Flashman At The Charge Part 12

"Can you do it?"

He looked at me, grinning, and something in that happy bandit face started the alarms rumbling in my lower innards.

"That you shall tell us," says he. "Indeed, G.o.d has sent you here. Listen, now. What I have told you is sure information; every slave who labours on that beach at Fort Raim, unloading and piling baggage for those Ruski filth, is a man or a woman of our people - so that not a word is spoken in that camp, not a deed done, not a sentry relieves himself, but we know of it. We know to the last peck of rice, to the last horse-shoe, what supplies already lie on that beach, and we know, too, that when the powder-ships anchor off Fort Raim, they will be ringed about with guard-boats, so that not even a fish can swim through. So we cannot hope to mine or burn them by storm or surprise."

Well, that dished him, it seemed to me, but on he went, happily disposing of another possibility.

"Nor could we hope to drag the lightest of the few poor cannon we have to some place within shot of the ships. What then remains?" He smiled triumphantly and produced from his breast a roll of papers, written in Russian; it looked like a list.

"Did I not say we were well served for spies? This is a manifest of stores and equipment already landed, and lying beneath the awnings and in the sheds. My careful Silk One" - he bowed in her direction - "has had them interpreted, and has found an item of vast interest. It says - now listen, and bless the name of your own people, from whom this gift comes - it says: 'Twenty stands of British rocket artillery; two hundred boxes of cases.'"

He stopped, staring eagerly at me, and I was aware that they were all waiting expectantly.

"Congreves?" says I. "Well, what -"

"What is the range of such rockets?" asked Yakub Beg. "Why - about two miles," I knew a bit about Congreves from my time at Woolwich. "Not accurate at that distance, of course; if you want to make good practice, then half a mile, three-quarters, but -"

"The ships will not be above half a mile from the sh.o.r.e," says he, softly. "And these rockets, from what I have heard, are fiercely combustible - like Greek fire! If one of them were to strike the upperworks of the steamer, or the wooden hull of the Mikhail -"

"We would have the finest explosion this side of Shaitan's lowest pit!" exulted Kutebar, thumping the table.

"And then - a Russian army without powder, with cannon that would be so much useless lumber, with soldiers armed for nothing better than a day's hunting!" cries Yakub. "They will be an army bahla dar!"*(*Literally, "wearing hunting gloves in one's belt", i.e. unarmed.) For the life of me, I couldn't understand all this excitement.

"Forgive me," says I. "But the Ruskis have these rockets - you don't. And if you're thinking of stealing some of 'em, I'm sorry, Yakub, but you're eating green corn. D'ye know how much a single Congreve rocket-head weighs, without its stick? Thirty-two pounds. And the stick is fifteen feet long - and before you can fire one you have to have the firing-frame, which is solid steel weighing G.o.d knows what, with iron half-pipes. Oh, I daresay friend Kutebar here has some pretty thieves in his fighting-tail, but they couldn't hope to lug this kind of gear out from under the Russians' noses - not unseen. Dammit, you'd need a mule-train. And if, by some miracle, you did get hold of a frame and rockets, where would you find a firing-point close enough? For that matter, at two miles - maximum range, trained at fifty-five degrees - why, you could blaze away all night and never score a hit!"

I suddenly stopped talking. I'd been expecting to see their faces fall, but Yakub was grinning broader by the second, Kutebar was nodding grimly, even Sahib Khan was smiling.

"What's the joke, then?" says I. "You can't do it, you see."

"We do not need to do it," says Yakub, looking like a happy crocodile. "Tell me: these things are like great sky-rockets, are they not? How long would it take unskilled men - handless creatures like the ancient Kutebar, for example - to prepare and fire one?"

"To erect the frame? - oh, two minutes, for artillery-men. Ten times as long, probably, for your lot. Adjust the aim, light the fuse, and off she goes - but dammit, what's the use of this to you?"

"Yallah!" cries he, clapping his hands delightedly. "1 should call you saped-pa - white foot, the bringer of good luck and good news, for what you have just told us is the sweetest tidings I have heard this summer." He reached over and slapped my knee. "Have no fear - we do not intend to steal a rocket, although it was my first thought. But, as you have pointed out, it would be impossible; this much we had realised. But my Silk One, whose mind is like the puzzles of her father's people, intricately simple, has found a way. Tell him, Kutebar."

