The Flashman Papers 09 - Flashman and the Mountain of Light

'In spite of … why, you jackass!' cries he, glaring like the Ancient Mariner. 'She started it! Don't you under- stand—she's been planning this war for months! Why? To destroy the Khalsa, of course—to see it exterminated, root and branch! Sure, she held 'em back—until the cold weather, until she'd fixed it so they have the worst possible generals, until she'd bought time for Gough! But not to avoid war, no sir! Just to make sure that when she did send 'em in, the Khalsa would get whipped five ways to Sunday! Don't you know that?'

'Talk sense—why should she want to destroy her own army?'

'Because if she doesn't, it will sure as hell destroy her in the end!' He fetched a deep breath. 'See here … you know the Khalsa's gotten too big for its britches, don't you? For six years it's been ruining the Punjab, defying government, doing as it dam' well pleases —'

'I know all that, but —'

'Well, don't you see, the ruling clique—Jeendan and the nobles—have had their power and fortunes wiped out, their very existence threatened? So of course they want the Khalsa crushed—and the only force on earth that can do that is John Company! That's why they've been trying to provoke a war—that's why Jawaheer wanted one! But they murdered him—and that's another score Mai Jeendan has to settle. You remember her that night at Maian Mir, don't you? She was sentencing the Khalsa then, Mr Flashman—now she's executing them!'

I remembered her screaming hate at the Khalsa over Jawaheer's body—but Gardner still wasn't making sense. 'Dammit, if the Khalsa goes under, she'll go with it!' I protested. 'She's their queen—and you say she's set them on! Well, if they lose, she'll be finished, won't she?'

He sighed, shaking his head. 'Son, it won't even take the dander out of her hair. When they lose, she's won. Consider … Britain doesn't want to conquer the Punjab—too much trouble. It just wants it nice and quiet, with no Khalsa running wild, and a stable Sikh government who'll do what Hardinge tells 'em. So … when the Khalsa's licked, your chiefs won't annex the Punjab—no, sir! They'll find it convenient to keep little Dalip on the throne, with Jeendan as regent—which means that she and the nobles will be riding high again, squeezing the fat out of the country just like old times—and with no Khalsa to worry about.'

'Hold on! Are you saying that this war's a put-up job—that they know, in Simla, that Jeendan is hoping we'll destroy her army, for her own benefit? I won't have that! Why, it'd be collusion … conspiracy … aiding and abetting —'

'No such thing! Oh, they know in Simla what she's after—or they suspect, leastways. But what can they do about it? Give the Khalsa free passage to Delhi?' He snorted. 'Hardinge's got to fight, whether he likes it or not! And while he may not welcome the war, there are plenty of `forward policy' men like Broadfoot who do. But that doesn't mean they're in cahoots with Mai Jeendan—the way she's fixed things, they don't need to be!'

I sat silent, trying to take it in … and feeling no end of a fool. Evidently I had misjudged the lady. Oh, I'd guessed there was steel inside my drunken, avid little houri, but hardly of the temper that could slaughter scores of thousands of men just for her own political convenience and personal comfort. Mind you, what other reasons do statesmen and princes ever have for making war, when all the sham's been stripped away? Oh, and she had her sot of a brother to avenge, to be sure. But I wondered if her calculations were right; I could spot one almighty imponderable, and I voiced it to Gardner, whether it sounded like croaking or not.

'But suppose we don't beat the Khalsa? How can she be so sure we will? There's a hell of a lot of 'em, and we're spread thin … Wait, though! Maka Khan was in a great sweat in case she'd betrayed their plans of campaign! Well, has she?'

Gardner shook his head. 'She's done better than that. She's put the conduct of the war in the hands of Lal Singh, her Wazir and lover, and Tej Singh, her commander-in-chief who'd set fire to his own mother to keep warm.' He nodded grimly. 'They'll see to it that Gough doesn't have too much trouble.'

Suddenly I remembered Lal Singh's words to me … 'I wonder how we should acquit ourselves against such a seasoned campaigner as Sir Hugh Gough …?'

'My God,' says I, with reverence. 'You mean they're ready to … to fight a cross? To sell the pass? But … does Gough know? I mean, have they arranged with him -?'

