It was altogether a splendid few weeks. While I lay nursing my leg, the siege of Jallalabad petered out, and Sale finally made another sortie that scattered the Afghan army to the winds. A few days after that Pollock arrived with the relief force from Peshawar, and the garrison band piped them in amongst universal cheering. Of course, I was on hand; they carried me out on to the verandah, and I saw Pollock march in. Later that evening Sale brought him to see me, and expounded my gallantries once again, to my great embarrassment, of course. Pollock swore it was tremendous, and vowed to avenge me when he marched on to Kabul; Sale was going with him to clear the passes, brink Akbar to book, if possible, and release the prisoners – who included Lady Sale – should they still be alive.
“You can stay here and take your well-earned repose while your leg mends,” says Fighting Bob, at which I decided a scowl and a mutter might be appropriate.
“I’d rather come along,” says I. “Damn this infernal leg.”
“Why, hold on,” laughs Sale, “we’d have to carry you in a palankeen. Haven’t you had enough of Afghanistan?”
“Not while Akbar Khan’s above ground,” says I. “I’d like to take these splints and make him eat ’em.”
They laughed at this, and Broadfoot, who was there, cries out:
“He’s an old war-horse already, our Flashy. Ye want tae be in at the death, don’t ye, ye great carl? Aye, well, ye can leave Akbar tae us; forbye, I doubt if the action we’ll find about Kabul will be lively enough for your taste.”
They went off, and I heard Broadfoot telling Pollock what a madman I was when it came to a fight – “when we were fighting in the passes, it was Flashman every time that was sent out as galloper to us with messages; ye would see him fleein’ over the sangars like a daft Ghazi, and aye wi’ a pack o’ hostiles howling at his heels. He minded them no more than flies.”
That was what he made out of the one inglorious occasion when I had been chased for my life into his encampment. But you will have noticed, no doubt, that when a man has a reputation good or bad, folk will always delight in adding to it; there wasn’t a man in Afghanistan who knew me but who wanted to recall having seen me doing something desperate, and Broadfoot, quite sincerely, was like all the rest.
Pollock and Sale didn’t catch Akbar, as it turned out, but they did release the prisoners he had taken, and the army’s arrival in Kabul quieted the country. There was no question of serious reprisals; having been once bitten, we were not looking for trouble a second time. The one prisoner they didn’t release, though, was old Elphy Bey; he had died in captivity, worn out and despairing, and there was a general grief in which I, for one, didn’t share. No doubt he was a kindly old stick, but he was a damned disaster as a commander. He, above all others, murdered the army of Afghanistan, and when I reckon up the odds against my own survival in that mess – well, it wasn’t Elphy’s fault that I came through.
But while all these stirring things were happening, while the Afghans were skulking back into their hills, and Sale and Pollock and Nott were showing the flag and blowing up Kabul bazaar for spite; while the news of the catalogue of disasters was breaking on a horrified England; while the old Duke of Wellington was damning Auckland’s folly for sending an army to occupy “rocks, sands, deserts, ice and snow”; while the general public and Palmerston were crying out for vengeance, and the Prime Minister was retorting that he wasn’t going to make another war for the sake of spreading the study of Adam Smith among that Pathans – while all this was happening I was enjoying a triumphal progress back to India. With my leg still splinted, I was being borne south as the hero – or, at least, the most convenient of a few heroes – of the hour.
It is obvious now that the Delhi administration regarded me as something of a godsend. As Greville said later of the Afghan war, there wasn’t much cause for triumph in it, but Ellenborough in Delhi was shrewd enough to see that the best way to put a good gloss on the whole horrible nonsense was to play up its few creditable aspects – and I was the first handy one.
So while he was trumpeting in orders of the day about “the illustrious garrison” who had held Jallalabad under the noble Sale, he found room to beat the drum about “gallant Flashman”, and India took its cue from him. While they drank my health they could pretend that Gandamack hadn’t happened.
