Flashman At The Charge Part 13

"Here is the devil-fire, oh slayer of thousands," says someone, and there sure enough was a huge pile of boxes, and in the smoky torchlight I could see the broad arrow, and make out the old familiar lettering on them: "Royal Small Arms Factory. Handle with Extreme Care. Explosives. Danger. This side up."

"And how the deuce did this lot get here, d'ye suppose?" says I to Kutebar. "Depend upon it, some greasy b.a.s.t.a.r.d in Birmingham with a pocketful of dollars could tell us. Right-o, you fellows, break 'em out, break 'em out!" And as they set to with a will, I gave them another chorus of "John Peel" and strode to the sea end of the go-down, which of course was open, and surveyed the bay.

Ko Dali's daughter was at my elbow, with a chattering n.i.g.g.e.r pointing out which ship was which. There were two steamers, the farther one being the Obrucheff, three vessels with masts, of which the Mikhail was farthest north, and a ketch, all riding under the moon on the gla.s.sy sea, pretty as paint.

"That's the ticket for soup!" says I. "We'll have 'em sunk in half a jiffy. How are you, my dear - I say, that's a fetching rig you're wearing!" And I gave her a squeeze for luck, but she wriggled free.

"The firing-frame, angliski you must direct them," says she, and I turned reluctantly from surveying the bay and listening to the war that was breaking out along the beach - h.e.l.l of a din of shooting and yelling, and it stirred my blood to action. I strode in among the toilers, saw the firing-frame broken from its crate, and showed them where to position it, at the very lip of the go-down, just above the small boats and barges which were rocking gently at their moorings on the water six feet below our feet.

Putting up the frame was simple - it's just an iron fence, you see,. with supports both sides, and half-pipes running from the ground behind to the top of the fence, to take the rockets. I've never known my fingers so nimble as I tightened the screws and adjusted the half-pipes in their sockets; everyone else seemed slow by comparison, and I cursed them good-naturedly and finally left Ko Dali's daughter to see to the final adjustments while I went off to examine the rockets.

They had them broken out by now, the dull grey three-foot metal cylinders with their conical heads - I swore when I saw that, as I'd feared, they were the old pattern, without fins and needing the fifteen-foot sticks.43 Sure enough, there were the sticks, in long canvas bundles; I called for one, and set to work to fit it into a rocket head, but the thing was corroded to blazes.

"Now blast these Brummagem robbers!" cries I. "This is too bad - see how British workmanship gets a bad name! At this rate the Yankees will be streets ahead of us. Break out another box!"

"Burst it open! off with the lid, sons of idleness!" bawls Kutebar, fuming with impatience. "If it was Russian gold within, you'd have them open fast enough!"

"They will open in G.o.d's time, father of all wisdom," says one of the riders. "See, there they lie, like the silver fish of See-ah - are they not pretty to behold?"

"Prettier yet when they strike those Ruski ships of Eblis!" roars Kutebar. "Bring me a stick that I may arm one of these things! What science is here! Wisdom beyond that of the great astronomer of Samarkand has gone to the making of these fine instruments. I salute you, Flashman bahadur, and the genius of your infidel professors of Anglistan. See, there it stands, ready to blow the sons of pigs straight up Shaitan's backside!" And he flourished the stick, with the rockethead secured - upside down, which made me laugh immoderately.

I was interrupted by the Silk One, tugging urgently at my sleeve, imploring me to hurry - I couldn't see what all the fuss was, for I was enjoying things thoroughly. The battle was going great guns outside, with a steady crackle of gunfire, but no regular volleys, which meant, as I pointed out, that the Ruskis hadn't come to order yet.

"Lots of time, darling," I soothed her. "Now, how's the frame? Very creditable, very handy, you fellows - well done. Right-ho, Izzat, let's have some of those rockets along here, sharp now! Mustn't keep ladies waiting, what?" And I took a slap at her tight little backside - I don't know when I've felt so full of beans.

It was a fine, sweaty confusion in the go-down as they dragged the rockets down to the firing-frame, and I egged 'em on, and showed them how to lay a rocket in the half-pipe - no corrosion there, thank G.o.d, I noted, and the Silk One fairly twitched with impatience - strange girl, she was, tense as a telegraph wire at moments like this, but all composure when she was at home - while I lectured her on the importance of unrusted surfaces, so that the rockets flew straight.

