Flashmans' Lady
( Flashman Papers - 6 )
George Macdonald Fraser
Flashy, that lustful libertine, takes a round-the-world adventure that would shock Don Juan and make swingers of today green with envy. In an English mansion, he's not just doodling in the drawing room with a blue blood's red-hot-blooded mistress; in Africa, he's forced to serve a sultry queen who kills low-endurance lovers.
The irresistable antihero heads to China, where he gets between a pair of Chinese beauties who'll do anything to improve East-West relations; en route, he takes cover on warship under fire with an explosive Malay maiden.
"A romp that will have lucky readers chortling with delight." (Publishers Weekly)
FLASHMANS' LADY
by George MacDonald Fraser
Explanatory Note
Since the memoirs of Flashman, the notorious Rugby School bully and Victorian military hero, first came to light ten years ago, and have been laid before the public as each successive packet of manuscript was opened and edited, a question has arisen which many readers have found intriguing. The five volumes published so far have been in chronological order, spanning the period from 1839, when Flashman was expelled and entered the Army, to 1858, when he emerged from the Indian Mutiny. But not all the intervening years have been covered in the five volumes; one gap occurs between his first meeting with Bismarck and Lola Montez in 1842-3, and his involvement in the Schleswig-Holstein Question in 1848: yet another between 1849, when he was last seen on the New Orleans waterfront in the company of the well-known Oxford don and slave-trader, Captain Spring, MA, and 1854, when duty called him to the Crimea. It has been asked, what of the "missing years"?
The sixth packet of the Flashman Papers supplies a partial answer, since it deals with its author's remarkable adventures from 1842 to 1845. It is clear from his manuscript that a chance paragraph in the sporting columns of a newspaper caused him to interrupt his normal chronological habit, to fill in this hiatus in his earlier years, and from the bulk of unopened manuscript remaining it appears that his memoirs of the Taiping Rebellion, the US Civil War, and the Sioux and Zulu uprisings are still to come. (Indeed, since a serving officer of the United States Marines has informed me that his Corps' records contain positive pictorial evidence of Flashman's participation in the Boxer Rebellion of 1900, there is no saying where it may end.)
The historical significance of the present instalment may be thought to be threefold. As a first-hand account of the early Victorian sporting scene (on which Flashman now emerges as a distinguished if deplorable actor) it is certainly unique; on a different plane it provides an eye-witness description of that incredible, forgotten private war in which a handful of gentlemen-adventurers pushed the British imperial frontier eastwards in the 1840s. Lastly, it sheds fresh light on the characters of two great figures of the time - one a legendary Empire-builder, the other an African queen who has been unfavourably compared to Caligula and Nero.
A small point which may be of interest to students of Flashman's earlier memoirs is that the present manuscript shows signs of having been lightly edited - as was one previous volume - by his sister-in-law, Grizel de Rothschild, probably soon after his death in 1915. She has modified his blasphemies, but has not otherwise tampered with the old soldier's narrative; indeed, she has embellished it here and there with extracts from the private diary of her sister Elspeth, Flashman's wife, and with her own pungent marginal comments. In the presence of such distinguished editing, I have confined myself to supplying foot-notes and appendices, and satisfying myself of the accuracy of Flash-man's account of historical events so far as these can be checked.
G.M.F.
FLASHMANS' LADY
So they're talking about amending the leg-before-wicket rule again. I don't know why they bother, for they'll never get it right until they go back to the old law which said that if you put your leg in front of the ball a-purpose to stop it hitting the stumps, you were out, and damned good riddance to you. That was plain enough, you'd have thought, but no; those mutton-brains in the Marylebone club have to scratch their heads over it every few years, and gas for days on end about the line of delivery and the point of pitch, and the Lord knows what other rubbish, and in the end they cross out a word and add another, and the whole thing's as incomprehensible as it was before. Set of doddering old women.
