The Flashman Papers: The Complete 12-Book Collection

by George MacDonald Fraser

  * * *

  a See Flashman and the Redskins

  b See Flashman at the Charge

  c See Royal Flash

  d See Flash for Freedom!

  e See Flashman and the Mountain of Light

  Chapter 2

  The trouble with a reputation like mine is that you’re bound to live up to it. It’s damnably unfair. Take General Binks or Colonel Snooks, true-blue military muttonheads, brave as bedamned, athirst for glory, doing their dutiful asinine bit in half a dozen campaigns, but never truly catching the public eye, and at last selling out and retiring from obscurity to Cheltenham with a couple of wounds and barely enough to pay the club subscription, foot the memsahib’s whist bill, send Adolphus to a crammer ’cos the Wellington fees are beyond them, and afford a drunken loafer to neglect the garden of Ramilles or Quatre Bras or whatever they choose to call their infernal villas. That’s Snooks and Binks; profitable labour to the grave, and no one notices.

  And then take Flashy, born poltroon and wastrel, pitchforked against his will into the self-same expeditions and battles, scared out of his wits but surviving by shirking, turning tail, pretence, betrayal, and hiding behind better men – and emerging at the end o’ the day, by blind luck and astonishing footwork, with a V.C., knighthood, a string of foreign decorations as long as Riley’s crime sheet, a bloody fortune in the bank, and a name and fame for derring-do that’s the talk of the Empire. Well now, Flash old son, says you, that’s compensation surely, for all the horrors unmanfully endured – and don’t forget that along the road you’ve had enough assorted trollop to fill Chelsea Barracks, with an annexe at Aldershot. And Elspeth, the most undeserved benefit of all.

  Furthermore, you’ve walked with the great ones of the earth, enjoy the admiring acquaintance of your gracious Queen and half a dozen other royalties and presidents, to say nothing of ministers and other prominent rabble, and are blessed (this is the best of it) with grandlings and great-grandlings too numerous to count … so what the devil have you to complain of? Heavens, man, Binks and Snooks would give their right arms (supposing they haven’t already left ’em in the Punjab or Zululand or China, from which you escaped with a pretty whole skin) for one-fiftieth of your glory and loot. And you’ve never been found out … a few leery looks here and there, but no lasting blemishes, much. So chubbarao,a Flashy, and count yourself lucky.

  Well, I do; damned lucky. But there’s been a price to pay, and I don’t mean in terror and agony and suffering. Not at all. My cavil is that having bought it cruel hard, I wasn’t left to enjoy it in peace, like Binks and Snooks. They could run up to Town to get their hair cut and drop in at the club at a moment of national crisis, and no one paid them any heed, much less expected ’em to race round to Horse Guards applying to be let loose against the Ashantis or the Dervishes or whatever other blood-drinking heathen were cayoodling round the imperial outposts. Retired, gone to grass, out of reckoning absolutely, that was Colonel Snooks and General Binks.

  Ah, but Flashy was a different bag of biltong altogether. Let some daft fakir start a rising in a godforsaken corner you never heard of, or the British lion’s tail be tweaked anywhere between Shanghai and Sudan, and some journalistic busybody would be sure to recall that ’twas in that very neck of the woods that the gallant Flashy, Hector of Afghanistan, defender of Piper’s Fort, leader of the Light Brigade, won his spurs or saved the day or committed some equally spectacular folly (with his guts dissolving and praying for the chance to flee or surrender, if only they knew it). “The hour demands the man, and who better to uphold Britannia’s honour in her present need than the valiant veteran of Lucknow and Balaclava …” and so forth. They were never rash enough to suggest I should have command, but seemed to have in mind some auxiliary post of Slaughterer-General, as befitting my desperate reputation.

  Not that the ha’penny press matters – but the United Service and Pall Mall do, with their raised eyebrows and faintly critical astonishment. “Ah, Flashman, lamentable business in Egypt, what? Goin’ with Wolseley, I dare say … No? You surprise me.” Dash it, you can see them thinking, man of his reputation, prime of life, don’t he know his duty, good God? If I’d had the belly of Binks or Snooks’s gout (both of ’em younger than I) I’d not be thought of, but when you’ve a lancer figure and barely a touch of grey in your whiskers and the renown of Bayard, you’re expected to be clamouring for service. And when your sovereign lady regards you pop-eyed over the tea-cups with a bland “I expect, dear Sir Harry, that you will be accompanying Sir Garnet to Egypt,” you can hardly remind her that you’re past sixty and disinclined, especially when the idiot you married in an evil hour is assuring Her Majesty that you’re champing at the bit. (Wanted me away, I suspect, so that she could cuckold me in comfort.) All round it’s a case of “No show without Flashy”, and before you can say God-help-us you’re in the desert listening to “Cock o’ the North” and trying to look as though you’re itching to come to grips with twice your weight in angry niggers.

