Thinking of the women, I agreed.
'Hm, well. And you talk their frightful lingo?'
'Passably well, sir.'
'That means a dam' sight better than most of us. Well, I daresay I shouldn't do it, but on Sir Alexander's suggestion' - here Burnes gave me a smile, which I felt somehow boded no good - 'and since you're the son of an old friend, I'm going to give you some work to do - work which'll help your advancement, let me say, if you do it well, d'you see?' He stared at me a moment, and growled to Burnes: 'Dammit, Sandy, he's devilish young, y'know.'
'No younger than I was,' says Burnes.
'Umph. Oh, well, I suppose it's all right. Now, look here, Flashman - you know about the Gilzais, I suppose? They control the passes between here and India, and are devilish tricky fellows. You were with me when Nott was talking about their subsidy, and how there were rumours that the politicals would cut it, dam' fools, with all respect, Sandy. Well, it will be cut - in time - but for the present it's imperative they should be told that all's well, d'you see? Sir William McNaghten has agreed to this - fact is, he's written letters to Sher Afzul, at Mogala, and he's the leader of the pack, so to speak.'
This seemed to me a pretty piece of duplicity on McNaghten's part, but it was typical of our dealings with the Afghans, as I was to discover.
'You're going to be our postman, like Mr Rowland Hill's fellows at home. You'll take the messages of good will to Sher Afzul, hand 'em over, say how splendid everything is, be polite to the old devil - he's half-mad, by the way - set his mind at rest if he's still worried about the subsidy, and so forth.'
'It will all be in the letters,' says Burnes. 'You must just give any added reassurances that may be needed.'
'All right, Flashman?' says Cotton. 'Good experience for you.
Diplomatic mission, what?'
'It's very important,' says Burnes. 'You see, if they thought there was anything wrong, or grew suspicious, it could be bad for us.'
It could be a damned sight worse for me, I thought. I didn't like this idea above half - all I knew of the Gilzais was that they were murderous brutes, like all country Afghans, and the thought of walking into their nests, up in the hills, with not the slightest hope of help if there was trouble - well, Kabul might not be Hyde Park, but at least it was safe for the present. And what the Afghan women did to prisoners was enough to start my stomach turning at the thought - I'd heard the stories.
Some of this must have showed in my face, for Cotton asked fairly sharply what was the matter. Didn't I want to go?
'Of course, sir,' I lied. 'But - well, I'm pretty raw, I know. A more experienced officer ...'
'Don't fret yourself,' says Burnes, smiling. 'You're more at home with these folk than some men with twenty years in the service.' He winked. 'I've seen you, Flash-man, remember. Hah-ha! And you've got what they call a 'fool's face'. No disrespect: it means you look honest.
Besides, the fact that you have some Pushtu will win their confidence.'
'But as General Elphinstone's aide, should I not be here ...'
'Elphy ain't due for a week,' snapped Cotton. 'Dammit, man, this is an opportunity. Any young feller in your shoes would be bursting to go.'
I saw it would be bad to try to make further excuses, so I said I was all eagerness, of course, and had only wanted to be sure I was the right man, and so forth. That settled it: Burnes took me to the great wall map, and showed me where Mogala was - needless to say, it was at the back of nowhere, about fifty miles from Kabul, in hellish hill country south of the Jugdulluk Pass. He pointed out the road we should take, assuring me I should have a good guide, and produced the sealed packet I was to deliver to the half-mad (and doubtless half-human) Sher Afzul.
'Make sure they go into his own hands,' he told me. 'He's a good friend to us -just now - but I don't trust his nephew, Gul Shah. He was too thick with Akbar Khan in the old days. If there's ever trouble among the Gilzais, it will come from Gul, so watch out for him. And I don't have to tell you to be careful of old Afzul - he's sharp when he's sane, which he is most of the time. He's lord of life and death in his own parish, and that includes you. Not that he's likely to offer you harm, but keep on his good side.'
I began to wonder if I could manage to fall ill in the next hour or two -jaundice, possibly, or something infectious. Cotton set the final seal on it.
'If there's trouble,' says he, 'you must just ride for it.' To this fatherly advice he and Burnes added a few words about how I should conduct myself if the matter of subsidy was discussed with me, bidding me be reassuring at all costs - no thought of who should reassure me, I may say - and dismissed me. Burnes said they had high hopes of me, a sentiment I found it difficult to share.
However, there was nothing for it, and next morning found me on the road east, with Iqbal and an Afghan guide on either side and five troopers of the 16th Lancers for escort. It was a tiny enough guard to be useless against anything but a stray robber - and Afghanistan never lacked for those - but it gave me some heart, and what with the fresh morning air, and the thought that all would probably be well and the mission another small stepping stone in the career of Lieutenant Flashman, I felt rather more cheerful.
The sergeant in charge of the Lancers was called Hudson, and he had already shown himself a steady and capable man. Before setting out he had suggested I leave behind my sabre - they were poor weapons, the Army swords, and turned in your grip(13) - and take instead one of the Persian scimitars that some of the Afghans used.
They were light and strong, and damned sharp. He had been very business-like about it, and about such matters as rations for the men and fodder for the horses. He was one of those quiet, middle-sized, square-set men who seem to know exactly what they are doing, and it was good to have him and Iqbal at my back.
Our first day's march took us as far as Khoord-Kabul, and on the second we left the track at Tezeen and went south-east into the hills.
The going had been rough enough on the path, but now it was frightful
- the land was all sun-scorched rock and jagged peaks, with stony defiles that were like ovens, where the ponies stumbled over the loose stones. We hardly saw a living creature for twenty miles after we left Tezeen, and when night came we were camped on a high pass, in the lee of a cliff that might have been the wall of hell. It was bitter cold, and the wind howled up the pass; far away a wolf wailed, and we had barely enough wood to keep our fire going. I lay in my blanket cursing the day I got drunk at Rugby, and wishing I were snug in a warm bed with Elspeth or Fetnab or Josette.
Next day we were picking our way up a long stony slope when Iqbal muttered and pointed, and far ahead on a rocky shoulder I made out a figure which vanished almost as soon as I saw it.
'Gilzai scout,' said Iqbal, and in the next hour we saw a dozen more of them; as we rode upwards we were
