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

from Brown Bess to howitzers, in the Lahore foundry, from our regulation patterns. Only one fault could I find with their gunners and infantry: their drill was perfect, but slow. Their cavalry … well, it was fit to ride over Napoleon.

      Sardul took good care to let me see all this, pour encourager les feringhees. We tiffened with some of their senior men, all courteous to a fault, and not a word about the likelihood that our armies would be at each other’s throats by Christmas – the Sikhs are damned good form, you know. There wasn’t a European mercenary in sight, by the way; having built an army, they’d retired for the best of reasons: disgust at the state of the country, and reluctance to find themselves fighting John Company.

I saw another side to the Khalsa when we set out for Lahore after noon, Flashy now riding in state in his jampan, white topper and fly-whisk at the high port, with Jassa kicking the bearers’ arses to give tone to our progress. We were swaying along in fine style past the headquarters tents when we became aware of a crowd of soldiery gathered before the main pavilion, listening to some upper rojer^r on a dais. Sardul reined in to listen, and when I asked Jassa what this might be he growled and spat. “The panchayats! If old Runjeet had seen the day, he’d have cut his beard!”

So these were the Khalsa’s notorious military committees, of whom we’d heard so much. You see, while their field discipline was perfect, Khalsa policy was determined by the panches, where Jack Jawan was as good as his master, and all went by democratic vote – no way to run an army, I agreed with Jassa; small wonder they hadn’t crossed the Sutlej yet. They were an astonishing mixture: bare-legged sepoys, officers in red silk, fierce-eyed Akalis¹⁸ in peaked blue turbans and gold beard-nets, a portly old rissaldar-major^s with white whiskers a foot wide, irregular sowars in lobster-tail helmets, Dogra musketeers in green, Pathans with long camel guns – there seemed to be every rank, caste, and race crowding round the speaker, a splendid Sikh, six and a half feet tall in cloth of silver, bellowing to make himself heard.

      “All that we heard from Attock is true! Young Peshora is dead, and Kashmiri Singh with him, taken in sleep, after the hunting, by Chuttur Singh and Futteh Khan –”

      “Tell us what we don’t know!” bawls a heckler, and the big fellow raised his arms to still the yells of agreement.

      “You don’t know the manner of it – the shame and black treachery! Imam Shah was in Attock Fort – let him tell you.”

      A burly bargee in a mail jacket, with a bandolier of ivory-hilted knives round his hips, jumps on the dais, and they fell silent.

      “It was foully done!” croaks he. “Peshora Singh knew it was his time, for they had him in irons, and bore him before the jackal, Chuttur Singh. Peshora looked him in the eye, and called for a sword. ‘Let me die like a soldier,’ says he, but Chuttur would not look on him, but wagged his head and made soft excuses. Again the young hawk cried for a sword. ‘You are thousands, I am alone – there can be but one end, so let it be straight!’ Chuttur sighed, and whined, and turned away, waving his hands. ‘Straight, coward!’ cries Peshora, but they bore him away. All this I saw. They took him to the Kolboorj dungeon, and choked him like a thief with his chains, and cast him in the river. This I did not see. I was told. God wither my tongue if I lie.”

      Peshora Singh had been the form horse in the throne stakes, according to Nicolson. Well, that’s politics for you. I wondered if this would mean a change of government, for Peshora had been the Khalsa’s idol, and while his death seemed to be old news, the manner of it seemed to put them in a great taking. They were all yelling at once, and the tall Sikh had to bellow again.

“We have sent the parwana^t to the palace. You all approved it! What is there to do but wait?”

“Wait – while the snake Jawaheer butchers other true men?” bawls a voice. “He’s Peshora’s murderer, for all he skulks in the Kwabagh^u yonder! Let us visit him now, and give him a sleep indeed!”

      This got a rousing hand, but others shouted that Jawaheer was the hope of the side, and innocent of Peshora’s death.

