Flashman at the Charge

'Here is thanks,' says the crouching man, panting under the weight. 'I bear him as though I were the Djinn of the Seven Peaks, and he rails at me. You, nasrani,'*(*Christian.) he addressed me: 'If you understand God's language, come and help me to support this ingrate, this sinner. And when you are tired, we shall sit in comfort against the wall, and gloat over him. Or I may squat on his chest, to teach him gratitude. Come, Ruski, are we not all God's creatures?'

And even as he said it, his voice quavered, he staggered under the burden above him, and slumped forward unconscious on the floor.

The hanging man gave a sudden cry of anguish as his body took the full stretch of the chains; he hung there moaning and panting until, without really thinking, I scrambled forward and came up beneath him, bearing his trunk across my stooped back. His face was hanging backward beside my own, working with pain.

'God … thank you!' he gasped at last. 'My limbs are on fire! But not for long—not for long—if God is kind.' His voice came in a tortured whisper. 'Who are you—a Ruski?'

'No,' says I, 'an Englishman, a prisoner of the Russians.'

'You speak … our tongue … in God's name?'

'Yes,' says I, 'Hold still, curse you, or you'll slip!'

He groaned again: he was a devilish weight. And then: 'Providence … works strangely,' says he. 'An angliski … here. Well, take heart, stranger … you may be . . more fortunate … than you know.'

I couldn't see that, not by any stretch, stuck in a lousy cell with some Asiatic nigger breaking my back. Indeed, I was regretting the impulse which had made me bear him up—who was he to me, after all, that I shouldn't let him dangle? But when you're in adversity it don't pay to antagonize your companions, at least until you know what's what, so I stayed unwillingly where I was, puffing and straining.

'Who … are you?' says he.

'Flashman. Colonel, British Army.'

'I am Yakub Beg, '³⁶ whispers he, and even through his pain you could hear the pride in his voice. 'Kush Begi, Khan of Khokand, and guardian of … the White Mosque. You are my … guest … sent to me … from heaven. Touch … on my knee … touch on my bosom … touch where you will.'

I recognized the formal greeting of the hill folk, which wasn't appropriate in the circumstances.

'Can't touch anything but your arse at present,' I told him, and I felt him shake—my God, he could even laugh, with the arms and legs being drawn out of him.

'It is a … good answer,' says he. 'You talk … like a Tajik. We laugh … in adversity. Now I tell you … Englishman … when I go hence … you go too.'

I thought he was just babbling, of course. And then the other fellow, who had collapsed, groaned and sat up, and looked about him.

'Ah, God, I was weak,' says he. 'Yakub, my son and brother, forgive me. I am as an old wife with dropsy; my knees are as water.'

Yakub Beg turned his face towards mine, and you must imagine his words punctuated by little gasps of pain.

'That ancient creature who grovels on the floor is Izzat Kutebar, '³⁷ says he. 'A poor fellow of little substance and less wit, who raided one Ruski caravan too many and was taken, through his greed. So they made him 'swim upon land', as I am swimming now, and he might have hung here till he rotted—and welcome—but I was foolish enough to think of rescue, and scouted too close to this fort of Shaitan. So they took me, and placed me in his chains, as the more important prisoner of the two—for he is dirt, this feeble old Kutebar. He swung a good sword once, they say—God, it must have been in Timur's time!'

'By God!' cries Kutebar. 'Did I lose Ak Mechet to the Ruskis? Was I whoring after the beauties of Bokhara when the beast Perovski massacred the men of Khokand with his grapeshot? No, by the pubic hairs of Rustum! I was swinging that good sword, laying the Muscovites in swathes along Syr Daria, while this fine fighting chief here was loafing in the bazaar with his darlings, saying 'Eyewallah, it is hot today; give me to drink, Miriam, and put a cool hand on my forehead.' Come out from under him, feringhee, and let him swing for his pains.'

'You see?' says Yakub Beg, craning his neck and trying to grin. 'A dotard, flown with dreams. A badawi zhazhkayan*(*A wild babbler.) who talks as the wild sheep defecate, at random, everywhere. When you and I go hither, Flashman bahadur, we shall leave him, and even the Ruskis will take pity on such a dried-up husk, and employ him to clean their privies—those of the common soldiers, you understand, not the officers.'

