The Flashman Papers 09 - Flashman and the Mountain of Light

kinsman, Goolab Singh, until it was safe for him to go home to Mama. I'd expected a royal tantrum, but he took it without a blink of those great brown eyes, nodding gravely as he looked about the camp, aswarm with Goolab's followers.

'Aye, I see how it is—they are many, and you are but three,' says he. 'May I have my pistol now, Flashman bahadur?

That rattled me, I confess. Here he was, not two chamberpots high, lifted in disguise from his mother's palace, fired on and pursued through the dark and cold, left in the hands of a ruffian of whom he could have heard nothing but evil—and all that concerned him was the promised pepperbox. No doubt Sindiawalla princelings were used alarm and excursion from the cradle, and God knows how much children understand, anyway -- but it struck me that whatever faults Dalip Singh developed in later years, funk wouldn't be one of them. Quite awe-inspiring, he was.

We were standing apart from the others, while Goolab drank his morning toddy on a rug outside his tent, watching slantendicular, and Jassa and Ahmed lounged by the horses. I beckoned Ahmed and took out the Cooper, Dalip watching round-eyed as I drew the six loads. I showed him the mechanism, and set the gun in his small fist; he had to grip well up the stock to get his finger near the ring.

'Ahmed Shah will keep these rounds for you, maharaj',' says I, 'and load them at your need.'

'I can load!' says majesty, struggling manfully with the cylinder. 'And I would have the pistol charged—I cannot shoot thieves and badmashes with an empty toy!'

I assured him there were no thieves about, and he gave me a forty-year-old look. 'And that fat bearded one yonder, the Dogra whom you call my kinsman? Mangla says he would steal the droppings from a goat!'

This boded well for Goolab's guardianship, no error. 'Now, see here, maharaj', Raja Goolab is your friend, and will guard you until your return to Lahore, which will be soon. And Ahmed Shah here will bide with you also -he is a soldier of the Sirkar, and my comrade, so you must obey him in all things.' Which was stretching it, for I hardly knew Ahmed, but he was a Broadfoot Pathan, and the best I could do. To him I said: 'On thy head, 'Yusufzai,' and he nodded and tapped his hilt. Dalip looked at him critically.

'Can he help me to shoot the gun, at need? Well then, so be it. But that great belly yonder is still a thief. I will stay with him, and mind him, but I will not trust him. He may guard me and yet rob me too, because I am little.' I le was examining the Cooper as he delivered his judgment, sotto voce, on Goolab's character, but then he stuck the pistol in his sash and spoke clear, in his shrill treble.

'A gift for a gift, bahadur! Bow your head!'

Wondering, I stooped towards him, and to my amazement he lifted the heavy silver locket from about his neck mid threw the chain over my head, and for a moment his little arms locked tight, holding me, and I felt' him tremble and his tears suddenly wet on my face. 'I will be brave! I will be brave, bahadur! whispers he, sobbing. 'But you must keep it for me, till you come again to Lahore!' Then 1 set him down, and he stood rubbing his eyes angrily, while Goolab came limping, to apologise for intruding on his majesty, but it was time we were all on our various roads.

Did asked where he would take the Maharaja, and he said no farther than Pettee, a few miles off, where his fighting men were assembling; he had brought forty thousand down from Jumoo '- in case the Jangi lat should need assistance against these rebel dogs of the Khalsa; haply we may cut them up as they flee from Sobraon! Then,' and he bowed as far as his belly would let him, 'we must see to it that your majesty has a new army, of true men!' Dalip took this with a good grace, whatever he may have been thinking.

It was time to go, and Jassa mounted alongside me -that was the moment when I knew for certain that he hadn't been party to Gardner's little plot. He'd seemed as stunned as I was to find Goolab Singh waiting at Jupindar, but that might have been acting—the fact that he was riding back to Hardinge with me was proof of his innocence. I gave a last salutation to Dalip, standing very small and steady apart from old Goolab, and then Jassa and I rode south from Jupindar rocks—with our tails between our legs, if you like … and two million pounds' worth of crystallised carbon round my neck.

