Flashman - 09 - Flashman and the Mountain of Light by George MacDonald Fraser

Author:George MacDonald Fraser
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Military Fiction
ISBN: 9780006513049
Published: 1999-11-11T00:00:00+00:00

Behind came Native Cavalry and marching sepoy battalions, with Sappers and artillery—Paddy had 15,000 men now, and the young Lancer bucks strutted and haw-hawed and asked when were these Sikh wallahs goin' to show us some sport, hey? God, I love newcomers in at the death, don't I just? There was one quiet Lancer, though, a black-whiskered Scotch nemesis who said never a word, and played the bull fiddle for his recreation. He caught my eye then, and again fifteen years later when he led the march to Peking, the most terrible killing gentleman you ever saw: Hope Grant.

So there we were, cocked and ready to fire, and beyond the river, although we didn't know it, little Dalip's throne was shaking, for it was touch and go whether the Khalsa, raging in defeat and convinced they'd been betrayed, would fight us or march on Lahore to slake their fury on Jeendan and the durbar. They'd have hanged Lal Singh if they could have caught him, but he'd hidden in a hayrick after Ferozeshah, and then in a baker's oven, before sneaking back to Lahore, where Jeendan mocked and abused him when she was sober, and galloped him when she was drunk. Between bouts she was sending messages of encouragement to her half-mutinous army, telling them not to give up, but to march on and conquer; at the same time she shut the city gates against the fugitives from Lal's contingent, who'd deserted in thousands, and even ordered Gardner to recall a Muslim brigade from the front to protect her in case the Khalsa Sikhs came looking for her. Resourceful lass, she was, egging on her army while she turned her capital into an armed camp against them.

Goolab Singh was playing the same game from Kashmir. The Khalsa pleaded with him to bring his hillmen to the war, and even offered to make him Maharaja, but the old fox saw we had the game won, and put them off with promises that he'd join once the campaign was fully launched, while making a great display of sending them Ripply convoys which he made sure were only quarter loaded and moved at a snail's pace.

Meanwhile Tej Singh was scheming how to lead the Khalsa to final destruction. He had the bulk of them in hand, outnumbering us three to one, and must do some-thing before they lost patience with him. So he threw a bridge of boats over the Sutlej at Sobraon and built a strong position on the south bank in a bend of the river where Paddy daren't attack him without heavy guns, which we still lacked. At the same time, another Sikh army struck over the river farther up, threatening Ludhiana and our lines of communication, so Gough moved north to contain Tej's bridgehead and sent Harry Smith to deal with the Ludhiana incursion. Smith, full of conceit and ginger as usual, stalked the invaders to and fro in the last week of January, and then handed them a

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