Flashman's Escape

by Robert Brightwell

“All right,” she agreed, shrugging her nightgown off over her head and then lying down spread-eagled on the bed. My God, I thought, this is going to be a lot easier than I anticipated. I brought out the cloth blindfold and cords that I had ready and in a minute I had her all tied up.

  “Now I need to gag you as the pleasure this technique brings might be too much to stop you crying out.”

  “Quickly then,” whispered the little nymph, even opening her mouth for me to place a small ball of cloth inside to muffle sound. I secured it with another strip of linen around her head.

  “Listen carefully now,” I murmured in her ear. “The pleasure is increased by waiting. Sometimes the sultan makes the harem lady wait an hour while he watches her body, smells her and breathes on her. You must be patient, my lovely.” As I was saying this I was starting to pull on my clothes. I reckoned this could give me at least an hour to get away before any alarm was raised. Perhaps she would not be discovered until dawn. I made a loop in the rope hanging from the ceiling to help pull myself up and was just about to climb up into the roof space, when I looked down on her. That nubile young girl, all willing and expectant… by God it would be a crime to leave now.

  Even if I say so myself, I played that body like a concert pianist plays his instrument. I already knew all of her favourite places to be touched and I soon had her arching her back with desire and begging for me through the gag. By then I was in quite a lather myself and set to with the enthusiasm of the desperate and the damned. We had just reached the crescendo of the piece when there was an urgent knocking on the door.

  “Señor Flashman?” It was the deep voice of the smith and it sounded so close, just the other side of wood plank. “Are you all right? My wife says you have been thrashing about and whimpering in there. Shall I come in?”

  “No!” I almost shouted the word as the man’s daughter wriggled sensuously underneath me. “Please don’t come in. I have had a nightmare, dreaming about the battle. It keeps happening; please ignore me if you hear any more noise.”

  “If you are sure,” he replied and I heard him mutter “War is a terrible thing” to his wife as he stomped back to his bed.

  That was one scare too many for me; it was definitely time to go. I whispered to Maria to keep still and I would start with her again in a while and she nodded eagerly. I waited a couple of minutes for the snoring to resume and then swung myself up into the roof. Using Maria’s candle, I carefully crossed the ceiling, stepping on the beams, until I dropped though the hole in the storeroom that she used as a bedroom. Moving into the kitchen, I grabbed a leather satchel and stuffed it with some bread, a spare shirt the smith had hanging to dry and the bottle of muscle liniment. Then I silently let myself out of the back door. The house was quiet and I imagined Maria still lying on my bed and waiting for my next touch.

  I made my way to the main street that ran through the village and there I had a decision to make. As it turned out, my life depended on it. In a few hours the girl would be discovered and then all hell would break loose. The old smith and whatever friends he could find would be in a fever to track me down and exact their revenge. They would expect me to go towards Lisbon, which had been the direction the convoy had been heading when I had left it. But that road stretched up into the hills and there seemed little cover. I wanted to get to Lisbon, but I wanted to protect my manhood from that hammer much more. So I turned east, away from Lisbon, and started a steady jog as fast as my injured leg would go, down the hill to the edge of a scrub of trees that would hide me. Just ten minutes later I knew I had made the right decision.

  Instead of hours I had only minutes to make my getaway. I imagine that Maria must have started thrashing about, either because she guessed I had gone or to encourage me to start again. In any event her father must have decided to investigate after all, only to find his naked and blindfolded daughter spread-eagled on the bed. The first I knew of this was a woman’s scream, swiftly followed by a roar of rage from the old man. I had nearly reached the trees when I heard him bellow into the night from the village behind me, “Englishman, I am going to find you and kill you for this!”

  Well, that was just the motivation I needed to keep moving. It was too dark for the smith to see me from the village and I was soon in the trees. I walked for most of the night, anxious to put as much distance between me and any search party as possible. By dawn I stopped to rest by a river and imagined the smith and his friends riding full tilt to find me down the Lisbon road.