"We cannot beat the Ruskis, even if we launch our whole power, five or six thousand riders, upon their beach camp and Fort Raim," says the old bandit. "They must drive us back with slaughter in the end. But" - he wagged a finger like an eagle's talon under my nose - "we can storm their camp by night, in one place, where these feringhi ra-kets are lying - and that is hard by the pier, in a little go-down.*(*Warehouse.) This our people have already told us. It will be a strange thing if, descending out of the night past Fort Raim like a thunderbolt, we cannot hold fifty yards of beach for an hour, facing both ways. And in our midst, we shall set up this ra-ket device, and while our riders hold the enemy at bay, our gunners can launch this fire of Eblis against the Ruski powder ships. They will be in fair range, not half a mile - and in such weather, with timbers as dry as sand, will not one ra-ket striking home be sufficient to burn them to Jehannum?"

"Why - yes, I suppose so - those Congreves burn like h.e.l.l. But, man," I protested, "you'll never get off that beach alive - any of you! They'll ring your storming party in, and cut it down by inches - there are thirty thousand of them, remember? Even if you do succeed in blowing their ship to kingdom come, you'll lose - I don't know, a thousand, two thousand swords doing it."

"We shall have saved our country, too," says Yakub Beg, quietly. "And your India, Flashman bahadur. Like enough many will die on that beach - but better to save Khokand for a year, or perhaps even for a generation, and die like men, than see our country trampled by these beasts before the autumn comes." He paused. "We have counted the odds and the cost, and I ask your advice, as a ' soldier of experience, not on the matter of holding the beach and fighting off the Ruskis, for that is an affair we know better than you, but only as to these rockets. From what you have told us, I see that it can be done. Silk One" - he turned towards her, smiling and touching his brow - "I salute your woman's wit - again."

I looked at her with my skin crawling. She'd schemed up this desperate, doomed nonsense, in which thousands of men were going to be cut up, and there she sat, dusting her kitten's whiskers. Mind you, I didn't doubt, when I thought of the thing, that they could bring it off, given decent luck. Five thousand sabres, with the likes of Kutebar roaring about in the dark, could create havoc in that Russian camp, and probably secure a beachhead just long enough for them to turn the Russians' own rockets on the powder ships. And I knew any fool could lay and fire a Congreve. But afterwards? I thought of the shambles of that beach in the dark - and those rows of gallows outside Fort Raim.

And yet, there they sat, those madmen, looking as pleased as if they were going to a birthday party, Yakub Beg calling for coffee and sherbet, Kutebar's evil old face wreathed in happy smiles. Well, it was no concern of mine, if they wanted to throw their lives away - and if they did succeed in crippling the Russian invasion before it had even started, so much the better. It would be glad news to bring into Peshawar - by jove, I might even hint that I'd engineered the whole thing: if I didn't, the Press probably would. "British Officer's Extraordinary Adventure. Russian Plot Foiled by His Ingenuity. Tribal Life in the Khokand. Colonel Flashman's Remarkable Narrative." Yes, a few helpings of that would go down well .. . Elspeth would be in raptures . . . I'd be the lion of the day yet again .. .

And then Yakub Beg's voice broke in on my day-dreams.

"Who shall say there is such a thing as chance?" he was exulting. "All is as G.o.d directs. He sends the Ruski powder ships. He sends the means of their destruction. And" - he reached out to pa.s.s me my coffee cup - "best of all, he sends you, blood brother, without whom all would be naught."

You may think that until now I'd been slow on the uptake - that I should have seen the danger signal as soon as this lunatic mentioned Congreve rockets. But I'd been so taken aback by the scheme, and had it so fixed in my mind that I had no part in it, anyway, that the fearful implication behind his last words came like a douche of cold water. I nearly dropped my coffee cup.

"Naught?" I echoed. "What d'you mean?"

"Who among us would have the skill or knowledge to make use of these rockets of yours?" says he. "I said you were sent by G.o.d. A British officer, who knows how these things are employed, who can ensure success where our bungling fingers would ... "

"You mean you expect me to fire these b.l.o.o.d.y things for you?" I was so appalled that I said it in English, and he looked at me in bewilderment. Stammering, and no doubt going red in the face, I blundered. back into Persian.

"Look, Yakub Beg - I'm sorry, but it cannot be. You know I must go to India, to carry the news of this Russian invasion . . . this army . . . I can't risk such news going astray . . . it's my bounden duty, you see ..."

"But there will be no invasion," says he, contentedly. "We will see to that."

