Flashman Papers - Flashman Part 9

Her brother observed, fairly drily, that there was nothing to prevent an officer having his wife in India with him, but I muttered something about winning my spurs, an inspired piece of nonsense which pleased Lady E. Her brother remarked that an astonis.h.i.+ng number of young officers somehow survived the absence of a wife's consolation, and Crawford chortled, but Lady E. was on my side by now, and giving them her shoulder, asked where I was to be stationed.

I told her, and since it seemed to me that if I played my cards right I might get a more comfortable posting through her interest - Governor-General's aide was actually in my mind -I indicated that I had no great enthusiasm for Company service.

"Don't blame him, either," said Crawford. "Man's a positive Pole on horseback; shouldn't be wasted, eh, Flashman? Speaks Hindustani, too. Heard him."

"Really?" says Auckland. "That shows a remarkable zeal in study, Mr Flashman. But perhaps Dr Arnold may be to thank for that."

"Why must you take Mr Flashman's credit away from him?" says Lady E. "I think it is quite unusual. I think he should be found a post where his talents can be properly employed. Do you not agree, General?"

"Own views exactly, ma'am," says Crawford. "Should have heard him. 'Hey, rissaldar', says he, 'um-tiddly-o-karo', and the fellow understood every word."

Now you can imagine that this was heady stuff to me; this morning I had been any old subaltern, and here I was hearing compliments from a Governor-General, and General, and the First Lady of India - foolish old trot though she was. You're made, Flashy, I thought; it's the staff for you, and Auckland's next words seemed to bear out my hopes.

"Why not find something for him, then?" says he to Crawford. "General Elphinstone was saying only yesterday that he would need a few good gallopers."

Well, it wasn't the top of the tree, but galloper to a General was good enough for the time being.

"BiG.o.d," says Crawford, "your excellency's right. What d'you say, Flashman? Care to ride aide to an army commander, hey? Better than Company work at the back of beyond, what?"

I naturally said I would be deeply honoured, and was starting to thank him, but he cut me off.

"You'll be more thankful yet when you know where Elphinstone's service'll take you," says he, grinning. "By gad, I wish I was your age and had the same chance. It's a Company army mostly, of course, and a d.a.m.ned good one, but it took 'em a few years of service - as it would have taken you - to get where they wanted to be."

I looked all eagerness, and Lady E. sighed and smiled together.

"Poor boy," she said. "You must not tease him."

"Well, it will be out by tomorrow, anyway," says Crawford. "You don't know Elphinstone, of course, Flashman - commands the Benares Division, or will do until midnight tonight. And then he takes over the Army of the Indus - what about that, eh?"

It sounded all right, and I made enthusiastic noises.

"Aye, you're a lucky dog," says Crawford, beaming. "How many young blades would give their right leg for the chance of service with him? In the very place for a das.h.i.+ng lancer to win his spurs, bigad!"

A nasty feeling tickled my spine, and I asked where that might be.

"Why, Kabul, of course," says he. "Where else but Afghanistan?"

The old fool actually thought I must be delighted at this news, and of course I had to pretend to be. I suppose any young officer in India would have jumped at the opportunity, and I did my best to look gratified and eager, but I could have knocked the grinning idiot down, I was so angry. I had thought I was doing so well, what with my sudden introduction to the exalted of the land, and all it had won me was a posting to the hottest, hardest, most dangerous place in the world, to judge by all accounts. There was talk of nothing but Afghanistan in Calcutta at that time, and of the Kabul expedition, and most of it touched on the barbarity of the natives, and the unpleasantness of the country. I could have been sensible, I told myself, and had myself quietly posted to Benares - but no, I had had to angle round Lady Emily, and now looked like getting my throat cut for my pains.

Thinking quickly, I kept my eager smile in place but wondered whether General Elphinstone might not have preferences of his own when it came to choosing an aide; there might be others, I thought, who had a better claim . . .

