I was back in the pavilion then, with my pads off, recovering from a broken arm and a battered head, to say nothing of a badly disarranged nervous system. I was exhausted in body and mind, but it’s surprising how you pick up when you realise that it’s all over, and there’s nothing to do but lie back and put on weight, and you can sleep sound at nights. In the weeks of my convalescence at Gwalior I wrote my reports for Rose and Campbell, and composed another, at great length, for Palmerston, in which I detailed all my doings at Jhansi and elsewhere so far as they concerned the mission he’d given me. I told him what had happened with the Rani (the respectable bits, you understand, no romantic nonsense) and how I had been there at the end; I also warned him that Ignatieff had not been heard of again, and might still be abroad, doing mischief, though I doubted it.
(I’ve met the gotch-eyed bastard on two occasions since, by the way, both of ’em diplomatic bunfights, I’m happy to say. We used each other with perfect civility, and I kept my back carefully to the wall and left early.)
It was autumn before I was up and about again at Gwalior, and had received word from Campbell that I was released from my duties and might go home. I was ready for it, too, but before I left I found myself riding out on the road to Kota-ki-serai, to have a look at the spot where her people had made a little shrine to Lakshmibai, near the nullah – they thought no end of her, you know, and still do.
Well, I could understand that; I hadn’t been indifferent myself, although it all seemed far past now, somehow. They had cremated her, in the Hindoo fashion, but there was this little painted model temple, which I took to be her memorial, and withered flowers and wreaths and little pots round it, and I mooched about, scuffing the dust with my boots, while a few old niggers squatted under the thorns, watching me curiously, and the bullock-carts went by. There wasn’t much sign of the skirmish where she’d died – a few trifles of broken gear, a rusty stirrup, that sort of thing. I wondered why she’d done it all, and in spite of what she said to me at the last, I believe I did understand. As I’d said in my report to Pam, she didn’t give up her Jhansi. That was what had mattered to her, more than life. As to what she may have thought or felt about me, truly – and for that matter, what I’d really felt about her – I couldn’t make up my mind.49 It didn’t matter now, anyway, but I could always make the best of it, and remember those eyes above the veil, and the soft lips brushing my cheek. Aye, well. Damned good-looking girl.
I went up the Agra trunk on my way home, and down to Cawnpore, where there were letters waiting for me, including one from Billy Russell, congratulating me on my escape and recovery, which he said had been the talk of Simla, where he had been taking things easy with a game leg. He was down at Allahabad now, following the seat of government on its peregrinations, as he put it, and I must stop off and celebrate with him. I didn’t mind that a bit; I was ready to start enjoying life again, after all the nonsense I’d been through, and to put me in the best fettle there were several letters from Elspeth, in her usual rattle-pated style; full of loving slush about her dear, darling champion whom she was yearning to clasp again to her Loving Bosom (hear! hear! thinks I) when he returned with his Laurels fresh upon his Brow. She absolutely did write like this; came from reading novels, I suspect:
… the Town is full of talk of you and your Gallant Comrades, especially Sir Hugh Rose and dear Sir Colin – or Lord Clyde as we must now call him – I own I felt a Flush of Pride when I thought that my Distinguished Countryman had chosen for his title the name of the Beauteous Stream beside which I – humble little Me – was born, and where I spent such Blissful Hours with my Own True Love – yourself, dear, dear, Harry!! Do you remember?
I did – and the thought of that first splendid gallop we’d had together in the bushes brought sentimental tears to my eyes and set me bursting to be at her again, back in green England, away from this bloody beastly country and its stench of death and war and dust. Elspeth, with her golden hair and blue eyes and adoring idiot smile and resplendent – oh, that was certainty, and happiness and jollity and be-damned!
