Flashman and the Mountain of Light

‘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.’

‘No, I didn’t!’ cries he, grinning. ‘You move as the cobra strikes, too quickly to see! Oh, it was fine, and you must be the bravest soldier in the world – now, your gun!’

‘Maharaj’, you forget yourself!’ Mangla’s voice was sharp, and not at all humble. ‘You have not given proper welcome to the English lord sahib – and it is unmannerly to burst in on him, instead of receiving him in durbar.fn1 What will he think of us?’ Meaning, what does he think of me, to judge from another glance of those fine gazelle eyes. I gave her my gallant leer, and hastened to toady her overlord.

‘His majesty honours me. But will you not sit, maharaj’, and your lady also?’

‘Lady?’ He stared and laughed. ‘Why, she’s a slave! Aren’t you, Mangla?’

‘Your mother’s slave, maharaj’,’ says she coldly. ‘Not yours.’

‘Then go and wait on my mother!’ cries the pup, not meeting her eye. ‘I wish to speak with Flashman bahadur.’

You could see her itching to upend him, but after a moment she gave him a deep salaam and me a last appraisal, up and down, which I returned, admiring her graceful carriage as she swayed out, while the little pest tried to disarm me. I told him firmly that a soldier never gives his weapon to anyone, but that I’d hold it for him to see, if he showed me his sword in the same way. So he did, and then stared at my pepperbox,19 mouth open.

‘When I am a man,’ says he, ‘I shall be a soldier of the Sirkar, and have such a gun.’

I asked, why the British Army and not the Khalsa, and he shook his head. ‘The Khalsa are mutinous dogs. Besides, the British are the best soldiers in the world, Zeenan Khan says.’

‘Who’s Zeenan Khan?’

‘One of my grooms. He was flank-man-first-squadron-fifth-Bengal-Cavalry-General-Sale-Sahib-in-Afghanistan.’ Rattled out as Zeenan must have taught him. He pointed at me. ‘He saw you at Jallalabad Fort, and told me how you slew the Muslims. He has only one arm, and no pinshun.’

Now that’s a pension we’ll see paid, with arrears, thinks I: an ex-sowar of Bengal Cavalry who has a king’s ear is worth a few chips a month. I asked if I could meet Zeenan Khan.

‘If you like, but he talks a lot, and always the same story of the Ghazi he killed at Teizin. Did you kill many Ghazis? Tell me about them!’

So I lied for a few minutes, and the bloodthirsty little brute revelled in every decapitation, eyes fixed on me, his small face cupped in his hands. Then he sighed and said his Uncle Jawaheer must be mad.

‘He wants to fight the British. Bhai Ram says he’s a fool – that an ant can’t fight an elephant. But my uncle says we must, or you will steal my country from me.’

‘Your uncle is mistaken,’ says diplomatic Flashy. ‘If that were true, would I be here in peace? No – I’d have a sword!’

‘You have a gun,’ he pointed out gravely.

‘That’s a gift,’ says I, inspired, ‘which I’ll present to a friend of mine, when I leave Lahore.’

‘You have friends in Lahore?’ says he, frowning.

‘I have now,’ says I, winking at him, and after a moment his jaw dropped, and he squealed with glee. Gad, wasn’t I doing my country’s work, though?

‘I shall have it! That gun? Oh! Oh!’ He hugged himself, capering. ‘And will you teach me your war-cry? You know, the great shout you gave just now, when I ran in with my sword?’ The small face puckered as he tried to say it: ‘Wee … ska … see …?’

I was baffled – and then it dawned: Wisconsin. Gad, my instinct for self-preservation must be working well, for me to squeal that without realising it. ‘Oh, that was nothing, maharaj’. Tell you what, though – I’ll teach you to shoot.’

‘You will? With that gun?’ He sighed ecstatically. ‘Then I shall be able to shoot Lal Singh!’

I remembered the name – a general, the Maharani’s lover.

‘Who’s Lal Singh, maharaj’?’

