Flashman Papers 3-Book Collection 4: Flashman and the Dragon, Flashman on the March, Flashman and the Tiger. George Fraser MacDonald
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in the middle of the fleet, but over on the coast itself there seemed to be one or two flat-bottoms putting in, landing horses on the beach. “Could your launch set me down yonder?” says I, and he scratched his head and said he supposed so, with the result that half an hour later we were pitching through the surf to an improvised landing-stage where a mob of half-naked coolies were manhandling a pontoon from which syces were leading horses ashore – big ugly Walers, they were, rearing and neighing like bedamned as they shied at the salt foam. There was a pink-faced youth in a red turban and grey tunic cussing the handlers richly as I splashed ashore.
“Get your fingers in his nose, can’t you?” squeaks he. “Oh, my stars! He ain’t a sheep, you know!”
I hailed him, and his name was Carnac, I remember, subaltern in Fane’s horse, an enterprising lad who, like me, had decided to come in by a side door. The Walers were remounts for his regiment, which he reckoned was somewhere on the causeway between Pehtang and Sinho – a glance at the map will show you how we were placed.
“Fane don’t care to be kept waiting,” says he, “and we’ll need these dam’ screws tomorrow, I imagine. So I’m going to take ’em over there while the tide’s still out –” he gestured north over the mud-flats which stretched away for miles into the misty distance. “Our people ought to be in Sinho by now. That’s over there.” And he pointed dead ahead. “About five miles, but there may be Tartars in between, so I’m taking no chances.”
“Stout fella,” says I. “Got a buckshee Waler for a poor staff colonel, have you? I’m looking for Lord Elgin.”
“Dunno where he is – Pehtang, prob’ly,” says the lad. “But Sir Hope Grant’s sure to be on the causeway, where we’re going.”
“He’ll do,” says I, and when the last of his Walers was ashore, and the syces had mounted, we trotted off across the flat. It was muddy tidal sand as far as you could see, with little pools drying in the morning sun, but the mist was burning away, and presently we heard the thump of guns ahead, and Carnac set off at a canter for higher ground to our right. I followed him, scrambling up onto the harder footing of a little plateau dotted with mounds which looked for all the world like big tents – burial places, not unlike Russian koorgans. We pushed forward to the farther edge of the plateau, and there we were, in a ringside seat.
Running across our front, about a mile ahead, was the causeway, a high banked road, and along it, advancing steadily to the wail of pipes and rattle of drums, were columns of red-coated infantry, our 1st Division; behind them came the khaki coats of native infantry, and then the blue overcoats and kepis of the Frogs; there must have been two thousand men rolling down to the Manchoo entrenchments where the causeway ended on our left front, with the Armstrong guns crashing away behind them and “Blue Bonnets over the Border” keening in front. Behind the Manchoo entrenchment were masses of Chinese infantry, Bannermen and Tiger soldiers, and on their left a great horde of Tartar cavalry; through Carnac’s glass I could make out the red coats and fur hats of the riders, crouched like jockeys on their sheepskins.
Even as we watched, the Tartar cavalry began to move, wheeling away from the causeway and charging en masse away from our advancing columns and out on to their far flank. Carnac stood in his stirrups, his voice cracking with excitement:
“That’s the 2nd Division over yonder! Can’t see ’em for the haze! By Jove, the Chinks are charging ’em! Would you believe it?”
It was too far to see clearly, but the Tartars were certainly vanishing into the haze, from which came barking salvo after salvo of field pieces, and while our columns on the causeway held back, there was evidently hell breaking loose to their right front. Sure enough, after a moment back came the Tartars, flying in disorder and scattering across the plain, and out of the haze behind them came a thundering line of grey tunics and red puggarees, lances lowered, and behind I saw the red coats of the heavies, the Dragoon Guards. Carnac went wild.
“Look at ’em go! Those are my chaps! Tally-ho, Fane’s! Give ’em what for! By crumbs, there’s an omen – first action an’ we’re chasing ’em like hares!”
