Flashman - Flashman and the Angel of the Lord Part 1

Fraser, George MacDonald.

Flashman and the Angel of the Lord.

Explanatory Note

Of all the roles played by Sir Harry Flashman, V.C., in the course of his distinguished and deplorable career, that of crusader must seem the least likely. The nine volumes of his Papers which have been presented to the public since their discovery in a Midlands saleroom in 1966, make a scandalous catalogue in which there is little trace of decent feeling, let alone altruism. From the day of his expulsion from Rugby School in the late 1830s (memorably described in Tom Brown's Schooldays), Flashman the man fulfilled the disgraceful promise of Flashman the boy; the toadying bounder and bully matured into the cowardly profligate and scoundrel who, by chance and shameless opportunism, became one of the most renowned heroes of the Victorian age, unwilling leader of the Light Brigade, fleeing survivor of Afghanistan and Little Big Horn, tarnished paladin of Crimea and the Mutiny, and cringing chronicler of many another conflict, disaster, and intrigue in which he bore an inglorious but seldom unprofitable part.

So it is with initial disbelief that one finds him, in this tenth volume of his memoirs, not only involved but taking a lead in an enterprise which, if hopeless and misguided, still s.h.i.+nes with the l.u.s.tre of heroic self-sacrifice and occupies an honoured niche in the pantheon of freedom. John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry was a dreadful folly which ended in b.l.o.o.d.y and inevitable failure and helped to bring on the most catastrophic of all civil wars, yet its aim was a great and worthy one; the road to h.e.l.l was never paved with n.o.bler intentions. Needless to say, they were not Flash-man's. He came to Harper's Ferry with the utmost reluctance, through the malice of old enemies and the delusions of old friends, and behaved with characteristic perfidy in every way but one: his eye for events and people was as clear and scrupulous as ever, and it may be that his narrative casts a new and unexpected light on a critical moment in American history, and on notable figures of the ante-bellum years - among them the President Who Never Was, a legendary detective and secret agent, and the strange, terrible, simple visionary, known to the world only by a name and a song, who set out to destroy slavery with twenty men and forty rounds apiece.

It is an amazing story, even for Flashman, but my confidence in that honesty which he brought to his writing (if to nothing else) seems to be justified by the exactness with which his account fits the known facts. As with previous packets of the Papers, I have observed the wishes of their custodian, Mr Paget Morrison, and confined myself to amending the author's spelling and providing footnotes and appendices.

G.M.F.

As I sat by the lake at Gandamack t'other day, sipping my late afternoon brandy in the sun, d.a.m.ning the great-grandchildren for pestering the ducks, and reflecting on the wigging I'd get from Elspeth when I took them in to tea covered in dirt and toffee, there was a bra.s.s band playing on a gramophone up at the house, a distant drowsy thumping that drifted down the lawn and under the trees. I guess I must have hummed along or waved my flask to the old familiar march, for presently the villain Augustus (a frightful handle to fix on a decent enough urchin, but no work of mine) detached himself from the waterweed and came to stand snottering before me with his head on one side, thoughtful-like.

"I say, Great-gran'papa," says he, "that's Gory Halooyah."

"So it is, young gallows," says I, "and Gory Halooyah is what you'll catch when Great-grandmama sees the state of you. Where the devil's your other shoe?"

"Sunk," says he, and gave tongue: "'Jombrown's body lies a-moulderin' inna grave, Jombrown's body lies -' "

"Oh! Gweat-gwampapa said a wicked word!" squeals virtuous Jemima, a true Flashman, as beautiful as she is obnoxious. "I heard him! He said 'd-l'!" She p.r.o.nounced it "d'I". "Gweat-gwanmama says people who say such fings go to the bad fire!" Bad fire, indeed - my genteel Elspeth has never forgotten the more nauseating euphemisms of her native Paisley.

"He shan't, so there!" cries my loyal little Alice, another twig off the old tree, being both flirt and toady. She jumped on the bench and clung to my arm. "'Cos I shan't let him go to bad fires, shall I, Great-grampapa?" Yearning at me with those great forget-me-not eyes, four years old and innocent as Cleopatra.