"But if we - you - I mean, if it doesn't work?" I cried. "I can't take the risk! I mean - it's not that I don't wish to help you - I would if I could, of course. But if I were killed, and the Russians marched in spite of your idiotic - I mean, your daring scheme, they would catch my people unprepared!"

"Rest a.s.sured," says he, "the news will go to Peshawar. I pledge my honour, just as I pledge my people to fight these Ruskis tooth and nail from. here to the Killer-of-Hindus. But we will stop them here -" and he struck the ground beside him. "I know it! And your soldiers in India will be prepared, for a blow that never comes. For we will not fail. The Silk One's plan is sound. Is she not the najud?"

And the grinning ape bowed again in her direction, pleased as Punch.

By George, this was desperate. I didn't know what to say. He was bent on dragging me into certain destruction, and I had to weasel out somehow - but at the same time I daren't let them see the truth, which was that the whole mad scheme terrified me out of my wits. That might well be fatal - you've no idea what those folk are like, and if Yakub Beg thought I was letting him down .. . well, one thing I could be sure of: there'd be no excursion train ordered up to take me to the coral strand in a hurry.

"Yakub, my friend," says I. "Think but a moment. I would ask nothing better than to ride with you and Kutebar on this affair. I have my own score to settle with these Ruski pigs, believe me. And if I could add one asper in the scale of success, I would be with you heart and soul. But I am no artilleryman. I know something of these rockets, but nothing to the purpose. Any fool can aim them, and fire them - Kutebar can do it as easily as he breaks wind -" that got them laughing, as I intended it should. "And I have my duty, which is to my country. I, and I alone, must take that news - who else would be believed? Don't you see - you may do this thing without me?"

"Not as surely," says he. "How could we? An artillery-man you may not be, but you are a soldier, with those little skills that mean the difference between success and failure. You know this - and think, blood brother, whether we stand or fall, when those ships flame like the rising sun and sink into destruction, we will have shattered the threat to your folk and mine! We will have lit a fire that will singe the Kremlin wall! By G.o.d, what a dawn that will be!"

Just the glitter in those eyes, the joyful madness on that hawk face, sent my spirits into my boots. Normally I'll talk myself hoa.r.s.e in my skin's interest, and grovel all the way to Caesar's throne, but in that moment I knew it would be no use. You see, even with the saliva pumping into my mouth, I knew that his reasoning was right - ask Raglan or the Duke or Napoleon: they'd have weighed it and said that I should stay. And it's no use trying to defeat an Oriental's logic - let alone one who has the fire in his guts. I tried a little more, as far as I dared, and then let it lie, while the coffee went round again, and Kutebar speculated gloatingly on how many Russians he would kill, and Yakub sat with his hand on my shoulder, praising G.o.d and giving thanks for the opportunity to confound the politics of the Tsar. And the cause of it all, that slant-eyed witch in the tight trousers, said nothing at all, but sauntered across to a bird cage hanging on the pavilion trellis, murmuring and pursing her lips to the nightingale to coax it to sing.

I sat pretty quiet myself, feverishly trying to plot a way out of this, and getting nowhere. The others got down to the details of the business, and I had to take part and try to look happy about it. I must say, looking back, they had it well schemed out: they would take five thousand riders, under Yakub and Kutebar and Sahib Khan, each commanding a division, and just go h.e.l.l for leather past Fort Raim at four in the morning, driving down to the beach and cutting off the pier. Sahib Khan's lot would secure the northern flank beyond the pier, facing the Syr Daria mouth; Yakub would take the south side, fronting the main beach, and their forces would join up at the landward end of the pier, presenting a ring of fire and steel against the Russian counter-attacks. Kutebar's detachment would be inside the ring, in reserve, and shielding the firing party - here they looked at me with reverent eyes, and I managed an offhand grin that any dentist would have recognized first go.

