Royal Flash

But the real life was to be had outside; respectable society apart, I was in with the fast set, idling, gaming, drinking, and raking about the town. It was the end of the great days of the bucks and blades; we had a queen on the throne, and her cold white hand and her poker-backed husband’s were already setting their grip on the nation’s life, smothering the old wild ways in their come-to-Jesus hypocrisy. We were entering into what is now called the Victorian Age, when respectability was the thing; breeches were out and trousers came in; bosoms were being covered and eyes modestly lowered; politics was becoming sober, trade and industry were becoming fashionable, the odour of sanctity was replacing the happy reek of brandy, the age of the Corinthian, the plunger, and the dandy was giving way to that of the prig, the preacher, and the bore.

At least I was in at the death of that wicked era, and did my bit to make it die hard. You could still gamble in the hells about Hanover Square, carouse with the toughs in the Cyder Cellars or Leicester Fields, take your pick of the wenches in Piccadilly, set on the police at Whitehall and pinch their belts and hats, break windows and sing bawdy songs all the way home. Fortunes were still lost at cards and hazard, duels were fought (although I stayed well clear of that; my only duel, from which I emerged by fraud with tremendous credit, had taken place some years before, and I had no intention of risking another). Life could still be openly wild, if you cared for it. It has never been the same since; they tell me that young King Edward does what he can nowadays to lower the moral tone of the nation, but I doubt if he has the style for it. The man looks like a butcher.

One night my chum Speedicut, who had been with me at Rugby, and had come sucking round me since my rise to fame (he was well off) suggested we should go to a new haunt in St James – I think it was the Minor Club, in fact.1 We could try our luck at the tables first, and then at the wenches upstairs, he said, and afterwards go to the Cremorne and watch the fireworks, topping the night off with devilled ham and a bowl of punch, and perhaps some more girls. It sounded all right, so after collecting some cash from Elspeth, who was going to Store Street to listen to one Mr Wilson sing Scottish songs (my God), I set off with Speed for St James.2

It was a frost from the start. On the way to the club Speed was taken with the notion of boarding one of the new buses; he wanted to argue with the cad about the fare and provoke him into swearing: the bus cads were quite famous for their filthy language, and Speed reckoned it would be fun to have him get in a bate and horrify the passengers.3 But the cad was too clever for Speed; he just turned us off without so much as a damn-your-eyes, and the passengers tittered to see us made asses of, which did nothing for our dignity or good temper.

And the club turned out to be a regular hell – the prices even for arrack and cheroots were ruinous, and the faro table was as crooked as a line of Russian infantry and a damned sight harder to beat. It’s always the same; the more genteel the company, the fouler the play. In my time I’ve played nap in the Australian diggings with gold-dust stakes, held a blackjack bank on a South Sea trader, and been in a poker game in a Dodge City livery stable with the pistols down on the blanket – and I’ve met less sharping in all of ’em put together than you’d find in one evening in a London club.

We dropped a few guineas, and then Speed says:

‘This ain’t much fun. I know a better game.’

I believed him, so we picked up two of the Cyprians in the gaming-room and took them upstairs to play loo for each other’s clothes. I had my eye on the smaller of the two, a pert little red-haired piece with dimples; thinks I, if I can’t get this one stripped for action in a dozen hands then I’ve lost my talent for palming and dealing from the bottom. But whether I’d taken too much drink – for we had punished a fair amount of arrack, dear as it was – or the tarts were cheating too, the upshot was that I was down to my shirt-tail before my little minx had removed more than her shoes and gloves.

She was trilling with laughter, and I was getting impatient, when a most unholy din broke out on the floor below. There was a pounding of feet, and shouting, whistles blowing and dogs barking, and then a voice yelled:

‘Cut and run! It’s the traps!’

‘Christ!’ says Speed, grabbing for his breeches. ‘It’s a raid! Let’s get out of this, Flash!’

The whores squeaked with panic, and I swore and struggled into my clothes. It’s no joke trying to dress when the peelers are after you, but I had sense enough to know that there wasn’t a hope of escaping unless we were fully clad – you can’t run through St James on a fine evening with your trousers in your hand.

‘Come on!’ Speed was shouting. ‘They’ll be on us in a moment!’

‘What shall we do?’ wails the red-haired slut.

‘Do what you dam’ well please,’ says I, slipping on my shoes. ‘Good night, ladies.’ And Speed and I slipped out into the corridor.

The place was in uproar. It sounded like a battle royal down on the gaming-floor, with furniture smashing and the Cyprians screaming, and someone bawling: ‘In the Queen’s name!’ On our landing there were frightened whores peeping out of the doorways, and men in every stage of undress hopping about looking for somewhere to run to. One fat old rascal, stark naked, was beating on a door bawling:

‘Hide me, Lucy!’

He beat in vain, and the last I saw of him he was trying to burrow under a sofa.

People nowadays don’t realise that in the forties the law was devilish hot on gaming-hells. The police were forever trying to raid them, and the hell-owners used to keep guard-dogs and scouts to watch out for them. Most hells also had special hiding places for all gambling equipment, so that cards, dice, and boards could be swept out of sight in a moment, for the police had no right of search, and if they couldn’t prove that gaming had been going on they could be sued for wrongful entry and trespass.4

Evidently they had caught the Minor St James’s Club napping with a vengeance, and it would be police court and newspaper scandal for us if we couldn’t cut out pretty sharp. A whistle shrilled at the foot of the stairs, the trollops screamed and slammed their doors, and feet came pounding upwards.

