He paused, and then looked straight at me. "Aye — the mine's laid in Jhansi. But precisely when an' where they'll try to fire it, an' whether it'll go off or not … this we must know — an' prevent at all costs."
The way he said it went through me like an icicle. I'd been sure all along that I wasn't being lectured for fun, but now, looking at their heavy faces, I knew that unless my poltroon instinct was sadly at fault, some truly hellish proposal was about to emerge. I waited quaking for the axe to fall, while Pam stirred his false teeth with his tongue — which was a damned unnerving sight, I may tell you — and then delivered sentence.
"Last week, the Board of Control decided to send an extraordinary agent to Jhansi. His task will be to discover what the Russians have been doing there, how serious is the unrest in the sepoy garrison, and to deal with this hostile beldam of a Rani by persuadin' her, if possible, that loyalty to the British Raj is in her best interest." He struck his finger on the table. "An' if an' when this man Ignatieff returns to Jhansi again — to deal with him, too. Not a task for an ordinary political, you'll agree."
No, but I was realising, with mounting horror, who they did think it was a task for. But I could only sit, with my spine dissolving and my face set in an expression of attentive idiocy, while he went inexorably on.
"The Board of Control chose you without hesitation, Flashman. I approved the choice myself. You don't know it, but I've been watchin' you since my time as Foreign Secretary. You've been a political — an' a deuced successful one. I dare say you think that the work you did in Middle Asia last year has gone unrecognised, but that's not so." He rumbled at me impressively, wagging his great fat head. "You've the highest name as an active officer, you've proved your resource — you know India — fluent in languages — includin' Russian, which could be of the first importance, what? You know this man Ignatieff', by sight, an' you've bested him before. You see, I know all about you, Flashman," you old fool, I wanted to shout, you don't know anything of the bloody sort; you ain't fit to be Prime Minister, if that's what you think, "and I know of no one else so fitted to this work. How old are you? Thirty-four — young enough to go a long way yet — for your country and yourself." And the old buffoon tried to look sternly inspiring, with his teeth gurgling.
It was appalling. God knows I've had my crosses to bear, but this beat all. As so often in the past, I was the victim of my own glorious and entirely unearned reputation — Flashy, the hero of Jallalabad, the last man out of the Kabul retreat and the first man into the Balaclava battery, the beau sabreur of the Light Cavalry, Queen's Medal, Thanks of Parliament, darling of the mob, with a liver as yellow as yesterday's custard, if they'd only known it. And there was nothing, with Pam's eye on me, and Ellenborough and Wood looking solemnly on, that I could do about it. Oh, if I'd followed my best instincts, I could have fled wailing from the room, or fallen blubbering at some convenient foot — but of course I didn't. With sick fear mounting in my throat, I knew that I'd have to go, and that was that — back to India, with its heat and filth and flies and dangers and poxy niggers, to undertake the damndest mission since Bismarck put me on the throne of Strackenz.
But this was infinitely worse — Bismarck's crew had been as choice a collection of villains as ever jumped bail or slit a throat, but they were civilised by comparison with Ignatieff: The thought of dealing with that devil, as Pam so nicely put it, was enough to send me into a decline. And if that wasn't enough, I was to sneak about some savage Indian kingdom (Thug country, for a bonus), spying on some withered old bitch of an Indian princess and trying to wheedle her to British interest against her will — and she probably the kind of hag whose idea of fun would be to chain malefactors to a rogue elephant's foot. (Most Indian rulers are mad, you know, and capable of anything.) But there wasn't the slightest chance to wriggle; all I could do was put on my muscular Christian expression, look Palmerston fearlessly in the eye, like Dick Champion when the headmaster gives him the job of teaching the fags not to swear, and say I'd do my best.
"Well enough," says he. "I know you will. Who knows — perhaps the signs are false, what? Tokens of mutiny, in a place where Russia's been stirrin' the pot, an' the local ruler's chafin' under our authority — it's happened before, an' it may amount to nothin' in the end. But if the signs are true, make no mistake —" and he gave me his steady stare " — it's the gravest peril our country has faced since Bonaparte. It's no light commission we're placin' in your hands, sir — but they're the safest hands in England, I believe."
