'Remove the gag.'
They did, and I choked down my fear and was beginning my diplomatic bluster, demanding release and safe- conduct and immunity and the rest, but I'd barely got the length of warning them of the consequences of assaulting an accredited envoy when Maka Khan snapped me off short.
'You are no envoy—and you've forgotten what it is to be a soldier!' barks he. 'You are a murderer and a spy!'
'It's a lie! I didn't kill him, I swear! It was Goolab Singh! Damn you all, loose me this instant, you villains, or it'll be the worse for you! I'm an agent of Sir Henry Hardinge —'
'An agent of Black-coat Broadfoot!' blazes the Akali, shaking his fist. 'You send out cyphers, betraying the secrets of our durbar! You put them in the Holy Book by your bed—blaspheming your own putrid faith!—whence your old punkah-wallah took them to a courier for Simla! Aye, until we found him out two weeks ago, and questioned him,' gloats this maniac, 'and learned enough to nail your guilt to your forehead! Aye, gape, spy! We know!'
No doubt I was gaping—in part, at the news that the mysterious messenger of Second Thessalonians was not Mangla, as I'd suspected, but that lean-shanked ancient who'd operated my fan so inefficiently … and who must have vanished without my noticing, to be replaced by the clown I'd leathered only last night. But they were bluffing; they could question the old buffoon until Hell froze—those cyphers were Greek to him, and to everyone else, save Broadfoot and me. I wasn't reasoning too clearly, you understand, but I saw the line I must take.
'General Maka Khan!' cries I, no doubt in indignant falsetto. 'This is outrageous! I demand to be set free at once! To be sure I send coded messages to my chief—so does every ambassador, and you know it! But to suggest that they contain any … any secrets of the durbar, is … is, why, it's a damnable insult! They … they were my confidential opinions on the Soochet legacy, for Sir Henry and his advisers —'
'Including your opinion that the astrologers' failure to find a date for our march was caused by `a lady's fine Punjabi hand'?' says he, sternly. 'Yes, Mr Flashman, we have read that message, and every other that you've sent this ten days past, as well as those coming to you from Simla.' So that was why George's correspondence had dried up …
'We have enough to hang you, spy!' shouts the Akali, spraying me with spittle. 'But first we would know what else you've betrayed—and you'll tell us, you sneaking dog!'
I wasn't hearing aright … or they were lying. They might have intercepted messages—but they couldn't have deciphered them, not in a century. Yet Maka had just quoted my own words to Broadfoot … and Goolab had spoken of a false message to entrap me. I hadn't had time to ponder that impossibility … no, it couldn't be so! The key to that cypher was based on random words in an English novel that they'd never heard of—and even if they had, it would be as useless to them as a safe to which they didn't know the combination.
'It's all false, I tell you!' I stammered. 'General, I appeal to you! Those messages were innocent, on my honour!'
He gave me a long cold stare while I babbled, and then he called out, and in trooped the oddest trio—a bespectacled little weed of a
'Crotchet Castle. By Thomas Love Peacock'.
And beneath the title, in a clerkly Indian hand, but again in English, were precise directions for using the book in the encoding of messages.
Reviewing my career in India, I'd say that of all the wonders I saw there, that was the greatest. I dare say one should be prepared for anything in a land where an illiterate peasant girl can give you the square root of a six- figure number at first glance, but when I reflect on the skill and speed of those copyists, and the analytical genius that penetrated that code … well, it can still rob me of breath. Not as entirely as it did at the time, though.
'Your punkah-wallah confessed how you wrote your cyphers with the aid of a book,' sneers the Akali. 'It was copied in your absence, and compared with the intercepted cyphers by these men, who are skilled in cryptography —an Indian invention, as Major Broadfoot should have borne in mind!'
'Oah, indeed! A veree simple cypher,' chirps the
'That will do,' says Maka Khan, and dismissed them, but one of the babus couldn't resist a backward gleek at me. 'Doctor Folliott and Mr McQuedy are jolly good fun!' squeaks he, and waddled out as fast as he could go.
I sat sick and trembling. No wonder they'd been able to fake a message to trap me—with one tiny error of style which I'd been fool enough to ignore. What the devil had I written in my cyphers, though … they'd spotted the allusion to Jeendan, but I hadn't named her … but what else had I said …?
'You see?' says Maka Khan. 'What you have written of late, we know. What else have you learned, up at the Fort yonder?'
'Nothing, as God's my witness!' I bleated. 'General, upon my honour, sir! I protest … your cryptographers are mistaken—or lying! Yes, that's it!' I hollered. 'It's a beastly plot, to discredit me—to give you an excuse for war! Well, it won't serve, you scoundrels! What? Yes, it will, I mean—you'll learn fast enough —'
'Let's have him below!' snarls the Akali. 'He'll babble as freely as his creature did!' There were growls of agreement from the others, and I fairly neighed in alarm.
'What d'you mean, damn you? I'm a British Officer, and if you lay a finger —' They clapped the gag over my mouth again, and I could only listen in horror while the Akali swore that time was pressing, so the sooner they set about me the better, and they argued to and fro until Maka Khan turned them all out of the room, except for my three guards and the pock-marked naik—his face gave me the shudders, but I took some comfort from the fact that Maka had taken matters on himself; damned uncivil he'd been, what with 'spy' and 'murderer', but he was a gentleman and a soldier, after all, and like calls to like, you know. Why, standing there tall and erect, glaring at me and twisting his grizzled moustache, he might have been any staff colonel at Horse Guards, bar the turban. Better still, he addressed me in English, so that the others should be none the wiser.
'You spoke of war,' says he. 'It has begun. Our advance guard is already across the Sutlej.27 In a few days there will be a general engagement between the Khalsa and the Company army under Sir Hugh Gough. I tell you this so that you may understand your position—you are now beyond help from Simla.'
So it had finally come, and I was a prisoner of war. Well, better here than there—at least I'd be out of harm's way.
'No, you are not a prisoner!' snaps Maka Khan. 'You are a spy! Be quiet!' He took a turn about, and leaned down to stare grimly into my face. 'We of the Khalsa know that our queen regent has turned traitor. We also suspect the loyalty of Lal Singh, our Wazir, and Tej Singh, our field commander.. You have been Mai Jeendan's intimate—her lover. We know she has sent assurances through you to Broadfoot—so much is plain from your recent cyphers. But what has she betrayed, in detail, of our plan of campaign—numbers, dispositions, lines of march, objectives, equipment?' He paused, his black eyes boring into mine. 'Your one hope, Flashman, lies in full disclosure … immediately.'
'But I don't know anything, I tell you! Nothing! I've not heard a word of … of plans or objectives or any such thing! And I haven't even seen Mai Jeendan for weeks —'
'Her woman Mangla visited you last night!' His words came out like rapid fire. 'You spent hours together— what did she tell you? How have you passed it to Simla? Through her? Or the man Harlan, who poses as your orderly? Or by some other means? We know you sent no cypher today —'
'As God's my judge, it ain't true! She told me nothing!'
'Then why did she visit you?'
'Why … why … because, well, we've grown friendly, don't you know? I mean … we talk, you see, and … Not a word of politics, I swear! We just … converse … and so forth …'
God, it sounded lame, as the truth often does, and it drove him into a rage. 'Either you're a fool, or you think I am!' he rasped. 'Very well, I'll waste no more time! Your punkah-wallah spoke under persuasion … in unspeakable pain, which I trust you will spare yourself. You have a choice: speak to me now, in this room … or to this fellow …' He indicated the pock-marked naik, who took a pace forward, scowling '… in the cellar below.'