… and even Lord Cardigan is civil – altho’ he thinks Sir Colin was tardy, and can have made but poor use of his Light Cavalry, I think it was, in punishing the Rascally Sepoys – and Lord Cardigan was very full in his attentions to me when we met in the Row, but I gave him the Right About, for I was certain you would wish it, and he went off not too pleased, I thought, but perhaps he is disposed to Toady, for he sent me a new book as a gift for you, saying he was sure it must interest you most particularly, but I have glanced at it and don’t care for it much, since it seems to be about rustics, and quite without that Tender Passion which I admire in writing, and which Fills my Thoughts whenever they turn to my Dearest of Husbands and Lovers, as they do every minute, and my legs go quite weak. Still, I send it to you, with his Lordship’s compliments. Now then, there is the finest scandal about Daisy Marchmont’s footman …
I didn’t care to hear about Cardigan – the mention of the name was enough to set my jealous bile working, for it reminded me that my darling Elspeth wasn’t always the dutiful and loving wife she pretended to be, and heaven knew how many randified admirers had been beating our door-knocker in my absence. She’d have no time or opportunity for dalliance when Flashy roared back into residence, though … I chuckled at the thought, threw Cardigan’s present into my valise without looking at it, and caught the train to Allahabad, where Billy Russell was at the station with a ghari to meet me.
He was all beams and whiskers as usual, full of fun, and demanding my news of the Jhansi and Gwalior affairs – which he knew already, of course, in their essentials, “but it’s the spice and colour I’m after, old fellow, and devil a bit of those d’ye get in despatches. This business of your stealing into the Jezebel of Jhansi’s fortress in disguise, now, and being carried away prisoner in the night, eh …?”
I parried his questions, grinning, as we bowled away towards the Fort, and then he says:
“I’ve got your winnings from Lucknow safe, by the by, and your prize-money. It’s about all you’ve had out o’ this campaign, ain’t it – bar a few wounds an’ grey hairs?”
I knew what he meant, blast him. While orders and ribbons and medals and titles had been flying about like hail among the Indian heroes, devil a nod had come my way – nor would it. You see, the irony was that while I’d seen more than my share of hell and horror in the Mutiny, I knew that in official eyes, my service must have been a pretty fair frost. I’d failed entirely in the original mission Pam had given me, and Rose had been damned stuffy that the plan to save Lakshmibai had come adrift; Lord Canning, he’d said, would be profoundly disappointed – as though it was my fault, the ungrateful bastard. But these are the things that matter, when they come to passing out the spoils, and I knew that while the likes of Rose and Campbell were having honours showered on them, and the prowess of Outram and Sam Browne and the snirp Roberts were being trumpeted round the world, poor old Flash would be lucky to get an address of welcome and a knife-and-fork supper at Ashby Town Hall.
“There’s others have been well rewarded,” says Billy. “Slow-coach is a lord – but ye know that. There must be about fifty Crosses flying about, and God knows how many titles … they might ha’ done something for you. I wonder,” says he, as we got out at the Fort and went along the verandah, “if a leaderette in the old Thunderer might stir ’em up, what? We can’t have Horse Guards neglectin’ our best men.”
I liked the sound of that, rather, but as he conducted me across the hall, where Sikh sentries stood and the punkahsa hissed, I thought it best to say I didn’t mind, really – and then I found he was grinning all over his whiskers as he ushered me through a doorway, and I stopped dead in amazement.
It was a big, airy room, half office and half drawing-room, with a score of people standing at the far end, beyond the fine Afghan carpet, all looking in my direction, and it was sight of them that had checked me – for there was Campbell, with his grizzled head
and wrinkled Scotch face, and Mansfield smiling, very erect, toying with his dark whiskers, and Macdonald grinning openly, and Hope Grant, stern and straight. In the middle was a slim, elegant civilian in a white morning coat with a handsome woman smiling beside him; it took me a moment to realise that they were Lord and Lady Canning.
Then Russell was pushing me forward, and Canning was smiling and shaking hands, and I was bowing to Lady Canning, wondering what the devil this was all about, and then there was silence, and Canning was clearing his throat and addressing me. I wish I could remember all of it, but I was quite taken aback to find myself thrust into this company, so unexpected … what was this? – “distinguished conduct on many numerous occasions, familiar to all … Afghanistan, Crimea, Balaclava, Central Asia … lately, and most exemplary, service in the insurrection of the Bengal Army … most gallant conduct in the defence and evacuation of Cawnpore … and most signally, at the direction of Sir Hugh Rose, in undertaking service of the most dangerous and difficult nature in the Gwalior campaign … warmest approval of Her Majesty and of her Ministers and principal advisers … recognition of conduct far beyond the call of duty …”
I listened to all this in a daze, and then Canning was passing something to Campbell, and he was coming up to me, glowering under his brows, and harrumphing.