  Any sense of complacency evaporated a short while later when I heard the sound of dogs barking. It did not take long for me to realise that they were getting closer and that the bastards were using hounds to track my trail. I was in the river in a moment. It was only waist deep but the current was strong. The water, I knew, would hide my scent but it was impossible to move quickly upstream and away from my pursuers. A few minutes later and I was desperate, realising that I had made a terrible mistake. I had only gone a few hundred yards and I was exhausted. My injured leg was throbbing from the exertion. I could hear men shouting now, encouraging the dogs as they barked and howled while they chased me to ground. At any moment they would burst through the trees and see Flashy standing wet and crippled in the middle of the stream, as exposed as a boil on a tart’s backside.

  There was a bend in the river and I forced myself round it. As I did so I heard splashing in the distance; they must have reached the spot where I had entered the water. I crossed to the far bank to see if there was a place I could hide there but a flash of movement showed that they now had men and dogs on both sides of the river. They were taking no chances and would pick up my scent again as soon as I stepped onto land. Oh God.

  For a moment I was frozen in panic. I had thought I was being so clever, but now it looked like Maria’s enraged father would get my cock on his block after all. My mind was filled with a sudden image of that glowing bolt and the sparks as the hammer pounded down to flatten it. I only had seconds left before I was discovered. I would be spotted in the river and I would be tracked down if I left it; what was I to do?

  I glanced desperately about me. The bend in the river had undercut some of the bank, causing a tree to come down, which lay partially submerged in the river. I threw myself among the branches, cutting my hands and knees as I scrambled over the wet, slimy wood searching for a place to hide. There was a fork where a bow left the trunk and I dropped into the gap, with a tangle of old branches and twigs half covering me. The water was less than waist deep this near the bank; surely they would see me? I crouched down and scooped up handfuls of the foul-smelling river mud and plastered it over my hair and face and down my front to hide the white shirt. My old army coat had faded to an orangey brown from three summers under the Spanish sun and would not stand out against the river bed. I did not have time to do more before I saw the first dog. It was a youngster, splashing in and out of the stream and playing, while the rest of the pack followed the scent.

  I lowered myself into the water and straightened out so that just my eyes, mouth and nose were above the surface. I had to push my arm hard into the mud under the trunk to get a purchase and hold myself steady. As I did so, I felt something slimy wiggle away from my fingers. The dog’s barking sounded more distant with my ears under the water and then I could hear men’s voices and knew that they must be close.

  I only glimpsed the men on the far bank through the branches. There were three of them, all armed with muskets, and I did not know any of them. I thought the young pup had spotted me for a moment as he splashed through the water, heading straight for the fallen tree. But then he picked up a floating stick and turned to carry his prize back to the bank. As I breathed a sigh of relief I saw a wizened old hound sniffing around the exposed roots of the fallen tree I was hiding in. With an easy grace he hopped up onto the trunk and started to walk down it towards me. I realised that my scent must be on some of the branches as I had scrambled over them. The dog stopped and sniffed the air; if he signalled he had the
scent, I was done for.

  I quietly took in a deep breath and, holding tight to the trunk, I slowly slipped my face underwater without making a splash so that I was completely submerged. I could not see the dog now but I could see its shadow as it walked further along the trunk. It stopped directly above me and I imagined it standing there, smelling the branches and deciding if its prey was near. I lay frozen with fear beneath it. I could hear men’s voices on the near bank now, but the gurgling water made it impossible to make out the words. Finally, with infinite slowness, the shadow began to move back up the trunk and out of sight. I made myself count slowly to ten before I brought my face quietly out of the water and opened my mouth wide to take in big, silent gulps of air. Then I twisted my head slightly to bring one ear out of the river so that I could hear the men walking nearby.

  “How much further do you think he could get?” asked a man; I was pretty sure it was tavern keeper.

