Flashman at the Charge

With a sudden oath he snatched the ball from me, set it on the cloth, and played it away. He leaned over, eyes goggling, as it came to rest, cursed foully, and then dashed it on to the floor.

‘Shaved, by God! Curse you, Flashman – you’ve sharped me, you and that damned little diddler! Where is the little toad – I’ll have him thrashed and flung out for this!’

‘Hold your wind,’ says I, while his pals fell against each other and laughed till they cried. ‘He didn’t know anything about it. And you ain’t sharped – I’ve told you to keep your money, haven’t I?’ I gave him a mocking leer. ‘“Any cramp game you like,” eh? Skittle pool, go-back – but not billiards with little flats from the nursery.’ And I left him thoroughly taken down, and went off to find Speed.

You’ll think this a very trivial revenge, no doubt, but then I’m a trivial chap – and I know the way under the skin of muffins like Cutts, I hope. What was it Hughes said – Flashman had a knack of knowing what hurt, and by a cutting word or look could bring tears to the eyes of people who would have laughed at a blow? Something like that; anyway, I’d taken the starch out of friend Cutts, and spoiled his evening, which was just nuts to me.

I took up with Speed and the greenhorn, who was now waxing voluble in the grip of booze, and off we went. I thought it would be capital sport to take him along to one of the accommodation houses in Haymarket, and get him paired off with a whore in a galloping wheelbarrow race, for it was certain he’d never been astride a female in his life, and it would have been splendid to see them bumping across the floor together on hands and knees towards the winning post. But we stopped off for punch on the way, and the little snirp got so fuddled he couldn’t even walk. We helped him along, but he was maudlin, so we took off his trousers in an alley off Regent Street, painted his arse with blacking which we bought for a penny on the way, and then shouted, ‘Come on, peelers! Here’s the scourge of A Division waiting to set about you! Come on and be damned to you!’ And as soon as the bobbies hove in sight we cut, and left them to find our little friend, nose down in the gutter with his black bum sticking up in the air.

I went home well pleased that night, only wishing I could have been present when Dr Winter came face to face again with his erring pupil.

And that night’s work changed my life, and preserved India for the British Crown – what do you think of that? It’s true enough, though, as you’ll see.

However, the fruits didn’t appear for a few days after that, and in the meantime another thing happened which also has a place in my story. I renewed an old acquaintance, who was to play a considerable part in my affairs over the next few months – and that was full of consequence, too, for him, and me, and history.

I had spent the day keeping out of Paget’s way at the Horse Guards, and chatting part of the time, I remember, with Colonel Colt, the American gun expert, who was there to give evidence before the select committee on fire-arms.6 (I ought to remember our conversation, but I don’t, so it was probably damned dull and technical.) Afterwards, however, I went up to Town to meet Elspeth in the Ride, and take her on to tea with one of her Mayfair women.

She was side-saddling it up the Ride, wearing her best mulberry rig and a plumed hat, and looking ten times as fetching as any female in view. But as I trotted up alongside, I near as not fell out of my saddle with surprise, for she had a companion with her, and who should it be but my Lord Haw-Haw himself, the Earl of Cardigan.

I don’t suppose I had exchanged a word with him – indeed, I had hardly seen him, and then only at a distance – since he had packed me off to India fourteen years before. I had loathed the brute then, and time hadn’t softened the sentiment; he was the swine who had kicked me out of the Cherrypickers for (irony of ironies) marrying Elspeth, and committed me to the horrors of the Afghan campaign.fn1 And here he was, getting spoony round my wife, whom he had affected to despise once on a day for her lowly origins. And spooning to some tune, too, by the way he was leaning confidentially across from his saddle, his rangy old boozy face close to her blonde and beautiful one, and the little slut was laughing and looking radiant at his attentions.

She caught my eye and waved, and his lordship looked me over in his high-nosed damn-you way which I remembered so well. He would be in his mid-fifties by now, and it showed; the whiskers were greying, the gooseberry eyes were watery, and the legions of bottles he had consumed had cracked the veins in that fine nose of his. But he still rode straight as a lance, and if his voice was wheezy it had lost nothing of its plunger drawl.