"In G.o.d's name, angliski!" cries Kutebar. "Let us be about it! See the Mikhail yonder, with enough munitions aboard to blow the Aral dry - for the love of women, let us fire on her!"

"All right, old fellow," says I. "Let's see how we stand." I squinted along the half-pipe, which was at full elevation. "Give us a box beneath the pipe, to lift her. So - steady." I adjusted the ranging-screw, and now the great conical head of the rocket was pointing just over her main mast. "That's about it. Right, give me a slow-match, someone."

Suddenly there wasn't a sound in the go-down, apart from me whistling to myself as I took a last squint along the rocket and glanced round to see that everything was ready. I can see them still - the eager, bearded hawk-faces, the glistening half-naked bodies running sweat in the stuffy go-down, even Kutebar with his mouth hanging open, quiet for once, Ko Dali's daughter with her face chalk-white and her eyes fixed on me. I gave her a wink.

"Stand clear, boys and girls," I sang out. "Papa's going to light the blue touch-paper and retire immediately!" And in that instant before I touched the match to the firing-vent, I had a sudden vivid memory of November the Fifth, with the frosty ground and the dark, and little boys chattering and giggling and the girls covering their ears, and the red eye of the rocket smouldering in the black, and the white fizz of sparks, and the chorus of admiring "oohs" and "aahs" as the rocket bursts overhead - and it was something like that now, if you like, except that here the fizzing was like a locomotive funnel belching sparks, filling the go-down with acrid, reeking smoke, while the firing-frame shuddered, and then with an almighty whoosh like an express tearing by the Congreve went rushing away into the night, clouds of smoke and fire gushing from its tail, and the boys and girls cried "By Shaitan!" and "Istagfarullah!", and Papa skipped nimbly aside roaring "Take that, you sons of b.i.t.c.hes!" And we all stood gaping as it soared into the night like a comet, reached the top of its arc, dipped towards the Mikhail - and vanished miles on the wrong side of it.

"Bad luck, dammit! Hard lines! Right, you fellows, let's have another!" And laughing heartily, I had another box shoved under the pipe to level it out. We let fly again, but this time the rocket must have been faulty, for it swerved away crazily into the night, weaving to and fro before plunging into the water a bare three hundred yards out with a tremendous hiss and cloud of steam. We tried three more, and all fell short, so we adjusted the range slightly, and the sixth rocket flew straight and true, like a great scarlet lance searching for its target; we watched it pa.s.s between the masts of the Mikhail, and howled with disappointment. But now at least we had the range, so I ordered all the pipes loaded, and we touched off the whole battery at once.

It was indescribable and great fun - like a volcano erupting under your feet, and a dense choking fog filling the go-down; the men clinging to steady the firing-frame were almost torn from their feet, the rush of the launching Congreves was deafening, and for a moment we were all staggering about, weeping and coughing in that filthy smoke. It was a full minute before the reek had cleared sufficiently to see how our shots had fared, and then Kutebar was flinging himself into the air and rushing to embrace me.

"Ya'allahah! Wonder of G.o.d! Look - look yonder, Flash-man! Look at the blessed sight! Is it not glorious - see, see how they burn!"

And he was right - the Mikhail was. .h.i.t! There was a red ball of fire clinging to her timbers just below the rail amid-ships, and even as we watched there was a climbing lick of flame - and over to the right, by some freakish chance, the ketch had been hit, too: there was a fire on her deck, and she was slewing round at anchor. All about me they were dancing and yelling and clapping hands, like school girls when Popular Penelope has won the sewing prize.

All except Ko Dali's daughter. While Kutebar was roaring and I was chanting "For we are jolly good fellows," she was barking shrill commands at the men on the frame, having them swivel the pipes round for a shot at the Obrucheff - trust women to interfere, thinks I, and strode over.

"Now then, my dear, what's this?" says I, pretty short. "I'll decide when we leave off shooting at our targets, if you don't mind. You, there -"

"We have hit one, angliski - it is time for the other." She rapped it out, and I was aware that her face was strained, and her eyes seemed to be searching mine anxiously. "There is no time to waste - listen to the firing! In a few moments they will have broken through Yakub's line and be upon us!"

You know, I'd been so taken up with our target practice, I'd almost forgotten about the fighting that was going on outside. But she was right; it was fiercer than ever, and getting closer. And she was probably right about the Mikhail, too - with any luck that fire aboard her would do the business.

