Royal Flash
George MacDonald Fraser
Coward, scoundrel, lover and cheat, but there is no better man to go into the jungle with. Join Flashman in his adventures as he survives fearful ordeals and outlandish perils across the four corners of the world.In this volume of The Flashman Papers, Flashman, the arch-cad and toady, matches his wits, his talents for deceit and malice, and above all his speed in evasion against the most brilliant European statesman and against the most beauiful and unscrupulous adventuress of the era.From London gaming-halls and English hunting-fields to European dungeons and throne-rooms, he is involved in a desperate succession of escapes, disguises, amours and (when he cannot avoid them) hand-to-hand combats.All the while, the destiny of a continent rests on his broad and failing shoulders.
Copyright (#uc10a6f4e-a3f2-5d1a-b985-1cd1ae7a9fb8)
Harper
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers
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First published in Great Britain by Barrie & Jenkins Ltd 1970
Reissued by Collins 1981
Previously published in paperback by Fontana 1989
Copyright © George MacDonald Fraser 1970
How Did I Get the Idea of Flashman? © The Beneficiaries of the Literary Estate of George MacDonald Fraser 2015
Map © John Gilkes 2015
Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2015
Cover illustration © Gino D’Achille
George MacDonald Fraser asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it, while at times based on historical events and figures, are the work of the author’s imagination.
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Source ISBN: 9780006511267
Ebook Edition © 2015 ISBN: 9780007449507
Version: 2015-07-14
The following piece was found in the author’s study in 2013 by the Estate of George MacDonald Fraser.
How Did I Get the Idea of Flashman? (#uc10a6f4e-a3f2-5d1a-b985-1cd1ae7a9fb8)
‘How did you get the idea of Flashman?’ and ‘When are we going to get his U.S. Civil War memoirs?’ are questions which I have ducked more often than I can count. To the second, my invariable response is ‘Oh, one of these days’. Followed, when the inquirer is an impatient American, by the gentle reminder that to an old British soldier like Flashman the unpleasantness between the States is not quite the most important event of the nineteenth century, but rather a sideshow compared to the Mutiny or Crimea. Before they can get indignant I add hastily that his Civil War itinerary is already mapped out; this is the only way of preventing them from telling me what it ought to be.
To the question, how did I get the idea, I simply reply that I don’t know. Who ever knows? Anthony Hope conceived The Prisoner of Zenda on a walk from Westminster to the Temple, but I doubt if he could have said, after the calendar month it took him to write the book, what triggered the idea. In my case, Flashman came thundering out of the mists of forty years living and dreaming, and while I can list the ingredients that went to his making, heaven only knows how and when they combined.
One thing is sure: the Flashman Papers would never have been written if my fellow clansman Hugh Fraser, Lord Allander, had confirmed me as editor of the Glasgow Herald in 1966. But he didn’t, the canny little bandit, and I won’t say he was wrong. I wouldn’t have lasted in the job, for I’d been trained in a journalistic school where editors were gods, and in three months as acting chief my attitude to management, front office, and directors had been that of a seigneur to his serfs – I had even put Fraser’s entry to the House of Lords on an inside page, assuring him that it was not for the Herald, his own paper, to flaunt his elevation, and that a two-column picture of him was quite big enough. How cavalier can you get?
And doubtless I had other editorial shortcomings. In any event, faced with twenty years as deputy editor (which means doing all the work without getting to the big dinners), I promised my wife I would ‘write us out of it’. In a few weeks of thrashing the typewriter at the kitchen table in the small hours, Flashman was half-finished, and likely to stay that way, for I fell down a waterfall, broke my arm, and lost interest – until my wife asked to read what I had written. Her reaction galvanised me into finishing it, one draft, no revisions, and for the next two years it rebounded from publisher after publisher, British and American.
I can’t blame them: the purported memoir of an unregenerate blackguard, bully, and coward resurrected from a Victorian school story is a pretty eccentric subject. By 1968 I was ready to call it a day, but thanks to my wife’s insistence and George Greenfield’s matchless knowledge of the publishing scene, it found a home at last with Herbert Jenkins, the manuscript looking, to quote Christopher MacLehose, as though it had been round the world twice. It dam’ nearly had.
They published it as it stood, with (to me) bewildering results. It wasn’t a bestseller in the blockbuster sense, but the reviewers were enthusiastic, foreign rights (starting with Finland) were sold, and when it appeared in the U.S.A. one-third of forty-odd critics accepted it as a genuine historical memoir, to the undisguised glee of the New York Times, which wickedly assembled their reviews. ‘The most important discovery since the Boswell Papers’ is the one that haunts me still, for if I was human enough to feel my lower ribs parting under the strain, I was appalled, sort of.
You see, while I had written a straightforward introduction describing the ‘discovery’ of the ‘Papers’ in a saleroom in Ashby-de-la-Zouche (that ought to have warned them), and larded it with editorial ‘foot-notes’, there had been no intent to deceive; for one thing, while I’d done my best to write, first-person, in Victorian style, I’d never imagined that it would fool anybody. Nor did Herbert Jenkins. And fifty British critics had recognised it as a conceit. (The only one who was half-doubtful was my old chief sub on the Herald; called on to review it for another paper, he demanded of the Herald’s literary editor: ‘This book o’ Geordie’s isnae true, is it?’ and on being assured that it wasn’t, exclaimed: ‘The conniving bastard!’, which I still regard as a high compliment.)
With the exception of one left-wing journal which hailed it as a scathing attack on British imperialism, the press and public took Flashman, quite rightly, at face value, as an adventure story dressed up as the memoirs of an unrepentant old cad who, despite his cowardice, depravity and deceit, had managed to emerge from fearful ordeals and perils an acclaimed hero, his only redeeming qualities being his humour and shameless honesty as a memorialist. I was gratified, if slightly puzzled to learn that the great American publisher, Alfred Knopf, had said of the book: ‘I haven’t heard this voice in fifty years’, and that the Commissioner of Metropolitan Police was recommending it to his subordinates. My interest increased as I wrote more Flashman books, and noted the reactions.
I was, several critics agreed, a satirist. Taking revenge on the nineteenth century on behalf of the twentieth, said one. Waging war on Victorian hypocrisy, said another. Plainly under the influence of Conrad, said yet another. A full-page review in a German paper took me flat aback when my eye fell on the word ‘Proust’ in the middle of it. I don’t read German, so for all I know the review may have been maintaining that Proust was a better stand-off half than I was, or used more semi-colons. But there it was, and it makes you think. And a few years ago a highly respected religious journal said that the Flashman Papers deserved recognition as the work of a sensitive moralist, and spoke of service not only to literature and history, but to the study of ethics.
My instant reaction to this was to paraphrase Poins: ‘God send me no worse fortune, but I never said so!’ while feeling delighted that someone else had said it, and then reflecting solemnly that this was a far cry from long nights with cold tea and cigarettes, scheming to get Flashman into the passionate embrace of the Empress of China, or out of the toils of a demented dwarf on the edge of a snake-pit. But now, beyond remarking that the anti-imperial left-winger was sadly off the mark, that the Victorians were mere amateurs in hypocrisy compared to our own brainwashed, sanctimonious, self-censoring and terrified generation, and that I hadn’t read a word of Conrad by 1966 (and my interest in him since has been confined to Under WesternEyes, in the hope that I might persuade Dick Lester to film it as only he could), I have no comments to offer on opinions of my work. I know what I’m doing – at least, I think I do – and the aim is to entertain (myself, for a start) while being true to history, to let Flashman comment on human and inhuman nature, and devil take the romantics and the politically correct revisionists both. But my job is writing, not explaining what I’ve written, and I’m well content and grateful to have others find in Flashy whatever they will (I’ve even had letters psychoanalysing the brute), and return to the question with which I began this article.
A life-long love affair with British imperial adventure, fed on tupenny bloods, the Wolf of Kabul and Lionheart Logan (where are they now?), the Barrack-Room Ballads, films like Lives of aBengal Lancer and The Four Feathers, and the stout-hearted stories for boys which my father won as school prizes in the 1890s; the discovery, through Scott and Sabatini and Macaulay, that history is one tremendous adventure story; soldiering in Burma, and seeing the twilight of the Raj in all its splendour; a newspaper-trained lust for finding the truth behind the received opinion; being a Highlander from a family that would rather spin yarns than eat … I suppose Flashman was born out of all these things, and from reading Tom Brown’s Schooldays as a child – and having a wayward cast of mind.
Thanks to that contrary streak (I always half-hoped that Rathbone would kill Flynn, confounding convention and turning the story upside down – Basil gets Olivia, Claude Rains triumphs, wow!), I recognised Flashman on sight as the star of Hughes’ book. Fag-roasting rotter and poltroon he might be, he was nevertheless plainly box-office, for he had the looks, swagger and style (‘big and strong’, ‘a bluff, offhand manner’, and ‘considerable powers of being pleasant’, according to his creator) which never fail to cast a glamour on villainy. I suspect Hughes knew it, too, and got rid of him before he could take over the book – which loses all its spirit and zest once Flashy has made his disgraced and drunken exit.
[He was, by the way, a real person; this I learned only recently. A letter exists from one of Hughes’ Rugby contemporaries which is definite on the point, but tactfully does not identify him. I have sometimes speculated about one boy who was at Rugby in Hughes’ day, and who later became a distinguished soldier and something of a ruffian, but since I haven’t a shred of evidence to back up the speculation, I keep it to myself.]
What became of him after Rugby seemed to me an obvious question, which probably first occurred to me when I was about nine, and then waited thirty years for an answer. The Army, inevitably, and since Hughes had given me a starting-point by expelling him in the late 1830s, when Lord Cardigan was in full haw-haw, and the Afghan War was impending … just so. I began with no idea of where the story might take me, but with Victorian history to point the way, and that has been my method ever since: choose an incident or campaign, dig into every contemporary source available, letters, diaries, histories, reports, eye-witness, trivia (and fictions, which like the early Punch are mines of detail), find the milestones for Flashy to follow, more or less, get impatient to be writing, and turn him loose with the research incomplete, digging for it as I go and changing course as history dictates or fancy suggests.
In short, letting history do the work, with an eye open for the unexpected nuggets and coincidences that emerge in the mining process – for example, that the Cabinet were plastered when they took their final resolve on the Crimea, that Pinkerton the detective had been a trade union agitator in the very place where Flashman was stationed in the first book, that Kipling’s The Man Who Would Be King had a factual basis, or that Bismarck and Lola Montez were in London in the same week (of 1842, if memory serves, which it often doesn’t: whenever Flashman has been a subject on Mastermind I have invariably scored less than the contestants).
Visiting the scenes helps; I’d not have missed Little Big Horn, the Borneo jungle rivers, Bent’s Fort, or the scruffy, wonderful Gold Road to Samarkand, for anything. Seeking out is half the fun, which is one reason why I decline all offers of help with research (from America, mostly). But the main reason is that I’m a soloist, giving no hints beforehand, even to publishers, and permitting no editorial interference afterwards. It may be tripe, but it’s my tripe – and I do strongly urge authors to resist encroachments on their brain-children, and trust their own judgment rather than that of some zealous meddler with a diploma in creative punctuation who is just dying to get into the act.
One of the great rewards of writing about my old ruffian has been getting and answering letters, and marvelling at the kindness of readers who take the trouble to let me know they have enjoyed his adventures, or that he has cheered them up, or turned them to history. Sitting on the stairs at 4 a.m. talking to a group of students who have phoned from the American Midwest is as gratifying as learning from a university lecturer that he is using Flashman as a teaching aid. Even those who want to write the books for you, or complain that he’s a racist (of course he is; why should he be different from the rest of humanity?), or insist that he isn’t a coward at all, but just modest, and they’re in love with him, are compensated for by the stalwarts who’ve named pubs after him (in Monte Carlo, and somewhere in South Africa, I’m told), or have formed societies in his honour. They’re out there, believe me, the Gandamack Delopers of Oklahoma, and Rowbotham’s Mosstroopers, and the Royal Society of Upper Canada, with appropriate T-shirts.
I have discovered that when you create – or in my case, adopt and develop – a fictional character, and take him through a series of books, an odd thing happens. He assumes, in a strange way, a life of his own. I don’t mean that he takes you over; far from it, he tends to hive off on his own. At any rate, you find that you’re not just writing about him: you are becoming responsible for him. You’re not just his chronicler: you are also his manager, trainer, and public relations man. It’s your own fault – my own fault – for pretending that he’s real, for presenting his adventures as though they were his memoirs, putting him in historical situations, giving him foot-notes and appendices, and inviting the reader to accept him as a historical character. The result is that about half the letters I get treat him as though he were a person in his own right – of course, people who write to me know that he’s nothing of the sort – well, most of them realise it: I occasionally get indignant letters from people complaining that they can’t find him in the Army List or the D.N.B., but nearly all of them know he’s fiction, and when they pretend that he isn’t, they’re just playing the game. I started it, so I can’t complain.
When Hughes axed Flashman from Tom Brown’s Schooldays, brutally and suddenly (on page 170, if I remember rightly), it seemed a pretty callous act to abandon him with all his sins upon him, just at the stage of adolescence when a young fellow needs all the help and understanding he can get. So I adopted him, not from any charitable motives, but because I realised that there was good stuff in the lad, and that with proper care and guidance something could be made out of him.
And I have to say that with all his faults (what am I saying, because of his faults) young Flashy has justified the faith I showed in him. Over the years he and I have gone through several campaigns and assorted adventures, and I can say unhesitatingly that coward, scoundrel, toady, lecher and dissembler though he may be, he is a good man to go into the jungle with.
George MacDonald Fraser
Dedication (#uc10a6f4e-a3f2-5d1a-b985-1cd1ae7a9fb8)
For Kath, again, and for
Ronald Coleman
Douglas Fairbanks, Jun.,
Errol Flynn
Basil Rathbone
Louis Hayward
Tyrone Power
and all the rest of them
Contents
Cover (#u38ed9f30-c68e-5cfb-8e4f-34a6b216b3b4)
Title Page (#ub7923138-fc0c-5b73-adfb-ecad2cefbbaf)
Copyright
How Did I Get the Idea of Flashman?