If I hadn't served long in Afghanistan, and learned the speech and ways of the Central Asian tribes, I suppose I'd have imagined that I was in a cell with a couple of madmen. But I knew this trick that they have of reviling those they respect most, in banter, of their love of irony and formal imagery, which is strong in Pushtu and even stronger in Persian, the loveliest of all languages.

'When you go hither!' scoffs Kutebar, climbing to his feet and peering at his friend. 'When will that be? When Buzurg Khan remembers you? God forbid I should depend on the goodwill of such a one. Or when Sahib Khan comes blundering against this place as you and he did two years ago, and lost two thousand men? Eyah! Why should they risk their necks for you—or me? We are not gold; once we are buried, who will dig us up?'

'My people will come,' says Yakub Beg. 'And she will not forget me.'

'Put no faith in women, and as much in the Chinese,' says Kutebar cryptically. 'Better if this stranger and I try to surprise the guard, and cut our way out.'

'And who will cut these chains?' says the other. 'No, old one, put the foot of courage in the stirrup of patience. They will come, if not tonight, then tomorrow. Let us wait.'

'And while you're waiting,' says I, 'put the shoulder of friendship beneath the backside of helplessness. Lend a hand, man, before I break in two.'

Kutebar took my place again, exchanging insults with his friend, and I straightened up to take a look at Yakub Beg. He was a tall fellow, so far as I could judge, narrow waisted and big shouldered—for he was naked save for his loose pyjamy trousers—with great corded arm muscles. His wrists were horribly torn by his manacles, and while I sponged them with water from a chatti*(*Water jug.) in the corner I examined his face. It was one of your strong hill figureheads, lean and long jawed, but straight-nosed for once—he'd said he was a Tajik, which meant he was half-Persian. His head was shaved, Uzbek fashion, with a little scalp-lock to one side, and so was his face, except for a tuft of forked beard on his chin. A tough customer, by the look of him; one of those genial mountain scoundrels who'll tell you merry stories while he stabs you in the guts just for the fun of hearing his knife-hilt bells jingle.

'You are an Englishman,' says he, as I washed his wrists. 'I knew one, once, long ago. At least I saw him, in Bokhara, the day they killed him. He was a man, that one—Khan Ali, with the fair beard. 'Embrace the faith,' they said. 'Why should I?' says he, 'since you have murdered my friend who forsook his church and became a Muslim. Ye have robbed; ye have killed; what do you want of me?' And they said, 'Blood'. Says he: 'Then make an end.' And they killed him. I was only a youth, but I thought, when I go, if I am far from home, let me go like that one. He was a ghazi, *(*Champion.) that Khan Ali. '³⁸

'Much good it did him,' growled Kutebar, underneath. 'For that matter, much good Bokhara ever did anyone. They would sell us to the Ruskis for a handful of millet. May their goats' milk turn to urine and their girls all breed Russian bastards—which they will do, no doubt, with alarming facility.'

'You spoke of getting out of here,' says I to Yakub Beg. 'Is it possible? Will your friends attempt a rescue?'

'He has no friends,' says Kutebar. 'Except me, and see the pass I am brought to, propping up his useless trunk.'

'They will come,' says Yakub Beg, softly. He was pretty done, it seemed to me, with his eyes closed and his face ravaged with pain. 'When the light fades, you two must leave me to hang—no, Izzat, it is an order. You and Flashman bahadur must rest, for when the Lady of the Great Horde comes over the wall the Ruskis will surely try to kill us before we can be rescued. You two must hold them, with your shoulders to the door.'

'If we leave you to hang you will surely die,' says Kutebar, gloomily. 'What will I say to her then?' And suddenly he burst into a torrent of swearing, slightly muffled by his bent position. 'These Russian apes! These scum of Muscovy! God smite them to the nethermost pit! Can they not give a man a clean death, instead of racking him apart by inches? Is this their civilizing empire? Is this the honour of the soldiers of the White Tsar? May God the compassionate and merciful rend the bowels from their bodies and -'

'Do you rest, old groaner,' gasps Yakub, in obvious pain from the passionate heaving of his supporter. 'Then you may rend them on your own account, and spare the All-wise the trouble. Lay them in swathes along Syr Daria