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