Dedication
Explanatory Note
Maps (#ue60955fd-437d-55df-87f6-eae7076da129)
Chapter 1 (#u58f2740d-f413-5fa1-8ca0-4427303c7e59)
Chapter 2 (#u4cdd9180-07b6-5aed-9918-7190c9b5254d)
Chapter 3 (#ue3a16d7f-61dc-50f6-aeff-3b2f2fbb52b5)
Chapter 4 (#ue2cff1b4-5837-5ad9-96cb-e990a37ee128)
Chapter 5 (#u7948754b-6b45-5990-b4ea-66a56cc52b1e)
Chapter 6 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 7 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 8 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 9 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 10 (#litres_trial_promo)
Appendix I
Appendix II
Notes
About the Author
The FLASHMAN Papers: In chronological order
The FLASHMAN Papers: In order of publication
Also by George MacDonald Fraser
About the Publisher
EXPLANATORY NOTE (#uc10a6f4e-a3f2-5d1a-b985-1cd1ae7a9fb8)
The second packet of the Flashman Papers – that great collection of manuscript discovered in a saleroom in Leicestershire in 1965 – continues the career of the author, Harry Flashman, from the point where the first instalment ended in the autumn of 1842. The first packet described his expulsion from Rugby School in 1839 (as previously referred to in Thomas Hughes’ Tom Brown’s Schooldays) and followed his subsequent military career in England, India, and Afghanistan; the second packet covers two separate periods of several months in 1842–43 and 1847–48. There is an intriguing four-year gap which the author seems to indicate he has covered elsewhere in his memoirs.
The present instalment is of historical importance insofar as it describes Flashman’s encounters with several persons of international celebrity – including one most eminent statesman whose character and actions may now be subjected to some reappraisal by historians. It also establishes a point of some literary interest, for there can be no doubt that a link exists between Flashman’s German adventure and one of the bestselling novels in the Victorian period.
As with the first packet (entrusted to me by Mr Paget Morrison, the owner of the Flashman Papers) I have confined myself to correcting the author’s occasional lapses in spelling. Where Flashman touches on known history he is remarkably accurate, especially when one considers that he was writing in his eighties; wherever he appears to make a minor slip I have left it uncorrected in the text (as, for example, where he describes the pugilist Nick Ward as ‘the Champion’ in 1842, when in fact Ward had lost his title the previous year), but I have added such notes and comments as seemed appropriate.
Like most memorialists, Flashman is vague about exact dates; where these can be established I have entered them in the notes.
G.M.F.
If I had been the hero everyone thought I was, or even a half-decent soldier, Lee would have won the battle of Gettysburg and probably captured Washington. That is another story, which I shall set down in its proper place if brandy and old age don’t carry me off first, but I mention the fact here because it shows how great events are decided by trifles.
Scholars, of course, won’t have it so. Policies, they say, and the subtly laid schemes of statesmen, are what influence the destinies of nations; the opinions of intellectuals, the writings of philosophers, settle the fate of mankind. Well, they may do their share, but in my experience the course of history is as often settled by someone’s having a belly-ache, or not sleeping well, or a sailor getting drunk, or some aristocratic harlot waggling her backside.
So when I say that my being rude to a certain foreigner altered the course of European history, it is a considered judgement. If I had dreamed for a moment how important that man was going to be, I’d have been as civil as the devil to him, yes-me-lording and stroking his back. But in my youth and ignorance I imagined that he was one of those to whom I could be rude with impunity – servants, tarts, bagmen, shop-keepers, and foreigners – and so I gave my unpleasant tongue free rein. In the long run it nearly cost me my neck, quite apart from changing the map of the world.
It was in ’42, when I was barely out of my ’teens, but already famous. I had taken a distinguished part in the fiasco known as the First Afghan War, emerged with a hero’s laurels, been decorated by the Queen, and lionised all over London. The fact that I had gone through the campaign in a state of abject terror – lying, deceiving, bluffing, and running for dear life whenever possible – was known to no one but myself. If one or two suspected, they kept quiet. It wouldn’t have been fashionable to throw dirt at the valiant Harry Flashman just then.
(If you have read the first packet of my memoirs, you will know all this. I mention it here in case the packets should get separated, so that you will know at once that this is the true story of a dishonest poltroon who takes a perverse pride in having attained to an honoured and admired old age, in spite of his many vices and entire lack of virtue – or possibly because of them.)
So there I was, in ’42, big, bluff, handsome Harry, beloved of London society, admired at the Horse Guards (although I was only a captain), possessed of a beautiful wife, apparently affluent, seen in the best company, gushed at by the mamas, respected by the men as the perfect beau sabreur. The world was my oyster, and if it wasn’t my sword that had opened it, no one was any the wiser.
They were golden days, those. The ideal time to be a hero is when the battle is over and the other fellows are dead, God rest ’em, and you take the credit.
Even the fact that Elspeth was cheating me made no real difference. You would never have thought, to see her angelic face, golden hair, and expression of idiotic innocence, that she was the biggest trollop that ever wore out a mattress. But I was certain, before I’d been home a month, that she was having it off with at least two others; at first I was furious and plotting revenge, but she had the money, you see, through that damned old Scotch moneybags of a father of hers, and if I had played the outraged husband I’d have been in Queer Street, without even a roof over my head. So I kept quiet, and paid her out by whoring to my heart’s content. It was a strange situation; we both knew what was what (at least, I think she did, but she was such a fool you could never tell), but we pretended to be a happily married couple. We still bounced about in bed together from time to time, and enjoyed it.
But the real life was to be had outside; respectable society apart, I was in with the fast set, idling, gaming, drinking, and raking about the town. It was the end of the great days of the bucks and blades; we had a queen on the throne, and her cold white hand and her poker-backed husband’s were already setting their grip on the nation’s life, smothering the old wild ways in their come-to-Jesus hypocrisy. We were entering into what is now called the Victorian Age, when respectability was the thing; breeches were out and trousers came in; bosoms were being covered and eyes modestly lowered; politics was becoming sober, trade and industry were becoming fashionable, the odour of sanctity was replacing the happy reek of brandy, the age of the Corinthian, the plunger, and the dandy was giving way to that of the prig, the preacher, and the bore.
At least I was in at the death of that wicked era, and did my bit to make it die hard. You could still gamble in the hells about Hanover Square, carouse with the toughs in the Cyder Cellars or Leicester Fields, take your pick of the wenches in Piccadilly, set on the police at Whitehall and pinch their belts and hats, break windows and sing bawdy songs all the way home. Fortunes were still lost at cards and hazard, duels were fought (although I stayed well clear of that; my only duel, from which I emerged by fraud with tremendous credit, had taken place some years before, and I had no intention of risking another). Life could still be openly wild, if you cared for it. It has never been the same since; they tell me that young King Edward does what he can nowadays to lower the moral tone of the nation, but I doubt if he has the style for it. The man looks like a butcher.
One night my chum Speedicut, who had been with me at Rugby, and had come sucking round me since my rise to fame (he was well off) suggested we should go to a new haunt in St James – I think it was the Minor Club, in fact.
We could try our luck at the tables first, and then at the wenches upstairs, he said, and afterwards go to the Cremorne and watch the fireworks, topping the night off with devilled ham and a bowl of punch, and perhaps some more girls. It sounded all right, so after collecting some cash from Elspeth, who was going to Store Street to listen to one Mr Wilson sing Scottish songs (my God), I set off with Speed for St James.
It was a frost from the start. On the way to the club Speed was taken with the notion of boarding one of the new buses; he wanted to argue with the cad about the fare and provoke him into swearing: the bus cads were quite famous for their filthy language, and Speed reckoned it would be fun to have him get in a bate and horrify the passengers.
But the cad was too clever for Speed; he just turned us off without so much as a damn-your-eyes, and the passengers tittered to see us made asses of, which did nothing for our dignity or good temper.
And the club turned out to be a regular hell – the prices even for arrack and cheroots were ruinous, and the faro table was as crooked as a line of Russian infantry and a damned sight harder to beat. It’s always the same; the more genteel the company, the fouler the play. In my time I’ve played nap in the Australian diggings with gold-dust stakes, held a blackjack bank on a South Sea trader, and been in a poker game in a Dodge City livery stable with the pistols down on the blanket – and I’ve met less sharping in all of ’em put together than you’d find in one evening in a London club.
We dropped a few guineas, and then Speed says:
‘This ain’t much fun. I know a better game.’
I believed him, so we picked up two of the Cyprians in the gaming-room and took them upstairs to play loo for each other’s clothes. I had my eye on the smaller of the two, a pert little red-haired piece with dimples; thinks I, if I can’t get this one stripped for action in a dozen hands then I’ve lost my talent for palming and dealing from the bottom. But whether I’d taken too much drink – for we had punished a fair amount of arrack, dear as it was – or the tarts were cheating too, the upshot was that I was down to my shirt-tail before my little minx had removed more than her shoes and gloves.
She was trilling with laughter, and I was getting impatient, when a most unholy din broke out on the floor below. There was a pounding of feet, and shouting, whistles blowing and dogs barking, and then a voice yelled:
‘Cut and run! It’s the traps!’
‘Christ!’ says Speed, grabbing for his breeches. ‘It’s a raid! Let’s get out of this, Flash!’
The whores squeaked with panic, and I swore and struggled into my clothes. It’s no joke trying to dress when the peelers are after you, but I had sense enough to know that there wasn’t a hope of escaping unless we were fully clad – you can’t run through St James on a fine evening with your trousers in your hand.
‘Come on!’ Speed was shouting. ‘They’ll be on us in a moment!’
‘What shall we do?’ wails the red-haired slut.
‘Do what you dam’ well please,’ says I, slipping on my shoes. ‘Good night, ladies.’ And Speed and I slipped out into the corridor.
The place was in uproar. It sounded like a battle royal down on the gaming-floor, with furniture smashing and the Cyprians screaming, and someone bawling: ‘In the Queen’s name!’ On our landing there were frightened whores peeping out of the doorways, and men in every stage of undress hopping about looking for somewhere to run to. One fat old rascal, stark naked, was beating on a door bawling:
‘Hide me, Lucy!’
He beat in vain, and the last I saw of him he was trying to burrow under a sofa.
People nowadays don’t realise that in the forties the law was devilish hot on gaming-hells. The police were forever trying to raid them, and the hell-owners used to keep guard-dogs and scouts to watch out for them. Most hells also had special hiding places for all gambling equipment, so that cards, dice, and boards could be swept out of sight in a moment, for the police had no right of search, and if they couldn’t prove that gaming had been going on they could be sued for wrongful entry and trespass.
Evidently they had caught the Minor St James’s Club napping with a vengeance, and it would be police court and newspaper scandal for us if we couldn’t cut out pretty sharp. A whistle shrilled at the foot of the stairs, the trollops screamed and slammed their doors, and feet came pounding upwards.
‘This way,’ says I to Speed, and we darted up the next flight. It was another empty landing – the top one – and we crouched by the bannisters, waiting to see what happened. They were hammering on the doors below, and presently someone came scampering up. He was a fair, chinless youth in a pink coat.
‘Oh, my God!’ says he, ‘what will mother say?’ He stared wildly round. ‘Where can I hide?’
‘In there,’ says I, thinking quickly, and pointed at a closed door.
‘God bless you,’ says he. ‘But what will you do?’
‘We’ll hold ’em off,’ says I. ‘Get out of it, you fool.’
He vanished inside, and I winked at Speed, whipped his handkerchief from his breast, and dropped it outside the closed door. Then we tiptoed to a room on the other side of the landing, and took cover behind its door, which I left wide open. From the lack of activity on this floor, and the dust-sheets in the room, it obviously wasn’t in use.
Presently the peelers came crashing up, spotted the kerchief, gave a great view halloo, and dragged out the pink youth. But as I had calculated, they didn’t bother with our room, seeing the door open and naturally supposing that no one could be hiding in it. We stood dead still while they tramped about the landing, shouting orders and telling the pink youth to hold his tongue, and presently they all trooped off below, where by the sound of things they were marshalling their prisoners, and being pretty rough about it. It wasn’t often they raided a hell successfully, and had a chance to mistreat their betters.
‘By George, Flashy,’ whispered Speed at last. ‘You’re a foxy one, and no mistake. I thought we were done.’
‘When you’ve been chased by bloody Afghans,’ says I, ‘you learn all there is to know about lying low.’ But I was pleased at the way my trick had worked, just the same.
We found a skylight, and as luck had it there was a convenient flat roof close by over what proved to be an empty house. We prised up another skylight, crept down two flights of stairs, and got out of a back window into a lane. So far, excellent, but Speed thought it would be capital to go round the front and watch from a safe distance while the peelers removed their victims. I thought it would be fun, too, so we straightened our clothes and then sauntered round into the end of the street.
Sure enough, there was a crowd outside the Minor Club to see the sport. The bobbies were there in their high hats and belts, clustering round the steps while the prisoners were brought down to the closed carts, the men silent and shame-faced or damning their captors for all they were worth, and the trollops crying for the most part, although some had to be carried out kicking and scratching.
If we had been wise we would have kept well clear, but it was growing dusk, and we thought we’d have a closer look. We strolled up to the fringe of the crowd, and as bad luck had it, who should be brought out last, wailing and white-faced, but the youth in the pink coat. Speed guffawed at the woebegone look of him, and sang out to me:
‘I say, Flashy, what will mother say?’
The youth must have heard; he twisted round and saw us, and the spiteful little hound gave a yelp and pointed in our direction.
‘They were there, too!’ he cries. ‘Those two, they were hiding as well!’
If we had stood fast we could have brazened it out, I daresay, but my instinct to run is too deep ingrained; I was off like a hare before the bobbies had even started towards us, and seeing us run they gave chase at once. We had a fair start, but not enough to be able to get out of view and duck into a doorway or area; St James’s is a damned bad district to fly from the police in – streets too broad and no convenient alleyways.
They were perhaps fifty yards behind for the first two streets, but then they began to gain – two of them, with their clubs out, yelling after us to stop. I could feel myself going lame in the leg I had broken earlier in the year at Jallalabad; the muscles were still stiff, and pains shot through my thigh at every stride.
Speed saw what was up and slackened his pace.
‘Hallo, Flash,’ says he, ‘are you done for?’
‘Leg’s gone,’ says I. ‘I can’t keep up any longer.’
He glanced over his shoulder. In spite of the bad name Hughes gives him in Tom Brown’s Schooldays, Speedicut was as game as a terrier and ready for a turn-up any time – not like me at all.
‘Oh, well, then,’ says he, ‘the deuce with this. Let’s stand and have it out with ’em. There’s only two – no, wait though, there are more behind, damn ’em. We’ll just have to do the best we can, old son.’
‘It’s no use,’ I gasped. ‘I’m in no state to fight.’
‘You leave ’em to me,’ cries he. ‘I’ll hold ’em off while you get out of it. Don’t stand there, man; don’t you see it won’t do for the hero of Afghanistan to be dragged in by the traps? Hellish scandal. Doesn’t matter for me, though. Come on, you blue-bellied bastards!’
And he turned in the middle of the road, sparring away and daring them to come on.
