The Flashman Papers 09 - Flashman and the Mountain of Light

was shaking. 'I don't want to shoot you out of the saddle, but I will, by the holy!

'Will you?' says I. 'Gardner said you wouldn't do murder—but he was right about your being a thief —'

'That he was!' cries he. 'An' if you paid heed to him, you know my story!' He was grinning like a maniac. 'I've followed fortune half a lifetime, an' taken every chance I found! I ain't about to miss the best one yet! An' you can set the British an' the Punjab in a roar after me—there's a war to finish, an' more empty trails between Kabul an' Katmandu an' Quetta than anybody's ever thought of—'cept me! I'll count to three!'

His knuckle was white on the ring, so I slipped the chain over my neck, weighed the locket a moment, and tossed it to him. He snapped it up by the chain, his feverish eyes never leaving me for a second, and dropped the locket into his boot. His chest was heaving, and he licked his lips highway robbery wasn't his style, I could see.

'Now you climb down, an' keep your hands clear o' those barkers!' I dismounted, and he side-stepped in and seized my reins.

'You're not leaving me afoot—and unarmed, for God's sake!' I cried, and he backed his horse away, covering me still, and drawing my mount with him.

'You're less'n two hours from the river,' says he, grinning more easy now. 'You'll make it safe enough. Well, lieutenant … we had our ups an' downs, but no hard feelings my side. Fact, I'm almost sorry to part—you're my sort, you know.' He gave a high-pitched laugh. ''That's why I'm not offering you a partnership in Koh- i-Noor Unlimited!'

'Did wouldn't take it. How long have you been planning this?'

'Bout twenty minutes. Here—catch hold!' He unslung the Maggie from Ahmed's saddle, and threw it towards me. 'Hot day—have a drink on me!'

He wheeled his horse and was off at the gallop, making north, with my screw behind, leaving me alone on the doab. I waited until the scrub hid him, and then turned and ran at full speed in the direction of Nuggur Ford. There was a belt of jungle that way, and I wanted to be in cover. As I ran, I kept my hand cupped to my side, feeling the reassuring bulge of the Koh-i-Noor under my sash. I may day-dream occasional, but when I'm carrying price-less valuables in the company of the likes of Dr Josiah Harlan, I slip 'em out of sight in the first five minutes, you may be sure.

If he'd had the wit to open the locket—well, that would have been another story. But if he'd had that much wit, he'd not have been reduced to running errands for Broad-foot in the first place. The fact is, for all his experience of rascality, Jassa was a 'prentice hand. The Man Who Would Be King … but never was.

Only the other day my little great-niece Selina—the pretty one whose loose conduct almost led me to commit murder in Baker Street, but that's another story—remarked to me that she couldn't abide Dickens because his books were full of coincidences. I replied by telling her about the chap who lost a rifle in France and tripped over it in West Africa twenty years later,⁴⁶ and added for good measure an account of my own strange experience after I parted from Harlan in the doab. That was coincidence, if you like, and damnably mixed luck, too, for while it may have saved my life it also landed me centre stage in the last act of the Punjab war.

Once I reached the jungle belt, chortling at the thought of Jassa stopping presently to gloat over his booty, I went to ground. Even when he found out he'd been diddled, he'd never dare come back to look for me, so I decided to stay put and cross the river when night fell. In my Kabuli attire I could pass for a gorrachar' well enough, but the less I was seen the better, so I planned to leave my jungly lair a couple of hours before dusk, slip down to the river, swim across—it wasn't above four hundred yards wide—and lie up on the far shore until daylight.

It began to rain heavily towards evening, so I was glad enough of my shelter, and only when the light began to fade did I venture out, onto a beaten track leading down to the Sutlej. It took me through a little wood, and I was striding boldly along, eager to catch a glimpse of the river, when I rounded a bend in the trees, and there, not twenty yards ahead, was a troop of regular Khalsa cavalry, with their beasts picketed and a fire going, It was too late to turn back, so I walked on, prepared to pass the time of day and pick up the shave, and only when I was almost on them did I notice six or seven bodies hanging from trees within the wood. I bore up in natural alarm—and that was fatal. They were already looking towards me, and now someone yelled an order, and before I knew it I had been seized by grinning sowars and hauled into the presence of a burly daffadar* (*Cavalry commander of ten.) standing by the fire, a mess-tin in his hand and his tunic unbuttoned. He eyed me malevolently, brushing crumbs from his beard.