He shrugged. ‘Oh, one of my mother’s bed-men.’ Seven years old, mark you. ‘He hates me, I can’t tell why. All her other bed-men like me, and give me sweets and toys.’ He shook his head in perplexity, hopping on one leg, no doubt to assist thought. ‘I wonder why she has so many bed-men? Ever so many –’

‘Cold feet, I daresay … look, younker – maharaj’, I mean – hadn’t you better be running along? Mangla will be –’

‘Mangla has bed-men, too,’ insists this fount of scandal. ‘But Uncle Jawaheer is her favourite. Do you know what Lady Eneela says they do?’ He left off hopping, and took a deep breath. ‘Lady Eneela says they –’

Fortunately, before my delicacy could receive its death blow, Mangla suddenly reappeared, quite composed considering she’d plainly had her ear at the keyhole, and informed his garrulous majesty peremptorily that his mother commanded him to the durbar room. He pouted and kicked his heels, but finally submitted, exchanged salaams, and allowed her to shoo him into the passage. To my surprise, she didn’t follow, but closed the door and faced me, mighty cool – she didn’t look at all like a slave-girl, and she didn’t talk like one.

‘His majesty speaks as children do,’ says she. ‘You will not mind him. Especially what he says of his uncle, Wazir Jawaheer Singh.’

No ‘sahib’, or downcast eyes, or humble tone, you notice. I took her in, from the dainty Persian slippers and tight silk trousers to the well-filled bodice and the calm lovely face framed by the flimsy head veil, and moved up for a closer view.

‘I care nothing about your Wazir, little Mangla,’ smiles I. ‘But if our small tyrant speaks true … I envy him.’

‘Jawaheer is not a man to be envied,’ says she, watching me with those insolent gazelle eyes, and a drift of her perfume reached me – heady stuff, these slave-girls use. I reached out and drew a glossy black tress from beneath the veil, and she didn’t blink; I stroked her cheek with it, and she smiled, a provocative parting of the lips. ‘Besides, envy is the last deadly sin I’d expect from Flashman bahadur.’

‘But you can guess the first, can’t you?’ says I, and gathered her smoothly in by tit and buttock, not omitting a chaste salute on the lips, to which the coy little creature responded by slipping her hand down between us, taking hold, and thrusting her tongue half way down my throat – at which point that infernal brat Dalip began hacking at the door, clamouring for attention.

‘To hell with him!’ growls I, thoroughly engrossed, and for a moment she teased with hand and tongue before pulling her trembling softness away, panting bright-eyed.

‘Yes, I know the first,’ she murmurs, taking a last fond stroke, ‘but this is not the time –’

‘Ain’t it, by God? Never mind the pup – he’ll go away, he’ll get tired –’

‘It is not that.’ She pushed her hands against my chest, pouting and shaking her head. ‘My mistress would never forgive me.’

‘Your mistress? What the blazes –?’

‘Oh, you will see.’ She disengaged my hands, with a pretty little grimace as that whining whelp kicked and yammered at the panels. ‘Be patient, Flashman bahadur – remember, the servant may sup last, but she sups longest.’ Her tongue flickered at my lips again, and then she had slipped out, closing the door to the accompaniment of shrill childish reproaches, leaving me most randily frustrated – but in better trim than I’d been for days. There’s nothing like a brisk overhaul of a sporty female, with the certainty of a treat in store, for putting one in temper. And it goes to show – whiskers ain’t everything.

I wasn’t allowed to spend long in lustful contemplation, though, for who should loaf in now but the bold Jassa, looking fit for treason, and no whit put out when I damned his eyes and demanded where he’d been. ‘About the husoor’s business,’ was all the answer I got, while he took a wary prowl through the two rooms, prodding a hanging here and tapping a panel there, and remarking that these Hindoo swine did themselves uncommon well. Then he motioned me out on to the little balcony, took a glance up and down, and says softly: ‘Thou has seen the little raja, then – and his mother’s pimp?’

‘What the devil d’ye mean?’

‘Speak low, husoor. The woman Mangla – Mai Jeendan’s spy and partner in all mischief. A slave – that stands by her mistress’s purdah in durbar, and speaks for her. Aye, and makes policy on her own account, and is grown the richest woman in Lahore. Think on that, husoor. She is Jawaheer’s whore – and betrayer, like enough. Not a doubt but she was sent to scout thee … for whatever purposes.’ He grinned his evil, pock-marked grin, and cut me off before I could speak.

‘Husoor, we are together in this business, thou and I. If I am blunt, take it not amiss, but harken. They will come at thee all ways, these folk. If some have sleek limbs and plump breasts, why then … take thy pleasure, if thou’rt so minded,’ says this generous ruffian, ‘but remember always what they are. Now … I shall be here and there awhile. Others will come presently to woo thee – not so well favoured as Mangla, alas!’