I didn’t hesitate. Anyone who is ass enough to sacrifice himself for Flashy deserves all he gets. Over my shoulder I saw him stop one trap with a straight left, and close with the other. Then I was round the corner, hobbling away as fast as my game leg would carry me. It took me along that street and into the square beyond, and still no bobbies hove in view. I doubled round the central garden, and then my leg almost folded under me.
I rested, gasping, against the railings. Faintly behind me I could hear Speed still singing defiance, and then the nearer patter of feet. Looking round for somewhere to hide I saw a couple of carriages drawn up outside a house fronting onto the railed garden; they weren’t far, and the two drivers were together, talking by the horses in the first one. They hadn’t seen me; if I could hobble to the rear coach and crawl in, the peelers would pass me by.
Hopping quietly is difficult, but I got to the coach unseen by the drivers, opened the door and climbed in. I squatted down out of sight, heaving to get my breath back and listening for sounds of pursuit. But for several moments all was still; they must be off the scent, thinks I, and then I heard a new sound. Men’s and women’s voices were coming from the doorway of one of the houses; there was laughter and cries of good night, some chattering on the pavement and the sound of footsteps. I held my breath, my heart pounding, and then the carriage door opened, light came in, and I found myself staring into the surprised face of one of the loveliest girls I have ever seen in my life.
No – the loveliest. When I look back and review the beautiful women I have known, blonde and dark, slim and buxom, white and brown, hundreds of the creatures – still, I doubt if there was one to touch her. She was standing with one foot on the step, her hands holding back the skirts of her red satin gown, bending forward to display a splendid white bosom on which sparkled a row of brilliants matching the string in her jet-black hair. Dark blue eyes, very large, stared down at me, and her mouth, which was not wide but very full and red, opened in a little gasp.
‘God save me!’ exclaims she. ‘A man! What the devil are you doing, sir?’
It wasn’t the kind of greeting you commonly heard from ladies in the young Queen’s day, I may tell you. Any other would have screamed and swooned. Thinking quickly, I decided that for once truth would answer best.
‘I’m hiding,’ says I.
‘I can see that,’ says she smartly. She had a most lovely Irish lilt to her voice. ‘Who from, and why in my carriage, if you please?’
Before I could answer, a man loomed up at her elbow, and at sight of me he let out a foreign oath and started forward as though to protect her.
‘Please, please, I mean no harm,’ I said urgently. ‘I’m being pursued … the police … no, I’m not a criminal, I assure you. I was in a club that was raided.’
The man just stared at me, but the woman showed her teeth in a delightful smile and then threw her head back, chuckling. I smiled as ingratiatingly as I could, but for all the effect my charm had on her companion I might as well have been Quasimodo.
‘Step out at once,’ snaps he, in a cold clipped voice. ‘At once, do you hear?’
I conceived an instant dislike for him. It was not only his manner and his words, but the look of him. He was big, as big as I was, slim-hipped and broad-shouldered, but he was also damned handsome. He had bright grey eyes and one of those clean-cut faces beneath fair hair that make you think of moral Norse gods, too splendid altogether to be in the company of the beauty beside him.
I started to say something, but he barked at me again, and then the woman came to my aid.
‘Oh, let him be, Otto,’ says she. ‘Can’t you see he’s a gentleman?’
I would have thanked her gratefully, but at that moment there were heavy feet on the pavement, and a grave voice inquiring if the gentleman had seen anyone running through the square. The peelers were on the scent again, and this time I was cornered.
But before I could move or speak the lady had seated herself in the coach and hissed:
‘Get up off the floor, you booby!’
I obeyed, in spite of my leg, and dropped gasping into the seat beside her. And then her companion, damn his eyes, was saying:
‘Here is your man, constable. Arrest him, if you please.’
A police sergeant poked his head in at the door, surveyed us, and said to the fair man, doubtfully:
‘This gentleman, sir?’
‘Of course. Who else?’
‘Well …’ The bobby was puzzled, seeing me sitting there large as life. ‘Are you sure, sir?’
The fair man rapped out another foreign oath, and said of course he was sure. He called the sergeant a fool.
‘Oh, stop it, Otto,’ says the lady suddenly. ‘Really, sergeant, it’s too bad of him; he’s making game of you. This gentleman is with us.’
‘Rosanna!’ The fair man looked outraged. ‘What are you thinking of? Sergeant, I—’
‘Don’t play the fool, Otto,’ says I, taking my cue, and delighted to have my hand squeezed by the lady. ‘Come on, man, get in and let’s be off home. I’m tired.’
He gave me a look of utter fury, and then a fine altercation broke out between him and the sergeant, which the lady Rosanna seemed to find vastly amusing. The coachee and another constable joined in, and then suddenly the sergeant, who had been frowning oddly in my direction while the argument raged, stuck his head into the coach again, and says:
‘Wait a minnit. I know you, don’t I? You’re Cap’n Flashman, bigod!’
I admitted it, and he swore and slapped his fist.
‘The ’ero of Julloolabad!’ cries he.
I smiled modestly at Miss Rosanna, who was looking at me wide-eyed.
‘The defender of Piper’s Fort!’ cries the sergeant.
‘Well, well,’ says I, ‘it’s all right, sergeant.’
‘The ’Ector of Afghanistan!’ cries the sergeant, who evidently studied the press. ‘Damme! Well, ’ere’s a go!’
He was beaming all over his face, which didn’t suit my denouncer at all. Angrily he demanded that I be arrested.
‘He is a fugitive,’ he declared. ‘He invaded our coach without permission.’
‘I don’t give a dam’ if ’e invaded Buckin’am Palace without permission,’ says the sergeant, turning back to me. ‘Corporal Webster, sir, Third Guards, under Major Macdonald at ’Ougoumont, sir.’
‘Honoured to know you, sergeant,’ says I, shaking his hand.
‘Honour’s mine, sir, ’deed it is. Now then, you, sir, let’s ’ave no more of this. You’re not English, are you?’
‘I am a Prussian officer,’ says the man called Otto, ‘and I demand—’
‘Cap’n Flashman is a British officer, so you don’t demand nothink,’ says the sergeant. ‘Now, then! Let’s ’ave no trouble.’ He touched his hat to us and gave me a broad wink. ‘Wish you good night, sir, an’ you, ma’am.’
I thought the German would have an apoplexy, he looked so wild, and his temper was not helped by the lovely Rosanna’s helpless laughter. He stood glaring at her for a moment, biting his lip, and then she controlled herself sufficiently to say:
‘Oh, come along, Otto, get into the coach. Oh, dear, oh, dear,’ and she began laughing again.
‘I am happy you are amused,’ says he. ‘You make a fool of me: it is of a piece with your conduct of this evening.’ He looked thoroughly vicious. ‘Very good, madam, perhaps you will regret it.’
‘Don’t be so pompous, Otto,’ says she. ‘It’s just a joke; come and—’
‘I prefer choicer company,’ says he. ‘That of ladies, for example.’ And clapping on his hat he stepped back from the carriage door.
‘Oh, the devil fly away with you then!’ cried she, suddenly angry. ‘Whip up, driver!’
And then I had to open my mouth. Leaning across her, I called to him:
‘How dare you talk so to a lady, damn you!’ says I. ‘You’re a foul-mouthed foreign dog!’
I believe if I had kept silent he would have forgotten me, for his temper was concentrated on her. But now he turned those cold eyes on me, and they seemed to bore like drills. For a moment I was frightened of the man; he had murder on his face.
‘I shall remember you,’ says he. And then, oddly, I saw a look of curiosity come into his eyes, and he stepped a pace closer. Then it was gone, but he was memorising me, and hating me at the same time.
‘I shall remember you,’ he said a second time, and the coach jerked forward and left him standing by the gutter.
In spite of the momentary fear he had awakened in me, I didn’t give a button for his threats – the danger was past, I had recovered my breath, and I could devote my attention to the important question of the beauty alongside me. I had time to examine the splendour of her profile – the broad brow and raven-black hair, the small ever so slightly curved nose, the pouting red cupid’s bow, the firm little chin, and the white round breasts pushing themselves impudently up from the red satin gown.
The scent of her perfume, the sidelong look of her dark blue eyes, and the wanton husky Irish voice, were all invitations. As anyone will tell you, put Harry Flashman next to a woman like that and one of two things is inevitable – there will either be screams and slaps, or the lady will surrender. Sometimes both. In this case, just from the look of her, I knew there would be no screaming and slapping, and I was right. When I kissed her it was only a moment before her mouth opened under mine, and I promptly suggested that since my leg was still painful, a woman’s touch on it would soothe the cramp out of my muscles. She complied, very teasingly, and with her free hand was remarkably skilful at fending off my advances until the coach reached her house, which was somewhere in Chelsea.
By this time I was in such a state of excitement that I could barely keep my hands still while she dismissed her maid and conducted me to her salon, talking gaily about anything and acting the cool minx. I soon put a stop to that by popping her breasts out the minute the door was closed, and bearing her down on to the settee. Her reaction was startling; in a moment she was grappling with me, digging her nails into me and twining her limbs round mine. The fury of her love-making was almost frightening – I’ve known eager women, plenty of them, but Miss Rosanna was like a wild animal.
The second time, later in the night, was even more feverish than the first. We were in bed by then, and I had no clothing to protect me from her biting and raking nails; I protested, but it was like talking to a mad woman. She even began to leather me with something hard and heavy – a hair-brush, I believe – and by the time she had stopped writhing and moaning I felt as though I had been coupling with a roll of barbed wire.
I was bruised, scratched, bitten, and stabbed from neck to backside.
In between, she was a different creature, gay, talkative, witty, and of a gentleness to match her voice and looks. I learned that she was Marie Elizabeth Rosanna James, no less, the wife of a fellow-officer who was conveniently out of town on garrison duty. Like myself, she was recently returned from India, where he had been stationed; she found life in London deadly dull; such friends as she knew were stiff and boring; there was hardly any of the bright life she craved; she wished she was back in India, or anywhere she might have some fun. That was why my appearance in her carriage had been so welcome; she had spent a preposterously dull evening with her husband’s relatives, escorted by the German Otto, whom she found stuffy to a degree.
‘Just the sight of a man who looked as though he had some – oh, some spunk in him – was enough for me,’ says she. ‘I wouldn’t have turned you over to the police, my dear, not if you had been a murderer. And it was a chance to take down that conceited Prussian muff – would you believe that a man who looks so splendid could have ice and vinegar in his veins?’
‘Who is he?’ I asked.
‘Otto? Oh, one of these Germans making the Grand Tour in reverse. Sometimes I think there’s a bit of the devil in him, but he keeps it well hid; he behaves so properly because like all foreigners he likes to impress the English. Tonight, just to try and breathe some life into that collection of prigs, I offered to show them a Spanish dance – you would have thought I’d said something indecent. They didn’t even say, “Oh, my dear!” Just turned their heads to one side, the way these English women do, as though they were going to be sick.’ She tossed her head enchantingly, kneeling on the bed like a naked nymph. ‘But I saw the glitter in Otto’s eyes, just for an instant. I’ll be bound he’s not so prim among the German wenches at Schönhausen, or wherever it is.’
I thought there was too much of Otto, and said so.
‘Oh, yes, are you jealous, then?’ says she sticking out her lip at me. ‘You’ve made a bad enemy there, my dear. Or is the famous Captain Flashman careless of enemies?’
‘They don’t concern me, German, French, or nigger,’ says I. ‘I don’t think much of your Otto at all.’
‘Well, you should,’ says she, teasing. ‘For he’s going to be a great man some day – he told me so. “I have a destiny”, he said. “What’s that?” I asked him. “To rule”, says he. So I told him I had ambitions, too – to live as I please, love as I please, and never grow old. He didn’t think much of that, I fancy; he told me I was frivolous, and would be disappointed. Only the strong, he said, could afford ambitions. So I told him I had a much better motto than that.’
‘What was that?’ says I, reaching out for her, but she caught my hands and held them apart, looking wicked.
‘“Courage – and shuffle the cards”,’ says she.
‘Damned sight better motto than his,’ says I, pulling her down on top of me. ‘And I’m a greater man than he is, anyway.’
‘Prove it – again,’ said Miss Rosanna, biting at my chin. And, at the cost of more scratches and bruises, I did.
That was the beginning of our affair, and a wild, feverish one it was, but it couldn’t last long. For one thing, she was so demanding a mistress that she came near to wearing me out, and if she was a novelty, she was one I didn’t altogether enjoy. She was too imperious, and I prefer softer women who understand that it is my pleasure that counts. Not with Miss Rosanna, though; she used men. It was like being eaten alive, and God help you if you weren’t ready to command. Everything had to be at her whim, and I got sick of it.
It was about a week after our first meeting that I finally lost my temper. We had had a tempestuous night, but when I wanted to go to sleep she had to chatter on – and even a husky Irish voice can get sickening when you’ve heard too much of it. And seeing me inattentive, she suddenly shouts, ‘On guard!’ which was her war-cry before a tumble, and jumped on me again.
‘In heaven’s name!’ says I. ‘Get off. I’m tired.’
‘Nobody gets tired of me,’ she flashed back, and started teasing me into action, but I was pegged out, and told her to let me alone. For a moment she persisted, and then she was sulky, and then in an instant she was in a raging fury, and before I knew it I had given her the back of my hand and she was coming at me like a wildcat, screaming and clawing.
Now, I’ve dealt with raging women before, but I’d never met anything like her. She was dangerous – a beautiful, naked savage, flinging everything that came within reach, calling me the foulest names, and – I admit it freely – terrorising me to the point where I grabbed my clothes and ran for it. ‘Bastard and coward!’ was the least of it, I remember, and a chamber pot smashing on the door-jamb as I blundered through. I roared threats at her from the corridor, at which she darted out, white with fury, flourishing a bottle, and I didn’t stay for more. One way and another, I’ve probably had more practice in dressing running than most men, but this time I didn’t bother until I’d got out of shot at the foot of the stairs.
I was badly shaken, I can tell you, and not my own man again till I was well away from her house and pondering, in my philosophic way, on means of getting my own back on the vicious, bad-tempered slut. It will seem to you to be the usual, sordid conclusion to so many Flashman amours, but I have dwelt on it at some length for good reason. It wasn’t only that she was, in her way, as magnificent a creature as I’ve ever had the good fortune to mount, and comes back to my mind whenever I see a hair-brush. That alone would not be sufficient. No, my excuse is that this was my first encounter with one of the most remarkable women in my life – or in the life of anyone in the nineteenth century, for that matter. Who could have guessed then that Marie Elizabeth Rosanna James would turn a crowned head, rule a great kingdom, and leave a name to compare with Dubarry or Nell Gwynn? Well, she was Flashy’s girl for a week, at least, which is something to boast of. But I was glad to be shot of her at the time, and not just because of the way she treated me: I discovered soon after that she hadn’t been altogether truthful about herself. She hadn’t mentioned, for example, that her soldier husband was in the process of divorcing her, which would have been enough to scare me away to less controversial beds if I’d known it sooner. Apart from the unpleasant social aspects of being cited, I couldn’t have afforded it.
