The Flashman Papers: The Complete 12-Book Collection

by George MacDonald Fraser

  Speaking of imperial, I had a taste of that when she took me, with the Prince and his hareem in tow, to a gala ball at Schonbrunn, where the Emperor and Empress condescended to mingle with Vienna’s finest. That was a damned odd turn, eerie almost, for a moment came when, with Kralta standing by like a magnificent ring-mistress, I found myself face to face with Franz-Josef and the superb Sissi. He drew himself up to his imposing height, whiskers at the high port, and stared me straight in the eye for a long moment; he said not a word, but held out his hand, and ’twasn’t the usual touch-and-away of royalty, but a good strong clasp followed by a hearty shake before he passed on, Sissi following with a smiling turn of her lovely head. That’s his vote of thanks for services rendered, thinks I, and the most he can do or I can expect – but I was wrong. There was something more, though whether ’twas his idea or Sissi’s I can’t say. When the dancing began, and I was restoring myself with a glass of Tokay after whirling Kralta’s substantial poundage round the floor, a lordly swell with a ribboned order presented himself and informed me that Her Imperial Majesty would be graciously pleased to accept if I were to beg the honour of leading her out for the next dance.

  It was unprecedented, I’m told, to a foreign stranger, and a commoner at that. You may be sure I complied, with a beating heart, I confess. And so I waltzed beneath the chandeliers of Old Vienna, under the eyes of the highest and noblest of the Austrian Empire, with Strauss himself flogging the orchestra, and my partner was that magical raven-haired beauty who had all Europe at her feet, and I didn’t tread on ’em once. Afterwards I led her back to Franz-Josef, and received his courteous nod and her brilliant smile.

  Well, I’ve rattled the Empress of China and Her Majesty of Madagascar, to say nothing of an Apache Princess and (to the best of my belief) an Indian Rani, and that’s my business, to be written about but not spoken of. But I can tell my great-grandchildren face to face that I’ve danced with the Queen of Hearts. And she, of course, has danced with me.

  We spent Christmas at a castle of Kralta’s – or her husband’s, I never found out which – high in the snowy Tyrolean mountains, and toasted in the New Year in a luxurious hunting lodge in a little valley whose inhabitants spoke a strange sort of German laced with Scotch expressions – the legacy, I’m told, of medieval mercenaries who never went home, doubtless for fear of arrest. Both places were full of titled guests invited (or commanded, rather) by Kralta, and we drove in sleighs and skated and tobogganed and revelled by evening and pleasured by night, and it was Vienna in the Arctic, with the Prince always on hand, bland and affable as ever with his popsies around him (one of ’em a new bird, an Italian, who’d replaced the garrulous blonde, no doubt on Kralta’s orders) and it was all such enormous fun that I was heartily sick of it.

  Don’t misunderstand me – it wasn’t a surfeit of debauchery and the high life, although there does come a time when you find yourself longing for a pint and a pie and a decent night’s sleep. And it was only partly that I was beginning to miss English voices and English rain and all those things that make the old country so different, thank God, from the Continent. No, I was beginning to realise what had irked me from the first – being just another player in their game, having it taken for granted that I’d be a compliant member of Kralta’s curious ménage, as though I were the latest recruit, if you know what I mean. I’ve always been a free lance, so to speak, going my own way on my own terms, and the notion that Viennese society was raising its weary eyebrows and saying: “Ah, yes, this Englishman is new to her entourage; how long will he last, one wonders?”, and that Kralta probably thought of me as her husband did of his trollops … no, it didn’t suit.

  The final straw came on a night in the hunting lodge when I’d become so infernally bored that I’d gone to the village for a prose with the peasants at the tavern, and came home in the small hours. Some of the guests were still about in the principal rooms, drinking and flirting and casting (I thought) odd looks in my direction. I went up, and was making for the chamber I shared with Kralta when a soft voice called and I turned to see the Prince’s maîtresse-en-titre, she of the heroic bosom, standing in an open doorway in a silk night-rail that was never designed for sleeping.