So help me God, it's absolutely what he said; it makes you wonder how these fellows ever get elected. I believe I made some manly sounds, and as usual my sick terror must have been manifesting itself by making me red in the face, which in a fellow of my size is often mistaken for noble resolution. It must have satisfied Pam, anyway, for suddenly he was smiling at me, and sitting back in his chair.
"Now you know why you're sittin' here talkin' to the Prime Minister, what? Been sittin' on eggshells, haven't you? Ne'er mind — I'm glad to have had the opportunity of instructin' you myself — of course, you'll be more fully informed, before you sail, of all the intelligence you'll need — his lordship here, an' Mangles at the Board in London, will be talkin' to you. When d'you take leave of her majesty? Another week? Come, that's too long. When does the India sloop sail, Barrington? Monday — you'd best be off to Town on Friday, then. Leave pretty little Mrs Flashman to take care of royalty, what? Stunnin' gal, that — never see her from my window on Piccadilly but it sets me in humour — must make her acquaintance when you come home. Bring her along to Number 96 some evenin' — dinner, an' so forth, what?"
He sat there, beaming like Pickwick. It turned my stomach at the time, and small wonder, considering the stew he was launching me into — and yet, when I think back on Pam nowadays, that's how I see him, painted whiskers, sloppy false teeth and all, grinning like a happy urchin. You never saw such young peepers in a tired old face. I can say it now, from the safety of my declining years: in spite of the hellish pickle he landed me in, I'd swap any politician I ever met for old Pam — damn him.4
However, now that he'd put the doom on me, he couldn't get rid of me fast enough; before I'd been properly shooed out of the room he was snapping at Barrington to find some American telegraph or other, and chivvying at Wood that they must soon be off to catch their special train at Aberdeen. It must have been about three in the morning, but he was still full of bounce, and the last I saw of him he was dictating a letter even as they helped him into his coat and muffler, with people bustling around him, and he was breaking off to peer again at the chapattis on the table and ask Ellenborough did the Hindoos eat 'em with meat, or any kind of relish.
"Blasted buns," says he. "Might do with jam, d'you think, what? No … better not … crumble an' get under my confounded teeth, probably …" He glanced up and caught sight of me bowing my farewell from the doorway. "Good night to you, Flashman," he sings out, "an' good huntin'. You look out sharp for yourself, mind."
So that was how I got my marching orders — in a snap of the fingers almost. Two hours earlier I'd been rogering happily away, with not a care in the world, and now I was bound for India on the most dangerous lunatic mission I'd ever heard of — by God, I cursed the day I'd written that report to Dalhousie, glorifying myself into the soup. And fine soup it promised to be — rumours of mutiny, mad old Indian princesses, Thugs, and Ignatieff and his jackals lurking in the undergrowth.
You can imagine I didn't get much rest in what was left of the night. Elspeth was fast asleep, looking glorious with the candlelight on her blonde hair tumbled over the pillow, and her rosebud lips half open, snoring like the town band. I was too fretful to rouse her in her favourite way, so I just shook her awake, and I must say she bore the news of our impending parting with remarkable composure. At least, she wept inconsolably for five minutes at the thought of being bereft while her Hector (that's me) was Braving the Dangers of India, fondled my whiskers and said she and little
Havvy would be quite desolate, whimpered sadly while she teased me, in an absent-minded way, into mounting her, and then remembered she had left her best silk gloves behind at the evening's party and that she had a spot on her left shoulder which no amount of cream would send away. It's nice to know you're going to be missed.
I had three days still left at Balmoral, and the first of them was spent closeted with Ellenborough and a sharp little creature from the Board of Control, who lectured me in maddening detail about my mission to Jhansi, and conditions in India — I won't weary you with it here, for you'll learn about Jhansi and its attendant horrors and delights in due course. Sufficient to say it did nothing but deepen my misgivings — and then, on the Wednesday morning, something happened which drove everything else clean out of my mind. It was such a shock, such an unbelievable coincidence in view of what had gone before (or so it seemed at the time) that I can still think back to it with disbelief- aye, and start sweating at the thought.
