches. "'Oo's got a tot o' rum for my Johnnie, then? 'E may 'ave fired wide at Moodkee, but you earned yer chapattis today, didn't yer, ye little black bugger!" And everyone roared and cheered and helped them along, the tow-headed, red-faced ruffian and the sleek brown Bengali, both of them grinning with the same wild light in their eyes. That's victory—it was in all their eyes, even those of a pale young cornet of the 3rd Lights with his arm off at the elbow, raving as they carried him past at the run, and of a private with a tulwar gash in his cheek, spitting blood at every word as he told me how Gough was entrenched in the Sikhs' position in case of counter-attack, but there was no fear of that.

  "We done for 'em, sir!" cries he, and his yellow facings were as red as his coat with his own gore. "They won't stop runnin' till they gets to La'ore, I reckon! You should 'ear 'em cheer ole Daddy Gough—ain't 'e the boy, though?" He peered at me, holding a grimy cloth to his wound. 'Ere, you orl right, sir? Fair done in you looks, if you'll 'scuse my sayin' so …"

  It was true—I, who hadn't been near the fight, and had been right as rain, was all at once ready to keel over where I sat. And it wasn't the heat, or the excitement, or the sight of his teeth showing through his cheek (other folks' blood don't bother me), or the screaming from the hospital basha, or the stench of stale blood and acrid smoke from the battle, or the dull ache in my ankle—none of that. I believe it was the knowledge that at last it was all over, and I could give way to the numbing fatigue that had been growing through one of the worst weeks of my life. I'd had one night's sleep out of eight, counting from the first which I'd spend galloping Man
gla; then there'd been my Khalsa frolic, the Sutlej crossing, the ride from Lal and Tej to Ferozepore, the vigil as we listened to distant Moodkee, uneasy slumber after Broadfoot had given me his bad news, the freezing march to Misreewallah, and finally, the first night of Ferozeshah. Oh, I was luckier than many, but I was beat all to nothing—and now it was past, and I was safe, and could lurch from my stool and fall face-down on the charpoy, dead to the world.

  Now, when I'm dog-tired with shock, I have nightmares worthy of cheese and lobster, but this one laid it over them all, for I fell slowly through the charpoy, into a bath of warm water, and when I rolled over I was staring up at a ceiling painting of Gough and Hardinge and Broadfoot, all figged out like Persian princes, having dinner with Mrs Madison, who tilted her glass and poured oil all over me, which made me so slippery that I couldn't hope to transfer the whole Soochet legacy, coin by coin, from my navel to Queen Ranavalona's as she pinned me down on a red-hot billiard-table. Then she began to pummel and shake me, and I knew she was trying to make me get up because Gough wanted me, and when I said I couldn't, because of my ankle, the late lamented Dr Arnold, wearing a great tartan puggaree, came by on an elephant, crying that he would take me, for the Chief needed a Greek translation of Crotchet Castle instanter, and if I didn't take it to Tej Singh, Elspeth would commit suttee. Then I was following him, floating across a great dusty plain, and the smell of burning was everywhere, and filthy ash was falling like snow, and there were terrible bearded faces of dead men, smeared with blood, and corpses all about us, with ghastly wounds from which their entrails spilled out on earth that was sodden crimson, and there were great cannon lying on their sides or tumbled into pits, and everywhere the char-red wreckage of tents and carts and huts, some of them still in flames.

  There was a mighty tumult, too, a great cannonading, and the shriek and crash of shot striking home, the rattle of musketry, and bugles blowing. There were voices yelling on all sides, in a great confusion of orders: "By sections, right—walk-march, trot!" and "Battalion, halt! Into line—left turn!" and "Troop Seven—left incline, forward!" But Arnold wouldn't stop, though I shouted to him, and I couldn't see where the troops were, for the horse I was riding was going too fast, and the sun was in my eyes. I raised my left hand to shield them, but the sun's rays burned more fiercely than ever, causing me such pain that I cried out, for it was burning a hole in my palm, and I clutched at Arnold with my other hand—and suddenly he was Mad Charley West, gripping me round the shoulders and yelling to me to hold on, and my left hand was pumping blood from a ragged hole near the thumb, causing excruciating agony, and all hell was loose around me.

  That was the moment when I realised that I wasn't dreaming.

  An eminent medico has since explained that exhaustion and strain induced a trance-like state when I sank down on the charpoy, and that while my nightmares turned to reality, I didn't come to properly until I was wounded in the hand—which is the most immediately painful place in the whole body, and I should know, since I've been hit in most others. In between, Mad Charley had wakened me, helped me to mount (bad ankle and all), and we'd ridden at speed through the carnage of the recent battle to Gough's position beyond Ferozeshah village—and all I'd taken in were those disjointed pictures I've just described. The sawbones had an impressive medical name for it, but I doubt if there's one for the sensation I felt as I gripped my wounded hand to crush the pain away, and took in the scene about me.

  Directly before me were two troops of Native horse artillery, firing as fast as they could load, the little brown gunners springing aside to avoid the recoil, the crash of the salvoes staggering my horse by its very violence. To my left was a ragged square of British infantry—the 9th, for I saw the penny badge on their shakos—and beyond them others, sepoy and British, kneeling and standing, with the reserve ranks behind. To my right it was the same, more squares, inclined back at a slight angle, with their colours in the centre, like the pictures of Waterloo.