Well, damn his impudence – and thank God for him. And he was right. For the next hour Flashy’s apartments were like London Bridge Station in Canterbury week. First arrival was a tall, stately, ancient grandee, splendidly attired and straight from a Persian print. He came alone, coldly begging my pardon for his intrusion, and keeping an ear cocked; damned uneasy he seemed. His name was Dewan Dinanath, familiar to me from Broadfoot’s packets, where he was listed as an influential Court adviser, inclined to the peace party, but a weathercock. His business was simple: did the Sirkar intend to return the Soochet fortune to the Court of Lahore? I said that would not be known until I’d reported to Calcutta, where the decision would be taken, and he eyed me with bleak disapproval.

‘I have enjoyed Major Broadfoot’s confidence in the past,’ sniffs he. ‘You may have equal confidence in me.’ Both of which were damned lies. ‘This treasure is vast, and its return might be a precedent for other Punjab monies at present in the … ah, care of the British authorities. In the hands of our government, these funds would have a stabilising effect.’ They’d help Jawaheer and Jeendan to keep the Khalsa happy, he meant. ‘A word in season to me, of Hardinge sahib’s intentions …’

‘I’m sorry, sir,’ says I. ‘I’m only an advocate.’

‘A young advocate,’ snaps he, ‘should study conciliation as well as law. It is to go to Goolab, is it?’

‘Or Soochet Singh’s widow. Or the Maharaja’s government. Unless it is retained by Calcutta, for the time being. That’s all I can tell you, sir, I’m afraid.’

He didn’t like me, I could see, and might well have told me so, but a sound caught his ear, and he was through into my bedchamber like an elderly whippet. I heard the door close as my next unexpected guests arrived: two other grave seniors, Fakir Azizudeen, a tough, shrewd-looking heavyweight, and Bhai Ram Singh, portly, jovial, and bespectacled – staunch men of the peace party, according to the packets. Bhai Ram was the one who thought Jawaheer a fool, according to little Dalip.

He opened the ball, with genial compliments about my Afghan service. ‘But now you come to us in another capacity … as an advocate. Still of the Army, but in Major Broadfoot’s service.’ He twinkled at me, stroking his white beard. Well, he probably knew the colour of George’s drawers, too. I explained that I’d been studying law at home –.

‘At the Inns of Court, perhaps?’

‘No, sir – firm in Chancery Lane. I hope to read for the Bar some day.’

‘Excellent,’ purrs Bhai Ram, beaming. ‘I have a little law, myself.’ I’ll lay you do, thinks I, bracing myself. Sure enough, out came the legal straight left. ‘I have been asking myself what difficulty might arise, if in this Soochet business, it should prove that the widow had a coparcener.’ He smiled at me inquiringly, and I looked baffled, and asked how that could possibly affect matters.

‘I do not know,’ says he blandly. ‘That is why I ask you.’

‘Well, sir,’ says I, puzzled, ‘the answer is that it don’t apply, you see. If the lady were Soochet’s descendant, and had a sister – a female in the same degree, that is – then they’d take together. As coparceners. But she’s his widow, so the question doesn’t arise.’ So put that in your pipe and smoke it, old Cheeryble; I hadn’t sat up in Simla with towel round my head for nothing.

He regarded me ruefully, and sighed, with a shrug to Fakir Azizudeen, who promptly exploded.

‘So he is a lawyer, then! Did you expect Broadfoot to send a farmer? As if this legacy matters! We know it does not, and so does he!’ This with a gesture at me. He leaned forward. ‘Why are you here, sahib? Is it to take up time, with this legal folly? To whet the hopes of that drunken fool Jawaheer –’

‘Gently, gently,’ Bhai Ram reproved him.

‘Gently – on the brink of war? When the Five Rivers are like to run red?’ He swung angrily on me. ‘Let us talk like sane men, in God’s name! What is in the mind of the Malki lat?fn2 Does he wait to be given an excuse for bringing his bayonets across the Sutlej? If so, can he doubt it will be given him? Then why does he not come now – and settle it at a blow? Forget your legacy, sahib, and tell us that!’

He was an angry one this, and the first straight speaker I’d met in the Punjab. I could have fobbed him as I had Dinanath, but there was no point. ‘Hardinge sahib hopes for peace in the Punjab,’ says I. He glared at me.

‘Then tell him he hopes in vain!’ snarls he. ‘Those madmen at Maian Mir will see to it! Convince him of that, sahib, and your journey will not have been wasted!’ And on that he stalked out, by way of the bedroom.20 Bhai Ram sighed and shook his head.

