their head. He was wearing a puggaree as big as himself, and enough jewellery to start a shop; he shook a sheathed tulwar over his head in response to the troops' weapons brandished in unison as they chanted: 'Khalsa-ji! Wa Guru-ji ko Futteh! To Delhi! To London! Victory!'
After them came cavalry, regular units, lancers in white and dragoons in red, jingling by, and finally a baggage train of camels, and Tej left off saluting, the band gave over, and people turned away to the booths and grog shops. Jassa told the jemadar to have the riders follow us singly, and then my rider dismounted and Jassa began to lead my beast down towards the gate.
'Hold on,' says I. 'Where away?'
'That's your way home, wouldn't you say?' says he, and when I reminded him that I was all in, dry, famished, and one-legged, he grinned all over his ugly mug and said that would be attended to directly, I'd see. So I let him lead on under the great arch, past the spearmen standing guard in their mail coats and helms; my puggaree, like my sword and pepperbox, had gone during the evening's activities, but one of the riders had lent me a cloak with a hood, which I kept close about my face; no one gave us a second glance.
Beyond the gate were the usual shanties and hovels of the beggars, but farther out on the maidan a few camp fires were winking, and Jassa made for one beside a little grove of white poplars, where a small tent was pitched, with a couple of horses picketed close by. The first streak of dawn was lightening the sky to the east, silhouetting the camels and wagons on the southern road; the night air was dry and bitter cold, and I was shivering as we reached the fire. A man squatting on a rug beside it rose at our approach, and before I saw his face I recognised the long rangy figure of Gardner. He nodded curtly to me, and asked Jassa if there had been any trouble, or pursuit.
'Now, Alick, you know me!' cries that worthy, and Gardner growled, that he did, and how many signatures had he forged along the way. The same genial Gurdana Khan, I could see—but just the sight of that fierce eye and jutting nose made me feel safe for the first time that night.
'What's wrong with your foot?' snaps he, as I climbed awkwardly down and leaned, wincing, on Jassa. I told him, and he swore.
'You have a singular gift for making the sparks fly upward! Let's have a look at it.' He prodded, making me yelp. 'Damnation! It'll take days to mend! Very well, Doctor Harlan, there's cold water in the chatti—let's see you exercise the medical skill that was the talk of Pennsylvania, I don't doubt! There's curry in the pan, and coffee on the fire.'
He picketed the horse while I wolfed curry and chapattis and Jassa bound my ankle with a cold cloth; it was badly sprained and swollen like a football, but he had a soothing touch and made it feel easier. Gardner came back to squat cross-legged beyond the fire, drinking coffee with the aid of his iron neck-clamp and eyeing me sourly. He'd left off his bumbee tartan rig, no doubt to avoid notice, and wore a cowled black robe, with his Khyber knife across his knees: a damned discouraging sight all round, with questions to match.
'Now, Mr Flashman,' growls he. 'Explain yourself. What folly took you among the Khalsa—and at such a time, too? Well, sir—what were you doing in that house?'
I knew I would be relying on him for my passage home, so I told him—all of it, from the false message to Jassa's rescue, and he listened with a face like flint. The only interruption came from Jassa, when I mentioned my encounter with Goolab Singh.
'You don't say! The old Golden Hen! Now what would he be doing so far from Kashmir?' Gardner rounded on him.
'Minding his own dam' business! And you'll do like-wise, Josiah, you hear me? Not a word about him! Yes … while I think on it, you'd best take yourself out of earshot.'
'That's for Mr Flashman to say!' retorts Jassa.
'Mr Flashman agrees with me!' barks Gardner, fixing me with a cold eye, so I nodded, and Jassa loafed off in a pet. 'He did well by you tonight,' says Gardner, watching him go, 'but I still wouldn't trust him across the street. Go on.'
I finished my tale, and he observed with grim satisfaction that it had all fallen out for the best. I said I was glad he thought so, and pointed out that it wasn't his arse that had been toasted over a slow fire. He just grunted.
'Maka Khan'd never ha' gone through with it. He'd try to scare you, but torture isn't his style.'
