The Flashman Papers: The Complete 12-Book Collection

by George MacDonald Fraser

  The only snag I could see was being first wicket down with the lady after she’d endured the attentions of blasted Shovel-off, and would be intent on writing her reports. Happy thought: being a mere diplomat, his performance might well leave her gnawing her pretty knuckles for some real boudoir athletics – in which case the reports could wait until after breakfast.

  Well, if I’d had any sense, or an inkling of what lay years ahead, or been less flown with Voisin’s arrack, I’d have given the business the go-by – but you know me: the promise of that photograph, and the thought of dear Otto smashing the chandelier in his wrath, were too much for my ardent boyish nature. And it never hurts to do the press a good turn.

  So it was with a light heart and my hat on three hairs that I found myself strolling under the famous lime trees to the Brandenburg Thor a few weeks later, taking a long slant at the Thier Garten in the June sunshine, and marvelling at the Valkyrian proportions of German women – which awoke memories of my youthful grapplings with that blubbery baroness in Munich … Pech-something, her name was, a great whale of a woman with an appetite to match.

  That had been thirty years ago, and I hadn’t visited Germany since, with good reason. When you’ve been entrapped, kidnapped, forced to impersonate royalty, shanghaied into marriage, half-hung by Danish bandits, crossed swords in dungeons with fiends like Rudi von Starnberg, drowned near as dammit, and been bilked of a fortune … well, Bognor for a holiday don’t look so bad.c Thank God, it was far behind me now; Rudi was dead, and lovely Lola, and even Bismarck had probably given up murder in favour of war … not that he’d done much in that line for a few years. Mellowing with age, like enough. Still, I’d steer well clear of their Congress: Otto aside, I’d no wish to have D’Israeli inveigling me into a game of vingt-et-un.d Nor had I any great desire to “do” Berlin; it may have the finest palaces in Germany, and the broadest streets, which is capital if you enjoy miles of ornamented stucco and don’t mind tumbling into drains which are mostly uncovered, but it also has the disadvantage of being full of Germans, most of ’em military. They say there’s a garrison of 20,000 (in a town no bigger than Glasgow) and it seemed to me the whole kit-boodle of ’em were on Unter den Linden – sentries presenting arms at every door and the pavements infested by swaggering Junkers with plumed helmets and clanking medals, still full of Prussian bounce because they’d licked the Frogs eight years before, as though that mattered.

  The Congress was to begin on the 13th, and it was on the evening of the 12th that I left my modest hotel on the Tauben Strasse and walked the short distance to the discreet, pleasant little court off the Jager Strasse where Mamselle had her apartment – both of us quietly tucked away (trust Blowitz) but convenient for Unter den Linden, and the Wilhelmstrasse where the Congress was to sit. Blowitz had fixed the time, and primed her; his note awaiting me at my hotel had hinted delicately that she knew I wasn’t a puritan, exactly, and would expect to be paid in kind for my services, so I was in excellent fettle as I knocked at her door. My one doubt was that, being used to coupling for her country (or, in this case presumably, for The Times), she might be a dutiful icicle with one eye on the clock and her mind elsewhere, in which case I’d just have to jolly the sparkle into her eyes.

  I needn’t have fretted; it was there from the first in the mouth-watering vision who opened the door determined to practise her art on Flashy. Like all good actresses, she’d decided exactly how to play her part, and dressed according in a déshabillé of frothy black lace clinging to a petite hourglass shape which recalled the Maharani Jeendan of intoxicating memory. Without her turban, her hair showed light auburn, cut in a fetching schoolgirl fringe above a lovely impudent face whose smile of invitation would have melted Torquemada. For an instant it faded on “Herr … Jansen?” only to return as I made my gallant bow.

  “Oh, pardon!” she exclaimed. “I was expecting someone … much older!”

  “Mamselle,” says I, saluting her dainty fingertips, “you and I will get along famously! May I return the compliment by saying that your photograph don’t do you justice?”

  “Ah, that photograph!” She made a pretty moue and rolled her eyes. “How I blushed to see it outside the theatre … but now, it has its uses, non?” She didn’t wink, but her voice did, and her smile, as she closed the door and looked me up and down, was pure sauce. “Stefan tells me it brought you to Berlin … oui?”