He was a canny infant and wise beyond his years, young Dalip—wasn't he just? He knew Goolab wouldn't dare harm his person—but his property was another matter. If the old fox had guessed the Koh-i- Noor was within reach, then that wondrous treasure would surely have found its way to Kashmir. And in his infant innocence, Dalip had passed it to me, for safe-keeping …

I brooded on that as we trotted south over the doab in the misty afternoon, with Jupindar fading from sight behind us, and the distant green that marked the Sutlej coming into view ahead. By rights I should have been deciding where to cross, and calculating our bearing from Sobraon, where presently all hell would be let loose. But having the most precious object in the world bobbing against your belly concentrates the mind wonderfully; it ain't just the fearful responsibility, either. All kinds of mad fancies flit by not to be taken seriously, you under-stand, but food for wild imaginings—like bleaching your hair and striking out for Valparaiso under the name of Butterworth and never looking near England again … two million quid, Lord love us! Aye, but how d'you dispose of a diamond the size of a tangerine? Not in Amsterdam … probably to some swindling shark who'd set the traps after you … I could picture myself going mad in a garret, gibbering at a treasure I was too windy to sell … But if you could, and disappear … Gad, the life you could lead—estates, palaces, luxury by the bucket, gold cigar-boxes and silk drawers, squads of slaves and battalions of willing women, visions of Xanadu and Babylon and unlimited boozing and frolic …

No steak and kidney ever again, though—and no Elspeth. No sunny days at Lord's or strolls along the Haymarket, no hunt suppers or skittle pool or English rain or Horse Guards or quarts of home-brewed … oh, for Elspeth bare and bouncing and a jug of October and bread and cheese by the bed! All the jewels of Golconda can't buy you that, even supposing you had the nerve to bolt with them—which I knew I had not. No, pinching Koh-i-Noor is like putting t'other side in to bat—you won't do it, but there's no reason why you shouldn't think hard about it.

'Where you aim to cross, lieutenant?' says Jassa, and I realised he'd been gassing since we left Jupindar, full of bile against Gardner, and I'd hardly taken in a blessed word. I asked him, as one who knew the country, where we were.

'About five miles nor'east of Nuggur Ford,' says he.

The Sobraon ghat's less than ten miles due east—see, that smoke'll be from the Sikh lines.' He pointed to our left front, and on the horizon, above the distant green, you could see it hanging like a dark mist. 'We can scout the Nuggur, an' if it ain't clear, we can cast downriver a piece.' He paused. 'Leastways, you can.'

Something in his tone made me look round—into the six barrels of his pistol. He'd reined in about ten feet behind me, and there was a hard, fixed grin on his ugly face.

'What the hell are you about?' cries I. 'Put that damned thing up!'

'No, sir,' says he. 'Now you sit right still, 'cos I don't wish to harm you. No, don't start to holler an' tear your hair, neither! Just slip off that locket an' chain, an' toss 'em over this way—lively, now!' For a moment I'd been all at sea—I'd forgotten, you see, that he'd been there when Jeendan had shown the stone to Dalip and put it round his neck, and again when Dalip had passed the locket to me. Then:

'You confounded fool!' I yelped, half-laughing. 'You can't steal this!'

'Don't bet on it! Now, you do as -I say, d'ye hear?'

I was riding Ahmed Shah's screw, with two long horse pistols in the saddle holsters, but I'd no notion of reaching for them. For the thing was wild—hadn't I been turning it over, academic-like, for the past hour?

'Harlan, you're daft!' says I. 'Look, man, put up that pepperbox and see reason! This is the Koh-i-Noor—and the Punjab! Why, you'ld not get twenty miles—you'ld be running your head into a noose —'

'Mr Flashman, you can shut up!' says he, and the harsh face with its ghastly orange whiskers looked like a scared ape's. 'Now, sir, you pass that item across directly, or —'

'Hold on!', says I, and lifted the tarnished silver case in my hand. 'Hear me a moment. I don't know how many carats this thing weighs, or how you think you can turn it into cash—even if you get clear of the Sikhs, let alone the British Army! Good God, man, the mere sight of it and you'll be clapped in irons—you can't hope to sell —'

'You're trying my patience, mister! An' you're forgetting I know this territory, for a thousand miles around, better'n any man alive! I know Jews in every town from Prome to Bokhara who can have that rock in twenty bits quicker'n you can spit!' He threw back his puggaree impatiently and raised the pistol, and for all his brag his hand