young lieutenant was staring with pop-eyes at us trussed victims, going pale and looking ready to puke. By heaven, he wasn't the only one! shuddered, and I heard him mutter to Hennidge: 'Christ! I shan't be writing to mother about this, though!'
'Beastly business,' says Hennidge, slapping his crop on his palm. 'Orders, though, what? Very good, sergeant — we'll touch 'em off all together, if you please. All properly %hotted and primed? Very good, then.'
'Yessir! Beg pardon, sir, usual orders is to touch 'em out one arter the other, sir. Leastways, that's 'ow we done it at Calpee, sir!'
'Good God!' says Hennidge, and contained himself. 'I'll be obliged if you'll fire all together, sergeant, on this occasion!' He muttered something to the lieutenant, shaking his head as in despair.
Two men ran forward to my gun, one of them pulling matches from his pocket. He glanced nervously back and called.
'Sarn't — sir! This 'un ain't got no lock, nor lanyard, please! See, sir, it's one o' them nigger guns — can't fire it 'cept with a fuse, sir!'
'What's that?' cries Hennidge, coming forward, 'Oh — I see. Very well, then, light the fuse at the signal, then, and — Good God, is this fellow having a fit?'
I had made one last desperate effort to pull free, hauling like a mad thing, flinging myself as far as my lashing would allow, tossing my head, jerking to and fro, my head swimming with the pain of my arm. Hennidge and the boy were staring at me — the boy's face was green.
'E's been carryin' on like that since we triced 'im up, sir,' says one of the gunners. 'Screamin', 'e was — we 'ad to gag him, sir.'
Hennidge swallowed, and then nodded curtly, and turned away, but the lieutenant seemed to be rooted with horrified fascination, as though he couldn't tear his eyes away from me.
'Ready!' bawls the sergeant, and 'Light the fuse now, Bert,' says the man at my gun. Through a red haze I saw the match splutter, and go out. Bert cursed, struck a second, and touched it to the fuse. A moment, and it fizzed, and the gunners retreated.
'Best stand back, sir!' cries Bert. 'Gawd knows what'll happen when she goes off'- might blow wide open!'
The lieutenant shuddered, and seemed to collect himself, and then the strangest thing happened. For I absolutely heard a voice, and it seemed to be very close in my ear, and the oddest thing was, it was Rudi Starnberg, my old enemy from Jotunberg, and as clear as a bell across the years I heard him laughing: 'The comedy's not finished yet! Come on, play-actor!'
No doubt it was the product of a disordered mind, as I stared at Death in the spluttering fuse, but just for a second I realised that if there was the ghost of a chance left, it depended on keeping ice-cold — as Rudi would have done, of course. The lieutenant's eyes were just on mine for an instant before he turned away, and in that instant I raised my brows and lowered them, twice, quickly. It stopped him, and very carefully, as he stared, I closed one eye in an enormous wink. It must have been a grotesque sight; his mouth dropped open, and then I opened my eye, turned my head deliberately, and stared fixedly at my right hand. He must look, he must! My wrist was as fast as ever, but I could just turn my hand, palm upwards, fold the thumb and last three fingers slowly into my palm, and beckon with my fore-finger, once, twice, thrice — and still beckoning, I stared at him again.
For a moment he just gaped, and closed his eyes, and gaped again, and I thought, oh Christ, the young idiot's going to stand there until the bloody fuse has burned down! He stared at me, licking his lips, obviously flabbergasted, turned to glance at Hennidge, looked back at me — and then, as I tried to bore into his brain, and crooked my finger again and again, he suddenly yelled 'Wait! Sergeant, don't fire!' and striding forward, he yanked the burning fuse from the touch-hole. Clever boys they had in the Light Brigade in those days.
'What the devil? John — what on earth are you doing?' cries Hennidge. 'Sergeant, hold on there!' He came striding up, demanding to know what was up, and the lieutenant, pale and sweating, stood by the breech pointing at me.
'I don't know! That chap — he beckoned, I tell you! And he winked! Look, my God, he's doing it again! He's … he's trying to say something!'
