The Flashman Papers: The Complete 12-Book Collection

by George MacDonald Fraser

  Chapter 4

  There is, as that sound chap Ecclesiastes says, a time to get, and if I’ve reached the age of ninety-one it’s because I’ve always been able to recognise it. I was afoot on the word “Papa” and streaking for the bed-cabin, where I knew there was a window; I wrenched the door open and raced through – into the bloody lavatory, and by the time I was out again it was too late: the biggest Malay I’ve ever seen, a huge yellow villain clad only in duck trowsers and with arms like hawsers, was at the foot of the companion, making way for John Charity Spring in full war-paint – reefer jacket, pilot cap, and a face like an Old Testament prophet. He took in the scene, hands thrust into pockets, and growled to the Malay.

  “On deck, Jumbo, and if he sticks his neck out, break it!” He turned his glare on Miranda, who was still seated, the pack in her hands, and barked at her: “Did this thing molest you?”

  She riffled the cards, cool as you like, while my bowels dissolved. “No, Papa. He did nott.”

  “He tried though, I’ll lay! I know the villain!” His voice rose to its accustomed roar. “Did he lay his vile hands on you? Answer me!”

  Oh, Christ, I thought, it’s the finish – but she simply glanced at me with infinite scorn, shrugged her slim shoulders, and made an inelegant spitting noise. Spring stood breathing like a bellows, his wild eyes moving from one to other of us; I knew better than to utter a denial – and I didn’t laugh, either, like rash Michel.

  “Aye, I’ll swear he did, though! Didn’t you, you lousy lecher!” He strode to confront me, jerking his fists from his pockets, his jaw working in fury. “Didn’t you? By God –”

  “Oh, Papa! Of course he tried to kiss mee! Do you think he is the first? I am nearly eighteen, you knoaw!” If ever a voice stamped its foot, hers did; she sounded like an impatient governess. “I am nott a child! What were you expecting, after oll?” She tossed her head. “But he is just a great bullee … and a great coward, as you said.”

  His breath was rasping on my face, and his eyes were like a mad dog’s, but suddenly he wheeled about, stared at her, and then strode to a cupboard on the bulkhead and dragged out a large volume which I recognised in amazement as a Bible. He slammed it down on the table beside her.

  “Miranda,” says he, and his voice was hoarse, either with rage or fatherly concern. “My child, it grieves me to do this, but I must! Swear to me on this Book that no … no unworthiness, no impropriety, passed between you and this creature –”

  “Oh, Papa, what a fuss! Oll about notheeng! This is so sillee –”

  “Silly be damned!” bawls paterfamilias. “Put your hand on the blasted Book, girl!” He seized her wrist and slapped her palm on the Bible. “Now, make your oath – and take care … aye, quid de quoque viro, et cui dicas, saepe caveto,a mind – even with a rat like him! Swear!”

  I braced myself to leap for the ladder, resolved to kick the appalling Jumbo in the crotch, God willing, for while the dear child had lied splendidly thus far, I knew she was convent-reared on all that hellfire and mortal sin bilge, and wouldn’t dare perjure – and I stopped in the nick of time, for she was giving an angry little shrug, looking Papa sulkily in the eye, and swearing by Almightee Godd that she had repelled my clumsy advances with ease and it would take a better man than Flashy to drag her into the long grass, or words to that effect. Spring ground his teeth in relief, and then spoke two words I’ll wager he’d never uttered in his life before.

  “Forgive me, my child. I never doubted you – but I know this scoundrel, d’ye see …?” He turned his dreadful face to me, and if hair and claws had sprouted from his hands, I’d not have wondered. “It would break my heart,” snarls he, “if I thought … but there! God bless you, child.” He bussed her resoundingly on the forehead, and the little trollop gave him a smile of radiant purity. “You are the bravest of girls and the dearest of daughters, quem te Deus esse jussit.b Now, go along to bed, and give thanks to Him who has guarded you this day.”

  “Good-night, dear Papa,” says she, and kissed the brute. She walked to the companion – and God help us, as she passed me she pursed her lips in a silent kiss, and winked. Then she was gone, and Spring hurled the Bible into its cupboard and glared at me.

