The Flashman Papers: The Complete 12-Book Collection. George Fraser MacDonald
daein’ your duty as a husband, this would never have happened. Oh, Goad, ma puir wee lamb! My wee bit lassie – and you, where were ye? Whoorin’ away in some hoose o’ ill fame, like enough, while—”
“Nothing of the sort!” cries I indignantly. “I was at a Chinese restaurant,” at which he set up a great wail, burying his head in the bed-clothes and bawling about his wee bairn.
“Ye’ll bring her back!” he croaks presently. “Ye’ll save her – you’re a military man, wi’ decorations, an’ she’s the wife o’ your boozum, so she is! Say ye’ll bring her back tae her puir auld faither? Aye, ye’ll dae that – ye’re a guid lad, Harry – ye’ll no’ fail her.” And more in the same nauseating vein, interspersed with curses that he had ever set foot outside Glasgow. No doubt it was very pitiable, and if I’d been less disturbed myself and hadn’t despised the little swine so heartily, I might have felt sorry for him. I doubt it, though.
I left him lamenting, and went off to nurse my shoulder and reflect gloomily that there was no help for it – I would have to be first in the field when the pursuit got under way. The fellow Brooke, who – for reasons that I couldn’t fathom just then – seemed to have taken on himself the planning of the expedition, obviously took it for granted that I would go, and when Keppel arrived and agreed at once to put Dido and her crew into the business, there was no hanging back any longer.
Brooke was in a great lather of impatience to be away, and stamped and ground his teeth when Keppel said it would be at least three days before he could sail; he had treasure from Calcutta to unload, and must lay in stores and equipment for the expedition. “It’ll be river fighting, I dare say,” says he, yawning; he was a dry, likely-looking chap with blazing red hair and sleepy, humorous eyes.18 “Cutting out, jungle work, ambushes, that sort of thing? Ye-es, well, we know what happens if you rush into it at half-cock – remember how Belcher ripped the bottom out of Samarang on a shoal last year? I’ll have to restow Dido’s ballast, for one thing, and take on a couple of extra launches.”
“I can’t wait for that!” cries Brooke. “I must get to Kuching, for news of this villain Suleiman and to get my people and boats together. I hear Harlequin’s been sighted; I’ll go ahead in her – Hastings will take me when I tell him how fearfully urgent it is. We must run down this scoundrel and free Mrs Flashman without a moment’s delay!”
“You’re sure it’ll be Borneo, then?” says Keppel.
“It has to be!” cried Brooke. “No ship from the south in the last two days has sighted him. Depend upon it, he’ll either run for Maludu or the rivers.”
It was all Greek to me, and sounded horribly active and risky, but everyone deferred to Brooke’s judgement, and next day off he sailed in Harlequin. Because of my wound I was to rest in Singapore until Dido sailed two days later, but perforce I must be down at the quay when Brooke was rowed out with his motley gang by Harlequin’s boat crew. He seized my hand at parting.
“By the time you reach Kuching, we’ll be ready to run up the flag and run out the guns!” cried he. “You’ll see! And don’t fret yourself, old fellow – we shall have your dear lady back safe and sound before you know it. Just you limber up that sword-arm, and between us we’ll give these dogs a bit of your Afghan sauce. Why, in Sarawak we do this sort of thing before breakfast! Don’t we, Paitingi? Eh, Mackenzie?”
I watched them go – Brooke in the stern with his pilot-cap tipped at a rakish angle, laughing and slapping his knee in eagerness; the enormous Paitingi at his elbow, the black-bearded Mackenzie with his medical bag, and the other hard-cases disposed about the boat, with the hideous little Jingo in his loin-cloth nursing his blow-pipe spear. That was the fancy-dress crowd that I was to accompany on what sounded like a most hair-raising piece of madness – it was a dreadful prospect, and on the heels of my apprehension came fierce resentment at the frightful luck that was about to pitch me headlong into the stew again. D--n Elspeth, for a hare-brained, careless, wanton, ogling little slut, and d--n Solomon for a horny thief who hadn’t the decency to be content with women of his own beastly colour, and d--n this officious, bloodthirsty lunatic Brooke – who the d---l was he to go busybodying about uninvited, dragging me into his idiot enterprises? What right had he, and why did everyone defer to him as though he was some mixture of God and the Duke of Wellington?
