the pictures of memory have their way, as they will on the edge of sleep … the bearded faces of those splendid battalions, in review at Maian Mir, and swinging down to the war through the Moochee Gate … Imam Shah staring down at the petticoat draped across his boot … Maka Khan grim and straight while the panches roared behind him … 'To Delhi! To London!' … that raging Akali, arm outflung in denunciation … Sardul Singh shouting with excitement as we rode to the river … the old rissaldar-major, tears streaming down his face …
… and a red and gold houri wantoning it in her durbar, teasing them in her cups, cajoling them, winning them, so that she could betray them to this butchery … standing half-naked above the bleeding rags of her brother's body, sword in hand … 'I will throw the snake in your bosom!' Well, she'd done all of that. Jawaheer was paid for.
And if you ask me what she'd have thought if she could have gazed into some magic crystal that day, and seen the result of her handiwork along the banks of the Sutlej . well, I reckon she'd have smiled, drunk another slow draught, stretched, and called in Rai and the Python.
They say ten thousand Khalsa died in the Sutlej. Well, I didn't mind, and I still don't. They started it, and hell mend them, as old Colin Campbell used to say. And if you tell me that every man's death diminishes me, I'll retort that it diminishes him a hell of a sight more, and if he's a Khalsa Sikh, serve him right.
Knowing me, you won't marvel at my callousness, but you may wonder why Paddy Gough, as kindly an old stick as ever patted a toddler's head, hammered 'em so mercilessly when they were beat and running. Well, he had good reasons, one being that you don't let up on a courageous adversary until he hollers 'Uncle!', which the Sikhs ain't inclined to do—and I wouldn't trust 'em if they did. Nor do you feel much charity towards an enemy who never takes prisoners, and absolutely enjoys chop-ping up wounded, as happened at Sobraon and Ferozeshah both. Even if Gough had wanted to stop the slaughter, I doubt if anyone would have heeded him.50
But the best reason for murdering the Khalsa was that if enough of the brutes had escaped, the whole beastly business would have been to do again, with consequent loss of British and Sepoy lives. That's something the moralists overlook (or more likely don't give a dam about) when they cry: 'Pity the beaten foe!' What they're saying, in effect, is: 'Kill our fellows tomorrow rather than the enemy today.' But they don't care to have it put to them like that; they want their wars won clean and comfortable, with a clear conscience. (Their consciences being much more precious than their own soldiers' lives, you understand.) Well, that's fine, if you're sitting in the Liberal Club with a bellyful of port on top of your dinner, but if you rang the bell and it was answered not by a steward with a napkin but an Akali with a tulwar, you might change your mind. Distance always lends enlightenment to the view, I've noticed.
Being uncomfortable close, myself, my one concern when I'd slept the night away was to slide out in safety and rejoin the army. The difficulty was that when I crawled out of my refuge and stood up, I tumbled straight down again and almost rolled over the ledge. I had another go, with the same result, and realised that my head ached, I felt shockingly ill and dizzy, I was sweating like an Aden collier, and some infernal Sutlej bug was performing a polka in my lower bowels. Dysentery, in fact, which can be anything from fatal to a damned nuisance, but even at best leaves you weak as a rat, which is inconvenient when the nearest certain help is twenty miles away. For while I could hear our bugles playing Charlie, Charlie across the river, I wasn't fit to holler above a whimper, let alone swim.
By moving mostly on hands and knees I made a cautious scout of the emplacements on the bank behind me; luckily they were empty, the Sikh reserve having decamped, taking their guns with them. But that was small consolation, and I was considering the wild notion of crawling down to the corpse-littered bank, finding a piece of timber, and floating down to Ferozepore ghat, when out of the dawn mist came the prettiest sight I'd seen that year—the blue tunics and red puggarees of a troop of Native Cavalry, with a pink little cornet at their head. I waved and yelped feebly, and when I'd convinced him that I wasn't a fugitive gorrachar' and received the inevitable, heart-warming response ('Not Flashman—Flash-man of Afghanistan, surely? Well, bless me!') we got along famously.
They were 8th Lights from Grey's division which had been watching the river at Attaree, and had been ordered across the previous night as soon as Gough knew he had the battle won. More of our troops were invading over the Ferozepore ghat and Nuggur Ford, for Paddy was in a sweat to secure the northern bank and tidy up the remnants of the Khalsa before they could get up to mischief. Ten thousand had got away from Sobraon, with all their reserve guns, and there were rumoured to be another twenty thousand up Amritsar way, as well as the hill garrisons—far more than we had in the field ourselves.
