Chapter 9

If you consult the papers of Sir Henry Hardinge and Major Broadfoot for October, 1845 (not that I recommend them as light reading), you’ll find three significant entries early in the month: Mai Jeendan’s court moved to Amritsar, Hardinge left Calcutta for the Sutlej frontier, and Broadfoot had a medical examination and went on a tour of his agencies. In short, the three principals in the Punjab crisis took a breather – which meant no war that autumn. Good news for everyone except the dispersed Khalsa, moping in their outlying stations and spoiling for a fight.

My own immediate relief was physical. Jeendan’s departure came in the nick of time for me, for one more amorous joust with her would have doubled me up forever. I’ve seldom known the like: you’d have thought, after the wild passage I’ve just described, that she’d have rested content for a spell, but no such thing. A couple of hours’ sleep, a pint of spirits, and drum up the town bull again, was her style, and I doubt if I saw daylight for three days, as near as I could judge, for you tend to lose count of time, you know. We may well have set a record, but I didn’t keep tally (some Yankee would be sure to claim best, anyway). All I’m sure of is that my weight went down below twelve and a half stone, and that ain’t healthy for a chap my size. I was the one who needed medical inspection, I can tell you, never mind Broadfoot.

And on the fourth morning, when I was a mere husk of a man, wondering if there was a monastery handy, what d’you think she did? Absolutely had a chap in to paint my portrait. At first, when he dragged his easel and colours into the boudoir, and started waving his brush, I thought it was another of her depraved fancies, and she was going to have him sketch us performing at the gallop; the devil with this, thinks I, if I’m to be hung at the next Punjab Royal Academy it’ll be with my britches on and my hair brushed. But it proved to be a pukka sitting, Flashy fully clad in romatic native garb like Lord Byron, looking noble with a hookah to hand and a bowl of fruit in the foreground, while Jeendan lounged at the artist’s elbow, prompting, and Mangla made helpful remarks. Between the two of them he was in a fine sweat, but did a capital likeness of me in no time – it’s in a Calcutta gallery now, I believe, entitled Company Officer in Seekh Costume, or something of the sort. Ruined Stag at Bay, more like.

“So that I shall remember my English bahadur,” says Jeendan, smiling slantendicular, when I asked her why she wanted it. I took it as a compliment – and wondered if it was a dismissal, too, for it was in the same breath that she announced she was taking little Dalip to Amritsar, which is the Sikhs’ holy city, for the Dasahra, and wouldn’t return for some weeks. I feigned dismay, concealing the fact that she’d reduced me to a state where I didn’t care if I never saw a woman again.

My first act, when I’d staggered back to my quarters, was to scribble a report of her durbar and subsequent conversation with me, and commit it to Second Thessalonians. That report was what convinced Hardinge and Broadfoot that they had time in hand: no war before winter. I was right enough in that; fortunately I didn’t give them my further opinion, which was that there probably wouldn’t be a war even then.

You see, I was convinced that Jeendan didn’t want one. If she had, and believed the Khalsa could beat us and make her Queen of all Hindoostan, she’d have turned ’em loose over the Sutlej by now. By hocussing them into delay she’d spoiled their best chance, which would have been to invade while the hot weather lasted, and our white troops were at their feeblest; by the cold months, our sick would be on their feet again, dry weather and low rivers would assist our transport and defensive movement, and the freezing nights, while unpleasant for us, would plague the Khalsa abominably. She was also double-dealing ’em by warning us to stay on guard, and promising ample notice if they did break loose in spite of her.

Now there, you’ll say, is a clever lass who knows how to keep in with both sides – and will cross either of ’em if it suits her. But already she’d ensured that, if war did come, the odds were in our favour – and there was no profit to her in getting beat.

All that aside, I didn’t believe war was in her nature. Oh, I knew she was a shrewd politician, when she roused herself, and no doubt as cruel and ruthless as any other Indian ruler – but I just had to think of that plump, pleasure-sodden face drowsing on the pillow, too languid for anything but drink and debauchery, and the notion of her scheming, let alone directing, a war was quite out of court. Lord love us, she was seldom sober enough to plot anything beyond the next erotic experiment. No, if you’d seen her as I did, slothful with booze and romping, you’d have allowed that Broadfoot was right, and that here was a born harlot killing herself with kindness, a fine spirit too far gone to undertake any great matter.

So I thought – well, I misjudged her, especially in her capacity for hatred. I misjudged the Khalsa, too. Mind you, I don’t blame myself too much; there seems to have been a conspiracy to keep Flashy in the dark just then – Jeendan, Mangla, Gardner, Jassa, and even the Sikh generals had me in mind as they pursued their sinister ends, but I’d no way of knowing that.

Indeed, I was feeling pretty easy on the October morning when the court departed for Amritsar, and I turned out to doff my tile as the procession wound out of the Kashmir Gate. Little Dalip was to the fore on his state elephant, acknowledging the cheers of the mob as cool as you like, but twinkling and waving gaily at sight of me. Lal Singh, brave as a peacock and riding with a proprietary air beside Jeendan’s palki, didn’t twinkle exactly; when she nodded and smiled in response to my salute he gave me a stuffed smirk as much as to say, back to the pavilion, infidel, it’s my innings now. You’re welcome, thinks I; plenty of Chinese ginger and rhinoceros powder and you may survive. Mangla, in the litter following, was the only one who seemed to be sorry to be leaving me behind, waving and glancing back until the crowd swallowed her up.

The great train of beasts and servants and guards and musicians was still going by as Jassa and I turned away and rode round to the Rushnai Gate. Have a jolly Dasahra at Amritsar, all of you, thinks I, and by the time you get back Gough will have the frontier reinforced, and Hardinge will be on hand to talk sense to you face to face; among you all you can keep the Khalsa in order, everything can be peacefully settled, and I can go home. I said as much to Jassa, and he gave one of his Yankee-Pathan grunts.