  It is, I repeat, damnably unfair, and by the autumn of ’83 I’d had enough of it. In the five years since Otto’s Congress I’d been well in the public eye, chiefly because of my supposed heroics in South Africa in ’79 – a place I’d have shunned like the plague but for Elspeth’s insatiable fondness for money, as if old Morrison’s million wasn’t enough without bothering her empty head over her cousin’s supposed mine (but I’ll record that disgusting episode another day). Then in ’82 there had been the Egyptian garboil I mentioned a moment ago; Joe Wolseley had asked for me point-blank, and with the press applauding and the Queen approving and Elspeth bursting into tears as I rogered her farewell, what the blazes could I do but fall in?

  In the event it wasn’t the worst campaign I’ve seen, not by a mile; at least it was short. We only went in with great reluctance (when did Gladstone ever show anything else?) to help the Khedive quell his rebellious army, who were slaughtering Christians and vowing to drive all foreigners from the country – bad news for our Suez Canal investors (44 per cent, what?) and our lifeline to India. Joe brought ’em to heel smartly enough at Tel-el-Kebir, where the kilties massacred everything in sight, and my only bad scare was when I found myself perforce charging with the Tin Bellies at Kassassin, but by gallantly turning aside to help Baker Russell when his horse was shot, and so arriving when the golliwog infantry were already taking to their heels, I missed the worst of it, cursing my bad luck and Baker for holding me up. A good glare and loud roar, sabre in hand, work wonders; Joe said I’d been an inspiration to the Household riders, and wanted me to stay on at Cairo, but I muttered that he didn’t need me now that peace was breaking out, and his staff wallopers grinned at each other and said wasn’t that old Flashy, just?9

  I was mighty glad to be home by Christmas of ’82, I can tell you, for while Egypt was quiet enough by then, I could guess it was liable to be hot enough presently, and not just with the sun. After we’d brought the Khedive’s troops back to their allegiance, the idea was that we’d withdraw, but that was all my eye (we’re there yet, have you noticed?), for down south, in the Sudan, the war drums were already beating, with the maniac Mahdi stirring up the Fuzzy-Wuzzies in a great jihad to conquer the world, with Egypt first on the list. Hell of a place the Sudan, all rock and sand and thorn and the most monstrous savages in creation; Charley Gordon, my China acquaintance, had governed it in the 70s, and spent most of his time poring over the Scriptures and chasing slavers before retiring to Palestine to watch rocks and contemplate the Infinite. Mad as a cut snake, he was, but the Sudan had gone to pot entirely after he left, and was now going to need attention – from guess who? From the Khedive’s army, led by soldiers of the Queen, that was who, whether Gladstone liked it or not, and I was shot if I was going to be one of ’em.

  So I came home, along of Joe and Bimbashi Stewart and others, having served my turn – but would you believe it, in ’83 when that immortal ass Hicks was given command of the Khedive’s army, half of whom had been our enemi
es a few months earlier, and told to deal with the Sudan, there were those at Horse Guards with the brazen cheek to suggest that I should go out again, to serve on his staff? Since he was my junior, I was able to scotch that flat, but when word came in September that he’d gone off Mahdi-hunting at last, blowed if one of the gutter rags didn’t come out with a leaderette regretting “that the task has fallen to an officer of comparative inexperience, while such distinguished soldiers as Lord Wolseley, Major-General Gordon, and Sir Harry Flashman, men thoroughly familiar with the country and the enemy, remain at home or unemployed.”

