"You may dismiss Rai and the Python," murmurs she. "I shall have no need of them today … perhaps not tomorrow …"
I should think not, indeed. So I sang "Rule, Britannia".
If you consult the papers of Sir Henry Hardinge and Major Broadfoot for October, 1845 (not that I recommend them as light reading), you'll find three significant entries early in the month: Mai Jeendan's court moved to Amritsar, Hardinge left Calcutta for the Sutlej frontier, and Broadfoot had a medical examination and went on a tour of his agencies. In short, the three principals in the Punjab crisis took a breather—which meant no war that autumn. Good news for everyone except the dispersed Khalsa, moping in their outlying stations and spoiling for a fight.
My own immediate relief was physical. Jeendan's departure came in the nick of time for me, for one more amorous joust with her would have doubled me up for-ever. I've seldom known the like: you'd have thought, after the wild passage I've just described, that she'd have rested content for a spell, but no such thing. A couple of hours' sleep, a pint of spirits, and drum up the town bull again, was her style, and I doubt if I saw daylight for three days, as near as I could judge, for you tend to lose count of time, you know. We may well have set a record, but I didn't keep tally (some Yankee would be sure to claim best, anyway). All I'm sure of is that my weight went down below twelve and a half stone, and that ain't healthy for a chap my size. I was the one who needed medical inspection, I can tell you, never mind Broadfoot.
And on the fourth morning, when I was a mere husk of a man, wondering if there was a monastery handy, what d'you think she did? Absolutely had a chap in to paint my portrait. At first, when he dragged his easel and colours into the boudoir, and started waving his brush, I thought it was another of her depraved fancies, and she was going to have him sketch us performing at the gallop; the devil with this, thinks I, if I'm to be hung at the next Punjab Royal Academy it'll be with my britches on and my hair brushed. But it proved to be a pukka sitting, Flashy fully clad in romatic native garb like Lord Byron, looking noble with a hookah to hand and a bowl of fruit in the fore-ground, while Jeendan lounged at the artist's elbow, prompting, and Mangla made helpful remarks. Between the two of them he was in a fine sweat, but did a capital likeness of me in no time—it's in a Calcutta gallery now, I believe, entitled Company Officer in Seekh Costume, or something of the sort. Ruined Stag at Bay, more like.
"So that I shall remember my English bahadur, says Jeendan, smiling slantendicular, when I asked her why she wanted it. I took it as a compliment—and wondered if it was a dismissal, too, for it was in the same breath that she announced she was taking little Dalip to Amritsar, which is the Sikhs' holy city, for the Dasahra, and wouldn't return for some weeks. I feigned dismay, concealing the fact that she'd reduced me to a state where I didn't care if I never saw a woman again.
My first act, when I'd staggered back to my quarters, was to scribble a report of her durbar and subsequent conversation with me, and commit it to Second Thessalonians. That report was what convinced Hardinge and Broadfoot that they had time in hand: no war before win-ter. I was right enough in that; fortunately I didn't give them my further opinion, which was that there probably wouldn't be a war even then.
You see, I was convinced that Jeendan didn't want one. If she had, and believed the Khalsa could beat us and make her Queen of all Hindoostan, she'd have turned 'em loose over the Sutlej by now. By hocussing them into delay she'd spoiled their best chance, which would have been to invade while the hot weather lasted, and our white troops were at their feeblest; by the cold months, our sick would be on their feet again, dry weather and low rivers would assist our transport and defensive movement, and the freezing nights, while unpleasant for us, would plague the Khalsa abominably. She was also double-dealing 'em by warning us to stay on guard, and promising ample notice if they did break loose in spite of her.
Now there, you'll say, is a clever lass who knows how to keep in with both sides—and will cross either of 'em if it suits her. But already she'd ensured that, if war did come, the odds were in our favour—and there was no profit to her in getting beat.
All that aside, I didn't believe war was in her nature. Oh, I knew she was a shrewd politician, when she roused herself, and no doubt as cruel and ruthless as any other Indian ruler—but I just had to think of that plump, pleasure-sodden face drowsing on the pillow, too languid for anything but drink and debauchery, and the notion of her scheming, let alone directing, a war was quite out of court. Lord love us, she was seldom sober enough to plot anything beyond the next erotic experiment. No, if you'd seen her as I did, slothful with booze and romping, you'd have allowed that Broadfoot was right, and that here was a born harlot killing herself with kindness, a fine spirit too far gone to undertake any great matter.
So I thought—well, I misjudged her, especially in her capacity for hatred. I misjudged the Khalsa, too. Mind you, I don't blame myself too much; there seems to have been a conspiracy to keep Flashy in the dark just then—Jeendan, Mangla, Gardner, Jassa, and even the Sikh generals had me in mind as they pursued their sinister ends, but I'd no way of knowing that.
Indeed, I was feeling pretty easy on the October morning when the court departed for Amritsar, and I turned out to doff my tile as the procession wound out of the Kashmir Gate. Little Dalip was to the fore on his state elephant, acknowledging the cheers of the mob as cool as you like, but twinkling and waving gaily at sight of me. Lal Singh, brave as a peacock and riding with a proprietary air beside Jeendan's palki, didn't twinkle exactly; when she nodded and smiled in response to my salute he gave me a stuffed smirk as much as to say, back to the pavilion, infidel, it's my innings now. You're welcome, thinks I; plenty of Chinese ginger and rhinoceros powder and you may survive. Mangla, in the litter following, was the only one who seemed to be sorry to be leaving me behind, waving and glancing back until the crowd swallowed her up.
The great train of beasts and servants and guards and musicians was still going by as Jassa and I turned away and rode round to the Rushnai Gate. Have a jolly Dasahra at Amritsar, all of you, thinks I, and by the time you get hack Gough will have the frontier reinforced, and Hardinge will be on hand to talk sense to you face to face; among you all you can keep the Khalsa in order, every-thing can be peacefully settled, and I can go home. I said its much to Jassa, and he gave one of his Yankee-Pathan grunts.
"You reckon? Well, if I was you, lieutenant, I'd not say that till I was riding the gridiron again."*(*"'Aboard an East Indiaman. The reference is to the Company's flag.)
"Why not—have you heard something?"
"Just the barra choop," says he, grinning all over his ugly mug.
"What the devil's that?"
"You don't know—an old Khyber hand like you? Barra (hoop—the silent time before the tempest." He cocked his head. "Yes, sir, I can hear it, all right."
"Oh, to blazes with your croaking! Heavens, man, the Khalsa's scattered all over the place, and by the time they're mustered again Gough will have fifty thousand bayonets at the river —"
"If he does, it'll be a red rag to a Punjabi bull," says this confounded pessimist. "Then they'll be sure he means to invade. Besides, your lady friend's promised the Khalsa a war come November—they're going to be mighty sore if they don't get it."
"They'll be a dam' sight sorer if they do!"
"You know that—but maybe they don't." He turned in the saddle to look back at the long procession filing along the dusty Amritsar road, shading his eyes, and when he spoke again it was in Pushtu. "See, husoor, we have in the Punjab the two great ingredients of mischief: an army loose about the land, and a woman's tongue unbridled in the house." He spat. "Together, who knows what they may do?"