'Another of them!' growls he. Gorracharra, are you? Aye, the faithless rabble! And what tale have you got to tell?'

'Tale, daffadar sahib?' says I, bewildered. 'Why, none! I —'

'Here's a change! Most of you have sick mothers!' At which all his louts hooted with laughter. 'Well, gorrachar', ,where's your horse? Your arms? Your regiment?' He suddenly threw the mess-tin aside and slapped me across the face, back and forth. 'Your honour, you cowardly scum!'

It struck the sense out of me for a moment, and I was starting to babble some nonsense about being waylaid by bandits when he hit me again.

'Robbed, were you? And they left you this?' He snatched the silver-hilted Persian knife from my boot. 'Liar! You're a deserter! Like those swine there!' He jerked a thumb at the swinging corpses, and I saw that most of them were wearing some remnants of uniform. 'Well, you can muster with them again, carrion! Hang him up!'

It was so brutally sudden, so impossible—I wasn't to know that for weeks they'd been hunting down deserters from half the regiments of the Khalsa, stringing them up on sight without charge, let alone trial. They were dragging me towards the trees before I recovered my wits, and there was only one way to stop them.

'Daffadar!' I shouted, 'you're under arrest! For assault on a superior officer and attempted murder! I am Katte Khan, captain and aide to the Sirdar Heera Sing Topi, of Court's Division —' it was a name from months ago, the only one I could think of. 'You!' I snapped at the goggling sowar holding my left arm. 'Take your polluting hand away or I'll have you shot! I'll teach you to lay hands on me, you damned Povinda brigands!'

It paralysed them—as the voice of authority always does. They loosed me in a twinkling, and the daffadar, open-mouthed, even began to button his tunic. 'We are not of the Povinda division —'

'Silence! Where's your officer?'

'In the village,' says he, sullenly, and only half-convinced. 'If you are what you say —'

'If! Give me the lie, will you?' I dropped my voice from a bellow to a whisper, which always rattles them. 'Daffadar, I do not explain myself to the sweepings of the gutter! Bring your officer—jao!'

Now he was convinced. 'I'll take you to him, Captain sahib —'

'You'll bring him!' I roared, and he leaped back a yard and sent one of the sowars off at the gallop, while I turned on my heel and waited with my back to them, so that they shouldn't see that I was shaking like a leaf. It had all been so quick—carefree one minute, condemned the next—that there hadn't been time for fear, but now I was fit to faint. What could I say to the officer? I cudgelled my wits—and then there was the sound of hooves, and I turned to see the coincidence riding towards me.

He was a tall, fine-looking young Sikh, his yellow tunic stained with weeks of campaigning. He reined in, demanding of the daffadar what the devil was up, swinging out of the saddle and striding towards me—and to my consternation I knew him, and any hope of maintaining my disguise vanished. For it was long odds he'd recognise me, too, and if he did … A wild thought suddenly struck me, and before he could speak I had drawn myself up, bowed, and In my best verandah manner asked him to send his men out of earshot. My style must have impressed him, for he waved them away.

'Sardul Singh,' says I quietly, and he started. 'I'm Flashman. You escorted me from Ferozepore to Lahore six months ago. It's vital that these men should not know I'm a British officer.'

He gasped, and stepped closer, peering at me in the gathering dark. 'What the devil are you doing here?'

I took a deep breath,. and prayed. 'I've come from Lahore—from the Maharani. This morning I was with Raja Goolab Singh, who is now at Pettee, with his army. I was on my way to the Malki lat, with messages of the highest importance, when by ill chance these fellows took me for a deserter—thank God it's you who —'

'Wait, wait!' says he. 'You are from Lahore .. on an embassy? Then, why this disguise? Why —'

'Envoys don't travel in uniform these days,' says I, and pitched my tale as. urgent as I knew how. 'Look, I should not tell you, but I must—there are secret negotiations in hand! I can't explain, but the whole future of the