‘Haw, haw,’ says he, ‘it is Fwashman, I see. Where have you been sir? Hiding away these many years, I daresay, with this lovely lady. Haw-haw. How-de-do, Fwashman? Do you know, my dear’ – this to Elspeth, damn his impudence – ‘I decware that this fine fellow, your husband, has put on fwesh alarmingly since last I saw him. Haw-haw. Always was too heavy for a wight dwagoon, but now – pwepostewous! You feed him too well, my dear! Haw-haw!’

It was a damned lie, of course, no doubt designed to draw a comparison with his own fine figure – scrawny, some might have thought it. I could have kicked his lordly backside, and given him a piece of my mind.

‘Good day, milord,’ says I, with my best toady smile. ‘May I say how well your lordship is looking? In good health, I trust.’

‘Thank’ee,’ says he, and turning to Elspeth: ‘As I was saying, we have the vewy finest hunting at Deene. Spwendid sport, don’t ye know, and specially wecommended for young wadies wike yourself. You must come to visit – you too, Fwashman. You wode pwetty well, as I wecollect. Haw-haw.’

‘You honour me with the recollection, milord,’ says I, wondering what would happen if I smashed him between the eyes. ‘But I—’

‘Yaas,’ says he, turning languidly back to Elspeth. ‘No doubt your husband has many duties – in the ordnance, is it not, or some such thing? Haw-haw. But you must come down, my dear, with one of your fwiends, for a good wong stay, what? The faiwest bwossoms bwoom best in countwy air, don’t ye know? Haw-haw.’ And the old scoundrel had the gall to lean over and pat her hand.

She, the little ninny, was all for it, giving him a dazzling smile and protesting he was too, too kind – this aged satyr who was old enough to be her father and had vice leering out of every wrinkle in his face. Of course, where climbing little snobs like Elspeth are concerned, there ain’t such a thing as an ugly peer of the realm, but even she could surely have seen how grotesque his advances were. Of course, women love it.

‘How splendid to see you two old friends together again, after such a long time, is it not, Lord Cardigan? Why, I declare I have never seen you in his lordship’s company, Harry! Such a dreadfully long time it must have been!’ Babbling, you see, like the idiot she was. I’m not sure she didn’t say something about ‘comrades in arms’. ‘You must call upon us, Lord Cardigan, now that you and Harry have met again. It will be so fine, will it not, Harry?’

‘Yaas,’ says he. ‘I may call,’ with a look at me that said he would never dream of setting foot in any hovel of mine. ‘In the meantime, my dear, I shall wook to see you widing hereabouts. Haw-haw. I dewight to see a female who wides so gwacefully. Decidedwy you must come to Deene. Haw-haw.’ He took off his hat to her, bowing from the waist – and a Polish hussar couldn’t have done it better, damn him. ‘Good day to you, Mrs Fwashman.’ He gave me the merest nod, and cantered off up the Ride, cool as you please.

‘Is he not wonderfully condescending, Harry? Such elegant manners – but of course, it is natural in one of such noble breeding. I am sure if you spoke to him, my dear, he would be ready to give the most earnest consideration to finding a place for you – he is so kind, despite his high station. Why, he has promised me almost any favour I care to ask – Harry, whatever is the matter? Why are you swearing – oh, my love, no, people will hear! Oh!’

Of course, swearing and prosing were both lost on Elspeth; when I had vented my bile against Cardigan I tried to point out to her the folly of accepting the attentions of such a notorious roué, but she took this as mere jealousy on my part – not jealousy of a sexual kind, mark you, but supposedly rooted in the fact that here she was climbing in the social world, spooned over by peers, while I was labouring humbly in an office like any Cratchit, and could not abide to see her ascending so far above me. She even reminded me that she was a baron’s daughter, at which I ground my teeth and hurled a boot through our bedroom window, she burst into tears, and ran from the room to take refuge in a broom cupboard, whence she refused to budge while I hammered on the panels. She was terrified of my brutal ways, she said, and feared for her life, so I had to go through the charade of forcing open the door and rogering her in the cupboard before peace was restored. (This was what she had wanted since the quarrel began, you see; very curious and wearing our domestic situation was, but strangely enjoyable, too, as I look back on it. I remember how I carried her to the bedroom afterwards, she nibbling at my ear with her arms round my neck, and at the sight of the broken window we collapsed giggling and kissing on the floor. Aye, married bliss. And like the fool I was I clean forgot to forbid her to talk to Cardigan again.)