  “The Prince is with her highness tonight,” says she, with an arch look. Is he, by God! thinks I, and for a moment was seized with an impulse to stride in and drag him off her by the nape of his cuckolded neck – or her off him, more like, the arrogant bitch. Countess Grosbrusts was watching to see what I made of it, so I looked her over thoughtful-like, and she smiled, and I grinned at her, and she shrugged, and I laughed, and she laughed in turn which set ’em shaking, and as she turned into her room, casting a backward glance, I sauntered after, thinking what a capital change for my last night in Austria.

  It was the custom at the lodge for the whole troop to gather for a late breakfast in the main salon, so I waited until all had assembled, despatched a lackey to Kralta’s quarters with orders to pack my traps and send ’em to the station, strolled down with Lady Bountiful on my arm, and announced to the company that I was desolated to have to leave them that day, as urgent affairs in London demanded my attention (which was prophetic, if you like).

  Kralta, seated in state by the fire with her toads clustered round stirring her chocolate for her, went pale; she was looking deuced fetching, I have to say, in a white fur robe which prompted happy memories of the Orient Express. I made my apologies, and her eyes were diamond-hard as she glanced from me to my buxom companion and then to the Prince (who was looking a shade worn, I thought), but she would not have been Kralta if she hadn’t responded with icy composure, regretting my departure without expression on that proud horse face. I kissed her hand, made my bow to the Prince, advised him to stick at it, saluted the company, and departed, with a last smile at the splendid white figure seated in state, her golden hair spilling over her shoulders, inclining her head with the regal condescension she’d used at our first meeting. By and large I like to leave ’em happy, but I doubt if she was.

  Three days later I was at Charing Cross Station on one of those damp, dismal evenings when the fog rolls inside the buildings and the heart of the returning traveller is gladdened by the sight and smell of it all, London with its grime and bustle and raucous inhabitants, and there ain’t a “Ja, mein Herr,” to be heard, or a sullen Frog face, and not a plate of sauerkraut in sight. I could even listen with fair good humour to the harassed excuses of the Cockney porter carrying my valise as he protested that he didn’t knaow nuffink abaht the trunk, guv’, ’cos ’Erbert ’ad gorn ter the guard’s van for it, and where the ’ell ’e’d got ter, Gawd ownly knew. Sid and Fred were appealed to, search parties were despatched, and ’Erbert was discovered in the left-luggage office, reclining on a lower shelf in a state of merry inebriation. My porter gave tongue blasphemously.

  “I knoo the barstid was ’arf-seas over when ’e come on! Din’ I say? Din’ I? Well, ’e can pick up ’is money if the super sees ’im, an’ chance it! Serve the bleeder right, an’ all! I’m sorry, guv’! Look, I’ll whistle a cab for yer, and Sid an’ Fred’ll ’ave yer trunk run dahn in no toime!”

  It was music to my ears, and I dawdled patiently, drinking in the sights and sounds of home, and even chuckling at the sight of the semi-comatose ’Erbert leaving off his rendition of “Fifteen men onna dead man’s chest, yow-ow-ow an’ a bottlarum” to assure my porter, whose name was Ginger, that ’e was a blurry good mate an’ a jolly ole pal, before subsiding among the piled baggage.

  “Stoopid sod!” cried Ginger. “Gawd knaows w’ere ’e’s put it! Doan’t worry, guv’, we’ll foind it! ’Ere, Sid, wot trains is goin’ aht jus’ naow? Can’t ’ave the gen’man’s trunk bein’ sent orf by mistake, can we?”

  “Eight o’clock’s leavin’ shortly f’m Platform Free!” said Sid.

  “Jeesus wept, that’s the bleedin’ boat train! Naow, ’e wouldn’t, would ’e? ’Ere, Fred, be a toff an’ nip dahn to Free, jus’ ter mike shore, an’ we
’ll ferret abaht rahnd the cab-stands an’ that – jus’ you wait, guv’! We’ll ’ave it in arf a tick!”

  I continued to loiter as Fred set off for Platform Three, and just then a neat little bottom tripped past, making for the tea-room, and I sauntered idly after it, curious to see if the front view lived up to the trim ankles and waist. No more than that, but it changed my life, for as I strolled along my eye caught sight of “3” above a ticket gate, and I changed course to see how Fred was doing in his quest for my trunk. The train was within a few minutes of leaving, heavy bags were going into the guard’s van, and Fred was emerging, shaking his head – and at that moment I caught sight of a familiar face down the platform, and strolled along to make sure. He was carrying a bag, and making for a group of fellows standing by a carriage door. I hove up by him, grinning.