‘An honest man, but impetuous. Forgive his rudeness, Flashman sahib – and my own impertinence.’ He chuckled. ‘Coparceners! Hee-hee! I will not embarrass you by straining your recollection of Bracton and Blackstone on inheritance.’ He heaved himself up, and set a chubby hand on my arm. ‘But I will say this. Whatever your purpose here – oh, the legacy, of course! – do what you can for us.’ He regarded me gravely. ‘It will be a British Punjab in the end – that is certain. Let us try to achieve it with as little pain as may be.’ He smiled wanly. ‘It will bring order, but little profit for the Company. I am ungenerous enough to wonder if that is why Lord Hardinge seems so reluctant.’

He tooled off through the bedroom, but paused at the door.

‘Forgive me – but this Pathan orderly of yours … you have known him long?’

Startled, I said, not long, but that he was a picked man.

He nodded. ‘Just so … would it be forward of me to offer the additional services of two men of my own?’ He regarded me benevolently over his specs. ‘A needless precaution, no doubt … but your safety is important. They would be discreet, of course.’

You may judge that this put the wind up me like a full gale – if this wily old stick thought I was in danger, that was enough for me. I was sure he meant me no harm; Broadfoot had marked him A3. So, affecting nonchalance, I said I’d be most obliged, while assuring him I felt as safe in Lahore as I would in Calcutta or London or Wisconsin, even, ha-ha. He gave me a puzzled look, said he would see to it, and left me in a rare sweat of anxiety, which was interrupted by my final visitor.

He was a fat and unctuous villain with oily eyes, one Tej Singh, who waddled in with a couple of flunkeys, greeting me effusively as a fellow-soldier – he sported an enormous jewelled sabre over a military coat crusted with bullion, his insignia as a Khalsa general. He was full of my Afghan exploits, and insisted on presenting me with a superb silk robe – not quite a dress of honour, he explained fawning, but rather more practical in the sultry heat. He was such a toad, I wondered if the robe was poisoned, but after he’d Heeped his way out, assuring me of his undying friendship and homage, I decided he was just dropping dash where he thought it might do good. A fine garment it was, too; I peeled down and donned it, enjoying its silky coolness while I reflected on the affairs of the day.

Broadfoot and Jassa had been right: I was receiving attention from all kinds of people. What struck me was their impatience – I wasn’t even here yet, officially, and wouldn’t be until I’d been presented in durbar, but they’d come flocking like sparrows to crumbs. Most of their motives were plain enough; they saw through the legacy sham, and recognised me as Broadfoot’s ear trumpet. But it was reassuring that they thought me worth cultivating – Tej Singh, a Khalsa big-wig, especially; if that damned old Bhai Ram hadn’t shown such concern for my safety, I’d have been cheery altogether. Well, I had more news for Broadfoot, for what it was worth; at this rate, Second Thessalonians was going to take some traffic. I ambled through to the bedside table, picked up the Bible – and dropped it in surprise.

The note I’d placed in it a bare two hours earlier was gone. And since I’d never left the room, Broadfoot’s mysterious messenger must be one of those who had called on me.

Jassa was my first thought, instantly dismissed – George would have told me, in his case. Dinanath and Fakir Azizudeen had each passed alone through my bedroom … but they seemed most unlikely. Tej Singh hadn’t been out of sight, but I couldn’t swear to his flunkeys – or the two little maids. Little Dalip was impossible, Bhai Ram hadn’t been near my bedside, nor had Mangla, worse luck … could she have sneaked in unobserved while I was with Dalip, beyond the arch? I sifted the whole thing while I ate a solitary supper, hoping it was Mangla, and wondering if she’d be back presently … it was going to be a lonely night, and I cursed the Indian protocol that kept me in purdah, so to speak, until I was summoned to durbar, probably next day.

It was dark outside now, but the maids (working tandem to avoid molestation, no doubt) had lit the lamps, and the moths were fluttering at the mosquito curtain as I settled down with Crotchet Castle, enjoying for the hundredth time the passage where old Folliott becomes agitated in the presence of bare-arsed statues of Venus … which set me thinking of Mangla again, and I was idly wondering which of the ninety-seven positions taught me by Fetnab would suit her best, when I became aware that the punkah had stopped.