  “Stefan has a reputation for accuracy, oui,” says I, and now that the courtesies had been observed, and she was French anyway, I slipped my hands under her delectable stern, hoisted her up, and kissed her soundly. She gave a muffled squeak for form’s sake before thrusting her tongue between my lips, but just as I was casting about for a convenient settee she disengaged, giggling, and said I must put her down, and we should have an aperitif, and then I must explain something to her.

  “No explanation necessary,” growls I, but she wriggled clear, rolling her rump, and checking my pursuit with a shaken finger – and if you’d seen that bouncy little bundle, pouting mischievous reproof and absolutely crying, “Non-non-la-la!” like the maid in a French farce, you’d have been torn between bulling her on the spot and brushing away a sentimental tear. I did neither; I enjoy a good performance as well as the next licentious rascal, and never mind playing wait-a-bit with a coquette who knows her business. So I sat on the couch while she filled two glasses, pledged me with a flashing smile, and then sauntered artlessly into the sunlight from the window to give me the benefit of her transparent négligée. There followed as eccentric a conversation as I can recall – and I’ve been tête-à-tête with Mangas Colorado Apache, remember, and the lunatic leader of the Taiping rebellion.

  Mamselle (solicitous): You are comfortable? Eh bien, you must rest quietly a moment, and be courtois … what you call proper, correct … until you have explained what I wish to know.

  Flashy (slavering with restraint): Good as gold. Fire away.

  M (handing him an illustrated journal): So tell me, then, what is so très amusant about that?

  F: Good God, it’s Punch! One of last month’s.

  M (ever so serious): If I am to be perfect in English, I must understand your humour, n’est-ce pas? So, instruct me, if you please.

  F: What, this cartoon here? Ah, let’s see … two English grooms in Paris, and one is saying there ain’t no letter “W” in French, and t’other says: “Then ’ow d’yer spell ‘wee’?” Just so … well, the joke is that the second chap doesn’t know how to spell “oui”, you see …

  M: And one is to laugh at that?

  F: Well, I can’t say I did myself, but –

  M: Pouf! And this other, then? (Sits by F, taps page with dainty scarlet nail, regards him wide-eyed)

  F (aware that only a wisp of gauze lies between him and the delightful meat): Eh? Oh, ah, yes! Well, here’s a stout party complaining that the fish she bought yesterday was “off”, and the fishmonger retorting that it’s her own fault for not buying it earlier in the week …

  M (bee-stung lips breathing perfume): What then?

  F: Gad, that’s sweet! … Ah, well, I guess that the joke is that he’s blaming her, don’t you know, when in fact he’s been selling the stuff after it’s started to stink.

  M (bewildered, nestling chin on F’s shoulder): So le poissonier is a thief. That amuses, does it?

  F: See here, I don’t write the damned jokes … (Attempts to fondle her starboard tit)

  M (parrying deftly): Good as gold, méchant! Now, this page here, the lady in harlequin costume … ah, très chic, her hat and veil trop fripon, and her figure exquisite, mais voluptueuse! (sits bolt upright, inspired to imitation)

  F: God love us!

  M (swaying out of reach) … but her expression is severe, and she carries a baton – to chastise? She is perhaps a flagellatrice? Formidable! But this also is humorous?

  F: Certainly not. This picture is intended to be ogled by lewd men. Speaking as one myself …

  M: No, no, be still, y
ou promised! What is ogled?

  F: What people did at your Folies photograph, as well you know! Enjoyed posing for it, didn’t you? – dammit, you’re enjoying this!

  M (wickedly): Mais certainement! (nestles again, nibbling F’s ear) Et vous aussi? No-no-no-wait! One last question … ah, but only one … these words, above this article … what do they mean?

  F (reading): “Hankey Pankey” … (as she bursts out laughing) I knew it, bigod! You understand Punch’s beastly jokes as well as I do, don’t you? Well, just for that, young woman, I shan’t tell you what Hankey-Pankey means … I’ll show you! (Demonstrates, avec élan et espièglerie and lustful roarings, to delighted squeals and sobs from Mamselle. Ecstatic collapse of both parties)6

  Afterwards, as I lay blissfully tuckered, with that splendid young body astride of me, moist and golden in the fading sunlight, her eyes closed in a satisfied smirk, I found myself wondering idly if the French secret service ran an École de Galop to train their female agents in the gentle art of houghmagandie, as Elspeth calls it – and if so, were there any vacancies for visiting professors? Anyway, Mamselle Caprice must have been the Messalina Prizewoman of her year; no demi-mondaine perhaps, according to Blowitz, but as expert an amateur as I’d ever struck, with the priceless gift of fairly revelling in her sex, and using it with joyous abandon … and considerable calculation, as I was about to learn.