But she was important in my life in another way – she had been the means of my meeting the splendid Otto. You could say that it was through her that the mischief was born between him and me, and our enmity shaped his future, and the world’s.
Nothing might have come of it, though, had I not run into him again, by pure chance, a month or so later. It was at Tom Perceval’s place in Leicestershire, where I joined a party to see Nick Ward
fight some local pug, and to do a little hunting in Tom’s coverts. Young Conyngham,
who was a fool of a gambler, was there, and old Jack Gully, who had once been Champion of England and was now a rich ironmaster and retired from the House of Commons as well; there were about a dozen others whom I’ve forgotten, and Speedicut, too – when I’d told him how I’d spent the night of his arrest, he just roared with laughter and cried ‘Flashy’s luck! Well, only the brave deserve the fair!’ And he insisted on telling everyone how it had happened, himself lying in a dirty cell full of drunkards while I was bumping a beauty.
Most of the company were at Tom’s place when I arrived, and when he met me in the hall he told me:
‘They’re all old acquaintances but one, a foreigner that I can’t get rid of, damn him. Friend of my uncle’s, and wants to see something of our rustic ways while he’s here. Trouble is, he’s full of bounce, and some of the fellows are rather sick of it already.’
It meant nothing until I went into the gunroom with him, where the boys were cheering up the cold night with punch and a roaring fire, and who should be there, very formal in long coat and trousers among all the buffs and boots, but Otto. He stiffened at the sight of me, and I brought up short.
The fellows gave a hurrah when I came in, and thrust punch and cheroots at me, while Tom did his duty by the stranger.
‘Baron,’ says he – the brute has a title, thinks I – ‘permit me to present Captain Flashman. Flash, this is Baron Otto von … er, dammit … von Schornhausen, ain’t it? Can’t get my confounded tongue round it.’
‘Schönhausen,’ says Otto, bowing stiffly with his eyes on mine. ‘But that is, in fact, the name of my estate, if you will pardon my correction. My family name is Bismarck.’
It’s an old man’s fancy, no doubt, but it seemed to me that he said it in a way that told you you would hear it again. It meant nothing to me, of course, at the time, but I was sure that it was going to. And again I felt that prickle of fear up my back; the cold grey eyes, the splendid build and features, the superb arrogance of the man, all combined to awe me. If you’re morally as soft as butter, as I am, with a good streak of the toad-eater in you, there’s no doing anything with people like Bismarck. You can have all the fame that I had then, and the good looks and the inches and the swagger – and I had those, too – but you know you’re dirt to him. If you have to tangle with him, as the Americans say, you know you’ll have to get drunk first; I was sober, so I toadied.
‘Honoured to make your acquaintance, Baron,’ says I, giving him my hand. ‘Trust you’re enjoying your visit.’
‘We are already acquainted, as I’m sure you remember,’ says he, shaking hands. He had a grip like a vice; I guessed he was stronger than I was, and I was damned strong, in body at least. ‘You recollect an evening in London? Mrs James was present.’
‘By God!’ says I, all astounded. ‘So I do! Well, well! And here you are, eh? Damme, I never expected … well, Baron, I’m glad to see you. Aye, hum. I trust Mrs James is well?’
‘Surely I should ask you?’ says he, with a thin smile. ‘I have not seen the … lady, since that evening.’
‘No? Well, well. I haven’t seen a great deal of her lately myself.’ I was prepared to be pleasant, and let bygones be bygones, if he was. He stood, smiling with his mouth, considering me.
‘Do you know,’ says he at length, ‘I feel sure I have seen you before, but I cannot think where. That is unusual, for I have an excellent memory. No, not in England. Have you ever been in Germany, perhaps?’
I said I hadn’t.
‘Oh, well, it is of no interest,’ says he coolly, meaning that I was of no interest, and turned away from me.
I hadn’t liked him before, but from that moment I hated Bismarck, and decided that if ever the chance came to do him a dirty turn, I wouldn’t let it slip past me.
Tom had said he was full of bounce, and at supper that night we got a good dose of it. It was very free and easy company, as you can imagine, with no women present, and we ate and drank and shouted across the table to our heart’s content, getting pretty drunk and nobody minding his manners much. Bismarck ate like a horse and drank tremendously, although it didn’t seem to show on him; he didn’t say much during the meal, but when the port went round he began to enter the conversation, and before long he was dominating it.
I’ll say this for him, he wasn’t an easy man to ignore. You would have thought that a foreigner would have kept mum and watched and listened, but not he. His style was to ask a question, get an answer, and then deliver judgement – for instance, he says to Tom, what was the hunting like, and Tom remarking that it was pretty fair, Bismarck said he looked forward to trying it, although he doubted if chasing a fox could hold a candle to the boar-hunting he had done in Germany. Since he was a guest, no one pulled his leg, although there were a few odd looks and laughs, but he sailed on, lecturing us about how splendid German hunting was, and how damned good at it he was, and what a treat we were missing, not having wild pigs in England.
When he had done, and there was one of those silences, Speed broke it by remarking that I had done some boar-hunting in Afghanistan; the fellows seemed to be looking to me to take the talk away from Bismarck, but before I had the chance he demanded:
‘In Afghanistan? In what capacity were you there, Captain Flashman?’
Everyone roared with laughter at this, and Tom tried to save his guest embarrassment by explaining that I had been soldiering there, and had pretty well won the war single-handed. He needn’t have minded, for Bismarck never turned a hair, but began to discourse on the Prussian Army, of all things, and his own lieutenant’s commission, and how he regretted that there were so few chances of active service these days.
‘Well,’ says I, ‘you can have any that come my way, and welcome.’ (This is the kind of remark that folk love to hear from a hero, of course.) The fellows roared, but Bismarck frowned.
‘You would avoid dangerous service?’ says he.
‘I should just think I would,’ say I, winking at Speed. If only they had known how true that was. ‘Damned unpleasant, dangerous service. Bullets, swords, chaps killing each other – no peace and quiet at all.’
When the laughter had died down, Tom explained that I was joking; that I was, in fact, an exceptionally brave man who would miss no chance of battle and glory. Bismarck listened, his cold eye never leaving me, and then, would you believe it, began to lecture us on a soldier’s duty, and the nobility of serving one’s country. He obviously believed it, too, he rolled it out so solemnly, and it was all some of the younger men could do to keep their faces straight. Poor old Tom was in an anguish in case we offended his guest, and at the same time obviously nearly out of patience with Bismarck.
‘I wish to God my uncle had found some other poor devil to bear-lead him,’ says he later to Speedicut and me. ‘Was there ever a bigger bore and ass? How am I to deal with the fellow, eh?’
We couldn’t help him; in fact I resolved to keep as far out of Bismarck’s way as possible. He unsettled me; he was so damned superior. Tom was wrong in one thing: Bismarck wasn’t an ass, whatever else he might be. In some ways he was like that outstanding idiot Cardigan, under whom I had served in the 11th Hussars, but only on the surface. He had the same splendid certainty in everything he said and did; he looked on the world as created for him alone; he was right, and that was that. But where Cardigan’s arrogant eye had the shallow stare of the born fool, Bismarck’s didn’t. You could see the brain at work behind it, and those who listened only to his rather monotonous sermonisings and noticed only his lack of humour – of our kind of humour, anyway – and put him down as a pompous dullard were well wide of the mark.
I wanted nothing to do with him, anyway, but in that short visit at Tom’s place Bismarck still contrived to touch me on the raw twice – and in the only two things that I am any good at, too. Coward and rascal that I’ve always been, I have had two talents, for foreign tongues and for horses. I can master almost any language in short time, and ride anything with a mane and tail. Looking back, I can almost believe that Bismarck smelled these two gifts and set out to hip me over them.
I don’t remember how the conversation at one breakfast came to touch on foreign speech – usually it was women and drink and horses and pugs, with an occasional high flight on something like the scandalous rate of income tax at 7d in the pound.
But it did, and my gift was mentioned. Bismarck, lounging back in his chair, gave a sneering little laugh and said that it was a useful talent in head-waiters.
I was furious, and tried to think of some cutting retort, but couldn’t. Later it occurred to me that I might have fixed him with a look and said it was also a useful gift in German pimps, but it was too late then. And you could never be quite sure with his remarks whether he was jibing or simply stating what he thought was a fact, so I just had to ignore him.
The second set-down came on a day’s hunting, when we had had poor sport and were riding home. Conyngham, drawing rein on top of a slight rise from which you could see miles of rolling countryside in every direction, points to a church which was just visible in the distance through the late afternoon haze, and cries out:
‘Who’s for a steeplechase?’
‘Oh, too much of a fag,’ says Tom. ‘Anyway, it’s getting dark and the beasts may go wrong. I vote for home.’
‘Steeplechase?’ says Bismarck. ‘What is that?’
It was explained to him that the object was to race straight across country for the steeple, and he nodded and said it was an excellent sport.
‘Good for you!’ cries Conyngham. ‘Come on, you fellows! You, Flashy, are you game?’
‘Too far,’ says I, for like Tom I didn’t fancy taking hedges on wettish country with the light starting to fail.
‘Nonsense!’ cries Bismarck. ‘What, gentlemen, are the English backward in their own game? Then you and I, Marquis, shall we have it out together?’
‘With you! Tally-ho!’ yells Conyngham, and of course the other asses took off after them. I couldn’t hang back, so cursing Bismarck I clapped in my heels and gave chase.
Conyngham led the field over the first meadows, with Bismarck close behind, but a couple of hedges checked them, and the rest of us caught up. I hung back a little, for steeplechasing in the style of your old-fashioned bucks, when you just go hell-for-leather at everything, is as quick a road to a broken neck as I know. If you have an eye for ground, and watch how the leaders jump and land, you can reap the benefit of their discoveries without the risk of going first. So I rode a nice easy chase for the first mile or so, and then we came into light woodland, with trees well spaced out, and I touched my hunter and moved up.
There is a moment every jockey knows, when he feels his mount surge forward, and he lies with his head down being brushed by the mane, and sees the gap narrowing ahead of him, and knows he has the legs of the field. I felt it then as I thundered past the ruck, hearing the thud of the hooves and seeing the clods thrown up from the wet turf, feeling the wind in my face as the trees flew past; even now I see the scarlet coats in the fading light, and smell the rain-sodden country, and hear the yelps of the fellows as they cheered each other on and laughed and cursed. God, it was good to be young and English then!
We thundered through the woodland like a charge of dragoons and were out on a long, rising incline. Conyngham held the lead to the crest, but as we came over and down it was the turn of the heavier men; Bismarck went past him, and then I, too; we pounded down to the hedgerow, Bismarck went over like a bird – he could ride, I may say – and I launched my hunter at the same gap and came through on his heels. I stayed with him, over hedges, lanes, ditches, and fences, until I saw the steeple perhaps half a mile away, and now, thinks I, is the time to get my nose in front.
I had the speed in hand; his head came round as I drew level, and he hammered in his heels and plied his crop, but I knew I had the distance of him. He was leading by half a length as we took a rail fence; then we were on pasture with only one hedge between us and the common that ran up to the churchyard. I inched up level and then led by a head, scanning the distant hedge for a good jump. It was a nasty one, high hawthorn with trees at intervals throwing their shade over the hedgerow; there was one place that looked likely, where the hawthorn thinned and only a couple of rails covered the gap. I clapped in my heels and made for it; first over was a certain winner. As we closed in, with me half a length in front, I realised that even at the rails the jump was a good five feet; I didn’t half fancy it, for as Hughes pointed out, Flashman was good only at those games which didn’t entail any physical risk. But there was nothing for it; I had Bismarck headed and must keep my lead, so I steadied the hunter for the jump, and then out of nowhere came Bismarck’s grey at my elbow, challenging for the jump.
‘Give way!’ I roared. ‘My jump, damn your eyes!’
By God, he paid not the slightest heed, but came boring in, neck and neck with me for the fence. We were almost knee to knee as we rushed down on it.
‘Get out, blast you!’ I yelled again, but he was just staring ahead, teeth clenched and whip going, and I knew in an instant that it was a case of pull up or have the most unholy smash as two horses tried to take a jump where there was only space for one.
As it was, I came within an ace of a hellish tumble; I reined back and at the same time tried to swerve from the gap; the hunter checked and swung away and we scraped along the face of the hedge with no more damage than a few scratches, while Master Bismarck cleared the rails with ease.
By the time I had trotted back, cursing most foully, the rest of the chase was thundering up; Bismarck was waiting at the lychgate looking cool and smug when we arrived.
‘Don’t you know to give way to the leader?’ says I, boiling angry. ‘We might have broken our necks, thanks to you!’
‘Come, come, Captain Flashman,’ says he, ‘it would have been thanks to you if we had, for you would have been foolishly challenging the stronger rider.’
‘What?’ says I. ‘And who the devil says you are the stronger rider?’
‘I won, did I not?’ says he.
It was on the tip of my tongue to say that he had ridden foul, but the way the other chaps were hallooing, and telling him what a damned fine race he had ridden, I thought better of it. He had gone up in their estimation; he was a damned good-plucked ’un, they shouted, and they clapped him on the back. So I contented myself with suggesting that he learn the rules of horsemanship before he rode in England again, at which the others laughed and cried:
‘That’s right, Flash, damn his eyes for him!’ and made a joke out of bluff Flashy’s bad temper. They hadn’t been close enough to see exactly what had happened, and none of them would have imagined for a minute that neck-or-nothing Flashman would give way in the breach; but Bismarck knew, and it showed in his eyes and the cold smile he gave me.
But I had my own back on him before the week was out, and if my initial rudeness in London was the first spark in the mischief between us, what was now to come really started the fire.
It was on the last day, after we had been to see the fight between Nick Ward the Champion, and the local pug. It was a good afternoon’s sport, with the pug getting his nose broken and half his teeth knocked out; Bismarck was greatly interested, and seemed to enjoy watching the loser being battered as much as I did myself.
At supper that night the talk was naturally of the fight, and old Jack Gully, who had refereed, held the floor. He wasn’t normally an over-talkative man, despite the fact that he had been an M.P., but on his two loves – the prize ring and horseflesh – he was always worth listening to. Though it was more than thirty years since he had held the belt himself – and since retiring he had become most prosperous and was well received everywhere – he had known and seen all the greatest pugs, and was full of stories of such giants as Cribb and Belcher and the Game Chicken.
Of course, the company would have listened all night – I don’t suppose there was a man in England, Peel, Russell, or any of them, who could have commanded such universal attention as this quiet old boxing champion. He must have been close to sixty then, and white-haired, but you could see he was still fit as a flea, and when he talked of the ring he seemed to light up and come alive.
