The Flashman Papers: The Complete 12-Book Collection

by George MacDonald Fraser

  I’d been here before … wounded and propped up against a gun-wheel at Gwalior ten years since, at the end of the great Mutiny, with the same tired, overwhelming feeling of relief because I knew ’twas all over at last, and here I was none too much the worse, watching content as the Duke of Wellington’s Irish fell in, with the markers shouting, and a young chap was planting the Colour to thunderous cheers and helmets flying before all came to attention for “God Save the Queen” followed by “Rule, Britannia”, and the orderly was bidding Shaughnessy bring me a stretcher, and a huge figure with a spreading black beard was stooping over me with a roar of greeting, and my hand was being gripped in an enormous paw.

  “Good God!” cries Speedy. “Sir Harry!”

  “Right enuff y’are, yer honour!” agrees the departing Shaughnessy. “’Tis himself, so it is, an’ none other!”

  “You’re wounded!” cries Speedy. “But you’re well, what? Oh, this is famous! It will crown Sir Robert’s day! We’d almost given you up after Prideaux said Theodore wouldn’t release you!” He pumped my hand, beaming. “And here you are – and what a splendid job you did with the Gallas! Sealed this amba tight as a drum – oh, aye, we know how he tried to run for it! But who’d have thought Magdala would fall so fast and easy! Thanks to you, sir! Thanks to you!”

  Which was music to the ears, of course … and then he glanced round at a cry of “Toowodros! Toowodros!”, and there was an Ab eagerly identifying Theodore’s body for a couple of officers who had just come up.

  Now, what followed meant nothing to me at first, but it did an hour later, after … well, the events I’m about to relate. They’re no great matter, but they provide an interesting glimpse of human nature, I think, and demonstrate how people will believe what they want to believe, and honourable men will swear to what they think is a damned lie, never realising that it happens to be true. Thus:

  Speedy heard the Ab, and stared, shot me a brief wondering glance, and strode across to the corpse. He bent over it and came back exclaiming “Phew!” in astonishment. Then he checked, and I saw he was looking at my left hand which, to my surprise, was resting on Theodore’s revolver. Speedy glanced back at the body, then at me with just a hint of knowing in his eyes, and stooped quickly to snatch up the gun and thrust it under his tunic.

  “We’ll have you under cover in a jiff – out o’ the rain!” cries he, and Shaughnessy arriving with the stretcher, he and the orderly bore me into one of the thatched houses nearby. Speedy chivvied them away, Shaughnessy adjuring me to hiv a care, Sorr Harry man, dear, and outside the bands were striking up “Hail the Conquering Hero Comes”, almost drowned out by another great roar of cheering. It was Napier, never far behind the infantry as usual, come to take possession of his conquest; Speedy stood chafing in the doorway, and I heard him summon a soldier and order him to stand guard and let no one in or out.

  There were a couple of scared-looking Ab women in the house, and Speedy dashed them some dollars, telling them to give me a flask of tej, and whatever else I might need. Then he was off, promising to be back presently, and I guess about an hour passed, in which I discovered I could walk with only a little discomfort, and the women brought me some humbasha,a and I sat listening to the bands playing and the bustle and shouted orders until I heard Speedy returning – and Napier with him, his voice raised in anger, which wasn’t his style at all.

  “Have him covered up at once!” he was barking. “Good God, was there ever anything more disgraceful? Have him taken into a house directly and made decent! Has the Queen been informed? Ah, Rassam is seeing to her; very good.” I was to learn that his great bate was about Theodore’s body lying in the rain, stripped almost naked by chaps seeking souvenirs. Speedy said something I didn’t catch, and Napier said: “To be sure, the doctors must examine the body tomorrow and report to a board of inquiry … now, where is our Ambassador Extraordinary?”

  This as he appeared in the doorway, helmet in hand, with Speedy at his elbow muttering that the less said the better, at all costs the press mustn’t get wind –

  “Sir Harry!” Napier was gripping my hand, eyes alight in the tired old face. “No, no, sit still, my dear fellow! Not too painful a hurt, I trust? Ah, that is good news!” Then he was echoing Speedy’s earlier congratulations, thanking me for “a task well done as only you could have done it,” without which the campaign might have come adrift, and so forth, etc. “It was a body blow when we learned you’d been taken, I can tell you. But we’ll hear all about that presently, and your other adventures. For the moment it’s enough that you’re here!” He beamed, paused a moment, and sat down, fingering his dreary moustache.

