The Flashman Papers 09 - Flashman and the Mountain of Light

bag.

His name was Jassa, and he wasn't chota. I had envisaged the usual fat babu or skinny clerk, but Jassa was a pock-marked, barrel-chested villain, complete with hairy poshteen,*(*Coat.) skull-cap, and Khyber knife—just the man you'd choose, as a rule, to see you through rough country, but I was leery of this one from the start. For one thing, he pretended to be a Baloochi dervish, and wasn't—I put him down for Afghan chi-chi,*(*Half-caste) for he was grey-eyed, had no greater a gap between his first and second toes than I did, and possessed something rare among Europeans at that time, let alone natives—a vaccination mark. I spotted it at Ferozepore when he was washing at the tank, but didn't let on; he was from Broadfoot's stable, after all, and plainly knew his business, which was to act as orderly, guide, shield-on-shoulder, and general adviser on country matters. Still, I didn't trust him above half.

Ferozepore was the last outpost of British India then, a beastly hole not much better than a village, beyond which lay the broad brown flood of the Sutlej—and then the hot plain of the Punjab. We had just built a barracks for our three battalions, one British and two Native Infantry, who garrisoned the place, God help them, for it was hotter than hell's pavement; you boiled when it rained, and baked when it didn't. In my civilian role, I didn't call on Littler, who commanded, but put up with Peter Nicolson, Broadfoot's local Assistant. He was suffering for his country, that one, dried out and hollow-cheeked with the worst job in India—nursemaiding the frontier, finding shelter for the endless stream of refugees from the Punjab, sniffing out the trouble-makers sent to seduce our sepoys and disaffect the zamindars*(*Land-holders.) chasing raiding parties, disarming badmashes,*(*Ruffians),s ruling a district, and keeping the Queen's peace—all this, mind you, without provoking a hostile power which was spoiling for trouble.

'It can't last,' says he cheerfully—and I wondered how long he could, with that impossible task and the mercury at 107. 'They're just waitin' for an excuse, an' if I don't give 'em one—why, they'll roll over the river as soon as the cold weather comes, horse, foot an' guns, you'll see. We ought to go in an' smash 'em now, while they're in two minds an' gettin' over the cholera—five thousand of the Khalsa have died in Lahore, but it's past its worst.'

He was seeing me down to the ferry at daybreak; when I mentioned the great assembly of our troops I'd seen above Meerut he laughed and pointed back to the cantonment, where the 62nd were drilling, the red and buff figures like dolls in the heat haze.

'Never mind what's on the Grand Trunk,' says he. 'That's what's here, my boy—seven thousand men, one- third British, an' only light guns. Up there,' he pointed north, 'is the Khalsa—one hundred thousand of the finest native army in Asia, with heavy guns. They're two days' march away. Our nearest reinforcements are Gilbert's ten thousand at Umballa, a week's march away, and Wheeler's five thousand at Ludhiana—only five days' march. Strong on mathematics, are you?'

I'd heard vague talk in Simla, as you know, about our weakness on the frontier, but it's different when you're on the spot, and hear the figures. 'But why --?' I was beginning, and Nicolson chuckled and shook his head.

'— doesn't Gough reinforce now?' he mimicked me. 'Because it would provoke Lahore—my goodness, it provokes Lahore if one of our sepoys walks north to the latrines! I hear they're goin' to demand that we withdraw even the troops we have up here now—perhaps that'll start the war, even if your Soochet legacy doesn't.' He knew about that, and had twitted me about how I'd be languishing at the feet of 'the fair sultana' while honest soldiers like him were chasing infiltrators along the river.

I don't know why I remember those words, or the sight of him with that great mob of niggers chattering about him while his orderlies cuffed and pushed them up to the camp where they'd be fed and looked after; he was for all the world like a prepostor marshalling the fags, laughing and swearing by turns, with a chico perched on his shoulder—I'd not have touched the verminous imp for a pension. He was a kindly, cheery ass, working twenty hours a day, minding his frontier. Four months later he got his reward: a bullet. I wonder if anyone else remembers him?

The last time I'd crossed the Sutlej had been four years earlier, where there was a British army ahead, and we had posts all the way to Kabul. Now there were no friends before me, and no one to turn to except the Khyberie thug Jassa and our gaggle of bearers—they were there chiefly because Broadfoot had said I should enter Lahore in a jampan, to impress the Sikhs with my consequence. Thanks, George, but I felt damned unimportant as I surveyed my waiting escort (or captors?), and Jassa did nothing to raise my spirits.