I got my first taste of this when I left Jallalabad in a palankeen, to go down the Khyber with a convoy, and the whole garrison turned out to hurrah me off. Then at Peshawar there was old Avitabile, the Italian rascal, who welcomed me with a guard of honour, kissed me on both cheeks, and made me and himself riotously drunk in celebration of my return. That night was memorable for one thing – I had my first woman for months, for Avitabile had in a couple of lively Afghan wenches, and we made splendid beasts of ourselves. It isn’t easy, I may say, handling a woman when your leg is broken, but where there’s a will there’s a way, and in spite of the fact that Avitabile was almost sick laughing at the spectacle of me getting my wench buckled to, I managed most satisfactorily.
From there it was the same all the way – at every town and camp there were garlands and congratulations and smiling faces and cheering, until I could almost believe I was a hero. The men gripped my hand, full of emotion, and the women kissed me and sniffled; colonels had my health drunk in their messes, Company men slapped me on the shoulder, an Irish subaltern and his young wife got me to stand godfather to their new son, who was launched into life with the appalling name of Flashman O’Toole, and the ladies of the Church Guild at Lahore presented me with a silk scarf in red, white, and blue with a scroll embroidered “Steadfast”. At Ludhiana a clergyman preached a tremendous sermon on the text, “Greater love hath no man than this that a man lay down his life for his friends” – he admitted, in a roundabout way, that I hadn’t actually laid down mine, but it hadn’t been for want of trying, and had been a damned near thing altogether. Better luck next time was about his view of it, and meanwhile hosannah and hurrah for Flashy, and let us now sing “Who would true valour see”.
All this was nothing to Delhi, where they actually had a band playing “Hail the conquering hero comes”, and Ellenborough himself helped me out of the palankeen and supported me up the steps. There was a tremendous crowd, all cheering like billy-o, and a guard of honour, and an address read out by a fat chap in a red coat, and a slap-up dinner afterwards at which Ellenborough made a great speech which lasted over an hour. It was dreadful rubbish, about Thermopylae and the Spanish Armada, and how I had clutched the colours to my bleeding breast, gazing proudly with serene and noble brow o’er the engorged barbarian host, like Christian before Apollyon or Roland at Roncesvalles, I forget which, but I believe it was both. He was a fearful orator, full of bombast from Shakespeare and the classics, and I had no difficulty in feeling like a fool long before he was finished. But I sat it out, staring down the long white table with all Delhi society gaping at me and drinking in Ellenborough’s nonsense; I had just sense enough not to get drunk in public, and by keeping a straight face and frowning I contrived to look noble; I heard the women say as much behind their fans, peeping at me and no doubt wondering what kind of a mount I would make, while their husbands thumped the table and shouted “bravo!” whenever Ellenborough said something especially foolish.
Then at the end, damned if he didn’t start croaking out “For he’s a jolly good fellow!” at which the whole crowd rose and roared their heads off, and I sat red-faced and trying not to laugh as I thought of what Hudson would have said if he could have seen me. It was too bad, of course, but they would never have made such a fuss about a sergeant, and even if they had, he couldn’t have carried it off as I did, insisting on hobbling up to reply, and having Ellenborough say that if I must stand, it should be his shoulder I should lean on, and by God, he would boast about it ever after.
At this they roared again, and with his red face puffing claret beside me I said that this was all too much for one who was only a simple English gentleman (“amen to th
at,” cries Ellenborough, “and never was proud title more proudly borne”) and that what I had done was my duty, no more or less, as I hoped became a soldier. And while I didn’t believe there was any great credit to me in it (cries of “No! No!”), well, if they said there was, it wasn’t due to me but to the country that bore me, and to the old school where I was brought up as a Christian, I hoped, by my masters. (What possessed me to say this I shall never understand, unless it was sheer delight in lying, but they raised the roof) And while they were so kind to me they must not forget those others who had carried the flag, and were carrying it still (“hear! hear!”), and who would beat the Afghans back to where they came from, and prove what everyone knew, that Englishmen never would be slaves (thunderous applause). And, well, what I had done hadn’t been much, but it had been my best, and I hoped I would always do it. (More cheering, but not quite as loud, I thought, and I decided to shut up.) So God bless them all, and let them drink with me to the health of our gallant comrades still in the field.