  She stretched across to the nearby table for a gilt-tipped cigarette, lighting it from a tiny spirit lamp, and I couldn’t resist another clutch at those firm pointed poonts overhead. She squirmed her bottom in polite response, trickling smoke down her shapely nostrils as she studied me, head on one side; then she leaned down, murmuring in my ear.

  “If you were Count Shuvalov … would you be ready to confide in me now?” She gave a little chuckle, and nibbled.

  “I’ll be damned! Been using me for net practice, have you?” I couldn’t help laughing. “Experimenting on me, you little trollop – of all the sauce!”

  “Why not?” says the shameless baggage, sitting up again and drawing on her scented weed. “If I am to learn his secrets, it is well I should know what … beguiles men of his age. After all, you and he are no longer boys, but mature, possibly of similar tastes …”

  “A couple of ageing libertines, you mean? Well, thank’ee, my dear, I’m obliged to you – as I’m sure Count Shovel-off will be, and if you pay him the kind of loving attention you’ve just shown me, I dare say he’ll be sufficiently captivated to gas his fat head off –”

  “Oh, he is captivate’ already,” says she airily. “He has admired the notorious photograph … and we have met, and he has begged an assignation for tomorrow night.”7

  “Has he, now? That’s brisk work.” Highly professional, too … by Blowitz? … by the French secret department? Certainly by the brazen little bitch sitting cool as a trout athwart my hawse, sporting her boobies and blowing smoke-rings while she mused cheerfully on how best to squeeze the juice out of her Russian prey.

  “You see,” says she, “to captivate, to seduce, is nothing … he is only a man.” She gave the little shrug that is the Frenchwoman’s way of spitting on the pavement. “But afterwards … to make him tell what I wish to know … ah, that is another thing. Which is why I ask you, who are experienced in secret affairs, Blowitz says. You know well these Russians, you have made the intrigues, you have made love to many, many women, and I am sure they have – how do you say? – practised their nets on you.” She smiled sleepy seductive-like, and leaned down again to flicker the tip of her tongue against my lips. “So, tell me … which of them most appealed, to win your confidence? The fool? The task-mistress? The slave? L’ingénue? Or perhaps la petite farceuse who teases you with foolish jokes, and then …” She wriggled, stroking her bouncers across my chest. “To which would you tell your secrets?”

  “My, you’ve studied your subject, haven’t you?” I eased her gently upright. “Well, the answer, my artful little seductress, is … to none of ’em – unless I wanted to. But I ain’t Shovel-off, remember. From what I hear he’s the kind of vain ass who can’t resist showing off to every pretty woman he meets, so it don’t matter a rap whether you play the innocent or Delilah or Gretchen the Governess. Get him half-tipsy, pleasure him blind, and listen to him blather … but don’t try to come round him with jokes from Punch, ’cos they’d be lost on him. Tease him with a few funny bits from Tolstoy, if you like, or the latest wheezes from Ivan the Terrible’s Guffawgraph –”

  “Oh, idiot!” She slapped me smartly on the midriff, giggling. “You are not serious, you! I ask advice, and you make game of me!”

  “Advice, my eye – mocking a poor old man, more like.”

  “Old? Ha!” exclaims she, rolling her eyes – she could pay a neat compliment, the minx.

  “As if there was anything I could teach you about bewitching a man!” I can pay a compliment, too. She gave a complacent toss of the head, arms akimbo.

  “Oh, one can always learn, from a wise teacher … I think,” says she, assuming the depraved sneer she had worn in her photograph, “that since I do not like M. Shuvalov, I should prefer to be Gretchen the Governess, très implacable, sans remords!” She made growling noises, flourishing an imaginary whip. “Ah, well, we shall see! And now,” she hopped nimbly down, “I make supper!”