Nonsense, says Crawford, he would go bail Elphinstone would be delighted to have a man who could talk the language and handle a lance like a Cossack, and Lady Emily said she was sure he would find a place for me. So there was no way out; I was going to have to take it and pretend that I liked it.

That night I gave Fetnab the soundest thras.h.i.+ng of her pampered life and broke a pot over the sweeper's head.

I was not even given a decent time to prepare myself. General Elphinstone (or Elphy Bey, as the wags called him) received me next day, and turned out to be an elderly, fussy man with a brown wrinkled face and heavy white whiskers; he was kind enough, in a doddering way, and as unlikely a commander of armies as you could imagine, being nearly sixty, and not too well either.

"It is a great honour to me," says he, speaking of his new command, "but I wish it had fallen on younger shoulders - indeed, I am sure it should." He shook his head, and looked gloomy, and I thought, well, here's a fine one to take the field with.

However, he welcomed me to his staff, d.a.m.n him, and said it was most opportune; he could use me at once. Since his present aides were used to his service, he would keep them with him just now, to prepare for the journey; he would send me in advance to Kabul - which meant, I supposed, that I was to herald his coming, and see that his quarters were swept out for his arrival. So I had to gather up my establishment, hire camels and mules for their transport, lay in stores for the journey, and generally, go to a deal of expense and bother. My servants kept well out of my way in those days, I can tell you, and Fetnab went about whimpering and rolling her eyes. I told her to shut up or I would give her to the Afghans when we got to Kabul, and she was so terrified that she actually kept quiet.

However, after my first disappointment I realised there was no sense crying over spilt milk, and looked on the bright side. I was, after all, to be aide to a general, which would be helpful in years to come, and gave one great distinction. Afghanistan was at least quiet for the moment, and Elphy Bey's term of command could hardly last long, at his age. I could take Fetnab and my household with me, including Ba.s.set, and with Elphy Bey's influence I was allowed to enlist Muhammed Iqbal in my party. He spoke Pushtu, of course, which is the language of the Afghans, and could instruct me as we went. Also, he was an excellent fellow to have beside you, and would be an invaluable companion and guide.

Before we started out, I got hold of as much information as I could about matters in Afghanistan. They seemed to stand d.a.m.ned riskily to me, and there were others in Calcutta - but not Auckland, who was an a.s.s - who shared this view. The reason we had sent an expedition to Kabul, which is in the very heart of some of the worst country in the world, was that we were afraid of Russia. Afghanistan was a buffer, if you like, between India and the Turkestan territory which Russia largely influenced, and the Russians were forever meddling in Afghan affairs, in the hope of expanding southwards and perhaps seizing India itself. So Afghanistan mattered very much to us, and thanks to that conceited Scotch buffoon Burnes the British Government had invaded the country, if you please, and put our puppet king, Shah Sujah, on the throne in Kabul, in place of old Dost Mohammed, who was suspected of Russian sympathies.

I believe, from all I saw and heard, that if he had Russian sympathies it was because we drove him to them by our stupid policy; at any rate, the Kabul expedition succeeded in setting Sujah on the throne, and old Dost was politely locked up in India. So far, so good, but the Afghans didn't like Sujah at all, and we had to leave an army in Kabul to keep him on his throne. This was the army that Elphy Bey was to command. It was a good enough army, part Queen's troops, part Company's, with British regiments as well as native ones, but it was having its work cut out trying to keep the tribes in order, for apart from Dost's supporters there were scores of little petty chiefs and tyrants who lost no opportunity of causing trouble in the unsettled times, and the usual Afghan pastimes of blood-feud, robbery, and murder-for-fun were going ahead full steam. Our army prevented any big rising - for the moment, anyway - but it was forever patrolling and manning little forts, and trying to pacify and buy off the robber chiefs, and people were wondering how long this could go on. The wise ones said there was an explosion coming, and as we started out on our journey from Calcutta my foremost thought was that whoever got blown up, it should not be me. It was just my luck that I was going to end up on top of the bonfire.

