"Tell "em to keep outside, sir, an" well away," says Hudson, and I roared it out with a will. Hudson ran to Narreeman, swung her up into his arms with an effort, and set her feet on the steps.
"Walk, d.a.m.n you," says he, and grabbing up his own sabre he pushed her up the steps, the point at her back. He disappeared through the doorway, there was a pause, and then he shouts:
"Right, sir. Come out quick, like, an" bolt the door."
I never obeyed an order more gladly. I left Gul Shah staring up sightlessly, and raced up the steps, pulling the door to behind me. It was only as I looked round the courtyard, at Hudson astride one pony, with Narreeman bound and writhing across the other, at the little group of Afghans across the yard, fingering their knives and muttering - only then did I realise that we had left our hostage. But Hudson was there, as usual.
"Tell "em I"ll spill the bint"s guts all over the yard if they stir a finger. Ask "em how their master"ll like that - an" what he"ll do to "em afterwards!" And he dropped his point over Narreeman"s body.
It held them, even without my repet.i.tion of the threat, and I was able to scramble aboard the third pony. The gate was before us; Hudson grabbed the bridle of Narreeman"s mount, we drove in our heels, and in a clatter of hooves we were out and away, under a glittering moon, down the path that wound from the fort"s little hill to the open plain.
When we reached the level I glanced back; Hudson was not far behind, although he was having difficulty with Narreeman, for he had to hold her across the saddle of the third beast. Behind, the ugly shape of the fort was outlined against the sky, but there was no sign of pursuit.
When he came up with me he said:
"I reckon down yonder we"ll strike the Kabul road, sir. We crossed it on the way in. Think we can chance it, sir?"
I was so trembling with reaction and excitement that I didn"t care. Of course we should have stayed off the road, but I was for anything that would get that d.a.m.ned cellar far behind us, so I nodded and we rode on. With luck there would be no one moving on the road at night, and any-way, only on the road could we hope to get our bearings. We reached it before very long, and the stars showed us the eastern way. We were a good three miles from the fort now, and it seemed, if the Afridis had come out in pursuit, that they had lost us. Hudson asked me what we should do with Narreeman.
At this I came to my senses again; as I thought back to what she had been preparing to do my gorge rose, and all I wanted to do was tear her apart.
"Give her to me," says I, dropping my reins and taking a grip on the sabre hilt.
He had one hand on her, sliding her out of the saddle; she slipped down on to the ground and wriggled up on her knees, her hands tied behind her, the gag across her mouth. She was glaring like a mad thing.
As I moved my pony round, Hudson suddenly reined into my way.
"Hold on, sir," says he. "What are you about?" "I"m going to cut that b.i.t.c.h to pieces," says I. "Out of my way."
"Here, now, sir," says he. "You can"t do that." "Can"t I, by G.o.d?"
"Not while I"m here, sir," says he, very quiet. I didn"t credit my ears at first.
"It won"t do, sir," says he. "She"s a woman. You"re not yourself, sir, what wi" the floggin" they gave you, an" all. We"ll let her be, sir; cut her hands free an" let her go."
I started to rage at him, for a mutinous dog, but he just sat there, not to be moved, shaking his head. So in the end I gave in - it occurred to me that what he could do to Gul Shah he might easily do to me - and he jumped down and loosed her hands. She flew at him, but he tripped her up and remounted.
"Sorry, miss," says he, "but you don"t deserve better, you know."
She lay there, gasping and staring hate at us, a proper handsome h.e.l.l-cat. It was a pity there wasn"t time and leisure, or I"d have served her as I had once before, for I was feeling more my old self again. But to linger would have been madness, so I contented myself with a few slashes at her with my long bridle, and had the satisfaction of catching her a ringing cut over the backside that sent her scurrying for the rocks. Then we turned east and drove on down the road towards India.
It was bitter cold, and I was half-naked, but there was a poshteen over the saddle, and I wrapped up in it. Hudson had another, and covered his tunic and breeches with it; between us we looked a proper pair of Bashi-Bazouks, but for Hudson"s fair hair and beard.
We camped before dawn, in a little gully, but not for long, for when the sun came up I recognised that we were in the country just west of Futtehabad, which is a bare twenty miles from Jallalabad itself. I wouldn"t feel safe till we had its walls around us, so we pushed on hard, only leaving the road when we saw dust-clouds ahead of us that indicated other travellers.
