Flashman Papers 3-Book Collection 3: Flashman at the Charge, Flashman in the Great Game, Flashman and the Angel of the Lord. George Fraser MacDonald
The sky-blue wolves are in the fold!”
Kutebar rose and moved over beneath the window. I heard him draw in his breath, and then, between his teeth, he made that same strange, muffled whistle – it’s the kind of soft, low noise you sometimes think you hear at night, but don’t regard, because you imagine it is coming from inside your own head. The Khokandians can make it travel up to a mile, and enemies in between don’t even notice it. We waited, and sure enough, it came again, and right on its heels the bang of a musket, shattering the night.
There was a cry of alarm, another shot, and then a positive volley culminating in a thunderous roar of explosion, and the dim light from the window suddenly increased as with a lightning flash. And then a small war broke out, shots, and shrieks and Russian voices roaring, and above all the hideous din of yelling voices – the old Ghazi war-cry that had petrified me so often on the Kabul road.
“They have come!” croaked Yakub Beg. “It is Ko Dali’s daughter! Quick, Izzat – the door!”
Kutebar was across the cell in a flash, roaring to me. We threw ourselves against the door, listening for the sounds of our guards.
“They have blown in the main gate with barut,”e cries Yakub Beg weakly. “Listen – the firing is all on the other side! Oh, my darling! Eyah! Kutebar, is she not a queen among women, a najud?f Hold fast the door, for when the Ruskis guess why she has come they will –”
Kutebar’s shout of alarm cut him short. Above the tumult of shooting and yelling we heard a rush of feet, the bolts were rasping back, and a great weight heaved at the door on the other side. We strained against it, there was a roar in Russian, and then a concerted thrust from without. With our feet scrabbling for purchase on the rough floor we held them; they charged together and the door gave back, but we managed to heave it shut again, and then came the sound of a muffled shot, and a splinter flew from the door between our faces.
“Bahnanas!”g bawled Kutebar. “Monkeys without muscles! Can two weak prisoners hold you, then? Must you shoot, you bastard sons of filth?”
Another shot, close beside the other, and I threw myself sideways; I wasn’t getting a bullet in my guts if I could help it. Kutebar gave a despairing cry as the door was forced in; he stumbled back into the cell, and there on the threshold was the big sergeant, torch in one hand and revolver in the other, and two men with bayoneted muskets at his heels.
“That one first!” bawls the sergeant, pointing at Yakub Beg. “Still, you!” he added to me, and I crouched back beside the door as he covered me. Kutebar was scrambling up beyond Yakub Beg; the two soldiers ignored him, one seizing Yakub Beg about the middle to steady him while the other raised his musket aloft to plunge the bayonet into the helpless body.
“Death to all Ruskis!” cries Yakub. “Greetings, Timur –”
But before the bayonet could come down Kutebar had launched himself at the soldier’s legs; they fell in a thrashing tangle of limbs, Kutebar yelling blue murder, while the other soldier danced round them with his musket, trying to get a chance with his bayonet, and the sergeant bawled to them to keep clear and give him a shot.
Old dungeon-fighters like myself – and I’ve had a wealth of experience, from the vaults of Jotunberg, where I was sabre to sabre with Starnberg, to that Afghan prison where I let dear old Hudson take the strain – know that the thing to do on these occasions is find a nice dark corner and crawl into it. But out of sheer self-preservation I daren’t – I knew that if I didn’t take a hand Kutebar and Yakub would be dead inside a minute, and where would Cock Flashy be then, poor thing? The sergeant was within a yard of me, side on, revolver hand extended towards the wrestlers on the floor; there was two feet of heavy chain between my wrists, so with a silent frantic prayer I swung my hands sideways and over, lashing the doubled chain at his forearm with all my strength. He screamed and staggered, the gun dropping to the floor, and I went plunging after it, scrabbling madly. He fetched up beside me, but his arm must have been broken, for he tried to claw at me with his far hand, and couldn’t reach; I grabbed the gun, stuck it in his face, and pulled the trigger – and the bloody thing was a single-action weapon, and wouldn’t fire!
He floundered over me, trying to bite – and his breath was poisonous with garlic – while I wrestled with the hammer of the revolver. His sound hand was at my throat; I kicked and heaved to get him off, but his weight was terrific. I smashed at his face with the gun, and he released my throat and grabbed my wrist; he had a hold like a vice, but I’m strong, too, especially in the grip of fear, and with a huge heave I managed to get him half off me – and in that instant the soldier with the bayonet was towering over us, his weapon poised to drive down at my midriff.
There was nothing I could do but scream and try to roll away; it saved my life, for the sergeant must have felt me weaken, and with an animal snarl of triumph flung himself back on top of me – just as the bayonet came down to spit him clean between the shoulder blades. I’ll never forget that engorged face, only inches from my own – the eyes starting, the mouth snapping open in agony, and the deafening scream that he let out. The soldier, yelling madly, hauled on his musket to free the bayonet; it came out of the writhing, kicking body just as I finally got the revolver cocked, and before he could make a second thrust I shot him through the body.
As luck had it, he fell on top of the sergeant, so there was Flashy, feverishly cocking the revolver again beneath a pile of his slain. The sergeant was dead, or dying, and being damned messy about it, retching blood all over me. I struggled as well as I could with my fettered hands, and had succeeded in freeing myself except for my feet – those damned fetters were tangled among the bodies – when Yakub shouted:
“Quickly, angliski! Shoot!”
The other soldier had broken free from Kutebar, and was in the act of seizing his fallen musket; I blazed away at him and missed – it’s all too easy, I assure you – and he took the chance to break for the door. I snapped off another round at him, and hit him about the hip, I think, for he went hurtling into the wall. Before he could struggle up Kutebar was on him with the fallen musket, yelling some outlandish war-cry as he sank the bayonet to the locking-ring in the fellow’s breast.
The cell was a shambles. Three dead men on the floor, all bleeding busily, the air thick with powder smoke, Kutebar brandishing his musket and inviting God to admire him, Yakub Beg exulting weakly and calling us to search the sergeant for his fetter keys, and myself counting the shots left in the revolver – two, in fact.
“The door!” Yakub was calling. “Make it fast, Izzat – then the keys, in God’s name! My body is bursting!”
We found a key in the sergeant’s pocket, and released Yakub’s ankles, lowering him gently to the cell floor and propping him against the wall with his arms still chained to the corners above his head. He couldn’t stand – I doubted if he’d have the use of his limbs inside a week – and when we tried to unlock his wrist-shackles the key didn’t fit. While Izzat searched the dead man’s clothes, fuming, I kept the door covered; the sounds of distant fighting were still proceeding merrily, and it seemed to me we’d have more Russian visitors before long. We were in a damned tight place until we could get Yakub fully released; Kutebar had changed his tack now, and was trying to batter open a link in the chain with his musket butt.
“Strike harder, feeble one!” Yakub encouraged him. “Has all your strength gone in killing one wounded Ruski?”
“Am I a blacksmith?” says Kutebar. “By the seven pools of Eblis, do I have iron teeth? I save your life – again – and all you can do is whine. We have been at work, this feringhi and I, while you swung comfortably – God, what a fool’s labour is this!”
“Cease!” cries Yakub. “Watch the door!”
There were feet running, and voices; Kutebar took the other side from me, his bayonet poised, and I cocked the revolver. The feet stopped, and then a voice called “Yakub Beg?” and Kutebar flung up his hands with a crow of delight.
“Inshallah! There is good in the Chinese after all! Come