“You reckon? Well, if I was you, lieutenant, I’d not say that till I was riding the gridiron again.”a

“Why not – have you heard something?”

“Just the barra choop,” says he, grinning all over his ugly mug.

“What the devil’s that?”

“You don’t know – an old Khyber hand like you? Barra choop – the silent time before the tempest.” He cocked his head. “Yes, sir, I can hear it, all right.”

“Oh, to blazes with your croaking! Heavens, man, the Khalsa’s scattered all over the place, and by the time they’re mustered again Gough will have fifty thousand bayonets at the river –”

“If he does, it’ll be a red rag to a Punjabi bull,” says this confounded pessimist. “Then they’ll be sure he means to invade. Besides, your lady friend’s promised the Khalsa a war come November – they’re going to be mighty sore if they don’t get it.”

“They’ll be a dam’ sight sorer if they do!”

“You know that – but maybe they don’t.” He turned in the saddle to look back at the long procession filing along the dusty Amritsar road, shading his eyes, and when he spoke again it was in Pushtu. “See, husoor, we have in the Punjab the two great ingredients of mischief: an army loose about the land, and a woman’s tongue unbridled in the house.” He spat. “Together, who knows what they may do?”

I told him pretty sharp to keep his proverbs to himself; if there’s one thing I bar it’s croakers disturbing my peace of mind, especially when they’re leery coves who know their business. Mind you, I began to wonder if he did, for now, after the terrors and transports of my first weeks in Lahore, there came a long spell in which nothing happened at all. We prosed daily about the Soochet legacy, and damned dull it was. The Inheritance Act of 1833 ain’t a patch on the Police Gazette, and after weeks of listening to the drivel of a garlic-breathing dotard in steel spectacles on the precise meaning of “universum jus” and “seisin” I was bored to the point where I almost wrote to Elspeth. Barra choop, indeed.

But if there was no sign of the tempest foretold by Jassa, there was no lack of rumour. As the Dasahra passed, and October lengthened into November, the bazaars were full of talk of British concentration on the river, and Dinanath, of all people, claimed publicly that the Company was preparing to annex Sikh estates on the south bank of the Sutlej; it was also reported that he had said that “the Maharani was willing for war to defend the national honour”. Well, we’d heard that before; the latest definite word was that she’d moved from Amritsar to Shalamar, and was rioting the nights away with Lal. I was surprised that he was still staying the course; doubtless Rai and the Python were spelling him.

Then late in November things began to happen which caused me, reluctantly, to sit up straight. The Khalsa began to reassemble on Maian Mir, Lal was confirmed as Wazir and Tej as commander-in-chief, both made proclamations full of fire and fury, and the leading generals took their oaths on the Granth, pledging undying loyalty to young Dalip with their hands on the canopy of Runjeet’s tomb. You may be sure I saw none of this; diplomatic immunity or not, I was keeping my head well below the parapet, but Jassa gave me eye-witness accounts, taking cheerful satisfaction at every new alarm, curse him.

“They’re just waiting for the astrologers to name the day,” says he. “Even the order of march is cut and dried – Tej Singh to Ferozepore with 42,000 foot, while Lal crosses farther north with 20,000 gorracharra. Yes, sir, they’re primed and ready to fire.”

Not wanting to believe him, I pointed out that strategically the position was no worse than it had been two months earlier.

“Except that there isn’t a rupee left in the Pearl Mosque, and nothing to pay ’em with. I tell you, they either march or explode. I just hope Gough’s ready. What does Broadfoot say?”

That was the most disquieting thing of all – for two weeks I hadn’t had a line from Simla. I’d been cyphering away until Second Thessalonians was dog-eared, without reply. I didn’t tell Jassa that, but reminded him that the final word lay with Jeendan; she’d charmed the Khalsa into delay before, and she could do it again.

“I’ve got ten chips b says she can’t,” says he. “Once the astrologers say the word, it’d be more than her pretty little hide was worth to hold back. If those stars say ‘Go’, she’s bound to give ’em their heads – and God help Ferozepore!”

He lost his bet. “I shall instruct the astrologers,” she had told me, and she must have done, for when the wise men took a dekko at the planets, they couldn’t make head or tail of them. Finally, they admitted that the propitious day was obvious enough, but unfortunately it had been last week and they hadn’t noticed, dammit. The panches weren’t having that, and insisted that another date be found, and sharp about it; the astrologers conferred, and admitted that there was a pretty decent-looking day about a fortnight hence, so far as they could tell at this distance. That didn’t suit either, and the soldiery were ready to string them up, at which the astrologers took fright and said tomorrow was the day, not a doubt of it; couldn’t think how they’d missed it before. Their credit was pretty thin by this time, and although the gorracharra were ordered out of Lahore, Lal took them only a little way beyond Shalamar before hurrying back to the city and the arms of Jeendan, who was once more in residence at the Fort. Tej sent off the infantry by divisions, but stayed at home himself, and the march was petering out, Jassa reported.

I heaved a sigh of relief; plainly Jeendan was being as good as her word. Now that she was back, under the same roof, I considered and instantly dismissed the notion of trying to have a word with her; nothing could have been worse just then than talk spreading in the bazaar and the camp that she’d been colloguing with a British officer. So I sat down to compose a cypher to Broadfoot, describing the confusion caused by the astrologers, and how the Khalsa were marching round in rings without their two leading generals. “In all this (I concluded) I think we may discern a certain lady’s fine Punjabi hand.” Elegant letter-writers, we politicals were in those days – sometimes too elegant for our own good.

