I suppose we lay there for hours, groaning with pain and exhaustion, before they came back, bringing us a bowl of food and a chatti of water. We were famished, and fell on it like pigs, while the big jezzailchi watched us and made funny remarks. I ignored him, and presently he left us. There was just light enough from a high grating in one wall for us to make out our surroundings, so we took stock of the cellar, or dungeon, whichever it was.
I have been in a great variety of jails in my life, from Mexico (where they are truly abominable) to Australia, America, Russia, and dear old England, and I never saw a good one yet. That little Afghan hole was not too bad, all round, but it seemed dreadful at the time.
There were bare walls, pretty high, and a roof lost in shadow, and in the middle of the filthy floor two very broad flat stones, like a platform, that I didn't like the look of. For above them, swinging down from the ceiling, was a tangle of rusty chains, and at the sight of them a chill stabbed through me, and I thought of hooded black figures, and the Inquisition, and torture chambers that I had gloated over in forbidden books at school. It's very different when you are actually in one.
I told Hudson what I thought of them, and he just grunted and spat and then begged my pardon. I told him not to be such a damned fool, that we were in a frightful fix, and he could stop behaving as though we were on Horse Guards. I've never been one to stand on ceremony anywhere, and here it was just ridiculous. But it took Hudson time to get used to talking to an officer, and at first he just listened to me, nodding and saying, 'Yes, sir,' and 'Very good, sir,'
until I swore with exasperation.
For I was in a funk, of course, and poured out my fears to him. I didn't know why they were holding us, although ransom seemed most likely. There was a chance Akbar might get to hear of our plight, which was what I hoped -but at the back of my mind was the awful thought that Gul Shah might hear of us just as easily. Hudson, of course, didn't understand why I should be so horrified at this, until I told him the whole story - about Narreeman, and how Akbar had rescued me from Gul's snakes in Kabul. Heavens, how I must have talked, but when I tell you that we were in the cellar a week together, without ever so much as seeing beyond the door, and myself in a sweat of anxiety about what our fate might be, you will understand that I needed an audience. Your real coward always does, and the worse his fear the more he blabs. I babbled some-thing sickening in that dungeon to Hudson. Of course, I didn't tell him the story as I've told it here - the Bloody Lance incident, for example, I related in a creditable light. But I convinced him at least that we had every reason to fear if Gul Shah got wind that we were in Afghan hands.
It was difficult to tell how he took it. Mostly he just listened, staring at the wall, but from time to time he would look at me very steady, as though he was weighing me up. At first I hardly noticed this, any more than one does notice a common trooper looking at one, but after a while it made me feel uncomfortable, and I told him pretty sharp to leave off. If he was scared at the fix we were in, he didn't show it, and I admit there were one or two occasions when I felt a sneaking regard for him; he didn't complain, and he was very civil in his speech, and would ask me very respectfully to translate what the Afridi guards said when they brought us our food - for he had no Pushtu or Hindustani.
This was little enough, and we had no way of telling how true it was. The big jezzailchi was the most talkative, . but mostly he would only recall how badly the British had been cut up on the march from Kabul, so that not a single man had been left alive, and how there would soon be no feringhees left in Afghanistan at all. Akbar Khan was advancing on Jallalabad, he said, and would put the whole garrison to the sword, and then they would sweep down through the Khyber and drive us out of India in a great jehad that would establish the True Faith from Peshawar to the sea. And so on, all bloody wind and water, as I told Hudson, but he considered it very thoughtfully and said he didn't know how long Sale could hold out in Jallalabad if they laid proper siege to it.
I stared at this, an ordinary trooper passing opinion on a general's business.
'What do you know about it?' says I.
'Not much, sir,' says he. 'But with respect to General Elphinstone, I'm powerful glad it's General Sale that's laying in Jallalabad and not him.'
'Is that so, and be damned to you,' says I. 'And what's your opinion of General Elphinstone, if you please?'
'I'd rather not say, sir,' says he. And then he looked at me with those grey eyes. 'He wasn't with the 44th at Gandamack, was he, sir?
Nor a lot of the officers wasn't. Where were they, sir?'
'How should I know? And what concern is that of yours?'
He sat looking down for a moment. 'None at all, sir,' says he at last. 'Beg pardon for asking.'
'I should damned well think so,' says I. 'Anyway, whatever you think of Elphy Bey, you can rely on General Sale to give Akbar the right about turn if he shows his nose at Jallalabad. And I wish to God we were there, too, and away from this hellish hole, and these stinking Afridis. Whether it's ransom or not, they don't mean us any good, I can tell you.' I didn't think much of Hudson's questions about Gandamack and Elphy at the time; if I had done I would have been as much amused as angry, for it was like a foreign language to me then. But I understand it now, although half our modern generals don't. They think their men are a different species still - fortunately a lot of 'em are, but not in the way the generals think.
Well, another week went by in that infernal cell, and both Hudson and I were pretty foul by now and well bearded, for they gave us nothing to wash or shave with. My anxieties diminished a little, as they will when nothing happens, but it was damned boring with nothing to do but talk to Hudson, for we had little in common except horses. He didn't even seem interested in women. We talked occasionally of escape, but there was little chance of that, for there was no way out except through the door, which stood at the top of a narrow flight of steps, and when the Afridis brought our food one of them always stood at the head of them covering us with a huge blunderbuss.
I wasn't in any great hurry to risk a peppering from it, and when Hudson talked of trying a rush I ordered him to drop it. Where would we have got to afterwards, anyway? We didn't even know where we were, except that it couldn't' be far to the Kabul road. But it wasn't worth the risk, I said - if I had known what was in store for us I'd have chanced that blunderbuss and a hundred like it, but I didn't. God, I'll never forget it. Never.
It was late one afternoon, and we were lying on the straw dozing, when we heard the clatter of hooves at the gate outside, and a jumble of voices approaching the door of the cell. Hudson jumped up, and I came up on my elbow, my heart in my mouth, wondering who it might be. It might be a messenger bringing news of ransom - for I believed the Afridis must be trying that game - and then the bolts scraped back and the door burst open, and a tall man strode in to the head of the steps. I couldn't see his face at first, but then an Afridi bustled past him with a flaring torch which he stuck in a crevice in the wall, and its light fell on the newcomer's face. If it had been the Devil in person I'd have been better pleased, for it was a face I had seen in nightmares, and I couldn't believe it was true, the face of Gul Shah.
His eye lit on me, and he shouted with joy and clapped his hands.
I believe I cried out in horror, and scrambled back against the wall.
'Flashman!' he cried, and came half down the steps like a big cat, glaring at me with a hellish grin. 'Now, God is very good. When I heard the news I could not believe it, but it is true. And it was just by chance - aye, by the merest chance, that word reached me you were taken.' He sucked in his breath, never taking his glittering eyes from me.
