Flashman and the Tiger: And Other Extracts from the Flashman Papers. George Fraser MacDonald

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СКАЧАТЬ to get their hair cut and drop in at the club at a moment of national crisis, and no one paid them any heed, much less expected ’em to race round to Horse Guards applying to be let loose against the Ashantis or the Dervishes or whatever other blood-drinking heathen were cayoodling round the imperial outposts. Retired, gone to grass, out of reckoning absolutely, that was Colonel Snooks and General Binks.

      Ah, but Flashy was a different bag of biltong altogether. Let some daft fakir start a rising in a godforsaken corner you never heard of, or the British lion’s tail be tweaked anywhere between Shanghai and Sudan, and some journalistic busybody would be sure to recall that ’twas in that very neck of the woods that the gallant Flashy, Hector of Afghanistan, defender of Piper’s Fort, leader of the Light Brigade, won his spurs or saved the day or committed some equally spectacular folly (with his guts dissolving and praying for the chance to flee or surrender, if only they knew it). ‘The hour demands the man, and who better to uphold Britannia’s honour in her present need than the valiant veteran of Lucknow and Balaclava …’ and so forth. They were never rash enough to suggest I should have command, but seemed to have in mind some auxiliary post of Slaughterer-General, as befitting my desperate reputation.

      Not that the ha’penny press matters – but the United Service and Pall Mall do, with their raised eyebrows and faintly critical astonishment. ‘Ah, Flashman, lamentable business in Egypt, what? Goin’ with Wolseley, I daresay … No? You surprise me.’ Dash it, you can see them thinking, man of his reputation, prime of life, don’t he know his duty, good God? If I’d had the belly of Binks or Snooks’s gout (both of ’em younger than I) I’d not be thought of, but when you’ve a lancer figure and barely a touch of grey in your whiskers and the renown of Bayard, you’re expected to be clamouring for service. And when your sovereign lady regards you pop-eyed over the teacups with a bland ‘I expect, dear Sir Harry, that you will be accompanying Sir Garnet to Egypt,’ you can hardly remind her that you’re past sixty and disinclined, especially when the idiot you married in an evil hour is assuring Her Majesty that you’re champing at the bit. (Wanted me away, I suspect, so that she could cuckold me in comfort.) All round it’s a case of ‘No show without Flashy’, and before you can say God-help-us you’re in the desert listening to ‘Cock o’ the North’ and trying to look as though you’re itching to come to grips with twice your weight in angry niggers.

      It is, I repeat, damnably unfair, and by the autumn of ’83 I’d had enough of it. In the five years since Otto’s Congress I’d been well in the public eye, chiefly because of my supposed heroics in South Africa in ’79 – a place I’d have shunned like the plague but for Elspeth’s insatiable fondness for money, as if old Morrison’s million wasn’t enough without bothering her empty head over her cousin’s supposed mine (but I’ll record that disgusting episode another day). Then in ’82 there had been the Egyptian garboil I mentioned a moment ago; Joe Wolseley had asked for me point-blank, and with the press applauding and the Queen approving and Elspeth bursting into tears as I rogered her farewell, what the blazes could I do but fall in?

      In the event it wasn’t the worst campaign I’ve seen, not by a mile; at least it was short. We only went in with great reluctance (when did Gladstone ever show anything else?) to help the Khedive quell his rebellious army, who were slaughtering Christians and vowing to drive all foreigners from the country – bad news for our Suez Canal investors (44 per cent, what?) and our lifeline to India. Joe brought ’em to heel smartly enough at Tel-el-Kebir, where the kilties massacred everything in sight, and my only bad scare was when I found myself perforce charging with the Tin Bellies at Kassassin, but by gallantly turning aside to help Baker Russell when his horse was shot, and so arriving when the golliwog infantry were already taking to their heels, I missed the worst of it, cursing my bad luck and Baker for holding me up. A good glare and loud roar, sabre in hand, work wonders; Joe said I’d been an inspiration to the Household riders, and wanted me to stay on at Cairo, but I muttered that he didn’t need me now that peace was breaking out, and his staff-wallopers grinned at each other and said wasn’t that old Flashy, just?⁹