"You're a clever girl, Silk One, so you are," says I. "Right-ho, bonny boys, heave away!" And I flung my weight on the frame, chanting "Yo-ho", while the gleeful n.i.g.g.e.rs dragged up more rockets - they were loving this as much as I was, grinning and yelling and inviting G.o.d and each other to admire the havoc we had wrought.

"Aye, now for the steamer!" shouts Kutebar. "Hasten, Flashman bahadur! Fling the fire of G.o.d upon them, the sp.a.w.n of Muscovy! Aye, we shall burn you here, and Eblis will consume your souls thereafter, you thieves; you disturbers, you dunghill sons of wh.o.r.es and shameless women!"

It wasn't quite as easy as that. Perhaps we'd been lucky with the Mikhail, but I fired twenty single rockets at the Obrucheff and never came near enough to singe her cable - they snaked over her, or flew wide, or hit the water short, until the smoky trails of their pa.s.sing blended into a fine mist across the bay; the go-down was a scorching inferno of choking smoke in which we shouted and swore hoa.r.s.ely as we wrestled sticks and canisters into pipes that were so hot we had to douse them with water after every shot. My good humour didn't survive the twentieth miss; I raged and swore and kicked the nearest n.i.g.g.e.r - I was aware, too, that as we laboured the sounds of battle outside were drawing closer still, and I was in half a mind to leave these infernal rockets that wouldn't fly straight, and pitch into the fighting on the beach. It was like h.e.l.l, outside and in, and to add to my fury one of the ships in the bay was firing at us now; the pillar of cloud from the go-down must have made a perfect target, and the rocket trails had long since advertised to everyone on that beach exactly what was going on. The smack of musket b.a.l.l.s on the roof and walls was continuous - although I didn't know it then, detachments of Russian cavalry had tried three times to drive through the lumbered beach in phalanx to reach the go-down and silence us, and Yakub's riders had halted them each time with desperate courage. The ring round our position was contracting all the time as the Khokandian riders fell back; once a shot from the sea pitched right in front of the go-down, showering us with spray, another howled overhead like a banshee, and a third crashed into the pier alongside us.

"d.a.m.n you!" I roared, shaking my fist. "Come ash.o.r.e, you swine, and I'll show you!" I seemed to be seeing everything through a red mist, with a terrible, consuming rage swelling up inside me; I was swearing incoherently, I know, as we dragged another rocket into the reeking pipe; half-blinded with smoke and sweat and fury I touched it off, and this time it seemed to drop just short of the Obrucheff - and then, by G.o.d, I saw that the ship was moving; they must have got steam up in her at last, and she was veering round slowly, her stern-wheel churning as she prepared to draw out from the sh.o.r.e.

"Ah, G.o.d, she will escape!" It was Ko Dali's daughter, shrill beside me. "Quickly, quickly, angliski! Try again, with all the rockets! Kutebar, all of you, load them all together before she has gone too far!"

"Cowardly rascals!" I hollered. "Turn tail, will you? Why don't you stand and fight, you measly hounds? Load 'em up, you idle b.a.s.t.a.r.ds, there!" And savagely I flung myself among them as they hauled up the five rockets - one of 'em was still half off its stick, I remember, with a little n.i.g.g.e.r still wrestling to fix it home even as the man with the match was touching the fuse. I crammed the burning remnant of my match against a vent, and even as the trail of sparks shot out the whole go-down seemed to stand on end, I felt myself falling, something hit me a great crack on the head, and my ears were full of cannonading that went on and on until the pain of it seemed to be bursting my brain before blackness came.

I've reckoned since that I must have been unconscious for only a few minutes, but for all I knew when I opened my eyes it might have been hours. What had happened was that a cannon shot had hit the go-down roof just as the rockets went off, and a falling slat had knocked me endways; when I came to the first thing I saw was the firing-frame in ruins, with a beam across it, and I remember thinking, ah well, no more Guy Fawkes night until next year. Beyond it, through the smoke, I could see the Mikhail, burning quite nicely now, but not exploding, which I thought strange; the ketch was well alight, too, but the Obrucheff was under way, with smoke pouring from her funnel and her wheel thrashing great guns. There was a glow near her stern, too, and I found myself wondering, in a confused way, if one of the last salvo had got home. "Serve you right, you Russian scoundrels," I muttered, and tried to pull myself up, but I couldn't; all the strength had gone from my limbs.