  “So … the work’s done, by the mercy of Providence,” says he. “And the King is dead. A sad end. But not untimely. How did it happen?”

  I told him straight, suicide. He glanced at Speedy, and nodded.

  “Suicide,” says he. “I see.”

  Something in his tone made me repeat it. “That’s right, sir. He put the piece in his mouth and let fly.”

  Another thoughtful nod. “Apart from yourself, was any other person present?”

  “No, sir. No one.”

  “Very good.” He looked decidedly pleased. “Very good. Dr Blanc will confirm your account when he examines the body tomorrow.”

  “Johnson’ll convene the board of inquiry. They’ll make it official,” says Speedy. “Suicide, that is.”

  There followed a brief silence during which I kept a straight face. Suddenly it had become plain that they were under the incredible delusion that I had shot Theodore, but they didn’t care to say so in as many words, which was vastly diverting. Of course it was what they’d wanted, and had hinted to me through Prideaux, and Speedy, having seen the pistol in my hand and Theodore stark and stiff, had concluded that I’d done the dirty deed to save H.M.G. the painful embarrassment of having to try and possibly hang the black bugger. (“But no one must ever know, Sir Robert … controversy … press gang, scoundrel Stanley … questions in the House … uproar … regicide, scandalum magnatum … honour of the Army …”)

  Which explained why, within an hour of the last shot in the war being fired, when the Commander-in-Chief should have been consolidating his victory, with a hundred important military matters awaiting his decision, he was here post-haste to ensure a conspiracy of silence, leave me in no doubt that I’d not suffer for my good deed, and join Speedy in regarding me with that rather awed respect which says more clearly than words, gad, you’re a ruthless son-of-a-bitch, thank God.

  I might have protested my innocence, but I didn’t get the chance.

  Napier was addressing me in his gentlest voice, with that old familiar Bughunter smile.

  “Harry,” he began. So I was “Harry” now, without any formal honorific; well, well. “Harry, you and I have known each other ever so long. Yes, ever since you lobbed that blessed diamond at old Hardinge … ‘Here, catch!’” He gave a stuffed chuckle. “You should have seen their faces, Speedy! However … that’s by the way.” He became serious. “Since then, I have known no officer who has done more distinguished service, or earned greater fame, than you … no, no, it is true.” He checked my modest grunts with a raised hand. “Well, what I wish you to know is that whatever services you may have done in the past, none has been more … gratefully valued, than those performed in Abyssinia. I refer not only to your mission to the Queen of Galla, so expertly accomplished, but to that … that other service which you have done today.”

  He paused, choosing his words, and when he resumed he didn’t look at me directly. “I know it cannot have been easy for you. Perhaps to some of our old comrades, those stern men with their iron sense of duty, men like Havelock and Hope Grant and Hodson (God rest them), it might have seemed nothing out of the way … but not, I think, to you. Not to one in whom, I believe, duty has always been tempered with humanity, yes, and chivalry. Not,” he concluded, looking me in the eye, “to good-hearted Harry Flashman.” He stood up and shook my hand
again. “Thank you, old fellow. That said, we’ll say no more.”

  If I sat blinking dumbly it was not in manly embarrassment but in amazement at his remarkable misreading of my nature. All my life people had been taking me at face value, supposing that such a big, bluff daredevilish-looking fellow must be heroic, but here was a new and wondrous misconception. Just because I’d tickled his funnybone years ago by my offhand impudence to Hardinge, and been hail-fellow Flash Harry with the gift of popularity (as Thomas Hughes observed), I must therefore be “good-hearted” … and even humane and chivalrous, God help us, the kind of decent Christian whose conscience would be wrung to ribbons because he’d felt obliged to do away with an inconvenient nigger for the sake of the side.

  That was why Napier had been gassing away like a benign vicar, judging me by himself, quite unaware that I’ve never had the least qualm about kicking the bucket of evil bastards like Theodore – but only when it’s suited me. You may note, by the way, that for once my eye-witness report conforms exactly with accepted historic fact. All the world (Napier and Speedy excepted) believes that King Theodore took his own life, and all the world is right.