      I was mighty glad to be home by Christmas of ’82, I can tell you, for while Egypt was quiet enough by then, I could guess it was liable to be hot enough presently, and not just with the sun. After we’d brought the Khedive’s troops back to their allegiance, the idea was that we’d withdraw, but that was all my eye (we’re there yet, have you noticed?), for down south, in the Sudan, the war drums were already beating, with the maniac Mahdi stirring up the Fuzzy-Wuzzies in a great jihad to conquer the world, with Egypt first on the list. Hell of a place the Sudan, all rock and sand and thorn and the most monstrous savages in creation; Charley Gordon, my China acquaintance, had governed it in the ’seventies, and spent most of his time poring over the Scriptures and chasing slavers before retiring to Palestine to watch rocks and contemplate the Infinite. Mad as a cut snake, he was, but the Sudan had gone to pot entirely after he left, and was now going to need attention – from guess who? From the Khedive’s army, led by soldiers of the Queen, that was who, whether Gladstone liked it or not, and I was shot if I was going to be one of ’em.

      So I came home, along of Joe and Bimbashi Stewart and others, having served my turn – but would you believe it, in ’83 when that immortal ass Hicks was given command of the Khedive’s army, half of whom had been our enemies a few months earlier, and told to deal with the Sudan, there were those at Horse Guards with the brazen cheek to suggest that I should go out again, to serve on his staff? Since he was my junior, I was able to scotch that flat, but when word came in September that he’d gone off Mahdi-hunting at last, blowed if one of the gutter rags didn’t come out with a leaderette regretting ‘that the task has fallen to an officer of comparative inexperience, while such distinguished soldiers as Lord Wolseley, Major-General Gordon, and Sir Harry Flashman, men thoroughly familiar with the country and the enemy, remain at home or unemployed.’

      It was the mention of Gordon’s name, more than my own, that brought the sweat out on my brow, for while no one in his senses would suggest that I should replace Hicks, there was a strong shave in the clubs that Cracked Charley would be recalled and given the job, and I knew that if he was, Flashy would be the first he’d want to enlist.¹⁰ China had given him the misguided notion that I was the devil’s own fire-eater, and just the chap to have on hand when Fuzzy charged the square. Well, soldiering under Joe Wolseley had been bad enough, but at least he was sane. Gordon? I’d as soon go to war with the town drunk. The man wasn’t safe – sticking forks in people and scattering tracts from railway carriages and accosting perfect strangers to see if they’d met Jesus lately, I ask you! No, a holiday abroad was indicated, before the Mad Sapper came recruiting.

      And I’d just reached that conclusion when Blowitz’s letter, bearing that fateful second photograph, landed on the breakfast table. It couldn’t have come more pat. This is what he wrote, with more underlinings and points of admiration than Elspeth at her worst – not Times style at all:

      Dearest Friend!

      I write to you by Royal Command – what do you think of that!! It is true – a PRINCESS, no less! And such a Princess, plus belle et elegant, whose most Ardent Desire is to meet the gallant and renowned Sir H.F. – for reasons which I shall explain when we meet.

      Come to Paris no later than October the fourth, my dear Harry. I promise you will be enchanted and oblige your best of friends and loyal comrade in destiny

      Stefan O-B.

      P.S. Recalling your interest in photography! I enclose a portrait of Her Royal Highness. A bientôt!

      Well, wasn’t this the ticket? Elspeth was in Scotland enduring her sisters, and here was the ideal billet where I could lurk incog. while Gordon beat the bushes – and enjoy some good carnal amusement, to judge from the photograph. Not that Her Highness was an outstanding beauty, but her picture grew on me as I studied it. It showed a tall, imposing female standing proud in a splendid gown of state, a coronet on her piled blonde hair, СКАЧАТЬ