The Flashman Papers: The Complete 12-Book Collection

by George MacDonald Fraser

  His army was as he’d said it would be, bone weary and struggling up the last few miles, filthy and sunbaked and rain-sodden and still unsure of what was waiting, for rumour said that Theodore had ten thousand warriors at his back, and as he looked up at the heights of Fala and Selassie on either hand, Napier must have shuddered at the thought of how his force could have been shot to tatters by an enemy with heavy pieces determined to dispute his passage. Now, on the Fala height that might have been our undoing, there were figures moving, and when I steadied the telescope on the parapet, there in the glass circle were the green coats of the Baluch, their Enfields at the trail as they came on in skirmishing order, and behind them the devil’s own legion of the 10th Native Infantry, Sikhs and Pathans and Punjabis in all the colours of the rainbow, and along the Fala saddle I could make out the red coats and helmets of the Sappers with their scaling ladders, and khaki-clad riflemen were swarming up the Selassie slopes, but whether Sherwoods or King’s Own or Dukes, I couldn’t tell.

  There was no fighting at all, for the Abs had no thought but total surrender, and thousands of them laid down their arms and trooped on to Arogee while our people were struggling to get the mountain guns on to the Selassie summit, to be turned on Magdala if need be. That ain’t liable to happen, thinks I, not with Theodore down to his last few hundred and his guns still stuck halfway up the mountain – and as though in contradiction of that thought, there he was, the lunatic, going hell-for-leather on horseback down the track to the market-place, with a score of riders at his back, Engedda and Hasani among them. A trumpet sounded, and across the Islamgee plain I saw the glitter of sabres where a squadron of bearded sowars were cantering to meet them – Bombay Lights, I’m told, and just the boys to do Theodore’s homework for him if he lingered.

  He did, though, standing in his stirrups, flourishing his sword and yelling defiance. I was too far away to make out the words, but according to Loch, who commanded the Lights, he was shouting challenges, daring anyone to meet him in single combat, taunting them as women, boasting of his prowess – “Theodore’s finest hour”, according to some romantic idiot, but it didn’t last long, for no one took the least bit of notice of him, and behind the Lights the Dukes were advancing in open order, halting and firing by ranks, and his majesty and friends were obliged to scatter and run. I watched them scrambling back to the Kobet Bar Gate, one of ’em clutching a bloody arm, Theodore last man in, still waving his sword and shouting the odds.

  Now was the time to hammer some sense into him at last, so I abandoned my perch and came back to the gate where the members of his sortie were unsaddling and gasping for breath. Theodore was throwing his reins to Wald Gabr and ordering everyone to the parapets; apart from his riders there were perhaps fifty or sixty warriors armed with muskets – and they were preparing to hold their fortress against three British and two Indian battalions, three detachments of cavalry, four batteries of artillery, plus Sappers and Miners, the Naval Brigade, and those Sikh Pioneers who had given them bayonet at Arogee. Sixty against the three and a half thousand that Napier was about to launch at Magdala.

  I didn’t know, then, how great the odds were, but it was plain that he was staking everything on a frontal assault with the pick of his army; Islamgee was turning into a parade ground for British infantry, six companies at least of Dukes in the lead with the Royal Engineers and the Madras Sappers and Miners at their head – the storming party whose work it would be to mine and blow open the gate – and behind them the Sherwoods in line, and then the reserve battalions, and far in the rear I could see the Armstrongs and steel guns deploying under Selassie, and there were even elephants coming into view with the mortars.

  It wasn’t a time for ceremony. Theodore was stripping off his gaudy harlequin robe, bare to the waist until Wald Gabr threw a plain coat over his shoulders; I marched up to him and handed him his glass.

  “You must raise a white flag,” says I. “There’s nothing else for it. Take a look from the wall.”

  He took the glass in silence, motioned me to follow him, and turned to jump nimbly on to the parapet, where his musketeers were already lining the firing-step. I took post by him as he surveyed the advance, still distant but inexorable, rank upon khaki rank with the red Sappers before, the Dukes’ Colours flapping in the rainy gusts, swinging along with rifles sloped and bayonets fixed, and the Foresters’ band breaking from “Young May Moon” into “British Grenadiers”. Theodore lowered the telescope, smiling as he shook it in time to the music.