But the strangest thing was, that my head seemed to have floated loose from my shoulders, and I couldn't seem to focus properly on things around me. The great berserk rage that had possessed me only a moment since seemed to have gone and I felt quite tranquil, and dreamy - it wasn't unpleasant, really, for I felt that nothing much mattered, and there was no pain or anxiety, or even inclination to do anything, but just lie there, resting body and brain together.

And yet I have a pretty clear recollection of what was happening around me, although none of it was important at the time. There were folk crawling about the go-down, among the smoke and wreckage, and Kutebar was thundering away blasphemously, and then Ko Dali's daughter was kneeling beside me, trying to raise my head, which was apparently swollen as big as a house. Outside, the fight was raging, and among the shots and yells I could hear the actual clash of steel - it didn't excite me now, though, or even interest me. And then Yakub Beg was there, his helmet gone, one arm limp with a great bloodied gash near the shoulder, and a naked sabre in his good hand. Strange, thinks I, you ought to be out on the beach, killing Russians; what the deuce are you doing here?

"Away!" he was shouting. "Away - take to the water!" And he dropped his sabre and took Ko Dali's daughter by the shoulder. "Quickly, Silk One - it is done! They have driven us in! Swim for it, beloved - and Kutebar! Get them into the sea, Izzat! There are only moments left!"

Ko Dali's daughter was saying something that I couldn't catch, and Yakub was shaking his head.

"Sahib Khan can hold them with his Immortals - but only for minutes. Get you gone - and take the Englishman. Do as I tell you, girl! Yes, yes, I will come - did I not say Sahib Khan is staying?"

"And you will leave him?" Her voice seemed faint and far away.

"Aye, I will leave him. Khokand can spare him, but it cannot spare me; he knows it, and so do I. And he seeks his wife and little ones. Now, in G.o.d's name, get out quickly!"

She didn't hesitate, but rose, and two of the others half-dragged, half-carried me to the mouth of the go-down. I was so dazed I don't think it even crossed my mind that I was in no case to swim; it didn't matter, anyway, for some clever lads were cutting loose the lighter that swung under the edge of the go-down, and men were tumbling into it. I remember a fierce altercation was going on between Yakub Beg and Kutebar, the latter protesting that he wanted to stay and fight it out with Sahib Khan and the others, and Yakub more or less thrusting him down into the lighter with his sound arm, and then jumping in himself. I was aware that one wall of the go-down was burning, and in the glare and the smoke I caught a glimpse of a swirling ma.s.s of figures at the doors, and I think I even made out a Cossack, laying about him with a sabre, before someone tumbled down on top of me and knocked me flat on the floor of the lighter.

Somehow they must have poled the thing off, for when I had recovered my breath and pulled myself up to the low gunwale, we were about twenty yards from the go-down, and drifting away from the pier as the eddy from the river mouth, I suppose, caught the lighter and tugged it out to sea. I had only a momentary sight of the interior of the go-down, looking for all the world like a mine-shaft, with the figures of miners hewing away in it, and then I saw a brilliant light suddenly glowing on its floor, growing in intensity, and then the rush-rush-rush sound of the Congreves as the flames from the burning wall reached them, and I just had sense enough to duck my head below the gunwale before the whole place dissolved in a blinding light - but strangely enough, without any great roar of explosion, just the rushing noise of a huge whirlwind. There were screams and oaths from the lighter all around me, but when I raised my head there was just one huge flame where the go-down had been, and the pier beside it was burning at its landward end, and the glare was so fierce that beyond there was nothing to be seen.

I just lay, with my cheek on the thwart, wondering if the eddy would carry us out of range before they started shooting at us, and thinking how calm and pleasant it was to be drifting along here, after all the h.e.l.lish work in the go-down. I still wasn't feeling any sense of urgency, or anything beyond a detached, dreamy interest, and I can't say even now whether we were fired on or not, for I suddenly became aware that Ko Dali's daughter was crouched down beside me at the gunwale, staring back, and people were pressed close about us, and I thought, this is a splendid opportunity to squeeze that lovely little rump of hers. There it was, just nicely curved within a foot of me, so I took a handful and kneaded away contentedly, and she never even noticed - or if she did, she didn't mind. But I think she was too preoccupied with the inferno we had left behind us; so were the others, craning and muttering as we drifted over the dark water. It's queer, but in my memory that drifting and b.u.m-fondling seems to have gone on for the deuce of a long time - I suppose I was immensely preoccupied with it, and a capital thing, too. But some other things I remember: the flames of the go-down and pier seen at a distance, and a wounded man groaning near me in the press of bodies; Ko Dali's daughter speaking to Yakub Beg, and Kutebar saying something which involved an oath to do with a camel; and a water-skin being pressed against my lips, and the warm, brackish water making me choke and cough. And Yakub Beg saying that the Mikhail was burning to a wreck, but the Obrucheff had got away, so our work was only half-done, but better half-done than not done at all, and Kutebar growling that, by G.o.d, it was all very well for those who had been loafing about on the beach, building sand-castles, to talk, but if Yakub and his saunterers had been in the go-down, where the real business was . . .