The rockets and stands were in a go-down, Kutebar had said; they would have their spies - the impressed labourers who slept on the beach - on hand to guide us to them. And then, while all h.e.l.l was breaking loose around us, the intrepid Flashy and his a.s.sistants would set the infernal things up and blaze away at the powder ships. And when the great Guy Fawkes explosion occurred - supposing that it did - we would take to the sea; it was half a mile across Syr Daria mouth, and Katti Torah - a horrible little person with yellow teeth and a squint, who was one of the council that night - would be waiting on the other side to cover all who could escape that way. Well, it was at least a glimmer of hope; I'd swum the Mississippi in my time.*(*See Flash for Freedom!) But the more I considered the thing, the more appalling it looked. Indeed, my mind was already running on a different tack entirely: if I could get a horse tonight, and ride for it - anywhere, but south towards Persia for preference, where they wouldn't expect me to go - could I make a clean getaway? Anywhere else, I'd have chanced it, but south was pure desert - for that matter, it was all b.l.o.o.d.y wilderness, on every side - and if I didn't lose myself and perish horribly, I'd be run down for certain. And blood brother or not, I couldn't see Yakub Beg condoning desertion. Even the beach and the rockets offered a little hope - it couldn't be worse than Balaclava, surely? (G.o.d, what a fearful thought that was.) So I looked as steady as I could, while those grinning wolves chuckled over their plan, and when the Silk One broke silence to announce that she personally would go with Kutebar's detachment, and a.s.sist with the rockets, I even managed to join in the hum of approval, and say how jolly it would be to have her along. One thing tribulation teaches you, and that is to wear the mask when there's nothing else for it. She gave me a thoughtful glance, and then went back to her nightingale.

As you can guess, I slept fitfully that night. Here I was again, with my essentials trapped in the mangle, and devil a thing to do but grin and bear it - but it was such madness, I kept swearing to myself as I thumped the pillow. Once on a day I'd have wept, or even prayed, but not now; I'd never had any good from either in the past. I could only sweat and hope - I'd come through so much, so often, perhaps my luck would hold again. One thing I was sure of - the first man into the water tomorrow night was going to be H. Flashman, and no bones about it.

I loafed about my tent, worrying, next morning, while the camp hummed around me - you never saw so many happy faces at the prospect of impending dissolution. How many of them would be alive next day? Not that I cared - I'd have seen 'em all dead and d.a.m.ned if only I could come off safe. My guts were beginning to churn in earnest as the hours went by, and finally I was in such a sweat I couldn't stand it any longer. I decided to go up to the pavilion and have a last shot at talking some sense into Yakub Beg - I didn't know what I could say, but if the worst came to the worst I might even chance a flat refusal to have anything to do with his mad venture, and see what he would do about it. In this desperate frame of mind I made my way up through the village, which was quiet with everyone being down in the camp below, went through the little archway and past the screen to the garden - and there was Ko Dali's daughter, alone, sitting by the fountain, trailing her fingers in the water, with that d.a.m.ned kitten watching the ripples.

In spite of my fearful preoccupations - which were entirely her fault, in the first place - I felt the old Adam stir at the sight of her. She was wearing a close-fitting white robe with a gold-embroidered border, and her shapely little bare feet peeping out beneath it; round her head was the inevitable turban, also of white. She looked like Sheherazade in the caliph's garden, and didn't she know it, just?

"Yakub is not here," says she, before I'd even had time to state my business. "He has ridden out with the others to talk with Buzurg Khan; perhaps by evening he will have returned." She stroked the kitten. "Will you wait?"

It was an invitation if ever I heard one - and I'm used to them. But it was unexpected, and as I've said, I was some-thing wary of this young woman. So I hesitated, while she watched me, smiling with her lips closed, and I was just on the point of making my apology and withdrawing, when she leaned down to the kitten and said: "Why do you suppose such a tall fellow is so afraid, little sister? Can you tell? No? He would be wise not to let Yakub Beg know it - for it would be a great shame to the Atalik Ghazi to find fear in his blood brother."

I don't know when I've been taken more aback. I stood astonished as she went on, with her face close to the kitten's: "We knew it the first night, at Fort Raim - you remember I told you? We felt it even in his mouth. And we both saw it, last night, when Yakub Beg pressed him into our venture - the others did not, for he dissembles well, this angliski. But we knew, you and I, little terror of the larder. We saw the fear in his eyes when he tried to persuade them. We see it now." She picked the kitten up and nuzzled it against her cheek. "What are we to make of him, then?"

"Well, I'm d.a.m.ned!" I was beginning, and took a stride forward, red in the face, and stopped.

"Now he is angry, as well as frightened," says she, pretending to whisper in the brute's ear. "Is that not fine? We have stirred him to rage, which is one of the seven forbidden sins he feels against us. Yes, pretty tiger, he feels another one as well. Which one? Come, little foolish, that is easy - no, not envy, why should he envy us? Ah, you have guessed it, you wanton of the night walls, you trifler in jimai najaiz.*(*Illicit love.) Is it not scandalous? But be at ease - we are safe from him. For does he not fear?"