  “And you, if you ever pray, which I’m damned sure you don’t, can give thanks for the innocence of a good woman! A novelty in your filthy experience, is she not?” Well, novelty was the word for Miranda, no error, if not innocence. “Aye, she’s as pure as you are vile, as straight as you are warped, as brave as you are … bah! And she don’t lie, either!” He gave his barking laugh. “So you needn’t stand quaking, my hero! Sit down!”

  Now, I’d stood mum and paralysed through the astonishing scene I’ve just described, because that’s what you do when J. C. Spring is on the rampage. Why the devil he wasn’t in Grahamstown hadn’t crossed my mind – I’d been too busy thanking God that his daughter was a complete hand, and that the old monster had swallowed her tale whole – but since he had, why, all was well, surely, and I could depart without a stain on my character. I recalled my wits and met his eye, two damned difficult things to do, I can tell you.

  “Thank’ee, but I think I’ll take my leave, if –”

  “You’ll do no such thing!” bawls he. “Now that you’re here, you’ll stay awhile, and give me the pleasure of your blasted company! Sit, damn you!”

  I sat, believe me, and he gave a great white-whiskered grin, chuckling, and poured two stiff tots from the decanter on the buffet. “No orange this time, I think,” sneers he. “Ye’ll want it straight, if I’m a judge. Cigar? Or cheroot? You Far Easters like ’em black, I believe … go on, man – utrum horum mavis accipe,c and take your ease! Your health – while you’ve got it!”

  I downed the brandy as if it was water, for I’d seen Spring jovial before, and knew what could come of it. He seated himself opposite me at the table, sipped and wiped his whiskers, and eyed me with genial malevolence. I’d as soon be smiled at by a cobra.

  “So ye didn’t heed me,” says he. “Well, ye’ve more bottom than ever I gave you credit for. And if you were half the man you look, instead of the toad I know you to be … I’d not blame you. Miranda is a maid to bewitch any man. I’m proud o’ that girl, Flashman, with good cause … and if I thought ye’d laid a finger on her …” suddenly the hellish glare was back in his eyes, and his scar was pulsing “– I’d serve you as I served another reptile that tried to defile her, by God, I would!” He smashed his fist on the table. “I found her fighting for her chastity – aye, in her own chamber, by heaven – with a foul seducing frog-eating son-of-a-bitch who sought to have his vile way with her when my back was turned! My daughter, the bastard!” There was spittle on his beard. “What d’ye say to that, hey?”

  When a maniac inquires – answer. “Damnable! French, was he? Well, there you are –”

  “D’ye know what I did to him?” His voice was soft now, but the empty eyes weren’t. “I stripped him stark, and cut the life out of him – sixty-one strokes, and you wouldn’t have known he was human. Murder, you’ll say –”

  “No, no, not at all – quite the –”

  “– but the fact is, Flashman, I was beside myself!” cries this raving ogre. “Aye, homo extra est corpus suum cum irascitur,d you remember …”

  “Absolutely! May I trouble you for the brandy, captain –”

  “There were those suspected me – d’ye think I gave a dam? It was just, I tell you! Condign punishment, as the articles say … and that lass of mine, that young heroine – I’ll never forget it, never! Fighting like a tigress against that beast’s base passion … but not a tear or a tremor … thank God I came in time!”

  You should have seen her base passion a few hours ago, thinks I, and quailed at the memory … God, if ever he found out! He sipped brandy, growling, came out of his reverie of Miranda-worship, and realised he’d been confiding in the scum of the earth.

  “But you were no threat to her!” He curled his lip. “No, not you �
� ye see, Flashman, I could trust her virtue to be stronger even than your depravity, else I’d never ha’ let you within a mile of her, let alone permit her to beguile you here! Aye, that jars you! Oh, you’ve been had, my son!” For an instant the pale eyes were alight with triumph, then he was scowling again. “But I’ve been through hell this day, knowing she was within your reach; my skin crawls yet at the thought of it … but she’s my daughter, steel true, blade straight, and too much for you or a dozen like you!”

  It hit me like a blow. I’d known there was something horribly amiss when he’d arrived unexpected, but then Miranda had quieted him, and he’d been civil (for him), and only now was it plain that I’d been trapped, most artfully and damnably, by this murderous pirate and his slut of a daughter – but why? It made no sense; he had no quarrel with me – he’d said so, in those very words.

