The Flashman Papers: The Complete 12-Book Collection. George Fraser MacDonald

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СКАЧАТЬ 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.”

“Schonhausen,” 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.”⁹

      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.¹⁰ 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.¹¹

      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 СКАЧАТЬ