'The devil it ain't! Good God, man, I was half-broiled, I tell you! Those swine would have stopped at nothing! Why, they roasted my punkah-wallah to death —'
'So they told you. Even if they did, a no-account nigger's one thing, a white officer's another. Still, you were lucky … thanks to Josiah. Yes, and to Goolab Singh.'
I asked him why he thought Goolab and the widow had taken such risks on my behalf, and he stared at me as though I were half-witted.
'He told you plain enough, I'd say! The more good turns he does the British, the better they'll like him. He's promised to stand by 'em in the war, but protecting you is worth a thousand words. He's counting on you to do him credit with Hardinge—and you do it, d'you hear? Goolab's an old fox, but he's a brave man and a strong ruler, and deserves to have your people confirm him as king in Kashmir when this war's over.'
It seemed to me he was being optimistic in thinking we'd be in a position to confirm anyone in Kashmir when the Khalsa had done with us, but I didn't care to croak in front of a Yankee, so I said offhand: 'You think we'll beat the Khalsa quite handily, then?'
'There'll be some damned long faces in Lahore Fort if you don't,' says he bluntly, and before I could ask him to explain that bewildering remark, he added: 'But you'll be able to watch the fight from the ringside yourself, before the week's out.'
'I don't see that,' says I. 'I agree I can't stay in Lahore, but I'm in no case to ride for the frontier in a hurry, either—not with this confounded leg. I mean, even in disguise, you never know—I might have to cut and run, and I'd rather have two sound pins for that, what?' So you'd best find me a safe, comfortable spot to lie up in meanwhile, was what I was hinting, and waited for him to agree. He didn't.
'We can't wait for your leg to mend! This war is liable to be won and lost in a few days at most—which means you must be across the Sutlej without delay, even if you have to be carried!' He glared at me, whiskers bristling. 'The fate of India may well depend on that, Mr Flashman!'
The sun couldn't have got him, not in December, and he wasn't tight. Tactfully I asked him how the fate of India came into it, since I had no vital intelligence to take with me, and my addition to the forces of the Company, while no doubt welcome in its small way, could hardly be decisive.
'Forces of the Company my aunt's petticoat!' snarls he. 'You're going in with the Khalsa!'
If life has taught me anything at all, it's how to keep my countenance in the presence of strong, authoritative men whose rightful place is in a padded cell. I've known a power of them, to my cost, and Alick Gardner's a minor figure in a list that includes the likes of Bismarck, Palmerston, Lincoln, Gordon, John Charity Spring, M.A., George Custer, and the White Raja, to say nothing of my beloved mentor, Dr Arnold, and my old guv'nor (who did end his days in a blue-devil factory, bless him). Many of them men of genius, no doubt, but all sharing the delusion that they could put any proposal, however lunatic, to young Flashy and make him like it. There's no arguing with such fellows, of course; all you can do, if you're lucky, is nod and say: 'Well, sir, that's an interesting notion, to be sure—just before you tell me more about it, would you excuse me for a moment?' and once you're round the corner, make for the high ground. I've seldom had that chance, unfortunately, and there's nothing for it but to sit with an expression of attentive idiocy trying to figure a way out. Which is what I did with Gardner while he elaborated his monstrous suggestion.
'You're going with the Khalsa,' says he, 'to ensure its defeat. It's doomed and damned already, thanks to Mai Jeendan—but you can make it certain.'
You see what I mean—the man was plainly must,*(*Must is the madness of the rogue elephant. Doolali=insane, from Deolali Camp, inland from Bombay, where generations of British soldiers (including the editor) were received in India, and supposedly were affected by sunstroke. doolali, afflicted of Allah, too long in the hills altogether—but one doesn't like to say so, straight out, not to a chap who affects tartan pants and has a Khyber knife across his lap. So I avoided the main point for a lesser but equally curious one.
'I don't quite follow, Gardner, old fellow,' says I. 'You say the Khalsa's doomed … and it's Jeendan's doing? But … she never wanted this war, you know. She's been working to avoid it—hocussing the Khalsa, delaying 'em, holding 'em back. They know it, too—Maka Khan told me. And now they've broken loose, in spite of her —'