“Your simple honesty, no less than your manly aspect and your glorious sentiments, won the admiration and love of all who heard you,” Ellenborough told me afterwards. “Flashman, I salute you. Furthermore,” says he, “I intend that England shall salute you also. When he returns from his victorious campaign, Sir Robert Sale will be despatched to England, where I doubt not he will receive those marks of honour which become a hero.”23 (He talked like this most of the time, like a bad actor.24 Many people did, sixty years ago.) “As is fitting, a worthy herald shall precede him, and share his glory. I mean, of course, yourself. Your work here is done, and nobly done, for the time being. I shall send you to Calcutta with all the speed that your disability allows, there to take ship for England.”
I just stared at the man; I had never thought of this. To get out of this hellish country – for if, as I’ve said, I can now consider that India was kind to me, I was still overjoyed at the thought of leaving it – to see England again, and home, and London, and the clubs and messes and civilised people, to be fêted there as I had been assured I would be, to return in triumph when I had set out under a cloud, to be safe beyond the reach of black savages, and heat, and filth, and disease, and danger, to see white women again, and live soft, and take life easy, and sleep secure at nights, to devour the softness of Elspeth, to stroll in the park and be pointed out as the hero of Piper’s Fort, to come back to life again – why, it was like waking from a nightmare. The thought of it all set me shaking.
“There are further reports to be made on affairs in Afghanistan,” says Ellenborough, “and I can think of no more fitting messenger.”
“Well, sir,” says I. “I’m at your orders. If you insist, I’ll go.”
Chapter 13
It took four months to sail home, just as it had taken four months to sail out, but I’m bound to say I didn’t mind this time. Then I had been going into exile; now I was coming home a hero. If I’d had any doubts of that the voyage dispelled them. The captain and his officers and the passengers were as civil as butter, and treated me as if I were the Duke himself; when they found I was a cheery sort who liked his bottle and talk we got along famously, for they never seemed to tire of hearing me tell of my engagements with Afghans – male and female – and we got drunk most nights together. One or two of the older chaps were a bit leery of me, and one even hinted that I talked a deal too much, but I didn’t care for this, and said so. They were just sour old package-rats, anyway, or jealous civilians.
I wonder, now, looking back, that the defence of Jallalabad made such a stir, for it was a very ordinary business, really. But it did, and since I was the first out of India who had been there, and borne a distinguished part, I got the lion’s share of admiration. It was so on the ship, and was to prove so in England.
During the voyage my broken leg recovered almost entirely, but there was not much activity on shipboard anyway, and no women, and, boozing with the boys apart, I had a good deal of time to myself. This, and the absence of females, naturally turned me to thoughts of Elspeth; it was strange and delightful to think of going home to a wife, and I got that queasy feeling deep in my bowels whenever I found myself dreaming about her. It wasn’t all lust, either, not more than about nine-tenths – after all, she wasn’t going to be the only woman in England – but when I conjured up a picture of that lovely, placid face and blonde hair I got a tightness in my throat and a trembling in my hands that was quite apart from what the clergy call carnal appetites. It was the feeling I had experienced that first night I rattled her beside the Clyde – a kind of hunger for her presence and the sound of her voice and the dreamy stupidity of her blue eyes, I wondered if I was falling in love with her, and decided that I was, and that I didn’t care, anyway – which is a sure sign.
So in this moonstruck state I whiled away the long voyage, and by the time we docked among the forest of shipping in London pool I was in a fine sweat, romantic and horny all at once. I made great haste for my father’s house, full of excitement at the thought of surprising her – for of course she had no idea that I was coming – and banged the knocker so hard that passers-by turned to stare at the big, brown-faced fellow who was in such a devilish hurry.
Old Oswald opened, just as he always did, and gaped like a sheep as I strode past him, shouting. The hall was empty, and both strange and familiar at once, as things are after a long absence.
“Elspeth!” I roared. “Halloo! Elspeth! I’m home!”
Oswald was gabbling at my elbow that my father was out, and I clapped him on the back and pulled his whiskers.