Kutebar was undoubtedly right - this one should have had the mischief tanned out of her when she was knee-high. I stood there, wattling, no doubt, and trying to think of a cutting retort - but interrupting a conversation between a woman and a cat ain't as easy as it might seem. One tends to look a fool.

"You think it a pity, scourge of the milk bowls? Well ... there it is. If lechery cannot cast out fear, what then? What does he fear, you ask? Oh, so many things - death, as all men do. That is no matter, so that they do not cross the line from 'will' to 'will not'. But he fears also Yakub Beg, which is wisdom - although Yakub Beg is far away, and we are quite alone here. So . . . still he wavers, although desire struggles with fear in him. Which will triumph, do you suppose? Is it not exciting, little trollop of the willow-trees? Are your male cats so timorous? Do they fear even to sit beside you?"

I wasn't standing for that, anyway - besides, I was becoming decidedly interested. I came round the fountain and sat down on the gra.s.s. And, damme, the kitten popped its face round her head and miaowed at me.

"There, brave little sister!" She cuddled it, turned to look at me out of those slanting black eyes, and returned to her conversation. "Would you protect your mistress, then? Eyah, it is not necessary - for what will he do? He will gnaw his lip, while his mouth grows dry with fear and desire - he will think. Oh, such thoughts - there is no protection against them. Do you not feel them touching us, embracing us, enfolding us, burning us with their pa.s.sion? Alas, it is only an illusion - and like to remain one, so great is his fear."

I've seduced - and been seduced - in some odd ways, but never before with a kitten pressed into service as pimp. She was right, of course - I was scared, not only of Yakub Beg, but of her: she knew too much, this one, for any man's comfort, and if I knew anything at all it wasn't just for love of my brawny frame and bonny black whiskers that she was taunting me into attempting her. There was something else - but with that slim white shape tantalizing me within arm's length, and that murmuring voice, and the drift of her perfume, subtle and sweet as a garden flower, I didn't care. I reached out - and hesitated, sweating l.u.s.tfully. My G.o.d, I wanted her, but - "And now he pants, and trembles, and fears to touch, my furry sweet. Like the little boys at the confectioner's stall, or a beardless youth biting his nails outside a brothel, and he such a fine, strong - nothing of a man. He -"

"d.a.m.n you!" roars I, "and d.a.m.n your Yakub Beg! Come here!"

And I grabbed her round the body, one hand on her breast, the other on her belly, and pulled her roughly to me. She came without resistance, her head back, and those almond eyes looking up at me, her lips parted; I was shaking as I brought my mouth down on them, and pulled the robe from her shoulders, gripping her sharp-pointed b.r.e.a.s.t.s in my hands. She lay quivering against me for a moment, and then pulled free, pushing the kitten gently aside with her foot.

"Go find a mouse, little idleness. Will you occupy your mistress all day with silly chatter?"

And then she turned towards me, pushing me back and down with her hands on my chest, and sliding astride of me while her tongue flickered out against my lips and then my eyelids and cheeks and into my ear. I grappled her, yammering l.u.s.tfully, as she shrugged off the robe and began working nimbly at my girdle - and no sooner had we set to partners and commenced heaving pa.s.sionately away, than up comes that d.a.m.ned kitten beside my head, and Ko Dali's daughter had to pause and lift her face to blow at it.

"Does no one pay heed to you, then? Fie, selfish little inquisitive! Can your mistress not have a moment to pleasure herself with an angliski - a thing she has never done before?" And they purred at each other while I was going mad - I've never been more mortified in my life.

"I shall tell you all about it later," said she, which is an astonishing thing to hear, when you're at grips.

"Never mind telling the blasted cat!" I roared, straining at her. "Dammit, if you're going to tell anyone, tell me!"

"Ah," says she, sitting back. "You are like the Chinese - you wish to talk as well? Then here is a topic of conversation." And she reached up and suddenly plucked off her turban, and there she was, shaved like a Buddhist monk, staring mischievously down at me.

"Good G.o.d!" I croaked. "You're bald!"

"Did you not know? It is my vow. Does it make me -" she stirred her rump deliciously "- less desirable?"

