Flashman and the Cobra Page 13

  We scanned the rest of the horizon and it was clear, although there were various little ravines or dry river beds they called nullahs across the plain to carry away the monsoon water when it came.

  “We should be all right tonight, but I will be glad to get away from here in the morning,” said Poorun, putting away his telescope. “I’ve got an uneasy feeling about this place.”

  Well, if there is one thing a windy beggar like me does not need to hear it is comments like that, especially when he is effectively carrying a bank vault above his shoulders. I stayed up there a bit longer, scanning the horizon, but saw nothing other than that distant group of horsemen.

  I don’t know what woke me up that night. I had managed to find a rope bed in one of the abandoned rooms and had been sleeping fitfully under my blanket. Suddenly I was awake and it was not just the night chill that made the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. For a while I listened, but I heard nothing. I tried to convince myself that I had just been unsettled by Poorun’s words, but I could not get back to sleep. I decided I would get up and check everything was secure. Then I would be able to sleep, I told myself, slipping my feet into my boots. I reached into my saddlebags and took one of my pistols and slipped it into my sash and then stepped softly outside.

  An unfamiliar abandoned fort can seem sinister at night, especially when you have spent part of the afternoon tipping the previous residents off a cliff. There seemed to be no one about. The sentry post above the south-facing gate was abandoned, there was the screech of some animal out in the dessert and as I crept quietly forward my heart started to race.

  “Huzoor.”

  “Jesus!” I shrieked, leaping about three feet vertically into the air as the voice sounded just behind me.

  “Are you all right, Flashman huzoor?” said some grinning white teeth in the gloom, trying to stifle a chuckle. Into the dim light stepped one of the troopers. “I have been sent to find you huzoor. The havildar-major would like you to go to the western rampart.”

  If I thought that the voice in the dark had given me a shock, I was in for another one when I reached the western rampart. There, across the darkness, were half a dozen lights.

  “Please tell me that they are powerful glow-worms,” I muttered to Poorun as I stepped up beside him.

  “I wish I could, but I fancy these have a more powerful sting,” he replied. “They have been appearing for the last hour. I think they have been approaching in the nullahs, but now that they are closer they have come up onto the plain.”

  “Shouldn’t we be trying to get away?” I asked.

  “We would need to light torches to see our way, and if they are hostile, they would see us and we would be caught in the open. Their horses should be tired after a night ride. I think we would do better to break out with fresh horses at dawn. They might not even be hostile,” he added. “They could be the rest of the castle garrison returning now the pindaree have left.” I could not see his face in the dark but I don’t think either of us believed that.

  “How many do you think there are?”

  “It is impossible to tell. One torch could be leading one or two horses, or a string of twenty. I wish now we had not stopped for that tiger or that you had not killed it. Word will have got out that an Englishman was with us.” He paused and stared south. “I think at least that group to the south may have been on our trail. The others could be pindaree returning from the west if they have heard the rumour of the Englishman killing the tiger. But most people who cross this plain stop at this fort, so they could be traders. Any less than a hundred and we should be able to cut our way out with fresh horses.”

  Well, I was not going to sleep now. That bloody tiger; if we had just got past that village like all the others then they would not have had a clue where I was. I paced up and down the ramparts while I considered my options, and there were not many. I could cut out on my own but probably would not last the day as a single Company cavalry sowar with a dubious grasp of Hindi in country where at least one group of horsemen was likely to be after my head. Staying with the troop seemed best, and Poorun’s plan of breaking out at dawn with fresh horses seemed sensible if there were not too many hostiles outside.

  But over the next two hours those six lights increased to ten. I kept looking towards the eastern horizon, praying for the dawn that would enable us to get on our way and reveal what waited beyond the walls. It is strange: when you are tucked up under a blanket with a pretty young bint keeping you warm then the sun is up in a moment, but when you are desperate for it to appear, it takes forever.