I sent it off by way of the Scriptures, and suggested to Jassa that he might canvass Gardner, who had returned with Jeendan, to find out the state of play, but my faithful orderly demurred, pointing out that he was the last man in whom Gardner would confide at any time, “and if the jealous son-of-a-bitch gets the idea that I’m nosing about right now, he’s liable to do me harm. Oh, sure, he’s Broadfoot’s friend – but it’s Dalip’s salt he eats – and Mai Jeendan’s. Don’t forget that. If it comes to war, he can’t be on our side.”

I wasn’t sure about that, but there was nothing to do but wait – for news of the Khalsa’s intentions, and word from Broadfoot. Three days went by, and then a week, in which Lahore buzzed with rumours: the Khalsa were marching, the British were invading, Goolab Singh had declared first for one side then for the other, the Raja of Nabla had announced that he was the eleventh incarnation of Vishnu and was raising a holy war to sweep the foreigners out of India – all the usual twaddle, contradicted as soon as it was uttered, and I could do nothing but endure the Soochet legacy by day, and pace my balcony impatiently in the evening, watching the red dusk die into purple, star-filled night over the fountain court, and listen to the distant murmur of the great city, waiting, like me, for peace or war.

It was nervous work, and lonely, and then on the seventh night, when I had just climbed into bed, who should slip in, all unannounced, but Mangla. News at last, thinks I, and was demanding it as I turned up the lamp, but all the reply she made was to pout reproachfully, cast aside her robe, and hop into bed beside me.

“After six weeks I have not come to talk politics,” says she, rubbing her bumpers across my face. “Ah, taste, bahadur – and then eat to your heart’s content! Have you missed me?”

“Eh? Oh, damnably!” says I, taking a polite munch. “But hold on … what’s the news? Have you a message from your mistress? What’s she doing?”

“This – and this – and this,” says she, teasing busily. “With Lal Singh. Rousing his manhood – but whether for an assault on herself or on the frontier, who knows? Are you jealous of him, then? Am I so poor a substitute?”

“No, dammit! Hold still, can’t you? Look, woman, what’s happening, for heaven’s sake? One moment I hear the Khalsa’s marching, the next that it’s been recalled – is it peace or war? She swore she’d give warning – here, don’t take ’em away! But I must know, don’t you see, so that I can send word –”

“Does it matter?” murmurs the randy little vixen. “At this moment … does it truly matter?”

She was right, of course; there’s a time for everything. So for the next hour or so she relieved the tedium of affairs and reminded me that life isn’t all policy, as old Runjeet said before expiring blissfully. I was ready for it, too, for since my protracted bout with Jeendan I hadn’t seen a skirt except my little maids, and they weren’t worth turning to for.

Afterwards, though, when we lay beneath the punkah, drowsing and drinking, there wasn’t a scrap of news to be got out of her. To all my questions she shrugged her pretty shoulders and said she didn’t know – the Khalsa were still on the leash, but what was in Jeendan’s mind no one could tell. I didn’t believe it; she must have some word for me.

“Then she has not told me. Do you know,” says Mangla, gnawing at my ear, “I think we talk too much of Jeendan – and you have ceased to care for her, I know. All men do. She is too greedy of her pleasure. So she has no lovers – only bed-men. Even Lal Singh takes her only out of fear and ambition. Now I,” says the saucy piece, teasing my lips with hers, “have true lovers, because I delight to give pleasure as well as to take it – especially with my English bahadur. Is it not so?”

D’you know, she was right again. I’d had enough of Punjabi royalty to last a lifetime, and she’d put her dainty finger on the reason: with Jeendan, it had been like making love to a steam road roller. But I still had to know what was in her devious Indian mind, and when Mangla continued to protest ignorance I got in a bate and swore that if she didn’t talk sense I’d thrash it out of her – at which she clapped her hands and offered to get my belt.

So the night wore out, and a jolly time we had of it, with only one interruption, when Mangla complained of the cold draft from the fan. I bawled to the punkah-wallah to go easy, but with the door closed he didn’t hear, so I turned out, cursing. It wasn’t the usual ancient, but another idiot – they’re all alike, fast asleep when you want a cool waft, and freezing you with a nor’easter in the small hours. I leathered the brute, and scampered back for some more Kashmiri culture; it was taxing work, and when I awoke it was full morning, Mangla had gone … and there was a cypher from Broadfoot waiting in Second Thessalonians.

So Jassa had been right – she was the secret courier after all. Well, the little puss … mixing business with pleasure, if you like. I’d wondered if it was she, you remember, on that first day, when she and others had had the opportunity to be at my bedside table. She was the perfect go-between, when you thought about it, able to come and go about the palace as she pleased … the slave-girl who was the richest woman in Lahore – easy for her to bribe and command other couriers, one of whom must have deputised while she was away in Amritsar. How the deuce had Broadfoot recruited her? My respect for my chief had always been high, but it doubled now, I can tell you.

Which was just as well, for if anything could have shaken my faith it was the contents of that cypher. When I’d decoded it I sat staring at the paper for several minutes, and then construed it again, to be sure I had it right. No mistake, it was pukka, and the sweat prickled on my skin as I read it for the tenth time:

Most urgent to Number One alone. On the first night after receipt, you will go in native dress to the French Soldiers’ cabaret between the Shah Boorj and the Buttee Gate. Use the signals and wait for word from Bibi Kalil. Say nothing to your orderly.

Not even an “I remain” or “Believe me &c”. That was all.

The trouble with the political service, you know, is that they can’t tell truth from falsehood. Even members of Parliament know when they’re lying, which is most of the time, but folk like Broadfoot simply ain’t aware of their own prevarications. It’s all for the good of the service, you see, so it must be true – and that makes it uncommon hard for straightforward rascals like me to know when we’re being done browner than an ape’s behind. Mind you, I’d feared the worst when he’d assured me: “It’ll never come to disguise, or anything desperate.” Oh, no, George, never that! Honestly, you’d be safer dealing with lawyers.

