Flashman Papers 3-Book Collection 3: Flashman at the Charge, Flashman in the Great Game, Flashman and the Angel of the Lord. George Fraser MacDonald
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noises.
“Now observe,” says Ignatieff, “the effect of a flat blow.”
The Cossack struck a seventh time, but this time he didn’t snap the knout, but let it fall smack across the patient’s spine. There was a dreadful sound, like a wet cloth slapped on stone, but from the victim no cry at all. They unstrapped him, and as they lifted the bleeding wreck of his body from the bench, I saw it was hanging horribly limp in the middle.
“The killing stroke,” said Ignatieff. “It is debatable how many of the drawing blows a man can endure, but with the flat stroke one is invariably fatal.” He turned to look at me, and then at the blood-soaked bench, as though considering, while he smoked calmly. At last he dropped his cigarette in the snow.
“Bring him inside.”
I was half-fainting with fear and shock when they dropped me sprawling in a chair, and Ignatieff sat down behind the table and waved them out. He lit himself another cigarette, and then said quietly:
“That was a demonstration, for your benefit. You see now what awaits you – except that when your turn comes I shall take the opportunity of ascertaining how many of the drawing strokes a vigorous and healthy man can suffer before he dies. Your one hope of escaping that fate lies in doing precisely as you are told – for I have a use for you. If I had not, you would be undergoing destruction by the knout at this moment.”
He smoked in silence for a minute, never taking his eyes off me, and I watched him like a rabbit before a snake. Not only the hideous butchery I had watched, but the fact that he had condemned a poor devil to it just to impress me, appalled me utterly. And I knew I would do anything – anything, to escape that abomination.
“That you had somehow learned of Item Seven I already suspected,” says Ignatieff at last. “Nothing else would have led you to flee. Accordingly, for the past week, we have proceeded on the assumption that intelligence of our expedition would reach Lord Raglan – and subsequently your government in London. We can now be certain that it has done so, since your companion, Major East, has not been recaptured. This betrayal is regrettable, but by no means disastrous. Indeed, it can be made to work to our advantage, for your authorities will suppose that they have seven months to prepare against the blow that is coming. They will be wrong. In four months from now our army will be advancing over the Khyber Pass, thirty thousand strong, with at least half as many Afghan allies eager to descend across the Indus. If every British soldier in India were sent to guard the frontier – which is impossible – it would not serve to stem our advance. No adequate help can arrive from England in time, and your troops will have a rebellious Indian population at their backs while we take them by the throat. Our agents are already at work, preparing that insurrection.
“You may wonder how it is possible to advance the moment of our attack by three months. It is simple. General Khruleff’s original plan for an attack through the Syr Daria country to Afghanistan and India will be adhered to – our army had been preparing to take this route, which was abandoned only lately because of minor difficulties with native bandits and because the southern road, through Persia, offered a more secure and leisurely progress. The change of plan will thus be simple to effect, since the army is still poised for the northern route, and the arrangements for its transport by sea across Caspian and Aral can proceed immediately. This will ensure progress at twice the speed we could hope for if we went through Persia. And we will consolidate our position among the Syr Daria and Amu Daria tribesmen in passing.”
I didn’t doubt a word of it – not that I cared a patriotic damn. They could have India, China, and the whole bloody Orient for me, if only I could find a way out for myself.
“It is as well that you should know this,” went on Ignatieff, “so that you may understand the part which I intend that you should play in it. A part for which you are providentially qualified. I know a great deal about you – so much, indeed, that you will be astonished at the extent of my knowledge. It is our policy to garner information, and I doubt,” went on this cocky bastard, “whether any state in Europe can boast such extensive secret dossiers as we possess. I am especially aware of your activities in Afghanistan fourteen years ago – of your work, along with such agents as Burnes and Pottinger, among the Gilzais and other tribes. I know even of the exploit which earned you the extravagant nickname of ‘Bloody Lance’, of your dealings with Muhammed Akbar Khan, of your solitary survival of the disaster which befell the British Armya – a disaster in which, you may be unaware, our own intelligence service played some part.”
Now, shaken and fearful as I was, one part of my mind was noting something from all this. Master Ignatieff might be a clever and devilish dangerous man, but he had at least one of the besetting weaknesses of youth: he was as vain as an Etonian duke, and it led him to commit the cardinal folly in a diplomatic man. He talked too much.
“It follows,” says he, “that you can be of use to us in Afghanistan. It will be convenient, when our army arrives there, to have a British officer, of some small reputation in that country, to assist us in convincing the tribal leaders that the decay of British power is imminent, and that it will be in their interests to join in the conquest of India. They will not need much convincing, but even so your betrayal will add to the impression our armed force will make.”
For all his impassivity, I knew he was enjoying this; it was in the tilt of his cigarette, and the glitter in his gotch eye.
“It is possible, of course, that you will prefer death – even by the knout – to betrayal of your country. I doubt it, but I must take into consideration the facts which are to be found in your dossier. They tell me of a man brave to the point of recklessness, of proved resource, and of considerable intelligence. My own observation of you tends to contradict this – I do not judge you to be of heroic material, but I may be mistaken. Certainly your conduct at Balaclava, of which I have received eye-witness accounts, is of a piece with your dossier. It does not matter. If, when you have been taken to Afghanistan with our army, you decline to make what the Roman priests call a propaganda on our behalf, we shall derive what advantage we can from displaying you naked in an iron cage along the way. The knouting will take place when we arrive on Indian soil.”
He had it all splendidly pat, this icy Muscovite bastard, and well pleased with himself he was, too. He pinched another cigarette between his fingers, thinking to himself to see if there was any other unpleasant detail he could rub into me, and deciding there wasn’t, called to the Cossack guard.
“This man,” says he, “is a dangerous and desperate criminal. He is to be chained wrist and ankle at once, and the keys are to be thrown away. He will accompany us to Rostov tomorrow, and if, while he is in your charge he should escape or die” – he paused, and when he went on it was as casually said as though he were confining them to barracks – “you will be knouted to death. And your families also. Take him away.”
You may not credit it, but my feelings as they thrust me down into my underground pit, clamped chains on my wrists and ankles, and slammed the door on me, were of profound relief. For one thing, I was out of the presence of that evil madman with his leery optic – that may seem small enough, but you haven’t been closeted with him, and I have. Point two, I was not only alive but due to be preserved in good health for at least four months – and I was old soldier enough to know that a lot can happen in that time. Point three, I wasn’t going into the unknown: Afghanistan, ghastly place though it is, was a home county hunt to me, and if once I could get a yard start, I fancied I could survive the going a sight better than any Russian pursuers.
It was a mighty “if,” of course, but funny things happen north of the Khyber – come to that, I wondered if Ignatieff and his brother-thugs knew exactly what they were tackling in taking an army through that country. We’d tried it, and God knew we were fitter to go to war than the Russians ever were, yet we’d come most horribly undone. I remembered my old sparring chums, the Gilzais and Baluchis and Khels and Afridis – and those fiends of Ghazis – and wondered if the Ruskis knew precisely the kind of folk they’d be relying on for safe-conduct and alliance.
They had their agents in Afghanistan, to be sure, and must have a shrewd notion