'No, sir. That's your part. That's why you have to join the Khalsa.' He leaned forward, the hawk face close to mine. 'You're going to Lal Singh. By tomorrow he'll be lying before Ferozepore with twenty thousand gorracharra. He'll tell you his plans, and Tej Singh's—numbers, armaments, dispositions, intentions, all of it—and you'll carry them to Gough and Hardinge. And then … well, it should be an interesting little war … what's the matter?'

I'd been struggling for speech during this fearful recital, but when I found words it wasn't to protest, or argue, or scream, but to pose a profound military question:

'But … hell's bells! Look here … they can give away plans—arrange for a few regiments to go astray—lose a battle on purpose, I dare say … But, man alive, how do they betray an army of a hundred thousand men? I mean … how d'you sell a whole war?'

'It'll take management, no denying. As I said, an interesting little war.' He tossed another billet on the fire, and rose. 'When it's over, and you're back in Lahore with the British peace mission—you can tell me all about it.'

My first thought, as I sat by the fire with my head in my hands, was: this is Broadfoot's doing. He's planned the whole hideous thing, start to finish, and kept me in the dark till the last moment, the treacherous, crooked, conniving, Scotch … political! Well, I was doing him an injustice; for once, George was innocent. He might welcome the war, as Gardner had said, and have a shrewd notion that Jeendan was launching the Khalsa in the hope of seeing it wrecked, but neither he nor anyone else in Simla knew that the Sikhs' two leading commanders were under her orders to give the whole game away. Nor could he guess the base use that was being made of his prize agent, Lieutenant Flashman, late 11th Hussars, in this hour of crisis.

The notion that I should be the messenger of betrayal had been another inspiration of Jeendan's, according to Gardner. How long she'd had me in mind for the role of go-between, he didn't know; she'd confided it to him only the previous day, and he and Mangla would have brought me my marching orders that same night—if I hadn't been away gallivanting with the Khalsa and Goolab and the merry widow. Most inconsiderate of me, but all's ill that ends ill—here I was still, ankle crocked and guts fermenting with fright, meet to be hurled into the soup in furtherance of that degenerate royal doxy's intrigues, and no way to cry off that I could see.

I tried, you may be sure, pleading my ankle, and the impossibility of taking orders from any but my own chiefs, and the folly of venturing again among enemies who'd already toasted me to a turn—Gardner answered every objection with the blunt fact that someone had to take Lal's plans to Gough, and no one else had my qualifications. It was my duty, says he, and if you wonder that I bowed to his authority—well, take a squint at the portrait in his Memoirs; that should convince you.

I'm still not sure, by the way, exactly where his loyalties lay. To Dalip and Jeendan, certainly: what she ordered, he performed. But he played a staunch game on our behalf, too, and on Goolab Singh's. When I ventured to ask him where he stood, he looked down that beak of a nose and snapped: 'On my own two feet!' So there.

He had Jeendan's infernal scheme all pat, and after I'd had a couple of hours' sleep and Jassa had rebound my swollen ankle, he lined it out to me; horrid risky it sounded.

'You ride straight hence to Lal's camp beyond the Sutlej, with four of my men as escort, all of you disguised as gorracharra. Ganpat there will act as leader and spokesman; he's a safe man. This was his jemadar, a lean Punjabi with an Abanazar moustache; he and the half-dozen other riders had come out from the city by now, and were loafing round the fire, chewing betel and spitting, while Gardner bullied me privately.

'You'll arrive by night, presenting yourselves as messengers from the durbar; that'll see you into Lal's presence. He'll be expecting you; word of mouth goes to him today from Jeendan.'

'Suppose Maka Khan or that bloody Akali turn up—they'll recognise me straight off —'

'They'll be nowhere near! They're infantrymen—Lal commands only cavalry and horse guns. Besides, no one's going to know you in gorracharra gear—and you won't be in their camp long enough to signify. A few hours at most—just long enough to learn what Lal and Tej mean to do.'

'They'll take Ferozepore,' says I. 'That's plain. They're bound to put Littler out of the game before Gough can relieve him.'

He gave an impatient snarl. 'That's what they'd do if they wanted to win the goddam war! They don't! But their brigadiers and colonels do, so Lal and Tej are going to have to look as though they're trying like hell! Lal's going to have to think of some damned good reason for not storming Ferozepore, and since he's a duffer of a soldier