Empire; it's in all the books.)
I here was no end to the fellow's capacity for disaster, al'IrarrntIy. Given a choice of paths, he headed along one whir It brought us full tilt into a pandy patrol, and I had to talk our way out of it by saying we were poor men going to I. (rtrroula to tell a friend the British had shot his brother. Arriving in a village, he wandered into a hut when I wasn't looking, and blundered about in the dark, seized a woman by the thigh — fortunately she was too terrified to cry out, and we got away. After that he took to crying out 'That's Jalallabad, Oi'm certain sure. And that's Salehnagar, over there, yes.' Pause. 'Oi think.' The upshot of that was that we landed in a swamp, and spent over an hour ploshing about in the mud, and Kavanaugh's language was shocking to hear. We went under half a dozen times before we managed to find dry land, and I spotted a house not far off, with a light in an upper window, and insisted that Kavanaugh must rest while I found out where we were. He agreed, blaspheming because the last of his dye had rubbed off with repeated immersions.
I went to the house, and who should be at the window but the charmingest little brown girl, who said we were not far from Alam Bagh, but the British had arrived there, and people were running away. I thanked her, inwardly rejoicing, and she peeped at me over the sill and says:
'You are very wet, big man. Why not come in and rest, while you dry your clothes? Only five rupees.'
By George, thinks I, why not? I was tired, and sick, and it had been the deuce of a long time, what with sieges and cholera and daft Irishmen falling in bogs; this was just the tonic I needed, so I scrambled up, and there she was, all chubby and brown and shiny, giggling on her charpoy and shaking her bouncers at me. I seized hold, nearly crying at this unexpected windfall, and in a twinkling was marching her round the room, horse artillery fashion, while she squeaked and protested that for five rupees I shouldn't be so impatient. I was, though, and it was just as well, for I'd no sooner finished the business than Kavanaugh was under the window, airing his Urdu plaintively in search of me, and wanting to know what was the delay?
I leaned out and cadged five rupees off him, explaining it was a bribe for an old sick man who knew the way; he passed it up, I struggled into my wet fugs, kissed my giggling Delilah goodnight, and scrambled down, feeling fit for anything.
It took us another two hours, though, for Kavanaugh was about done, and we had to keep dodging behind trees to avoid parties of peasants who were making for Lucknow. I was getting a mite alarmed, because the moon was up, and I knew that dawn couldn't be far off; if we were caught by daylight, with Kavanaugh looking as pale as Marley's ghost, we were done for. I cursed myself for a fool, whoring and wasting time when we should have been pushing on — what had I been thinking of? I )'you know, I suddenly realised that in my exasperation with Kavanaugh, and all that aimless wandering in wrong directions, and watching him fall in tanks and canals, I'd forgotten the seriousness of the whole thing — perhaps I was still a trifle light-headed from my illness, but I'd even forgotten my fears. They came back now, though, in full force, as we staggered along; I was about as tuckered as he was, my head was swimming, and I must have Livered the last mile in a walking dream, because the next thing I remember is bearded faces barring our way, and blue-tunicked troopers with white puggarees, and thinking, 'These arc 9th Lancers.'
Then there was an officer holding me by the shoulders, and to my astonishment it was Gough, to whom I'd served brandy and smokes on the verandah at Meerut. He didn't know me, but he poured spirits into us, and had us borne down into the camp, where the bugles were blowing, and i he cavalry pickets were falling in, and the flag was going up, and it all looked so brisk and orderly and safe you would have wept for relief — but the cheeriest sight of all, to me, was that crumpled, bony figure outside the headquarter tent, and the dour, wrinkled old face under the battered helmet. I hadn't seen Campbell close to, not since Balaclava; he was an ugly old devil, with a damned caustic tongue and a graveyard sense of humour, but I never saw a man yet who made me feel more secure.
He must have been a rare disappointment to Kavanaugh, though, for at the sight of him my blundering Paddy threw off his tiredness, and made a tremendous parade of announcing who he was, fishing out the message, and presenting it like the last gallant survivor stumbling in with the News; you never saw suffering nobility like it as he explained how we'd come out of Lucknow, but Campbell, listening and tugging at his dreary moustache, just said 'Aye', and sniffed, and added after a moment: 'That's surprising.' Kavanaugh, who had probably expected stricken admiration, looked quite deflated, and when Campbell told him to 'Away you and lie down', he obeyed pretty huffily.