We took to the hills for the rest of the day, skirting Futtehabad, and lay up by night, for we were both all in. In the morning we pressed on, but kept away from the road, for when we took a peep down at it, there were Afghans thick on it, all travelling east. There was more movement in the hills now, but no one minded a pair of riders, for Hudson shrouded his head in a rag to cover his blond hair, and I always looked like a Khyberi badmash anyway. But as we drew nearer to Jallalabad I got more and more anxious, for by what we had seen on the road, and the camps we saw dotted about in the gullies, I knew we must be moving along with an army. This was Akbar"s host, pushing on to Jallalabad, and presently in the distance we heard the rattle of musketry, and knew that the siege must be already under way.
Well, this was a pretty fix; only in Jallalabad was there safety, but there was an Afghan army between us and it.
With what we had been through I was desperate; for a moment I thought of by-pa.s.sing Jallalabad and making for India, but that meant going through the Khyber, and with Hudson looking as much like an Afghan as a Berkshire hog we could never have made it. I cursed myself for having picked a companion with fair hair and Somerset complexion, but how could I have foreseen this? There was nothing for it but to push on and see what the chances were of get-ting into Jallalabad and of avoiding detection on the way.
It was a d.a.m.ned risky go, for soon we came into proper encampments, with Afghans as thick as fleas everywhere, and Hudson nearly suffocating inside the turban rag which hooded his whole head. Once we were hailed by a party of Pathans, and I answered with my heart in my mouth; they seemed interested in us, and in my panic all I could think to do was start singing - that old Pathan song that goes:
There"s a girl across the river With a bottom like a peach -And alas, I cannot swim.
They laughed and let us alone, but I thanked G.o.d they weren"t nearer than twenty yards, or they might have realised that I wasn"t as Afghan as I looked at a distance.
It couldn"t have lasted long. I was sure that in another minute someone would have seen through our disguise, but then the ground fell away before us, and we were sit-ting our ponies at the top of a slope running down to the level, and on the far side of it, maybe two miles away, was Jallalabad, with the Kabul river at its back.
It was a scene to remember. On the long ridge on either side of us there were Afghans lining the rocks and singing out to each other, or squatting round their fires; down in the plain there were thousands of them, grouped any old way except near Jallalabad, where they formed a great half-moon line facing the city. There were troops of cavalry milling about, and I saw guns and wagons among the besiegers. From the front of the half-moon you could see little p.r.i.c.kles of fire and hear the pop-pop of musketry, and farther forward, almost up to the defences, there were scores of little sangars dotted about, with white-robed figures lying behind them. It was a real siege, no question, and as I looked at that tremendous host between us and safety my heart sank: we could never get through it.
Mind you, the siege didn"t seem to be troubling Jallalabad-bad unduly. Even as we watched the popping increased, and we saw a swarm of figures running h.e.l.l-for-leather back from before the earthworks - Jallalabad isn"t a big place, and had no proper walls, but the sappers had got some good-looking ramparts out before the town. At this the Afghans on the heights on either side of us set up a great jeering yell, as though to say they could have done better than their retreating fellows. From the scatter of figures lying in front of the earthworks it looked as though the besiegers had been taking a pounding.
Much good that was to us, but then Hudson sidled his pony up to mine, and says, "There"s our way in, sir." I followed his glance, and saw below and to our right, about a mile from the foot of the slope and maybe as far from the city, a little fort on an eminence, with the Union Jack fluttering over its gate, and flashes of musketry from its walls. Some of the Afghans were paying attention to it, but not many; it was cut off from the main fortifications by Afghan outposts on the plain, but they obviously weren"t caring much about it just now. We watched as a little cloud of Afghan hors.e.m.e.n swooped down towards it and then sheered off again from the firing on its walls.
"If we ride down slow, sir," says Hudson, "to where them n.i.g.g.e.rs are lying round sniping, we could make a dash for it."
And get shot from our saddles for our pains, thinks I; no thank "ee. But I had barely had the thought when someone hails us from the rocks on our left, and without a word we put our ponies down the slope. He bawled after us, but we kept going, and then we hit the level and were riding forward through the Afghans who were lying spread out among the rocks watching the little fort. The hors.e.m.e.n who had been attacking were wheeling about to our left, yelling and cursing, and one or two of the snipers shouted to us as we pa.s.sed them by, but we kept on, and then there was just the last line of snipers and beyond it the little fort, three-quarters of a mile off, on top of its little hill, with its flag flying.