And pat on his words the sun was suddenly in the sky - or so it seemed, for the whole place, the lighter, the sea around, and sky itself, were suddenly as bright as day, and it seemed to me that the lighter was no longer drifting, but racing over the water, and then came the most tremendous thundering crash of sound I've ever heard, reverberating over the sea, making the head sing and shudder with the deafening boom of it, and as I tried to put up my hands to my ears to shut out the pain, I heard Kutebar's frantic yell: "The Obrucheff. She has gone - gone to the pit of d.a.m.nation! Now whose work is half-done? By G.o.d! - it is done, it is done, it is done! A thousand times done! Ya, Yakub - is it not done? Now the praise to Him and to the foreign professors!"

More than two thousand Khokandians were killed in the battle of Fort Raim, which shows you what a clever lad Buzurg Khan was to keep out of it. The rest escaped, some by cutting their way eastward off the beach, some by swimming the Syr Daria mouth, and a favoured few travelling in style, by boat and lighter. How many Russians died, no one knows, but Yakub Beg later estimated about three thousand. So it was a good deal bigger than many battles that are household words, but it happened a long way away, and the Russians doubtless tried to forget it, so I suppose only the Khokandians remember it now.

It achieved their purpose, anyhow, for it destroyed the Russian munition ships, and prevented the army marching that year. Which saved British India for as long as I've lived - and preserved Khokand's freedom for a few years more, before the Tsar's soldiers came and stamped it flat in the 'sixties. I imagine the Khokandians thought the respite was worth while, and the two thousand lives well lost - what the two thousand would say, of course, is another matter, but since they went to fight of their own free will (so far as any soldier ever does) I suppose they would support the majority.

Myself, I haven't changed my opinion since I came back to my senses two days afterwards, back in the valley in Kizil k.u.m. I remember nothing of our lighter being hauled from the water by Katti Torah's rescue party, or of the journey back through the desert, for by that time I was in the finest hallucinatory delirium since the first Reform Bill, and I came out of it gradually and painfully. The terrible thing was that I remembered the battle very clearly, and my own incredible behaviour - I knew I'd gone bawling about like a Viking in drink, seeking sorrow and raving heroically in murderous rage, but I couldn't for the life of me understand why. It had been utterly against nature, instinct and judgement - and I knew it hadn't been booze, because , I hadn't had any, and anyway the liquor hasn't been distilled that can make me oblivious of self-preservation. It appalled me, for what security does a right-thinking coward have, if he loses his sense of panic?

At first I thought my memory of that night's work must be playing me false, but the admiring congratulations I got from Yakub Beg and Kutebar (who called me "Ghazi", of all things) soon put paid to that notion. So I must have been temporarily deranged - but why? The obvious explanation, for some reason, never occurred to me - and yet I knew Ko Dali's daughter was at the bottom of it somehow, so I sought her out first thing when I had emerged weak and shaky from my brief convalescence. I was too upset to beat about the bush, and although she played the cool arch tart at first, and pretended not to understand what I was talking about, I went at it so hard that at last she told me - not to put my mind at rest, you may be sure, but probably because she knew that the only fun to be had from a secret lies in betraying it, especially if it makes someone wriggle.

"You remember I spoke to you about the Old Man of the Mountains, of whom you had never heard?"

"What's he got to do with me rushing about like a lunatic?"

"He lived many years ago, in Persia, beyond the Two Seas and the Salt Desert. He was the master of the mad fighting-men the hasheesheen - who nerved themselves to murder and die by drinking the hasheesh drug - what the Indians call bhang. It is prepared in many ways, for many purposes - it can be so concocted that it will drive a man to any lengths of hatred and courage - and other pa.s.sions."