I'd had a thoroughly drunken night at Abergeldie, to take my mind off the future, and when I woke cloth-headed and surly on the Wednesday morning, Elspeth suggested that instead of breakfast I'd be better going for a canter. I damned her advice and sent for a horse, left her weeping sulkily into her boiled egg, and ten minutes later was galloping the fumes away along the Balmoral road. I reached the castle, and trotted up as far as the carriage entrance; beyond it, on the far side of the gravel sweep, one of the big castle coaches that brought quality visitors from Aberdeen station was drawn up, and flunkies were handing down the arrivals and bowing them towards the steps leading to the side door.
Some more poor fools of consequence about to savour the royal hospitality, thinks I, and was just about to turn my horse away when I happened to glance again at the group of gentlemen in travelling capes who were mounting the steps. One of them turned to say something to the flunkies — and I nearly fell from the saddle, and only saved myself by clutching the mane with both hands. I believe I nearly fainted — for it was something infinitely worse than a ghost; it was real, even if it was utterly impossible. The man on the steps, spruce in the rig of an English country gentleman, and now turning away into the castle, was the man I'd last seen beside the line of carrion gallows at Fort Raim — the man Palmerston was sending me to India to defeat and kill: Count Nicholas Pavlevitch Ignatieff.
"You're sure?" croaked Ellenborough. "No, no, Flashman — it can't be! Count Ignatieff- whom we were discussing two nights since — here? Impossible!"
"My lord," says I, "I've good cause to know him better than most, and I tell you he's in the castle now, gotch-eye and all. Cool as damn-your-eyes, in a tweed cape and deer-stalker hat, so help me! He was there, at the door, not ten minutes ago!"
He plumped down on a chair, mopping at the shaving-soap on his cheeks — I'd practically had to manhandle his valet to be admitted, and I'd left a trail of startled minions on the back-stairs in my haste to get to his room. I was still panting from exertion, to say nothing of shock.
"I want an explanation of this, my lord," says I, "for I'll not believe it's chance."
"What d'ye mean?" says he, goggling.
"Two nights ago we talked of precious little else but this Russian monster — how he'd been spying the length and breadth of India, in the very place to which I'm being sent. And now he turns up — the very man? Is that coincidence?" I was in such a taking I didn't stand on ceremony. "How comes he in the country, even? Will you tell me Lord Palmerston didn't know?"
"My God, Flashman!" His big mottled face looked shocked. "What d'you mean by that?"
"I mean, my lord," says I, trying to hold myself in, "that there's precious little that happens anywhere, let alone in England, that Lord Palmerston doesn't know about — is it possible that he's unaware that the most dangerous agent in Russia — and one of their leading nobles, to boot — is promenading about as large as life? And never a word the other night, when —"
"Wait! Wait!" cries he, wattling. "That's a monstrous suggestion! Contain yourself, sir! Are you positive it's Ignatieff?"
I was ready to burst, but I didn't. "I'm positive."
"Stay here," says he, and bustled out, and for ten minutes I chewed my nails until he came back, shutting the door behind him carefully. He had got his normal beetroot colour back, but he looked damned rattled.
"It's true," says he. "Count Ignatieff is here with Lord Aberdeen's party — as a guest of the Queen. It seems — you know we have Granville in Petersburg just now, for the new Tsar's coronation? Well, a party. of Russian noblemen — the first since the war — have just arrived in Leith yesterday, bringing messages of good will, or God knows what, from the new monarch to the Queen. Someone had written to Aberdeen — I don't know it all yet — and he brought them with him on his way north — with this fellow among 'em. It's extraordinary! The damndest chance!"
"Chance, my lord?" says I. "I'll need some convincing of that!"
"Good God, what else? I'll allow it's long odds, but I'm certain if Lord Palmerston had had the least inkling … " He trailed off, and you could see the sudden doubt of his own precious Prime Minister written on his jowly face. "Oh, but the notion's preposterous … what purpose could it serve not to tell us? No — he would certainly have told me — and you, I'm sure."
Well, I wasn't sure — from what I'd heard of Pam's sense of humour I'd have put nothing past him. And yet it would have been folly, surely, with me on the point of setting off for India, ostensibly to undo IgnatiefFs work, to have let him come face to face with me. And then, the wildest thought — was it possible Ignatieff knew about my mission?