And now here it was, my worst fears realised. Flashy was being sent into the deep field – clean-shaven, too, and never a bolt-hole or friend-in-need to bless himself with. Come, you may say, what’s the row – it’s only a rendezvous in disguise, surely? Aye … and then? Who the blazes was this Bibi Kalil – the name might mean anything from a princess to a bawd – and what horror would she steer me to at Broadfoot’s bidding? Well, I’d find out soon enough.

The disguise was the least of it. I had a poshteen in my valise, and had gathered a few odds and ends since coming to Lahore – Persian boots, pyjamys and sash for lounging on the hotter days, and the like. My own shirt would do, once I’d trampled it underfoot, and I improvised a puggaree from a couple of towels. Ordinarily I’d have borrowed Jassa’s gear, but he was to be kept in the dark – that was something about the cypher that struck me as middling odd: the last sentence was unnecessary, since the word “alone” at the beginning meant that the whole thing was secret to me. Presumably George was just “makin’ siccar”, as he would say.

Leaving the Fort was less simple. I’d strolled out once or twice of an evening, but never beyond the market at the Hazooree Gate on the inner wall, which was the better-class bazaar serving the quality homes which lay south of the Fort, before you came to the town proper. I daren’t assume my disguise inside the palace, so I stuffed it into a handbag, all but the boots, which I put on under my unutterables.c Then it was a case of making sure that Jassa wasn’t on hand, and slipping out to the gardens after dark. There were few folk about, and in no time I was behind a bush, staggering about with my foot tangled in my pants, damning Broadfoot and the mosquitoes. I wrapped the puggaree well forward over my head, dirtied my face, put the bag with my civilised duds into a cleft in the garden wall, prayed that I might return to claim them, and sallied forth.

Now, I’ve “gone native” more times than I can count, and it’s all a matter of confidence. Your amateur gives himself away because he’s sure everyone can see through his disguise, and behaves according. They can’t, of course; for one thing, they ain’t interested, and if you amble along doing no harm, you’ll pass. I’ll never forget sneaking out of Lucknow with T. H. Kavanaugh during the siege;d he was a great Irish murphy without sense or a word of Hindi, figged out like the worst kind of pantomime pasha with the lamp-black fairly running off his fat red cheeks, and cursing in Tipperary the whole way – and not a mutineer gave him a second look, hardly. Now, my beardless chops were my chief anxiety, but I’m dark enough, and an ugly scowl goes a long way.

I had my pepperbox, but I bought a belt and a Kashmiri short sword in the market for added security, and to test my appearance and elocution. I’m at my easiest as a Pathan ruffler speaking Pushtu or, in this case, bad Punjabi, so I spat a good deal, growled from the back of my throat, and beat the booth-wallah down to half-price; he didn’t even blink, so when I reached the alleys of the native town I stopped at a stall for a chapatti and a gossip, to get the feel of things and pick up any shave e that might be going. The lads of the village were full of the impending war, and how the gorracharra had crossed the river unopposed at the Harree ghat, and the British were abandoning Ludhiana – which wasn’t true, as it happened.

“They have lost the spirit,” says one know-all. “Afghanistan was the death of them.”

“Afghanistan is everyone’s death,” says another. “Didn’t my own uncle die at Jallalabad, peace be on him?”

“In the British war?”

“Nay, he was cook to a horse caravan, and a bazaar woman gave him a loathsome disease. He had ointments, from a hakim,f to no avail, for his nose fell off and he died, raving. My aunt blamed the ointments. Who knows, with an Afghan hakim?”

“That is how we should slay the British!” cackles an ancient. “Send the Maharani to infect them! Hee-hee, she must be rotten by now!”

I didn’t care for that, and neither did a burly cove in a cavalry coat. “Be decent, pig! She is the mother of thy king, who will sit on the throne in London Fort when we of the Khalsa have eaten the Sirkar’s army!”

“Hear him!” scoffs the old comedian. “The Khalsa will march on the ocean then, to reach London?”

“What ocean, fool? London lies only a few cosg beyond Meerut.”

“Is it so far?” says I, playing the yokel. “Have you been there?”

“Myself, no,” admitted the Khalsa bird. “But my havildar was there as a camel-driver. It is a poor place, by all accounts, not so great as Lahore.”

“Nay, now,” cries the one with the poxy uncle. “The houses in London are faced with gold, and even the public privies have doors of silver. This I was told.”

“That was before the war with the Afghans,” says the Khalsa’s prize liar, whose style I was beginning to admire. “It beggared the British, and now they are in debt to the Jews; even Wellesley sahib, who broke Tipoo and the Maharattas aforetime, can get no credit, and the young queen and her waiting-women sell themselves on the streets. So my havildar tells; he had one of them.”

“Does he have his nose still?” cries another, and there was great merriment.

“Aye, laugh!” cries the ancient. “But if London is grown poor, where is all this loot on which we are to grow fat when you heroes of the Pure have brought it home?”

“Now God give him wit! Where else but in Calcutta, in the Hebrews’ strong-boxes. We shall march on thither when we have taken London and Glash-ka where they grow tobacco and make the iron boats.”

About as well-informed, you see, as our own public were about India. I lingered a little longer, until I was thinking in Punjabi, and then, with that well-known hollow feeling in my innards, set off on my reluctant way.

The Shah Boorj is at the south-western corner of Lahore city, less than a mile away as the crow flies, but nearer two when you must pick your way through the winding ways of the old town. Foul ways they were, too, running with filth past hovels tenanted by ugly beggar folk who glared from doorways or scavenged among the refuse with the rats and pi-dogs; the air was so poisonous that I had to wrap my puggaree over my mouth, as though to strain the pestilential vapours as I picked my way past pools of rotting filth. A few fires among the dung-heaps provided the only light, and everywhere there were bright, wicked eyes, human and animal, that shrank away as I approached, lengthening my stride to get through that hellish place, but always I could imagine horrid shapes pressing behind me, and blundered on like the chap in the poem who daren’t look back because he knows there’s a hideous goblin on his heels.