  It was the mention of Gordon’s name, more than my own, that brought the sweat out on my brow, for while no one in his senses would suggest that I should replace Hicks, there was a strong shave in the clubs that Cracked Charley would be recalled and given the job, and I knew that if he was, Flashy would be the first he’d want to enlist.10 China had given him the misguided notion that I was the devil’s own fire-eater, and just the chap to have on hand when Fuzzy charged the square. Well, soldiering under Joe Wolseley had been bad enough, but at least he was sane. Gordon? I’d as soon go to war with the town drunk. The man wasn’t safe – sticking forks in people and scattering tracts from railway carriages and accosting perfect strangers to see if they’d met Jesus lately, I ask you! No, a holiday abroad was indicated, before the Mad Sapper came recruiting.

  And I’d just reached that conclusion when Blowitz’s letter, bearing that fateful second photograph, landed on the breakfast table. It couldn’t have come more pat. This is what he wrote, with more underlinings and points of admiration than Elspeth at her worst – not Times style at all:

  Dearest Friend!

  I write to you by Royal Command – what do you think of that!! It is true – a PRINCESS, no less! And such a Princess, plus belle et elegant, whose most Ardent Desire is to meet the gallant and renowned Sir H.F. – for reasons which I shall explain when we meet.

  Come to Paris no later than October the fourth, my dear Harry. I promise you will be enchanted and oblige your best of friends and loyal comrade in destiny

  Stefan O-B.

  P.S. Recalling your interest in photography! I enclose a portrait of Her Royal Highness. A bientôt!

  Well, wasn’t this the ticket? Elspeth was in Scotland enduring her sisters, and here was the ideal billet where I could lurk incog. while Gordon beat the bushes – and enjoy some good carnal amusement, to judge from the photograph. Not that Her Highness was an outstanding beauty, but her picture grew on me as I studied it. It showed a tall, imposing female standing proud in a splendid gown of state, a coronet on her piled blonde hair, one gloved hand resting on the arm of a throne, the other holding a plumed fan, the sash of a jewelled order over her bare shoulders, and enough bijouterie disposed about her stately person to start a bazaar. She was in profile, surveying the distance with a chilling contempt which sat perfectly on a rather horsy face with a curved high-bridged nose. Minor Mittel European royalty to the life, with the same stench-in-the-nostrils look as my darling little Irma of Strackenz, but nowhere near as pretty. Striking, though, and there were promising signs: she’d be about forty and properly saddle-broken, with the full mouth and drooping lower lip which betoken a hearty appetite, and a remarkable wasp waist between a fine full rump and upper works which would have made Miss Marie Lloyd look positively elfin. I could imagine stripping her down and watching her arrogance diminish with each departing garment. And she had an Ardent Desire to meet the gallant Sir H.F. I reached for Bradshaw.

  Reading the letter again later, it struck me that there was something familiar about it; an echo of the past which I couldn’t place – until a couple of days later, the afternoon of October the third to be precise, when I was ensconced in my smoker on the Continental Mail Express, and suddenly I knew what I’d been reminded of: that doom-laden summons that had taken me to Lola Montez in Munich, oh, so long ago. There was the same slightly eccentric wording (though Blowitz’s English was a cut above that of Lola’s Chancellor – what had his name been? Aye, Lauengram) and the purport was uncannily similar: an invitation from an exotic titled woman of mystery, for reasons unstated, with a strong hint of fleshly pleasures in prospect … and what besides? In Lola’s case there had been a nightmare of terror, intrigue, imposture, and deadly danger from which I’d barely escaped with my life – oh, but that had been a Bismarck plot in the bad old days; this was jolly little Blowitz, and a doubtless spoiled and jaded piece of aristocracy in search of novelty and excitement … but how had she heard of me (Blowitz cracking me up, to be sure) and why was I worth fetching across the Channel? Odd, that – and for no reason I remembered Rudi Starnberg’s voice across the years: “She brought me all the way from Hungary”, and found myself shivering. And why no later than October the fourth?

  Aye, odd … but not fishy, surely? It’s the curse of a white liver that it has you starting at shadows, imagining perils where none exist. On t’other hand, it’s been a useful storm signal over the years, and it was still at work ever so little when we pulled into the Gare du Nord.

  At the sight of Blowitz on the platform, my cares dissolved. He was a trifle plumper in the cheek, a shade greyer in the whisker, but still the same joyful little bonhomme, rolling forward waving his cane with glad cries, fairly leaping up to embrace me and dam’ near butting me under the chin, chattering nineteen to the dozen as he led me out to a fiacre, and not letting me get a word in until we were seated at the self-same table in Voisin’s, when he had to leave off to attend to the maître. I couldn’t help grinning at him across the table, he looked so confounded cheery.