  “Hollo, Joe!” says I. “Taken up portering, have you?”

  He wheeled round, and absolutely almost dropped the bag in astonishment. “Good God – Flashman!” cries he. “Why – they’ve found you, then!”

  “Found me! They can’t even find my blasted trunk! Here, what’s the matter? I ain’t a ghost, you know!”

  For he was staring at me as though he couldn’t believe his eyes – or eye, rather, for he’d only one ogle, and it was wide in astonishment, which you didn’t often see in the imperturbable Garnet Wolseley.

  “Stewart! He’s here!” cries he, to the men by the carriage, and as they turned to look my heart gave a lurch, and my stick fell clattering to the platform. The man addressed, tall, dark, and grinning all over his face, was striding forward to grip my hand – young Johnny Stewart, a Cherrypicker long after my time, but an old comrade from Egypt.

  “Wherever did you spring from?” cries he. “Heavens, I’ve been turning the town upside down for you – at your clubs, your house, everywhere …”

  But I wasn’t listening. I’d recognised the others at once – Cambridge, commander-in-chief of the Army, with his grey moustache and high balding head; Granville, the Foreign Secretary; and jumping down from the carriage and hastening towards me with his quick, neat step, hand outstretched and eyes bright with joy, the last man on earth I wanted to see, the man I’d left England to avoid at all costs: Chinese Charley Gordon.

  “Flashman, old friend!” He was pumping my fin like a man possessed. “At the eleventh hour! Did you know – oh, but you must have, surely? Where have you been? Stewart and I had given up all hope!”

  Somehow I found my voice. “I’ve been abroad. In Austria.”

  “Austria?” laughs he. “That ain’t abroad! I’ll tell you where’s abroad – Africa! That’s abroad!” He was grinning in disbelief. “You mean you didn’t know I was going back to Sudan?”

  I shook my head, my innards like lead. “I’m this minute off the train from Calais –”

  “The very place we’re bound for! Stewart and I are off to Suakim this very night! He’s my chief o’ staff … and just guess –” he poked me in the chest “– who I’ve been moving heaven and earth to have as my intelligence bimbashi! Isn’t that so, Garnet? But you were nowhere to be found – and now you drop from the skies! … and you never even knew I was going out!”

  “’Twasn’t confirmed until today, after all,” says Joe.

  “If Flashman had been in Town, he’d ha’ caught the scent a week ago!” cries Gordon. “Eyes and ears like a dervish scout, he has! How d’ye think he’s here? He knew by instinct the game was afoot, didn’t you, old fellow? My word, and I thought only we Hielandmen had the second sight!” He stepped closer, and his eyes held that barmy mystic glitter that told me God was going to be hauled into the conversation. “Providence guided you … aye, guided you to this very platform! Don’t let anyone try to tell me there’s nothing in the power of prayer!”

  If there had been I’d have been back in Austria that minute, or in Wales or Paisley even – anywhere away from this dangerous maniac gripping my sleeve and not letting me get a word in edgewise. I shot a wild glance at the others: Cambridge pop-eyed, Granville smiling but puzzled, Stewart alert and wondering, and only Joe having the grace to frown and chew his lip. I was speechless at the effrontery of the thing, but Gordon, of course, couldn’t see an inch beyond what he thought was a priceless stroke of luck, the selfish hound. It was famous, the happiest of omens … and at last I found my tongue.

  “But I’ve just arrived – I’m going home!” I protested, and any normal man would have been checked for a moment at least, but not Gordon, drunk with enthusiasm.

  “You were – and you shall, one o’ these days! But you don’t think I’m letting you slip now? Not when Fate has delivered you into my hands?” He was all jocularity – and earnest an instant later, gripping my coat. “Flashman, this is big, believe me. Bigger than China, even – perhaps bigger than anything since the Mutiny. I don’t know yet – but I do know it calls for the best we’ve got. It’s going to be the hardest thing I’ve ever tackled … and I need you, old comrade.” He was a head shorter than I, and having to stare up at me with those pale hypnotic eyes that made you feel like a rabbit before a snake. “See here, I know it’s sudden, and here I am springing it on you like a jack-in-the-box – but the Mahdi’s sudden too, and Osman Digna, and every minute counts! Let me tell you on the train – too much to explain now – and I don’t even know how I’ll set about it, only that we’ve got to set the Sudan to rights before that madman destroys it. It may mean a fight, it may mean a rearguard action, can’t tell yet – and neither can they.” He jerked his head at the others. “But they’re putting the power in my hands, Flashman, and I can choose whoever I wish.”