And she said it as calm as a virgin discussing flower arrangement, sitting there gravely cross-legged on a charpai*(*Bed platform.) in a corner of her garden, with her vile kitten gorging itself on a saucer of milk beside her. I stared at her astounded.

"The hasheesheen - you mean the a.s.sa.s.sins?" Great G.o.d, woman, d'you mean to say you filled me with an infernal drug, that sent me clean barmy?"

"It was in your kefir," says she, lightly. "Drink, little tiger, there is more if you need it."

"But . . . but ..." I was almost gobbling. "What the devil for?"

"Because you were afraid. Because I knew, from the moment I first saw you, that fear rules you, and that in the test, it will always master you." The beautiful face was quite impa.s.sive, the voice level. "And I could not allow that to happen. If you had proved a coward that night, when all depended on you, we would have been lost - Yakub's enterprise would have failed, and Khokand with it. I would do - anything, rather than see him fail. So I drugged you - has it done any harm, in the end?"

"I never heard of such infernal impudence in my life!" I stormed. By George, I was angry, and resentful, and bursting with it. "Blast you, I might have got myself killed!"

She suddenly laughed, showing those pretty teeth. "You are sometimes an honest man, angliski! Is he not, puss? And he does wrong to rage and abuse us for is he not alive? And if he had turned coward, where would he have been?"

A sound argument, as I've realized since, but it didn't do much to quieten me just then. I detested her in that moment, as only a coward can when he hears the truth to his face, and I didn't have to look far to see how to vent my spite on her.

"If I'm honest, it's more than you are. All this fine talk of not failing your precious Yakub Beg - we know how much that's worth! You pretend to be devoted to him - but it doesn't stop you coupling like a b.i.t.c.h in heat with the first chap that comes along. Hah! That shows how much you care for him!"

She didn't even blush, but smiled down at the kitten, and stroked it. "Perhaps it does, eh, puss? But the angliski would not be pleased if we said as much. But then -"

"Stop talking to the blasted cat! Speak plain, can't you?"

"If it pleases you. Listen angliski, I do not mock - now, and I do not seek to put shame on you. It is no sin to be fearful, any more than it is a sin to be one-legged or red-haired. All men fear - even Yakub and Kutebar and all of them. To conquer fear, some need love, and some hate, and some greed, and some even - hasheesh. I understand your anger - but consider, is it not all for the best? You are here, which is what matters most to you - and no one but I knows what fears are in your heart. And that I knew from the beginning. So -" she smiled, and I remember it still as a winning smile, curse her. ""Lick up the honey, stranger, and ask no questions'."

And that was all I could get from her - but somewhere in it I detected a tiny mite of consolation. I've got my pride in one direction, you know - or had then. So before I left her, I asked the question: "Why did you goad me into making love to you?" "Call that a drug, too, if you will - to make certain you ate my kefir."

"Just that, eh? Lot of trouble, you Chinese girls go to."

She laughed aloud at that, and gave a little pout. "And I had never met an angliski before, you remember. Say I was curious."

"May I ask if your curiosity was satisfied?"

"Ah, you ask too much, angliski. That is one tale I tell only to my kitten."

I daresay I've no cause to remember her with much affection, but I do, like the old fool I am. As indeed I do all my girls, now that they're at a safe distance. Perhaps she was right, and I owed it to her that I'd come out with a whole skin - but that was blind luck, and anyway, she had plunged me into the stew in the first place. But it's all by now, and I have only to hold that faded flower scarf that she gave me as a parting gift, and I'm back in the bright garden behind the ranges, looking into those black almond eyes, and feeling the sun's warmth and those soft lips against my cheek, and - aye, but she knew too much, the Silk One. Kutebar was decidedly right.

Still, I had no cause for complaint, once I'd recovered from the shock of realizing that I'd fought a do-or-die action by means of a bellyful of some disgusting Oriental potion. I've often wondered since, if chaps like Chinese Gordon and Bobs and Custer always went about feeling the way I did that night - not knowing what fear was? It would account for a lot, you know. But G.o.d help anyone who's born that way; I'm sorry for 'em. You can't know real peace of mind, I think, unless you've got a windy streak in you.

