"An' I thought it was just Sikhs we were shootin' at!" cries Hodson. "Oh, Flashy, if only we'd known!"
And in the midst of all the noise and laughter who should come mincing in but the little squirt of an aide with whom I'd bandied words outside Lawrence's tent the day before. In that company you'd have thought he'd have slipped in quietly, but he was fresh from Eton or Addiscombe or one of those shops, for he marched straight up to Paddy's table, took off his hat, and in a shrill voice asked permission to deliver a message from the Governor-General. No compliments, or anything of the sort, but Paddy, at ease with his glass, and supposing it was for him, told him to fire away. The squirt turned to me with a malicious glint in his eye.
"Mr Flashman!" squeaks he, and as he spoke the chatter died away altogether. "Sir Henry Hardinge under-stands that you are leaving the Army of the Sutlej tomorrow. He instructs me to tell you that your services are no longer required on his personal staff, and that you are to consider yourself withdrawn from all military and political duties forthwith. I am also to remind you that smoking in the durbar tent is strictly prohibited."
There wasn't a sound for a moment, except M'Gregor's wheezing. Then someone said "Good God!" And I, dumbfounded by that deliberate insult, uttered in the presence of the flower of the Army, somehow found the wit to reply quietly.
"My compliments to the Governor-General," says I, "and my thanks for his courtesy. That's all. You can go."
He couldn't, though. While everyone, after a stunned pause, was talking to his neighbour loudly as though nothing had happened, the Gravedigger was looming over the squirt like an avenging angel.
"Boy!" thunders he, and I'll swear the lad quivered. "Are you lost to propriety? Are you unaware that a personal communication is delivered in private? Outside, sir, this instant! And when you have purged your insolence, you may return, to offer your apology to this officer, and to the Commander-in-Chief! Now—go!"
"I was told —" pipes the oaf.
"Do you defy me'?" roars Havelock. "Go!"
And he went, leaving me with my cheeks burning, and black rage inside me. To be spoken to, in that company, by a niddering green from the nursery, and not a thing to be done about it. But it couldn't have happened before better men; in a moment they were laughing and prosing away, and Gough gave me a grin and a shake of the head. Harry Smith got to his feet, and as he passed out he clapped my arm and whispered: "Hardinge never intended that, you know." And Johnny Nicholson and Hodson rallied round, and M'Gregor told a joke about amputations.
Looking back, I don't blame Hardinge, altogether. With all his faults, he knew what was fitting, and I don't doubt that, in his irritation at seeing me to the fore with Goolab, he had muttered something like: "That damned pup is everywhere! Leaving tomorrow, is he? Not before time! Tell him he's suspended from duty, before he does any more mischief! And smoking, too, as though he were in a pot-house!" And Charlie, or someone, passed it on, and the squirt was given the message, and thought to hand me a set-down. He knew no better. Aye, but Hardinge should have seen that the thing was done decently—dammit, he could have sent for me himself, and coupled rebuke with a word of thanks for my services, whether he meant it or not. But he hadn't, and his creature had made me look a fool. Well, perhaps two could play at that game.
In the meantime, old Goolab Singh was closeted in talk with Currie and Lawrence, and no doubt holding up his paws in horror as each successive clause of the treaty was put to him." I'm sure he never let on that he knew it all beforehand, but had a jolly time shaking his grizzled beard and protesting that the durbar would never agree to such harsh terms. The negotiations went on all afternoon and evening—leastways, Goolab did, for Currie gave up after a few hours, and left him, and Lawrence lay down on his charpoy and pretended sleep. It was all gammon, for Goolab was bound to agree in the end, but he kept at it for appearance's sake, and didn't run out of wind till the small hours. I was on hand, indulging my 'satiable curiosity, when Lawrence saw him off, but didn't speak to him. He limped away from the tent, climbed stiffly aboard his pony, and trotted off towards the sirdars' camp, and that was the last I ever saw of him, a burly old buffer on horseback, looking like Ali Baba off to gather firewood in the moonlight.55
"All right and tight, and ready to be signed when we come to Lahore," says Lawrence. "Prosy old beggar56 . Well pleased, though, if I'm a judge. He should be—you don't have a kingdom dropped into your lap every day. He'll bring the little Maharaja to Hardinge in a day or two." He yawned and stretched, looking at the night sky. "But by then you'll be hasting home, you fortunate fellow. Stay a moment and we'll have a rum-shrub to set you on your way,"
This was condescension, for he wasn't sociable as a rule. I took a turn along the tent-lines as I waited, admiring the moon shadows drifting across the empty doab, and looking along the grey, straight ribbon of the Lahore road which, God willing, I'd never take again. Not long ago it had shaken to the tramp of a hundred thousand men, and the rumble of great guns … "Khalsa-ji! To Delhi, to London!" … and the march had ended in the burning ruins of Ferozeshah and the waters under Sobraon. The whirlwind had come raging out of the Five Rivers country, and now it was gone without a whisper … and as Lawrence put it, I was hasting home.
Hardinge had his peace, and his hand on the reins of the Punjab. Goolab had his Kashmir, Britain her frontier beyond the Sutlej where the hills began, and the northern door of India was fast against the Moslem tide. Little Dalip would have his throne, and his delectable mother the trappings of power and luxurious ease with all the booze and bed-men she desired (with one grateful exception). Tej Singh and Lal Singh could enjoy the fruits of their treachery, and old Paddy had still "nivver bin bate". Alick Gardner would have his fine estate in the high hills beyond Jumoo, dreaming no doubt of far Wisconsin, and Broadfoot and Sale and Nicolson their lines in the Gazette. Maka Khan and Imam Shah had their graves by Sobraon ghat (although I didn't know that, then). Mangla was still the richest slave-girl in Lahore, and like to be richer . . I could feel a twinge at the thought of her—and still do, whenever I see black gauze. And Jassa had got an open road out of town, which is usually the best his kind can ever hope for.
All in all … not a bad little war, would you say? Everyone had got what they wanted, more or less … perhaps, in their own mad way, even the Khalsa. Twenty thousand dead, Sikh, Indian, and British … a lot of good men, as Gardner said. But … peace for the rest, and plenty for the few. Which reminds me, I never did discover what happened to the Soochet legacy.
No one could foresee, then, that it would all be to do over, that in three short years the Sikhs would be in arms again, Paddy's white coat would come out of the closet reeking of camphor, and the bayonets and tulwars would cross once more at Chillianwalla and Gujerat. And after-wards, the Union Flag would fly over the Punjab at last, Broadfoot could rest easy, and the twice-beaten but never-conquered Khalsa would be reborn in the regiments which stood fast in the Mutiny and have held the Raj's northern border all through my time. For the White Queen … and for their salt. The little boy who'd exulted over my pepperbox and ridden laughing to Jupindar rocks would live out a wastrel life in exile, and Mai Jeendan, the dancing queen and Mother of all Sikhs, her appetite undiminished and her beauty undimmed, would pass away, of all places, in England.*(*See Appendix II.) But all that happened another day, when I was up the Mississippi with the bailiffs after me. My Punjab story ends here, and I can't croak, for like all the others I too had my heart's desire -- a whole skin and a clear run home. I wouldn't have minded a share of the credit, but I didn't care that much. Most of my campaigns have ended with undeserved roses all the way to Buckingham Palace, so I can even smile at the irony that when, for once, I'd done good service (funking, squealing, and reluctant, I admit) and come close to lying in the ground for it, all I received was the cold shoulder, to be meekly endured … well, more or less.