"Now, sir," snaps Hudson, and we dug in our heels and went like fury, flying past the last sangars. The Afghans there yelled out in surprise, wondering what the devil we were at, and we just put our heads down and made for the fort gate. I heard more shouting behind us, and thundering hooves, and then shots were whistling above us - from the fort, dammit. Oh Jesus, thinks I, they"ll shoot us for Afghans, and we can"t stop now with the hors.e.m.e.n behind us!
Hudson flung off his poshteen, and yelled, rising in his stirrups. At the sight of the blue lancer tunic and breeches there was a tremendous yelling behind, but the firing from the fort stopped, and now it was just a race between us and the Afghans. Our ponies were about used up, but we put them to the hill at top speed, and as the walls drew near I saw the gate open. I whooped and rode for it, with Hudson at my heels, and then we were through, and I was slipping off the saddle into the arms of a man with enormous ginger whiskers and a sergeant"s stripes on his arm. "Damme!" he roars. "Who the h.e.l.l are ye?" "Lieutenant Flashman," says I, "of General Elphinstone"s army," and his mouth opened like a cod"s. "Where"s your commanding officer?"
"Blow me!" says he. "I"m the commanding officer, so far"s there is one. Sergeant Wells, Bombay Grenadiers, sir. But we thought you was all dead ..."
It took us a little time to convince him, and to learn what was happening. While his sepoys cracked away from the parapet overhead at the disappointed Afghans, he took us into the little tower, sat us on a bench, gave us pancakes and water - which was all they had - and told us how the Afghans had been besieging Jallalabad three days now, in ever-increasing force, and his own little detachment had been cut off in this outlying fort for that time.
"It"s a main good place for them to mount guns, d"ye see, sir, if they could run us out," says he. "So Cap"n Little - "e"s back o" the tower "ere, wi" is "ead stove in by a bullet, sir - said as we "ad to "old out no matter what. To the last man, sergeant," "e sez, an" then "e died - that was yesterday evenin", sir. They"d bin "ittin" us pretty "ard, sir, an" "ave bin since. I dunno as we can last out much longer, "cos the water"s runnin" low, an" they d.a.m.n near got over the wall last night, sir."
"But can"t they relieve you from Jallalabad, for G.o.d"s sake?" says I.
"I reckon they got their "ands full, sir," says he, shaking his head. "They can "old out there long enough; ol" Bob Sale - Gen"l Sale, I should say - ain"t worried about that. But makin" a sortie to relieve us "ud be another matter."
"Oh, Christ," says I, "out of the frying pan into the fire!"
He stared at me, but I was past caring. There seemed no end to it; there was some evil genie pursuing me through Afghanistan, and he meant to get me in the end. To have come so far, yet again, and to be dragged down within sight of safety! There was a pallia.s.se in the corner of the tower, and I just went and threw myself down on it; my back was still burning, I was half-dead with fatigue, I was trapped in this h.e.l.lish fort -I swore and wept with my face in the straw, careless of what they thought.
I heard them muttering, Hudson and the sergeant, and the latter"s voice saying: "Well, strike me, "e"s a rum one!" and they must have gone outside, for I heard them no more. I lay there, and must have fallen asleep out of sheer exhaustion, for when I opened my eyes again it was dark in the room. I could hear the sepoys outside, talking; but I didn"t go out; I got a drink from the pannikin on the table and lay down again and slept until morning.
Some of you will hold up your hands in horror that a Queen"s officer could behave like this, and before his soldiers, too. To which I would reply that I do not claim, as I"ve said already, to be anything but a coward and a scoundrel, and I"ve never play-acted when it seemed point-less. It seemed pointless now. Possibly I was a little delirious in those days, from shock - Afghanistan, you"ll admit, hadn"t been exactly a Bank Holiday outing for me - but as I lay in that tower, listening to the occasional crackle of firing outside, and the yelling of the besiegers, I ceased to care at all for appearances. Let them think what they would; we were all surely going to be cut up, and what do good opinions matter to a corpse?
However, appearances still mattered to Sergeant Hudson. It was he who woke me after that first night. He looked pouch-eyed and filthy as he leaned over me, his tunic all torn and his hair tumbling into his eyes.
"How are you, sir?" says he.
"d.a.m.nable," says I. "My back"s on fire. I ain"t going to be much use for a while, I fear, Hudson."
"Well, sir," says he, "let"s have a look at your back." I turned over, groaning, and he looked at it.
"Not too bad," says he. "Skin"s only broke here an" there, and not mortifying. For the rest, it"s just welts." He was silent a moment. "Thing is, sir, we need every musket we can raise. The sangars are closer this morning, an" the n.i.g.g.e.rs are ma.s.sing. Looks like a proper battle, sir."