Bismarck, I noticed, didn’t pay him much attention, but when Jack paused after a story, our German suddenly says:
‘You make very much of this boxing, I see. Now, it is an interesting enough spectacle, two of the lower orders thrashing each other with their fists, but does it not become boring after a while? Once, or even twice, perhaps, one might go to watch, but surely men of education and breeding must despise it.’
There was a growl round the table, and Speed says:
‘You don’t understand it because you’re a foreigner. It is our game in England. Why, in Germany, according to what you’ve said, fellows fight duels without any intent to kill each other, but just to get scars on their heads. Well, we wouldn’t think much of that, let me tell you.’
‘The schlager endows a man with honourable scars,’ says Bismarck. ‘What honour is there in beating an opponent with your fists? Besides, our duelling is for gentlemen.’
‘Well, as to that, mynheer,’ says Gully, smiling, ‘gentlemen in this country ain’t ashamed to use their fists. I know I wish I’d a guinea for every coroneted head I’ve touched with a straight left hand.’
‘Mine for one, any time you please, Jack,’ cries Conyngham.
‘But in the use of the schlager there is soldierly skill,’ Bismarck insisted, and rapped his fist on the table. Oho, thinks I, what’s this? Has our Prussian friend perhaps got a little more liquor on board than usual? He was a mighty drinker, as I’ve said, but it occurred to me that he might not be holding it so well tonight.
‘If you think there’s no skill in prize-fighting, my friend, you’re well out of court,’ says one of the others, a heavy-faced Guardee named Spottswood. ‘Didn’t you see Ward, this afternoon, take the starch out of a chap three stone heavier than himself?’
‘Oh, your fellow Ward was swift and strong,’ says Bismarck. ‘But speed and strength are common enough. I saw no sign of skill in that butchery.’
And he emptied his glass as though that settled the matter.
‘Well, sir,’ says old Jack, smiling, ‘there was skill a-plenty, and you can take my word for it. You wouldn’t see it, ’cos you don’t know what to look for, just as I wouldn’t know what to look for in your schlag-what-you-call-’ems.’
‘No,’ says Bismarck, ‘likely you would not.’ And the tone of his voice made Gully look sharp at him, although he said nothing. Then Tom Perceval, sensing that there might be trouble if the subject wasn’t changed, started to say something about hunting, but I had seen my chance to set this arrogant Prussian down, and I interrupted him.
‘Perhaps you think boxing is easy,’ says I to Bismarck. ‘D’ye fancy you could hold your own in a mill?’
He stares at me across the table. ‘With one of those brawlers?’ says he at length. ‘A gentleman does not come to physical contact with those people, surely?’
‘We don’t have serfs in England,’ says I. ‘There isn’t a man round this table wouldn’t be glad to put ’em up with Nick Ward – aye, and honoured, too. But in your case – suppose there was a sporting German baron whose touch wouldn’t sully you? Would you be ready to try it with him?’
‘Hold on, Flash—’ says Perceval, but I carried on.
‘Or a gentleman from among ourselves, for example? Would you be ready to go a round or two with one of us?’
Those cold eyes of his were damned uncomfortable on me, but I held his gaze, for I knew I’d got him. He considered a moment, and then said:
‘Is this a challenge?’
‘Good God, no,’ says I. ‘Only you think that our good old game is just a brawl, and I’d like to show you different. If I were asked, I’d be ready enough to try my hand at this schlager business of yours. Well, what d’ye say?’
‘I see you are smarting for revenge after our race the other day,’ says he, smiling. ‘Very well, Captain, I shall try a round with you.’
I believe he had weighed me up for a coward who wouldn’t be much good, in which he was right, and that he also thought – like many another ignoramus – that boxing was pure brute force and nothing more, in which he was wrong. Also, he had seen that a good part of it was body wrestling, of which no doubt he had some experience. And he knew he was pretty well as big and strong as I. But I had a surprise in store for him.
‘Not with me,’ says I. ‘I’m no Nick Ward. Anyway, my idea is instruction, not revenge, and the best instructor in the whole wide world is sitting within ten feet of you.’ And I nodded at Gully.
All I intended was to make a fool of Bismarck, which I knew Gully could do with one hand behind his back, and so cut his comb for him. I hadn’t any hope that Gully would hurt him, for unfortunately old Jack, like most champions, was a gentle, kindly sort of fool. Indeed, at my proposal, he burst out laughing.
‘Lord, Flashy,’ says he. ‘D’ye know how much I used to be paid to come up to scratch? And you want to see it free, you dog!’
But Bismarck wasn’t laughing. ‘That is a foolish proposal,’ says he. ‘Mr Gully is too old.’
Gully’s laugh was wiped off his face at once. ‘Now, wait a moment, mynheer,’ says he, but I was ahead of him again.
‘Oh, is that it?’ says I. ‘You wouldn’t be chary about milling with a professional, would you?’
Everyone was talking at once, of course, but Bismarck’s voice cut through them.
‘I have no interest in whether he is a professional or not—’
‘Or the fact that he was once in jail?’ says I.
‘—but only in the fact that he is very much older than I. As to his being in prison, what has that to do with anything?’
‘You know best about that,’ says I, sneering.
‘Now, dammit, hold on here,’ says Perceval. ‘What the devil is all this? Flashy—’
‘Ah, I’m sick of his airs,’ says I, ‘and his sneers at Jack there. All right, he’s your guest, Tom, but he goes a bit far. Let him put up or shut up. I only suggested he should try a round with a real boxer, to show him that his jibes were wide of the mark, and he turns up his nose as though Gully weren’t good enough for him. It’s the wrong side of enough, I say.’
‘Not good enough?’ roars Jack. ‘What’s this …?’
‘No one said anything of the sort,’ cries Tom. ‘Flashy, I don’t know what you’re driving at, but—’
‘Captain Flashman’s intention is apparently to annoy me,’ says Bismarck. ‘He has not succeeded. My only objection to boxing with Mr Gully was on the score of his age.’
‘That’ll do about my age, thank’ee!’ says Jack, going red. ‘I’m not so old I can’t deal with anyone who don’t know his place!’
They calmed him down, and there was a lot of hubbub and noise and nonsense, and the upshot was that most of them, being slightly fuddled anyway, got the notion that I had suggested, friendly-like, to Bismarck, that he try a round with Gully, and that somehow he had insulted old Jack and looked down on him. It was Spottswood who calmed things over, and said there was no cause for shouting or hard feelings.
‘The point is, does the Baron want to try his hand in a friendly spar? That’s all. If so, Jack’ll oblige, won’t you, Jack?’
‘No, no,’ says Jack, who was cooled again. ‘Why, I haven’t stood in a ring for thirty years, man. Besides,’ he added, with a smile, ‘I didn’t understand that our guest was eager to try me.’
That brought him a lofty look from Bismarck, but Spottswood says:
‘Tell ye what, Jack; if you’ll spar a round or two with him, I’ll sell you Running Ribbons.’
He knew Jack’s weak spot, you see; Running Ribbons was own brother to Running Reins, and a prime goer.
Jack hummed and hawed a bit, saying no, no, his fighting days were long done, but the fellows, seeing him waver, and delighted at the thought of watching the famous Gully in action (and no doubt of lowering Bismarck a peg or two) urged him on, cheering him and slapping him on the shoulder.
‘Well, well,’ says Jack at last, for his flash of ill-temper had quite gone now, and he was his placid self, ‘if you must have it, I’ll tell you what I’ll do. To convince the Baron here, that there’s maybe more in the Noble Art than meets his eye, I’ll engage to stand up in front of him, with my hands down, and let him try to plant me a few facers. What d’ye say to that, sir?’ he asks Bismarck.
The German, who had been sitting very disdainful, looked interested despite himself.
‘You mean you will let me strike you, without defending yourself?’
Jack grins at him. ‘I mean I’ll let you try,’ says he.
‘But I must strike you – unless you run away.’
‘I reckon you’re not too clever in our lingo yet,’ says Jack, smiling, but looking keen. ‘What with “too old” and “running away”, you know. But don’t worry, mynheer – I’ll stand my ground.’
There was a great commotion while the table was thrust against one wall, and the carpet rolled up, and everyone piled furniture to the sides of the room to leave space for the exhibition. Perceval was the only one who wasn’t delighted at the prospect; ‘’Tain’t fair,’ says he, ‘not to a guest; I don’t like it. Ye’ll not hurt him, Jack, d’ye hear?’
‘Not a hair of his head,’ says old Jack.
‘But his vanity may be a bit bruised when he discovers it ain’t so easy to hit a good milling cove as he imagines,’ says Speed, laughing.
‘That’s what I don’t like either,’ says Perceval. ‘It looks as though we’re making a fool of him.’
‘Not us,’ says I. ‘He’ll be doing it himself.’
‘And serve the German windbag right,’ says Spottswood. ‘Who’s he to tell us our faults, damn him?’
‘I still don’t like it,’ says Perceval. ‘Curse you, Flash, this is your doing.’ And he mooched away, looking glum.
At the other end of the room Conyngham and one of the other chaps were helping Bismarck off with his coat. You could see he was wondering how the devil he had got into this, but he put a good face on it, pretending to be amused and interested when they fastened the gloves on him and Jack, and explained what was expected of him. Spottswood led the two of them to the centre of the floor, where a line had been chalked on the boards, and holding one on either hand, called for silence.
‘This ain’t a regular mill,’ says he (‘Shame!’ cries someone). ‘No, no,’ says Spottswood, ‘This is a friendly exhibition in the interests of good sportsmanship and friendship between nations. (“Hurrah!” “Rule Britannia!” from the fellows). Our old and honoured friend, Jack Gully, champion of champions—’ at this there was a great hurrah, which set old Jack grinning and bobbing – ‘has generously engaged to let Herr Otto von Bismarck stand up to him and try, if he can, to hit him fair on the head and body. Mr Gully engages further not to hit back, but may, if he wishes, use his hands for guarding and blocking. I shall referee’ – cries of ‘Shame!’ ‘Watch out for him, Baron, he’s a wrong ’un!’ – ‘and at my word the contestants will begin and leave off. Agreed? Now, Baron, you may hit him anywhere above the waist. Are you ready?’
He stepped back, leaving the two facing each other. It was a strange picture: the big candelabra lit the room as clear as day, shining on the flushed faces of the spectators sitting or squatting on the furniture piled round the panelled walls; on the sporting prints and trophies hung above them; on the wide, empty polished floor; on the jumble of silver and bottles and piled plates on the table with its wine-stained cloths; on the two men toe to toe at the chalk line. There was never a stranger pair of millers in the history of the game.
Bismarck, in his shirt and trousers and pumps, with the big padded mauleys on his fists, may have been awkward and uncertain, but he looked well. Tall, perfectly built and elegant as a rapier, with his fair cropped head glistening under the light, he reminded me again of a nasty Norse god. His lips were tight, his eyes narrow, and he was studying his man carefully before making a move.
Gully, on the other hand – oh, Gully! In my time I’ve seen Mace and Big Jack Heenan and little Sayers, and I watched Sullivan beat Ryan
and took $10 off Oscar Wilde over that fight, too, but I doubt if any of them could have lived with Gully at his best. Not that I ever saw that best, but I saw him face up to Bismarck, nearly sixty years old, and that is enough for me. Like most poltroons, I have a sneaking inward regard for truly fearless, strong men, fools though they may be, and I can have an academic admiration for real skill, so long as I don’t suffer by it. Gully was fearless and strong and incredibly skilful.
He stood on the balls of his feet, head sunk between his massive shoulders, hands down, his leathery brown face smiling ever so slightly, his eyes fixed on Bismarck beneath beetling brows. He looked restful, confident, indestructible.
‘Time!’ cries Spottswood, and Bismarck swung his right fist. Jack swayed a little and it went past his face. Bismarck stumbled, someone laughed, and then he struck again, right and left. The right went past Jack’s head, the left he stopped with his palm. Bismarck stepped back, looking at him, and then came boring in, driving at Jack’s midriff, but he just turned his body sideways, lazily almost, and the German went blundering by, thumping the air.
Everyone cheered and roared with laughter, and Bismarck wheeled round, white-faced, biting his lip. Jack, who didn’t seem to have moved more than a foot, regarded him with interest, and motioned him to come on again. Slowly, Bismarck recovered himself, raised his hands and then shot out his left hand as he must have seen the pugs do that afternoon. Jack rolled his head out of the way and then leaned forward a little to let Bismarck’s other hand sail past his head.
‘Well done, mynheer,’ he cried. ‘That was good. Left and right, that’s the way. Try again.’
Bismarck tried, and tried again, and for three minutes Jack swayed and ducked and now and then blocked a punch with his open hand. Bismarck flailed away, and never looked like hitting him, and everyone cheered and roared with laughter. Finally Spottswood called, ‘Time’, and the German stood there, chest heaving and face crimson with his efforts, while Jack was as unruffled as when he started.
‘Don’t mind ’em, mynheer,’ says he. ‘There’s none of ’em would ha’ done better, and most not so well. You’re fast, and could be faster, and you move well for a novice.’
‘Are you convinced now, Baron?’ says Spottswood.
Bismarck, having got his breath back, shook his head.
‘That there is skill, I admit,’ says he, at which everyone raised an ironical cheer. ‘But I should be obliged,’ he goes on to Jack, ‘if you would try me again, and this time try to hit me in return.’
At this the idiots cheered, and said he was damned game and a sportsman, and Perceval said he wouldn’t have it, and demanded that the bout should stop at once. But old Jack, smiling his crooked smile, says:
‘No, no, Tom. This fellow’s more of a boxing man than any of you know. I’d not care to mill with anyone who didn’t hit back. I’ll spar, gentle-like, and when he goes home he can say he’s been in a fight.’
So they went to it again, and Jack moved about now, smooth as a dancer for all his years, and tapped his glove on Bismarck’s head and chin and body, while the other smashed away at him and hit nothing. I encouraged him by haw-hawing every time he missed, for I wanted him to realise what an ass he looked, and he bore in all the harder, flailing at Jack’s head and shoulders while the old champion turned, feinted and slipped away, leaving him floundering.
‘That’s enough!’ shouts someone. ‘Time out, you fellows, and let’s drink to it!’ and there were several voices which cried aye, aye, at which Jack dropped his hands and looked to Spottswood. But Bismarck rushed in, and Jack, in fending him off with a left, tapped him a little harder than he meant to, and bloodied his nose.