“Good for him,” says I, “I hope they have to carry him home tonight. Where’s your mistress? Elspeth! Hallo!”
He just went on clucking at me, between delight and amazement, and then I heard a door open behind me, and looked round, and who should be standing there but Judy. That took me aback a bit; I hadn’t thought she would still be here.
“Hallo,” says I, not too well pleased, although she was looking as handsome as ever. “Hasn’t the guv’nor got a new whore yet?”
She was about to say something, but at that moment there was a step on the staircase, and Elspeth was standing there, staring down at me. God, what a picture she was: corn-gold hair, red lips parted, blue eyes wide, breast heaving – no doubt she was wearing something, but I couldn’t for the life of me remember what it was. She looked like a startled nymph, and then the old satyr Flashy was bounding up the stairs, grabbing her, and crying:
“I’m home! I’m home! Elspeth! I’m home!”
“Oh, Harry!” says she, and then her arms were round my neck and her lips were on mine.
If the Brigade of Guards had marched into the hall just then to command me to the Tower I’d not have heard them. I picked her up bodily, tingling at the feel of her, and without a word spoken carried her into the bedroom, and tumbled her there and then. It was superb, for I was half-drunk with excitement and longing, and when it was over I simply lay there, listening to her prattle a thousand questions, clasping her to me, kissing every inch of her, and answering God knows what. How long we spent there I can’t imagine, but it was a long, golden afternoon, and ended only when the maid tapped on the door to say that my father was home again, and demanding to see me.
So we must get dressed, and straighten ourselves, giggling like naughty children, and when Elspeth had herself in order the maid came tapping again to say that my father was growing impatient. Just to show that heroes weren’t to be hurried, I caught my darling up again, and in spite of her muffled squeals of protest, mounted her once more, without the formality of undressing. Then we went down.
It should have been a splendid evening, with the family welcoming the prodigal Achilles, but it wasn’t. My father had aged in two years; his face was redder and his belly bigger, and his hair was quite white at the temples. He was civil enough, damned me for a young rascal, and said he was proud of me: the whole town had been talking over the reports from India, and Ellenborough’s eulog
ies for myself and Sale and Havelock were all over the place. But his jollity soon wore off, and he drank a good deal too much at dinner, and fell into a silence at last. I could see then there was something wrong, although I didn’t pay him much heed.
Judy dined with us, and I gathered she was now entirely one of the household, which was bad news. I didn’t care for her any better now than I had two years before, after our quarrel, and I made it pretty plain. It seemed rather steep of my father to keep his dolly at home with my wife there, and treat them as equals, and I decided to speak to him about it. But Judy was cool and civil, too, and I gathered she was ready to keep the peace if I did.
Not that I minded her or my father much. I was all over Elspeth, revelling in the dreamy way she listened to my talk – I had forgotten what a ninny she was, but it had its compensations. She sat wide-eyed at my adventures, and I don’t suppose anyone else got a word in edgeways all through the meal. I just bathed myself in that simple, dazzling smile of hers and persuaded her of what a wonderful husband she had. And later, when we went to bed, I persuaded her more so.
It was then, though, that the first little hint of something odd in her behaviour crossed my mind. She had dropped off to sleep, and I was lying there exhausted, listening to her breathing, and feeling somehow dissatisfied – which was strange, considering. Then it came to me, this little doubt, and I dismissed it, and then it came back.
I had had plenty of experience with women, as you know, and can judge them in bed as well as anyone, I reckon. And it seemed to me, however hard I pushed the thought away, that Elspeth was not as she had been before I went away. I’ve often said that she only came to life when she was at grips with a man – well, she had been willing enough in the few hours of my homecoming, I couldn’t deny, but there hadn’t been any of the rapturous passion on her part that I remembered. These are fine things, and difficult to explain – oh, she was active enough at the time, and content enough afterwards, but she was easier about it all, somehow. If it had been Fetnab or Josette, I wouldn’t have noticed, I dare say; it was their work as well as their play. But I had a different emotion about Elspeth, and it told me there was something missing. It was just a shadow, and when I woke next morning I had forgotten it.
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