He was right. The Chinks were all to pieces, with the Indian lancers and Dragoon sabres in among them, and now the columns on the causeway were deploying from the road, quickening their pace as they swept on to the Chink entrenchment. There was the plumed smoke of a volley as they charged, a ragged burst of firing from the Chinks, and then they were into the earthworks, and the Manchoo gunners and infantry were flying in rout, with the Armstrong shells bursting among them. Behind their lines the ground was black with fugitives, streaming back to a village which I supposed was Sinho. Carnac was hallooing like a madman, and even I found myself exclaiming: “Dam’ good, Grant! Dam’ fine!” for I never saw a smarter right and left in my life, and that was the Battle of Sinho receipted and filed, and the road to the Taku Forts open.
Carnac was in a fever to reach his regiment, and made off for the causeway with his syces at the gallop, but I was in no hurry. Sinho was a good three miles away, with swamp and salt-pans and canals in between, and if I knew anything about battle-fields the ground would be littered with bad-tempered enemy wounded just ready to take out their spite on passers-by. I’d give ’em time to crawl away or die; meanwhile I watched the 2nd Division moving in from the plain, and the 1st cheering ’em into the Chinese positions, with great hurrahing and waving of hats. That was where Grant would be, and rather than trot the mile to the causeway which was crowded with our traffic, I presently rode down to the flat and made a bee-line for Sinho across country. I doubted if any sensible Manchoos would be disporting themselves in the vicinity by now; I forgot that every army has its share of idiots.
Down on the salt-flats I no longer had much view; it was nothing but great crusted white beds and little canals, with occasional brackish hollows; ugly country, and after a few minutes there wasn’t a soul to be seen anywhere, just the glittering lips of the salt-pans either side, cutting off sight and sound, and only the dry scuff of the Waler’s hooves to break the stillness. Suddenly I remembered the Jornada, the Dead Man’s Journey under the silent New Mexican moon, and shivered, and I was just about to wheel right and make for the direction of the causeway when I became aware of sounds of true British altercation ahead. I trotted round a salt-bank and beheld an interesting tableau.
Well, there was a Scotsman, an Irishman, and a Chinaman, and they were shouting drunken abuse at each other over a grog-cart which was foundered with a broken wheel. The Paddy, a burly red-head with a sergeant’s chevrons, was trying to wrest a bottle from the Scot, a black-avised scoundrel in a red coat who was beating him off and singing an obscene song about a ball at Kirriemuir which was new to me; the Chink was egging ’em on and shrieking with laughter. Various other coolies stood passively in the background.
“Ye nigger-faced Scotch sot!” roars the Murphy. “Will ye come to order, now? I’m warnin’ ye, Moyes – I’m warnin’ ye! It’ll be the triangle and a bloody back for ye if ye don’t surrinder that bottle, what’s left of it, ye guzzlin’ pig, ye! Give over!”
The Scot left off singing long enough to knock him down, and lurched against the cart. “See you, Nolan,” cries he. “See your grandmither? She wiz a hoor! Nor she couldnae read nor write! So she had your mither, by a Jesuit! Aye, an’ your mither had you, by a b’ilerman! Christ, Nolan, Ah’m ashamed o’ ye! Ye want a drink?”
The Irishman came up roaring, and flew at him, and since brawling rankers ain’t my touch I was about to ride on, when there was a pounding of hooves behind me, a chorus of yells, and over the lip came a section of Tartar cavalry, bent on villainy. After which much happened in a very short space.
I was off the Waler and shooting under its neck with my Colt in quick time, and down goes the lead Tartar. His mates hauled up, unslinging their bows, and I barely had time to leap aside before my Waler was down and thrashing, feathered with shafts. I turned, ran, and fell, rolling over and blowing shots at the red coats which seemed to be swarming everywhere; out of the tail of my eye I saw the Irishman grabbing a Tartar’s leg and heaving him from the saddle; the Scotchman, whom I’d have thought too screwed for anything,