“‘When shall their glory fade?’ C’était magnifique! – and never mind what some fool of a Frenchman said about it’s not being war! What does he think war is, without loyalty and heroism and the challenge of impossible odds? And you,” says he, fixing me with a misty eye, “were there. D’you know, I have one of your old troopers in my 7th Cavalry? You know him, my dear – Butler. Splendid soldier, best sergeant I’ve got. Well, sir,” he smiled nobly at me and lifted his glass, “I’ve waited a long time to propose this toast – the Light Brigade!”
I nodded modestly, and remarked that the last time I’d heard it drunk had been by Liprandi’s Russian staff after Balaclava, and d’you know, Custer absolutely blubbed on the spot. On lemonade, too.
“Ah, but you British are lucky!” cries he, after he’d mopped himself and they’d brought him a fresh salad. “When I reflect on the contrasting prospects of an aspiring English subaltern and his American cousin, my heart could break. For the one – Africa, India, the Orient – why, half the world’s his oyster, where he can look forward to active service, advancement, glory! For the other, he’ll be lucky if he sees a skirmish against Indians – and precious thanks he’ll get for that! – and thirty years of weary drudgery in some desert outpost where he can expect to end his days as a forgotten captain entering returns.”
“Come now,” says I, “there’s plenty of drudgery in our outposts, too. As to glory – you’ve had the biggest war since the Peninsula, and no man came out of it with brighter laurels than you did.” Which was true, although I was saying it to sweeten Libby Custer, who’d shown no marked enthusiasm for me on hearing how I’d almost cut off her hero in his prime. She beamed at me now, and laid a fond hand on Custer’s arm.
“That is true, Autie,” says she, and he gave her a noble sigh.
“And where has it led me, my dear? Fort Abe Lincoln, to be sure, under the displeasure of my chiefs. Compare my position with Sir Harry’s splendid record – Indian Mutiny, Crimea, Afghanistan, China, the lord knows where else, and our own war besides. Why, his Queen has knighted him! Don’t think, old fellow,” says he, earnestly, “that I grudge you the honours you’ve won. But I envy you – your past, aye, and your future.”
“Luck of the service,” says I, and because I was bored with his croaking I added: “Anyway, I’ve never been a general, and I’ve got only one American Medal of Honour, you know.”
This was Flashy at his most artistic, you’ll agree, when I tell you that I knew perfectly well that Custer had no Medal of Honour, but his brother Tom had two. I guessed nothing would gall him more than having to correct my apparent mistake, which he did, stiffly, while Tom studied the cutlery and I was all apologies, feigning embarrassment.
“They send ’em up with the rations, anyway,” says I, lamely, and Elspeth, who is the most well-meaning pourer of oil on troubled flames I know, launched into a denunciation of the way Jealous Authority invariably overlooked the Claims of the Most Deserving, “for my own gallant countrymen, Lord Clyde and Sir Hugh Rose, were never awarded the Victoria Cross, you know, and I believe there were letters in the Herald and Scotsman about it, and Harry was only given his at the last minute, isn’t that so, my love? And I am sure, General Custer,” went on the amazing little blatherskite with awestruck admiration, “that if you knew the esteem in which your name and fame are held in military circles outside America, you would not exchange it for anything.”
Not a word of truth in it, but d’you know, Custer blossomed like a flower, he had an astonishing vanity, and his carping about his lot had more of honest fury than self-pity in it. He knew he was a good soldier – and he was, you know, when he was in his right mind. I’ve seen more horse-soldiering than most, and if my life depended on how a mounted brigade was handled, I’d as soon see George Custer in command as anyone I know. His critics, who never saw him at Gettysburg and Yellow Tavern, base their case on one piece of arrant folly and bad luck, when he let his ambition get the better of him. But he was good, and felt with some justice that the knives had been out for him. I reflected, watching him that night, how the best soldiers in war are so often ill-suited to peacetime service; he’d been a damned pest, they said, at West Point, and since the war he’d been collecting no end of black marks – there was one ugly tale of his leaving a detachment to its fate on the frontier, and another of his shooting deserters; he’d been court-martialled and suspended, and only reinstated because Sheridan knew there wasn’t an Indian fighter to touch him. Certainly he hadn’t reached the heights he thought he’d deserved, thanks to his own orneriness, bad luck, and the malignant Stuffed Gods of Washington, as he called them.
