He looked at me. "You shall correct me, my boy, if I go wrong, but it is right you should know what I have told his excellency."
"You're very kind sir," says I, humbly. Too kind by a damned sight, if you only knew.
"'The siege continued slowly on our own front, as I have already informed you," says Sale, reading on, "'but the violence of the assaults on Piper's Fort was unabated. Captain Little was slain, with his sergeant, but the garrison fought on with the utmost resolution.
Lieutenant Flash-man, as I learn from one of the sepoys, was in a case more suited to a hospital than to a battlefield, for he had evidently been prisoner of the Afghans, who had flogged him most shockingly, so that he was unable to stand, and must lie in the fort tower. His companion, Sergeant Hudson, assisted most gallantly in the defence, until Lieutenant Flashman, despite his wounds, returned to the action.
"'Charge after charge was resisted, and the enemy most bloodily repulsed. To us in Jallalabad, this un-expected check to the Sirdar's advance was an advantage beyond price. It may well have been decisive.'"
Well, Hudson, thinks I, that was what you wanted, and you got it, for all the good it did you. Meanwhile, Sale laid off for a minute, took a wipe at his eye, and started in again, trying not to quaver. I suspect he was enjoying his emotion.
"'But there was no way in which we could succour Piper's Fort at this time, and, the enemy bringing forward cannon, the walls were breached in several places. I had now resolved on a sortie, to do what could be done for our comrades, and Colonel Dennie advanced to their relief. In a sharp engagement over the very ruins of the fort - for it had been pounded almost to pieces by the guns - the Afghans were entirely routed, and we were able to make good the position and withdraw the survivors of the garrison which had held it so faithfully and well.'"
I thought the old fool was going to weep, but he took a great pull at himself and proceeded:
'"With what grief do I write that of these there remained only five? The gallant Hudson was slain, and at first it seemed that no European was left alive. Then Lieutenant ? Flashman was found, wounded and unconscious, by the ruins of the gate, where he had taken his final stand in defence not only of the fort, but of his country's honour. For he was found, in the last extremity, with the colours clutched to his broken body, his face to the foemen, defiant even unto death.'"
Hallelujah and good-night, sweet prince, says I to myself, what a shame I hadn't a broken sword and a ring of my slain around me. But I thought too soon.
"The bodies of his enemies lay before him,"' says old Bob, "'At first it was thought he was dead, but to our great joy it was discovered that the flame of life still flickered. I cannot think that there was ever a nobler deed than this, and I only wish that our countrymen at home might have seen it, and learned with what selfless devotion their honour is protected even at the ends of the earth. It was heroic! and I trust that Lieutenant Flashman's name will be remembered in every home in England. Whatever may be said of the disasters that have befallen us here, his valour is testimony that the spirit of our young manhood is no whit less ardent than that of their predecessors who, in Pitt's words, saved Europe by their example.'"
Well, thinks I, if that's how we won the battle of Waterloo, thank God the French don't know or we shall have them at us again. Who ever heard such humbug? But it was glorious to listen to, mind you, and I glowed at the thought of it. This was fame! I didn't understand, then, how the news of Kabul and Gandamack would make England shudder, and how that vastly conceited and indignant public would clutch at any straw that might heal their national pride and enable them to repeat the old and nonsensical lie that one Englishman is worth twenty foreigners. But I could still guess what effect Sale's report would have on a new Governor-General, and through him on the government and country, especially by contrast with the accounts of the inglorious shambles by Elphy and McNaghten that must now be on their way home.
All I must do was be modest and manly and wait for the laurel wreaths.
Sale had shoved his copy of the letter back in his pocket, and was looking at me all moist and admiring. Havelock was stern; I guessed he thought Sale was laying it on a deal too thick, but he couldn't say so. (I gathered later that .the defence of Piper's Fort wasn't quite so important to Jallalabad as Fighting Bob imagined; it was his own hesitation that made him hold off so long attacking Akbar, and in fact he might have relieved us sooner.)
It was up to me, so I looked Sale in the eye, man to man.
"You've done us great credit, sir," says I. "Thank'ee. For the garrison, it's no less then they deserve, but for myself, well you make it sound ... a bit too much like St George and the Dragon, if you don't mind my saying so. I just. . . well, pitched in with the rest, sir, that was all."
Even Havelock smiled at this plain, manly talk, and Sale nearly burst with pride and said it was the grandest thing, by heaven, and the whole garrison was full of it. Then he sobered down, and asked me to tell him how I had come to Piper's Fort, and what had happened to separate Hudson and me from the army. Elphy was still in Akbar's hands, along with Shelton and Mackenzie and the married folk, but for the rest they had thought them all wiped out except Brydon, who had come galloping in alone with a broken sabre trailing from his wrist.
With Havelock's eye on me I kept it brief and truthful. We had come adrift from the army in the fighting about Jugdulluk, I said, had escaped by inches through the gullies with Ghazis pursuing us, and had tried to rejoin the army at Gandamack, but had only been in time to see it slaughtered. I described the scene accurately, with old Bob groaning and damning and Havelock frowning like a stone idol, and then told how we had been captured and imprisoned by Afridis. They had flogged me to make me give information about the Kandahar force and other matters, but thank God I had told them nothing ("bravo!"
says old Bob), and had managed to slip my fetters the same night. I had released Hudson and together we had cut our way past our captors and escaped.
I said nothing of Narreeman - least said soonest mended - but concluded with an account of how we had skulked through the Afghan army, and then ridden into the fort hell-for-leather.
There I left it, and old Bob exclaimed again about courage and endurance, but what reassured me most was that Havelock, without a word, shook my right hand in both of his. I can say that I told it well -
off-hand, but not over-modest; just a blunt soldier reporting to his seniors. It calls for nice judgement, this art of bragging; you must be plain, but not too plain, and you must smile only rarely. Letting them guess more than you say is the kernel of it, and looking uncomfortable when they compliment you.
They spread the tale, of course, and in the next few days I don't suppose there was an officer of the garrison who didn't come in to shake hands and congratulate me on coming through safe. George Broadfoot was among the first, all red whiskers and spectacles, beaming and telling me what a devil of a fellow I was - and this from Broadfoot, mind you, whom the Afghans called a brave among braves.