Flashman And The Mountain Of Light by Fraser George Macdonald

Author:Fraser, George Macdonald [Fraser, George Macdonald]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Humor, Adventure, Historical, Military
ISBN: 9780006513049
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 1999-11-11T00:00:00+00:00

Flashman 9 - Flashman and the Mountain of Light

I'm still not sure, by the way, exactly where his loyalties lay. To Dalip and Jeendan, certainly: what she ordered, he performed. But he played a staunch game on our behalf, too, and on Goolab Singh's. When I ventured to ask him where he stood, he looked down that beak of a nose and snapped: “On my own two feet!” So there.

He had Jeendan's infernal scheme all pat, and after I'd had a couple of hours' sleep and Jassa had rebound my swollen ankle, he lined it out to me; horrid risky it sounded.

"You ride straight hence to Lal's camp beyond the Sutlej, with four of my men as escort, all of you disguised as gorracharra. Ganpat there will act as leader and spokesman; he's a safe man. This was his jemadar, a lean Punjabi with an Abanazar moustache; he and the half-dozen other riders had come out from the city by now, and were loafing round the fire, chewing betel and spitting, while Gardner bullied me privately.

“You'll arrive by night, presenting yourselves as messengers from the durbar; that'll see you into Lal's presence. He'll be expecting you; word of mouth goes to him today from Jeendan.”

“Suppose Maka Khan or that bloody Akali turn up—they'll recognise me straight off —”

“They'll be nowhere near! They're infantrymen—Lal commands only cavalry and horse guns. Besides, no one's going to know you in gorracharra gear—and you won't be in their camp long enough to signify. A few hours at most—just long enough to learn what Lal and Tej mean to do.”

“They'll take Ferozepore,” says I. “That's plain. They're bound to put Littler out of the game before Gough can relieve him.”

He gave an impatient snarl. “That's what they'd do if they wanted to win the goddam war! They don't! But their brigadiers and colonels do, so Lal and Tej are going to have to look as though they're trying like hell! Lal's going to have to think of some damned good reason for not storming Ferozepore, and since he's a duffer of a soldier as well as a yellow-belly, he's liable to go cross-eyed if his subordinates present him with a sound plan … Now what?”

“It won't do!” I bleated. “Maka Khan told me the Khalsa already suspect them of disloyalty. Well, heavens above, the moment Lal makes a move, or gives an order, even, that looks fishy … why, they'll see he's pissing on his own wicket!”

“Will they? Who's to say what's a fishy move, or why it's being made? You were in Afghanistan—how many times did Elphinstone do the sensible thing, tell me that? He was always wrong, godammit!”

“Yes, but that was fat-headedness—not treachery!”

“Who knows the difference, confound it? You did what you were told, and so will the Khalsa colonels! What do they know, if they're told to march from A to B, or retire from C, or open a candy store at D? They can't see the whole canvas, only their own corner of it.

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