  “I’ll follow that bastard to the gates of hell itself to get my hands on him,” growled the smith.

  “But he told me he had a wounded leg; he can’t have got that much further.”

  “He told me a lot of things too,” snarled the smith. “And right now I don’t believe any of them.”

  “He could have doubled back towards the village when he reached the river, I suppose,” mused the innkeeper. “Possibly walking up one of the side streams into the hills.”

  I could not hear the smith’s response as the men continued out of earshot. After all was quiet I slowly sat up in the water and looked about. In the distance I could see the groups of men walking on both banks, all armed and with the dogs bounding in front of them.

  I sat on that log in the damn river for the rest of the morning and most of the afternoon. I knew that sooner or later they would come back and I did not want to get out on the bank and leave the dogs with a new trail to follow. Eventually I heard them returning and slipped quietly back into the water. This time they were all on the far bank and seemed to be too busy arguing about how I had given them the slip to take much notice of the ground that they had already covered. Once they were well past I hauled myself up onto the grass bank. I brought the satchel up with me. I was hungry but the bread had been ruined by its long immersion. My feet and fingers were wrinkled from spending too long in the water and I was shivering. But a spell lying in the late-afternoon sun put warmth back in my bones, while a rub from the liniment helped soothe my aching leg.

  In case the search party had roused nearby farmers to look for the British ‘seducer’ I waited until evening to make my move and kept my distinctive soldier’s coat in the satchel until it was too dark to make out the colour. I must have made ten miles that night, stopping only to steal some vegetables growing in a cottage garden. The next morning, after a brief sleep under a hedge, I set off again in the same manner. I had planned to march east until I found some unit of the British army, but in the event the army found me.

  “That is an officer’s coat, English boots too. So how did you get those, my bucko?”

  I came to from a doze by the side of the road to find a red-faced British dragoon leaning over me and pulling my jacket from the satchel. “Been thieving from British soldiers, have you?” He looked inside the jacket at the name embroidered inside by my tailor. “So what have you done with Captain… Flashman then, eh?”

  I could understand his mistake: I had not shaved for two days, I was wearing the smith’s mud-stained shirt and British officers do not normally sleep in ditches. “I am Captain Flashman, damn you,” I told him and watched the astonishment cross his face. “And I would be obliged if you would direct me to your commanding officer.”

  Captain Jennings greeted me warmly. He only had one arm and his hussar uniform was as ragged as mine but he offered his remaining hand to shake. “Captain Flashman, is it? Well, what the devil are you doing out here?”

  “I was with an earlier convoy of wounded,” I told him, gesturing to the wagon train of injured men that Jennings was escorting. “I was not sure I would survive the journey so I got off and rested up at a nearby town. I am now trying to re-join the army.” I stared at the wounded men in the wagons. They looked just as pitiful as the men I had travelled with before, but they all seemed to be wearing cavalry uniforms. “Are these men from Albuera too or has there been another battle?”

  “It wasn’t so much of a battle as a disaster. A half blind, mad catastrophe called General Sir William Erskine. Do ye know the man?”

  “I had heard that he was insane, but I have never met him and did not know he was half blind as well.”

  “He is so short-sighted he can barely see beyond his horse’s arse. He nearly wiped out my regiment and he cost me an arm.” Jennings waved the stump before adding, “At least it is not my sword arm. When we get to Lisbon I am going to have a hook made to hold the reins of my horse.”

  “What happened?”

  “The damned idiot advanced us in fog until we found ourselves slap in front of a French division deployed in line with artillery. There were only a hundred yards off but still he could not see them. The adjutant spurred forward and grabbed hold of the bridle of Erskine’s horse and started to drag it round while shouting at the rest of us to about-face and withdraw. As the French opened fire the fool was still squinting about him and shouting, ‘What are you doing, Partridge? The French are nearby; I can hear them.’”

  “What did Partridge do?” I asked.