Presently the going was better, between high tenements and warehouses, and only a few night-lurkers hurrying by. Near the south wall the streets were wider, with decent houses set back behind high walls; a couple of palkis went by, swaying between their bearers, and there was even a chowkidarh patrolling with his lantern and staff. But I still felt damnably alone, with the squalid, hostile warren between me and home – that was how I now thought of the Fort which I’d approached with such alarm a couple of months ago. Very adaptable, we funks are.

The French Soldiers’ cabaret was close to the Buttee Gate, and if the Frog mercenaries whose crude portraits adorned its walls could have seen it, they’d have sought redress at law. They squinted out of their frames on a great, noisy, reek-filled chamber – Ventura, Allard, Court, and even my old chum Avitabile, looking like the Italian bandit he was with his tasselled cap and spiky moustachioes. I’d settle for you alongside this minute, thinks I, as I surveyed the company: villainous two-rupee bravos, painted harpies who should have been perched in trees, a seedy flute-and-tom-tom band accompanying a couple of gyrating nautches whom you wouldn’t have touched with a long pole, and Sikh brandy fit to corrode a bucket. I’ll never say a word against Boodle’s again, says I to myself; at least there you don’t have to sit with your back to the wall.

I found a stool between two beauties who’d evidently been sleeping in a camel stable, bought a glass of arrack that I took care not to drink, growled curtly when addressed, and sat like a good little political, using the signals – thumb between the first two fingers and scratching my right armpit from time to time. Half the clientele were clawing themselves in the same way, with good reason, which was disconcerting, but I sat grimly on, wishing I’d gone into Holy Orders and ignoring the blandishments of sundry viragos of the sort you can have for fourpence with a mutton pie and a pint of beer thrown in, but better not, for the pie meat’s sure to be off. They sulked or snarled at me, according to taste, but the last one, a henna’d banshee with bad teeth, said I was choosy, wasn’t I, and what had I expected in a place like this – Bibi Kalil?

There was so much noise that I doubted if anyone else had heard her, but I waited till she’d flounced off, and another ten minutes for luck. Then I rose and shouldered my way to the door, taking my time; sure enough, she was waiting in the shadow of the porch. Without a word she led on up the alley, and I followed close, my heart thumping and my hand on the pepperbox under my poshteen as I scanned the shadows ahead. We went by twisting ways until she stopped by a high wall with an open wicket. “Through the garden and round the house. Your friend is waiting,” she whispered, and vanished into the dark.

I glanced about to mark lines of flight, and went cautiously in. A small bushy enclosure surrounded a tall well-kept house, and directly before me a steep outside stair led up to a little arched porch on the upper floor, with a dimly-lit doorway beyond. Round the angle of the house to my left light was spilling from a ground-floor room that I couldn’t see – that was my way, then, but even as I set forward the light in the arch overhead shone brighter as the door beyond was fully opened, and a woman came out silently on to the little porch. She stood looking down into the garden, this way and that, but by then I was in the bushes, taking stock.

Peering up through the leaves I could see her clearly, and if this was Bibi Kalil I didn’t mind a bit. She was tall, fine-featured as an Afghan, heavy of hip and bosom in her fringed trousers and jacket, a matronly welterweight and just my style. Then she moved back inside, and since my immediate business was round the corner on the ground floor (alas!), I heaved a sigh and turned that way … and stopped dead as I recalled a word that my guide had used.

“Friend”? That wasn’t political talk. “Brother” or “sister” was usual … and whoever had instructed her would have told her the exact words to say. Back to my mind came that other queer phrase in Broadfoot’s message: “Say nothing to your orderly …” That hadn’t been quite pukka, either. They were just two tiny things, but all of a sudden the dark seemed deeper and the night quieter. Coward’s instinct, if you like, but if I’m still here and in good health, bar my creaky kidneys and a tendency to wind, it’s because I shy at motes, never mind beams – and I don’t walk straight in where I can scout first. So instead of going openly round the house as directed, I skulked round, behind the bushes, until I was past the angle and could squint through the foliage into that well-lit ground floor room with its open screens … and have a quiet apoplectic fit to myself, holding on to a branch for support.

There were half a dozen men in the room, armed and waiting, and they included, inter alia, General Maka Khan, his knife-toting sidekick Imam Shah, and that crazy Akali who’d denounced Jeendan at the durbar. Leading men of the Khalsa, sworn enemies of the Sirkar, waiting for old Flash to roll in … “friends”, bigod! And I was meant to believe that Broadfoot had directed me to them?

Well, I didn’t, not for an instant – which was the time it took me to realise that something was hellishly, horribly wrong … that this was a trap, and my head was all but in its jaws, and nothing for it but instant flight. You don’t stop to reason how or why at times like that – you grit your teeth to keep ’em from chattering, and back away slowly through the bushes with your innards dissolving, taking care not to rustle the leaves, until you’re close by the gate, when you think you hear furtive movement out in the alley, and start violently, treading on a stick that snaps with a report like a bloody howitzer, and you squeal and leap three feet – and if you’re lucky an angel of mercy in fringed trousers reappears on the porch overhead, hissing: “Flashman sahib! This way, quickly!”

I was up that stair like a fox with an arseful of buckshot, tripping on the top step and falling headlong past the woman and slap into the arms of a burly old ruffian who was hobbling nimbly out of the inner doorway. I had a glimpse of huge white whiskers and glaring eyes under a black turban, but before I could exclaim I was in a bear’s grip with a hand like a ham over my mouth.

“Chub’rao! Khabadar!”i growls he. “A thousand hells – get your great infidel foot off my toe! Don’t you English know what it is to have the gout, then?” And to the woman: “Have they heard?”