I knew Campbell, of course, so I wasn't a bit astonished at the way he greeted me, when he realised who I was.
'It's no' you again?' says he, like a Free Kirk elder to the town drunk. 'Dearie me — ye're not looking a whit better than when I saw ye last. I doot ye've nae discretion, Flashman.' He sighed and shook his head, but just as he was turning away to his tent he looked back and says: 'I'm glad tae see ye, mind.'
I suppose there are those who'd say that there's no higher honour than that, coming from Old Slowcoach; if that's so, I must make the most of it, for it's all the thanks I ever got for convoying Kavanaugh out of Lucknow. Not that I'm complaining, mind, for God knows I've had my share of undeserved credit, but it's a fact that Kavanaugh stole all the limelight when the story came out; I'm certain it was sheer lust for glory that had made him undertake the job in the first place, for when I joined him in the rest-tent after we'd left Campbell, he broke off the kneeling- and-praying which he was engaged in, looked up at me with his great freckled yokel face, and says anxiously:
'D'yez think they'll give us the Victoria Cross?'
Well, in the end they did give him the V.C. for that night's work, while all I got was a shocking case of dysentery. He was a civilian, of course, so they were bound to make a fuss of him, and there was so much V.C.- hunting going on just then that I suppose they thought recognised heroes like me could be passed over — ironic, ain't it? Anyway, I wasn't recommended at the time for any decoration at all, and he was, which seemed fairly raw, although I don't deny he was brave, you understand. Anyone who's as big a bloody fool as that, and goes gallivanting about seeking sorrow, must be called I ourageous. Still … if it hadn't been for me, finding his basted slipper for him, and fishing him out of canals — and most important of all, getting the right direction from that hide brown banger — friend Kavanaugh might still have been traipsing along Haidar's Canal asking the way. But 'hulking back, perhaps I got the better of the bargain — she was a lissome little wriggler, and it was Kavanaugh's five rupees, after all.36
If Campbell was sparing with his compliments, he was equally careful of his soldiers' lives, especially his precious 93rd Highlanders. He took a week to relieve Lucknow, feeling his way in along the route our message had suggested, battering the pandies with his artillery, and only turning his kilties and Sikhs on them when he had to. They butchered everything in sight, of course, between them, but it was a slow business, and he was much abused for it afterwards. In my opinion, he was dead right — as he and Mansfield, his staff chief, were when they wouldn't risk lives simply to pursue and punish fleeing mutineers. A general's job is to win campaigns with as little loss as may be, but of course that don't suit the critics in clubs and newspaper offices — they're at a safe distance, and they want blood, rot them, so they sneer at Old Slowcoach, and call him a stick-in-the-mud soldier.37
In fact, his relief of Lucknow, in the face of odds that were sometimes fifteen to one, was a model of sound sense. He got in, he took the garrison out, and he retired in good order, scratching his ear and looking glum, while ignorant asses like Kavanaugh danced with impatience. D'ye know, that Irish lunatic absolutely ran the gauntlet of pandy fire to get back into Lucknow, and bring out Outram and Havelock in person (with the poor old Gravedigger hardly able to hobble along) just so that they could greet Sir Colin as he covered the last few furlongs? Bloody nonsense, but it looked very gallant, and has since been commemorated in oils, with camels and niggers looking on admiringly, and the Chiefs all shaking hands. (I'm there, too, like John the Baptist on horseback, with one aimless hand up in the air, which is rot, because at the time I was squatting in the latrine working the dysentery bugs out of my system and wishing I was dead.)'38
Poor old Gravedigger — he didn't last more than a few (lays after. The dysentery bugs did for him in earnest, and we buried him under a palm tree by the Alam Bagh at the mart of the retreat. I guess that suited him, and I remember the text running through my head, 'And Nicanor lay dead in his harness' — it was what he'd said to me fifteen years earlier, when he'd told me of Sergeant Hudson dying at Piper's Fort. Aye, well, none of us lives forever.
Anyway, Lucknow had to be left in rebel hands, and Campbell took our army back to Cawnpore, where Tantia Tope was raging around the garrison; Campbell whipped him in quick time, and then started clearing up rebel
