Flashman at the Charge. George Fraser MacDonald

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      While all these important events in my personal affairs were taking place – Willy and Elspeth and Cardigan and so forth – you may wonder how the war was progressing. The truth is, of course, that it wasn’t, for it’s a singular fact of the Great Conflict against Russia that no one – certainly no one on the Allied side – had any clear notion of how to go about it. You will think that’s one of these smart remarks, but it’s not; I was as close to the conduct of the war in the summer of ’54 as anyone, and I can tell you truthfully that the official view of the whole thing was:

      ‘Well, here we are, the French and ourselves, at war with Russia, in order to protect Turkey. Ve-ry good. What shall we do, then? Better attack Russia, eh? H’m, yes. (Pause.) Big place, ain’t it?’

      So they decided to concentrate our army, and the Froggies, in Bulgaria, where they might help the Turks fight the Ruskis on the Danube. But the Turks flayed the life out of the Russians without anyone’s help, and neither Raglan, who was now out in Varna in command of the allies, nor our chiefs at home, could think what we might usefully do next. I had secret hopes that the whole thing might be called off; Willy and I were still at home, for Raglan had sent word that for safety’s sake his highness should not come out until the fighting started – there was so much fever about in Bulgaria, it would not be healthy for him.

      But there was never any hope of a peace being patched up, not with the mood abroad in England that summer. They were savage – they had seen their army and navy sail away with drums beating and fifes tootling, and ‘Rule Britannia’ playing, and the press promising swift and condign punishment for the Muscovite tyrant, and street-corner orators raving about how British steel would strike oppression down, and they were like a crowd come to a prize-fight where the two pugs don’t fight, but spar and weave and never come to grips. They wanted blood, gallons of it, and to read of grapeshot smashing great lanes through Russian ranks, and stern and noble Britons skewering Cossacks, and Russian towns in flames – and they would be able to shake their heads over the losses of our gallant fellows, sacrificed to stern duty, and wolf down their kidneys and muffins in their warm breakfast rooms, saying: ‘Dreadful work this, but by George, England never shirked yet, whatever the price. Pass the marmalade, Amelia; I’m proud to be a Briton this day, let me tell you.’¹⁰

      And all they got that summer, was – nothing. It drove them mad, and they raved at the government, and the army, and each other, lusting for butchery, and suddenly there was a cry on every lip, a word that ran from tongue to tongue and was in every leading article – ‘Sevastopol!’ God knows why, but suddenly that was the place. Why were we not attacking Sevastopol, to show the Russians what was what, eh? It struck me then, and still does, that attacking Sevastopol would be rather like an enemy of England investing Penzance, and then shouting towards London: ‘There, you insolent bastard, that’ll teach you!’ But because it was said to be a great base, and The Times was full of it, an assault on Sevastopol became the talk of the hour.

      And the government dithered, the British and Russian armies rotted away in Bulgaria with dysentery and cholera, the public became hysterical, and Willy and I waited, with our traps packed, for word to sail.

      It came one warm evening, with a summons to Richmond. Suddenly there was great bustle, and I had to ride post-haste to receive from His Grace the Duke of Newcastle despatches to be carried to Raglan without delay. I remember an English garden, and Gladstone practising croquet shots on the lawn, and dragonflies buzzing among the flowers, and over on the terrace a group of men lounging and yawning – the members of the Cabinet, no less, just finished an arduous meeting at which most of ’em had dozed off – that’s a fact, too, it’s in the books.¹¹ And Newcastle’s secretary, a dapper young chap with an ink smudge on the back of his hand, handing me a sealed packet with a ‘secret’ label.

      ‘The Centaur is waiting at Greenwich,’ says he. ‘You must be aboard tonight, and these are to Lord Raglan, from your hand into his, nothing staying. They contain the government’s latest advices and instructions, and are of the first urgency.’

      ‘Very good,’ says I. ‘What’s the word of mouth?’ He hesitated, and I went on: ‘I’m on his staff, you know.’

      It was the practice of every staff galloper then – and for all I know, may still be – when he was given a written message, to ask if there were any verbal observations to add. (As you’ll see later, it is a very vital practice.) He frowned, and then, bidding me wait, went into the house, and came out with that tall grey figure that everyone in England knew, and the mobs used to cheer and laugh at and say, what a hell of an old fellow he was: Palmerston.

      ‘Flashman, ain’t it?’ says he, putting a hand on my shoulder. ‘Thought you had gone out with Raglan.’ I told him about Willy, and he chuckled. ‘Oh, aye, our aspiring Frederick the Great. Well, you may take him with you, for depend upon it, the war is now under way. You have the despatches? Well, now, I think you may tell his lordship, when he has digested them – I daresay Newcastle has made it plain enough – that the capture of Sevastopol is held by Her Majesty’s Government as being an enterprise that cannot but be seen as signally advancing the success of Allied arms. Hum? But that it will be a damned serious business to undertake. You see?’

      I nodded, looking knowing, and he grunted and squinted across the lawn, watching Gladstone trying to knock a ball through a hoop. He missed, and Pam grunted again. ‘Off you go then, Flashman,’ says he. ‘Good luck to you. Come and see me when you return. My respects to his lordship.’ And as I saluted and departed, he hobbled stiffly out on to the lawn, and I watched him say something to Gladstone, and take his mallet from him. And that was all.

      We sailed that night, myself after a hasty but passionate farewell with Elspeth, and Willy after a frantic foray to St John’s Wood for a final gallop at his blonde. I was beginning to feel that old queasy rumbling in my belly that comes with any departure, and it wasn’t improved by Willy’s chatter as we stood on deck, watching the forest of shipping slip by in the dusk, and the lights twinkling on the banks.

      ‘Off to the war!’ exclaimed the little idiot. ‘Isn’t it capital, Harry? Of course, it is nothing new to you, but for me, it is the most exciting thing I have ever known! Did you not feel, setting out on your first campaign, like some knight in the old time, going out to win a great name, oh, for the honour of your house and the love of your fair lady?’

      I hadn’t, in fact – and if I had, it wouldn’t have been for a whore in St John’s Wood. So I just grunted, à la Pam, and let him prattle.

      It was a voyage, like any other, but faster and pleasanter than most, and I won’t bore you with it. In fact, I won’t deal at any great length at all with those things which other Crimean writers go on about – the fearful state of the army at Varna, the boozing and whoring at Scutari, the way the Varna sickness and the cholera swept through our forces in that long boiling summer, the mismanagement of an untrained commissariat and inexperienced regimental officers, the endless bickering among commanders – like Cardigan for instance. He had left England for Paris within two days of our encounter in Elspeth’s bedroom, and on arrival in Bulgaria had killed a hundred horses with an ill-judged patrol in the direction of the distant Russians. All this – the misery and the sickness and the bad leadership and the rest – you can read if СКАЧАТЬ