  “Oh, his name wasn’t Partridge; Erskine called nearly everybody Partridge. I gather it was the name of his first adjutant and he just stuck with it. The adjutant’s name was Major Smiley, but he wasn’t smiling then; he was beside himself with exasperation. You hear people say that they have ‘had kittens’ over some crisis; well, if Smiley had told me he had shat a cat at that moment I would have believed him.”

  “What happened next?” I asked.

  “Oh, there were all sorts of trumpets of alarm from the French and their cannon opened fire, but the barrels were cold and the first salvo largely missed. The second didn’t, though,” he said, gesturing to his missing arm. “Did I not see the stupid bastard,” he added, “ride past me as the cannon balls came whistling through our ranks, shouting, ‘There you are, Partridge. I told you the French were close by.’ Bah, Smiley should have just shot him. None of us would have reported it and Wellington would have probably given him a promotion.”

  Jennings was happy for me to join the convoy and get a lift to Lisbon. Of course such is my luck that my new companions were set to drive straight through the town of Arraiolos, the last place I wanted to be.

  “There has been a bit of a misunderstanding over a girl in the town,” I was forced to explain to my new friend, who was greatly amused.

  “Ah, that explains why you were not wearing your coat when my men found you,” he laughed. “Don’t worry, I have had one of those ‘misunderstandings’ myself. We will hide you in one of the carts when we get close to the town.”

  The next day I was lying on the bottom of a cart covered by blankets and greatcoats as it squeaked and bumped its way through Arraiolos. Through a gap between the planks that made up its side I caught a glimpse of the familiar tavern and standing in front of it was a group of very angry men. In the middle of them was the smith, with a face like thunder.

  Chapter 13

  January 1812

  I won’t bore you with too many details of the remainder of 1811 for in truth not a lot happened. I reached Lisbon without any further incident and continued my recuperation. There had been so many officer casualties at Albuera and at Fuentes de Oñoro that there were vacancies again amongst Wellington’s staff officers. I think my friend Campbell engineered it for me, but I was invited by Wellington to return to his headquarters. I tooled up there late in the autumn and made a point of leaning heavily on my stick and wincing sometimes as I held my chest to remind people of my wounds. The last thing I wanted was to be declared fit for any exertions.

  In truth my inju
ries were healing well but I quickly discovered that there was no great appetite for an attack amongst the British then. The French had three hundred and fifty thousand men in Spain, to subdue the whole country. That was roughly seven times the British force, but events were happening many miles away that would alter the balance of power. There had been growing friction between Napoleon and the tsar of Russia, and now Bonaparte resolved to put his Russian rival in his place. Troops were withdrawn from all over the French empire, including Spain, to produce a Grande Armée for the invasion of Russia. At the same time Napoleon was getting frustrated by the lack of action by his generals in Spain. Massena was replaced by Marshal Marmont, and despite reducing their numbers, the French emperor ordered his armies in Spain to go on the offensive.

  As the cold winter approached, the French turned their attention first to the guerrillas and then other Spanish forces operating behind their lines. Daily reports would come in on the movements of French armies and that is when I became aware again of the work of Colquhoun Grant. He was now well established as one of Wellington’s best exploring officers. These were a group of men who monitored the enemy while dressed in British uniform, relying on a fast horse for a quick escape. I saw several of Grant’s reports written in his meticulous neat hand and they were full of details including numbers of men and guns, routes of march; one even had a report on French morale. Even I had to grudgingly admit that it seemed competent work.

  Normally neither side campaigned during the harsh Spanish winters. The roads were often boggy and impassable and the mountain passes were blocked with snow. But Wellington planned to take the French by surprise. They had been concentrating on subduing the city of Valencia and several of their armies had been moved to free up reinforcements for that attack. Reports from partisans and the exploring officers indicated that the two French-held fortresses guarding the main routes into Spain were vulnerable. The first of these was Ciudad Rodrigo which Wellington planned to attack in January 1812.