She stood a moment on the porch, listening, and then slid in, closing the door softly. “There are men in the alley, and sounds from the garden room!” Her voice was deep and husky, and in the dim light I could see her poonts bouncing with agitation.

“Shaitan take them!” snarls he. “It’s now or not at all, then! Down, chabeli,j by the secret stair – look for Donkal and the horses!” He was bundling me into the room. “Haste, woman!”

“He won’t be there yet!” whispers the woman. “With their look-outs in the streets he must even wait!” She shot me a swift look, moistening her full lips. “Besides, I fear the dark. Do you go, while I wait here with him.”

“God, she would flirt on the edge of the Pit!” fumes the old buck. “Have ye no sense of fitness, with the house crawling with foes and my foot like to burst? Away and look out from the street window, I say! You can ravish him another time!”

She glared but went, flitting across the shadowy chamber to a low door in the far wall, while he stood gripping my arm, the great white-whiskered head raised to listen, but the only sounds were my heart hammering and his own gusty breathing. He glanced at me, and spoke hoarse and low.

“Flashman the Afghan killer – aye, ye have the beastly look! They are down there – rats of the Khalsa, lying in wait for you –”

“I know – I saw them! How –”

“You were lured, with a false message. Subtle fellows, these.”

I stared, horror-stricken. “But that’s impossible! It … it can’t be false! No one could –”

“Oho, so you’re not here, and neither are they!” says he, grinning savagely. “Wait till their flayers set about you, fool, and you’ll change your mind! Are you armed?”

I showed him, and would you believe it, he fell into whispered admiration of my pepperbox? “It turns so? Six shots, you say? A marvel! With one of these, who needs rent collectors? By God, at need we can cut our way out, you with shot and I with steel! Fiend take the woman, where is she? Ogling some prowler, like as not! Ah, my poor foot – they say drink inflames it, but I believe it comes of kneeling at prayer! Alas, why did I rise from my bed this day?”

All this in muttered whispers in the gloom, and me beside myself with fear, not knowing what the devil was up, except that the hosts of Midian were after me, but that I seemed to have found two eccentric friends, thank God – and whoever they might be, they weren’t common folk. You don’t take careful note at such times, but even in the grip of funk I was aware that while the lady might have a wanton eye, she talked like a sultana; the tiny room was opulent as a palace, with dim lamps shining on silk and silver; and my gouty old sportsman could only be some tremendous swell. Command was in every line of the stout, powerful figure, bold curved nose, and bristling beard, and he was dressed like a fighting raja – a great ruby in his turban, silver studs on the quilted leather jack, black silk pyjamys tucked into high boots, and a jewel-hilted broadsword on his hip. Who on earth was he? Keeping my voice down, I asked him, and he chuckled and answered in his growling whisper, his eye on the door.

“You cannot guess? So much for fame! Ah, but you know me well, Flashman sahib – and that sweet hussy whose tardiness perils our safety. Aye, ye’ve been busy about our affairs these two months!” He grinned at my bewilderment. “Bibi Kalil is only her pet name – she is the widow of my brother, Soochet Singh, peace be on him. And I am Goolab Singh.”

If I stared, it wasn’t in disbelief. He fitted the description in Broadfoot’s packets, even to the gout. But Goolab Singh, once pretender to the throne, the rebel who’d made himself king in Kashmir in defiance of the durbar, should have been “behind a rock up Jumoo way, with fifty thousand hillmen”, as George had put it. He must be the most wanted man in Lahore this minute, for while there had been some in the Khalsa who’d nominated him for Wazir, Jeendan had since exposed him as a British ally – which was fine by me just then, but didn’t explain his presence here.

“Let that explain it,” says he, as Bibi Kalil emerged from the low door. “This is her house, and the pretty widow has admirers –” he pointed downwards – “men high in the Khalsa panches. She makes them welcome, they talk freely, and I, lying close to Lahore in these days of trouble, hear it all from her. So when they hatch a plot to take you – why, here am I, gout and all, to prove my loyalty to the Sirkar by rescuing its servant –”

“What the hell do they want with me?”

“To talk with you – over a slow fire, I believe … well, little jujube, what of Donkal?”

“No sign of him – Goolab, there are men in the streets, and others in the garden!” Her voice shook, and her eyes were wide in alarm, but she wasn’t one of your vapouring pieces. “I heard Imam Shah call for the wench who brought you,” she adds to me.

“Aye, well, there’s an end to waiting,” says Goolab cheerfully. “She’ll tell them you entered, they’ll beat the bushes – then they’ll bethink them of upstairs …” He cocked an ear as distant voices came from the garden below. “Maka Khan grows impatient. Have your revolving gun ready, Englishman!”

Bibi Kalil gave a little gasp, and pressed close to me, trembling, but I was in no case to enjoy it; she put an arm round me, and I clasped her instinctively – for reassurance, not lust, I can tell you. The questions that had been racing pell-mell through my mind – how I’d come to be trapped in this gilded hell-hole, how those Khalsa swine had known I was coming, why Goolab and this palpitating armful were on hand to aid me – mattered nothing beside those terrible words “slow fire”, uttered almost idly by this crazy old bandit who, with fifty thousand hillmen at his call, had apparently brought only one who was farting about in the dark … and then my blood froze and I clutched the widow for support, as footsteps sounded on the outside stair.

She clung in return, Goolab’s hand dropped to his hilt, and we waited there still as death, until a sharp knock fell on the door. A moment’s pause, and then a man’s voice:

“Lady? Are you there? My lady?”

She turned those fine eyes on me, helplessly, and then Goolab stepped close, his lips at her ear. “Who is he? D’ye know him?”

Her reply was a faint perfumed breath. “Sefreen Singh. Aide to Maka Khan.”

“An admirer?” The old devil was bright with mischief, even now, and it was a moment before she shrugged and whispered: “From a distance.”