It all comes of these pads that batters wear nowadays. When I was playing cricket we had nothing to guard our precious shins except our trousers, and if you were fool enough to get your ankle in the way of one of Alfie Mynn's shooters, why, it didn't matter whether you were in front of the wicket or sitting on the pavilion privy - you were off to get your leg in plaster, no error. But now they shuffle about the crease like yokels in gaiters, and that great muffin Grace bleats like a ruptured choirboy if a fast ball comes near him. Wouldn't I just have liked to get him on the old Lord's wicket after a dry summer, with the pitch rock-hard, Mynn sending down his trimmers from one end and myself going all-out at t'other - they wouldn't have been calling him the "Champion" then, I may tell you; the old bastard's beard would have been snow-white after two overs. And the same goes for that fat black nawab and the pup Fry, too.
From this you may gather that I was a bowler myself, not a batter, and if I say I was a damned good one, well, the old scores are there to back me up. Seven for 32 against the Gentlemen of Kent, five for 12 against the England XI, and a fair number of runs as a tail-end slogger to boot. Not that I prided myself on my batting; as I've said, it could be a risky business against fast men in the old days, when wickets were rough, and I may tell you privately that I took care never to face up to a really scorching bowler without woollen scarves wrapped round my legs (under my flannels) and an old tin soup-bowl over my essentials; sport's all very well, but you mustn't let it incapacitate you for the manliest game of all. No, just let me go in about number eight or nine, when the slow lobbers and twisters were practising their wiles, and I could slash away in safety, and then, when t'other side had their innings - give me that ball and a thirty-pace run-up and just watch me make 'em dance.
It may strike you that old Flashy's approach to our great summer game wasn't quite that of your school-storybook hero, apple-cheeked and manly, playing up unselfishly for the honour of the side and love of his gallant captain, revelling in the jolly rivalry of bat and ball while his carefree laughter rings across the green sward. No, not exactly; personal glory and cheap wickets however you could get 'em, and damnn the honour of the side, that was my style, with a few quid picked up in side-bets, and plenty of skirt-chasing afterwards among the sporting ladies who used to ogle us big hairy fielders over their parasols at Canterbury Week. That's the spirit that wins matches, and you may take my word for it, and ponder our recent disastrous showing against the Australians while you're about it.'
Of course, I speak as one who learned his cricket in the golden age, when I was a miserable fag at Rugby, toadying my way up the school and trying to keep a whole skin in that infernal jungle - you took your choice of emerging a physical wreck or a moral one, and I'm glad to say I never hesitated, which is why I'm the man I am today, what's left of me. I snivelled and bought my way to safety when I was a small boy, and bullied and tyrannized when I was a big one; how the devil I'm not in the House of Lords by now, I can't think. That's by the way; the point is that Rugby taught me only two things really well, survival and cricket, for I saw even at the tender age of eleven that while bribery, fawning, and deceit might ensure the former, they weren't enough to earn a popular reputation, which is a very necessary thing. For that, you had to shine at games, and cricket was the only one for me.
Not that I cared for it above half, at first, but th
e other great sport was football, and that was downright dangerous; I rubbed along at it only by limping up late to the scrimmages yelping: "Play up, you fellows, do! Oh, confound this game leg of mine!" and by developing a knack of missing my charges against bigger men by a fraction of an inch, plunging on the turf just too late with heroic gasps and roarings.2 Cricket was peace and tranquillity by comparison, without any danger of being hacked in the members - and I turned out to be uncommon good at it.
I say this in all modesty; as you may know, I have three other prime talents, for horses, languages, and fornication, but they're all God-given, and no credit that I can claim. But I worked to make myself a cricketer, damned hard I worked, which is probably why, when I look back nowadays on the rewards and trophies of an eventful life - the medals, the knighthood, the accumulated cash, the military glory, the drowsy, satisfied women - all in all, there's not much I'm prouder of than those five wickets for 12 runs against the flower of England's batters, or that one glorious over at Lord's in '42 when - but I'll come to that in a moment, for it's where my present story really begins.
