Flashman at the Charge

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 you wish elsewhere; Billy Russell of The Times gives as good a picture as any, although you have to be wary of him. He was a good fellow, Billy, and we got on well, but he always had an eye cocked towards his readers, and the worse he could make out a case, the better they liked it. He set half England in a passion against Raglan, you remember, because Raglan wouldn’t let the army grow beards. ‘I like an Englishman to look like an Englishman,’ says Raglan, ‘and beards are foreign, and breed vermin. Also, depend upon it, they will lead to filthy habits.’ He was dead right about the vermin, but Russell wouldn’t have it; he claimed this was just stiff-necked parade-ground nonsense and red tape on Raglan’s part, and wrote as much. (You may note that Billy Russell himself had a beard like a quickset hedge, and I reckon he took Raglan’s order as a personal insult.)

In any event, this memorial isn’t about the history of the war, but about me, so I’ll confine myself to that all-important subject, and let the war take its chance, just the way the government did.

We got to Varna, and the stink was hellish. The streets were filthy, there were stretcher-parties everywhere, ferrying fever cases from the camps outside town to the sewers they called hospitals, there was no order about anything, and I thought, well, we’ll make our quarters on board until we can find decent lodgings at leisure. So leaving Willy, I went off to report myself to Raglan.

He was full of affability and good nature, as always, shook hands warmly, called for refreshment for me, inquired at great length about Willy’s health and spirits, and then settled down to read the despatches I’d brought. It was close and warm in his office, even with the verandah doors wide and a nigger working a fan; Raglan was sweating in his shirt-sleeves, and as I drank my whistle-belly at a side-table and studied him, I could see that even a couple of months out east had aged him. His hair was snow-white, the lines on his face were deeper than ever, the flesh was all fallen in on his skinny wrist – he was an old man, and he looked and sounded it. And his face grew tireder as he read; when he had done he summoned George Brown, who had the Light Division, and was his bosom pal. Brown read the despatch, and they looked at each other.

‘It is to be Sevastopol,’ says Raglan. ‘The government’s direction seems quite clear to me.’

‘Provided,’ says Brown, ‘both you and the French commander believe the matter can be carried through successfully. In effect, they leave the decision to you, and to St Arnaud.’

‘Hardly,’ says Raglan, and picked up a paper. ‘Newcastle includes a personal aide memoire in which he emphasises the wishes of the Ministers – it is all Sevastopol, you see.’

‘What do we know about Sevastopol – its defences, its garrison? How many men can the Russians oppose to us if we invade Crimea?’

‘Well, my dear Sir George,’ says Raglan, ‘we know very little, you see. There are no reconnaissance reports, but we believe the defences to be strong. On the other hand, I know St Arnaud thinks it unlikely there can be more than 70,000 Russians mustered in the Crimean peninsula.’

‘About our own numbers,’ says Brown.

‘Precisely, but that is only conjecture. There may be fewer, there may well be more. It is all so uncertain.’ He sighed, and kneaded his brow with his left hand, rather abstracted. ‘I cannot say for sure that they might not field 100,000 men, you know. There has been no blockade, and nothing to prevent their troop movements.’

‘And we would have to invade across the Black Sea, make a foothold, perhaps face odds of four to three, invest Sevastopol, reduce it speedily – or else carry on a siege through a Russian winter – and all this while relying solely on our fleet for supply, while the Russians may send into the Crimea what strength they choose.’

‘Exactly, Sir George. Meanwhile, only one fourth of our siege equipment has arrived. Nor is the army in the best of health, and I believe the French to be rather worse.’

I listened to this with mounting horror – not so much at what they were saying, but how they said it. Perfectly calmly, reasonably, and without visible emotion, they were rehearsing a formula which even I, ignorant staff-walloper that I was, could see was one for disaster. But I could only keep mum, clutching my pot of beer and listening.

‘I should welcome your observations, my dear Sir George,’ says Raglan.