  I messed in Napier’s tent that night, with Speedy and Merewether and a couple of staff-wallopers, and Henty and Austin of the Times the only correspondents. Henty was eager to know what I’d been up to, but Napier proved to have a nice easy gift of diplomatic deflection, and a frosty look or two from Austin showed Henty what the Thunderer thought of vulgar curiosity.

  “We must beware of the others, though,” says Speedy later, when he and I were alone with Napier. “Stanley’s a damned ferret, and his editor hates us like poison.55 The less they know of Sir Harry’s activities, the better.”

  I didn’t see that it mattered, but Napier agreed with him. “You should not become an object of their attention. Indeed, I think it best that your part in the whole campaign should remain secret. If it were known that you had been our emissary to Queen Masteeat’s court, it would be sure to excite the correspondents’ interest, and if they were to discover that you were alone with Theodore when he died, it might lead to … unwelcome speculation.” Speedy was nodding like a mechanical duck. “Fortunately, when Prideaux brought the news that you were in Theodore’s hands, I was able to send another agent to Queen Masteeat to carry on the work you had so expertly begun. You will not mind,” says he, giving me the Bughunter smile, “if I mention him in my despatches, rather than yourself?56 For security, you understand. Have no fear, your credit will be whispered in the right ears – and what’s a single leaf more or less in a chaplet like yours?”

  There was nothing to say to this, and I didn’t much care anyway, so I allowed myself to succumb to the Napier charm.

  “It means you’ll be spared the labour of a written report!” cries he genially. “You can do it verbatim, here and now! Give him a b. and s., Speedy, and one of your cheroots. Now then, Harry, fire away!”

  So I told ’em the story pretty much as I’ve told it to you, omitting only those tender passages with Uliba and Masteeat and that bint at Uliba’s amba whose name escapes me … no, Malee, that was it … and the attempt on my virtue by Theodore’s queen-concubine. Nor did I tell them of my plunge down the Silver Smoke. Why? ’Cos they wouldn’t have believed it. But the horrors of Yando’s aerial cage, and the atrocities of Gondar, and my ordeal at the hands of the kidnappers whom Uliba had ordered to abduct me so that she could do me atrociously to death, and how I’d been rescued by Theodore’s fighting women, and Uliba given her passage out – these I narrated in my best laconic Flashy style, and had Speedy’s hair standing on end – an alarming sight.

  “Impossible! I cannot credit it!” He was horror-stricken. “You say Uliba tried to kill you? Had Galla renegades carry you off so that she could … could murder you? No, no, Sir Harry … that cannot be –”

  “I’m sorry, Speedy, but it’s true.” I was deliberately solemn now. “I would not believe it either, had I not seen it. I know you had the highest regard for her – not least for her loyalty. So did I. But I know what she did, and –”

  “But why?” bawls he. “Why should she wish you harm?” He was in a great wax, glowering through his beard like an ape in a thicket, suspicion mingling with his shocked disbelief. “It wasn’t in her, I tell you! Oh, I know she was a vixen, and cruel as the grave to her enemies, and would have seized her sister’s throne – but that was honest ambition! She was true to her salt, and to her friends –”

  “A moment, Speedy,” says Napier. “You may have touched it – her designs on the Galla throne. Did she,” turning to me, “try to enlist your help in her coup? Because if she did, and was refused, might she not, in resentment –”

  He was interrupted by Speedy’s furious gobble of protest; plainly Uliba had kindled more than mere professional admiration in his gargantuan bosom, and he simply could not bring himself to believe her capable of murderous betrayal … and yet here was the redoubtable Flashman swearing to it, so it must be true. But WHY? Fortunately she was no longer alive to tell how I’d tried to kick her into a watery grave (not that anyone would have believed her; after all, Masteeat hadn’t); still, it would be best if some perfectly splendid explanation for her sudden hatred of me could be found; an explanation that would convince Speedy beyond all doubt. Napier’s wouldn’t wash with him, but I had one that would lay him out cold … so I waited until his indignant wattling had subsided, and weighed briskly in.