But in the next few days I had other things to distract me from Elspeth’s nonsense; my jape in the pool-room with the little greenhorn came home to roost, and in the most unexpected way. I received a summons from my Lord Raglan, of all people.

You will know all about him, no doubt. He was the ass who presided over the mess we made in the Crimea, and won deathless fame as the man who murdered the Light Brigade. He should have been a parson, or an Oxford don, or a waiter, for he was the kindliest, softest-voiced old stick who ever spared a fellow-creature’s feelings – that was what was wrong with him, that he couldn’t for the life of him say an unkind word, or set anyone down. And this was the man who was the heir to Wellington – as I sat in his office, looking across at his kindly old face, with its rumpled white hair and long nose, and found my eyes straying to the empty right sleeve tucked into his breast, he looked so pathetic and frail, I shuddered inwardly. Thank God, thinks I, that I won’t be in this chap’s campaign.

They had just made him Commander-in-Chief, after years spent bumbling about on the Board of Ordnance, and he was supposed to be taking matters in hand for the coming conflict. So you may guess that the matter on which he had sent for me was one of the gravest national import – Prince Albert, our saintly Bertie the Beauty, wanted a new aide-de-camp, or equerry, or toad-eater-extraordinary, and nothing would do but our new Commander must set all else aside to see the thing was done properly.

Mark you, I’d no time to waste marvelling over the fatuousness of this kind of mismanagement; it was nothing new in our army, anyway, and still isn’t, from all I can see. Ask any commander to choose between toiling over the ammunition returns for a division fighting for its life, and taking the King’s dog for a walk, and he’ll be out there in a trice, bawling ‘Heel, Fido!’ No, I was too much knocked aback to learn that I, Captain Harry Flashman, former Cherrypicker and erstwhile hero of the country, of no great social consequence and no enormous means or influence, should even be considered to breathe the lordly air of the court. Oh, I had my fighting reputation, but what’s that, when London is bursting with pink-cheeked viscounts with cleft palates and long pedigrees? My great-great-great-grandpapa wasn’t even a duke’s bastard, so far as I know.

Raglan approached the thing in his usual roundabout way, by going through a personal history which his minions must have put together for him.

‘I see you are thirty-one years old, Flashman,’ says he. ‘Well, well, I had thought you older – why, you must have been only – yes, nineteen, when you won your spurs at Kabul. Dear me! So young. And since then you have served in India, against the Sikhs, but have been on half pay these six years, more or less. In that time, I believe, you have travelled widely?’

Usually at high speed, thinks I, and not in circumstances I’d care to tell your lordship about. Aloud I confessed to acquaintance with France, Germany, the United States, Madagascar, West Africa, and the East Indies.

‘And I see you have languages – excellent French, German. Hindoostanee, Persian – bless my soul! – and Pushtu. Thanks of Parliament in ’42, Queen’s Medal – well, well, these are quite singular accomplishments, you know.’ And he laughed in his easy way. ‘And apart from Company service, you were formerly, as I apprehend, of the 11th Hussars. Under Lord Cardigan. A-ha. Well, now, Flashman, tell me, what took you to the Board of Ordnance?’