"'Fraid you won't have a vote on the matter, m'dear."

" 'Devil' ain't a bad word, anyway," says John, rising seven and leader of the pack. "The Dean said it in his sermon last Sunday - devil! He said it twice - devil!" he repeated, with satisfaction. "So bad scran to you, Jemima!" Hear, hear. Stout lad, John.

"That was in church!" retorts Jemima, who has the makings of a fine sea-lawyer, bar her habit of sticking out her tongue. "It's all wight in church, but if you say it outside it's vewwy dweadful, an' G.o.d will punish you!" Little Baptist.

"What's moulderin' mean, Great-gran'papa?" asks Augustus.

"All rotten an' stinkin'," says John. "It's what happens when you get buried. You go all squelchy, an' the worms eat you -"

"Eees.h.!.+" Words cannot describe the ecstasy of Alice's exclamation. "Was Jombrown like that, Great-grampapa, all rottish -"

"Not as I recall, no. His toes stuck out of the ends of his boots sometimes, though."

This produced hysterics of mirth, as I'd known it would, except in John, who's a serious infant, given to searching cross-examination.

"I say! Did you know him, Great-grandpapa - John Brown in the song?"

"Why, yes, John, I knew him . . . long time ago, though. Who told you about him?"

"Miss Prentice, in Sunday School," says he, idly striking his cousin, who was trying to detach Alice from me by biting her leg. "She says he was the Angel of the Lord who got hung for freeing all the n.i.g.g.e.rs in America."

"You oughtn't to say 'n.i.g.g.e.rs'." Jemima again, absolutely, removing her teeth from Alice and climbing across to possess my other arm. "It's not nice. You should say 'negwoes', shouldn't you, Gweat-gwampapa? I always say 'negwoes'," she added, oozing piety.

"What should you call them, Great-grandpapa?" asks John.

"Call 'em what you like, my son. It's nothing to what they'll call you."

"I always say 'negwoes' -"

"Great-gran'papa says 'n.i.g.g.e.rs'," observes confounded Augustus. "Lots an' lots of times." He pointed a filthy accusing finger. "You said that dam' n.i.g.g.e.r, Jonkins, the boxer-man -"

"Johnson, child, Jack Johnson."

'- you said he wanted takin' down a peg or two."

"Did I, though? Yes, Jemima dearest, I know Gus has said another wicked word, but ladies shouldn't notice, you know -"

"What's a peggatoo?" asks Alice, twining my whiskers.

"A measure of diminution of self-esteem, precious .. . yes, Jemima, I've no doubt you're going to peach to Great-grandmama about Gus saying 'd.a.m.n', but if you do you'll be saying it yourself, mind . . . What, Gus? Yes, very well, if I said that about the boxer-man, you may be sure I meant it. But you know, old fellow, when you call people names, it depends who you're talking about . . ." It does, too. Flash c.o.o.ns like Johnson' and the riff-raff of the levees and most of our Aryan brethren are one thing - but if you've seen Ketshwayo's Nokenke regiment stamping up the dust and the a.s.segais drumming on the ox-hide s.h.i.+elds, "'Suthu, 'suthu! 's-jee, 's-jee!" as they sweep up the slope to Little Hand . . . well, that's black of a different colour, and you find another word for those fellows. And G.o.d forbid I should offend Miss Prentice, so .. .

"I think it best you should say 'negroes', children. That's the polite word, you see -"

"What about n.i.g.g.e.r minstrels?" asks Alice, excavating my collar.

"That's all right 'cos they're white underneath," says John impatiently. "Shut your potato-trap, Alice - I want to hear about John Brown, and how he freed all the . . . the negro slaves in America, didn't he, Great-grandpapa?"

"Well, now, John ... no, not exactly . . ." And then I stopped, and took a pull at my flask, and thought about it.