"My G.o.d, no!" I cried, and fell to again with a will, but every time I became properly engrossed, she would stop to chide the cat, which kept loafing around miaowing, until I was near crazy, with that naked alabaster beauty squirming athwart my hawse, as the sailors say, and nothing to be done satisfactorily until she had left off talking and come back to work. And once she nearly unmanned me completely by stopping short, glancing up, and crying "Yakub!" and I let out a frantic yelp and near as anything heaved her into the fountain as I strained my head round to look at the archway and see - nothing. But before I could remonstrate, or swipe her head off, she was writhing and plunging away again, moaning with her eyes half-closed, and this time, for a wonder, the thing went on uninterrupted until we were lying gasping and exhausted, in each other's arms - and the kitten was there again, purring censoriously in my ear.

By then I was too blissfully sated to care. A teasing, wicked-minded sprite she might be, but Ko Dali's daughter had nothing to learn about killing a chap with kindness, and one of my fondest recollections is of lying there ruined in the warmth of that little garden, with the leaves rustling overhead, watching her slip into her robe and turban again, sleek and satisfied as the kitten which she picked up and cuddled against her cheek. (If only the English dowagers of my acquaintance could know what I'm remembering when I see them pick up their gross fat tabbies in the drawing-room. "Ah, General Flashman has gone to sleep again, poor dear old thing. How contented he looks. Ssh-hh.") Presently she got up and went off, returning with a little tray on which there were cups of sherbet, and two big bowls of kefir - just the thing after a hot encounter, when you're feeling well and contented, and wondering vaguely whether you ought not to slide out before the man of the house comes back, and deciding the devil with him. It was good kefir, too - strangely sweet, with a musky flavour that I couldn't place, and as I spooned it down gratefully she sat watching me, with those mysterious dark eyes, and murmuring to her kitten as it played with her fingers.

"Did cruel mistress neglect her darling?" says she. "Ah, do not scold - do I reproach you when you come home with your ears scratched and your fur bedraggled? Do I pester you with impertinent questions? Mmm? Oh, shame-less - it is not proper to ask, in his presence. Besides, some little evil bird might hear, and talk ... and what then? What of me - and Yakub Beg - and fine dreams of a throne in Kashgar some day? Ah, indeed. And what of our fine angliski? It would go hard with all of us, if certain things were known, but hardest of all with him ..."

"Capital kefir, this," says I, cleaning round the bowl. "Any more?"

She gave me another helping, and went on whispering to the cat - taking care that I could hear.

"Why did we permit him to make love, then? Oh, such a question! Because of his fine shape and handsome head, you think, and the promise of a great baz-baz*(*An indelicate synonym for virility.) - oh, whiskered little harlot, have you no blushes? What - because he was fearful, and we women know that nothing so drives out a man's fear as pa.s.sion and delight with a beautiful darling? That is an old wisdom, true - is it the poet Firdausi who says "The making of life in the shadow of death is the blissful oblivion ...'?"

"Stuff and nonsense, beautiful darling," says I, wolfing away. "The poet Flashman says that a good gallop needs no philosophic excuse. You're a l.u.s.ty little baggage, young Silk One, and that's all about it. Here, leave that animal a moment, and give us a kiss."

"You enjoy your kefir?" says she.

"The blazes with the kefir," says I, putting down my spoon. "Here a minute, and I'll show you."

She nuzzled the kitten, watching me thoughtfully. "And if Yakub should return?"

"Blazes with him, too. Come here, can't you?"

But she slipped quickly out of harm's way, and stood slim and white and graceful, cradling the kitten and smiling at it.

"You were right, curious tiny leopard - you and Firdausi both. He is much braver now - and he is so very strong, with his great powerful arms and thighs, like the black djinn in the story of es-Sinbad of the sea - he is no longer safe with delicate ladies such as we. He might harm us." And with that mocking smile she went quickly round the fountain, before I could stop her. "Tell me, angliski," she said, looking back, but not stopping. "You who speak Persian and know so much of our country - have you ever heard of the Old Man of the Mountains?"

"No, by jove, I don't think I have," says I. "Come back and tell me about him."

"After tonight - when the work has been done," says she, teasing. "Perhaps then I shall tell you."

"But I want to know now."

"Be content," says she. "You are a different man from the fearful fellow who came here seeking Yakub an hour ago. Remember the Persian saying: 'Lick up the honey, stranger, and ask no questions'."

