Flashman Papers 3-Book Collection 2: Flashman and the Mountain of Light, Flash For Freedom!, Flashman and the Redskins. George Fraser MacDonald

       Chapter 4

      I’ve set out on my country’s service more times than I can count, always reluctantly, and often as not in a state of alarm; but at least I’ve usually known what I was meant to be doing, and why. The Punjab business was different. As I wended my sweltering, dust-driven way to Ferozepore on the frontier, the whole thing seemed more unlikely by the mile. I was going to a country in uproar, whose mutinous army might invade us at any moment. I was to present a legal case at a court of profligate, murderous intriguers on whom, war or no war, I was also to spy – both being tasks for which I was untrained, whatever Broadfoot might say. I had been assured that the work was entirely safe – and told almost in the same breath that when all hell broke loose I had only to holler “Wisconsin!” and a genie or Broadfoot’s grandmother or the Household Brigade would emerge from a bottle and see me right. Just so. Well, I didn’t believe a word of it.

      You see, tyro though I was, I knew the political service and the kind of larks it could get up to, like not telling a fellow until it was too late. Two fearsome possibilities had occurred to my distrustful mind: either I was a decoy to distract the enemy from other agents, or I was being placed in the deep field to receive secret instructions when war started. In either case I foresaw fatal consequences, and to make matters worse, I had dark misgivings about the native assistant Broadfoot had assigned to me – you remember, the “chota-wallah” who was to carry my green bag.

His name was Jassa, and he wasn’t chota. I had envisaged the usual fat babu or skinny clerk, but Jassa was a pock-marked, barrel-chested villain, complete with hairy poshteen,^a skull-cap, and Khyber knife – just the man you’d choose, as a rule, to see you through rough country, but I was leery of this one from the start. For one thing, he pretended to be a Baloochi dervish, and wasn’t – I put him down for Afghan chi-chi,^b for he was grey-eyed, had no greater a gap between his first and second toes than I did, and possessed something rare among Europeans at that time, let alone natives – a vaccination mark. I spotted it at Ferozepore when he was washing at the tank, but didn’t let on; he was from Broadfoot’s stable, after all, and plainly knew his business, which was to act as orderly, guide, shield-on-shoulder, and general adviser on country matters. Still, I didn’t trust him above half.

Ferozepore was the last outpost of British India then, a beastly hole not much better than a village, beyond which lay the broad brown flood of the Sutlej – and then the hot plain of the Punjab. We had just built a barracks for our three battalions, one British and two Native Infantry, who garrisoned the place, God help them, for it was hotter than hell’s pavement; you boiled when it rained, and baked when it didn’t. In my civilian role, I didn’t call on Littler, who commanded, but put up with Peter Nicolson, Broadfoot’s local Assistant. He was suffering for his country, that one, dried out and hollow-cheeked with the worst job in India – nursemaiding the frontier, finding shelter for the endless stream of refugees from the Punjab, sniffing out the trouble-makers sent to seduce our sepoys and disaffect the zamindars,^c chasing raiding parties, disarming badmashes,^d ruling a district, and keeping the Queen’s peace – all this, mind you, without provoking a hostile power which was spoiling for trouble.

      “It can’t last,” says he cheerfully – and I wondered how long he could, with that impossible task and the mercury at 107. “They’re just waitin’ for an excuse, an’ if I don’t give ’em one – why, they’ll roll over the river as soon as the cold weather comes, horse, foot an’ guns, you’ll see. We ought to go in an’ smash ’em now, while they’re in two minds an’ gettin’ over the cholera – five thousand of the Khalsa have died in Lahore, but it’s past its worst.”

      He was seeing me down to the ferry at daybreak; when I mentioned the great assembly of our troops I’d seen above Meerut he laughed and pointed back to the cantonment, where the 62nd were drilling, the red and buff figures like dolls in the heat haze.

      “Never mind what’s on the Grand Trunk,” says he. “That’s what’s here, my boy – seven thousand men, one-third British, an’ only light guns. Up there,” he pointed north, “is the Khalsa – one hundred thousand of the finest native army in Asia, with heavy guns. They’re two days’ march away. Our nearest reinforcements are Gilbert’s ten thousand at Umballa, a week’s march away, and Wheeler’s five thousand at Ludhiana – only five days’ march. Strong on mathematics, are you?”

      I’d heard vague talk in Simla, as you know, about our weakness on the frontier, but it’s different when you’re on the spot, and hear the figures. “But why –?” I was beginning, and Nicolson chuckled and shook his head.

      “– doesn’t Gough reinforce now?” he mimicked me. “Because it would provoke Lahore – my goodness, it provokes Lahore if one of our sepoys walks north to the latrines! I hear they’re goin’ to demand that we withdraw even the troops we have up here now – perhaps that’ll start the war, even if your Soochet legacy doesn’t.” He knew about that, and had twitted me about how I’d be languishing at the feet of “the fair sultana” while honest soldiers like him were chasing infiltrators along the river.

      “Mind you, she may be out of office by the time you get there. There’s talk that Prince Peshora – he’s another of old Runjeet’s by-blows – is goin’ to have a try for the throne; they say he has most of the Khalsa on his side. What price a palace revolution, what? Why, if I were you, I’d apply for the job!”

There was a great crowd of refugees camped about the ghat^e on the water’s edge, and at the sight of Nicolson they set up a howl and swarmed round him, women mostly and fly-blown chicos^f clamouring with hands stretched up. His orderlies pushed them back to let us through. “A few hundred more mouths to feed,” sighs Nicolson, “an’ they ain’t even ours. Easy there, havildar!^g Oh, chubbarao,^h you noisy heathen – Papa’ll bring your bread and milk in a moment! God knows how we’re goin’ to house ’em, though – I’ve screwed as much canvas out of stores as the Q.M. will bear, I think.”

      The ferry itself was a huge barge crewed by native boatmen, but with a light gun in the bows, manned by two sepoys. “That’s another provocation,” says Nicolson. “We’ve sixty of these tubs on the river, an’ the Sikhs suspect we mean to use ’em as a bridge for invasion. You never know, one o’ these days … Ah, see yonder!” He shaded his eyes, pointing with his crop across the swollen river; the mist was hanging on the far shore, but through it I could see a party of horsemen waiting, arms gleaming in the sun.

      “There’s your escort, my boy! The vakil sent word they was coming to see you into Lahore in style. Nothin’ too good for an envoy with the scent of cash about him, eh? Well, good luck to you!” As we pushed off he waved and shouted: “It’ll all come out right, you’ll see!”

      I don’t know why I remember those words, or the sight of him with that great mob of niggers chattering about him while his orderlies cuffed