After all, who am Ito say he didn't? It was coming anyway, but if it hadn't been for old J.B. and his crack-brained dreams, who can tell how things might have panned out? Little nails hold the hinge of history, as Bismarck remarked (he would!) the night we set out for Tarlenheim . . . and didn't Lincoln himself say that Mrs Stowe was the little lady who started the great war, with Uncle Tom's Cabin? Well, Ossawatomie Brown, mad and murderous old horse-thief that he was, played just as big a part in setting the darkies free as she did - aye, or Lincoln or Garrison or any of them, I reckon. I did my bit myself - not willingly, you may be sure, and cursing Seward and Pinkerton every step of the way that ghastly night . . . and as I pondered it, staring across the lake to the big oak casting its first evening shadow, the shrill voices of the grandlings seemed to fade away, and in their place came the harsh yells and crash of gunshots in the dark, and instead of the scent of roses there was the reek of black powder smoke filling the engine-house, the militia's shots shattering timber and whining about our ears ... young Oliver bleeding his life out on the straw . . . the gaunt scarecrow with his grizzled beard and burning eyes, thumbing back the hammer of his carbine ... "Stand firm, men! Sell your lives dearly! Don't give in now!" . . . and Jeb Stuart's eyes on mine, willing me (I'll swear) to pull the trigger .. .

"Wake up, Great-grandpapa - do!" "Tell us about Jombrown!" "Yes, wiv his toes stickin' out, all stinky!" "Tell us, tell us. . . !"

I came back from the dark storm of Harper's Ferry to the peaceful suns.h.i.+ne of Leicesters.h.i.+re, and the four small faces regarding me with that affectionate impatience that is the crowning reward of great-grandfatherhood: John, handsome and grave and listening; Jemima a year younger, prim ivory perfection with her long raven hair and lashes designed for sweeping hearts (Selina's inevitable daughter); little golden Alice, Elspeth all over again; and the babe Augustus bursting with sin beneath the mud, a Border Ruffian in a sodden sailor suit . . . and the only pang is that at ninety-one2 you can't hope to see 'em grown .. .

"John Brown, eh? Well, it's a long story, you know - and Great-grandmama will be calling us for tea presently .. . no, Alice, he didn't have wings, although Miss Prentice is quite right, they did call him the Angel of the Lord . . . and the Avenging Angel, too ..."

"What's 'venging?"

"Getting your own back . . . no, John, he was quite an ordinary chap, really, rather thin and bony and shabby, with a straggly beard and very bright grey eyes that lit up when he was angry, ever so fierce and grim! But he was quite a kindly old gentleman, too -"

"Was he as old as you?"

"Heavens, child, no one's that old! He was oldish, but pretty spry and full of beans . . . let's see, what else? He was a capital cook, why, he could make ham and eggs, and brown fried potatoes to make your mouth water -"

"Did he make kedgewee? I hate howwid old kedgewee, ugh!"

"What about the slaves, and him killing lots of people, and getting hung?" John shook my knee in his impatience.

"Well, John, I suppose he did kill quite a few people .. . How, Gus? Why, with his pistols - he had two, just like the cowboys, and he could pull them in a twinkling, ever so quickly." And dam' near blew your Great-grandpapa's head off, one second asleep and the next blasting lead all over the shop, curse him. "And with his sword . . . although that was before I knew him. Mind you, he had another sword, in our last fight - and you'll never guess who it had once belonged to. Frederick the Great! What d'you think of that?"

"Who's Frederick the Great?"

"German king, John. Bit of a tick, I believe; used scent and played the flute."

"I think Jombrown was howwid!" announced Jemima. "Killing people is wrong!"

"Not always, dearest. Sometimes you have to, or they'll kill you."

"Great-gran'papa used to kill people, lots of times," protests st.u.r.dy Augustus. "Great-gran'mama told me, when he was a soldier, weren't you? Choppin' 'em up, heaps of -"

"That's quite diffewent," says Jemima, with an approving smile which may well lead me to revise my will in her favour. "It's pwoper for soldiers to kill people." And pat on her words came an echo from half a century ago, the deep level voice of J.B. himself, recalling the slaughter of Pottawatomie . . . "They had a right to be killed." It was a warm afternoon, but I found myself s.h.i.+vering.

"Great-grandpapa's tired," whispers John. "Let's go in for tea."