I was ready for that one, and spun him a tale about improving my military education, because no field officer could know too much, and so on, and so on …

‘Yes, that is very true, and I commend it in you. But you know, Flashman, while I never dissuade a young man from studying all aspects of his profession – which indeed, my own mentor, the Great Duke, impressed on us, his young men, as most necessary – still, I wonder if the Ordnance Board is really for you.’ And he looked knowing and quizzical, like someone smiling with a mouthful of salts. His voice took on a deprecatory whisper. ‘Oh, it is very well, but come, my boy, it cannot but seem – well, beneath, a little beneath, I think, a man whose career has been as, yes, brilliant as your own. I say nothing against the Ordnance – why, I was Master-General for many years – but for a young blade, well-connected, highly regarded …?’ He wrinkled his nose at me. ‘Is it not like a charger pulling a cart? Of course it is. Manufacturers and clerks may be admirably suited to deal with barrels and locks and rivets and, oh, dimensions, and what-not, but it is all so mechanical, don’t you agree?’

Why couldn’t the old fool mind his own business? I could see where this was leading – back to active service and being blown to bits in Turkey, devil a doubt. But who contradicts a Commander-in-Chief?

‘I think it a most happy chance,’ he went on, ‘that only yesterday His Royal Highness Prince Albert’ – he said it with reverence – ‘confided to me the task of finding a young officer for a post of considerable delicacy and importance. He must, of course, be well-born – your mother was Lady Alicia Paget, was she not? I remember the great pleasure I had in dancing with her, oh, how many years ago? Well, well, it is no matter. A quadrille, I fancy. However, station alone is not sufficient in this case, or I confess I should have looked to the Guards.’ Well, that was candid, damn him. ‘The officer selected must also have shown himself resourceful, valiant, and experienced in camp and battle. That is essential. He must be young, of equable disposition and good education, unblemished, I need not say, in personal reputation’ – God knows how he’d come to pick on me, thinks I, but he went on: ‘– and yet a man who knows his world. But above all – what our good old Duke would call “a man of his hands”.’ He beamed at me. ‘I believe your name must have occurred to me at once, had His Highness not mentioned it first. It seems our gracious Queen had recollected you to him.’ Well, well, thinks I, little Vicky remembers my whiskers after all these years. I recalled how she had mooned tearfully at me when she pinned my medal on, back in ’42 – they’re all alike you know, can’t resist a dashing boy with big shoulders and a trot-along look in his eye.

‘So I may now confide in you,’ he went on, ‘what this most important duty consists in. You have not heard, I daresay, of Prince William of Celle? He is one of Her Majesty’s European cousins, who has been visiting here some time, incognito, studying our English ways preparatory to pursuing a military career in the British Army. It is his family’s wish that when our forces go overseas – as soon they must, I believe – he shall accompany us, as a member of my staff. But while he will be under my personal eye, as it were, it is most necessary that he should be in the immediate care of the kind of officer I have mentioned – one who will guide his youthful footsteps, guard his person, shield him from temptation, further his military education, and supervise his physical and spiritual welfare in every way.’ Raglan smiled. ‘He is very young, and a most amiable prince in every way; he will require a firm and friendly hand from one who can win the trust and respect of an ardent and developing nature. Well, Flashman, I have no doubt that between us we can make something of him. Do you not agree?’

By God, you’ve come to the right shop, thinks I. Flashy and Co., wholesale moralists, ardent and developing natures supervised, spiritual instruction guaranteed, prayers and laundry two bob extra. How the deuce had they picked on me? The Queen, of course, but did Raglan know what kind of a fellow they had alighted on? Granted I was a hero, but I’d thought my randying about and boozing and general loose living were well known – by George, he must know! Maybe, secretly, he thought that was a qualification – I’m not sure he wasn’t right. But the main point was, all my splendid schemes for avoiding shot and shell were out of court again; it was me for the staff, playing nursemaid to some little German pimp in the wilds of Turkey. Of all the hellish bad luck.

But of course I sat there jerking like a puppet, grinning foolishly – what else was there to do?

‘I think we may congratulate ourselves,’ the old idiot went on, ‘and tomorrow I shall take you to the Palace to meet your new charge. I congratulate you, Captain, and’ – he shook my hand with a noble smile – ‘I know you will be worthy of the trust imposed on you now, as you have been in the past. Good day to you, my dear sir. And now,’ I heard him say to his secretary as I bowed myself out, ‘there is this wretched war business. I suppose there is no word yet whether it has begun? Well, I do wish they would make up their minds.’

