The Flashman Papers: The Complete 12-Book Collection. George Fraser MacDonald

McNaghten’s thumb and isn’t fit to command an escort anyway. The worst of it is, McNaghten and the other political asses think we are safe as on Salisbury Plain! Burnes is as bad as the rest – not that he thinks of anything but Afghan women – but they’re all so sure they’re right! That’s what upsets me. And who the devil are you?”

      This was to me. I bowed and presented my letters to Cotton, who seemed glad of the interruption.

      “Glad to see you, sir,” says he, dropping the letters on the desk. “Elphy’s herald, eh? Well, well. Flashman, did you say? Now that’s odd. There was a Flashman with me at Rugby, oh, forty years ago. Any relation?”

      “My father, sir.”

      “Ye don’t say? Well, I’m damned. Flashy’s boy.” And he beamed all over his red face. “Why, it must be forty years … He’s well, I trust? Excellent, excellent. What’ll you have, sir? Glass of wine? Here, bearer. Of course, your father will have spoke of me, eh? I was quite a card at school. Got expelled, d’ye know.”

      This was too good a chance to miss, so I said: “I was expelled from Rugby, too, sir.”

      “Good God! You don’t say! What for, sir?”

      “Drunkenness, sir.”

“No! Well, damme! Who’d have believed they would kick you out for that? They’ll be expellin’ for rape next. Wouldn’t have done in my time. I was expelled for mutiny, sir – yes, mutiny! Led the whole school in revolt!¹² Splendid! Well, here’s your health, sir!”

      The officer in the faded coat, who had been looking pretty sour, remarked that expulsion from school was all very well but what concerned him was expulsion from Afghanistan.

      “Pardon me,” said Cotton, wiping his lips. “Forgot my manners. Mr Flashman, General Nott. General Nott is up from Kandahar, where he commands. We were discussing the state of the army in Afghanistan. No, no, Flashman, sit down. This ain’t Calcutta. On active service the more you know the better. Pray proceed, Nott.”

      So I sat, a little bewildered and flattered, for generals don’t usually talk before subalterns, while Nott resumed his tirade. It seemed that he had been offended by some communication from McNaghten – Sir William McNaghten, Envoy to Kabul, and head British civilian in the country. Nott was appealing to Cotton to support him in protest, but Cotton didn’t seem to care for the idea.

      “It is a simple question of policy,” said Nott. “The country, whatever McNaghten may think, is hostile, and we have to treat it as such. We do this in three ways – through the influence which Sujah exerts on his unwilling subjects, which is little enough; through the force of our army here, which with respect is not as all-powerful as McNaghten imagines, since you’re outnumbered fifty to one by one of the fiercest warrior nations in the world; and thirdly, by buying the good will of important chiefs with money. Am I right?”

      “Talking like a book,” said Cotton. “Fill your glass, Mr Flashman.”

      “If one of those three instruments of policy fails – Sujah, our strength, or our money – we’re done for. Oh, I know I’m a ‘croaker’, as McNaghten would say; he thinks we are as secure here as on Horse Guards. He’s wrong, you know. We exist on sufferance, and there won’t be much of that if he takes up this idea of cutting the subsidy to the Gilzai chiefs.”

      “It would save money,” said Cotton. “Anyway, it’s no more than a thought, as I understand.”

      “It would save money if you didn’t buy a bandage when you were bleeding to death,” said Nott, at which Cotton guffawed. “Aye, laugh, Sir Willoughby, but this is a serious matter. Cutting the subsidy is no more than a thought, you say. Very good, it may never happen. But if the Gilzais so much as suspect it might, how long will they continue to keep the passes open? They sit above the Khyber – your lifeline, remember – and let our convoys come and go, but if they think their subsidy is in danger they’ll look for another source of revenue. And that will mean convoys ambushed and looted, and a very pretty business on your hands. That is why McNaghten’s a fool even to think of cutting the subsidy, let alone talk about it.”

      “What do you want me to do?” says Cotton, frowning.

      “Tell him to drop the notion at all costs. He won’t listen to me. And send someone to talk to the Gilzais, take a few gifts to old what’s-his-name at Mogala – Sher Afzul. He has the other Gilzai khans under his thumb, I’m told.”

      “You know a lot about this country,” said Cotton, wagging his head. “Considering this ain’t your territory.”

      “Someone’s got to,” said Nott. “Thirty years in the Company’s service teaches you a thing or two. I wish I thought McNaghten had learned as much. But he goes his way happily, seeing no farther than the end of his nose. Well, well, Cotton, you’re one of the lucky ones. You’ll be getting out in time.”

      Cotton protested at this that he was a “croaker” after all – I soon discovered that the word was applied to everyone who ventured to criticise McNaghten or express doubts about the safety of the British force in Kabul. They talked for a while, and Cotton was very civil to me and seemed intent on making me feel at home. We dined in his headquarters, with his staff, and there for the first time I met some of the men, many of them fairly junior officers, whose names were to be household words in England within the next year – “Sekundar” Burnes, with his mincing Scotch voice and pretty little moustache; George Broadfoot, another Scotsman, who sat next to me; Vincent Eyre, “Gentleman Jim” Skinner, Colonel Oliver, and various others. They talked with a freedom that was astonishing, criticising or defending their superiors in the presence of general officers, condemning this policy and praising that, and Cotton and Nott joined in. There was not much good said about McNaghten, and a general gloom about the army’s situation; it seemed to me they scared rather easily, and I told Broadfoot so.

      “Wait till ye’ve been here a month or two, and ye’ll be as bad as the rest,” he said brusquely. “It’s a bad place, and a bad people, and if we don’t have war on our hands inside a year I’ll be surprised. Have you heard of Akbar Khan? No? He’s the son of the old king, Dost Mohammed, that we deposed for this clown Sujah, and he’s in the hills now, going from this chief to that, gathering support for the day when he’ll raise the country against us. McNaghten won’t believe it, of course, but he’s a gommeril.”

      “Could we not hold Kabul?” I asked. “Surely with a force of five thousand it should be possible, against undisciplined savages.”

      “These savages are good men,” says he. “Better shots than we are, for one thing. And we’re badly placed here, with no proper fortifications for the cantonment – even the stores are outside the perimeter – and an army that’s going downhill with soft living and bad discipline. Forbye, we have our families with us, and that’s a bad thing when the bullets are flying – who thinks of his duty when he has his wife and weans to care for? And Elphy Bey is to command us when Cotton goes.” He shook his head. “You’ll know him better than I, but I’d give my next year’s pay to hear he wasn’t coming and we had Nott instead. I’d sleep at nights, anyway.”

      This was depressing enough, but in the next few weeks I heard this kind of talk on all hands – there was obviously no confidence in the military or political chiefs, and the Afghans seemed to sense this, for they were an insolent crowd and had no great respect for us. As an aide to Elphy Bey, who was still on his road north, I had time on my hands to look about Kabul, which was a great, filthy sprawling place full of narrow lanes and smelling abominably. But we seldom went there, for the folk hardly made us welcome, and it was pleasant out by the cantonment, where there was little attention to soldiering but a great deal of horseracing and lounging in the orchards and gossiping on the verandahs over cool drinks. There were even cricket matches, and I played myself – I had been a great bowler at Rugby, and my new friends made more of the wickets I took than of the fact that I was beginning to speak Pushtu better than any of them except Burnes and the politicals.

      It was