If life has taught me anything at all, it’s how to keep my countenance in the presence of strong, authoritative men whose rightful place is in a padded cell. I’ve known a power of them, to my cost, and Alick Gardner’s a minor figure in a list that includes the likes of Bismarck, Palmerston, Lincoln, Gordon, John Charity Spring, M.A., George Custer, and the White Raja, to say nothing of my beloved mentor, Dr Arnold, and my old guv’nor (who did end his days in a blue-devil factory, bless him). Many of them men of genius, no doubt, but all sharing the delusion that they could put any proposal, however lunatic, to young Flashy and make him like it. There’s no arguing with such fellows, of course; all you can do, if you’re lucky, is nod and say: “Well, sir, that’s an interesting notion, to be sure – just before you tell me more about it, would you excuse me for a moment?” and once you’re round the corner, make for the high ground. I’ve seldom had that chance, unfortunately, and there’s nothing for it but to sit with an expression of attentive idiocy trying to figure a way out. Which is what I did with Gardner while he elaborated his monstrous suggestion.
“You’re going with the Khalsa,” says he, “to ensure its defeat. It’s doomed and damned already, thanks to Mai Jeendan – but you can make it certain.”
You see what I mean – the man was plainly must,a doolali, afflicted of Allah, too long in the hills altogether – but one doesn’t like to say so, straight out, not to a chap who affects tartan pants and has a Khyber knife across his lap. So I avoided the main point for a lesser but equally curious one.
“I don’t quite follow, Gardner, old fellow,” says I. “You say the Khalsa’s doomed … and it’s Jeendan’s doing? But … she never wanted this war, you know. She’s been working to avoid it – hocussing the Khalsa, delaying ’em, holding ’em back. They know it, too – Maka Khan told me. And now they’ve broken loose, in spite of her –”
“In spite of … why, you jackass!” cries he, glaring like the Ancient Mariner. “She started it! Don’t you understand – she’s been planning this war for months! Why? To destroy the Khalsa, of course – to see it exterminated, root and branch! Sure, she held ’em back – until the cold weather, until she’d fixed it so they have the worst possible generals, until she’d bought time for Gough! But not to avoid war, no sir! Just to make sure that when she did send ’em in, the Khalsa would get whipped five ways to Sunday! Don’t you know that?”
“Talk sense – why should she want to destroy her own army?”
“Because if she doesn’t, it will sure as hell destroy her in the end!” He fetched a deep breath. “See here … you know the Khalsa’s gotten too big for its britches, don’t you? For six years it’s been ruining the Punjab, defying government, doing as it dam’ well pleases –”
“I know all that, but –”
“Well, don’t you see, the ruling clique – Jeendan and the nobles – have had their power and fortunes wiped out, their very existence threatened? So of course they want the Khalsa crushed – and the only force on earth that can do that is John Company! That’s why they’ve been trying to provoke a war – that’s why Jawaheer wanted one! But they murdered him – and that’s another score Mai Jeendan has to settle. You remember her that night at Maian Mir, don’t you? She was sentencing the Khalsa then, Mr Flashman – now she’s executing them!”
I remembered her screaming hate at the Khalsa over Jawaheer’s body – but Gardner still wasn’t making sense. “Dammit, if the Khalsa goes under, she’ll go with it!” I protested. “She’s their queen – and you say she’s set them on! Well, if they lose, she’ll be finished, won’t she?”
He sighed, shaking his head. “Son, it won’t even take the dander out of her hair. When they lose, she’s won. Consider … Britain doesn’t want to conquer the Punjab – too much trouble. It just wants it nice and quiet, with no Khalsa running wild, and a stable Sikh government who’ll do what Hardinge tells ’em. So … when the Khalsa’s licked, your chiefs won’t annex the Punjab – no, sir! They’ll find it convenient to keep little Dalip on the throne, with Jeendan as regent – which means that she and the nobles will be riding high again, squeezing the fat out of the country just like old times – and with no Khalsa to worry about.”
“Hold on! Are you saying that this war’s a put-up job – that they know, in Simla, that Jeendan is hoping we’ll destroy her army, for her own benefit? I won’t have that! Why, it’d be collusion … conspiracy … aiding and abetting –”
“No such thing! Oh, they know in Simla what she’s after – or they suspect, leastways. But what can they do about it? Give the Khalsa free passage to Delhi?” He snorted. “Hardinge’s got to fight, whether he likes it or not! And while he may not welcome the war, there are plenty of ‘forward policy’ men like Broadfoot who do. But that doesn’t mean they’re in cahoots with Mai Jeendan – the way she’s fixed things, they don’t need to be!”