“Who bribed thee to say that?” roars the rissaldar-major, all fire and whiskers. “Did Jawaheer buy thee with a gold chain, boroowa?^v Or perchance Mai Jeendan danced for thee, fornicating strumpet that she is!” Cries of “Shame!”, “Shabash!”^w and the Punjabi equivalent of “Mr Chairman!”, some pointing out that the Maharani had promised them fifteen rupees a month to march against the bastardised British pigs (the spectator in the jampan drew his curtain tactfully at this point) and Jawaheer was just the chap to lead them. Another suggested that Jawaheer wanted war only to draw the Khalsa’s fury from his own head, and that the Maharani was an abominable whore of questionable parentage who had lately had a Brahmin’s nose sliced off when he rebuked her depravities, so there. A beardless youth, frothing with loyalty, offered to eat the innards of anyone who impugned the honour of that saintly woman, and the meeting seemed likely to dissolve in riot when a gorgeously-robed old general, hawk-faced and commanding, mounted the dais and let them have it straight from the shoulder.

“Silence! Are ye soldiers or fish-wives? Ye have heard Pirthee Singh – the parwana has been sent, summoning Jawaheer to come out to us on the sixth of Assin, to answer for Peshora’s death or show himself guiltless. There is no more to be said, but this …” He paused, and you could have heard a pin drop as his cold eye ranged over them. “We are the Khalsa, the Pure, and our allegiance is to none but our Maharaja, Dalip Singh, may God protect his innocence! Our swords and lives are his alone!” Thunderous cheers, the old rissaldar-major spouting tears of loyalty. “As to marching against the British … that is for the panchayats to decide another day. But if we do, then I, General Maka Khan” – he slapped his breast – “shall march because the Khalsa wills it, and not for the wiles of a naked cunchunee^x or the whim of a drunken dancing-boy!”

      With that summary of the regents’ characters the day’s business concluded, and I was relieved, as Sardul led us past the dispersing soldiery, to note that any glances in my direction were curious rather than hostile; indeed, one or two saluted, and you may be sure I responded civilly. This heartened me, for it suggested that Broadfoot was right, and whatever upheavals in government took place – dramatic ones, by the sound of it – the stranger Flashy would be respected within their gates, their opinion of his country notwithstanding.

      We approached Lahore roundabout, skirting the main town, which is a filthy maze of crooked streets and alleys, to the northern side, where the Fort and palace building dominate the city. Lahore’s an impressive place, or was then, more than a mile across and girdled by towering thirty-foot walls which overlooked a deep moat and massive earthworks – since gone, I believe. In those days you were struck by the number and grandeur of its gates, and by the extent of the Fort and palace on their eminence, with the great half-octagon tower, the Summum Boorj, thrusting up like a giant finger close to the northern ramparts.

It loomed above us as we entered by the Rushnai, or Bright Gate, past the swarms of dust-covered workmen labouring on old Runjeet’s mausoleum, and into the Court Garden. To the right a tremendous flight of steps led up to Badshai Musjit, the great triple mosque said to be the biggest on earth – mind you, the Samarkandians say the same of their mosque – and to the left was the inner gate up to the Fort, a bewildering place full of contradictions, for it contains not only the Sleeping Palace but a foundry and arsenal close by, the splendid Pearl Mosque which is used as a treasury, and over one of the gates a figure of the Virgin Mary, which they say Shah Jehan put up to keep the Portugee traders happy. But there was something stranger still: I’d just bidden farewell to Sardul’s escort and my jampan, and was being conducted on foot by a yellow-clad officer of the Palace Guard, when I noticed an extraordinary figure lounging in an embrasure above the gate, swigging from an enormous tankard and barking orders at a party of Guardsmen drilling with the light guns on the wall. He was a real Pathan mercenary, with iron moustaches and a nose like a hatchet – but he was dressed from top to toe, puggaree,^y robe, and pyjamys,