The Flashman Papers: The Complete 12-Book Collection. George Fraser MacDonald
all. Stranger still, he carried a great metal collar in one hand, and each time before he drank he would clamp it round his throat, almost as though he expected the liquor to leak out through his Adam’s apple.
I turned to remark on this to Jassa – and dammit, he’d vanished. Nowhere to be seen. I stared about, and demanded of the officer where he had got to, but he hadn’t seen him at all, so in the end I found myself being led onward alone, with all my former alarms rushing back at the gallop.
You may wonder why, just because my orderly had gone astray. Aye, but he’d done it at the very moment of entering the lion’s den, so to speak, and the whole mission was mysterious and chancy enough to begin with, and I’m God’s own original funk, so there. And I smelled mischief here, in this maze of courts and passages, with high walls looming about me. I didn’t even care for the splendid apartments to which I was conducted. They were on an upper storey of the Sleeping Palace, two lofty, spacious rooms joined by a broad Moorish arch, with mosaic tiles and Persian murals, a little marble balcony overlooking a secluded fountain court, silks on the bed, silent bearers to stow my kit, two pretty little maids who shimmied in and out, bringing water and towels and tea (I didn’t even think of slapping a rump, which tells you how jumpy I was), and a cooling breeze provided by an ancient punkah-wallah in the passage, when the old bugger was awake, which was seldom. For some reason, the very luxury of the place struck me as sinister, as though designed to lull my fears. At least there were two doors, one from either chamber – I do like to know there’s a line of retreat.
I washed and changed, still fretting about Jassa’s absence, and was about to lie down to calm my nerves when my eye lit on a book on the bedside table – and I sat up with a start. For it was a Bible, placed by an unknown hand – in case I’d forgotten my own, of course.
Broadfoot, thinks I, you’re an uneasy man to work for, but by God you know your business. It reminded me that I wasn’t quite cut off; I found I was muttering “Wisconsin”, then humming it shakily to the tune of “My bonnie is over the ocean”, and on the spur of the moment I dug out my cypher key – Crotchet Castle, the edition of 1831, if you’re interested – and began to write Broadfoot a note of all that I’d heard on Maian Mir. And I had just completed it, and inserted it carefully at Second Thessalonians, and was glumly pondering a verse that read “Pray without ceasing”, and thinking a fat lot of good that’ll do, when the door slammed open, there was a blood-curdling shriek, a mad dwarf flourishing a gleaming sabre leaped into the archway, and I rolled off the bed with a yell of terror, scrabbling for the pepperbox in my open valise, floundering round to cover the arch, my finger snatching at the trigger ring …
In the archway stood a tiny boy, not above seven years old, one hand clutching his little sabre, the other pressed to his teeth, eyes shining with delight. My wavering pistol fell away, and the little monster fairly crowed with glee, clapping his hands.
“Mangla! Mangla, come and see! Come on, woman – it is he, the Afghan killer! He has a great gun, Mangla! He was going to shoot me! Oh, shabash, shabash!”
“I’ll give you shabash, you little son-of-a-bitch!” I roared, and was going for him when a woman came flying into the archway, scooping him up in her arms, and I stopped dead. For one thing, she was a regular plum – and for another the imp was glaring at me in indignation and piping:
“No! No! You may shoot me – but don’t dare strike me! I am a maharaja!”
a Coat.
b Half-caste.
c Land-holders.
d Ruffians.
e River-landing.
f Children.
g Sergeant.
h Shut up!
i Sir, lord.
j Sikh swords.
k Champion.
l British government.
m “Greetings, brothers.”
n Inn, rest-house.
o Embankment.
p Plain.
q Afghan musket.
r Leading light.
s Cavalry sergeant-major.
t Summons.
u Sleeping Palace.
v Pimp.
w Bravo!
x Dancing-girl.
y Turban.
I’ve met royalty unexpected a number of times – face to face with my twin, Carl Güstaf, in the Jotunberg dungeon, quaking in my rags before the black basilisk Ranavalona, speechless as Lakshmibai regarded me gravely from her swing, stark naked and trussed in the presence of the future Empress of China – and had eyes only for the principal, but in the case of Dalip Singh, Lord of the Punjab, my attention was all for his protectress. She was a little spanker, this Mangla – your true Kashmiri beauty, cream-skinned and perfect of feature, tall and shapely as Hebe, eyes wide at me as she clasped him to her bosom, the lucky lad. He didn’t know when he was well off, though, for he slapped her face and yelled:
“Set me down, woman! Who bade thee interfere? Let me go!”
I’d have walloped the tyke, but after another searching glance at me she set him down and stepped back, adjusting her veil with a little coquettish toss of her head – even with my panic still subsiding I thought, aha! here’s another who fancies Flash at short notice. The ungrateful infant gave her a push for luck, straightened his shoulders, and made me a jerky bow, hand over heart, royal as bedamned in his little aigretted turban and gold coat.
“I am Dalip Singh. You are Flashman bahadur, the famous soldier. Let me see your gun!”
I resisted an impulse to tan his backside, and bowed in turn. “Forgive me, maharaj’. I would not have drawn it in your presence, but you took me unawares.”