You have already guessed, no doubt, the shock that was in store for me at the Palace next day. Raglan took me along, we went through the rigmarole of flunkeys with brushes that I remembered from my previous visit with Wellington, and we were ushered into a study where Prince Albert was waiting for us. There was a reverend creature and a couple of the usual court clowns in morning dress looking austere in the background – and there, at Albert’s right hand, stood my little greenhorn of the billiard hall. The sight hit me like a ball in the leg – for a moment I stood stock-still while I gaped at the lad and he gaped at me, but then he recovered, and so did I, and as I made my deep bow at Raglan’s side I found myself wondering: have they got that blacking off his arse yet?

I was aware that Albert was speaking, in that heavy, German voice; he was still the cold, well-washed exquisite I had first met twelve years ago, with those frightful whiskers that looked as though someone had tried to pluck them and left off half way through. He was addressing me, and indicating a side-table on which a shapeless black object was lying.

‘’hat do you ’hink of the new hett for the Guards, Captain Flash-mann?’ says he.

I knew it, of course; the funny papers had been full of it, and mocking H.R.H., who had invented it. He was always inflicting monstrosities of his own creation on the troops, which Horse Guards had to tell him tactfully were not quite what was needed. I looked at this latest device, a hideous forage cap with long flaps,7 and said I was sure it must prove admirably serviceable, and have a very smart appearance, too. Capital, first-rate, couldn’t be better, God knows how someone hadn’t thought of it before.

He nodded smugly, and then says: ‘I un-erstend you were at Rugby School, Captain? Ah, but wait – a captain? That will hardly do, I think. A colonel, no?’ And he looked at Raglan, who said the same notion had occurred to him. Well, thinks I, if that’s how promotion goes, I’m all for it.

‘At Rugby School,’ repeated Albert. ‘That is a great English school, Willy,’ says he to the greenhorn, ‘of the kind which turns younk boys like yourself into menn like Colonel Flash-mann here.’ Well, true enough, I’d found it a fair mixture of jail and knocking-shop; I stood there trying to look like a chap who says his prayers in a cold bath every day.

‘Colonel Flash-mann is a famous soldier in England, Willy; although he is quite younk, he has vun – won – laurelss for brafery in India. You see? Well, he will be your friend and teacher, Willy; you are to mind all that he says, and obey him punctually and willingly, ass a soldier should. O-bedience is the first rule of an army, Willy, you understand?’

The lad spoke for the first time, darting a nervous look at me. ‘Yes, uncle Albert.’

‘Ver-ry good, then. You may shake hands with Colonel Flash-mann.’

The lad came forward hesitantly, and held out his hand. ‘How do you do?’ says he, and you could tell he had only lately learned the phrase.

‘You address Colonel Flash-mann, as “sir”, Willy,’ says Albert. ‘He is your superior officer.’

The kid blushed, and for the life of me I can’t think how I had the nerve to say it, with a stiff-neck like Albert, but the favour I won with this boy was going to be important, after all – you can’t have too many princely friends – and I thought a Flashy touch was in order. So I said:

‘With your highness’s permission, I think “Harry” will do when we’re off parade. Hullo, youngster.’

The boy looked startled, and then smiled, the court clowns started to look outraged, Albert looked puzzled, but then he smiled, too, and Raglan hum-hummed approvingly. Albert said:

‘There, now, Willy, you have an English comrade. You see? Very goot. You will find there are none better. And now, you will go with – with “Harry”’ – he gave a puffy smile, and the court clowns purred toadily, – ‘and he will instruct you in your duties.’

I’ve been about courts a good deal in my misspent career, and by and large I bar royalty pretty strong. They may be harmless enough folk in themselves, but they attract a desperate gang of placemen and hangers-on, and in my experience, the closer you get to the throne, the nearer you may finish up to the firing-line. Why, I’ve been a Prince Consort myself, and had 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!’