“It is at my perr-sonal request,” growls he, “that I have been purr-meeted tae bestow a disteenction that should rightly have come from Her Majesty’s ain – own – gracious hands.”
He reached up, and I felt a sudden keen pain in my left tit as he stuck a pin in it – I gasped and looked down, and there it was, on its ribbon, the shabby-looking little bronze cross against my jacket; at first I didn’t even recognise it, and then Lady Canning was leading the clapping, and Campbell was pumping my right hand and staring at me with his brows down.
“The Order o’ the Victoria Cross,” says he, and then he added, “Flashman …”, but there he stopped and shook his head. “Aye,” says he, and grinned at me – and God knows he didn’t often grin, that one, and went on shaking his head and my hand, and the clapping and laughter rang in my ears.
I couldn’t speak; I was red in the face, I knew, and almost in tears, as they clustered round me, Mansfield and Macdonald and the rest of them, and Billy slapping me on the back (and then scribbling quickly in his book and sticking it in his pocket) and I was trembling and wanted ever so much to sit down – but what I was thinking was, by God, you don’t deserve it, you know, you shifty old bastard of a Flashy – not if it’s courage they’re after … but if they hand out medals for luck, and survival through sheer funk, and suffering ignobly borne … well, grab ’em with both hands, my boy – and then, in the august presence of the Governor-General and the Commander-in-Chief, someone started to sing, “For he’s a jolly good fellow”, and there were happy faces all round me, singing, until Canning led me out on to the verandah, and in the garden there seemed to be crowds of soldiers, and civilians – bearded Sikhs and ugly little Goorkhas, Devil’s Own and Highlanders, artillerymen and sappers, chaps in white coats and sun-helmets, ladies in garden-party dresses, and as Canning waved to them someone shouted “Hip-hip-hip!” and the crashing “Hurrah!” sounded three times and a tiger – and I looked out at them through a mist of tears, and beyond them to the Gwalior guns and the Cawnpore barricade and the burning lines of Meerut and the battery reek of Balaclava and the bloody snow of Gandamack, and I thought, by God, how little you know, or you wouldn’t be cheering me. You’d be howling for my blood, you honest, sturdy asses – and then again, maybe you wouldn’t, for if you knew the truth about me, you wouldn’t believe it.
“What a gratifying experience to relate to your children, colonel,” says Canning, and on the other side Lady Canning smiled at me and says: “And to Lady Flashman.”
I mumbled yes, indeed, so it would be; then I noticed that she was looking at me a trifle arch, and cudgelled my wits to think why – she couldn’t be wanting to get off with me, not with Canning there – and then her last words sank in, my legs went weak, and I believe I absolutely said, “Hey?”
They both laughed politely at my bewilderment, Canning looking fond reproval at her. “That must be under the rose, my dear, you know”, says he. “But of course we should have informed you, colonel, privately.” He beamed at me. “In addition to the highest decoration for valour, which has been justly bestowed on many gallant officers in the late campaigns, Her Majesty wished to distinguish your service by some additional mark of favour. She has therefore been graciously pleased to create you a Knight of the Bath.”
I suppose I was already numb with shock, for I didn’t faint, or cry “Whoops!” or even stand gaping at the man in disbelief. In fact, I blew my nose, and what I was thinking as I mopped away my emotion was: by God, she’s got no taste, that woman. I mean, who but little Vicky would have thought to pile a knighthood on top of the V.C., all at one go? It didn’t seem scarcely decent – but, by God, wasn’t it bloody famous! For over everything the words were revolving in my mind in a golden haze – “Sir Harry Flashman, V.C.” It wasn’t believable … Sir Harry … Sir Harry and Lady Flashman … Flashman, V.C. … my stars, it had come to this, and when least expected – oh, that astonishing little woman … I remembered how she’d blushed and looked bashful when she’d hung the Queen’s Medal on me years before, and I’d thought, aye, cavalry whiskers catch ’em every time … and still did, apparently. Who’d have thought it?
“Well … God save the Queen,” says I, reverently.
