Flashman Papers 3-Book Collection 2: Flashman and the Mountain of Light, Flash For Freedom!, Flashman and the Redskins. George Fraser MacDonald
So that was Ferozeshah as I saw it – the “Indian Waterloo”, the bloodiest battle we ever fought in the Orient, and certainly the queerest – and while other accounts may not tally with mine (or with each other’s) on small points, all are agreed on the essentials. We took Ferozeshah, at terrible cost, in two days of fighting, and were at the end of our tether when Tej Singh hove in view with an overwhelming force, and then sheered off when he could have eaten us for dinner.
The great controversy is: why did he do it? Well, you know why, because I’ve told you – he kept his word to us, and betrayed his army and his country. Yet there are respected historians who won’t believe it, to this day – some because they claim the evidence isn’t strong enough, others because they just won’t have it that victory was won by anything other than sheer British valour. Well, it played its part, by God it did, but the fact is it wouldn’t have been enough, without Tej’s treachery.
One of the things which confuses the historians is that Tej himself, who could lie truth out of India when he wanted to, told so many different stories afterwards. He assured Henry Lawrence that he didn’t push home his attack because he was sure it must fail; having seen the losses we’d taken in capturing Ferozeshah, he decided it was a hopeless position to assail now that we were defending it. He told the same tale to Sandy Abbott. Well, that’s all my eye: he knew his strength, and he knew we were at the last gasp, so that won’t wash.
Another lie, repeated to Alick Gardner, was that he was off collecting reserves at the time. If that’s so, and he wasn’t even there, who gave the Khalsa the order to turn about?
The truth, I believe, is what he told me many years later. He’d have stayed before Ferozepore till the Sutlej froze, if his colonels hadn’t forced him to march to the battle – and once in sight of Ferozeshah he was in a pickle, because he could see that victory was his for the taking. He had to think up some damned fine excuse for not overwhelming us, and Chance provided it, at the last moment, when our guns and cavalry inexplicably withdrew, leaving our infantry as lonely as the policeman at Herne Bay. “Now’s your time, Tej!” cries the Khalsa, “give the word and the day is ours!” “Not a bit of it!” says clever Tej. “Those crafty bastards ain’t withdrawing at all – they’re circling round to take us flank and rear! Back to the Sutlej, boys, I’ll show you the way!” And the Khalsa did as they were told.
Well, you can see why. The three days of Moodkee and Ferozeshah had given their rank and file a great respect for us. They didn’t realise what poor fettle we were in, or that the withdrawal of our horse and artillery was in fact an appalling mistake. It looked as though it might have some sinister purpose to it, as Tej was suggesting, and while they suspected his courage and character (rightly), they also knew he wasn’t a bad soldier, and might be right for once. So they obeyed him, and we were saved when we should have been massacred.
You may ask why our cavalry and guns unexpectedly flew off into the blue, giving Tej his excuse for retreating. Well, that was a gift from the gods. I told you that Lumley, the Adjutant-General, had gone barmy during the first day’s fighting, and kept saying we must retire on Ferozepore; well, on the second day, all his screws came loose together, he got Ferozepore on the brain entirely, and at the height of the battle he ordered our guns and cavalry away – in Hardinge’s name, if you please, so off they went, with the great loony urging them to make haste. So that’s how it was – Mickey White, Tej Singh, and Lumley, each doing his little bit in his own way. Odd business, war.38
We’d lost 700 dead, and close on 2000 wounded, including your humble obedient who spent the night under a tree, almost freezing to death, and utterly famished, with Hardinge and what was left of his staff. There was no sleep to be had, with my hand throbbing in agony, but I daren’t bleat, for Abbott alongside me had three wounds to my one, and was cheerful enough to sicken you. Round about dawn Baxu the butler rolled up with some chapattis and milk, and when we’d wolfed it down and Hardinge had prayed a bit, we all crawled aboard an elephant and lumbered down to Ferozepore, which was to be our seat of government henceforth, while Gough and most of the army camped near Ferozeshah. It was a great procession of wounded and baggage all the way to Ferozepore, and when we reached the entrenchments who should emerge but the guns and cavalry who had abandoned ship at the fatal moment. Hardinge was in a bate to know why, and one of the binky-nabobsa assured him it had been on urgent orders from Hardinge himself, transmitted by the Adjutant-General.
