Flashman and the Mountain of Light

Then there was a serious interlude by Indian wrestlers, who are the best on earth outside Cumberland, muscular young bucks who fought like greased lightning, all science and sinew – none of your crude Turkish grunting or the unspeakable Japanese vulgarity. Jeendan, I noticed, roused from her lethargy during these bouts, rising unsteadily to her feet to applaud the falls, and summoning the victors to drink from her cup while she stroked and petted them. Meanwhile their place was taken by female wrestlers, strapping wenches who fought naked (another of old Runjeet’s fancies), with the male wrestlers and Kashmiri girls kneeling round the floor, egging them on, and then wrestling with each other, to the inevitable conclusion, while the band played appropriate music. They were all over the floor in no time, seriously impeding a troupe of dancing girls and boys who had come on to frolic in a measure which proved to be a considerable advance on the polka.

Now, you may not credit this, but I’m not much of a hand at orgies. I ain’t what you’d call a prude, but I do hold that an Englishman’s brothel is his castle, where he should behave according – as many flashtails as he likes, but none of these troop fornications that the Orientals indulge in. It’s not the indecency I mind, but the company of a lot of boozy brutes hallooing and kicking up the deuce of a row when I want to concentrate and give of my best. A regular bacchanalia is something to see, right enough, but I’m with the discriminating Frog who said that one is interesting, but only a cad would make a habit of it.

Still, evil associations corrupt good manners, especially when you’re horny as Turvey’s bull and full of love-puggle; Mangla’ll have to do, thinks I, if I ain’t too foxed to carry her out of this bedlam, and I was just looking about for her when there was a great drunken cheer from the floor, and Jeendan came swaying out of her booth, helped by a couple of her dancing boys. She pushed them away, took a couple of shaky steps, and began to writhe like a Turkish wedding dancer, flaunting her hips and rotating her plump little bottom, flirting the tails of her crimson loin-cloth, giving little squeals of laughter as she turned, stamping, then clapping her hands above her head while the others took up the rhythm and the tom-toms throbbed and the cymbals clashed.

That was my first glimpse of Koh-i-Noor, gleaming in her navel like a live thing as she fluttered her belly in and out – but it didn’t hold my attention long, for as she danced she screamed over her shoulder, and one of the dancing boys leaped in behind her, sliding his hands up her body, unclasping her bodice and letting it fall, fondling her as she danced back into him and slowly turned herself until they were face to face. They writhed against each other while the onlookers shrieked with delight and the music beat ever faster, and then he retreated from her slowly, sweat pouring down his body – and burn me if the stone wasn’t in his navel now! How the devil they did it, I can’t think; Swedish exercises, perhaps. The boy yelled and pirouetted in triumph, and Jeendan staggered into the arms of one of the wrestlers, giggling while he pawed and kissed her. One of the Kashmiri bints flung herself at the boy, clasping him round the waist and wriggling against him; damned if I could see any better this time, but she came away with the stone in turn, undulating to let the onlookers see it, and then subsiding under another youth, the pair of them heaving to wake the dead – but either he was less expert or something else caught their interest, for the diamond slipped out from between them and rolled across the floor, to catcalls and groans of disappointment.

I was watching all this through a haze of booze and disbelief, taking another refreshing swig, and thinking, wait till I get back to Belgravia and teach ’em the new dance step, and when I looked again there was Jeendan, struggling and laughing wildly in the arms of another dancing boy, and the great stone was back on her belly again – hollo, thinks I, someone’s been handling in the scrimmage. She seized the boy’s wine-cup, drained it and tossed it over her shoulder, and then began to dance towards me, the tawny hourglass body agleam as though it had been oiled, her limbs shimmering in their sheaths of gems. Now she was slapping her bare flanks to the tom-tom beat, drawing her fingers tantalisingly up her jewelled thighs and across her body, lifting the fat round breasts and laughing at me out of that painted harlot’s face.

‘Will you have it, Englishman? Or shall I keep it for Lal – or Jawaheer? Come, take it, gora sahib, my English bahadur!’

You mayn’t credit it, but I was recalling a line by some poet or other – Elizabethan, I think – who must have witnessed a similar performance, for he wrote of ‘her brave vibrations each way free’.21 Couldn’t have put it better myself, thinks I, as I made a heroic lurch for her and fell on all fours, but the sweet thoughtful girl sank down before me, arms raised from her sides, making her muscles quiver from her fingertips up her arms and beyond, shuddering her bounties at me, and I seized them with a cry of thanksgiving. She squealed, either in delight or to signify ‘Foul!’, whipped her loin-cloth off and round my neck, and drew my face towards her open mouth.

‘Take it, Englishman!’ she gasps, and then she had my robe open, thrusting her belly against mine and kissing me as though I were beefsteak and she’d been fasting for a week. And I don’t know who the considerate chap was who drew the curtains to, but suddenly we were alone, and somehow I was on my feet with her clinging to me, her legs clasped round my hips, moaning as I settled her in place and began the slow march, up and down, keeping time to the tom-toms, and I fear I broke the rules, for I removed the jewel manually before it did me a mischief. I doubt if she noticed; didn’t mention it, anyway.

Well, I can’t think when I’ve enjoyed a dance so much, unless it was when we set to partners again, an hour or so later, I imagine. I seem to remember we drank considerable in between, and prosed in an incoherent way – most of it escapes me, but I recall distinctly that she said she purposed to send little Dalip to an English public school when he was older, and I said capital, look what it had done for me, but the devil with going up to Oxford, just a nest of bookworms and bestial, and how the deuce did she do that navel exercise with the diamond? So she tried to teach me, giggling through incredible contortions which culminated in her plunging and squirming astride of me as though I were Running Reins with only a furlong to go – and in the middle of it she screamed a summons and two of her Kashmiri girls popped in and urged her on by whipping her with canes – intrusive, I thought, but it was her home ground, after all.

She went to sleep directly we’d passed the post, sprawled on top of me, and the Kashmiris left off lashing her and snickered to each other. I sent them packing, and having heaved her off was composing myself to slumber likewise, when I heard them chattering beyond the curtain, and presently they peeped in again, giggling. Their mistress would wake presently, they said, and it was their duty to see that I was clean, bright, slightly oiled, and ready for service. ‘Walker!’ says I, but they insisted, respectfully covering her with a shawl before renewing their pestering of me, telling me I must be bathed and combed and perfumed and made presentable, or there’d be the devil to pay. I saw I’d get no peace, so I lumbered up, cursing, and warning them that their mistress would be out of luck, for I was ruined beyond redemption.

‘Wait until we have bathed you,’ giggles one of the houris. ‘You will make her scream for mercy.’

I doubted that, but told them to lead on, and they conducted me, one holding me up on either side, for I was still well foxed. Beyond the curtains the durbar room was empty now, and the great chandelier was out, with only a few candles on the walls making little pools of light in the gloom. They led me under the staircase, along a dim-lit passage, and down a short flight of stairs to a great stone and marble chamber like a Turkish bath-house; it was in deep shadow about its walls and high ceiling, but in the centre, surrounded by tall slender pillars, was a tiled area with a sunken bath in which water was steaming. There was a brazier close by, and towels piled to hand, while all about stood flagons of oils and soaps and shampoos; altogether it was as luxurious a wallow as you could wish. I asked if this was where the Maharani bathed.

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