That stopped the German in his tracks, and Jack, all crestfallen, was stepping in to apologise, when to everyone’s amazement Bismarck ran at him, seized him round the waist, swung him off his feet, and hurled him to the floor. He landed with a tremendous crash, his head striking the boards, and in a moment everyone was on his feet, shouting and cheering. Some cried ‘Foul!’ while others applauded the German – they were the drunker ones – and then there was a sudden hush as Jack shook his head and slowly got to his feet.
He looked shaken, and furious, too, but he had himself in hand.
‘All right, mynheer,’ says he. ‘I didn’t know we was holding and throwing.’ I don’t suppose anything like it had happened to him in his life before, and his pride was wounded far worse than his body. ‘My own fault, for not looking out,’ says he. ‘Well, well, let it go. You can say you’ve downed John Gully,’ and he looked round the room, slowly, as though trying to read what everyone was thinking.
‘Best stop now, I think,’ says he at last.
‘You do not wish to continue?’ cries Bismarck. He looked fairly blown, but the arrogant note in his voice was there, as ever.
Gully stared at him a moment. ‘Best not,’ says he.
The room was uncomfortably quiet, until Bismarck laughed his short laugh and shrugged his shoulders.
‘Oh, very well,’ says, he, ‘since you do not wish it.’
Two red spots came into Jack’s pale cheeks. ‘I think it’s best to stop now,’ says he, in a hard voice. ‘If you’re wise, mynheer, you’ll make the most of that.’
‘As you please,’ says Bismarck, and to my delight he added: ‘It is you who are ending the bout, you know.’
Jack’s face was a study. Spottswood had a hand on his shoulder, and Perceval was at his side, while the rest were crowding round, chattering excitedly, and Bismarck was looking about him with all his old bounce and side. It was too much for Jack.
‘Right,’ says he, shaking Spottswood off. ‘Put your hands up.’
‘No, no,’ cries Perceval, ‘this has gone far enough.’
‘I quit to nobody,’ says Jack, grim as a hangman. ‘“End the bout”, is it? I’ll end it for him, sure enough.’
‘For God’s sake, man,’ says Perceval. ‘Remember who you are, and who he is. He’s a guest, a stranger—’
‘A stranger who threw me foul,’ says old Jack.
‘He don’t know the rules.’
‘It was a mistake.’
‘It was a fair throw.’
‘No t’wasn’t.’
Old Jack stood breathing heavily. ‘Now, look’ee,’ says he. ‘I give it him he threw me not knowing it was an unfair advantage, when I was off guard on account of having tapped his claret. I give it him he was angry and didn’t think, ’cos I’d been making a pudding of him. I’ll shake hands wi’ him on all of that – but I won’t have him strutting off and saying I asked to end the fight. Nobody says that to me – no, not Tom Cribb himself, by God.’
Everyone began to yammer at once, Perceval trying to push them away and calm Jack down, but most of us well content to see the mischief increase – it wasn’t every day one could see Gully box in earnest, which he seemed ready to do. Tom appealed to Bismarck, but the German, smiling his superior smile, just says:
‘I am prepared to continue.’
After that, try as Tom might, he was over-ruled, and presently they were facing up to each other again. I was delighted, of course; this was more than I had hoped for, although I feared that Gully’s good nature would make him let Bismarck off lightly. His pride was hurt, but he was a fair-minded fool, and I guessed he would just rap the German once or twice, smartly, to show him who was master and let it go at that. Perceval was hoping so, at all events. ‘Go easy, Jack, for God’s sake,’ he cried, and then they set to.
I don’t know what Bismarck hoped for. He wasn’t a fool, and Gully had demonstrated already that the German was a child in his hands. I can only suppose that he thought he had a chance of throwing Gully again, and was too damned conceited to escape gratefully. At any rate, he went in swinging both arms, and Jack rapped him over the heart and then cracked him a neat left on the head when he was off balance, which knocked him down.
‘Time!’ cries Spottswood, but Bismarck didn’t understand, and bounding up he rushed at Gully, and with a lucky swing, caught him on the ear. Jack staggered, righted himself, and as if by instinct smacked two blows into Bismarck’s belly. He went down, gasping and wheezing, and Perceval ran forward, saying that this was the end, he would have no more of it.
But the German, when he had straightened up, got his breath back and wiped the trickle of blood from his nose, was determined to go on. Gully said no, and Bismarck sneered at him, and the upshot was that they squared away again, and Gully knocked him off his feet.
But still he got up, and now Gully was sickened, and refused to go on, and when he held out his hand Bismarck struck at him, at which Gully hammered him one in the face, which sent him headlong, and on the instant Gully was cursing himself for a bad-tempered fool, and calling for Spottswood to take off his gloves, and Tom was raising Bismarck off the floor, and a splendidly gory face he presented, too. And there was a tremendous hubbub, with drunk chaps crying ‘Shame!’ and ‘Stop the fight!’ and ‘Hit him again!’ and Perceval almost crying with mortification, and Gully stamping off in a corner, swearing he hadn’t meant to hurt the fellow, but what could he do? and Bismarck white-faced, being helped into one of the chairs, where they sponged his face and gave him brandy. There were apologies, and protestations, and Gully and Bismarck finally shook hands, and Jack said he was ashamed of himself, as an Englishman, and would Bismarck forgive him? Bismarck, with his mouth puffed and split where Jack’s last blow had caught him, and his fine aristocratic nose crusted with his own blood – I’d have given twenty guineas to see it properly smashed – said it was nothing, and he was obliged to Mr Gully for the instruction. He then added that he was capable of continuing, and that the fight had not been stopped at his request, at which old Jack took a big breath but said nothing, and the others cheered and Conyngham cried:
‘Good for the Prussian! A dam’ game bird he is! Hurrah!’
This was the signal for the drinking to start again, in earnest, while two of the company, flown with pugilistic ardour, put on the mauleys and began to spar away drunkenly, and losing their tempers, finished up savaging each other on the floor. Perceval stayed by Bismarck, muttering apologies while the German waved them away and sipped brandy through his battered mouth. Gully simply went over to the sideboard and poured drink into himself until he was completely foxed; no one had ever seen him so shaken and unhappy before, or known him drink more than the most modest amount. But I knew why he was doing it; he was ashamed. It is a terrible thing to have ideals and a conscience, to say nothing of professional pride. He told me later he would have been better to suffer being thrown; beating Bismarck had been the most shameful thing he ever did, he said.
I’d have been delighted to do it, personally, if I’d had his skill; I’d have left that German upstart without a tooth in his head. As it was, when the boozing was at its height, and the uproar was deafening, I chanced by where Bismarck was still sitting, sipping delicately at his glass. He turned and caught my eye, frowned, and said:
‘Still I cannot place you, Captain. It is most intriguing; but it will come back, no doubt. However, I trust you were not disappointed with your evening’s entertainment.’
‘It might have been better,’ says I, grinning at him.
‘Even so, you contrived very well. I have you to thank for these,’ and he touched his lips and reddened nose. ‘One day I shall hold you to your promise, and show you the schlager play. I look forward to that; we shall see how much credit you obtain from my country’s sport.’
‘More than you’ve got from mine, I hope,’ says I, laughing.
‘Let us hope so,’ says he. ‘But I doubt it.’
‘Go to the devil,’ says I.
He turned away, chuckling to himself. ‘After you, I think.’
One of the difficulties of writing your memoirs is that they don’t run smooth, like a novel or play, from one act to the next. I’ve described how I met Rosanna James and Otto, but beyond a paragraph in The Times announcing her divorce from Captain James towards the end of the year, I didn’t hear of her again for months. As for Bismarck, it was a few years before I ran into him again, and then it was too soon.
So in the first place I must skip over a few months to my second meeting with Rosanna, which was brought about because I have a long memory and a great zeal in paying off old scores. She had put herself on the debit side of Flashy’s ledger, and when the chance came to pay her out I seized on it.
It was the following summer, while I was still in London, officially waiting for Uncle Bindley at the Horse Guards to find me an appointment, and in fact just lounging about the town and leading the gay life. It wasn’t quite so gay as it had been, for while I was still something of an idol in military circles, my gloss was beginning to wear a bit thin with the public. Yesterday’s hero is soon forgotten, and while Elspeth and I had no lack of invitations during the season, it seemed to me that I wasn’t quite so warmly fêted as I had been. I wasn’t invariably the centre of attraction any longer; some chaps even seemed to get testy if I mentioned Afghanistan, and at one assembly I heard a fellow say that he personally knew every damned stone of Piper’s Fort by now, and could have conducted sightseers over the ruins.
That’s by the way, but it was one of the reasons that I began to find life boring me in the months that followed, and I was all the readier for mischief when the chance came.
I forget exactly what took me to one of the Haymarket theatres on an afternoon in May – there was an actress, or an acrobat she may have been, whom I was pushing about just then, so it may have been her. In any event, I was standing in the wings with some of the Gents and Mooners,
during a rehearsal, when I noticed a female practising dance-steps on the other side of the stage. It was her shape that caught my eye, for she was in the tight fleshings that ballet-dancers wear, and I was admiring her legs when she turned in profile and to my astonishment I recognised Rosanna.
She was wearing her hair in a new way, parted in the centre, and held behind her head in a kerchief, but there was no mistaking the face or the figure.
‘Splendid piece, ain’t she?’ says one of the Mooners. ‘They say Lumley’ – he was the manager – ‘pays her a fortune. ’Pon my soul, I would myself, what?’
Oho, I thought to myself, what’s this? I asked the Mooner, offhand, who she might be.
‘Why, she’s his new danseuse, don’t you know,’ says he. ‘It seems that opera hasn’t been bringing in the tin lately, so Lumley imported her specially to dance between the acts. Thinks she’ll make a great hit, and with those legs I’ll be bound she will. See here.’ And he pushed a printed bill into my hand. It read:
HER MAJESTY’S THEATRE
Special Attraction
Mr Benjamin Lumley begs to announce that between the acts of the Opera, Donna Lola Montez, of the Teatro Real, Seville, will have the honour to make her first appearance in England in the Original Spanish dance, El Oleano.
‘Ain’t she a delight, though?’ says the Mooner. ‘Gad, look at ’em bouncing when she struts!’
‘That’s Donna Lola Montez, is it?’ says I. ‘When does she perform, d’ye know?’
‘Opens next week,’ says he. ‘There’ll be a crowd and a half, shouldn’t wonder. Oh, Lovely Lola!’
Well, I’d never heard of Lola Montez, but I saw there was something here that needed going into. I made a few discreet inquiries, and it seemed that half the town was talking about her already, for Lumley was making a great to-do about his beautiful new attraction. The critics were slavering in advance about ‘the belle Andalusian’, and predicting a tremendous success, but nobody had any notion that she wasn’t a genuine Spanish artiste at all. But I was in no doubt about her; I’d been close enough to Rosanna James to be sure.
At first I was just amused, but then it occurred to me that here was a heaven-sent opportunity to have my own back on her. If she was exposed, denounced for what she really was, that would put paid to her making a hit. It would also teach her not to throw piss-pots at me. But how to do it best? I pondered, and in five minutes I had it pat.
I remembered, from the conversations we had had during our passionate week, her mention of Lord Ranelagh, who was one of the leading boys about town just then. She was forever chattering about her admirers, and he was one she had turned down; snubbed him dead, in fact. I knew him only to see, for he was a very top-flight Corinthian, and didn’t take much heed even of heroes if they weren’t out of the top drawer (and I wasn’t). But all I’d heard suggested that he was a first-class swine, and just the man for me.
I hunted him out at his club, slid inside when the porter wasn’t looking, and found him in the smoke-room. He was lying on a couch, puffing a cigar with his hat over his brows; I spoke right out.
‘Lord Ranelagh,’ says I. ‘How are you? I’m Flashman.’
He cocked an eye lazily under the brim of his hat, damned haughty.
‘I’m certain I haven’t had the honour,’ says he. ‘Good day to you.’
‘No, no, you remember me,’ says I. ‘Harry Flashman, you know.’
He pushed his hat right back, and looked at me as if I was a toad.
‘Oh,’ says he at length, with a sneer. ‘The Afghan warrior. Well, what is it?’
‘I took the liberty of calling on your lordship,’ says I, ‘because I chanced to come across a mutual acquaintance.’
‘I cannot conceive that we have any,’ drawls he, ‘unless you happen to be related to one of my grooms.’
I laughed merrily at this, although I felt like kicking his noble backside for him. But I needed him, you see, so I had to toad-eat him.
‘Not bad, not bad,’ says I. ‘But this happens to be a lady. I’m sure she would be of interest to you.’
‘Are you a pimp, by any chance? If so—’
‘No, my lord, I’m not,’ says I. ‘But I thought you might be diverted to hear of Mrs James – Mrs Elizabeth Rosanna James.’
He frowned, and blew ash off his ridiculous beard, which covered half his shirt-front.
‘What of her, and what the devil has she to do with you?’
‘Why, nothing, my lord,’ says I. ‘But she happens to be taking the stage at Her Majesty’s next week, masquerading as a famous Spanish dancer. Donna Lola Montez, she calls herself, and pretends to be from Seville. An impudent imposture.’
He digested this, while I watched his nasty mind working.
‘How d’ye know this?’ says he.
‘I’ve seen her at rehearsal,’ says I, ‘and there’s no doubt about it – she’s Rosanna James.’
‘And why should this be of interest to me?’
I shrugged at this, and he asked what my purpose was in telling him.
‘Oh, I was sure you would wish to be at her first performance – to pay your respects to an old friend,’ says I. ‘And if so, I would solicit a place for myself in your party. I entertain the same affection for her that I’m sure your lordship does.’
He considered me. ‘You’re a singularly unpleasant creature,’ says he. ‘Why don’t you expose her yourself, since that’s obviously what you want?’
‘Your lordship, I’m sure, has a style in these things. And you are well known, while I …’ I didn’t want to be the centre of any scandal, although I wanted to have a front seat to see the fun.
‘I can do your dirty work, eh? Well, well.’
‘You’ll go?’
‘That is no concern of yours,’ says he. ‘Good day.’
‘May I come?’
‘My dear sir, I cannot prevent you going where you choose. But I forbid you absolutely to address me in public.’
And he turned over on his side, away from me. But I was satisfied; no doubt he would go, and denounce ‘Donna Lola’. He had his own score to pay off, and was just the sort of mean hound who would do it, too.
Sure enough, when the fashionable crowd was arriving at Her Majesty’s the following Monday, up rolls Lord Ranelagh with a party of bloods, in two coaches. I was on hand, and tailed on to them at the door; he noticed me, but didn’t say anything, and I was allowed to follow into the omnibus-box which he had engaged directly beside the stage. One or two of his friends gave me haughty stares, and I took my seat very meek, at the back of the box, while his lordship showed off at the front, and his friends and he talked and laughed loudly, to show what first-rate bucks they were.