The discontent showed, too. He was still in his middle thirties, and I swear without vanity he looked as old as I did at fifty-three. One reason I’d been slow to recognise him was that the brilliant young cavalier I’d seen bearing down on us at Audie, long gold curls streaming from beneath his ridiculous ribboned straw hat, had changed into a worn, restless, middle-aged man with an almost feverish glint in his eyes; his skin was dry, the hair was lank and faded, and the tendons in his neck stuck out when he leaned forward in animated talk. I wondered – and I ain’t being clever afterwards – how long he would last.
We saw a good deal of the Custers that winter, for although he wasn’t the kind I’m used to seek out – being Puritan straight, no booze, baccy, or naughty cuss-words, and full of soldier talk – it’s difficult to resist a man who treats you as though you were a military oracle, and can’t get enough of your conversation. He was beglamoured by my reputation, you see, not knowing it was a fraud, and had a great thirst for my campaign yarns. He’d read the first volume of my Dawns and Departures, and was full of it; I must read his own memoirs of the frontier which he was preparing for the press. So I did, and said it was the finest thing I’d struck, beat Xenophon into a cocked hat; the blighter fairly glowed.
Our womenfolk dealt well, too, and Tom was a cheery soul who kept Elspeth amused with his jokes (I’d run the rule over him and decided he was harmless). So we five dined frequently, and visited the theatre, of which Custer was a great patron; he was a friend of Barrett the actor, who was butchering Shakespeare at Booth’s, and would sit with his eyes glued to the stage muttering “Friends, Romans, countrymen” under his breath.
That should have made me leery; I’m all for a decent play myself, but when you see someone transported from reality by them, watch out. I shan’t easily forget the night we saw some sentimental abomination about a soldier going off to the wars; when the moment came when his wife buckled on his sword for him, I heard sniffing and supposed it was Libby or Elspeth piping her eye. Then the sniff became a baritone groan, and when I looked, so help me it was Custer himself, with his hand to his brow, bedewing his britches with manly tears. Libby and Elspeth began to bawl, too, possibly in sympathy, and had to be helped out, and they all had a fine caterwaul in the corridor, with Libby holding Custer’s arm and whispering, “Oh, Autie, it makes me so fearful for you!” Deuced ominous, you may think, and a waste of five circle tickets to boot. At least with Spotted Tail you got your money’s worth.
It was in February that Custer announced that he and Libby would have to leave New York for Fort Lincoln, the outpost far up the Missouri where his regiment was quartered; when I observed that I didn’t see how he could even exercise cavalry until the snow got properly away, he admitted flat out that they were going because they couldn’t afford to stay in New York any longer: his pockets were to let. Since I knew it would give offence, I toyed with the idea of inviting them to stay with us, but thought better of it; he might have accepted.
“The sooner I am back the better, in any event,” says he. “I must be thoroughly prepared for the spring; I must be. It may be the last chance, you see.” I noticed he was looking more on edge than usual, so I asked him, last chance of what? We were in the Century Club, as I remember; he took a turn up and down, and then sat abruptly, facing me.
“The last chance I’ll ever s
ee of a campaign,” says he, and drummed his fingers on his knee. “The fact is that once this question of the hostile Sioux is settled, as it must be this year, there’s going to be precious little left for the U.S. Army to do – certainly nothing that could be dignified by the name of ‘campaign’. The Sioux,” says he grimly, “are the last worthwhile enemy we’ve got – unlike you we don’t have an empire full of obliging foes, alas! It follows that any senior officer aspiring to general rank had better make his name while the fighting lasts –”
“Hold hard, though,” says I. “It’s common knowledge that the Sioux won’t fight, isn’t it? Why, the Indian Office was quoted in the papers t’other day, doubting if five hundred hostile Indians would ever be gathered together in America again.”
