'Good God!' says Rose, staring, and behind him his staff were gaping at me round-eyed, licking their lips. 'Are you serious?'
'What about lovers, hey?' says one of the staff, sweating and horny-eyed. 'They say she keeps a hareem of muscular young bucks, primed with love-potions —'
'She didn't tell me,' says I, 'and I didn't ask her. Even you wouldn't, I fancy.'
'Well,' says Rose, glancing at me and then away. 'We must certainly consider what's to be done about her.'
That was how I employed myself for the next three days, while the guns and eight-inch mortars smashed away in fine style, opening a sizeable breach in the south wall, and burning up the rebels' repair barricades with red-hot shot. We blew most of their heavy gun posts into rubble, and by the 29th Rose was drawing up final orders for his infantry stormers — and still we had reached no firm plan for capturing Lakshmibai unharmed. For the more I thought about it, the more certain I became that she'd fight it out, in person, when our infantry fought their way hand-to-hand into her palace — it was easy, after Lucknow, to imagine bloody corpses on that quilted Chinese carpet, and the mirrors shattered by shot, and yelling looters smashing and tearing in those priceless apartments, sabring and bayoneting everything that stood in their way. God knows it was nothing new to me, and I'd lent a hand in my time, when It had been safe to do so — but these would be her rooms, her possessions, and I was sentimental enough to be sorry for that, because I'd liked them and been happy there. By George, I'd got her into my bloodstream though, hadn't I lust, when I started worrying about her damned furniture.
And what would happen to her, in that madhouse of blood and steel? Try as I might, I could see nothing for it but to tell off a picked platoon with orders to make straight for the palace and secure her unharmed At any price — provided she didn't get in the way of a stray shot, there was no reason why they shouldn't bring her out safe. By God, though, that was one detail I'd have to avoid — no, my job would be her reception and safe-keeping when the slaughter was safely over: Flashy the stern and sorrowful jailer, firm but kindly, shielding her from prying eyes and lecherous staff-wallopers with dirty minds, that was the ticket. She'd have to be escorted away, perhaps even to Calcutta, where they'd decide what to do with her. A nice long journey, that, and she'd be grateful for a friendly face among her enemies — especially one for which she'd shown such a partiality in the past. I thought of that pavilion, and that gleaming bronze body undulating towards me, quivering voluptuously to the music — we'll have dancing every night, thinks I, in our private hackery, and if I'm not down to twelve stone by the time we reach Calcutta, it won't be for want of nocturnal exercise.
I explained my thoughts to Rose — the first part, about the special platoon, not the rest — at dinner in his tent, and he frowned and shook his head.
'Too uncertain,' says he. 'We need something concerted and executed before the battle has even reached her palace; we must have her snug and secure by then.'
'Well, I don't for the life of me see how you're going to do that,' says I. 'We can't send anyone in ahead of the troops, to kidnap her or any such thing. They wouldn't get a hundred yards through the streets of Jhansi — and if they did, she has a Pathan guard hundreds strong covering every inch of the palace.'
'No,' says he, thoughtfully, picking at his cheroot. 'Force wouldn't serve, I agree — but diplomacy, now? What d'ye think, Lyster?'
This was young Harry Lyster, Rose's galloper, and the only other person present at our talk. I'd known him any time the past ten years; he'd been a special constable with me at the Chartist farce of '48 when I took up old Morrison's truncheon and did his duty for him — me and Gladstone and Louis Napoleon holding the plebeian mob at bay, I don't think. Lyster was a smart 'un, though; given a silver spoon he'd have been a field marshal by now.
'Bribery, perhaps — if we could smuggle a proposal to some of her officers?' says he.
'Too complicated,' says Rose, 'and you'd probably just lose your money.'