  “What a sight!” cries he. “It is a pleasure to behold! Ah, my friend, they do me great honour! I shall make a noble end!”

  I kept my head and my temper. “There’s no need to make an end, your majesty! They ain’t coming to kill or to conquer! They have what they came for –”

  “But it is not enough,” says he quietly, and you never saw a calmer, saner man in your life. “They must have me also, for their pride, and for their country’s honour. They have had a long march.” He put his hand on my shoulder, still smiling, resigned and a little weary. “Come, my friend, there should be no false words between you and me, no twisting of truth, no pretences. They must have me as a prisoner. You know it, and I know it. Is it not so?”

  “They’ll treat you well … honourably. I’ve known the Dedjaz Napier all my life – he’s a good man, and you know he respects you as a brave soldier. He’ll treat you as a king, not as a prisoner.”

  I believed it then, but later I wasn’t so sure. Even as we were speaking, our cavalry was skirting round to cover the west flank of Magdala, and reining up in horror at the rotten, stinking corpses of the three hundred captives he’d flung from the Islamgee cliff. Aye, that would have taken the shine off his surrender, if he’d made one … which he was not about to do, as he made plain in one of the strangest farewells I’ve ever heard. He shouted to Engedda and some others who were reinforcing the rocky barrier behind the gate, directing them to join the defenders on the parapet, and then turned to me.

  “Now, my good friend, my friend of only a short while but no less dear for that, you must go up into the city.” He gestured towards the second gate and the thatched buildings on the plateau beyond. “There you will be safe until your people come.” I started to protest, but he held up a hand to silence me.

  “I will fight. It is all that is left. Afterwards, you may see my body, and perhaps you will say, ‘There lies a bad man who has injured me and mine.’ Perhaps you will not wish to give me a Christian burial.” He paused, frowning at me. “Will you be good to him who has despitefully used you, forgiving him by the power of God?”

  I must have said something, heaven knows what, for he went on – and so help me, these were his words, with the enemy at the gate, his pathetic rabble returning fire, and the rain starting to come down in sheets.

  “There is a custom which I should wish to be observed, the wrapping of my body in a waxed cloth – my queen will know how it should be prepared. When this has been done, and the body exposed to the sun, the heat causes the cloth to adhere to the flesh, thus forming an impervious shroud which will help to preserve the body. Will you see this done, my friend?”

  The only answer in the circumstances would have been a bewildered “yes”, if I’d had time to give it, but at that moment one Millward, commanding the mountain guns and rockets at the foot of Selassie, let fly a tremendous and wonderfully accurate barrage; all at once the ground was shaking with shell-bursts, rockets smashed into the wall, and Theodore and I were blown off our feet by the blast of one shell that fell just inside the gateway. Stones and dirt came pattering down on us as we scrambled to our feet, deafened and shaken, the gateway was hidden in a cloud of smoke, and out of it reeled Engedda, chest and shoulder drenched in blood, his mouth wide in a soundless scream. Theodore was running towards him when two more shells exploded within yards of us, throwing up columns of earth and filling the air with the whine of shrapnel. I saw Theodore stagger but run on, and thought, good luck to your maj
esty, it’s your fight, not mine, as I fled for dear life up the twisting rocky gully to the second gate. Common sense told me that Napier wouldn’t shell the town with its Ab civilians, and indeed Millward had strict orders to that effect and his gunners dropped their shot all on the main gate and wall – but rockets are another dixie of skilly altogether; they go where they list, and it was one of these that laid me low.

  I heard the shrieking hiss and ear-shattering explosion, choking white smoke was all about me, and I felt a tremendous blow on my left calf, not painful but numbing, as though it had been sandbagged. I went down like a shot rabbit, cracking an elbow on the rocks, but heaved myself up in haste as another rocket screamed by and exploded near the second gate. Like a fool, I tried to run, my wounded leg gave way beneath me, and I went head-first into a large rock by the wayside and lost all interest in the proceedings.