Brown’s face was a study. He was an old Scotch war horse this, and nobody’s fool, but he knew Raglan, and he knew something of the politics of power and warfare. He put the despatch back on the table.

‘As to the enterprise of Sevastopol which the Ministers appear to be suggesting,’ says he, ‘I ask myself how our old master the Duke would have seen it. I believe he would have turned it down flat – there is not enough information about the Crimea and the Russians, and our armies are reduced to the point where we have no leeway to work on. He would not have taken the terrible responsibility of launching such a campaign.’12

You could see the relief spreading over Raglan’s old face like water.

‘I concur exactly in what you say, Sir George,’ says he, ‘in which case—’

‘On the other hand,’ says Brown, ‘I judge from this despatch that the government are determined on Sevastopol. They have made up their minds at home. Now, if you decline to accept the responsibility, what will they do? In my opinion, they will recall you; in fine, if you will not do the job, they’ll send out someone who will.’

Raglan’s face lengthened, and I saw an almost pettish set to his mouth as he said:

‘Dear me, that is to be very precise, Sir George. Do you really think so?’

‘I do, sir. As I see it, things have reached a pass where they will have action, whatever it may be.’ He was breathing heavy, I noticed. ‘And I believe that with them, one place is as good as another.’

Raglan sighed. ‘It may be as you say; it may be. Sevastopol. Sevastopol. I wonder why? Why that, rather than the Danube or the Caucasus?’ He glanced round, as though he expected to see the answer on the wall, and noticed me. ‘Ah, Colonel Flashman, perhaps you can enlighten us a little in this. Are you aware of any factor in affairs at home that may have determined the government on this especial venture?’

I told him what I knew – that the press was yelping Sevastopol right and left, and that everyone had it on the brain.

‘Do they know where it is?’ says Brown.

I wasn’t too sure myself where it was, but I said I supposed they did. Raglan tapped his lip, looking at the despatch as though he hoped it would go away.

‘Did you see anyone when the despatch was delivered to you – Newcastle, or Argyll, perhaps?’

‘I saw Lord Palmerston, sir. He remarked that the government were confident that the occupation of Sevastopol would be an excellent thing, but that it would be a damned serious business. Those were his words, sir.’

Brown gave a bark of disgust, and Raglan laughed. ‘We may agree with him, I think. Well, we must see what our Gallic allies think, I suppose, before we can reach a fruitful conclusion.’

So they did – all the chattering Frogs of the day, with St Arnaud, the little mountebank from the Foreign Legion, who had once earned his living on the stage and looked like an ice-cream vendor, with his perky moustache, at their head. He had the feverish look of a dying man – which he was – and Canrobert, with his long hair and ridiculous curling moustaches, wasn’t one to inspire confidence either. Not that they were worse than our own crew – the ass Cambridge, and Evans snorting and growling, and old England burbling, and Raglan sitting at the table head, like a vicar at a prize-giving, being polite and expressing gratified pleasure at every opinion, no matter what it was.

And there was no lack of opinions. Raglan thought an invasion might well come off – given luck – Brown was dead against it, but at first the Frogs were all for it, and St Arnaud said we should be in Sevastopol by Christmas, death of his life and sacred blue. Our navy people opposed the thing, and Raglan got peevish, and then the Frogs began to have their doubts, and everything fell into confusion. They had another meeting, at which I wasn’t present, and then the word came out: the Frogs and Raglan were in agreement again, Brown was over-ruled and the navy with him, we were to go to the Crimea.

‘I daresay the sea air will do us good and raise everyone’s spirits,’ says Raglan, and by God, he didn’t raise mine. I’ve wondered since, if I could have done anything about it, and decided I could. But what? If Otto Bismarck had been in my boots and uniform, I daresay he could have steered them away, as even a junior man can, if he goes about it right. But I’ve never meddled if I could avoid it, where great affairs are concerned; it’s too chancy. Mind you, if I could have seen ahead I’d have sneaked into Raglan’s tent one night and brained the old fool, but I didn’t know, you see.