I sat silent, trying to take it in … and feeling no end of a fool. Evidently I had misjudged the lady. Oh, I’d guessed there was steel inside my drunken, avid little houri, but hardly of the temper that could slaughter scores of thousands of men just for her own political convenience and personal comfort. Mind you, what other reasons do statesmen and princes ever have for making war, when all the sham’s been stripped away? Oh, and she had her sot of a brother to avenge, to be sure. But I wondered if her calculations were right; I could spot one almighty imponderable, and I voiced it to Gardner, whether it sounded like croaking or not.
“But suppose we don’t beat the Khalsa? How can she be so sure we will? There’s a hell of a lot of ’em, and we’re spread thin … Wait, though! Maka Khan was in a great sweat in case she’d betrayed their plans of campaign! Well, has she?”
Gardner shook his head. “She’s done better than that. She’s put the conduct of the war in the hands of Lal Singh, her Wazir and lover, and Tej Singh, her commander-in-chief who’d set fire to his own mother to keep warm.” He nodded grimly. “They’ll see to it that Gough doesn’t have too much trouble.”
Suddenly I remembered Lal Singh’s words to me … “I wonder how we should acquit ourselves against such a seasoned campaigner as Sir Hugh Gough …?”
“My God,” says I, with reverence. “You mean they’re ready to … to fight a cross? To sell the pass? But … does Gough know? I mean, have they arranged with him –?”
“No, sir. That’s your part. That’s why you have to join the Khalsa.” He leaned forward, the hawk face close to mine. “You’re going to Lal Singh. By tomorrow he’ll be lying before Ferozepore with twenty thousand gorracharra. He’ll tell you his plans, and Tej Singh’s – numbers, armaments, dispositions, intentions, all of it – and you’ll carry them to Gough and Hardinge. And then … well, it should be an interesting little war … what’s the matter?”
I’d been struggling for speech during this fearful recital, but when I found words it wasn’t to protest, or argue, or scream, but to pose a profound military question:
“But … hell’s bells! Look here … they can give away plans – arrange for a few regiments to go astray – lose a battle on purpose, I dare say … But, man alive, how do they betray an army of a hundred thousand men? I mean … how d’you sell a whole war?”
“It’ll take management, no denying. As I said, an interesting little war.” He tossed another billet on the fire, and rose. “When it’s over, and you’re back in Lahore with the British peace mission – you can tell me all about it.”
My first thought, as I sat by the fire with my head in my hands, was: this is Broadfoot’s doing. He’s planned the whole hideous thing, start to finish, and kept me in the dark till the last moment, the treacherous, crooked, conniving, Scotch … political! Well, I was doing him an injustice; for once, George was innocent. He might welcome the war, as Gardner had said, and have a shrewd notion that Jeendan was launching the Khalsa in the hope of seeing it wrecked, but neither he nor anyone else in Simla knew that the Sikhs’ two leading commanders were under her orders to give the whole game away. Nor could he guess the base use that was being made of his prize agent, Lieutenant Flashman, late 11th Hussars, in this hour of crisis.
The notion that I should be the messenger of betrayal had been another inspiration of Jeendan’s, according to Gardner. How long she’d had me in mind for the role of go-between, he didn’t know; she’d confided it to him only the previous day, and he and Mangla would have brought me my marching orders that same night – if I hadn’t been away gallivanting with the Khalsa and Goolab and the merry widow. Most inconsiderate of me, but all’s ill that ends ill – here I was still, ankle crocked and guts fermenting with fright, meet to be hurled into the soup in furtherance of that degenerate royal doxy’s intrigues, and no way to cry off that I could see.
I tried, you may be sure, pleading my ankle, and the impossibility of taking orders from any but my own chiefs, and the folly of venturing again among enemies who’d already toasted me to a turn – Gardner answered every objection with the blunt fact that someone had to take Lal’s plans to Gough, and no one else had my qualifications. It was my duty, says he, and if you wonder that I bowed to his authority – well, take a squint at the portrait in his Memoirs; that should convince you.
I’m still not sure, by the way, exactly where his loyalties lay. To Dalip and Jeendan, certainly: what she ordered, he performed. But he played a staunch game on our behalf, too, and on Goolab Singh’s. When I ventured to ask him where he stood, he looked down that beak of a nose and snapped: “On my own two feet!” So there.