Another knock. “Lady?”

“Ask him what he wants,” whispers Goolab.

I felt her tremble, but she did it well, calling out in a sleepy voice: “Who is it?”

“Sefreen Singh, my lady.” A pause. “Are you … pardon me … are you alone?”

She waited and then called: “I’m asleep … what was that? Of course I’m alone …” Goolab grimaced over her head at me – he was enjoying this, rot him!

“A thousand pardons, lady.” The voice was all apology. “I have orders to search. There is a badmash about. If you will please to open …”

“Well, he’s not here,” she was beginning, but Goolab was at her ear again:

“We must let him in! But first … beguile him.” He winked. “If he is to enter with a weapon ready, let it not be a steel one.”

She glared, but nodded, gave me a melting glance as she disengaged her right tit from my unwitting grasp, and called out impatiently. “Oh, very well … a moment …”

Goolab drew his sabre noiselessly, passed it to me, and took the short sword from my belt, pricking his thumb on the point. “He’s mine. If I miss … take off his head.” He limped swiftly to the latch side of the door, motioned me to stand behind it, and nodded to the widow. She set her hand on the bolt and spoke softly:

“Sefreen Singh … are you alone?” Honey wouldn’t have melted.

“Why … why, yes, my lady!”

“You’re sure?” She gave a little murmuring laugh. “In that case … if you promise to stay a while … you may come in …”

She slipped the bolt, opened the door, and turned away, glancing over her shoulder, and in steps Barnacle Bill, not believing his luck, to receive Goolab’s updriven point beneath his bearded chin before he’d gone a step. One savage, expert thrust into the brain – he went down without a sound, Goolab breaking his fall, and when I turned from fumbling the door to with a shaking hand the old ruffian was wiping his blade on the dead man’s shirt.

“Eighty-two,” chuckles he, and Bibi Kalil gave a long, shuddering sigh between clenched teeth; her eyes were shining with excitement. Aye, well, that’s India for you.

“Now, away!” snaps Goolab. “This buys us moments, no more! Do you show him the way down, chabeli! I’ll bide here until you’re at the street door –”

“Why?” cries the widow.

“Oh, to beguile my leisure!” snarls he. “In case others come knocking, you witless heifer! Can I keep up, with my foot afire? But I can hold a door – aye, or parley, perchance! They may think twice before putting steel into Goolab Singh!” He thrust us away. “Out with him, woman, so that he can sing the praise of this night’s work to Hardinge sahib! Go! Never fear, I’ll follow!”

But first she must embrace him, and he laughed and kissed her, saying that she was a good-sister to be proud of. Then she had me by the hand, and we were through the low door and down stone steps to a passage which ended in an iron grille. Beyond it the alley lay dark and deserted, but she shrank back, gasping that we must wait. Between the danger behind and the unknown perils out yonder, I was scared neutral, and in a moment Goolab came hobbling down, yelping at each step.

“I heard them on the outer stair! God’s love, if this doesn’t win me the White Queen’s seal on Kashmir, there’s no gratitude left! What, an empty street! Well, empty or not, we cannot wait! My sabre, Flashman – we stout bellies need a full sweep! Now, harken – back to back if we must, but if it grows hot, each for himself!”

“I’ll not leave you, my lord!” cries Bibi Kalil.

“You’ll do as I bid, insolence! At all costs, he must win clear, or our labour’s wasted! Now – one either side of me, and open the gate, softly …”

“But Donkal is not come!” wails the widow.

“Donkal be damned! We have five feet among us, but we’ll lack three heads if we linger! Come on!”

We stumbled into the alley, the widow and I supporting his ponderous weight, and blundered ahead into the dark, myself in blind panic, Bibi Kalil whimpering softly, and the Lord of Kashmir gasping blasphemies and encouragement – all we needed was a bowl to put to sea in. From beyond the house we could hear voices raised, and the distant sound of hammering on a door, with someone calling for Sefreen Singh. We reached the alley end, and as Bibi Kalil sped ahead to scout, Goolab hung on my shoulder, panting.

“Aye, get up, Sefreen, and let them in!” croaks he. “All clear, sweetheart? Bless her plump limbs, when we come to Jumoo she’ll have a new emerald each day, and singing girls to tell her stories – aye, and twenty stalwart lads as bodyguards – on, on, quickly! Oh, for five sound toes again!”

We stumbled round the corner and on into a little court where four ways met, and a torch guttered in a bracket overhead, casting weird shadows. Bibi Kalil sped to one of the openings – and screamed suddenly, darting back, Goolab stubbed his gouty foot and tumbled down, cursing, and as I hauled him up two men came bounding out of the alley and hurled themselves on us.

If they’d been out to kill, we’d have been done for, with me hauling at the stranded Goolab – but capture was what they were after. The first clutched for my sword-arm, and got my point in the shoulder for his pains. “Shabash, Afghan killer!” roars Goolab, still on his knees, and ran him through the body, but even as the fellow went down, his comrade threw himself on Goolab, choking off the triumphant yell of “Eighty-three!” and bearing him to earth. Bibi Kalil ran in, screaming and tearing at the attacker’s face with her nails, while I danced about making shrill noises and looking for a chance to pink him – until it occurred to me that there were better uses for my time than this, and I turned tail up the nearest alley.

Well, Goolab had said each for himself, but I won’t pretend that I’ve ever needed leave to bolt. I hadn’t been given the precious gift of life to cast it away in back alleys, brawling on behalf of fat rajas and randy widows, and I was going like a startled fawn and rejoicing in my youth when I saw a glare of torchlight ahead of me, and realised with horror that round the next corner running feet were approaching. Serve you right, poltroon, says you, for leaving pals in the lurch, now you’ll get your cocoa – but we practised absconders don’t give up so easy, I can tell you. I came to a slithering halt, and as the powers of darkness came surging into view, full of spite and action, I was stock-still and pointing back to the little court, where Goolab and the widow could be seen apparently disembowelling the Second Robber, who wasn’t taking it quietly.