  “’Fraid that won’t answer, Sir Robert. Oh, she’d have welcomed our help in usurping her sister’s crown, but she never asked me point-blank. Dare say she might have done, but as I told you, Theodore’s riders pursued us, we were separated, and when I reached Masteeat’s court, Uliba had made her bid and failed and been arrested –”

  “With respect, Sir Harry,” roars Speedy, showing no respect whatever, “we know that! But it don’t answer the question why she should want you dead! Bah, it’s madness! I will not believe it!” And then he gave me the cue I’d been waiting for. “What offence could you possibly have given her, to provoke such … such malice?”

  I sat frowning, tight-lipped, for a long artistic moment, took a sip at my glass, sighed, and said: “The greatest offence in the world.”

  Napier’s brows rose by the merest trifle, but Speedy goggled, bewildered. “What the … whatever d’ye mean, Sir Harry?”

  I hesitated, drew a deep reluctant breath, and spoke quiet and weary, looking anywhere but at him. “If you must have it, Speedy … yes, your protégé Uliba-Wark was a first-class jancada, a brave and resolute comrade, as fine a scout and guide as I ever struck … and a vain, proud, passionate, unbridled, promiscuous young savage!” What I could see of his face through the furze was showing utter consternation; he was mouthing “Promiscuous?” dumbly, so I made an impatient noise and spoke quickly.

  “Oh, what the devil, she made advances, I rejected ’em, and I dare say you’ve heard of the fury of a woman scorned! Aye, think of Uliba, a barbarian, a cruel vixen as you’ve said yourself … scorned!” Now I looked him in the eye. “Does that answer you?”

  Between ourselves, I ain’t sure it would have answered me, but I’m a cynical rotter. To decent folk, the sight of bluff, straight, manly old Flashy (good-hearted, remember), badgered into saying things that shouldn’t be said, dammit, traducing a woman’s good name, and a dead woman at that … well, it’s a discomforting sight. The man’s so moved, and reluctant, you’re bound to respect his emotions. You wouldn’t dream of doubting him.

  Speedy was making strange noises, and Napier answered for him. “I am sure it does.”

  “My … my dear Sir Harry!” Speedy sounded as though he’d been kicked in the essentials. “I … I … oh, I am at a loss! I … I know not what to say!” He didn’t, either, muttering confused. “Uliba … so trusted … oh, wild, to be sure … but depraved? A traitress? And to attempt your life … wounded vanity …” He made vague gestures. “I can only beg your pardon for … oh, I did not doubt yo
ur report for a moment, I assure you!” Bloody liar. “But it seemed so impossible … I could not take it in …”

  Here he ran out of words, and drew himself up, beard at the high port, shaking his great head while he clasped my hand, and I meditated on the astonishing ease with which strong men of Victorian vintage could be buffaloed into incoherent embarrassment by the mere mention of feminine frailty. Something to do with public school training, I fancy.

  “My dear chap!” I clapped his arm in comradely style; it was like patting an elephant’s leg. “I’m sorry, believe me. Truly sorry.” Sigh. “I can guess what you feel … disappointment, mostly, eh? When someone lets you down … Well, best just to have a drink and forget it, what?”

  * * *

  a A large flat loaf of coarse bread.

  Chapter 19

  The board of inquiry sat next day and decided that Theodore had shot himself. A reasonable conclusion, given that Blanc testified that there were powder burns in the oral cavity and the back of the head was missing, but since the report didn’t mention these details, and the verdict was what Napier and Speedy wanted, I dare say that they continued to believe that mine was the hand that fired the fatal shot.

  They buried Theodore next day, in the ramshackle thatched amba church, at the request of his sad, pretty little queen, Tooroo-Wark. I loafed along out of interest, not respect. There were only a few on hand: the Queen, the boy Alamayo, a guard of the Duke’s Irish (but no saluting volley), and fat little Damash nursing a wound and terrified he’d be hanged for resisting our attack. I reassured him, and he gave a great sniff.

  “And now you leave us without a king! We were born in bondage, and must die as slaves. Why do you not stay to govern?”

  I told him we didn’t want to, and ’twas up to him and his like to govern themselves.

  “You mean we must cut each other’s throats,” grumbles he. “This is Africa.” I told him to mind his manners and not interrupt the ancient dodderer of a priest who was gabbling the service. The corpse had been nicely wrapped, by Samuel, I believe; they shovelled it into the shallow grave, and that was the end of the heir to Solomon and Sheba and Prester John.