"What - tired? Not a bit of it!" You can't have grandlings taking pity on you, even at ninety-one. "But tea, what? Capital idea! Who's for a bellyful of gingerbread, eh? Tell you what, pups - you make yourselves decent, straighten your hair, find Gus's other shoe, put your socks on, Alice - yes, Jemima, you look positively queenly - and we'll march up to tea, shall we? At least, you lot will, while I call the step and look after remounts. Won't that be jolly? And we'll sing his song as we go -"

"Jombrown's body? Gory Halooyah?"

"The very same, Gus! Now, then, fall in, tallest on the right, shortest on the left - heels together, John, eyes front, Jemima, pull in your guts, Augustus, stop giggling, Alice - and I'll teach you some capital verses you never heard before! Ready?"

I don't suppose there's a soul speaks English in the world who couldn't sing the chorus today, but of course it hadn't been written when we went down to Harper's Ferry - J.B.'s army of ragam.u.f.fins, adventurers, escaped slaves, rustlers and lunatics. "G.o.d's crusaders", some enthusiast called us - but then again, I've read that we were "swaggering, swearing bullies and infidels" (well, thank'ee, sir). We were twenty-one strong, fifteen white (one with pure terror, I can tell you), six black, and all set to conquer Dixie, if you please! We didn't make it at the time, quite - but we did in the end, by G.o.d, didn't we just, with Sherman's bugles blowing thirty miles in lat.i.tude three hundred to the main .. .

Not that I gave a two-cent dam for that, you understand, and still don't. They could have kept their idiotic Civil War for me, for (my own skin's safety apart) it was the foulest, most useless conflict in history, the ma.s.s suicide of the flower of the British-American race - and for what? Black freedom, which would have come in a few years anyway, as sure as sunrise. And all those boys could have been sitting in the twilight, watching their Johns and Jemimas.

Still, I've got a soft spot for the old song - and for J.B., for that matter. Aye, that song which, the historian says, was sung by every Union regiment because "it dealt not with John Brown's feeble sword, but with his soul." His soul, my eye - as often as not the poor old maniac wasn't even mentioned, and it would be: Wild Bill Sherman's got a rope around his neck, An' we'll all catch hold an' give-it-one-h.e.l.l-of-a-pull! Glory, glory, hallelujah, etc... .

Or it might be "our sergeant-major", or Jeff Davis hanging from a sour apple tree, or any of the unprintable choruses Cohat inspired the pious Mrs Howe to write "Mine eyes have seen the glory".3 But all that's another story, for another day . . . in the meantime, I taught my small descendants some versions which were entirely to their liking, and we trooped up to the house, the infants in column of twos and the venerable patriarch hobbling painfully behind, flask at the high port, and all waking the echoes with: John Brown's donkey's got an india-rubber tail, An' he rubbed it with camphorated oil!

followed by: Our Great-grandpa saved the Viceroy In the - good - old - Khyber - Pa.s.s!

and concluding with: Flashy had an army of a hundred Bas.h.i.+-bazouks An' the whole dam' lot got shot! Glory, glory, hallelujah ..

Spirited stuff, and it was just sheer bad luck that the Bishop and other visiting Pecksniffs should already be taking tea with Elspeth and Miss Prentice when we rolled in through the french windows, the damp and dirty grandlings in full voice and myself measuring my ancient length across the threshold, flask and all. Very well, the grandlings were raucous and dishevelled, and I ain't at my best sprawled supine on the carpet leaking brandy, but to judge from his lords.h.i.+p's disgusted aspect and Miss Prentice's frozen pince-nez you'd have thought I'd been teaching them to smoke opium and sing "One-eyed Riley".

The upshot was that the infants were packed off in disgrace to a defaulters' tea of dry bread and milk, Gus was sent to bed early - oh, aye, Jemima ratted on him - and when the guests had departed in an odour of sanct.i.ty, with-drawing the hems of their garments from me and making commiserating murmurs to Elspeth, she loosed her wrath on me for an Evil Influence, corrupting young innocence with my barrack-room ribaldry, letting them get their feet wet, and did I know what shoes cost nowadays, and she was Black Affronted, and how was she ever going to look the Bishop in the face again, would I tell her?