He had Jeendan’s infernal scheme all pat, and after I’d had a couple of hours’ sleep and Jassa had rebound my swollen ankle, he lined it out to me; horrid risky it sounded.
“You ride straight hence to Lal’s camp beyond the Sutlej, with four of my men as escort, all of you disguised as gorracharra. Ganpat there will act as leader and spokesman; he’s a safe man.” This was his jemadar, a lean Punjabi with an Abanazar moustache; he and the half-dozen other riders had come out from the city by now, and were loafing round the fire, chewing betel and spitting, while Gardner bullied me privately.
“You’ll arrive by night, presenting yourselves as messengers from the durbar; that’ll see you into Lal’s presence. He’ll be expecting you; word of mouth goes to him today from Jeendan.”
“Suppose Maka Khan or that bloody Akali turn up – they’ll recognise me straight off –”
“They’ll be nowhere near! They’re infantrymen – Lal commands only cavalry and horse guns. Besides, no one’s going to know you in gorracharra gear – and you won’t be in their camp long enough to signify. A few hours at most – just long enough to learn what Lal and Tej mean to do.”
“They’ll take Ferozepore,” says I. “That’s plain. They’re bound to put Littler out of the game before Gough can relieve him.”
He gave an impatient snarl. “That’s what they’d do if they wanted to win the goddam war! They don’t! But their brigadiers and colonels do, so Lal and Tej are going to have to look as though they’re trying like hell! Lal’s going to have to think of some damned good reason for not storming Ferozepore, and since he’s a duffer of a soldier as well as a yellow-belly, he’s liable to go cross-eyed if his subordinates present him with a sound plan … Now what?”
“It won’t do!” I bleated. “Maka Khan told me the Khalsa already suspect them of disloyalty. Well, heavens above, the moment Lal makes a move, or gives an order, even, that looks fishy … why, they’ll see he’s pissing on his own wicket!”
“Will they? Who’s to say what’s a fishy move, or why it’s being made? You were in Afghanistan – how many times did Elphinstone do the sensible thing, tell me that? He was always wrong, godammit!”
“Yes, but that was fat-headedness – not treachery!”
“Who knows the difference, confound it? You did what you were told, and so will the Khalsa colonels! What do they know, if they’re told to march from A to B, or retire from C, or open a candy store at D? They can’t see the whole canvas, only their own corner of it. Sure, they know Lal and Tej are cowardly rascals who’d turn tail sooner than eat, but they’re still bound to obey.” He gnawed his whiskers, growling. “I said it’ll take managing, by Lal and Tej – and by Gough, once he’s learned from you what they’re about.” He stabbed me with a bony finger. “From you – that’s the point! If Lal sent a native agent, promising betrayal, Gough wouldn’t give him the time of day. But he knows you, and can trust what you tell him!”
And much good it would do him, I thought, for however Lal and Tej mismanaged the Khalsa, they couldn’t alter its numbers, or the zeal of its colonels, or the quality of its soldiers, or the calibre of its guns. They might supply Gough with full intelligence, but he was still going to have to engage and break a disciplined army of a hundred thousand men, with a Company force one-third the size and under-gunned. I’d not have wagered two pice on his chances.
But then, you see, I didn’t know him. For that matter, I didn’t know much about war: Afghanistan had been a rout, not a campaign, and Borneo an apprenticeship in piracy. I’d never seen a pukka battle, or the way a seasoned commander (even one as daft as Paddy Gough) can manage an army, or the effect of centuries of training and discipline, or that phenomenon which I still don’t understand but which I’ve watched too often to doubt: the British peasant looking death in the face, and hitching his belt, and waiting.
My chief concern, of course, was the prospect of venturing into the heart of the Khalsa and conspiring with a viper like Lal Singh – with a game leg to prevent me lighting out at speed if things went amiss, as they were bound to do. Even sitting a mount hurt like sin, and to make matters worse, Gardner said Jassa must stay behind. I couldn’t demur: half the Punjab knew that crafty phiz, and that he was my orderly. But he’d pulled me clear twice now, and I’d feel naked without him.
