Flashman at the Charge. George Fraser MacDonald

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СКАЧАТЬ half the cutthroats of Europe trying to assassinate me,^fn1 and in my humbler capacities – as chief of staff to a White Rajah, military adviser and chief stud to that black she-devil Ranavalona, and irregular emissary to the court of King Gezo of Dahomey, long may he rot – I’ve usually been lucky to come away with a well-scarred skin. And my occasional attachments to the Court of St James’s have been no exception; nursemaiding little Willy was really the most harrowing job of the lot.

      Mind you, the lad was amiable enough in himself, and he took to me from the first.

      ‘You are a brick,’ he told me as soon as we were alone. ‘Is that not the word? When I saw you today, I was sure you would tell them of the billiard place, and I would be disgraced. But you said nothing – that was to be a true friend.’

      ‘Least said, soonest mended,’ says I. ‘But whatever did you run away for that night? – why, I’d have seen you home right enough. We couldn’t think what had become of you.’

      ‘I do not know myself,’ says he. ‘I know that some ruffians set upon me in a dark place, and … stole some of my clothes.’ He blushed crimson, and burst out: ‘I resisted them fiercely, but they were too many for me! And then the police came, and Dr Winter had to be sent for, and – oh! there was such a fuss! But you were right – he was too fearful of his own situation to inform on me to their highnesses. However, I think it is by his insistence that a special guardian has been appointed for me.’ He gave me his shy, happy smile. ‘What luck that it should be you!’

      Lucky, is it, thinks I, we’ll see about that. We’d be off to the war, if ever the damned thing got started – but when I thought about it, it stood to reason they wouldn’t risk Little Willy’s precious royal skin very far, and his bear-leader should be safe enough, too. All I said was:

      ‘Well, I think Dr Winter’s right; you need somebody and a half to look after you, for you ain’t safe on your own hook. So look’ee here – I’m an easy chap, as anyone’ll tell you, but I’ll stand no shines, d’ye see? Do as I tell you, and we’ll do famously, and have good fun, too. But no sliding off on your own again – or you’ll find I’m no Dr Winter. Well?’

      ‘Very well, sir – Harry,’ says he, prompt enough, but for all his nursery look, I’ll swear he had a glitter in his eye.

      We started off on the right foot, with a very pleasant round of tailors and gunsmiths and bootmakers and the rest, for the child hadn’t a stick or stitch for a soldier, and I aimed to see him – and myself – bang up to the nines. The luxury of being toadied through all the best shops, and referring the bills to Her Majesty, was one I wasn’t accustomed to, and you may believe I made the most of it. At my tactful suggestion to Raglan, we were both gazetted in the 17th, who were lancers – no great style as a regiment, perhaps, but I knew it would make Cardigan gnash his elderly teeth when he heard of it, and I’d been a lancer myself in my Indian days. Also, to my eye it was the flashiest rigout in the whole light cavalry, all blue and gold – the darker the better, when you’ve got the figure for it, which of course I had.

      Anyway, young Willy clapped his hands when he saw himself in full fig, and ordered another four like it – no one spends like visiting royalty, you know. Then he had to be horsed, and armed, and given lashings of civilian rig, and found servants, and camp gear – and I spent a whole day on that alone. If we were going campaigning, I meant to make certain we did it with every conceivable luxury – wine at a sovereign the dozen, cigars at ten guineas the pound, preserved foods of the best, tip-top linen, quality spirits by the gallon, and all the rest of the stuff that you need if you’re going to fight a war properly. Last of all I insisted on a lead box of biscuits – and Willy cried out with laughter.

      ‘They are ship’s biscuits – what should we need those for?’

      ‘Insurance, my lad,’ says I. ‘Take ’em along, and it’s odds you’ll never need them. Leave ’em behind, and as sure as shooting you’ll finish up living off blood-stained snow and dead mules.’ It’s God’s truth, too.

      ‘It will be exciting!’ cries he, gleefully. ‘I long to be off!’

      ‘Just let’s hope you don’t find yourself longing to be back,’ says I, and nodded at the mountain of delicacies we had ordered. ‘That’s all the excitement we want.’

      His face fell at that, so I cheered him up with a few tales of my own desperate deeds in Afghanistan and elsewhere, just to remind him that a cautious campaigner isn’t necessarily a milksop. Then I took him the rounds, of clubs, and the Horse Guards, and the Park, presented him to anyone of consequence whom I felt it might be useful to toady – and, by George, I had no shortage of friends and fawners when the word got about who he was. I hadn’t seen so many tuft-hunters since I came home from Afghanistan.

      You may imagine how Elspeth took the news, when I notified her that Prince Albert had looked me up and given me a Highness to take in tow. She squealed with delight – and then went into a tremendous flurry about how we must give receptions and soirées in his honour, and Hollands would have to provide new curtains and carpet, and extra servants must be hired, and who should she invite, and what new clothes she must have – ‘for we shall be in everyone’s eye now, and I shall be an object of general remark whenever I go out, and everyone will wish to call – oh, it will be famous! – and we shall be receiving all the time, and—’

      ‘Calm yourself, my love,’ says I. ‘We shan’t be receiving – we shall be being received. Get yourself a few new duds, by all means, if you’ve room for ’em, and then – wait for the pasteboards to land on the mat.’

      And they did, of course. There wasn’t a hostess in Town but was suddenly crawling to Mrs Flashman’s pretty feet, and she gloried in it. I’ll say that for her, there wasn’t an ounce of spite in her nature, and while she began to condescend most damnably, she didn’t cut anyone – perhaps she realised, like me, that it never pays in the long run. I was pretty affable myself, just then, and pretended not to hear one or two of the more jealous remarks that were dropped – about how odd it was that Her Majesty hadn’t chosen one of the purple brigade to squire her young cousin, not so much as Guardee even, but a plain Mr – and who the deuce were the Flashmans anyway?

      But the press played up all right; The Times was all approval that ‘a soldier, not a courtier, has been entrusted with the grave responsibility entailed in the martial instruction of the young prince. If war should come, as it surely must if Russian imperial despotism and insolence try our patience further, what better guardian and mentor of His Highness could be found than the Hector of Afghanistan? We may assert with confidence – none.’ (I could have asserted with confidence, any number, and good luck to ’em.)

      Even Punch, which didn’t have much to say for the Palace, as a rule, and loathed the Queen’s great brood of foreign relations like poison, had a cartoon showing me frowning at little Willy under a signpost of which one arm said ‘Hyde Park’ and the other ‘Honour and Duty’, and saying: ‘What, my boy, do you want to be a stroller or a soldier? You can’t be both if you march in step with me.’ Which delighted me, naturally, although Elspeth thought it didn’t make me look handsome enough.

      Little Willy, in the meantime, was taking to all this excitement like a Scotchman to drink. Under a natural shyness, he was a breezy little chap, quick, eager to please, and good-natured; he could be pretty cool with anyone over-familiar, but he could charm marvellously when he wanted – as he did with Elspeth when I took him home to tea. Mind you, the man who doesn’t want to charm Elspeth is either a fool or a eunuch, and little Willy was neither, as I discovered on our second day together, as we were strolling up Haymarket – we’d been shopping for a pair of thunder-and-lightnings^fn2 which he admired. СКАЧАТЬ