  “What d’ye mean? What d’ye want of me? I’ve done nothing, you heard her –”

  “Nothing, you say? Oh, you’ve done nothing today, I know that – or you’d not be alive this moment! But think back ten years, Flashman, to the night when you and your conniving whore Willinck crimped me out of Orleans –”

  “I’d no hand in that, I swear! And you told me –”

  “– that I bore no grudge?” His laugh was a jeering snarl. “More fool you for believing me – but your wit’s all in your loins and belly, isn’t it? You can’t conceive what it meant for a man of my breeding – my eminence, damn your eyes! – a scholar, a philosopher, honoured and respected, a man of refinement, a master and commander even in the degraded depths of a slave-ship – a man born to have rule – aye, better to reign in hell than serve in heaven!” roars he, spraying me with his incoherent rage, so consumed by it that for once Latin quotation failed him. “To be hounded before the mast by scum who wouldn’t have pulley-hauled on my ship, herded with filthy packet rats, fed on slop and glad to get it, threatened with the cat, by Jesus – aye, stare, rot you! I, John Charity Spring, Fellow of Oriel … damn them all to hell, thieves, trimmers and academic vermin …” His voice sank to a hoarse whisper, for he was back on the Oxford tack again, contemplating his ruined career, his berserk fit over, thank God, for I’d never seen him worse. He took a huge breath, filled his glass, and brooded at me.

  “I cleaned the heads on that ship, Flashman – all the way to the Cape.” His tone was almost normal now. “Thanks to you. And d’ye think a day has passed in ten years when I haven’t remembered what I owe you? And now … here you are, at last. We may agree with Horace, I think – Raro antecedentem scelestum deseruit pede poena claudo. I see from your vacant gape that you’re no better acquainted with his works than you were on the College, damn your ignorance! – so I’ll tell you it means that Justice, though moving slowly, seldom fails to overhaul the fleeing villain.” He shoved the bottle at me. “Have some more brandy, why don’t you? Your flight’s over, bucko!”

  This was desperate – but terrified as I was, I could see something that he had overlooked, and it spurred me now to unwonted defiance, though I came to my feet and backed away before I voiced it.

  “Keep your bloody brandy – and your threats, ’cos they don’t scare me, Spring! I don’t know what your game is, but you’d best take care – because you’ve forgotten something! I’m not a friendless nobody nowadays – and I ain’t some poor French pimp, neither! You think you draw water? Well, you ain’t the only one!” A heaven-sent thought struck me. “Your governor, Grey, has charged me – Sir Harry Flashman, V.C., K.B., and be damned to you! – with a personal message to Lord Palmerston, d’ye hear? So you can come off your blasted quarter-deck, because you daren’t touch me!” I cast a quick glance at the companion, ready to run like hell.

  The pale hypnotic eyes never blinked, but his mouth twisted in a grin. “My, what a dunghill rooster we’ve grown, to be sure! Vox et prœterea nihil!e But you’ve forgotten something, too. No one saw you come aboard here. It was a hired rig that brought you to my house – and my servants are safe folk. So if the distinguished Flashman, with all his trumpery titles, were to disappear … why, he sailed on the mail for home! And if, by chance, word came months from now that you never boarded the mail … a mystery! And who more baffled than your old shipmate, John Charity Spring? What, silent, are we? Stricken speechless?”

  He pushed back his chair and reached a flask from the buffet. “You’d better try some schnapps, I think. There … don’t bite the glass, you fool! Drink it! Christ, what a craven thing you are! Sit down, man, before you fall – vitiant artus œgrœ contagia mentis,f as Ovid would say if he could see you. And rest easy – I’m not going to harm a hair of your precious head!”

  That was no comfort at all, from him; I knew that diseased mind too well – he meant me some hideous mischief, but I could only wait shuddering until he told me what it was, which he was preparing to do with sadistic relish, brimming my glass and resuming his seat before he spoke.

  “When I heard you’d landed, it was a prayer answered. But I couldn’t see how to come at you, until Miranda showed the way – oh, she has all my confidence, the only creature on earth in whom I put trust. ‘Let me beckon him,’ says she – and didn’t she just, on that first night at Government House! It was gall to my soul to see it – my girl … and you, you dirty satyr! A dozen times I would ha’ cried it off, for fear of what harm might come to her, but she laughed away my doubts. ‘Trust me, Papa!’ My girl! D’ye wonder I worship the earth she treads on? Would you believe,” he leaned forward, gloating, “’twas she advised I should warn you off! ‘He’ll come all the faster, to spite you … if he thinks it safe’, says she. She knew you, d’ye hear – oh, yes, Flashman, she knows all my story, from Oxford to the Middle Passage – and she’s as bent on settling her father’s scores as he is himself! We have no secrets, you see, my girl and I.”