Gorracharra, grunts he, and spat. 'Irregular cavalry—it is an insult to thee, husoor.*(*Sir, lord) These should have been men of the palace, pukka cavalry. They seek to put shame on us, the Hindoo swine!'

I told him pretty sharp to mind his manners, but I saw what he meant. They were typical native irregulars, splendid cavalry undoubtedly, but dressed and armed any old how, with lances, bows, tulwars,*(*Sikh swords.) and ancient fire-arms, some in mail coats and helmets, others bare-legged, and all grinning most familiarly. Not what you'd call a guard of honour—yet that's what they were, as I learned when their officer, a handsome young Sikh in a splendid rigout of yellow silk, addressed me by name—and by fame.

'Sardul Singh, at your service, Flashman bahadur, *(*Champion.) cries he, teeth flashing through his beard. 'I was by the Turksalee Gate when you came down from Jallalabad, and all men came to see the Afghan Kush.' So much for Broadfoot's notion that shaving my whiskers would help me to pass unnoticed —mind you, it was famous to hear myself described as 'the slayer of Afghans', if quite undeserved. 'When we heard you were coming with the book and not the sword—may it be an omen of peace for our peoples—I sought command of your escort—and these are volunteers.' He indicated his motley squadron. 'Men of the Sirkart in their time. A fitter escort for Bloody Lance than Khalsa cavalry.'

Well, this was altogether grand, so I thanked him, raised my civilian kepi to his grinning bandits, saying 'Salaam, bha'*(*'Greetings, brothers.') which pleased them no end. I took the first chance to remind Jassa how wrong he'd been, but the curmudgeon only grunted: 'The Sikh speaks, the cobra spits—who grows fat on the difference?' There's no pleasing some folk.

Between the Sutlej and Lahore lie fifty of the hottest, flattest, scrubbiest miles on earth, and I supposed we'd cover them in a long day's ride, but Sardul said we should lie overnight at a serai*(*Inn, rest-house.) a few miles from the city: there was something he wanted me to see. So we did, and after supper he took me through a copse to the loveliest place I ever saw in India—there, all unexpected after the heat and dust of the plain, was a great garden, with little palaces and pavilions among the trees, all hung with coloured lanterns in the warm dusk; streams meandered among the lawns and flower-beds, the air was fragrant with night-blooms, soft music sounded from some hidden place, and everywhere couples were strolling hand in hand or deep in lovers' talk under the boughs. The Chinese Summer Palace, where I walked years later, was altogether grander, I suppose, but there was a magic about that Indian garden that I can't describe—you could call it perfect peace, with its gentle airs rustling the leaves and the lights winking in the twilight; it was the kind of spot where Scheherazade might have told her unending stories; even its name sounds like a caress: Shalamar.¹⁶

But this wasn't the sight that Sardul wanted me to see—that was something unimaginably different, and we viewed it next morning. We left the serai at dawn, but instead of riding towards Lahore, which was in full view in the distance, we went a couple of miles out of our way towards the great plain of Maian Mir where, Sardul assured me mysteriously, the true wonder of the Punjab would be shown to me; knowing the Oriental mind, I could guess it was something designed to strike awe in the visiting foreigner—well, it did all of that. We heard it long before we saw it, the flat crash of artillery at first, and then a great confused rumble of sound which resolved itself into the squealing of elephants, the high bray of trumpets, the rhythm of drums and martial music, and the thunder of a thousand hooves making the ground tremble beneath us. I knew what it was before we rode out of the trees and halted on a bund*(*Embankment.) to view it in breathtaking panorama: the pride of the Punjab and the dread of peaceful India: the famous Khalsa.

Now, I've taken note of a few heathen armies in my time. The Heavenly Host of Tai'ping was bigger, the black tide of Cetewayo's legions sweeping into Little Hand was surely more terrifying, and there's a special place in my nightmares for that vast forest of tipis, five miles wide, that I looked down on from the bluffs over Little Bighorn—but for pure military might I've seen nothing outside Europe (and dam' little inside) to match that great disciplined array of men and beasts and metal on Maian Mir. As far as you could see, among the endless lines of tents and waving standards, the broad maidan*(*Plain.) was alive with foot battalions at drill, horse regiments at field exercise, and guns at practice—and they were all uniformed and in perfect order, that was the shocking thing. Black, brown, and yellow armies in those days, you see, might be as brave as any, but they didn't have centuries of