Contrition not being my style, and useless anyway, I let the storm blow itself out, and later, having ensured that La Prentice was snug in her lair - polis.h.i.+ng her knout and sup-ping gin on the sly, I daresay - I raided the pantry and smuggled gingerbread and lemonade to the grandlings' bed-room, where at their insistence I regaled them with the story of John Brown (suitably edited for tender ears). They fell asleep in the middle of it, and so did I, among the broken meats on John's coverlet, and woke at last to the touch of soft lips on my aged brow to find Elspeth shaking her head in fond despair.

Well, the old girl knows I'm past reforming now, and that Jemima's right: I'll certainly go to the bad fire. I know one who won't though, and that's old Ossawatomie John Brown, "that new saint, than whom nothing purer or more brave was ever led by love of men into conflict and death", and who made "the gallows glorious like the Cross". That's Ralph Waldo Emerson on J.B. "A saint, n.o.ble, brave, trusting in G.o.d", "honest, truthful, conscientious", comparable with William Wallace, Was.h.i.+ngton, and William Tell - those are the words of Parker and Garrison, who knew him, and they ain't the half of his wors.h.i.+ppers; talk about a mixture of Jesus, Apollo, Goliath and Julius Caesar! On the other hand ... "a faker, s.h.i.+fty, crafty, vain, selfish, intolerant, brutal", "an unscrupulous soldier of fortune, a horse-thief, a hypocrite" who didn't care about freeing slaves and would have been happy to use slave labour himself, a liar, a criminal, and a murderer - that's his most recent biographer talking. Interesting chap, Brown, wouldn't you say?

A good deal of it's true, both sides, and you may take my word for it; scoundrel I may be, but I've no axe to grind about J.B.'s reputation. I helped to make it, though, by not shooting him in the back when I had the chance. Didn't want to, and wouldn't have had the nerve, anyway.

You might even say that I, all unwitting, launched him on the path to immortal glory. Aye, if there's a company of saints up yonder, they'll be dressing by the right on J.B., for when the Recording Angel has racked up all his crimes and lies and thefts and follies and deceits and cold-blooded killings, he'll still be saved when better men are d.a.m.ned. Why? 'Cos if he wasn't, there'd be such an almighty roar of indignation from the Heavenly Host it would bust the firmament; G.o.d would never live it down. That's the beauty of a martyr's crown, you see; it outs.h.i.+nes everything, and they don't come any brighter than old J.B.'s. I'm not saying he deserves it; I only know, perhaps better than anyone, how he came by it.

You will wonder, if you're familiar with my inglorious record, how I came to take part with John Brown at all. Old Flashy, the bully and poltroon, cad and turncoat, lecher and toady - bearing Freedom's banner aloft in the n.o.blest cause of all, the liberation of the enslaved and downtrodden? Striking off the shackles at the risk of death and dishonour? Gad, I wish Arnold could have seen me. That's the irony of it - if I'd bitten the dust at the Ferry, I'd have had a martyr's crown, too, on top of all the honours and glory I'd already won in Her Majesty's service (by turning tail and lying and posturing and pinching other chaps' credit, but n.o.body knew that, not even wily old Colin Campbell who'd pinned the V.C. on my coat only a few months before). Oh, the Ferry fiasco could have been my finest hour, with the Queen in mourning, Yankee politicos declaiming three-hour tributes full of ten-dollar words and Latin misquotations (not Lincoln, though; he knew me too well), a memorial service in the Rugby chapel, the Hay-market brothels closed in respect, old comrades looking stern and n.o.ble . . . "Can't believe he's gone . . . dear old Flash . . . height of his fame . . . glorious career before him ... goes off to free the n.i.g.g.e.rs . . . not for gold or guerdon ... aye, so like him . . . quixotic, chivalrous, helpin' lame dogs . . . ah, one in ten thousand . . . I say, seen his widow, have you? Gad, look at 'em bounce! Rich as Croesus, too, they tell me ..."

There'd have been no talk of roasted f.a.gs or expulsion for sottish behaviour, either. Die in a good cause and they'll forgive you anything.