But I didn't think too long about it just then. The danger was past, all right, I was safe out of the Russians' reach, and among friendly folk who thought I was the best thing to come their way since Tamburlaine - but I'd no wish to linger. When I took stock of what I'd been through in the past year, from the h.e.l.l of Balaclava and the snow-sodden nightmare of Russia, with its wolves and knouts and barbarous swine like Ignatieff, to the shocking perils of Fort Raim and the go-down (I shudder to this day at the mention of Guy Fawkes), I had only one notion in my head: India, and a hero's welcome, no doubt, and after that home, and the sounds of London and Leicestershire, and the comfort of clubs and taverns and English bed-clothes and b.u.t.tered toast, and above all my beautiful blonde Elspeth - who didn't have the wit to converse with kittens, and could be relied on not to lace my kidneys and bacon with opium. By G.o.d, though, I wondered if Cardigan had been mooching round in my absence - unless he'd got himself killed, with luck? For that matter, was the war over, or what? Decidedly I must get back to civilization quickly.

Yakub Beg was deuced good about it - as well he might have been, considering the risks I'd run on his behalf- and after a tremendous feast in the Kizil k.u.m valley, at which we celebrated the Russians' confusion, and the salvation of Khokand - oh, and India, too - we set out for Khiva, where he was moving his folk out of reach of Russian reprisals. From there we went east to Samarkand, where he had promised to arrange for some Afghan pals of his to convoy me over the mountains and through Afghanistan to Peshawar. I wasn't looking forward, much, to that part of the journey, but our trip to Samarkand was like a holiday outing. It was clear air and good horses, with Kutebar and Yakub snarling happily at each other, and Ko Dali's daughter, though I never entirely trusted that leery glint in her eye, was as cheerful and friendly as you could wish. I tried to board her at Khiva, but the caravanserai was too crowded, and on the Samarkand road there wasn't the opportunity, which was a pity. I'd have liked another tussle with her, but Yakub Beg was too much with us.

He was a strange, mad, mystic-cheery fellow, that one. I don't know how much he knew, or what Ko Dali's daughter told him, but for some reason he talked to me a good deal on our journey - about Khokand, and whether the British would help him maintain its independence, and his ambitions to found a state of his own, and always his talk would turn to the Silk One, and Kashgar, far over the deserts and mountains, where even the Russians could never reach. The very last words he said to me were on that score.

We had pa.s.sed the night in Samarkand, in the little serai near the market, under the huge turquoise walls of the biggest mosque in the world, and in the morning they rode out with me and my new escort a little way on the southern road. It was thronged with folk - bustling crowds of Uzbeks in their black caps, and big-nosed hillmen with their crafty faces, and veiled women, and long lines of camels with their jingling bells shuffling up the yellow dust, and porters staggering under great bales, and children underfoot, and everywhere the babbling of twenty different languages. Yakub and I were riding ahead, talking, and we stopped at a little river running under the road to water our beasts.

"The stream of See-ah," says Yakub, laughing. "Did I say the Ruskis would water their horses in it this autumn? I was wrong - thanks to you - and to my silk girl and Kutebar and the others. They will not come yet, to spoil all this" - and he gestured round at the crowds streaming by - "or come at all, if I can help it. And if they do - well, there is still Kashgar, and a free place in the hills."

""Where the wicked cease from troubling,' eh," says I, because it seemed appropriate.

"Is that an English saying?" he asked.

"I think it's a hymn." If I remember rightly, we used to sing it in chapel at Rugby before the miscreants of the day got flogged.

"All holy songs are made of dreams," says he. "And this is a great place for dreams, such as mine. You know where we are, Englishman?" He pointed along the dusty track, which wound in and out of the little sand-hills, and then ran like a yellow ribbon across the plain before it forked towards the great white barrier of the Afghan mountains. "This is the great Pathway of Expectation, as the hill people say, where you may realize your hopes just by hoping them. The Chinese call it the Baghdad Highway, and the Persians and Hindus know it as the Silk Trail, but we call it the Golden Road." And he quoted a verse which, with considerable trouble, I've turned into rhyming English: To learn the age-old lesson day by day: It is not in the bright arrival planned, But in the dreams men dream along the way, They find the Golden Road to Samarkand.

"Very pretty," says I. "Make it up yourself?"

He laughed. "No - it's an old song, perhaps Firdausi or Omar. Anyway, it will take me to Kashgar - if I live long enough. But here are the others, and here we say farewell. You were my guest, sent to me from heaven: touch upon my hand in parting."