  Which she did, very tasty: an omelette that was like a soufflé for lightness, with toast and a cold Moselle, fruits soaked in kirsch, and coffee Arabi style – black as night, sweet as love, hot as hell. Listening to her cheery prattle and bubbling laughter across the table, I found myself warming to Mamselle Caprice, and not only ’cos she was a little stunner and rode like a starving succubus and cooked rather well. I liked her style: no humbug, just Jezebel with a sassy twinkle and a fifth-form fringe, lightly touched by the crazy gods – as many politicals are; Georgie Broadfoot was daft as a brush. In her case it might have been a mask, a brass front over inner hurt; she was in a dirty business, and no doubt her male colleagues, being proper little Christian crooks, would make it plain that they regarded her as no better than a whore – I did myself, but I wasn’t fool enough to damp her amorous ardour by showing it. But no, ’twasn’t a mask; as we talked, I recognised her as one of these fortunate critters who (like yours truly) are simply without shame, and wouldn’t know Conscience if they tripped over it in broad day. She was fairly gloating at the prospect of wringing Shuvalov dry for the sheer fun of it – and the handsome fee Blowitz had promised her.

  “A hundred golden pounds!” cries she gleefully. “You see, it is not a secret department matter, but personal to Stefan and his paper. And since he has friends in high places … behold, I am in Berlin!”

  “And that’s all that matters to me, my little Punch-fancier,” says I, nuzzling her neck as we repaired to the couch. “As an Asian princess once said to me: ‘Lick up the honey, stranger, and ask no questions’.”

  “An Asian princess!” She clapped her hands. “Ah, but I must hear of this! Was she beautiful? Did you carry her off? Were you her slave?” and so on, so I told her all about Ko Dali’s dreadful daughter, and how she’d rescued me from a Russian dungeon, and filled me with hasheesh unawares, and dam’ near had me blown to bits, and was surpassingly beautiful (at which Caprice pouted “Pouf!”) but bald as an egg (which sent her into peals of delight). Whether she believed me, God knows, but she demanded particulars of a most intimate nature, inviting comparison between the Silk One and herself, and that inevitably led to another glorious thrashing-match which restored her amour-propre and left me in what I once heard a French naval officer describe as a condition of swoon.

  Only when I was taking my leave did we return to the subject of Shuvalov. His assignation with her was for eight the following evening, after the first day of the Congress, and she expected to have him off the premises by midnight, whereafter I would roll up to see that all was well, she would write her report, and we would enjoy a late supper and whatever else came to mind before I
left with her despatch in my hat for transfer to Blowitz later in the day.

  She hadn’t counted on Shovel-off’s appetite for jollity, though. The clocks were chiming twelve when I sauntered up the Jager Strasse in the warm dark of the next night, and turned into her court only to see that her curtain was still closed – the signal we’d agreed if the Russian buffoon was still infesting her quarters. I took a turn up and down, thankful that it wasn’t winter; Berlin in June evidently went home with the milk, and there were open carriages carrying merry-makers up the Mauer Strasse to the Linden, sounds of gaiety and music came from the Prinz Carl Palace across the way, and beyond it I could see lights burning in the great ministries on the Wilhelmstrasse: understrappers of the Congress still hard at it while their betters waltzed and junketed – aye, and rogered away the diplomatic night, if Shuvalov was anything to go by. It was close on two, and I was in a fine fume, when a cloaked and tile-hatted figure emerged at last from Caprice’s court, taking the width of the pavement, damn him, and a moment later I was being admitted to her apartment by a furious hareem houri clad only in a gold turban with a slave-fetter on one ankle, fairly spitting blood while she filled an antique bath-tub with hot water; the air was thick with steam and Gallic oaths which I hadn’t heard outside a Legion barrack-room.

  Count Shuvalov, she informed me, was a sacred perverted beast, a savage and a mackerel and a swine of tastes indescribable. He professed to have been so enraptured by her photograph that he had brought the turban and shackles for her to wear, describing himself as Haroun al-Raschid and demanding from her an Arabian Nights performance which I doubt even Dick Burton had ever heard of. He had also insisted that they smear each other all over with quince jam, to which he was partial, and while much of it had been removed in the ensuing frolic, I noticed that she still had a tendency to attract fluff and other light debris as she raged to and from the kitchen with hot kettles for her bath.