  Eventually I must have settled myself in a corner of the ramparts and managed to doze for I remember a sowar shaking my shoulder and saying simply, “Look.”

  It was the grey of dawn. I was cold and stiff, but I forgot that in a moment when I looked out over the ramparts. The area to the west was still in shade, but I could see shapes moving to the south and north and there seemed to be hundreds of them. I ran around the ramparts to look over the east wall and there were yet more there, and in the better light I could see that many were walking their horses to keep them fit for any pursuit. They were fighting men all right, not traders, and while I had never seen a pindaree bandit before, I was pretty sure I was looking at hundreds of them now. We were never going to be able to fight our way out through this lot and survive. To confirm my suspicions, when I looked down into the courtyard Poorun was there with around a dozen troopers building a barricade behind the shattered gate in the entrance to the fort.

  I went down to meet him and must have looked ashen-faced for he turned to me and said, “Don’t worry, Flashman huzoor, we will not give you up.”

  It says something about the inherent courage and honour of the Rajputs that not for one moment had I thought that they would. I had assumed we would try to survive as a group.

  “How are we going to get out of this?”

  “We cannot ride through them. They are jackals; they love to chase down and kill when they have an enemy on the run. But they may think twice about attacking us in the fort. There is only one way in and we can match them man for man at the gate.” He paused, looking pleased with himself, before he continued, “At the English school I went to they taught us about a battle that some old people had fought where three hundred warriors had held off a mighty army in a narrow pass.”

  “Thermopylae, the Spartans against the Persians,” I said, remembering the same lesson at Rugby school.

  “Exactly,” said Poorun, grinning. “We will be the Spartans.”

  “They were all killed in the end,” I reminded him. “And they were buying time for the Greek army. Is anyone likely to rescue us?”

  Poorun looked a little crestfallen; he had evidently been pleased to show off his education in the classics. But his example had filled me with horror.

  “It is the best I can do, huzoor,” he said quietly. “If we fight well, they may give up or run out of food, and if word of where we are has spread then maybe the nizam will send soldiers to help us. We are still in his territory.” He put his hand on my shoulder. “I am sorry; you must be worried for your mission. I fear I have failed you.”

  My mission was the last thing on my mind; I was just thinking of survival. Jesus, given the choice now, I would have shouted that I had bedded both Berkeley sisters in one night from the middle of Parliament Square and taken my chances with his lordship’s thugs. One randy night had started the whole chain of events that had ended up in this wretched little fort surrounded by hundreds of bandits determined to separate my head from my shoulders. It was not even as if I had raped or seduced either of them; if anything, they had seduced me. I couldn’t die here, I simply couldn’t. I had to find a way out.

  “Could I hide somewhere in the fort and then continue my mission after they have... er attacked... do you think?” It was awkward talking about the time that they would all be dead defending me, but Poorun was all for it.

  “You are a brave man, Flashman, thinking o
f how you can complete your mission even at a time such as this. I will give you a couple of men to help you find a hiding place and then at the last we can help you hide. If you reach Berar, the man you should speak to is the chamberlain to Manu Bappoo, the raja’s brother. He can arrange a meeting with the raja. If you manage to split the alliance then we will not have died in vain and the Company army will avenge us, yes?” He patted me on the shoulder again and detailed two men to help in the search.

  For a while my hopes rose. Now at least I had a ghost of a chance of avoiding death and decapitation. There must be a hiding place in a fortress and we set to our search with enthusiasm. It was Daisy and Flora who joined me in the hunt for a safe hideaway and I would like to record in this account their proper names, but they were long and unpronounceable. They did not resent helping me search for a hiding place that would enable me to survive the battle in which they would die. Indeed, if anything they seemed excited about the prospect of the coming battle.