The old bastard’s caulked out again, thinks I, and hollered, without result, so I rolled up, seized my crop, and strode forth to give him an enjoyable leathering. But his mat was empty, and so was the passage, stretching away to the far stairs, with only a couple of lamps shining faint in the gloom. I called for Jassa; nothing but a hollow echo. I stood a moment; it was damned quiet, not a sound anywhere, and for the first time my silk robe felt chill against my skin.

I went inside again, and listened, but apart from the faint pitter of the moths at the screen, no sound at all. To be sure, the Kwabagh was a big place, and I’d no notion where I was within it, but you’d have expected some noise … distant voices, or music. I went through the screen on to the little balcony, and looked over the marble balustrade; it was a long drop, four storeys at least, to the enclosed court, high enough to make my crotch contract; I would just hear the faint tinkle of the fountain, and make out the white pavement in the gloom, but the walls enclosing the court were black; not a light anywhere.

I found I was shivering, and it wasn’t the night air. My skin was crawling with a sudden dread in that lonely, sinister darkness, and I was just about to turn hurriedly back into my room when I saw something that brought the hair bristling up on my neck.

Far down in the court, on the pale marble by the fountain, there was a shadow where none had been before. I stared, thrilling with horror as I realised it was a man, in black robes, his upturned face hidden in a dark hood. He was looking up at my balcony, and then he stepped back into the shadows, and the court was empty.

I was inside and streaking across the room in an instant – and if you say I start at shadows, I’ll agree with you, pointing out only that behind every shadow there’s substance, and in this case it wasn’t out for an evening stroll. I yanked open the door, preparing to speed down the passage in search of cheer and comfort – and my foot wasn’t over the threshold before I froze in my tracks. At the far end of the passage, beyond the last light, dark figures were advancing, and I caught the gleam of steel among them.

I skipped back, slamming the door, looking wildly about for a bolthole which I knew didn’t exist. There wasn’t time to get my pepperbox; they’d be at the door in a second – there was nothing for it but to slip through the screen to the balcony, shuddering back against the balustrade even as I heard the door flung open and men bursting in. In unthinking panic I swung over the side of the balustrade, close to the wall, clutching its pillars from the outside, cowering low with my toes scrabbling for a hold and that appalling drop beneath me, while heavy footsteps and harsh voices rang out from my room.

It was futile, of course. They’d be ravening out on the balcony in a moment, see me through the pillars – I could hear the yell of triumph, feel the agony of steel slicing through my fingers, sending me hurtling to hideous death. I crouched lower, gibbering like an ape, trying to peer under the balcony – God, there was a massive stone bracket supporting it, only inches away! I thrust a foot through it, slipped, and for a ghastly instant was hanging at full stretch before I got one leg crooked over the bracket, made a frantic grab, and found myself clinging to it like a bloody sloth, upside down beneath the balcony, with my fine silk robe billowing beneath me.

I’ve no head for heights, did I tell you? That yawning black void was dragging my mind down, willing me to let go, even as I clung for dear life with locked ankles and sweating fingers – I must drag myself up and over the bracket somehow, but even as I braced myself a voice sang out just overhead, and the toe of a boot appeared between the pillars only a yard above my upturned face. Thank God the balcony rail was a broad projecting slab which hid me from view as he shouted down – and only then did I remember blasted Romeo below, who must have been watching my frantic acrobatics …

‘Ai, Nurla Bey – what of the feringhee?’ cries the voice above – a rasping croak in Pushtu, and I could hear my muscles creaking with the awful strain as I waited to be announced.

‘He came out a moment since, Gurdana Khan,’ came the answer – Jesus, it sounded a mile down. ‘Then he went back within.’

He hadn’t seen me? Pondering it later – which you ain’t inclined to do while hanging supine under a balcony of murderers – I concluded that he must have been looking elsewhere or relieving himself when I made my leap for glory, and my robe being dark green, he couldn’t make me out in the deep shadow beneath the balcony. I embraced the bracket, blubbering silently, while Gurdana Khan swore by the Seven Lakes of Hell that I wasn’t in the room, so where the devil was I?

‘Perchance he has the gift of invisibility,’ calls up the wag in the court. ‘The English are great chemists.’ Gurdana damned his eyes, and for no sane reason I found myself thinking that this was the kind of crisis in which, Broadfoot had said, I might drop the magic word ‘Wisconsin’ into the conversation. I didn’t care to interrupt, though, just then, while Gurdana stamped in fury and addressed his followers.