But I didn't, thank G.o.d, and as any of you who have read my other memoirs will have guessed, I'd not have been within three thousand miles of Harper's Ferry, or blasted Brown, but for the ghastliest series of mischances: three h.e.l.lish coincidences - three, mark you! - that even d.i.c.kens wouldn't have used for fear of being hooted at in the street. But they happened, with that d.a.m.ned Nemesis logic that has haunted me all my life, and landed me in more horrors than I can count. Mustn't complain, though; I'm still here, cash in hand, the grandlings upstairs asleep, and Elspeth in her boudoir reading the Countess of Cardigan's Recollections (in which, little does my dear one suspect, I appear under the name of "Baldwin", and a wild night that was, but no mention, thank heaven, of the time I was locked in the frenzied embrace of f.a.n.n.y Paget, Cardigan himself knocked on the door, I dived trouserless beneath the sofa, found a private detective already in situ, and had to lie beside the brute while Cardigan and f.a.n.n.y galloped the night away two feet above our heads. Dammit, we were still there when her husband came home and blacked her eye. Serve her right; Cardigan, I ask you! Some women have no taste).

However, that's a far cry from the Shenandoah, but before I tell you about J.B. I must make one thing clear, for my own credit and good name's sake, and it's this:.! care not one tuppenny hoot about slavery, and never did. I can't say it's none of my biznai, because it was once: in my time, I've raided blacks from the Dahomey Coast, s.h.i.+pped 'em across the Middle Pa.s.sage, driven them on a plantation - and run them to freedom on the Underground Railroad and across the Ohio ice-floes with a bullet in my rump, to say nothing of abetting J.B.'s lunatic scheme of establis.h.i.+ng a black republic - in Virginia, of all places. Set up an Orange Lodge in the Vatican, why don't you?

The point is that I was forced into all these things against my will - by gad, you could say I was "enslaved" into them. For that matter, I've been a slave in earnest - at least, they put me up for sale in Madagascar, and 'twasn't my fault n.o.body bid; Queen Ranavalona got me without paying a penny, and piling into that l.u.s.t-maddened monster was slavery, if you like, with the prospect of being flayed alive if I failed to give satisfaction.*(*See Flashman's Lady.) I've been a f.a.g at Rugby, too.

So when I say I don't mind about slavery, I mean I'm easy about the inst.i.tution, so long as it don't affect me; whenever it did, I was agin it. Selfish, callous, and immoral, says you, and I agree; unprincipled, too - unlike the Holy Joe abolitionist who used to beat his breast about his black brother while drawing his dividend from the mill that was killing his white sister - aye, and in such squalor as no Dixie planter would have tolerated for his slaves. (Don't mistake me; I hold no rank in the Salvation Army, and I've never lifted a finger for our working poor except to flip 'em a tip, and employ them as necessary. I just know there's more than one kind of slavery.) Anyway, if life has taught me anything, it's that the wealth and comfort of the fortunate few (who include our contented middle cla.s.ses as well as the n.o.bility) will always depend on the sweat and poverty of the unfortunate many, whether they're toiling on plantations or licking labels in sweatshops at a penny a thousand. It's the way of the world, and until Utopia comes, which it shows no sign of doing, thank G.o.d, I'll just rub along with the few, minding my own business.

So you understand, I hope, that they could have kept every n.i.g.g.e.r in Dixie in bondage for all I cared - or freed them. I was indifferent, spiritually, and only wish I could have been so, corporally. And before you start thundering at me from your pulpit, just remember the chap who said that if the union of the United States could only be preserved by maintaining slavery, that was all right with him. What's his name again? Ah, yes - Abraham Lincoln.

And now for old John Brown and the Path to Glory, not the worst of my many adventures, but just about the unlikeliest. It had no right to happen, truly, or so it strikes me when I look back. G.o.d knows I haven't led a tranquil life, but in review there seems to have been some form and order to it - Afghanistan, Borneo, Madagascar, Punjab, Germany, Slave Coast and Mississippi, Russia and the back o' beyond, India in the Mutiny, China, American war, Mexico . . . and there, you see, I've missed out J.B. altogether, because he don't fit the pattern, somehow. He's there, though, whiskers, six-guns, texts, and all, between India and China - and nought to do with either, right out n' the mainstream, as though some malevolent djinn had plucked me from my course, dipped me into Harper's Ferry, and then whisked me back to the Army again.