'But they ain't worth a button now!' cries my pink lad. 'The shave is that their sirdars have hooked it, and they're quite without supplies or ammunition. And the hidin' they got yesterday will have knocked all the puff out of 'em, I dare say,' he added regretfully. 'I say, were you in the thick of it? Lor', don't I just wish I'd had your luck! Of all the beastly sells, to be ploddin' up an' down on river patrol, and not so much as a smell of a Sikh the whole time! What I'd give for a cut at the rascals!'
Between his babble and having to totter into the bushes every half-mile while the troop tactfully looked the other way, I was in poor trim by the time we reached Nuggur Ford, where they slung me a hammock in a makeshift hospital basha, and a native medical orderly filled me with jalap. I gave my little fire-eater a note to be forwarded to Lawrence, wherever he was, describing my whereabouts and condition, and after a couple of days in that mouldering hovel, watching the lizards scuttle along the musty beams and wishing I were dead, received the following reply:
Political Department, Camp, Kussoor. February 13, 1846.
My dear Flashman—I rejoice that you are safe, and trust that when this reaches you, your indisposition will have mended sufficiently to enable you to join me here without delay. The matter is urgent. Yrs Lawrence.
It gave me qualms, I can tell you; 'urgent matters' were the last thing I needed just then. But it was reassuring, too, for there was no reference to my Dalip fiasco, and I guessed that Goolab had lost no time in advising Lawrence and Hardinge that he was looking after the lad like a mother hen. Still, I hadn't covered myself with glory, and knowing Hardinge's dislike of me it was surprising to find myself in such demand; I'd have thought he'd be happy to keep me at arm's length until the peace settlement was concluded. I knew too much about the whole Punjabi mischief for anyone's comfort, and now that they'd be patching it all up to mutual satisfaction and profit, with lofty humbug couched in fair terms, neither side would want to be reminded of all the intrigue and knavery that had been consummated at Moodkee and Ferozeshah and Sobraon; things would be easier all round if the prime agent in the whole foul business wasn't leering coyly at the back of the durbar tent when they signed the peace.
And it wasn't just that I'd be a spectre at the diplomatic feast. I suspected that Hardinge's aversion to me was rooted in a feeling that I spoiled the picture he had in mind of the whole Sikh War. My face didn't fit; it was a blot on the landscape, all the more disfiguring because he knew it belonged there. I believe he dreamed of some noble canvas, for exhibition in the great historic gallery of public approval—a true enough picture, mind you, of British heroism and faith unto death in the face of impossible odds; aye, and of gallantry by that stubborn enemy who died on the Sutlej. Well, you know what I think of heroism and gallantry, but I recognise 'em as only a born coward can. But they would be there, rightly, on the noble canvas, with Hardinge stern and forbearing, planting a magisterial boot on a dead Sikh and raising a penitent, awe-struck Dalip by the hand, while Gough (off to one side) addressed heaven with upraised sword before a background of cannon-smoke and resolute Britons bayoneting gnashing niggers and Mars and Mother India floating overhead in suitable draperies. Dam' fine.
Well, you can't mar a spectacle like that with a Punch cartoon border of Flashy rogering dusky damsels and spying and conniving dirty deals with Lal and Tej, can you now?
However, Lawrence's summons had to be obeyed, so I struggled from my bed of pain, removed my beard, obtained a clean set of civilian linens, hastened down to Ferozepore by river barge, and tooled up to Kussoor looking pale and interesting, with a cushion on my saddle.
While I'd been laid up with the dolorous skitters, Gough and Hardinge had been prosecuting the peace with vigour. Paddy had the whole army north of the Sutlej within three days of Sobraon, and Lawrence had been in touch with Goolab, who now figured it was safe to accept openly the Wazirship which the Khalsa had been pressing on him, and come forward to negotiate on their behalf. There were still upward of thirty thousand of them under arms, you remember, and Hardinge was on fire to come to terms before the brutes could work up a new head of steam, For it was a ticklish position, politically: we simply hadn't the men and means, as Paddy had pointed out, to conquer the Punjab; what was needed was a treaty that would give us effective control, dissolve the last remnants of the Khalsa, and keep Goolab, Jeendan, and the rest of the noble scavengers content. So Hardinge, with a speed and zeal which would have been useful months ago, had his terms cut and dried and ready to shove down Goolab's
