George Fraser - Flashman Papers 3-Book Collection 2 - Flashman and the Mountain of Light, Flash For Freedom!, Flashman and the Redskins

Don’t misunderstand; I ain’t superstitious either. But I’ve learned to be leery of the savage gods, and I’ll admit that the sight of that infernal gewgaw winking among the teacups had taken me flat aback … forty years and more … I could hear the tramp of the Khalsa again, rank on bearded rank pouring out through the Moochee Gate: “Wah Guru-ji ! To Delhi! To London!” … the thunder of guns and the hiss of rockets as the Dragoons came slashing through the smoke … old Paddy Gough in his white “fighting coat”, twisting his moustaches – “Oi nivver wuz bate, an’ Oi nivver will be bate!” … a lean Pathan face under a tartan turban – “You know what they call this beauty? The Man Who Would Be King!” … an Arabian Nights princess flaunting herself before her army like a nautch-dancer, mocking them … and defying them, half-naked and raging, sword in hand … coals glowing hideously beneath a gridiron … lovers hand in hand in an enchanted garden under a Punjab moon … a great river choked with bodies from bank to bank … a little boy in cloth of gold, the great diamond held aloft, blood running through his tiny fingers … “Koh-i-Noor! Koh-i-Noor! …”

The Queen and Elspeth were deep in talk over a great book of photographs of crowns and diadems and circlets, “for I know my weakness about jewellery, you see, and how it can lead me astray, but your taste, dear Rowena, is quite faultless … Now, if it were set so, among the fleurs-de-lys …”

I could see I wasn’t going to get a word in edgeways for hours, so I slid out for a smoke. And to remember.

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