I suppose, if Fuller Pilch had got his bat down just a split second sooner, it would all have turned out different. The Skrang pirates wouldn't have been burned out of their hellish nest, the black queen of Madagascar would have had one lover fewer (not that she'd have missed a mere one, I dare say, the insatiable great bitch), the French and British wouldn't have bombarded Tamitave, and I'd have been spared kidnapping, slavery, blowpipes, and the risk of death and torture in unimaginable places - aye, old Fuller's got a lot to answer for, God rest him. However, that's anticipating - I was telling you how I became a fast bowler at Rugby, which is a necessary preliminary.
It was in the 'thirties, you see, that round-arm bowling came into its own, and fellows like Mynn got their hands up shoulder-high. It changed the game like nothing since, for we saw what fast bowling could be - and it was fast - you talk about Spofforth and Brown, but none of them kicked up the dust like those early trimmers. Why, I've seen Mynn bowl to five slips and three long-stops, and his deliveries going over 'em all, first bounce right down to Lord's gate. That's my ticket, thinks I, and I took up the new slinging style, at first because it was capital fun to buzz the ball round the ears of rabbits and funks who couldn't hit back, but I soon found this didn't answer against serious batters, who pulled and drove me all over the place. So I mended my ways until I could whip my fastest ball onto a crown piece, four times out of five, and as I grew tall I became faster still, and was in a fair way to being Cock of Big Side - until that memorable afternoon when the puritan prig Arnold took exception to my being carried home sodden drunk, and turfed me out of the school. Two weeks before the Marylebone match, if you please - well, they lost it without me, which shows that while piety and sobriety may ensure you eternal life, they ain't enough to beat the MCC.
However, that was an end to my cricket for a few summers, for I was packed off to the Army and Afghanis-tan, where I shuddered my way through the Kabul retreat, winning undeserved but undying fame in the siege of Jallalabad. All of which I've related elsewhere;*(* See Flashman.) sufficient to say that I bilked, funked, ran for dear life and screamed for mercy as occasion demanded, all through that ghastly campaign, and came out with four medals, the thanks of parliament, an audience of our Queen, and a handshake from the Duke of Wellington. It's astonishing what you can make out of a bad business if you play your hand right and look noble at the proper time.
Anyway, I came home a popular hero in the late summer of '42, to a rapturous reception from the public and my beautiful idiot wife Elspeth. Being lionized and feted, and making up for lost time by whoring and carousing to excess, I didn't have much time in the first few months for lighter diversions, but it chanced that I was promenading down Regent Street one afternoon, twirling my cane with my hat on three hairs and seeking what I might devour, when I found myself outside "The Green Man". I paused, idly - and that moment's hesitation launched me on what was perhaps the strangest adventure of my life.
It's long gone now, but in those days "The Green Man" was a famous haunt of cricketers, and it was the sight of bats and stumps and other paraphernalia of the game in the window that suddenly brought back memories, and awoke a strange hunger - not to play, you understand, but just to smell the atmosphere again, and hear the talk of batters and bowlers, and the jargon and gossip. So I turned in, ordered a plate of tripe and a quart of home-brewed, exchanged a word or two with the jolly pipe-smokers in the tap, and was soon so carried away by the homely fare, the cheery talk and laughter, and the clean hearty air of the place, that I found myself wishing I'd gone on to the Haymarket and got myself a dish of hot spiced trollop instead. Still, there was time before supper, and I was just calling the waiter to settle up when I noticed a fellow staring at me across the room. He met my eye, shoved his chair back, and came over.
"I say," says he, "aren't you Flashman?" He said it almost warily, as though he didn't wish quite to believe it. I was used to this sort of thing by now, and having fellows fawn and admire the hero of Jallalabad, but this chap didn't look like a toad-eater. He was as tall as I was, brown-faced and square-chinned, with a keen look about him, as though he couldn't wait to have a cold tub and a ten-mile walk. A Christian, I shouldn't wonder, and no smoking the day before a match.
So I said, fairly cool, that I was Flashman, and what was it to him.
"You haven't changed," says he, grinning. "You won't remember me, though, do you?"
"Any good reason why I should try?" says I. "Here, waiter!"