  Red squares, with the dust boiling round them, and shot screaming overhead or ploughing through with a clap like thunder; men were falling, sometimes singly, sometimes hurtled aside as a shot tore into the ranks; I saw a great swathe, six files wide, cut by grape at the corner of the 9th's square, and the air filled with red spray. Before me a horse gun suddenly stood up on end, its muzzle split like a stalk of celery, and then it crashed down in a hellish tangle of fallen men and stricken horses. It was as though a gale of iron rain was sweeping the ranks, coming God knew whence, for the dust and smoke enveloped us—and Mad Charley was hauling at my bridle, urging me through it.

  There's never a time when pain and fear don't matter, but sometimes shock is so bewildering that you don't think of them. One such time is when you wake up to find that good artillery has got your range and is pounding you to pieces; there's nothing to be done, no time even to hope you won't be hit, and you can't hurl yourself to the ground and lie there squealing—not when you find you're alongside Paddy Gough himself, and he's pulling off his bandana and telling you to wrap it round your fin and pay attention.

  "Put your finger on the knot, man! There, now—look ahead and take close note of what ye see!"

  He yanked the bandage tight, and pointed, and through tears of anguish and terror I looked beyond the clouds of settling dust.

  A bare half-mile away the plain was alive with horsemen. The artillery teams who'd been shelling us, light camel swivels and heavier field pieces, were wheeling away through the advancing ranks of a great tide of cavalry cantering towards us knee to knee. It must have been five hundred yards from wing to wing, with lancer regiments on the flanks, and in the centre the heavy squadrons in tunics of white and red, tulwars at the shoulder, the low sun gleaming on polished helms from which stiff plumes stood up like scarlet combs—and only when I remembered those same plumes at Maian Mir did I realise the full horror of what I was seeing. These were Sikh line cavalry, and dazed and barely half-awake as I was, I knew that could mean only one thing, even if it was impossible: we were facing the army of Tej Singh, the cream of the Khalsa thirty thousand strong, who should have been miles away in futile watch on Ferozepore. Now they were here—beyond the approaching storm of horsemen I could see the massed ranks of infantry, regiment on regiment, with the great elephant guns before them. And we were a bare ten thousand, dropping with exhaustion after three battles which had decimated us, and out of food, water, and shot.

  Historians say that on that one moment, as the Khalsa's spearhead was rushing at our throat, rested the three centuries of British India. Perhaps. It was surely the moment in which Gough's battered little army stared certain death and destruction in the face, and whatever may have settled our fate later, one man turned the hinge then and there. Without him, we (aye, and perhaps all India) would have been swept away in bloody ruin. I'll wager you've never heard of him, the forgotten brigadier, Mickey White.

  It happened in split seconds. Even as I dashed the sweat from my eyes and stared again, the bugles blared along those surging lines of Khalsa horsemen, the tulwars rose in a wave of steel and the great forest of lance-points dipped as the canter became a gallop. Gough was roaring to our men to hold their fire, and I heard Huthwaite yelling that the guns were at the last round, and the muskets of the infantry squares came to the present in a ragged fence of bayonets that must be ridden under as that magnificent sea of men and horses engulfed us. I never saw the like in my life, I who watched the great charge against Campbell's Highlanders at Balaclava—but those were only Russians, while these were the fathers of the Guides and Probyn's and the Bengal Lancers, and the only thing to stop them at full tilt was a horse soldier as good as themselves.

  He was there, and he chose his time. A few more seconds and the gallop would have been a charge—but now a trumpet sounded on the right, and wheeling out before our squares came the remnant of our own mounted division, the blue tunics and sabres of the 3rd Lights and the black fezzes and lances of the Native Cavalry, with White at their head, launchi
ng themselves at the charge against the enemy's flank. They didn't have the numbers, I hey didn't have the weight, and they were spent, man and beast—but they had the time and the place to perfection, and in a twinkling the Khalsa charge was a struggling confusion of rearing beasts and falling riders and flashing steel as the Lights tore into its heart and the sowar lancers raked across its front.36

  My female and civilian readers may wonder how this could be—that a small force of horsemen could confound one far greater. Well, that's the beauty of the flank attack think of six hearty chaps racing forward in line, and one artful dodger barges into the end man, from the side. They're thrown out of kilter, tumbling into one another, and though they're six to one, five of 'em can't come at their attacker. At its best a good flank movement can "roll up" the enemy like a window blind, and while White's charge didn't do that, it threw them quite off course, and when that happens to cavalry in formation their momentum's gone, and good loose riders can play the devil with them.

  So what happened under our noses was a deuce of a scrimmage, and though White's horse went down, he was here and there like a wild-cat on foot, with the Lights closing round him, the sabres swinging, and Gough up in his stirrups shouting: "You'll do, Mick! That's your sort, my boy! And who," he roars at me, "are those fellows, will ye tell me?"

  I shouted that they were Khalsa regulars, not gorracharra—Mouton's and Foulkes's regiments, for certain, and Gordon's, too, though I couldn't be sure.