  “Well, it’s famous to see you again, old Blow,” says I, when he’d ordered and filled our glasses. “Here’s to you, and to this mysterious lady. Now – who is she … and what does she want?”

  He drank and wiped his whiskers, business-like. “The Princess Kralta. But of blood the most ancient in Europe, descended from Stefan Bathory, Arnulf of Carinthia, Barbarossa … name whom you will, she is de la royauté la plus royale – and landless, as the best monarchs are. But rich, to judge from the state she keeps – oh, and received everywhere, on terms with the highest. She is befriended of the German Emperor, for example, and –” he shot me a quizzy look “– of our old acquaintance Prince Bismarck. No-no-no,” he added hastily, “her intimacy with him is of a … how shall I say? … of an unconventional kind.”

  “I’ve met some of his unconventional intimates, and I didn’t take to ’em a bit. If she’s one of his –”

  “She is not one of anyone’s! I mention Bismarck only because when I first met the Princess she brought me a friendly message from him. C’est vrai, absolument! Can you guess what it was? That he bears me no ill will for my activities at the Congress of Berlin!” He shook his head, chuckling. “Can you believe it, eh?”

  “No – and neither will you if you’ve any sense. That bastard never forgave or forgot in his life. Very well, ne’er mind him – what more about this Princess? Is she married?” It’s always best to know beforehand.

  “There is a husband.” He shrugged. “But he does not figure.”

  “Uh-huh … so, what does she want with me?”

  He gave a little snort of laughter. “What do women ever want with you? Ah, but there is something else also.” He leaned forward to whisper, looking droll. “She wishes to know a secret … a secret that she believes only you can tell her.”

  He sat back as the food arrived, with a cautioning gesture in case I made some indiscreet outcry, I suppose. Since I knew the little blighter’s delight in mysterious hints I just waded into the grub.

  “You do not ask what it is?” he grumbled. “Ah, but of course – le flegme Britannique! Never mind, you will raise a brow when you hear, I promise!”

  And I did, for I never heard an unlikelier tale in my life – all of it true, for I saw it confirmed in the little blighter’s memoirs a few years ago, and why should he lie to posterity? But even at the time I believed it because, being a
crook myself, I can spot a straight tongue, and Blowitz had one.

  He’d met the Princess Kralta at a diplomatic dinner, and plainly fallen head over heels – as he often did, in his harmless romantic way – and she had equally plainly given him every encouragement. “You have seen her likeness, but believe me, it tells you nothing! How to describe her … her magnétisme, the light of charm in those great blue eyes, the little toss of her silky blonde hair as she smiles, revealing the brilliancy of her small teeth – you found her portrait forbidding, non? My friend, when you see those queenly features melt into the tenderest of expressions, the animation of her darting glances, the melodious quality of her voice … ah, mais ravissante –”

  “Whoa, steady lad, mind the cutlery. Liked her, did you?”

  “My friend, I was enchanted!” He sighed like a ruptured poodle. “I confess it, I who have encountered the charms of the loveliest women in Europe, that the Princess Kralta wove a spell about me. And it is not only her person that allures, her exquisite elegance, her divinity of shape and movement –”

  “Aye, she’s well titted out, I noticed.”

  “– but the beauty of her nature, her frank friendliness and ease of deportment, the candour of her confidences …”

  He babbled through the next two courses, but don’t suppose that I despised his raptures – there are women like that, and as often as not they’re not the ones of perfect feature. Angie Burdett-Coutts was no radiant looker, but she’d have caused a riot in the College of Cardinals simply by walking by, whereas the Empress of Austria, of whom more presently, was perfection of face and figure and quite as exciting as a plate of mashed turnip. I’d seen enough of la Kralta in her picture to believe that she might well have the magic, February face or no.

  She’d gone out of her way to captivate Blowitz over a period of months, doing him little kindnesses, making friends with his wife, and trusting him with her most intimate confidences – which is the surest way a woman has of getting a man under her dainty thumb. Once or twice she spoke of the Berlin Congress, and Bismarck’s curiosity as to how Blowitz had got his “scoop” – it had irritated Otto that he couldn’t fathom that, and he’d told her he was determined to find out some day.