I found out, the evening Dido sailed, after I had taken my fond farewells – whining and shouting with Morrison, stately and generous with the hospitable Whampoa, and ecstatically frenzied in the last minute of packing with my dear little nurses. I went aboard almost on my hands and knees, as I’ve said, with Stuart helping me, for he had stayed behind to bear me company and execute some business for Brooke. It was while we were at the stern rail of the corvette, watching the Singapore islands sinking black into the fiery sunset sea, that I dropped some chance remark about his crazy commander – as you know, I still had precious little idea who he was, and I must have said so, for Stuart started round, staring at me.
“Who’s J.B.?” he cried. “You can’t mean it! Who’s J.B.? You don’t know? Why, he’s the greatest man in the East, that’s all! You’re not serious – bless me, how long have you been in Singapore?”
“Not long enough, evidently. All I know is that he and you and your … ah, friends … rescued me mighty handy the other night, and that since then he’s very kindly taken charge of operations to do the same for my wife.”
He blessed himself again, heartily, and enlightened me with frightening enthusiasm.
“J.B. – His Royal Highness James Brooke – is the King of Sarawak, that’s who he is. I thought the whole world had heard of the White Raja! Why, he’s the biggest thing in these parts since Raffles – bigger, even. He’s the law, the prophet, the Grand Panjandrum, the tuan besara – the whole kitboodle! He’s the scourge of every pirate and brigand on the Borneo coast – the best fighting seaman since Nelson, for my money – he tamed Sarawak, which was the toughest nest of rebels and head-hunters this side of Papua, he’s its protector, its ruler, and to the natives, its saint! Why, they worship him down yonder – and more power to ’em, for he’s the truest friend, the fairest judge, and the noblest, whitest man in the whole wide world! That’s who J.B. is.”
“My word, I’m glad he happened along,” says I. “I didn’t know we had a colony in – Sarawak, d’you call it?”
“We haven’t. It’s not British soil. J.B. is nominal governor for the Sultan of Brunei – but it’s his kingdom, not Queen Victoria’s. How did he get it? Why, he sailed in there four years ago, after the d-mfool Company Army pensioned him off for overstaying his furlough. He’d bought this brig, the Royalist, you see, with some cash his guv’nor left him, and just set off on his own account.” He laughed, shaking his head. “G-d, we were mad! There were nineteen of us, with one little ship, and six six-pounder guns, and we got a kingdom with it! J.B. delivered the native people from slavery, drove out their oppressors, gave ’em a proper government – and now, with a few little boats, his loyal natives, and those of us who’ve survived, he’s fighting single-handed to drive piracy out of the Islands and make them safe for honest folk.”19
“Very commendable,” says I. “But isn’t that the East India Company’s job – or the navy’s?”
“Bless you, they couldn’t even begin it!” cries he. “There’s barely a British squadron in all these enormous waters – and the pirates are numbered in tens upon tens of thousands. I’ve seen fleets of five hundred praus and bankongs – those are their warboats – cruising together, crammed with fighting men and cannon, and behind them hundreds of miles of coastline in burning ruin – towns wiped out, thousands slaughtered, women carried off as slaves, every peaceful vessel plundered and sunk – I tell you, the Spanish Main was nothing to it! They leave a trail of destruction and torture and abomination wherever they go. They set our navy and the Dutch at defiance, and hold the Islands in terror – they have a slave-market at Sulu where hundreds of human beings are bought and sold daily; even the kings and rajas pay