“They’ll fight all right!” cries he. “They’re bound to. You haven’t heard the latest news: Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull have defied the government’s ultimatum to come in to the agencies by the end of January – there are thousands of ’em camped up on the Powder this minute who’ll never come in! That’s tantamount to a declaration of war – and when that war begins this spring I and the 7th Cavalry are going to be in the van, my boy! Which means that the Stuffed Gods of Washington, who have done me down at every turn and would dearly love to retire me to Camp Goodbye to count horseshoes, will have to think again!” He grinned as though he could taste triumph already. “Yes, sir – the American people will be reminded that George A. Custer is too good a bargain to be put on the back shelf. My one fervent prayer,” added this pious vampire fiercely, “is that Crazy Horse doesn’t catch any fatal illness before the spring grass grows.”
“You’re sure he’ll fight, then?”
“If he don’t, he’s not the man I think he is. By gad,” cries he with unusual fervour, “I would, if it was my land and buffalo! So would you.” He smiled at me, knowing-like, and then glanced about conspiratorially, lowering his voice. “In fact, when we ride west in May, I’ll be taking whoever I choose in my command party, and if some distinguished visiting officer cared to accompany me as a guest, why …” He winked, an appalling sight since his eye was bright with excitement. “What about it? Fancy a slap at the redskins, do you? Heaven knows you must have soldiered against everyone else!”
That’s the trouble with my derring-do reputation – blood-thirsty asses like Custer think I can’t wait to cry “Ha-ha!” among the trumpets. I’d as soon have walked naked to Africa to join the Foreign Legion. But you have to play up; I made my eyes gleam and chewed my lip like a man sore tempted.
“Get thee behind me, Custer,” I chuckled, and ruefully shook my head. “No-o … I doubt if Horse Guards would approve of my chasing Indians – not that I’d care a button for that, but … Dammit, I’d give a leg to go along with you—”
“Well then?” cries he, all a-quiver.
“But there’s the old girl, you see. She’s waved me off to war so many times, brave little soul … oh, I can leave her when duty calls, but …” I sighed, manly wistful. “But not for fun, George, d’you see? Decent of you to ask, though.”
“I understand,” says he solemnly. “Yes, our women have the harder part, do they not?” I could have told him they didn’t; Elspeth had led a life of reckless and probably wanton pleasure while I was being chased half round the world by homicidal niggers. “Well,” says he, “if you should change your mind, just remember, there’s always a good horse and a good gun – aye, and a good friend – waiting for you at Fort Lincoln.” He shook my hand.
“George,” says I earnestly, “I shan’t forget that.” I don’t forget holes in the road or places I owe money, either.
“God bless you, old fellow,” says he, and off he went, much to my relief, for he’d given me a turn by suggesting active service, the dangerous, inconsiderate bastard. ’Tain’t lucky. I hoped I’d seen the last of him, but several weeks later, sometime in April, when Elspeth was off in the final throes of her Philadelphia preparations, I came home one night to find a note asking me to call on him at the Brevoort. I’d supposed him far out on the prairie, inspecting ammunition and fly-buttons, and here was his card with the remarkable scrawl: “If ever I needed a friend, it is now! Don’t fail me!!”
Plainly he was in a fine state of frenzy, so I tooled round to the Brevoort next morning, anticipating sport, only to find he was at his publisher’s. Aha, thinks I, that’s it: they’ve thrown him and his beastly book into the gutter, or want him to pay for the illustrations; still, Custer as an unhinged author might be diverting, so I waited, and presently he arrived like a whirlwind, crying out at sight of me and bustling me to his room. I asked if they’d set his book in Norwegian by mistake, and he stared at me; he looked fit for murder.
“Nothing to do with my book! I merely saw my publisher in passing – indeed, I’m only in New York because if I had stayed in that … that sink of conspiracy in Washington a moment longer, I believe I’d have run mad!”
“What’s the row in Washington? I thought you were out in Fort Lincoln.”
“So I was, and so I should be! It’s a conspiracy, I tell you! A foul, despicable plot by that scoundrel who masquerades as President –”
“Sam Grant? Come now, George,” says I, “he’s a surly brute, we agree, and his taste in cigars is awful – but he ain’t a plotter.”
“What do you know about it?” snaps he. “Oh, forgive me, old friend! I am so distraught by this – this web they’ve spun about me –”
“What web? Now look here, you take a deep breath, or put your head in the basin there, and tell it plain, will you?”