  Chapter 18

  They say that from the first cannonade to the final storming of the main gate was three hours, but it might have been three days or three minutes for all I knew. How long I was unconscious I cannot tell, but when I came to, and the first dizzy moments had passed, I was being heaved into a sitting position on a boulder beside the second gate, Theodore was standing a few yards away, a rifle in his hand, his valet Wald Gabr was supporting me with an arm about my shoulders, muttering instructions which I was still too dazed to make out, waves of pain were coursing up my left leg which was wrapped knee to ankle in a bloody cloth which oozed crimson on to my boot, and it penetrated my clouded senses that I’d been wounded. The air was crackling with small-arms fire, thunder was rumbling overhead, the rain was pelting harder than ever, and as Theodore turned from looking down the hill and strode past us without a word, tossing aside his rifle in the second gateway, I looked down the hill myself and saw a sight which I can see still, clear as day, forty years on.

  Only a stone’s throw below us the Ab musketeers were falling back from the wall, and above the parapet a flag was fluttering in the fierce wind, a little way to the left of the gate. At first I thought it must be some banner of Theodore’s, but then there were helmets and khaki tunics either side of it, and now they were tumbling over the wall, and the flag was being flourished from side to side as the fellow carrying it was boosted up bodily by his mates to stand on the top. That was when I saw it was a regimental Colour, and here they came, a regular flood of riflemen, whooping and cheering like billy-o, charging the Ab musketeers who fairly ran before them.53

  Khaki tunics and white robes were struggling in the gateway, bayonets against spears, and clubbed firearms on both sides; khaki was winning, and as the Abs were driven back some of our fellows were tearing aside the piled stones from the gates, which were thrust wide to admit a crowd of cheering attackers, Sappers and Pioneers and a great mob of Irish of the Dukes. They chased the Abs along the wall, and spears and swords and muskets were being flung aside as their owners threw up their arms in surrender. A few of the hardier spirits were running up the rocky path towards us, turning to fire a last shot at our fellows, and getting a fusilade in return. Shots sang above us and splintered the rocks around us, and Wald Gabr ran from my side, seized Theodore’s fallen rifle, and thrust the butt into my left arm-pit.

  “Tenisu, dedjaz, tenisu! Up, up, for our lives!”

  Sound notion, and if you think it’s agony to run hobbling with a splinter of steel buried in your calf muscle, you’re right, but it’s wonderful what you can do when Snider slugs are buzzing about your ears. I knew better than to try to identify myself in the heat of battle; with my improvised crutch going and Wald Gabr holding me up on t’other side I lurched through the gate, screaming at every step, and ahead of us Ab civilians were scattering up the slope, mothers with chicos, old folk and striplings, all frantic to escape the murderous struggle behind us.

  Ten yards ahead there was a great bale of forage bound with cords, six foot square, and a capital place to go to ground, for my leg was giving out, leaking blood like a tap, my improvised crutch slipped from my grasp, and I lunged at the bale and grabbed it to save myself pitching headlong. I hauled myself round the bale by its cords, so that it was between me and the mischief behind, but lost my hold and fell on all fours, being damned noisy about it, too, for my leg was giving me gyp. Wald Gabr sprawled beside me, and then strong hands seized my arms and hauled me up, yelping, and it was Theodore, gripping me under the shoulders and gently easing me into a sitting position with my back to the bale.

  “Be still!” He was breathing hard. “Go, good and faithful servant!” says he to Wald Gabr. “God prosper you … and have you in his keeping!”

  The lad hesitated, and Theodore laughed and slapped him on the arm. “Go, I say! Get you to Tigre again! Take a king’s thanks … and blessing! Fare well, gun-bearer!”

  Wald Gabr turned and ran, and Theodore watched him disappear among the huts. Then he looked past the bale towards the second gate, still breathless and rubbing the rain from his face; the plain shama over his shoulders was wringing wet and clinging to him. The firing behind had slackened, but there was a distant shouting of orders followed by a ragged cheer. He closed his eyes for a moment and sighed before he spoke, and these were his words, and mine, on that rainy afternoon on Magdala height:

  Theodore: I shall never go to Jerusalem now. There will be no Tenth Crusade. [Draws pistol, offers it butt first.] Suicide is an abomination in God’s sight, a sin not to be forgiven. Oh, friend, will you do a last kindness to your enemy?

  Flashy: Don’t be a bloody ass! Throw it away, man! They ain’t coming to kill you – put up your hands and give in, can’t you? It’s all up, dammit!