  He stepped back, and he was grinning again. “And I have no hesitation in asking leave of His Grace the Commander-in-Chief –” a duck of the head towards Cambridge “– and the Cabinet –” a nod to Granville “– and our chief man-at-arms –” a flourish at Joe, who was trying to interrupt “– to enlist Sir Harry Flashman, and to the dickens with regulations and usual channels! Well, Harry, what d’ye say?”

  Before I could speak, Joe got his word in. “Short notice –” he was beginning, and got no further.

  “When did he ever need notice? Some notice he had at Pekin, didn’t he? Remember, Garnet? Or at Balaclava, or Cawnpore, or Kabul!” He wasn’t soft-spoken at the best of times, and in his excitement he was almost shouting, and passengers were turning to stare at us. “He don’t need more than a word and a clear road! Do you?”

  This was desperate, but the suddenness of it all still had me at a loss for words – that was the effect that Gordon had, you know, when he was in full cry. He was all over you, beating you down by his vanity-fed fervour, blind to everything but his own point of view. Five minutes ago I’d been carelessly eyeing a jaunty backside while Fred or Ginger looked for my luggage – and now I was being dragooned into God knew what horror by this arrogant zealot – and they called the Mahdi a fanatic!

  “Hold on, Charley!” I blurted out. “I … I’m looking for my traps, dammit! And … and I haven’t seen my wife yet, or … or –”

  “Your traps can be sent on!” cries he. “Why, you’re all packed! And Wolseley’ll make your excuses at home, won’t you, Garnet? We shan’t be away forever, you know. Besides,” cries he merrily, “if I know bonny Elspeth she’ll never let you hear the last of it if you don’t fall in now! Why, if she were here she’d be bustling you aboard!”

  That was the God’s truth, by the way. Duty was Elspeth’s watchword, especially when it was my duty – hadn’t she shot me off to India more than once, weeping, I grant you (though what she’d been up to with those grinning Frogs after Madagascar, once I’d been despatched to the cannon’s mouth, I didn’t care to imagine). But just the thought of her now, not a couple of miles away, and the radiant smile and glad cry with which she’d run to me, lovelier by far than those stale loves I’d been wasting my time on for weeks past, and her adoring blue eyes … no, the hell with Gordon, the selfish lunatic, having the impudence to buttonhol
e me in this outrageous fashion! And I was bracing myself to put my foot down when Cambridge spoke.

  “Irregular, I suppose,” says he, shaking his fat head – but not in denial. “But, even so … well, nothing to hinder … if you’re sure, Gordon?”

  “Of course I’m sure!” He always was, and not about to have his judgment questioned by a mere grandson of George the Third. He was absolutely frowning at them – the Army commander, the Foreign Secretary, and the greatest soldier of the age (who was carrying his bag for him, God love me!)24 And they were helpless, glancing resignedly at each other and apologetically at me – because he was Gordon, you see. What he was doing wouldn’t have washed with them for a moment, if he had been any other man. But then, no other man would have done it.

  Granville was raising his fine brows in a why-not fashion. “It rests with Colonel Flashman, of course.” There was a silence, and then Joe Wolseley gave me a shrug and a nod. “I’d be only too glad … to explain to Lady Flashman, if you …” He left it there.

  They were all looking at me … and I knew it was all up. It was appalling, and beyond belief, and no fate was too dreadful for Gordon, damn his arrogant confidence as he stood there smiling triumphantly … but I knew, as I’d known so often, what the answer must be. The Great Christian Hero had tapped my shoulder – and I’d never live it down if I refused. I could have wept at the cruelty of the malign fate that had guided me to Platform Three at that hour – ten minutes later, and the blasted train would have been away, carrying Gordon to Hell or Honolulu for all I cared.