He let out a great heaving sigh, and suddenly smiled and clasped my hand. Gad, he was a dramatic creature, though. “Good old Flash!” he cries. “The imperturbable Englishman. You’re right, I must take hold. Well, then …”
He’d been at Fort Lincoln, preparing for his precious Sioux campaign, when he’d suddenly been summoned to Washington to give evidence against Belknap, the Secretary for War, no less, who was in a great scandal because of bribes his wife was said to have taken from some post trader or Indian agent (I wasn’t clear on the details). Custer, not wanting to leave his regiment so soon before taking the field, had asked to be excused, but the jacks-in-office had insisted, so off he’d gone and given his evidence which, by his account, wasn’t worth a snuff anyway. The mischief was that Belknap was a great crony of Grant’s, and Grant was furious at Custer for having given evidence at all.
The whole thing stank of politics, and I guessed I wasn’t hearing the half of it. All the world knew Grant’s administration was rotten to the core, and I’d heard hints that Custer himself had political ambitions of no mean order. But what mattered just then was that he’d put Grant in a towering rage.60
“He means to break me!” cries Custer. “I know his vindictive spirit. By his orders I am kept in Washington, like a dog on a lead, at a time when my regiment needs me as never before! It’s my belief Grant intends I shall not return to the West – that his jealous spite is such that he will deny me the chance to take the field! You doubt it? You don’t know Washington, that’s plain, or the toads and curs that infest it! As though I cared a rap for Belknap and his dirty dealings! If Grant would see me I would tell him so – that all I want is to do my duty in the field! But he refuses me an audience!”
I let him rave, and then asked what he wanted of me. He spun round like a jack-in-the-box.
“You know Grant,” says he fiercely. “He respects you, and he is bound to listen to you! You are his old friend and comrade – if you were to urge him to let me go, he could not ignore it. Will you? You know what this campaign means to me!”
I didn’t know whether to laugh more at his brazen cheek or his folly in supposing that Grant would pay the least heed to me. I started to say so, but he brushed it violently aside.
“Grant will listen to you, I say! Don’t you see, you must carry weight? You’re neutral, and free of all political interest – and you have the seal of the greatest American who
ever lived! Didn’t Lincoln say: ‘When all other trusts fail, turn to Flashman’? Besides, Grant appointed you to the Indian Commission, didn’t he? He cannot refuse you a hearing. You must speak up for me. If you don’t, I can’t think who will – and I’ll be finished, on the brink of glorious success!”
“But look here,” says I, “there are far better advocates, you know. Sherman, and Sheridan, your friends—”
“Sheridan’s in Chicago. Sherman? I don’t for the life of me know where he stands. By heaven, if Robert Lee were alive, I’d ask him – he’d stand up for me!” He stood working his fists, his face desperate. “You’re my best hope – my only one! I beg of you not to fail me!”
The man was plainly barmy. If I carried weight in Washington it was news to me, and bearding Sam Grant on this crackpot’s behalf wasn’t my idea of a jolly afternoon. On the other hand, it was flattering to be asked, and it might be fun to help stir up what sounded like an uncommon dirty kettle of fish … and to see what effect my unorthodox approach might have on Grant – not for Custer’s sake, but for my own private amusement. I was at a loose end in New York, anyway. So I hemmed a bit, and finally said, very well, I’d come to Washington to oblige him, not that it would do the least good, mind …
“You are the noblest soul alive!” cries he, with tears in his eyes, and swept me down to luncheon, during which he talked like a Gatling about what I should say to Grant, and his own sterling qualities, and the iniquities of the administration. Not that I heeded much of it – my attention had been caught elsewhere.
It was her voice at first high and sharp and Yankee, at the dining-room door: “Yep. A table by the window. Oh-kay.” And then her figure, as she rustled smartly past in the waiter’s wake; fashionable women in the ’70s dressed so tight they could barely sit down,61 and hers was the perfect hourglass shape – a waist I could gladly have spanned with my two hands, but for her upper and lower works you’d have needed the help of the lifeboat crew. Unusually tall, close on six feet from the feathered cap on her piled blue-black hair to the modish calf-boots, and a most arresting profile as she turned to take her seat. Commanding was the word for the straight nose and brow and the full, almost fleshy, mouth and chin, but the complexion was that dusky rose high colour you see on beautiful Italians, and I felt the steam rise under my collar as I drank her in. Then she turned her face full to the room – and arresting wasn’t the word.
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