  Theodore: You will not? Do I ask too much, then? So be it. Perhaps God, who marks the fall of humble sparrows and proud kings, will forgive even this, in His infinite mercy …

  Flashy: God don’t give a tuppenny dam one way or t’other! Give over, you crazy bastard –

  But he was cocking the piece, and now he put the muzzle in his mouth and his thumb on the trigger, and blew the back of his head away. The explosion threw him back, off his feet, but by some freak convulsion of his hand the pistol flew into the air and fell beside my wounded leg. His body twitched for a few seconds and then shrank and was still, head on one side and a bloody puddle spreading beneath it. I could see his face; unmarked, impassive, untroubled, the eyes closed as though in sleep.

  D’you know, I wasn’t even shocked at the abruptness of it? It seemed fit and proper, somehow, and I thought then what I think still, that it was a thing almost fore-ordained, as though he’d been searching for it all his life. And there it was, and that was all about it; short, sweet, simple, and saved everyone a deal of bother.

  I clenched my eyes shut with a spasm of pain, and when I opened them my eye fell on the pistol, and on the silver plate on its stock. I picked it up, and laughed aloud, but not in mirth. The plate was engraved:

  Presented

  by

  VICTORIA

  Queen of Great Britain and Ireland

  to

  THEODORUS

  Emperor of Abyssinia

  as a slight token of her gratitude

  for his kindness to her servant Plowden

  1854

  Ironic, you’ll agree, but now came a clatter of running feet, and into sight on my right came two khaki ruffians, helmets askew, dirty bearded faces alight with devilment. The nearer covered me with his rifle.

  “Jayzus, ye’re white!” cries he. “Who the hell are ye, den, and what’s to laugh at?”

  “Put up that piece and come to attention, you rascal!” I’ve encountered T. Atkins (and P. Murphy) often enough to know how to bring him to heel when the battle-lust is on him. “I’m Colonel Sir Harry Flashman, Seventeenth Lancers! Get me a medical orderly!”

  “In de name o’ God!” cries Paddy. “An’ is it yerself, den, Sorr Harry? Be Christ it is, an’ so ye are! ’Tis himself, Mick, de Flash feller – beggin’ yer pardon, Sorr Harry –”

  “Are yez sure?�
� says Mick, all suspicion. “He looks like a bloody buddoo to me.”

  “Buddoo? Will ye hear him? Did I not see Ould Slowcoach pin de cross on him at Allahabad – beggin’ his pardon an’ all, Sir Colin, I should say – but man, Sorr Harry, I doubt ye’re woundit –”

  “Who’s de nigger?” demands Mick, scowling at Theodore’s corpse and plainly still doubtful of me.

  “The King of Abyssinia,” says I. “Let him be – and damn your eyes, get me an orderly and a stretcher!”

  “At once, at once!” shouts Paddy. “Run, Mick, an’ see to’t! Just you bide there, Colonel Sorr Harry, sorr, an’ give yer mind peace –”

  “There’s no Seventeenth Lancers in your man’s colyum,” says Mick. “An’ if there was, whut’s he doin’ here ahead o’ the Colours, even? Tell me dat, Shaughnessy!”

  Shaughnessy told him, in Hibernian terms, but I paid him no heed, for more bog-trotters were arriving, with wild hurrahs and halloos, pausing a moment to gape at me, and then at Theodore’s body, for now there were Abs on hand tugging at their sleeves and pointing – “Toowodros! Toowodros!”54 Presently the man Mick returned with an orderly who set to work on my injured calf, making me yell with the fiery bite of raw spirit in the wound, and drawing cries of delight and commiseration from my audience as he held up a gleaming two-inch sliver of shrapnel which he had removed from my quivering flesh.

  “Nate as Hogan’s knapsack!” they cried. “A darlin’ little spike, compliments o’ Colonel Penn!” and laughed heartily, urging me to be aisy, Sorr Harry dear, for I must ha’ tekken worse at Balaclavy, sure an’ I had, is dat not so, eh, Madigan? It was a mercy when a Colour Sergeant came bawling for them to fall in, and they melted away, all but the orderly and Private Pat Shaughnessy, my self-appointed sponsor and protector … and suddenly I felt not too poorly at all, for all the throbbing discomfort of my leg, and my aching skull, sitting with my back to the bale in the gentle rain.