'Hey? What?' Hennidge was peering across at me, and I wobbled my eyebrows as ludicrously as I could, and tried to munch my lips at the same time. 'What the deuce — I believe you're right … you, there, get that gag out of his mouth — sharp, now!'
'Arise, Sir Harry' was one of the sweetest sounds I ever heard; so was Abe Lincoln's voice in that house at Portsmouth, Ohio, asking 'What do you want with me?' when the slave-catchers were on my tail. I can think of many others, but so help me God, none of them rang such peals of hope and joy in my ears as those words of Hennidge's beside the guns at Gwalior. Even as the cloth was wrenched loose, though, and the gag was torn out of my mouth, and I was gasping in air, I was thinking frantically what I must say to prevent the appalling chance of their disbelieving me — something to convince them instantly, beyond any doubt, and what I croaked out when my breath came was:
'I'm Flashman &mdash Flashman, d'ye hear! You're Clem Hennidge! The curfew tolls the knell of parting day, God save the Queen. I'm English — English — I'm in disguise! Ask General Rose! I'm Flashman, Harry Flashman! Cut me loose, you bastards! I'm Flashman!'
You never saw such consternation in your life; for a moment they just made pop-eyed noises, and then Hennidge cries out:
'Flashman? Harry Flashman? But … but it's impossible — you can't be!'
Somehow I didn't start to rave, or swear, or blubber. Instead I just leered up at him and croaked:
'You give me the lie, Hennidge, and I'll call you out, d'you know? I called a man out in '39, remember? He was a cavalry captain, too. So — would you mind just cutting these damned ropes — and mind my arm, 'cos I think it's broken …'
'My God, you are Flashman!' cries he, as if he was looking at a ghost. Then he just stuttered and gaped, and signed to the gunners to cut me loose, which they did, lowering me gently to the ground, horror and dismay all over their faces, I was glad to see. But I'll never forget what Hennidge said next, as the lieutenant called for a water- bottle and pressed it to my lips; Hennidge stood staring down at me appalled, and then he said ever so apologetically:
'I say, Flashman — I'm most frightfully sorry!'
Mark you, what else was there to say? Oh, aye, there was something — I hadn't reasoned it, as you can imagine, but it leaped into my mind as I sat there, almost swooning with relief, not minding the pains in my head and arms, and happened to glance along the guns. I was suddenly shuddering horribly, and bowing my head in my sound hand, trying to hold back the sobs, and then I says, as best I could:
'Those niggers tied to the guns. I want them cut loose — all of 'em, directly!'
'What's that?' says he. 'But they've been condem—'
'Cut 'em loose, damn you!' My voice was shaking and faint. 'Every mother's son-of-a-bitch, d'you hear?' I glared up at him, as I sat there in the dust in my rags, with my back to the gun-wheel — I must have been a rare sight. 'Cut 'em loose, and tell 'em to run away — away, as far as they know how — away from us, and never to get caught again! Blast you, don't stand there gawping — do as I say!'
'You're not well,' says he. 'You're distraught, and —'
'I'm also a bloody colonel!' I hollered. 'And you're a bloody captain! I'm in my right mind, too, and I'll break you, by God, if you don't attend to me this minute. So… set — them — loose! Be a good chap, Clem — very well?'48
So he gave the orders, and they turned them free, and the young lieutenant knelt beside me with the water- bottle, very respectful and moist-eyed.
'That was merciful,' says he.
'Merciful be damned,' says I. 'The way things are hereabouts, one of 'em's probably Lord Canning.'
There isn't much more to tell. The Great Mutiny ended there, under the walls of Gwalior, where Rose broke the last rebel army, and Tantia Tope fled away. They caught him and hanged him in the end, but they never found Nana Sahib, and for the rest, a few bands of pandies roamed about like bandits for a month or two, but were gradually dispersed.
I was back in the pavilion then, with my pads off, recovering from a broken arm and a battered head, to say nothing of a badly disarranged nervous system. I was exhausted in body and mind, but it's surprising how you pick