"Never!" trumpets Ellenborough. "No, that couldn't be! The decision to send you out was taken a bare two weeks since — it would be to credit the Russian intelligence system with super-human powers — and if he did, what could he accomplish here? — dammit, in the Queen's own home! This isn't Middle Asia — it's a civilised country —"
"My lord, that's not a civilised man," says I. "But what's to be done? I can't meet him!"
"Let me think," says he, and strode about, heaving his stomach around. Then he stopped, heavy with decision.
"I think you must," says he. "If he has seen you — or finds out that you were here and left before your time … wait, though, it might be put down to tact on your part … still, no!" He snapped his fingers at me. "No, you must stay. Better to behave as though there was nothing untoward — leave no room to excite suspicion — after all, former enemies meet in time of peace, don't they? And we'll watch him — by George, we will! Perhaps we'll learn something ourselves! Hah-ha!"
And this was the port-sodden clown who had once governed India. I'd never heard such an idiot suggestion — but could I shift him? I pleaded, in the name of common sense, that I should leave at once, but he wouldn't have it — I do believe that at the back of his mind was the suspicion that Pam had known Ignatieff was coming, and Ellenborough was scared to tinker with the Chief's machinations, whatever they were.
"You'll stay," he commanded, "and that's flat. What the devil — it's just a freak of fate — and if it's not, there's nothing this Russian rascal can do. I tell you what, though — I'm not going to miss his first sight of you, what? The man he threatened with torture and worse — disgusting brute! Aye, and the man who bested him in the end. Ha-ha!" And he clapped me on the shoulder. "Aye — hope nothing happens to embarrass the Queen, though. You'll mind out for that, Flashman, won't you — it wouldn't do — any unpleasantness, hey?"
I minded out, all right. Strangely enough, by the time I came back to the Castle with Elspeth that afternoon, my qualms about coming face to face again with that Russian wolf had somewhat subsided; I'd reminded myself that we weren't meeting on his ground any more, but on mine, and that the kind of power he'd once had over me was a thing quite past. Still, I won't pretend I was feeling at ease, and I'd drummed it into Elspeth's head that not a hint must be let slip about my ensuing departure for India, or Pam's visit. She took it in wide-eyed and assured me
she would not dream of saying a word, but I realised with exasperation that you couldn't trust any warning to take root in that beautiful empty head: as we approached the drawing-room doors she was prattling away about what wedding present she should suggest to the Queen for Mary Seymour, and I, preoccupied, said offhand, why not a lusty young coachman, and immediately regretted it — you couldn't be sure she wouldn't pass it on — and then the doors opened, we were announced, and the heads in the room were all turning towards us.
There was the Queen, in the middle of the sofa, with a lady and gentleman behind; Albert, propping up the mantelpiece, and lecturing to old Aberdeen, who appeared to be asleep on his feet, half a dozen assorted courtiers — and Ellenborough staring across the room. As we made our bows, and the Queen says: "Ah Mrs Flashman, you are come just in time to help with the service of tea," I was following Ellenborough's glance, and there was Ignatieff, with another Russian-looking grandee and a couple of our own gentry. He was staring at me, and by God, he never so much as blinked or twitched a muscle; I made my little bow towards Albert, and as I turned to face Ignatieff again I felt, God knows why, a sudden rush of to-hell-with-it take hold of me.
"My — dear — Count!" says I, astonished, and everyone stopped talking; the Queen looked pop-eyed, and even Albert left off prosing to the noble corpse beside him.
"Surely it's Count Ignatieff?" cries I, and then broke off in apology. "Your pardon, ma'am," says I to Vicky. "I was quite startled — I had no notion Count Ignatieff was here! Forgive me," but of course by this time she was all curiosity, and I had to explain that Count Ignatieff was an old comrade-in-arms, so to speak, what? And beam in his direction, while she smiled uncertainly, but not displeased, and Ellenborough played up well, and told Albert that he'd heard me speak of being Ignatieffs prisoner during the late war, but had had no idea this was the same gentleman, and Albert looked disconcerted, and said that was most remarkable.
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