Flashman Papers 3-Book Collection 1: Flashman, Royal Flash, Flashman’s Lady. George Fraser MacDonald
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his tongue and his boot, so we did very well.
My nigger, whose name was Timbu-something-or-other, was of great use at first, since he spoke English, but after a few weeks I got rid of him. I’ve said that I have a gift of language, but it was only when I came to India that I realised this. My Latin and Greek had been weak at school, for I paid little attention to them, but a tongue that you hear spoken about you is a different thing. Each language has a rhythm for me, and my ear catches and holds the sounds; I seem to know what a man is saying even when I don’t understand the words, and my tongue slips easily into any new accent. In any event, after a fortnight listening to Timbu and asked him questions, I was speaking Hindustani well enough to be understood, and I paid him off. For one thing, I had found a more interesting teacher.
Her name was Fetnab, and I bought her (not officially, of course, although it amounted to the same thing) from a merchant whose livestock consisted of wenches for the British officers and civilian residents in Calcutta. She cost me 500 rupees, which was about 50 guineas, and she was a thief’s bargain. I suppose she was about sixteen, with a handsome enough face and a gold stud fixed in her nostril, and great slanting brown eyes. Like most other Indian dancing girls, she was shaped like an hour-glass, with a waist that I could span with my two hands, fat breasts like melons, and a wobbling backside.
If anything she was a shade too plump, but she knew the ninety-seven ways of making love that the Hindus are supposed to set much store by – though mind you, it is all nonsense, for the seventy-fourth position turns out to be the same as the seventy-third, but with your fingers crossed. But she taught me them all in time, for she was devoted to her work, and would spend hours oiling herself with perfume all over her body and practising Hindu exercises to keep herself supple for night-time. After my first two days with her I thought less and less about Elspeth, and even Josette paled by comparison.
However, I put her to other good uses. In between bouts we would talk, for she was a great chatterbox, and I learned more of the refinements of Hindi from her than I would have done from any munshi. I give the advice for what it is worth: if you wish to learn a foreign tongue properly, study it in bed with a native girl – I’d have got more of the classics from an hour’s wrestling with a Greek wench than I did in four years from Arnold.
So this was how I passed my time in Calcutta – my nights with Fetnab, my evenings in one of the messes, or someone’s house, and my days riding or shooting or hunting, or simply wandering about the town itself. I became quite a well-known figure to the niggers, because I could speak to them in their own tongue, unlike the vast majority of officers at that time – even those who had served in India for years were usually too bored to try to learn Hindi, or thought it beneath them.
Another thing I learned, because of the regiment to which I was due to be posted, was how to manage a lance. I had been useful at sword exercise in the Hussars, but a lance is something else again. Any fool can couch it and ride straight, but if you are to be any use at all you must be able to handle all nine feet of it so that you can pick a playing card off the ground with the point, or pink a running rabbit. I was determined to shine among the Company men, so I hired a native rissalder of the Bengal Cavalry to teach me; I had no thought then of anything beyond tilting at dummies or wild pig sticking, and the thought of couching a lance against enemy cavalry was not one that I dwelt on much. But those lessons were to save my life once at least – so that was more well-spent money. They also settled the question of my immediate future, in an odd way.
I was out on the maidan one morning with my rissalder, a big, lean, ugly devil of the Pathan people of the frontier, named Muhammed Iqbal. He was a splendid horseman and managed a lance perfectly, and under his guidance I was learning quickly. That morning he had me tilting at pegs, and I speared so many that he said, grinning, that he must charge me more for my lessons.
We were trotting off the maidan, which was fairly empty that morning, except for a palankeen escorted by a couple of officers, which excited my curiosity a little, when Iqbal suddenly shouted:
“See, huzoor, a better target than little pegs!” and pointed towards a pariah dog which was snuffling about some fifty yards away. Iqbal couched his lance and went for it, but it darted out of his way, so I roared “Tally-ho!” and set off in pursuit. Iqbal was still ahead of me, but I was only a couple of lengths behind when he made another thrust at the pi-dog, which was racing ahead of him, swerving and yelping. He missed again, and yelled a curse, and the pi-dog suddenly turned almost beneath his hooves and leaped up at his foot. I dropped my point and by great good luck spitted the beast through the body.
With a shout of triumph I heaved him, twisting and still yelping, high into the air, and he fell behind me. Iqbal cried: “Shabash!” and I was beginning to crow over him when a voice shouted:
“You there! You, sir! Come here, if you please, this moment.”
It came from the palankeen, towards which our run had taken us. The curtains were drawn, and the caller was revealed as a portly, fierce-looking gentleman in a frock coat, with a sun-browned face and a fine bald head. He had taken off his hat, and was waving insistently, so I rode across.
“Good morning,” says he, very civil. “May I inquire your name?”
It did not need the presence of the two mounted dandies by the palankeen to tell me that this was a highly senior officer. Wondering, I introduced myself.
“Well, congratulations, Mr Flashman,” says he. “Smart a piece of work as I’ve seen this year: if we had a regiment who could all manage a lance as well as you we’d have no trouble with damned Sikhs and Afghans, eh, Bennet?”
“Indeed not, sir,” said one of the exquisite aides, eyeing me. “Mr Flashman; I seem to know the name. Are you not lately of the 11th Hussars, at home?”
“Eh, what’s that?” said his chief, giving me a bright grey eye. “Bigod, so he is; see his Cherrypicker pants” – I was still wearing the pink breeches of the Hussars, which strictly I had no right to do, but they set off my figure admirably – “so he is, Bennet. Now, dammit, Flashman, Flashman – of course, the affair last year! You’re the deloper! Well I’m damned. What are you doing here, sir, in God’s name?”
I explained, cautiously, trying to hint without actually saying so, that my arrival in India had followed directly from my meeting with Bernier (which was almost true, anyway), and my questioner whistled and exclaimed in excitement. I suppose I was enough of a novelty to rouse his interest, and he asked me a good deal about myself, which I answered fairly truthfully; in my turn I learned as he questioned me that he was General Crawford, on the staff of the Governor-General, and as such a commander of influence and importance.
“Bigod, you’ve had bad luck, Flashman,” says he. “Banished from the lofty Cherrypickers, eh? Damned nonsense, but these blasted militia colonels like Cardigan have no sense. Eh, Bennet? And you’re bound for Company service, are you? Well, the pay’s good, but it’s a damned shame. Waste your life teaching the sowars how to perform on galloping field days. Damned dusty work. Well, well, Flashman, I wish you success. Good day to you, sir.”
And that would have settled that, no doubt, but for a queer chance. I had been sitting with my lance at rest, the point six feet above my head, and some of the pi-dog’s blood dribbled down onto my hand; I gave an exclamation of disgust, and turning to Iqbal, who was sitting silently behind, I said:
“Khabadar, rissaldar! Larnce sarf karo, juldi!” which is to say, “Look out, sergeant-major. Take this lance and get it clean, quickly.” And with that I tossed it to him. He caught it, and I turned back to take my leave of Crawford. He had stopped in the act of pulling his palankeen curtains.
“Here, Flashman,” says he. “How long have you been in India?