It began (it usually does) with a wanton nymph in Calcutta at the back-end of '58. But for her, it would never have happened. Plunkett, her name was, the sporty young wife of an elderly pantaloon who was a High Court judge or something of that order. I was homeward bound from the Mutiny, into which I'd been thrust by the evil offices of my Lord Palmerston, who'd despatched me to India on secret work two years before;*(*See Flashman in the Great Game.) thanks to dear old Pam, I'd been through the thick of that h.e.l.lish rebellion, from the Meerut ma.s.sacre to the battle of Gwalior, fleeing for my life from Thugs and pandies, spending months as a sowar of native cavalry, blazing away at the Cawnpore barricade, sneaking disguised out of Lucknow with a demented Irishman in tow, and coming within an ace of being eaten by crocodiles, torn asunder on the rack, and blown from a gun as a condemned mutineer - oh, aye, the diplomatic's the life for a lad of metal, I can tell you. True, there had been compensations in the delectable shape of Lakshmibai, Rani of Jhansi, and a Victoria Cross and knighthood at the end of the day, and the only fly in the ointment as I rolled down to Calcutta had been the discovery that during my absence from England some scribbling swine had published his reminiscences of Rugby School, with me as the villain of the piece. A vile volume ent.i.tled Tom Brown's Schooldays, on every page of which the disgusting Flashy was to be found torturing f.a.gs, s.h.i.+rking, toadying, lying, whining for mercy, and boozing himself to disgraceful expulsion - every word of it true, and all the worse for that.

It was with relief that I learned, by eavesdropping in Calcutta's messes and hotels, that no one seemed to have heard of the d.a.m.ned book, or weren't letting on if they had. It's been the same ever since, I'm happy to say; not a word of reproach or a covert sn.i.g.g.e.r, even, although the thing must have been read in every corner of the civilised world by now. Why, when President Grant discovered that I was the Flashman of Tom Brown he just looked baffled and had another drink.

The fact is, some truths don't matter. I've been seventy years an admired hero, the Hector of Afghanistan, the chap who led the Light Brigade, daredevil survivor of countless stricken fields, honoured by Queen and Country, V.C. and Medal of Honour - folk simply don't want to know that such a paladin was a rotter and bully in childhood, and if he was, they don't care. They put it from their minds, never suspecting that boy and man are one, and that all my fame and glory has been earned by accident, false pretence, cowardice, doing the dirty, and blind luck. Only I know that. So my s.h.i.+ning reputation's safe, which is how the public want it, bless 'em.

It's always been the same. Suppose some learned scholar were to discover a Fifth Gospel which proved beyond doubt that Our Lord survived the Cross and became a bandit or a slave-trader, or a politician, even - d'you think it would disturb the Christian faith one little bit? Of course not; 'twouldn't even be denied, likely, just ignored. Hang it, I've seen the evidence, in black and white in our secret files, that Benjamin Franklin was a British spy right through the American Revolution, selling out the patriots for all he was worth - but would any Yankee believe that, if 'twas published? Never, because it's not what they want to believe.4 I reached Calcutta, then, to find myself feted on all sides - and there was no shortage of heroes to be wors.h.i.+pped after the Mutiny, you may be sure. But no other had the V.C. and a knighthood (for word of the latter had leaked out, thanks to Billy Russell, I daresay), or stood six feet two with black whiskers and Handsome Harry's style. I'd had my fill of fame in the past, of course, and was all for it, but I knew how to carry it off, modest and manly, not too bluff, and with a pinch of salt.

I'd supposed it would be straight aboard and hey for Merry England, but I was wrong. P. and O. hadn't a berth for months, for the furloughs had started, and every civilian in India seemed to be leaving for home, to say nothing of ten thousand troops to be s.h.i.+pped out; John Company was hauling down his flag at last, India was pa.s.sing under the rule of the Crown, everything was topsy-turvy, and even heroes had to wait their turn for a pa.s.sage to Suez and the overland route - at a pinch you could get a s.h.i.+p to the Cape, but that was a deuce of a long haul. So I made myself pleasant around the P. and O. office, squeezed the b.u.t.tocks of a Bengali charmer who wrote letters for the head clerk and had her dainty hands on his booking lists, tempted her with costly trinkets, and sealed the bargain by rattling her across his desk while he was out at tiffin ("Oh, sair, you are ay naughtee mann!"). And, lo, ben Flashy's name led all the rest on a vessel sailing two weeks hence.

