George Fraser - Flashman

I saw some of it, for Burnes sent me on two occasions with messages to Sale from McNaghten, telling him to get on with it.

It was a shocking experience the first time. I set off thinking it was something of a joy-ride, which it was until the last half-mile into Sale’s rearguard, which was George Broadfoot’s camp beyond Jugdulluk. Everything had been peaceful as you please, and I was just thinking how greatly exaggerated had been the reports arriving in Kabul from Sale, when out of a side-nullah came a mounted party of Ghazis, howling like wolves and brandishing their knives.

I just clapped in my spurs, put my head down, and cut along the track as if all the fiends of hell were behind me -which they were. I tumbled into Broadfoot’s camp half-dead with terror, which he fortunately mistook for exhaustion. George had the bad taste to find it all rather funny; he was one of those nerveless clods, and was in the habit of strolling about under the snipers' fire polishing his spectacles, although his red coat and even redder beard made him a marked man.

He seemed to think everyone else was as unconcerned as he was, too, for he sent me back to Kabul that same night with another note, in which he told Burnes flatly that there wasn’t a hope of keeping the passes open by force; they would have to negotiate with the Gilzais. I backed this up vehemently to Burnes, for although I had had a clear run back to Kabul, it was obvious to me that the Gilzais meant business, and at all the way stations there had been reports of other tribesmen massing in the hills above the passes.

Burnes gave me some rather odd looks as I made my report; he thought I was scared and probably exaggerating.

At any rate, he made no protest when McNaghten said Broadfoot was an ass and Sale an incompetent, and that they had better get a move on if they were to have cleared a way to Jallalabad - which was about two-thirds of the way from Kabul to Peshawar - before winter set in. So Sale’s brigade was left to struggle on, and Burnes (who was much preoccupied with the thought of getting McNaghten’s job as Envoy when McNaghten went to Bombay) wrote that the country was "in the main very tranquil". Well, he paid for his folly.

A week or two later - it was now well into October - he sent me off again with a letter to Sale. Little progress was being made in clearing the passes, the Gilzais were as active as ever and out-shooting our troops all the time, and there were growing rumours of trouble brewing in Kabul itself. Burnes had sense enough to show a little concern, although McNaghten was still as placidly blind as ever, while Elphy Bey simply looked from one to the other, nodding agreement to whatever was said. But even Burnes showed no real urgency about it all; he just wanted to nag at Sale for not keeping the Gilzais quiet.

This time I went with a good escort of my Gilzais, under young Ilderim, on the theory that while they were technically sworn to fight their own kinsfolk, they would be unlikely in practice to get into any shooting scrapes with them. However, I never put this to the test, for it became evident as we rode eastward through the passes that the situation was worse than anyone in Kabul had realised, and I decided that I, at any rate, would not try to get through to Sale. The whole country beyond Jugdulluk was up, and the hills were swarming with hostile Afghans, all either on their way to help beat up Sale’s force, or else preparing for something bigger - there was talk among the villagers of a great jehad or holy war, in which the feringhees would be wiped out; it was on the eve of breaking out, they said. Sale was now hopelessly cut off; there was no chance of relief from Jallalabad, or even from Kabul - oh, Kabul was going to be busy enough looking after itself.

I heard this shivering round a camp-fire on the Soorkab road, and Ilderim shook his head in the shadows and said:

"It is not safe for you to go on, Flashman huzoor. You must return to Kabul. Give me the letter for Sale; although I have eaten the Queen’s salt my own people will let me through."

This was such obvious common sense that I gave him the letter without argument and started back for Kabul that same night, with four of the Gilzai hostages for company. At that hour I wanted to get as many miles as possible between me and the gathering Afghan tribes, but if I had known what was waiting for me in Kabul I would have gone on to Sale and thought myself lucky.

Riding hard through the next day, we came to Kabul at nightfall, and I never saw the place so quiet. Bala Hissar loomed over the deserted streets; the few folk who were about were grouped in little knots in doorways and at street corners; there was an air of doom over the whole place. No British soldiers were to be seen in the city itself, and I was glad to get to the Residency, where Burnes lived in the heart of the town, and hear the courtyard gates grind to behind me. The armed men of Burnes’s personal guard were standing to in the yard, while others were posted on the Residency walls; the torches shone on belt-plates and bayonets, and the place looked as though it was getting ready to withstand a siege.

But Burnes himself was sitting reading in his study as cool as a minnow, until he saw me. At the sight of my evident haste and disorder - I was in Afghan dress, and pretty filthy after days in the saddle - he started up.

"What the deuce are you doing here?" says he. I told him, and added that there would probably be an Afghan army coming to support my story.

"My message to Sale," he snapped. "Where is it? Have you not delivered it?"

I told him about Ilderim, and for once the dapper little dandy forgot his carefully cultivated calm.

"Good God!" says he. "You’ve given it to a Gilzai to deliver?"

"A friendly Gilzai," I assured him. "A hostage, you remember."

"Are you mad?" says he, his little moustache all a-quiver. "Don’t you know that you can’t trust an Afghan, hostage or not?"

"Ilderim is a khan’s son and a gentleman in his own way," I told him. "In any event, it was that or nothing. I couldn’t have got through."

"And why not? You speak Pushtu; you’re in native dress - God knows you’re dirty enough to pass. It was your duty to see that message into Sale’s own hand - and bring an answer. My God, Flashman, this is a pretty business, when a British officer cannot be trusted…"

"Now, look you here, Sekundar," says I, but he came up straight like a little bantam and cut me off.

"Sir Alexander, if you please," says he icily, as though I’d never seen him with his breeches down, chasing after some big Afghan bint. He stared at me and took a pace or two round the table.

"I think I understand," says he. "I have wondered about you lately, Flashman - whether you were to be fully relied on, or… Well, it shall be for a court-martial to decide-"

"Court-martial? What the devil!"

"For wilful disobedience of orders," says he. "There may be other charges. In any event, you may consider yourself under arrest, and confined to this house. We are all confined anyway - the Afghans are allowing no one to pass between here and the cantonment."

"Well, in God’s name, doesn’t that bear out what I’ve been telling you?" I said. "The country’s all up to the east-ward, man, and now here in Kabul…"

"There is no rising in Kabul," says he. "Merely a little unrest which I propose to deal with in the morning." He stood there, cock-sure little ass, in his carefully pressed linen suit, with a flower in his button-hole, talking as though he was a schoolmaster promising to reprimand some unruly fags. "It may interest you to know - you who turn tail at rumours - that I have twice this evening received direct threats to my life. I shall not be alive by morning, it is said. Well, well, we shall see about that."