Travelling, I think, is the greatest bore in life, so I'll not weary you with an account of the journey from Calcutta to Kabul. It was long and hot and d.a.m.nably dull; if Ba.s.set and I had not taken Muhammed Iqbal's advice and shed our uniforms for native dress, I doubt whether we would have survived. In desert, on scrubby plain, through rocky hills, in the forests, in the little mud villages and camps and towns - the heat was horrible and ceaseless; your skin scorched, your eyes burned, and you felt that your body was turning into a dry bag of bones. But in the loose robes and pyjamy trousers one felt cooler - that is, one fried without burning quite black.

Ba.s.set, Iqbal and I rode horses, the servants tramped behind with Fetnab in a litter, but our pace was so slow that after a week we got rid of them all but the cook. The servants we turned off, amid great lamentations, and Fetnab I sold to a major in the artillery, whose camp we pa.s.sed through. I regretted that, for she had become a habit, but she was peevish on the journey and too tired and mopish at night to be much fun. Still, I can't recall a wench I enjoyed more.

We pushed on faster after that, west and then northwest, over the plains and great rivers of the Punjab, through the Sikh country, and up to Peshawar, which is where India ends. There was nothing to remind you of Calcutta now; here the heat was dry and glaring, and so were the people - lean, ugly, Jewish-looking creatures, armed and ready for mischief by the look of them. But none was uglier or looked readier for mischief than the governor of the place, a great, grey-bearded ox of a man in a dirty old uniform coat, baggy trousers, and gold-ta.s.selled forage cap. He was an Italian, of all things, with the spiky waxed moustache that you see on organ-grinders nowadays, and he spoke English with a dreadful dago American accent. His name was Avitabile,(11) and the Sikhs and Afghans were more scared of him than of the devil himself; he had drifted to India as a soldier of fortune, commanded Shah Sujah's army, and now had the job of keeping the pa.s.ses open to our people in Kabul.

He did it admirably, in the only way those brutes under-stood - by fear and force. There were five dead Afghans swinging in the sunlight from his gateway arch when we rode through, which was both rea.s.suring and unnerving at once. No one minded them more than if they had been swatted flies, least of all Avitabile, who had strung them up.

"G.o.ddam, boy," says he, "how you think I keep the peace if I don' keep killing these b.a.s.t.a.r.ds? These are Gilzais, you know that? Good Gilzais, now I've 'tended to them. The bad Gilzais are up in the hills, between here and Kabul, watchin' the pa.s.ses and lickin' their lips and thinkin' - but thinkin's all they do just now, 'cos of Avitabile. Sure, we pay 'em to be quiet; you think that would stop them? No, sir, fear of Avitabile" - and he jerked a huge thumb at his chest - "fear's what stops 'em. But if I stopped hangin' 'em now and then, they'd stop bein' afraid. See?"

He had me to dinner that night, and we ate an excellent stew of chicken and fruit on a terrace looking over the dirty rooftops of Peshawar, with the sounds and smells of the bazaar floating up to us. Avitabile was a good host, and talked all night of Naples and women and drink; he seemed to take a fancy to me, and we got very drunk together. He was one of your noisy, bellowing drunkards, and we sang uproariously, I remember, but at dawn, as we were staggering to our beds, he stopped outside my room, with his great dirty hand on my shoulder, and looked at me with his bright grey eyes, and said in a very sober, quiet voice: "Boy, I think you are another like me, at heart: a condottieri, a rascal. Maybe with a little honour, a little courage. I don't know. But, see now, you are going beyond the Khyber, and some day soon the Gilzais and others will be afraid no longer. Against that day, get a swift horse and some Afghans you can trust - there are some, like the Kuzzilbas.h.i.+s - and if the day comes, don't wait to die on the field of honour." He said it without a sneer. "Heroes draw no higher wages than the others, boy. Sleep well."

And he nodded and stumped off down the pa.s.sage, with his gold cap still firmly on his head. In my drunken state I took little heed of what he had said, but it came back to me later.