And then she was gone, leaving me grinning foolishly after her, and cursing her perversity in a good-humoured way. But, do you know, she was right? I couldn't account for it, but for some reason I felt full of buck and appet.i.te and great good humour, and I couldn't even remember feeling doubts or fears or anything -much - of course, I knew there was nothing like a good lively female for putting a chap in trim, as her man Firdausi had apparently pointed out. Clever lads, these Persian poets. But I couldn't recall ever feeling so much the better for it - a new man, in fact, as she'd said.

Now, you who know me may find what I've just written, and what I am about to tell you, extremely strange, coming from me at such a time. But as I've said before, there's nothing in these memoirs that isn't gospel true, and you must just take my word for it. My memory's clear, even if my understanding isn't always perfect, and I'm in no doubt of what happened on that day, or on the night that followed.

I went striding back down the valley, then, singing "A-hunting we will go", if I remember rightly, and was just in time to see Yakub and Kutebar return from their meeting with Buzurg Khan in a fine rage: the overlord had refused to risk any of his people in what he, the shirking recreant, regarded as a lost hope. I couldn't believe such poltroonery, myself, and said so, loudly. But there it was: the business was up to us and our five thousand sabres, and when Yakub jumped on a pile of camel bales in the valley market, and told the mob it was do or die by themselves for the honour of Old Khokand, and explained how we were going to a.s.sault the beach that night and blow up the powder-ships, the whole splendid crowd rose to him as a man. There was just a sea of faces, yellow and brown, slit-eyed and hook-nosed, bald-pated and scalp-locked or turbaned and hairy, all yelling and laughing and waving their sabres, with the wilder spirits cracking off their pistols and racing their ponies round the outskirts of the crowd in an ecstasy of excitement, churning up the dust and whooping like Arapahoes.

And when Kutebar, to a storm of applause, took his place beside Yakub, and thundered in his huge voice: "North, south, east, and west - where shall you find the Kirgiz? By the silver hand of Alexander, they are here!" the whole place exploded in wild cheering, and they crowded round the two leaders, promising ten Russian dead for every one of ours, and I thought, why not give 'em a bit of civilized comfort, too, so I jumped up myself, roaring "Hear, hear!", and when they stopped to listen I gave it to them, straight and manly.

"That's the spirit, you fellows!" I told them. "I second what these two fine a.s.sociates of mine have told you, and have only this to add. We're going to blow these b.l.o.o.d.y Russians from h.e.l.l to Huddersfield - and I'm the chap who can do it, let me tell you! So I shall detain you no longer, my good friends - and Tajiks, and n.i.g.g.e.rs, and what-not - but only ask you to be upstanding and give a rousing British cheer for the honour of the dear old Schoolhouse - hip, hip, hip, hurrah!"

And didn't they cheer, too? Best speech I ever made, I remember thinking, and Yakub clapped me on the. back, grinning all over, and said by the beard of Mohammed, if we had proposed a march on Moscow every man jack would have been in his saddle that minute, riding west. I believed him, too, and said it was a d.a.m.ned good idea, but he said no, the powder ships were enough for just now, and I must take pains to instruct the band of a.s.sistants whom he'd told off to help me with the rockets when we got to the beach.

So I got them together - and Ko Dali's daughter was there, too, lovely girl and so attentive, all in black, now, shirt, pyjamys, boots and turban, very business-like. And I lectured them about Congreves - it was remarkable how well I remembered each detail about a.s.sembling the firing-frame and half-pipes, and adjusting the range-screws and everything; the excellent fellows took it all in, spitting and exclaiming with excitement, and you could see that even if they weren't the kind to get elected to the Royal Society for their mechanical apt.i.tude, their hearts were in the right place. I tried to get Ko Dali's daughter aside afterwards for some special instruction, but she excused herself, so I went off to the grindstone merchant to get a sabre sharpened, and got Kutebar to find me a few rounds for my German revolver.

"The only thing that irks me," I told him, "is that we are going to be stuck in some stuffy go-down, blazing away with rockets, while Yakub and the others have got the best of the evening. d.a.m.n it, Izzat, I want to put this steel across a few Ruski necks - there's a wall-eyed rascal called Ignatieff, now, have I told you about him? Two rounds from this pop-gun into his midriff, and then a foot of sabre through his throat - that's all he needs. By gad, I'm thirsty tonight, I tell you."

"It is a good thirst," says he approvingly. "But think, angliski, of the countless hundreds infidel pigs - your par-don, when I say infidels, I mean Ruskis - whom we shall send to the bottom of Aral with these fine ra-kets. Is that not worthy work for a warrior?"

