"Sir," says he, "you've got to get up." "What time is it?" says I. "And what d'ye want? Leave me, can't you, leave me be - I'm ill, damn you."
"It's no go, sir. You can't stay here any longer. You must stand up and come outside with me."
I told him to go to the devil, and he suddenly lunged forward and seized me by the shoulders.
"Get up!" he snarled at me, and I realised his face was far more haggard than I'd ever seen it, drawn and fierce like an animal's. "Get up! You're a Queen's officer, by God, an' you'll behave like one! You're not ill, Mr Precious Flash-man, you're plain white-livered! That's all your sickness! But you'll get up an' look like a man, even if you aren't one!" And he started to drag me from the straw.
I struck out at him, calling him a mutinous dog, and telling him I'd have him flogged through the army for his insolence, but he stuck his face into mine and hissed:
"Oh, no, you won't! Not now nor never. Because you an' me ain't going back where there's drum-heads an' floggings or anything, d'ye see? We're stuck here, an' we'll die here, because there's no way out!
We're done for, lieutenant; this garrison is finished! We haven't got nothing to do, except die!"
"Damn you, then, what d'ye want me for? Go and die in your own way, and leave me to die in mine." I tried to push him away.
"Oh, no sir. It ain't as easy as that. I'm all that's left to fight this fort, me and a score of broken-down sepoys -and you. And we're going to fight it, Mr Flashman. To the last inch, d'ye hear?"
"You bloody fight it!" I shouted at him. "You're so con-founded brave! You're a bloody soldier! All right, I'm not! I'm afraid, damn you, and I can't fight any more - I don't care if the Afghans take the fort and Jallalabad and the whole of India!" The tears were running down my cheeks as I said it. "Now go to hell and let me alone!"
He knelt there, staring at me, and pushed the hair out of his eyes. "I know it," he said. "I half-knew it from the minute we left Kabul, an' I was near sure back in that cellar, the way you carried on.
But I was double certain sure when you wanted to kill that poor Afghan bitch - men don't do that. But I couldn't ever say so. You're an officer and a gentleman, as they say. But it doesn't matter now, sir, does it? We're both going, so I can speak my mind."
"Well, I hope you enjoy doing it," says I. "You'll kill a lot of Afghans that way."
"Maybe I will, sir," says he. "But I need you to help. And you will help, for I'm going to stick out here as long as I can."
"You poor ninny," says I. "What good'll that do, if they kill you in the end?"
"This much good, that I'll stop those niggers mounting guns on this hill. They'll never take Jallalabad while we hold out - and every hour gives General Sale a better chance. That's what I'm going to do, sir."
One meets them, of course. I've known hundreds. Give them a chance to do what they call their duty, let them see a hope of martyrdom - they'll fight their way on to the cross and bawl for the man with the hammer and nails.
"My best wishes," says I. "I'm not stopping you."
"Yes, you will, sir, if I let you. I need you - there's twenty sepoys out there who'll fight all the better if there's an officer to sick 'em on.
They don't know what you are -not yet." He stood, up. "Anyway, I'm not arguing, sir. You'll get up - now. Or I'll drag you out and I'll cut you to bits with a sabre, a piece at a time." His face was dreadful to see just then, those grey eyes in that drawn, worn skin. He meant it; not a doubt of it. "So just get up, sir, will you?" I got up, of course. I was well enough in body; my sick-ness was purely moral. I went outside with him, into a courtyard with half a dozen or so sepoy bodies laid in a row with blankets over them near the gate; the living ones were up on the parapet. They looked round as Hudson and I went up the rickety ladder to the roof, their black faces tired and listless under their shakos, their skinny black hands and feet ridiculous protruding from red uniform jackets and white trousers.
The roof of the tower was no more than ten feet square, and just a little higher than the walls surrounding it; they were no more than twenty yards long - the place was less a fort than a toy castle. From the tower roof I could see Jallalabad, a mile away, apparently unchanged, except that the Afghan lines seemed to be closer. On our own front they were certainly nearer than they had been, and Hudson hustled me quickly under cover before the Afghans could get a bead on us.
We were watching them, a great crowd of horsemen and hillmen on foot, milling about out of musket shot, when Hudson pointed out to me a couple of cannon that had been rolled up on their right flank.
They had been there since dawn, he said, and he expected they would start up as soon as powder and shot had been assembled. We were just speculating when this might be - or rather, Hudson was, for I wasn't talking to him - when there was a great roar from the horsemen, and they started to roll forward towards our fort. Hudson thrust me down the ladder, across the yard, and up to the parapet; a musket was shoved into my hands, and I was staring through an embrasure at the whole mob surging at us. I saw then that the ground outside the walls was thick with dead; before the gate they were piled up like fish on a slab.
The sight was sickening, no doubt, but not so sickening as the spectacle of those devils whooping in towards the fort. I reckoned there were about forty of them, with footmen trailing along behind, all waving their knives and yelling. Hudson shouted to hold fire, and the sepoys behaved as though they'd been through this before - as they had. When the chargers were within fifty yards, and not showing any great enthusiasm, it seemed to me, Hudson bawled "Fire!"; the volley crashed out, and about four went down, which was good shooting. At this they wavered, but still came on, and the sepoys grabbed up their spare muskets, rolling their eyes at Hudson. He roars "Fire!" again, and another half dozen were toppled, at which the whole lot sheered off.
"There they go!" yells Hudson. "Reload, handily now! By God,"
says he, "if they had the bottom for one good charge they could bowl us over like ninepins!"
This had occurred to me. There were hundreds of Afghans out yonder, and barely twenty men in the fort; with a determined rush they could have carried the walls, and once inside they would have chewed us up in five minutes. But I gathered that this had been their style all along - half-hearted charges that had been beaten off, and only one or two that had reached the fort itself. They had lost heavily; I believe that they didn't much care about our little place, really, but would rather have been with their friends attacking Jallalabad, where the loot was. Sensible fellows.
But it was not going to last; I could see that. For all that our casualties had not been heavy, the sepoys were about done; there was only a little flour left for food, and barely a pannikin of water a man in the big butt down by the gate; Hudson watched it like a hawk.
There were three more charges that day, or maybe four, and none more successful than the first. We banged away and they cleared out, and my mind began to go dizzy again. I slumped beside my embrasure, with a poshteen draped over me to try to keep off the hellish heat; flies buzzed everywhere, and the sepoy on my right moaning to himself incessantly. By night it was as bad; the cold came, so bitter that I sobbed to myself at the pain of it; there was a huge moon, lighting everything in brilliant silver, but even when it set the dark wasn't sufficient to enable the Afghans to creep up on us, thank God. There were a few alarms and shots, but that was all. Dawn came, and the snipers began to crack away at us; we kept down beneath the parapet, and the shots chipped flakes off the tower behind us.