"No, thank'ee," says this fellow. "I've had my pint for the day. Never take more during the season." And he sat himself down, cool as be-damned, at my table.
"Well, I'm relieved to hear it," says I, rising. "You'll forgive me, but—"
"Hold on," says he, laughing. "I'm Brown. Tom Brown - of Rugby. Don't say you've forgotten!"
Well, in fact, I had. Nowadays his name is emblazoned on my memory, and has been ever since Hughes published his infernal book in the 'fifties, but that was still in the future, and for the life of me I couldn't place him. Didn't want to, either; he had that manly, open-air reek about him that I can't stomach, what with his tweed jacket (I'll bet he'd rubbed down his horse with it) and sporting cap; not my style at all.
"You roasted me over the common-room fire once," says he, amiably, and then I knew him fast enough, and measured the distance to the door. That's the trouble with these snivelling little sneaks one knocks about at school; they grow up into hulking louts who box, and are always in prime trim. Fortunately this one appeared to be Christian as well as muscular, having swallowed Arnold's lunatic doctrine of love-thine-enemy, for as I hastily muttered that I hoped it hadn't done him any lasting injury, he laughed heartily and clapped me on the shoulder.
"Why, that's ancient history," cries he. "Boys will be boys, what? Besides, d'ye know - I feel almost that I owe you an apology. Yes," and he scratched his head and looked sheepish. "Tell the truth," went on this amazing oaf, "when we were youngsters I didn't care for you above half, Flashman. Well, you treated us fags pretty raw, you know-of course, I guess it was just thoughtlessness, but, well, we thought you no end of a cad, and - and … a coward, too." He stirred uncomfortably, and I wondered was he going to fart. "Well, you caught us out there, didn't you?" says he, meeting my eye again. "I mean, all this business in Afghanistan … the way you defended the old flag … that sort of thing. By George," and he absolutely had tears in his eyes, "it was the most splendid thing … and to think that you … well, I never heard of anything so heroic in my life, and I just wanted to apologize, old fellow, for thinking ill of you - 'cos I'll own that I did, once - and ask to shake your hand, if you'll let me."
He sat there, with his great paw stuck out, looking misty and noble, virtue just oozing out of him, while I marvelled. The strange thing is, his precious pal Scud East, whom I'd hammered just as generously at school, said almost the same thing to me years later, when we met
as prisoners in Russia - confessed how he'd loathed me, but how my heroic conduct had wiped away all old scores, and so forth. I wonder still if they believed that it did, or if they were being hypocrites for form's sake, or if they truly felt guilty for once having harboured evil thoughts of me? Damned if I know; the Victorian conscience is beyond me, thank God. I know that if anyone who'd done me a bad turn later turned out to be the Archangel Gabriel, I'd still hate the bastard; but then, I'm a scoundrel, you see, with no proper feelings. However, I was so relieved to find that this stalwart lout was prepared to let bygones be bygones that I turned on all my Flashy charms, pumped his fin heartily, and insisted that he break his rule for once, and have a glass with me.
"Well, I will, thank'ee," says he, and when the beer had come and we'd drunk to dear old Rugby (sincerely, no doubt, on his part) he puts down his mug and says:
"There's another thing - matter of fact it was the first thought that popped into my head when I saw you just now - I don't know how you'd feel about it, though - I mean, perhaps your wounds ain't better yet?"
He hesitated. "Fire away," says I, thinking perhaps he wanted to introduce me to his sister.
"Well, you won't have heard, but my last half at school, when I was captain, we had no end of a match against the Marylebone men - lost on first innings, but only nine runs in it, and we'd have beat 'em, given one more over. Anyway, old Aislabie - you remember him? - was so taken with our play that he has asked me if I'd like to get up a side, Rugby past and present, for a match against Kent. Well, I've got some useful hands - you know young Brooke, and Raggles - and I remembered you were a famous bowler, so … What d'ye say to turning out for us - if you're fit, of course?"
It took me clean aback, and my tongue being what it is, I found myself saying: "Why, d'you think you'll draw a bigger gate with the hero of Afghanistan playing?"
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