"Oh, I daresay," I grumbled. "But it ain't the same as jamming a sword in their guts and watching 'em wriggle. That's my sort, now. I say, have I ever told you about Balaclava?"

I didn't know when I'd felt so blood-l.u.s.ty, and it got worse as the evening wore on. By the time we saddled up I was full of hate against a vague figure who was Ignatieff in a Cossack hat with the Tsar's eagle across the front of his shirt; I wanted to settle him, gorily and painfully, and all the way on our ride across the Kizil k.u.m in the gathering dark I was dreaming fine nightmares in which I despatched him. But from time to time I felt quite jolly, too, and sang a few s.n.a.t.c.hes of "The Leather Bottel" and "John Peel" and other popular favourites, while the riders grinned and nudged each other, and Kutebar muttered that I was surely bewitched. And all the way the Silk One rode knee to knee with me - not so close that I could give her a squeeze, unfortunately, and silent most of the time, although she seemed to be watching me closely. Well, what girl doesn't - especially when she's just had her first taste of Flashy? I recalled it fondly, and promised myself I would continue her education, for she deserved it, the dear child - but not until I'd satisfied my yearning for slaughter of Russians. That was the main thing, and by the time we had trotted silently into the scrubby wood that lies a bare half-mile from Fort Raim, I was fairly dribbling to be at them.

It took a good hour in the cold dark to bring all the riders quietly into the safety of the wood, each man holding his horse's nostrils or blanketing its head, while I fidgeted with impatience. It was the waiting that infuriated me, when we could have been down on the beach killing Russians, and I spoke pretty sharp to Yakub Beg about it when he emerged out of the shadows, very brave in spiked helmet and red cloak, to say that we should move when the moon hid behind the cloud bank.

"Come along, come along, come along," says I. "What are we about, then? The brutes'll be sounding reveille in a moment."

"Patience, blood brother," says he, giving me a puzzled look, and then a grin. "You shall have your rockets at their throats presently. G.o.d keep you. Kutebar, preserve that worthless carcase if you can, and you, beloved Silk One -" he reached out and pressed her head to his breast, whispering to her. Bully for some, thinks I: wonder if you can do it on a trotting horse? Have to try some time - and then Yakub was calling softly into the dark.

"In the name of G.o.d and the Son of G.o.d! Kirgiz, Uzbek, Tajik, Kalmuk, Turka - remember Ak Mechet! The morning rides behind us!" And he made that strange, moaning Khokand whistle, and with a great rumbling growl and a drumming of hooves the whole horde went surging forward beneath the trees and out on to the empty steppe towards Fort Raim.

If I'd been a sentry on those walls I'd have had apoplexy. One moment an empty steppe, and the next it was thick with mounted men, pouring down on the fort; we must have covered a quarter of a mile before the first shot cracked, and then we were tearing at full tilt towards the gap between fort and river, with the shouts of alarm sounding from the walls, and musketry popping, and then with one voice the yell of the Ghazi war-cry burst from the riders (one voice, in fact, was crying "Tally-ho! Ha-ha!"), five thousand mad creatures thundering down the long slope with the glittering sea far ahead, and the ships riding silent and huge on the water, and on to the cluttered beach, with men scattering in panic as we swept in among the great piles of bales, sabring and shooting, leaping crazily in the gloom over the boxes and low shelters, Yakub's contingent streaming out to the left among the sheds and go-downs, while our party and Sahib Khan's drove for the pier.

G.o.d, what a chaos it was! I was galloping like a dervish at Kutebar's heels roaring "Hark forrard! Ha, ha, you b.l.o.o.d.y foreigners, Flashy's here!", careering through the narrow s.p.a.ces between the sheds, with the muskets banging off to our left, startled sleepers crying out, and every-one yelling like be-d.a.m.ned. As we burst headlong onto the last stretch of open beach, and swerved past the landward end of the pier, some stout Russian was bawling and letting fly with a pistol; I left off singing "Rule, Britannia" to take a shot at him, but missed, and there ahead someone was waving a torch and calling, and suddenly there were dark figures all around us, clutching at our bridles, almost pulling us from the saddles towards a big go-down on the north side of the pier.

I was in capital fettle as I strode into the go-down, which was full of half-naked natives with torches, all in a ferment of excitement.

"Now, then, my likely lads," cries I, "where are these Congreves, eh? Look alive, boys, we haven't got all night, you know."