It was a splendid house – quite out of proportion to the opera, which was The Barber of Seville. In fact, I was astonished at the gathering: there was the Queen Dowager in the Royal Box, with a couple of foreign princelings; old Wellington, wrinkled and lynx-eyed, with his Duchess; Brougham, the minister, the Baroness de Rothschild, Count Esterhazy, the Belgian Ambassador, and many others. All the most eminent elderly lechers of the day, in fact, and I hadn’t a doubt that it wasn’t the music they had come for. Lola Montez was the attraction of the night, and the talk through the pit was of nothing else. Rumour had it that at certain select gatherings for the highest grandees in Spain, she had been known to dance nude; it was also being said that she had once been the leading light of a Turkish harem. Oh, they were in a fine state of excitement by the time the curtain went up.
My own idea of theatrical entertainment, I admit, is the music-hall; strapping wenches and low comedians are my line, and your fine drama and music bore me to death. So I found The Barber of Seville a complete fag: fat Italians screeching, and not a word to be understood. I read the programme for a bit, and found more entertainment in the advertisements than there was on the stage – ‘Mrs Rodd’s anatomical ladies’ stays, which ensure the wearer a figure of astonishing symmetry’; I remember thinking that the leading lady in The Barber could have profited by Mrs Rodd’s acquaintance. Also highly spoken of were Jackson’s patent enema machines, as patronised by the nobility when travelling. I wasn’t alone, I noticed, in finding the opera tedious; there were yawns in the pit, and Wellington (who was near our box) began to snore until his Duchess dug him in the ribs. Then the first act ended, and when the applause died away everyone sat up, expectant; there was a flourish of Spanish music from the orchestra, and Lola (or Rosanna) shot dramatically on to the stage.
I’m no authority on the dance; the performer, not the performance, is what I pay to see. But it seemed to me that she was damned good. Her striking beauty brought the pit up with a gasp: she was in a black bodice, cut so low that her breasts seemed to be in continual danger of popping out, and her tiny pink skirt showed off her legs to tremendous advantage. The slim white neck and shoulders, the coal-black hair, the gleaming eyes, the scarlet lips curled almost in contempt – the whole effect was startling and exotic. You know these throbbing, Spanish rhythms; well, she swayed and shook and stamped her way through them in splendid passion, and the audience sat spellbound. She was at once inviting and challenging; I doubt if there was any gesture or movement in the whole dance that a magistrate could have taken exception to, and yet the whole effect of it was sensual. It seemed to say ‘Bed me – if you dare’, and every man in the place was taking her clothes off as he watched. What the women thought I can’t imagine, but I guess they admired her almost as much as they disliked her.
When she finished abruptly, with a final smash of her foot and clash of cymbals from the orchestra, the theatre went wild. They cheered and stamped, and she stood for a moment still as a statue, staring proudly down at them, and then swept straight off the stage. The applause was deafening, but she didn’t come back, and there were sighs and a few groans when the curtain went up again on the next act of the opera, and those damned Macaronis began yelping again.
Through all this Ranelagh had sat forward in his chair, staring at her, but never said a word. He didn’t pay the least attention to the opera, but when Lola came on for her second dance, which was even more tempestuous than the first, he made a great show of examining her through his glasses. Everyone else was doing the same, of course, in the hope that her bodice would burst, which it seemed likely to do at any moment, but when the applause broke out, wilder than ever, he kept his glasses glued to his eyes, and when she had gone he was seen to be frowning in a very puzzled way. This was all leading up to the denouement, of course, and when she bounced on, snapping her fan, for the third time, I heard him mutter to his nearest neighbour:
‘You chaps keep your eyes on me. I’ll give the word, mind, and then we’ll see some fun.’
She swirled through the dance, showing splendid amounts of her thighs, and gliding about sinuously while peeping over her fan, and at the finish there was a perfect torrent of clapping and shouting, with bouquets plopping down on to the stage and chaps standing up and clapping wildly. She smiled now, for the first time, bowing and blowing kisses before the curtain, and then suddenly, from our box there was a great hissing in unison, at which the applause faltered and died away. She turned to stare furiously in our direction, and as the hissing rose louder than ever there were angry shouts and cries from the rest of the theatre. People craned to see what the row was about, and then Ranelagh climbs to his feet, an imposing figure with his black beard and elegant togs, and cries out, very distinctly:
‘Why, this is a proper swindle, ladies and gentlemen! That woman isn’t Lola Montez. She’s an Irish girl, Betsy James!’
There was a second’s silence, and then a tremendous hullabaloo. The hissing started again, with cries of ‘Fraud!’ and ‘Impostor!’, the applause began and sputtered out, and angry catcalls and boos sounded from the gallery. In a moment the whole mood of the theatre had changed; taking their cue from Ranelagh and his toadies, they began to howl her down; a few coins clattered on the stage; the conductor, gaping at the audience with his mouth open, suddenly flung down his baton and stamped out; and then the whole place was in a frenzy, stamping and calling for their money back, and shouting to her angrily to get back to the bogs of Donegal.
She was standing blazing with fury, and when she moved towards our box some of the chaps scrambled back to get out of harm’s way. She stood a moment, her bosom heaving, her eyes sweeping the box – oh, yes, she recognised me all right, and when she began to curse at us I think it was me as much as Ranelagh she was getting at. Unfortunately, she swore in English, and the mob caught it and yelled louder than ever. Then she dashed down the bouquet she was holding, stamped on it, kicked it into the orchestra, and with one last damnation in our direction, ran from the stage as the curtain fell.
I must say I was delighted; I hadn’t thought it could go off so well. As we crowded out of the place – The Barber, of course, was entirely forgotten in the sensation – I came up to Ranelagh’s elbow and congratulated him; I couldn’t have paid her out so splendidly myself, and I told him so. He gave me a cold nod and sailed off, the snobbish bastard, but I wasn’t in a mood to mind too much; that was me quits with Mistress Lola for her brickbats and insults, and I went home in high good humour.
She was finished on the London stage, of course. Lumley dismissed her, and although one or two attempts were made to present her at other theatres, the damage was done. All sorts of people now seemed to remember her as Mrs James, and although she wrote a letter of denial to the press, no one believed it. A few weeks later she had disappeared and that, thought I, was the end of Lola Montez so far as I was concerned, and good riddance. A brilliant bed-mate, I don’t deny, in her way, and even now the picture of her kneeling naked among the bed-clothes can set me itching – but I’d never liked her particularly, and was glad to see her sent packing.
But it wasn’t the end of her, by any means. Although it was some years before I saw her again – in circumstances that I couldn’t have dreamed of – one heard of her from time to time through the papers. And always it was sensational news; she seemed to have a genius for thrusting herself into high places and creating scandal. First there was a report of her horse-whipping a policeman in Berlin; next she was dancing on the tables during a civic banquet in Bonn, to the outrage of Prince Albert and our Queen, who were on a State visit at the time. Then she was performing in Paris, and when the audience didn’t take to her she stripped off her garters and drawers and flung them at the gallery; she started a riot in the streets of Warsaw, and when they tried to arrest her she held the peelers off with pistols. And of course there were scores of lovers, most of them highly placed: the Viceroy of Poland, the Tsar of Russia (although I doubt if that’s true), and Liszt the musician.
She took up with him two or three times, and once to get rid of her he locked her in a hotel room and sneaked out by the back door.
I met him, later on, by the way, and we discussed the lovely Lola and found ourselves much in agreement. Like me, he admired her as a tumble, but found her all too overpowering. ‘She is a consuming fire,’ he told me, shaking his white head ruefully, ‘and I’ve been scorched – oh, so often.’ I sympathised; she had urged me on in love-making with a hair-brush, but with him it had been a dog-whip, and he was a frail sort of fellow, you know.
At all events, these scraps of gossip reached me from time to time over the next few years. In that time I was out of England a good deal – as will be set down in another packet of my memoirs, if I’m spared to write them. My doings in the middle forties of the century don’t fit in with my present tale, though, so I pass them over for the moment and come to the events to which my meeting with Lola and Otto Bismarck was the prelude.
I can see, now, that if I hadn’t deserted Speedicut that night, hadn’t been rude to Bismarck, hadn’t set Jack Gully on to give him a beating, and finally, hadn’t taken my spite out on Lola by peaching on her to Ranelagh – without all these ‘if’s’ I would have been spared one of the most frightening and incredible experiences of my life. Another glorious chapter in the heroic career of Harry Flashman would not have been written, and neither would a famous novel.
However, I’ve seen too much of life to fret over if’s and but’s. There’s nothing you can do about them, and if you find yourself at the end of the day an octogenarian with money in the bank and drink in the house – well, you’d be a fool to wish that things had fallen out differently.
Anyway, I was home again in London in ’47, with cash in my pocket for once – my own cash, too, dishonestly got, but no dirtier than the funds which old Morrison, my father-in-law, doled out as charity to keep us respectable ‘for my wee daughter’s sake’. His wee daughter, my Elspeth, was as pleased to see me as she ever was; we still suited very well between the sheets, however much she was playing loose with her admirers. I had ceased worrying about that, too.
However, when I arrived home, hoping for a few months’ rest to recover from the effects of a pistol ball which had been dug out of the small of my back, there was a nasty shock awaiting me. My dear parents-in-law, Mr and Mrs Morrison of Paisley, were now in permanent residence in London; I hadn’t seen much of them, thank God, since I had married their beautiful, empty-headed trollop of a daughter several years before, when I was a young subaltern in Cardigan’s Hussars. We had detested each other then, they and I, and time hadn’t softened the emotion, on either side.
To make matters worse, my father was away from home. In the past year or two the old fellow had been hitting the bottle pretty hard – and pretty hard for him meant soaking up liquor in every waking moment. Once or twice they had to put him away in a place in the country where the booze was sweated out of him and the pink mice which nibbled at his fingers and toes were shoo’ed away – that was what he said, anyway – but it seemed that they kept coming back, and he was off getting another ‘cure’.
‘A fine thing,’ sniffed old Morrison – we were at dinner on my first evening home, and I had hoped to have it in bed with Elspeth, but of course we had to do ‘the polite’ by her parents – ‘a fine thing, indeed. He’ll drink himsel’ intae the grave, I suppose.’
‘Probably,’ says I. ‘His father and grand-father did, so I don’t see why he shouldn’t.’
Mrs Morrison, who in defiance of probability had grown with the years even more like a vulture, gave a gasp of disgust at this, and old Morrison said he didn’t doubt that the son of the house would follow in his ancestors’ besotted footsteps.
‘Shouldn’t wonder,’ says I, helping myself to claret. ‘I’ve got a better excuse than they had.’
‘And whit does that mean, sir?’ bridled old Morrison. I didn’t bother to tell him, so he started off on a great rant about ingratitude and perversity, and the dissolute habits of myself and my family, and finished up with his age-old lamentation about his daughter having married a wastrel and a ruffian, who hadn’t even the decency to stay at home with his wife like a Christian, but must be forever wandering like Ishmael …
‘Hold on,’ says I, for I was sick of this. ‘Since I married your daughter I have been twice abroad, on my country’s service, and on the first occasion at least I came home with a good deal of credit. I’ll wager you weren’t slow to boast about your distinguished son-in-law when I came back from India in ’42.’
‘And what have ye made of it?’ sneers he. ‘What are ye? A captain still, and like to remain one.’
‘You’re never tired of reminding Elspeth in your letters that you keep this family, this house, and the rest of it. Buy me a majority, if military rank means so much to you.’
‘Damn yer impudence!’ says he. ‘Is it no’ enough that I keep you and yer drunken father oot o’ the poor’s-hoose, where ye belong?’
‘I’d have thought so,’ says I, ‘but if you want me to shoot up the military tree as well – why, it costs money, you know.’
‘Aye, weel, deil’s the penny ye’ll get from me,’ snaps he. ‘Enough is bein’ spent on wanton folly as it is,’ and it seemed to me he darted a look at his vinegary spouse, who sniffed and coloured a bit. What’s this, I wondered: surely she hasn’t been asking him to buy her a pair of colours: Horse Guards wouldn’t have taken her, anyway, not for a commission: farrier-sergeant, perhaps, but no higher.
No more was said at dinner, which ended in a merry atmosphere of poisonous ill-will, but I got the explanation from Elspeth when we had retired for the night. It seemed that her mother had been growing increasingly concerned at her inability to get Elspeth’s two virgin sisters married off: the oldest girl, Mary, had been settled on some commercial creature in Glasgow, and was breeding at a rare rate, but Agnes and Grizel were still single. I said surely there were enough fortune-hunters in Scotland ready to take a shot at her father’s money, but she said no, her mother had discouraged them. She was flying higher, reasoning that if Elspeth had been able to get me, who had titled relatives and was at least half way into the great world of fashionable society, Agnes and Grizel could do even better.
‘She’s mad,’ says I. ‘If they had your looks it might be a half-chance, but one sight of your dear parents is going to scare any eligible sprig a mile off. Sorry, m’dear, but they ain’t acceptable, you know.’
‘My parents certainly lack the advantages,’ says Elspeth seriously. Marrying me had turned her into a most wonderful snob. ‘That I admit. But father is extremely rich, as you are aware—’
‘To hear him, it’s no fault of ours if he is.’
‘—and you know, Harry, that quite a few of our titled acquaintances are not too nice to look above a fine dowry. I think, with the right introductions, that Mama might find very suitable husbands for them. Agnes is plain, certainly, but little Grizel is really pretty, and their education has been quite as careful as my own.’
It isn’t easy for a beautiful woman with blue eyes, a milky complexion, and corn-gold hair to look pompous, especially when she is wearing only a French corset decorated with pink ribbons, but Elspeth managed it. At that moment I was overcome again with that yearning affection for her that I sometimes felt, in spite of her infidelities; I can’t explain it, beyond saying that she must have had some magic quality, something to do with the child-like, thoughtful look she wore, and the pure, helpless stupidity in her eyes. It is very difficult not to like a lovely idiot.
‘Since you’re so well-educated,’ says I, pulling her down beside me, ‘let’s see how much you remember.’ And I put her through a most searching test which, being Elspeth, she interrupted from time to time with her serious observations on Mrs Morrison’s chances of marrying off the two chits.
‘Well,’ says I, when we were exhausted, ‘so long as I ain’t expected to help launch ’em in Society, I don’t mind. Good luck to it, I say, and I hope they get a Duke apiece.’