'They've eaten her salt,' says I. 'You couldn't buy 'em.' I was far from sure of that, by the way, but I wanted to squash all this talk of intrigue and secret messages — I'd heard it too often before, and I know who finishes up sneaking through the dark with his bowels gurgling and his hair standing on end in the enemy's lair. 'I'm afraid it comes down to the special platoon after all, sir. A good native officer, with intelligent jawans -
'Counsel of despair, Flashman.' Rose shook his head decisively. 'No — we'll have to trick her out. Here's a possibility — storm the city, as we intend, but leave her a bolt-hole. If we draw off our cavalry pickets from the Orcha gate, they'll spot the weakness, and when our rebel lady sees that her city's doomed, I'll be much surprised if she don't try to make a run for it. How well do Indian women ride?'
'This one? Like a Polish lancer. It might work,' says I, 'If she don't suspicion what we're up to. But if she smells a rat -
'She'll be smelling too much powder-smoke by then to notice anything else,' says Rose confidently. 'She'll break for the open, to try to join Tantia, or some other rebel leader — and we'll be waiting for her on the Orcha toad. What d'you say, gentlemen?' says he, smiling.
Well, it suited me, although I thought he underrated her subtlety. But Lyster was nodding agreement44 and nose went on:
'Yes, I think we'll try that — but only as a long stop. It's still not enough. Lord Canning attaches the utmost importance to capturing the Rani unscathed; that being so, we must play every card in our hand. And we have s trump which it would be folly not to use for everything
'it's worth.' He turned and snapped a pointing finger at me. You, Flashman.'
I choked on my glass, and covered my dismay with a shuddering cough. 'I, sir?' I tried to get my breath back. 'How, sir? I mean, what — ?'
'We can't afford to neglect the opportunity which your knowledge of this woman — your familiarity with her — gives us. I don't suppose there's a white man living who has been on closer terms with her — isn't that so?'
'Well, now, sir, I don't know —'
'I still think we can talk her out. Public offers of surrender are useless, we agree — but a private offer, now, secretly conveyed, with my word of honour, and Lord ('Canning's, attached to it … that might be a different matter. Especially if it were persuasively argued, by a British officer she could trust. You follow me?'
All too well I followed him; I could see the abyss of ruin and despair opening before my feet once again, as the bright-eyed lunatic went eagerly on:
'The offer would assure her that her life would be spared, if she gave herself up. She doesn't have to surrender jhansi, even — just her own person. How can she refuse? She could even keep her credit intact with her own people.
'That's it!' cries he, smacking the table. 'If she accepts, all she has to do is take advantage of the bolt-hole we're going to leave her, through the Orcha Gate! She can pretend to her own folk that she's trying to escape, and we'll snap her up as she emerges. No one would ever know it was a put-up business — except her, and ourselves!' He beamed at us in triumph.
Lyster was frowning. 'Will she accept — and leave her city and people to their fate?' He glanced at me.
'Oh, come, come!' cries Rose. 'She ain't European royalty, you know! These black rulers don't care a snuff for their subjects — ain't that so. Flashman?'
I seized on this like a drowning man. 'This one does, sir,' says I emphatically. 'She wouldn't betray 'em — never.' The irony of it was, I believed it to be true.
He stared at me in disappointment. 'I can't credit that,' says he. 'I can't. I'm positive you're mistaken, Flashman.' He shook his head. 'But we have nothing to lose by trying, at any rate.'
'But if I went in, under a flag of truce, demanding private audience with her -
'Pshaw! Who said anything about a flag of truce? Of course, that would blow the gaff at once — her people would know there was something up.' He tapped the table, grinning at me, bursting with his own cleverness. 'Didn't I say you were the trump card? You not only know her well, you're one of the few men who can get inside Jhansi, and into her presence, with no one the wiser — as a native!' He sat back, laughing. 'Haven't you done it a score of times — ? why, all the world knows about how you brought Kavanaugh out of Lucknow! What d'ye think they're calling you down in Bombay these days — the Pall Mall Pathan!'
There are times when you know it absolutely ain't worth struggling any longer. First Palmerston, then Outram, and now Rose — and they were only the most recent in a long line of enthusiastic madmen who at one time or another had declared that I was just the chap they were looking for to undertake some ghastly adventure. I made one attempt at a feeble excuse by pointing out that I didn't have a beard any longer; Rose brushed it aside as of no importance, poured me another brandy, and began to elaborate his idiot plan.