“Here they are, brothers!” I shouted. “On, on, and take them! They’re ours!”

I even started back towards the court, stumbling artistically to let them catch up – and if you think it was a desperate stratagem … well, it was, but it seldom fails, and it would have succeeded then if I’d had the wit to follow a yard or two farther as they raced past me. But I was too quick to turn again and flee; one of them must have seen me from the tail of his eye and realised that this vociferous badmash wasn’t one of the gang, for he pulled up, yelling, and came after me. I held my lead round one corner and the next, saw a convenient opening and dodged through it, and crouched gasping in the shadows as the pursuit went tearing by. I leaned against the wall, eyes closed, utterly done with fear and exertion, getting my breath back, and only when I took a cautious peep out did it strike me that the scenery was familiar … the little wicket in the opening … I squealed aloud, wheeling round, and sure enough, there before me was the outside stairway up to the porch, and two fellows were carrying down the earthly remains of Sefreen Singh, and from various parts of Bibi Kalil’s garden about a dozen bearded faces were regarding me with astonishment. Among them, not ten feet away, arms akimbo and scowling like a teetotal magistrate, was General Maka Khan, and beside him, exclaiming with unholy delight, was the Akali fanatic.

I’ve said I don’t give up easy, and it’s with pride that I recall tumbling out into the alley and tottering away, calling for the police, but they were on me within five yards, bearing me bodily into the garden, while I announced my name and consequence at the top of my voice, until they stuffed a gag into my mouth. They dragged me round to the garden room and thrust me into a chair, two holding my arms and a third my hair; they were street rascals, but the others who crowded in were Khalsa to a man, some in uniform; apart from Maka and the Akali there were Sikh officers, a burly naikk of artillery with a hideously-pitted face, and Imam Shah, knives and all. He threw my bloodstained short sword on the table.

“Two dead in the street, lord general,” says he. “And your aide, Sefreen. The others who were with this one have not yet been found –”

“Then stop the search,” says Maka Khan. “We have what we want – and if one of the others is who I think he is … the less we see of him the better.”

“And the widow?” cries the Akali. “That practising slut who has betrayed us?”

“Let them both go! They’ll do us less harm alive than if we had their deaths to answer for.” He pointed at me. “Remove the gag.”

They did, and I choked down my fear and was beginning my diplomatic bluster, demanding release and safe-conduct and immunity and the rest, but I’d barely got the length of warning them of the consequences of assaulting an accredited envoy when Maka Khan snapped me off short.

“You are no envoy – and you’ve forgotten what it is to be a soldier!” barks he. “You are a murderer and a spy!”

“It’s a lie! I didn’t kill him, I swear! It was Goolab Singh! Damn you all, loose me this instant, you villains, or it’ll be the worse for you! I’m an agent of Sir Henry Hardinge –”

“An agent of Black-coat Broadfoot!” blazes the Akali, shaking his fist. “You send out cyphers, betraying the secrets of our durbar! You put them in the Holy Book by your bed – blaspheming your own putrid faith! – whence your old punkah-wallah took them to a courier for Simla! Aye, until we found him out two weeks ago, and questioned him,” gloats this maniac, “and learned enough to nail your guilt to your forehead! Aye, gape, spy! We know!”

No doubt I was gaping – in part, at the news that the mysterious messenger of Second Thessalonians was not Mangla, as I’d suspected, but that lean-shanked ancient who’d operated my fan so inefficiently … and who must have vanished without my noticing, to be replaced by the clown I’d leathered only last night. But they were bluffing; they could question the old buffoon until Hell froze – those cyphers were Greek to him, and to everyone else, save Broadfoot and me. I wasn’t reasoning too clearly, you understand, but I saw the line I must take.

“General Maka Khan!” cries I, no doubt in indignant falsetto. “This is outrageous! I demand to be set free at once! To be sure I send coded messages to my chief – so does every ambassador, and you know it! But to suggest that they contain any … any secrets of the durbar, is … is, why, it’s a damnable insult! They … they were my confidential opinions on the Soochet legacy, for Sir Henry and his advisers –”

“Including your opinion that the astrologers’ failure to find a date for our march was caused by ‘a lady’s fine Punjabi hand’?” says he, sternly. “Yes, Mr Flashman, we have read that message, and every other that you’ve sent this ten days past, as well as those coming to you from Simla.” So that was why George’s correspondence had dried up …

“We have enough to hang you, spy!” shouts the Akali, spraying me with spittle. “But first we would know what else you’ve betrayed – and you’ll tell us, you sneaking dog!”

I wasn’t hearing aright … or they were lying. They might have intercepted messages – but they couldn’t have deciphered them, not in a century. Yet Maka had just quoted my own words to Broadfoot … and Goolab had spoken of a false message to entrap me. I hadn’t had time to ponder that impossibility … no, it couldn’t be so! The key to that cypher was based on random words in an English novel that they’d never heard of – and even if they had, it would be as useless to them as a safe to which they didn’t know the combination.

“It’s all false, I tell you!” I stammered. “General, I appeal to you! Those messages were innocent, on my honour!”

He gave me a long cold stare while I babbled, and then he called out, and in trooped the oddest trio – a bespectacled little weed of a chi-chi in a soiled European suit, and two jelly-fat babus who smirked uneasily among all these rough military men. The chi-chi carried a sheaf of papers which, at a sign from Maka Khan, were thrust before my eyes … and my heart missed a beat. For it was a manuscript, in English, copied exactly, line for line, space for space, and the top sheet bore the unbelievable words:

“Crotchet Castle. By Thomas Love Peacock”.

And beneath the title, in a clerkly Indian hand, but again in English, were precise directions for using the book in the encoding of messages.