  It made no difference anyway for there was no hiding place. You can be assured that I went over every last inch and you could not have hidden anything much bigger than a mouse. The granary was empty, the buildings had been swept clean of virtually all furniture and much of what was left had been chopped up for firewood. The walls were of stone and there were no attics, just a range of fairly basic rooms surrounding a central courtyard. Even the stables had no hay to hide behind. At one point I seriously found myself considering whether I could hide behind a large door, but even a child would have found me there if he had entered the room. And of course when they did not find an Englishman amongst the bodies they would search every inch of the place until they had.

  I sank back in despair and climbed up the ramparts, and then really wished I hadn’t. When I had last looked out the light was still dim and hazy, but in the time we had searched the sun had got well up in the sky. It was a bright, sunny morning – almost certainly my last sunny morning, I thought, as I looked down on the plain. There were literally hundreds of pindaree down there. As I walked around the walls, feeling increasingly sick with fear, I saw that there were herds of horses tied to lines around the tank on the north side of the fort where they were being fed and watered. To distract myself, I tried to count them. An old drover I knew had taught me to break a flock down into half and then quarters and then eighths, count those and then multiply up. I tried that and calculated that there were around three hundred horses down there. I saw their owners when I walked around to the gate. There were still at least a hundred mounted men waiting at the bottom of the narrow path leading from the fort in case we decided to make a break for it, but more were on ropes that were hauling a small cannon up the path. I guessed it was the same cannon that had broken the gate down before. It would make short work of the barricade, and if they had grape shot it would decimate any charge of horsemen. Evidently some more of the men had settled in the rocks around the cliff path as a musket ball ricocheted off a battlement near me and a chip of rock flew in the air. The fort was a bottle, and it was well and truly corked.

  Chapter 13

  People react differently when they only have a few hours of life left. Some of the sowars sat in corners chanting or praying quietly to themselves, other more practical souls spent it sharpening every weapon they had to a razor edge. Thomas Flashman Esquire spent his last hours in that fort running around the battlements in an increasing state of funk. My last hope was that by some miracle we could hold out until nightfall and then I could somehow lower myself over the ramparts and down the precipice below. I craned over the battlements to try to see what the rock was like beneath and where I might possibly climb down. It was hopeless: the walls were fifteen- to twenty-feet high, on top of fifty feet of rock. I would have no rope, be in the dark and would only have that chance only if we could hold out until nightfall. The futility of hoping we could survive the day was demonstrated a while later when there was a sharp crack outside and a round shot bounced off the ground outside the fort and smashed through the gateway barricade, sending a shower of splinters across the courtyard.

  Oh, Jesus, I thought, they are starting the attack; this could my last few minutes of life. I am not a religious man, but I prayed then all right, although quite what miracle I expected God to provide I am not sure. The best I could hope for was a swift end. I had a sudden memory of Paris and wondered if my last sight on this earth would be from my own severed head and of cheering pindaree before the world went black.

  Some of the sowars were gathering at the battlements above the gate and I went to join them. Having got our attention with the cannon shot, a small deputation of six pindaree leaders was coming forward under a flag of truce. They stopped thirty yards off and one of them shouted, “We know you have the Englishman called Iflassman. Give him to us alive or dead and we will leave. There is no need for further bloodshed today.”

  You can guess that if it was anyone else that they wanted I would be all for handing him over. Save fifty lives for the price of one, when we would all die otherwise? Well, it makes sense, doesn’t it, especially when one of the precious saved skins was mine. I looked around the men to see if any were considering it, but they were all laughing at the pindaree leaders.

  “Listen to the wind coming from that baboon’s arse,” said Lal loudly enough for the bandit to hear.

  While they chuckled at that Poorun shouted down, “We do not all have the morals of a mutinous pi dog. If you want Flashman huzoor, you will have to fight for him, and many of you will die in the attempt.”

  Far from being cowed, this set off a great cheer amongst the pindaree who now had confirmation that the man with the ‘golden head’ was here to be taken.

  “Come, brother,” said Poorun to me. “It is time to get ready to send these jackals back to Shaitan or whatever other devil they believe in.”