In the morning we rode north into one of the world's awful places - the great pa.s.s of the Khyber, where the track twists among the sun-scorched cliffs and the peaks seem to crouch in ambush for the traveller. There was some traffic on the road, and we pa.s.sed a commissary train on its way to Kabul, but most of those we saw were Afghan hillmen, rangy warriors in skull caps or turbans and long coats, with immensely long rifles, called jezzails, at their shoulders, and the Khyber knife (which is like a pointed cleaver) in their belts. Muhammed Iqbal was gay at returning to his own place, and had me airing my halting Pushtu on those we spoke to; they seemed taken aback to find an English officer who had their own tongue, however crudely, and were friendly enough. But I didn't like the look of them; you could see treachery in their dark eyes - besides, there is something odd about men who look like Satan and yet wear ringlets and love-locks hanging out beneath their turbans.

We were three nights on the road beyond the Khyber, and the country got more h.e.l.lish all the way - it beat me how a British army, with all its thousands of followers and carts and wagons and guns had ever got over those flinty paths. But at last we came to Kabul, and I saw the great fortress of Bala Hissar lowering over the city, and beyond it to the right the neat lines of the cantonment beside the water's edge, where the red tunics showed like tiny dolls in the distance and the sound of a bugle came faintly over the river. It was very pretty in the summer's evening, with the orchards and gardens before us, and the squalor of Kabul Town hidden behind the Bala Hissar. Aye, it was pretty then.

We crossed the Kabul River bridge and when I had reported myself and bathed and changed into my regimentals I was directed to the general commanding, to whom I was to deliver despatches from Elphy Bey. His name was Sir Willoughby Cotton, and he looked it, for he was round and fat and red-faced. When I found him he was being hectored by a tall, fine-looking officer in faded uniform, and I at once learned two things - in the Kabul garrison there was no sense of privacy or restraint, and the most senior officers never thought twice about discussing their affairs before their juniors.

". . . the biggest d.a.m.ned fool this side of the Indus," the tall officer was saying when I presented myself. "I tell you, Cotton, this army is like a bear in a trap. If there's a rising, where are you? Stuck helpless in the middle of a people who hate your innards, a week from the nearest friendly garrison, with a b.l.o.o.d.y fool like McNaghten writing letters to that even bloodier fool Auckland in Calcutta that everything's all right. G.o.d help us! And they're relieving you -"

"G.o.d be thanked," said Cotton.

"- and sending us Elphy Bey, who'll be under McNaghten's thumb and isn't fit to command an escort anyway. The worst of it is, McNaghten and the other political a.s.ses think we are safe as on Salisbury Plain! Burnes is as bad as the rest - not that he thinks of anything but Afghan women - but they're all so sure they're right! That's what upsets me. And who the devil are you?"

This was to me. I bowed and presented my letters to Cotton, who seemed glad of the interruption.

"Glad to see you, sir," says he, dropping the letters on the desk. "Elphy's herald, eh? Well, well. Flashman, did you say? Now that's odd. There was a Flashman with me at Rugby, oh, forty years ago. Any relation?"

"My father, sir."

"Ye don't say? Well, I'm d.a.m.ned. Flashy's boy." And he beamed all over his red face. "Why, it must be forty years . . . He's well, I trust? Excellent, excellent. What'll you have, sir? Gla.s.s of wine? Here, bearer. Of course, your father will have spoke of me, eh? I was quite a card at school. Got expelled, d'ye know."

This was too good a chance to miss, so I said: "I was expelled from Rugby, too, sir."

"Good G.o.d! You don't say! What for, sir?"

"Drunkenness, sir."

"No! Well, damme! Who'd have believed they would kick you out for that? They'll be expellin' for rape next. Wouldn't have done in my time. I was expelled for mutiny, sir - yes, mutiny! Led the whole school in revolt!(12) Splendid! Well, here's your health, sir!"