“Broadfoot needs a foot on the ground here, anyway,” says Gardner. “Never fear, dear Josiah will be safe under my wing – and under my eye. While the war lasts I’m to be governor of Lahore – which between ourselves is liable to consist of protecting Mai Jeendan when her disappointed soldiery come pouring back over the river. Yes, sir – we surely earn our wages.” He surveyed me in my gorracharra outfit, of which the most important part was a steel cap, like a Roundhead’s, with long cheek-pieces that helped conceal my face. “You’ll do. Let your beard grow, and leave the talking to Ganpat. You’ll make Kussoor this afternoon; lie up there and go down to the river ghat after dark and you should fetch up with Lal Singh around dawn tomorrow. I’ll ride along with you a little ways.”
We set off, the six of us, at about ten o’clock, riding parallel with the south road. It was heavy with traffic for the Khalsa – baggage and ration carts, ammunition wagons, even teams of guns, for we were riding with the rearguard of the army, a vast host spread across the dusty plain, moving slowly south and east. Ahead of us the doabb would be alive with the main body as far as the Sutlej, beyond which Lal Singh was already investing Ferozepore and Tej Singh’s infantry would be advancing … whither? We rode at a fast trot, which troubled my ankle, but Gardner insisted we must keep up the pace if I was to reach Lal in time.
“He’s been over the Sutlej two days now. Gough must be moving, and Lal’s going to have to take order pretty sharp, or his colonels will want to know why. I only hope,” says Gardner grimly, “that the weak-kneed son-of-a-bitch doesn’t run away – in which case we might just have the gorracharra under the command of someone who knows what the hell he’s doing.”
The more I thought of it, the madder the whole thing sounded – but the maddest part of it was still to be revealed. We’d made our noon halt, and Gardner was turning back to Lahore, but first he rode a little way apart with me to make sure I had it all straight. We were on a little knoll about a furlong from the road, along which a battalion of Sikh infantry was marching, tall stalwarts all in olive green, with their colonel riding ahead, colours flying, drums beating, bugles sounding a rousing air. Gardner may have said something to prompt my question, but I don’t recall; at any rate, I asked him:
“See here … I know the Khalsa’s been spoiling for this – but if they know their own maharani has been conspiring with the enemy, and suspect their own commanders … well, even the rank and file must have a shrewd idea their rulers want to see ’em beat. So … why are they allowing themselves to be sent to war at all?”
He pondered this, and gave one of his rare wintry smiles. “They reckon they can whip John Company. Whoever may be crossing or betraying ’em, don’t matter – they think they can be champions of England. In which case, they’ll be the masters of Hindoostan, with an empire to plunder. Maybe Mai Jeendan has that possibility in mind, too, and figures she’ll win, either way. Oh, she could charm away the suspicions of treason; most of ’em still worship her. Another reason they have for marching is that they believe you British will invade them sooner or later, so they might as well strike first.”
He paused for a moment, frowning, and then said: “But that’s not the half of it. They’re going to war because they’ve taken their oaths to Dalip Singh Maharaja, and he’s sent them out in his name – never mind who put the words in his mouth. So even if they knew they were doomed beyond a doubt … they’d go to the sacrifice.” He turned to look at me. “You don’t know the Sikhs, sir. I do. They’ll fight their way to hell and back … for that little boy. And for their salt.”
He sat gazing across the plain, where the marching battalion was disappearing into the heat haze, the sun twinkling on the bayonets, the sound of the bugles dying away. He shaded his eyes, and it was as though he was talking to himself.
“And when the Khalsa’s beat, and Jeendan and her noble crew are firm in the saddle again, and the Punjab’s quiet under Britannia’s benevolent eye, and little Dalip’s getting his hide tanned at Eton College … why then” – he gestured towards the road – “then, sir, John Company will find he has a hundred thousand of the best recruits on earth, ready to fight for the White Queen. Because that’s their trade. And it’ll all have turned out best for everybody, I guess. Lot of good men will have died first, though. Sikh. Indian. British.” He glanced at me, and nodded. “That’s why Hardinge has held off all this time. He’s probably the only man in India who thinks the price is too high. Now it’s going to be paid.”
He was a strange bird this – all bark and fury most of the time, then quiet and philosophical, which sorted most oddly with his Ghazi figurehead. He chucked the reins and wheeled his pony. “Good luck, soldier. Give my salaams to old Georgie Broadfoot.”
a Must is the madness of the rogue elephant. Doolali=insane, from Deolali Camp, inland from Bombay, where generations of British soldiers (including the editor) were received in India, and supposedly were affected by sunstroke.
b The name given to the tracts between the rivers of the Punjab.