There was no taking it in properly at the time, of course, or indeed in the hours that followed; they remain just a walking dream, with “Sir Harry Flashman, V.C.” blazing in front of my eyes, through all the grinning faces and back-slapping and cheering and adulation – all for the V.C, of course, for t’other thing was to remain a secret, Canning said, until I got home. There was a great dinner that evening, at the Fort, with booze galore and speeches and cheering, and chaps rolling under the table, and they poured me on to the Calcutta train that night in a shocking condition. I didn’t wake up till noon the following day, with a fearful head; it took me another night to get right again, but on the next morning I had recovered, and ate a hearty breakfast, and felt in capital shape. Sir Harry Flashman, V.C. – I could still hardly credit it. They’d be all over me at home, and Elspeth would go into the wildest ecstasies at being “My lady”, and be insufferable to her friends and tradesmen, and adoringly grateful to me – she might even stay faithful permanently, you never knew … I fairly basked in my thoughts, grinning happily out at the disgusting Indian countryside in the sunrise, reflecting that with luck I’d never see or hear or smell it again, after this, and then to beguile the time I fished in my valise for something to read, and came on the book Cardigan had sent to Elspeth – what could have possessed Jim the Bear, who detested me, to send me a present?
I opened it at random, idly turning the pages … and then my eye lit on a paragraph, and it was as though a bucket of icy water had been dashed over me as I read the words:
“But that blackguard Flashman, who never speaks to one without a kick or an oath –” “The cowardly brute,” broke in East, “how I hate him! And he knows it, too; he knows that you and I think him a coward.”
I stared at the page dumbfounded. Flashman? East? What the blind blue blazes was this? I turned the book over to look at the title: “Tom Brown’s School Days”, it said, “by an Old Boy”. Who the hell was Tom Brown? I whipped quickly through the pages – rubbish about some yokels at a village fair, as Elspeth had said … Farmer Ives, Benjy … what the deuce? Tom trying his skill at drop-kicks … “Rugby and Football” … hollo, here we were again, though, and the hairs rose on my neck as I read:
“Gone to ground, eh?” roared Flashman. “Push them out then, boys; look under the beds … Who-o-o-p!” he roared, pulling away at the leg of a small boy … “Young howling brute. Hold your tongue, sir, or I’ll kill you!”
By God, it was me! I
mean, it wasn’t only my style, to a “t”, I even remembered doing it – years ago, at Rugby, when we flushed the fags out and tossed them in blankets for a lark … Yes, here it was – “Once, twice, thrice, and away” … “What a cursed bully you are, Flashy!” I sped through the passage, in which the horrible ogre Flashman, swearing foully, suggested they be tossed two at a time, so that they’d struggle and fall out and get hurt – it’s true enough, that’s the way to get the mealy little bastards pitched out on to the floor.
But who on earth could have written this? Who had dared – I tore the pages over, scanning each one for the dread name, and by God wasn’t it there, though, in plenty? My eyes goggled as I read:
“Flashman, with an oath and a kick, released his prey …” “… the tyranny of Flashman …” “… Flashman was on the look-out, and sent an empty pickle-jar whizzing after them, which narrowly missed Tom’s head. ‘He wouldn’t mind killing one, if he wasn’t caught,’ said East …” “… ‘Was Flashman here then?’ – ‘Yes, and a dirty little snivelling sneaking fellow he was, too … used to toady the bullies by offering to fag for them, and peaching against the rest of us …’”
I was red and roaring with rage by this time, barely able to see the pages. By God, here was infamy! Page after foul page, traducing me in the most odious terms – for there wasn’t a doubt I was the villain referred to; the whole thing stank of Rugby in my time, and there was the Doctor, and East, and Brooke, and Crab Jones – and me, absolutely by name, for all the world to read about and detest! There was even a description of me as big and strong for my age – and I “played well at all games where pluck wasn’t much wanted” if you please, and had “a bluff, offhand manner, which passed for heartiness, and considerable powers of being pleasant”. Well, that settled it – and my reputation, too, for not a page went by but I was twisting arms, or thrashing weaklings, or swearing, or funking, or getting pissy drunk, or roasting small boys over fires – oh, aye, that brought back Master Brown to memory sharp enough. He was the mealy, freckled little villain who tried to steal my sweepstake ticket, damn him – a pious, crawling little toad-eater who prayed like clockwork and was forever sucking up to Arnold and Brooke – “yes, sir, please, sir, I’m a bloody Christian, sir,” along with his pal East … and now East was dead, in the boat by Cawnpore.
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