I was dripping with blunt, having disposed of my Lucknow loot and banked the proceeds, but there wasn't a bed to be had at the Auckland. Outram pressed me to stay with him nothing too good for the man who'd smuggled his message through the pandy lines to Campbell - but I s.h.i.+ed; only the fast set stayed up after ten in "Cal" in those days, and I guessed that chez Outram it would be prayers at nine and gunfire and a cold tub at six, and I didn't fancy above half scrambling out in the dark to seek vicious diversion. I played it modest, saying I knew his place would be full of Army and wives, and I'd rather keep out o' the way, don't you know, sir, and he looked n.o.ble and patted my shoulder, saying he understood, my boy, but I'd dine at least?

I put up at Spence's, a "furnished apartment" shop with a table d'hote but no bearers even to clean your room, so bring your own servant or live like a pig. It served, though, and I could haunt the Auckland of an evening, seeking what I might devour.

I'd been two years without Elspeth, you see, and while Cohey hadn't been celibate quite, what with Lakshmi and various dusky houris here and there, and only the buxom Mrs Leslie at Meerut by way of variety, I was beginning to itch for something English again, blonde and milky for preference, and not reeking of musk and garlic. So the moment I saw Lady Plunkett (for her husband had a t.i.tle) on the Auckland veranda, I knew I'd struck gold, which was the colour of her hair, with complexion to match. Beside Elspeth you'd not have noticed her, but she was tall and plump enough, with a pudding face and a big mouth, drooping with boredom, and once I'd caught her eye it was plain sailing. Believe it or not as you like, she dropped her hand-kerchief by my chair as she sailed out of the dining-room that evening (a thing I thought they did only in comic skits on the halls), so I told a bearer to take it after the mem-sahib, satisfied myself that her husband was improving his gout with port in company with other dodderers, and sauntered up to her rooms on the first floor.

To cut a long story short, we got along splendidly, and I had slipped her gown to her hips and was warming her up, so to speak, when the door opened at my back, her eager whimpers ended in a terrified squeak, and I glanced round to see her lord and master, who shouldn't have been up for hours, tottering across the threshold, apparently on the verge of apoplexy. Well, I'd been there before, but seldom in more fortunate circ.u.mstances, for I was still fully clad, we were both standing up, and she was half-hidden from his gooseberry gaze. I hastily surrendered her t.i.ts, and glared at him.

"What the devil d'ye mean by this intrusion, sir?" cries I. "Begone this instant!" And to my paralysed beauty I continued: "There is only the slightest congestion, marm, I'm happy to say; nothing to occasion alarm. You may resume your clothing now. I shall have a prescription sent round directly . . . Sir, did you not hear me? How dare you interrupt my examination? Upon my word, sir, have you no delicacy - out, I say, at once!"

He could only gobble in purple outrage while I chivvied her behind a screen. "That's my wife!" he bawls.

"Then you should take better care of her," says I, whip-ping out a dhobi-list and scribbling professionally. "Fortunately my room is close at hand, and when I was summoned your lady was suffering an acute palpitation. Not uncommon - close city climate - nothing serious, but unpleasant enough ... h'm, three grains should do it, I think . . . Has she had these fits before?"

"I ... I don't know!" cries he, wattling. "What? What? Maud, what does this mean? Who - why - are you a doctor, sir?"

"MacNab, surgeon, 92nd," says I, mighty brisk, ignoring the mewlings from behind the screen and his own choking noises. "Complete rest for a day or two, you understand; no undue exertion. I shall send this note to the apothecary." I pocketed my paper, and sniffed, looking stern. "Port, sir? Well, it's no concern of mine if you choose to drink yourself under ground, but I'd say one invalid in the family is enough, hey?" I addressed the screen. "To bed at once, marm! Two teaspoonfuls when the boy brings the medicine, mind. I shall call in the morning and look to find you much improved. Good-night - and to you, sir."