So we shook, and then the others arrived, and Kutebar was gripping me by the shoulders in his great bear-hug and shouting: "G.o.d be with you, Flashman - and my compliments to the scientists and doctors in Anglistan." And Ko Dali's daughter approached demurely to give me the gift of her scarf and kiss me gently on the lips - and just for an instant the minx's tongue was half-way down my throat before she withdrew, looking like St Cecilia. Yakub Beg shook hands again and wheeled his horse.

"Goodbye, blood brother. Think of us in England. Come and visit us in Kashgar some day - or better still, find a Kashgar of your own!"

And then they were thundering away back on the Samarkand road, cloaks flying, and Kutebar turning in the saddle to give me a wave and a roar. And it's odd - but for a moment I felt lonely, and wondered if I should miss them. It was a deeply-felt sentimental mood which lasted for at least a quarter of a second, and has never returned, I'm happy to say. As to Kashgar, and Yakub's invitation - well, if I could get guaranteed pa.s.sports from the Tsar, and the Empress of China, and every hill-chief between Astrakhan and Lake Baikal, and a private Pullman car the whole way with running buffet, bar, and waitresses in constant attendance - I might think quite hard about it before declining. I've too many vivid memories of Central Asia; at my time of life Scarborough is far enough east for me.

It was strange, though, to go back into Afghanistan again, with my escort - heaven knows where Yakub had got 'em from, but one look at their wolfish faces and well-stuffed cartridge belts rea.s.sured me that this was one party that no right-minded badmash would dream of attacking. It took us a week over the Hindu-Killer, and another couple of days through the hills to Kabul - and suddenly there was the old Bala Hissar again, and I sat in disbelief looking across to the overgrown orchards where Elphy Bey's cantonment had been, so many years ago, and the Kabul River, and the hillside where Akbar had spread his carpet and McNaghten had died - I could close my eyes and almost hear the drums of the 44th beating "Yankee Doodle" and old Lady Sale berating some unfortunate bearer for brewing tea before the water was thoroughly boiling.

I even took a turn up by the ruined Residency, and found my heart beating faster as I looked at the bullet-pocked walls, and marked the window where Broadfoot had tumbled to his death - and from there I turned and tried to find the spot where the Ghazis had set on me and the Burnes brothers, but I couldn't find it.

It was strange - everything the same and yet different. I stood looking round at the close-packed houses, and wondered in which one Gul Shah had tried to murder me with his infernal snakes - and at that I found myself shivering and hurrying back to the market where my escort were waiting: sometimes ghosts can hover in too close for comfort. I didn't want to linger in Kabul any longer, and to the astonishment of my escort I insisted that we journey on to Peshawar by the north bank of the Kabul River although, as the leader pointed out, there was a fine road by way of Boothak and Jallalabad to the south.

"There are serais, huzoor," says he, "and all comfort for us and our beasts - this way is broken country, where we must lie out by night in the cold. Truly, the south road is better."

"My son," says I, "when you were a chotah wallah*(*Little fellow.) gurgling your mother's milk, I travelled that south road, and I didn't like it one little bit. So we'll stick to the river, if you don't mind."

"Aye-ee!" says he, grinning with his jagged teeth. "Per-chance you owe money to someone in Jallalabad?"

"No," says I, "not money. Lead on, friend of all travellers - to the river."

So that way we went, and cold it was by night, but I didn't have nightmares, waking or sleeping, all the way to the Khyber and the winding road down to Peshawar, where I said goodbye to my escort and rode under the arch where Avitabile used to hang the Gilzais, and so into the presence of a young whipper-snapper of a Company ensign.

"A very good day to you, old boy," says I. "I'm Flash-man."

He was a fishy-looking, fresh young lad with a peeling nose, and he goggled at me, going red.

"Sergeant!" he squeaks. "What's this beastly-looking n.i.g.g.e.r doing on the office verandah?" For I was attired a la Kizil k.u.m still, in cloak and pyjamys and puggaree, with a bigger beard than Dr Grace.

"Not at all," says I, affably, "I'm English - a British officer, in fact. Name of Flashman - Colonel Flashman, 17th Lancers, but slightly detached for the moment. I've just come from - up yonder, at considerable personal expense, and I'd like to see someone in authority. Your commanding officer will do."

"It's a madman!" cries he. "Sergeant, stand by!"

And would you believe it, it took me half an hour before I could convince him not to throw me in the lock-up, and he summoned a peevish-looking captain, who listened, nodding irritably while I explained who and what I was. "Very good," says he. "You've come from Afghanistan?" "By way of Afghanistan, yes. But -"