  I could think of one. Oh, she’d tricked me into his clutches, right enough – but she’d humbugged him, too, whoring away like a demented succubus while he was biting his nails over her supposed virtue. And the doting old lunatic believed her. God knew how many she’d been in the bushes with, his stainless virgin … if only I’d dared to tell him! Suddenly I felt sick, and not only with fear; something was wrong with my innards …

  “And you came to the bait, like the lustful swine you are,” says Spring. “And it’s time to cast our accounts and pay, eh, Flashman?”

  You know me. With any other of the monsters I’d known, I’d have pleaded and whined and tried to buy off – but he was mad, and my mind seemed to be growing numb. Another wave of nausea came over me, my head swam, and I took a stiff gulp of schnapps to steady myself.

  “Belay that!” growls Spring, and snatched the glass from me. “I don’t want you dead to the world before I’ve done.” He seized my wrist. “Sit still, damn you … ha! pulse sluggish. Very good.” He dropped my hand and sat back, and as the sick fit shook me again, I saw that he was smiling.

  “Now you know what a crimped sailorman feels like,” says he. “Yes, the schnapps is loaded – just like the mixture that fat tart slipped to me in Orleans. I believe in eye for eye, you see – no more, no less. You shipped me out, drugged and helpless, and now you’re going the same way – you can live on skilly and hard-tack, you can try your V.C. and K.B. on a bucko mate, you can have your arse kicked from here to Baltimore, and see how you like it, damn your blood!” His voice was rising again, but he checked himself and leaned forward to thumb up my eyelid – and I couldn’t raise a hand to stop him.

  “That’s right,” says he. “Baltimore, with a skipper of my acquaintance. If I were a vindictive man, it would ha’ been Orleans, but I’m giving you an even chance, d’ye see? Baltimore’s about right, I reckon. You’ve been there before – so you know what’s waiting for you, eh?”

  He stood up, and I tried to follow, but my legs wouldn’t answer. I heaved – and couldn’t move a muscle, but the horror of it was that I could see and hear and feel the sweat pouring over my skin. God knows what poiso
n he’d fed me, but it had gripped me all in an instant; I tried to speak, but only a croak came out. Spring laughed aloud, and stooped to me, the demonic pale eyes gleaming, and began to shout at me.

  “Hear this, damn you! You’ll go ashore, derelict and penniless – as I did! And word will go ahead of you, to the police, and the federal people, not only in Baltimore, but in Washington and Orleans! You’ll find they have fine long memories, Flashman – they’ll remember Beauchamp Millward Comber! The U.S. Navy have their file on him, I daresay – perjury, impersonation, and slave-trading … but that’s nothing, is it? You’re wanted for slave-stealing, too, as I recall, which is a capital offence – and they’re a dam’ sight hotter on it now than they were ten years ago, even! And then there’s the small matter of complicity in the murder of one Peter Omohundro – oh, it’s quite a score, and I don’t doubt there’s more that I don’t know about!”

  He stood straight, and now he seemed to have swollen into a ghastly giant, white-bearded and hideous, who struck at me, but I couldn’t feel the slaps, although they were jarring my head right and left.

  “See how much good your medals and honours and the brave name of Sir Harry Flashman does you when the Yankee law has you by the neck! Aye, olim meminisse juvabit, rot you …!” His bellowings were growing fainter. “Crawl or run or worm your way out of that! If you can – good luck to you! Bon voyage, you son-of-a-bitch …!”

  The pounding in my ears blotted out all other sounds, and my sight was going, for I could no longer make out his form, and the cabin lights were dwindling to pin-points. The nausea had passed, my senses were going – but I remember clear as day my last thought before I went under, and ’twasn’t about Spring or Miranda or the hellish pickle awaiting me. No; for once I’d recognised his quotation – it had been framed on the wall of the hospital at Rugby, where I’d sobered up on that distant day when Arnold kicked me out … “Olim meminisse juvabit”,g and dooced appropriate, too. Seneca, if memory serves.