But of course, I had to be dragged into it: Elspeth was quite determined to use my celebrity for what it was still worth, on her sisters’ behalf, and I knew that when she was insistent there was no way of resisting her. She controlled the purse-strings, you see, and the cash I had brought home wouldn’t last long at my rate of spending, I knew. So it was a fairly bleak prospect I had come back to: the guv’nor away in the grip of the quacks and demon drink, old Morrison in the house carping and snuffling, Elspeth and Mrs Morrison planning their campaign to inflict her sisters on unsuspecting London, and myself likely to be roped in – which meant being exposed in public alongside my charming Scotch relations. I should have to take old Morrison to my club, and stand behind Mrs Morrison’s chair at parties – no doubt listening to her teaching some refined mama the recipe for haggis – and have people saying: ‘Seen Flashy’s in-laws? They eat peat, don’t you know, and speak nothing but Gaelic. Well, it wasn’t English, surely?’
Oh, I knew what to expect, and determined to keep out of it. I thought of going to see my Uncle Bindley at the Horse Guards, and beseeching him to arrange an appointment for me to some regiment out of town – I was off the active list just then, and was not relishing the idea of half-pay anyway. And while I was hesitating, in those first few days at home, the letter came that helped to solve my difficulties for me and incidentally changed the map of Europe.
It came like the answer to a pagan’s prayer, along with a dun from some tailor or other, an anti-popish tract, a demand for my club subscription, and an invitation to buy railway shares – all the usual trash. Why I should remember the others, I don’t know. I must have a perverse memory, for the contents of the big white envelope should have been enough to drive them out of my head.
It was a fine, imposing cover – best quality paper, with a coat-of-arms on the back, which I have before me now. There was a shield, quartered red, blue, blue, and white, and in the quarters were a sword, a crowned lion, what looked like a fat whale, and a pink rose. Plainly it was either from someone of tremendous rank or the manufacturers of a new brand of treacle.
Inside there was a letter, and stamped at the top in flowery letters, surrounded by foliage full of pink-bottomed cupids, were the words, ‘Gräfin de Landsfeld’. And who the deuce, I wondered, might she be, and what did she want with me.
The letter I reproduce exactly as it now lies in my hand, very worn and creased after sixty years, but still perfectly legible. It is, I think, quite the most remarkable communication I have ever received – even including the letter of thanks I got from Jefferson Davis and the reprieve I was given in Mexico. It said:
Most Honoured Sir,
I write to you on instruction of Her Grace, the Countess de Landsfeld, of whom you had the honour to be acquainted in Londres some years ago. Her Grace commands me to inform you that she holds the warmest recollection of your friendship, and wishes to convey her strongest greetings on this occasion.
I made nothing of this. While I couldn’t have recited the names of all the women I had known, I was pretty clear that there weren’t any foreign countesses that had slipped my mind. It went on:
Sir, while Her Grace doubts not that your duties are of the most important and exacting nature, she trusts that you will have opportunity to consider the matter which, on her command, I am now to lay before you. She is confident that the ties of your former friendship, no less than the chivalrous nature of which she has such pleasing memory, will prevail upon you to assist her in a matter of the most extreme delicate.
Now he’s certainly mad, this fellow, thinks I, or else he’s got the wrong chap. I don’t suppose there are three women in the world who ever thought me chivalrous, even on short acquaintance.
Her Grace therefore directs me to request that you will, with all speed after receiving this letter, make haste to present yourself to her in München, and there receive, from her own lips, particulars of the service which it is her dearest wish you will be obliged to render to her. She hastens to assure you that it will be of no least expense or hardship to you, but is of such particular nature that she feels that you, of all her many dear friends, are most suitable to its performing. She believes that such is the warmth of your heart that you will at once agree with her, and that the recollection of her friendship will bring you at once as an English gentleman is fitting.
Honoured Sir, in confidence that you will wish to assist Her Grace, I advise you that you should call on William Greig & Sons, attorneys, at their office in Wine Office Court, Londres, to receive instruction for your journey. They will pay £500 in gold for your travelling, etc. Further payments will be received as necessary.
Sir, Her Grace commands me to conclude with the assurance of her deepest friendship, and her anticipation of the satisfaction of seeing you once again.
Accept, dear Sir, etc.,
R. Lauengram,
Chamberlain.
My first thought was that it was a joke, perpetrated by someone not quite right in the head. It made no sense; I had no idea who the Gräfin de Landsfeld might be, or where ‘München’ was. But going over it again several times, it occurred to me that if it had been a fake, whoever had written it would have made his English a good deal worse than it was, and taken care not to write several of the sentences without howlers.
But if it was genuine, what the devil did it mean? What was the service (without expense or hardship, mark you) for which some foreign titled female was willing to slap £500 into my palm – and that only a first instalment, by the looks of it?
I sat staring at the thing for a good twenty minutes, and the more I studied it the less I liked it. If I’ve learned one thing in this wicked life, it is that no one, however rich, lays out cash for nothing, and the more they spend the rummer the business is likely to be. Someone, I decided, wanted old Flashy pretty badly, but I couldn’t for the life of me think why. I had no qualification that I knew of that suited me for a matter of the most ‘extreme delicate’: all I was good at was foreign languages and riding. And it couldn’t be some desperate risk in which my supposed heroism would be valuable – they’d as good as said so. No, it beat me altogether.
I have always kept by me as many books and pamphlets on foreign tongues as I can collect, this being my occasional hobby, and since I guessed that the writer of the letter was pretty obviously German I turned up an index and discovered that ‘München’ was Munich, in Bavaria. I certainly knew no one there at all, let alone a Gräfin, or Countess; for that matter I hardly knew any Germans, had never been in Germany, and had no acquaintance with the language beyond a few idle hours with a grammar some years before.
However, there was an obvious way of solving the mystery, so I took myself off to Wine Office Court and looked up William Greig & Sons. I half expected they would send me about my business, but no; there was as much bowing and scraping and ‘Pray to step this way, sir’ as if I had been a royal duke, which deepened my mystification. A young Mr Greig smoothed me into a chair in his office; he was an oily, rather sporty-looking bargee with a very smart blue cutaway and a large lick of black hair – not at all the City lawyer type. When I presented my letter and demanded to know what it was all about, he gave me a knowing grin.
‘Why, all in order, my dear sir,’ says he. ‘A draft for £500 to be issued to you, on receipt, with proof of identity – well, we need not fret on that score, hey? Captain Flashman is well enough known, I think, ha-ha. We all remember your famous exploits in China—’
‘Afghanistan,’ says I.
‘To be sure it was. The draft negotiable with the Bank of England. Yes, all in perfect order, sir.’
‘But who the devil is she?’
‘Who is who, my dear sir?’
‘This Gräfin what’s-her-name – Landsfeld.’
His smile vanished in bewilderment.
‘I don’t follow,’ says he, scratching a black whisker. ‘You cannot mean that you don’t have the lady’s acquaintance? Why, her man writes to you here …’
‘I’ve never heard of her,’ says I, ‘to my knowledge.’
‘Well,’ says he, giving me an odd look. ‘This is dam—most odd, you know. My dear sir, are you sure? Quite apart from this letter, which seems to suggest a most, ah … cordial regard, well, I had not thought there was a man in England who had not heard of the beauteous Countess of Landsfeld.’
‘Well, you’re looking at one now,’ says I.
‘I can’t believe it,’ cries he. ‘What, never heard of the Queen of Hearts? La Belle Espagnole? The monarch, in all but name, of the Kingdom of Bavaria? My dear sir, all the world knows Donna Maria de – what is it again?’ and he rummaged among some papers – ‘aye, here it is “Donna Maria de Dolores de los Montez, Countess of Landsfeld”. Come, come, sir, surely now …’
At first the name meant nothing, and then it broke on me.
‘De los Montez? You don’t mean Lola Montez?’
‘But who else, sir? The close friend – indeed, some say more than friend – of King Ludwig. Why, the press is never without some fresh sensation about her, some new scandal …’ and he went on, chattering and smirking, but I never heeded him. My head was in a spin. Lola Montez, my Rosanna – a Countess, a monarch in all but name, a royal mistress by the sound of it. And she was writing to me, offering me hard cash – plainly I needed more information.
‘Forgive me, sir,’ says I, breaking in on his raptures. ‘The title misled me, for I’d never heard it before. When I knew Lola Montez she was plain Mrs James.’
‘Oh, dear me, my dear sir,’ says he, very whimsical. ‘Those days are far behind us now! Our firm, in fact, represented a Mrs James some years ago, but we never talk of her! Oh, no, I daresay not! But the Countess of Landsfeld is another matter – a lady of quite a different colour, ha-ha!’
‘When did she come by the title?’
‘Why, some months ago. How you should not …’
‘I’ve been abroad,’ says I. ‘Until this week I hadn’t seen an English newspaper in almost a year. I’ve heard of Lola Montez’s doings, of course, any time over the past three years, but nothing of this.’
‘Oh, and such doings, hey?’ says he, beaming lewdly. ‘Well, my dear sir, your friend at court – ha-ha – is a very great lady indeed. She has the kingdom under her thumb, makes and breaks ministers, dictates policies – and sets all Europe by the ears, upon my word! Some of the stories – why, there is an article in one of the sheets calling her “The Modern Messalina”’ – he dropped his voice and pushed his greasy face towards me – ‘and describing her picked bodyguard of splendid young men – what, sir, hey? She goes abroad with a guard of cuirassiers riding behind her coach, sets her dogs on whoever dares to cross her path – why, there was some unfortunate who didn’t doff his cap, sir – flogged almost to death! True, sir. And none dare say her nay. The King dotes on her, his courtiers and ministers hate her but go in fear and trembling, the students worship her. For luxury and extravagance there has been nothing like her since La Pompadour, they say. Why, sir, she is the nine-day wonder!’
‘Well, well,’ says I. ‘Little Mrs James.’
‘Pray, sir!’ He pretended distress. ‘Not that name, I beg you. It is the Countess of Landsfeld who is your friend, if I may be so bold as to remind you.’
‘Aye, so it is,’ says I. ‘Will you tell me what she wants of me, then?’
‘My dear sir,’ says he, smirking. ‘A matter of “the most delicate”, is it not? What that may be – surely you are in a better position than I to say, eh? Ha-ha. But you will be going to Bavaria, I take it, to hear the particulars “from her own lips”?’
That was what I was asking myself. It was unbelievable, of course: Lola a queen, to all intents – that was wild enough. But Lola seeking my help – when our last encounter had been distinguished by the screaming of abuse and the crashing of chamber pots – to say nothing of the furore at the theatre when she had seen me among her betrayers … well, I know women are fickle, but I doubted if she remembered me with any affection. And yet the letter was practically fawning, and she must have dictated the sense of it, if not the words. It might be she had decided to let bygones be bygones – she was a generous creature in her way, as so many whores are. But why? What could she want me for – all she knew of me was my prowess in bed. Did the maîtresse en titre want to instal me as her lover? My mind, which is at its liveliest in amorous imagination, opened on a riotous vision of Flashy, Pride of the Hareem … but no. I have my share of conceit, but I could not believe that with the pick of all the young stallions of a palace guard, she was yearning for my bonny black whiskers.
And yet here was a lawyer, authorised on her behalf, ready to advance me £500 to go to Munich – ten times more than was necessary for the journey. It made no sort of sense – unless she was in love with me. But that was out of court; I’d been a good enough mount for a week or so, no doubt, but there had been nothing deeper than that, I was certain. What service, then, could I perform that was so obviously of importance?
I have a nose for risk; the uneasy feeling that had come over me on first reading her letter was returning. If I had any sense, I knew, I would bid the greasy Mr Greig good day and tell him to tear his draft up. But even the biggest coward doesn’t run until some hint of danger appears, and there was none here at all – just my uneasy instinct. Against which there was the prospect of getting away from my damned relations – oh, God, and the horrors of accompanying the Morrisons into Society – and the certainty of an immediate tidy sum, with more to follow, and sheer curiosity, too. If I did go to Bavaria, and the signs were less pleasant than appeared at present – well, I could cut stick if I wanted. And the thought of renewing acquaintance with Lola – a ‘warm’ and ‘friendly’ Lola – tickled my darker fancies: from Greig’s reports, even if they were only half true, it sounded as though there was plenty of sport at the Court of Good King Ludwig. Palace orgies of Roman proportions suggested themselves, with old Flashy waited on like a Sultan, and Lola mooning over me while slaves plied me with pearls dissolved in wine, and black eunuchs stood by armed with enormous gold-mounted hair-brushes. And while cold reason told me there was a catch in it somewhere – well, I couldn’t see the catch, yet. Time enough when I did.
‘Mr Greig,’ says I, ‘where can I cash this draft?’
Getting away from London was no great bother. Elspeth pouted a little, but when I had given her a glimpse – a most fleeting one – of Lauengram’s signature and of the letter’s cover, and used expressions like ‘special military detachment to Bavaria’ and ‘foreign court service’, she was quite happily resigned. The idea that I would be moving in high places appealed to her vacant mind; she felt vaguely honoured by the association.
The Morrisons didn’t half like it, of course, and the old curmudgeon flew off about godless gallivanting, and likened me to Cartaphilus, who it seemed had left a shirt and breeches in every town in the ancient world. I was haunted by a demon, he said, who would never let me rest, and it was an evil day that he had let his daughter mate with a footloose scoundrel who had no sense of a husband’s responsibilities.
‘Since that’s the case,’ says I, ‘the farther away from her I am, the better you should be pleased.’
He was aghast at such cynicism, but I think the notion cheered him up for all that. He speculated a little on the bad end that I would certainly come to, called me a generation of vipers, and left me to my packing.
Not that there was much of that. Campaigning teaches you to travel light, and a couple of valises did my turn. I took my old Cherrypicker uniform – the smartest turn-out any soldier ever had anywhere – because I felt it would be useful to cut a dash, but for the rest I stuck to necessaries. Among these, after some deliberation, I included the duelling pistols that a gunsmith had presented to me after the Bernier affair. They were beautiful weapons, accurate enough for the most fastidious marksman, and in those days when revolving pistols were still crude experimental toys, the last word in hand guns.
But I pondered about taking them. The truth was, I didn’t want to believe that I might need them. When you are young and raw and on the brink of adventure, you set great store by having your side-arms just right, because you are full of romantic notions of how you will use them. Even I felt a thrill when I first handled a sabre at practice with the 11th Light Dragoons, and imagined myself pinking and mowing down hordes of ferocious but obligingly futile enemies. But when you’ve seen a sabre cut to the bone, and limbs mangled by bullets, you come out of your daydream pretty sharp. I knew, as I hesitated with those pistols in my hands, that if I took them I should be admitting the possibility of my own sudden death or maiming in whatever lay ahead. This was, you see, another stage in my development as a poltroon. But I’d certainly feel happier with ’em, uncomfortable reminders though they were, so in they went. And while I was at it, I packed along a neat little seaman’s knife. It isn’t an Englishman’s weapon, of course, but it’s devilish handy sometimes, for all sorts of purposes. And experience has taught me that, as with all weapons, while you may not often need it, when you do you need it badly.
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