  I looked over the parapet one last time. The pindaree leaders were going back and the gun crew were making ready to fire while the other pindaree crowded up behind the gun. They were still cheering, with some waving their swords or muskets in readiness for the attack.

  We lost our first man a few minutes later. The gun crew were sending a cannon ball into the barricade every couple of minutes, and once it had smashed through the wood, the ball ricocheted around the stone walls of the courtyard. There was no way to guess where it would go and it moved too fast to avoid. There was just a bang, a crash and then a shower of stone where it struck. One of the sowars was standing in the wrong place and the ball struck him in the chest, killing him instantly. His long hair was in the blood, for now that the Rajputs knew they were going to die, they chose to die like the warriors they were. They took their turbans off, leaving their long hair to flow down their shoulders and many took off their red jackets. Several were even bare-chested. One or two started some traditional chant and soon they were all joining in, and to me it seemed to turn into a song that they were all bellowing. I don’t know if they scared the pindaree, but they alarmed me. The neat uniforms and familiar cavalry ways had been replaced with keening warriors and incantations that I could not understand. They were not the same men I had spent the last month with.

  Poorun saw me staring at them in astonishment and he laughed. “Sing, Flashman, sing to your god like we do to ours. It will help you make your sword sing when they attack.”

  Well, it might help them, but I couldn’t imagine a quick chorus of ‘He Who Would Valliant Be’ would give me any backbone. I was still sick with fright and suddenly feeling very alone. It was my head that was the prize in this battle after all.

  But before I could worry about that there was a fusillade of musket fire through the barricade from outside and then a burst of flame. Looking round, I saw two more of the Rajputs falling, hit by the musket fire. The cannon had evidently not been destroying the barricade fast enough and so now the pindaree had set it alight. Judging from the roar of the flames, they had also poured oil on it first. It was emitting thick, dark smoke that was getting blown
into the courtyard, making us cough and our eyes sting. We had a choice: to stand either side of the gate to avoid the musket fire, which was still being fired blindly through the flames from the other side, and choke on the smoke, or go out into the courtyard and risk the bullets. Some went up into the battlements, but the smoke was still curling around the walls. The only cover from the bullets in the courtyard was the stone surround of the well and I ran to crouch behind it.

  I had my sabre and my two pistols; they were the only firearms we had as the sowars had just sabres and lances. I put my powder flask and some pistol balls on the top of the well so that I could reload quickly. I heard a crashing sound as the pindaree used something to try to batter down the barricade. The horses in the stables were whinnying in panic as they smelled the smoke. There was shouting and yelling on the other side of the gate, chanting and singing this side of it, and somewhere someone was whimpering in terror. I realised who that was and clamped my jaws shut.

  The courtyard was almost completely full of smoke and I could no longer see the gateway. There was another crash from that direction and suddenly someone was looming out of the smoke towards me. I picked up one of the pistols and fired. The ball missed, which was just as well for I saw when the figure got closer that it was one of the Rajput sowars. He waved his sword at me and grinned, oblivious of the fact that I had nearly killed him.

  I did not smile back, as I was cursing at the wasted shot. Now I had just one loaded pistol left and I had been speculating whether at the last I would use that on myself. It would ensure a quick death, and if I blew my brains all over the yard, I would have the satisfaction of depriving the murderous bastards of most of their gold. But I doubted that I would have the courage to go through with it. I had to reload the used pistol quickly. My hand shot out to grab the powder flask, but with smoke in my eyes and the rush I managed to knock it instead. I watched, agonised, as it skittered across the stone... and then dropped down the well. I got to my feet and put my head back and screamed at the heavens in frustration every profanity I could think of. I was beyond caring now. I stood and ranted at the sky. Musket balls whizzed past my head, but I did not give them a thought. It would be mercy if one of them killed me. I cursed God with every invective I had ever heard in taverns, brothels, ships’ foc’sles and the House of Lords.