So now the cry was “Lumley”, and presently he appeared, very brisk and with a wild glint in his eye, lashing the air with a fly-whisk and giving sharp little cries; he was dressed in pyjamys and a straw boater, and was plainly on his way to the Hatter’s for tea. Hardinge demanded why he’d sent off the guns, and Lumley looked fierce and said they had needed fresh magazines, of course, and damned if he’d known where they could get any, bar Ferozepore. He sounded quite indignant.
“Twelve miles away?” cries Hardinge. “What service could they hope to do in time, supposing they had replenished?”
Lumley snapped back, about as much as they’d ha’ done at Ferozeshah, with no charges left. He seemed quite pleased with this, and laughed loudly, swatting flies, while Hardinge went purple. “And the cavalry, then?” cries he. “Why did you bid them retire?”
“Escort,” says Lumley, picking imaginary mice off his shirt. “Can’t have guns goin’ about unguarded. Desperate fellows everywhere – Sikhs, don’t you know? Swoop, pounce, carry ’em off, I assure you. Besides, cavalry needed a rest. Quite played out.”
“And you did this in my name, sir?” cries Hardinge. “Without my authority?”
Lumley said, impatiently, that if he hadn’t, no one would have paid him any heed. He grew quite agitated in describing how on the first night he’d told Harry Smith to retreat, and Harry had told him to go to hell. “Usin’ foulest language, sir! ‘Damn the orders!’ – his very words, though I said ’twas in your name, and the battle was lost, and we must buy the Sikhs if we were to come off. He wouldn’t listen,” says Lumley, looking ready to cry.
Well, everyone except Hardinge could see that the fellow was liable to start plaiting his toes into door-mats, but our pompous G.G. wouldn’t let him alone. Why, he demanded, was Lumley improperly dressed in pyjamys instead of uniform? Lumley gave a great guffaw and says: “Ah, well, you see, my overalls were so riddled with musket-balls, they dropped off me!”39
They sent him home, which made me wonder if he was quite as tapb as he sounded, for at least he got out of it, while the rest of us must soldier on, waiting for Paddy to plan his next bloodbath. I had hopes of keeping clear, with my hand shot through and my supposedly bad leg, but once we’d settled in Ferozepore and taken stock, blowed if I wasn’t the fittest junior in view. Munro, Somerset, and Hore of Hardinge’s staff were dead, Grant and Becher were wounded, Abbott wouldn’t recover for weeks, and the toll among the politicals had been frightful, with Broadfoot and Peter Nicolson dead and Mills and Lake badly wounded. It’s a damned dangerous game, campaigning, especially with a sawbones as heartily callous as old Billy M’Gregor. “Man, that’s a grand hole in your hand!” cries he, sniffing it. “Nae gangrene or broken bones – ye’ll be grippin’ a glass or a gun inside the week! Your ankle? Ach, it’s fine – ye could play peeverc this minute!”
Not what I care to hear from my medical man in wartime; I’d been looking for a ticket to Meerut at least. But with politicals so scarce there was no hope of that, and when saintly Henry Lawrence turned up to take Broadfoot’s place, I was kept hard at it – among other duties, seeing to the provision of fur boots for our elephants against the winter cold. Capital, thinks I, this is the way to serve out the war in comfort.
For one thing now seemed plain: the Khalsa couldn’t whip John Company. The bogy had been laid at Ferozeshah, India was safe, and while they were still in strength beyond the river, it remained only to bring them to one final action to break them for good and all. So for the present we sat and watched