‘This way,’ says I to Speed, and we darted up the next flight. It was another empty landing – the top one – and we crouched by the bannisters, waiting to see what happened. They were hammering on the doors below, and presently someone came scampering up. He was a fair, chinless youth in a pink coat.

‘Oh, my God!’ says he, ‘what will mother say?’ He stared wildly round. ‘Where can I hide?’

‘In there,’ says I, thinking quickly, and pointed at a closed door.

‘God bless you,’ says he. ‘But what will you do?’

‘We’ll hold ’em off,’ says I. ‘Get out of it, you fool.’

He vanished inside, and I winked at Speed, whipped his handkerchief from his breast, and dropped it outside the closed door. Then we tiptoed to a room on the other side of the landing, and took cover behind its door, which I left wide open. From the lack of activity on this floor, and the dust-sheets in the room, it obviously wasn’t in use.

Presently the peelers came crashing up, spotted the kerchief, gave a great view halloo, and dragged out the pink youth. But as I had calculated, they didn’t bother with our room, seeing the door open and naturally supposing that no one could be hiding in it. We stood dead still while they tramped about the landing, shouting orders and telling the pink youth to hold his tongue, and presently they all trooped off below, where by the sound of things they were marshalling their prisoners, and being pretty rough about it. It wasn’t often they raided a hell successfully, and had a chance to mistreat their betters.

‘By George, Flashy,’ whispered Speed at last. ‘You’re a foxy one, and no mistake. I thought we were done.’

‘When you’ve been chased by bloody Afghans,’ says I, ‘you learn all there is to know about lying low.’ But I was pleased at the way my trick had worked, just the same.

We found a skylight, and as luck had it there was a convenient flat roof close by over what proved to be an empty house. We prised up another skylight, crept down two flights of stairs, and got out of a back window into a lane. So far, excellent, but Speed thought it would be capital to go round the front and watch from a safe distance while the peelers removed their victims. I thought it would be fun, too, so we straightened our clothes and then sauntered round into the end of the street.

Sure enough, there was a crowd outside the Minor Club to see the sport. The bobbies were there in their high hats and belts, clustering round the steps while the prisoners were brought down to the closed carts, the men silent and shame-faced or damning their captors for all they were worth, and the trollops crying for the most part, although some had to be carried out kicking and scratching.

If we had been wise we would have kept well clear, but it was growing dusk, and we thought we’d have a closer look. We strolled up to the fringe of the crowd, and as bad luck had it, who should be brought out last, wailing and white-faced, but the youth in the pink coat. Speed guffawed at the woebegone look of him, and sang out to me:

‘I say, Flashy, what will mother say?’

The youth must have heard; he twisted round and saw us, and the spiteful little hound gave a yelp and pointed in our direction.

‘They were there, too!’ he cries. ‘Those two, they were hiding as well!’

If we had stood fast we could have brazened it out, I daresay, but my instinct to run is too deep ingrained; I was off like a hare before the bobbies had even started towards us, and seeing us run they gave chase at once. We had a fair start, but not enough to be able to get out of view and duck into a doorway or area; St James’s is a damned bad district to fly from the police in – streets too broad and no convenient alleyways.

They were perhaps fifty yards behind for the first two streets, but then they began to gain – two of them, with their clubs out, yelling after us to stop. I could feel myself going lame in the leg I had broken earlier in the year at Jallalabad; the muscles were still stiff, and pains shot through my thigh at every stride.

Speed saw what was up and slackened his pace.

‘Hallo, Flash,’ says he, ‘are you done for?’

‘Leg’s gone,’ says I. ‘I can’t keep up any longer.’

He glanced over his shoulder. In spite of the bad name Hughes gives him in Tom Brown’s Schooldays, Speedicut was as game as a terrier and ready for a turn-up any time – not like me at all.5

‘Oh, well, then,’ says he, ‘the deuce with this. Let’s stand and have it out with ’em. There’s only two – no, wait though, there are more behind, damn ’em. We’ll just have to do the best we can, old son.’

‘It’s no use,’ I gasped. ‘I’m in no state to fight.’

‘You leave ’em to me,’ cries he. ‘I’ll hold ’em off while you get out of it. Don’t stand there, man; don’t you see it won’t do for the hero of Afghanistan to be dragged in by the traps? Hellish scandal. Doesn’t matter for me, though. Come on, you blue-bellied bastards!’

And he turned in the middle of the road, sparring away and daring them to come on.

I didn’t hesitate. Anyone who is ass enough to sacrifice himself for Flashy deserves all he gets. Over my shoulder I saw him stop one trap with a straight left, and close with the other. Then I was round the corner, hobbling away as fast as my game leg would carry me. It took me along that street and into the square beyond, and still no bobbies hove in view. I doubled round the central garden, and then my leg almost folded under me.

I rested, gasping, against the railings. Faintly behind me I could hear Speed still singing defiance, and then the nearer patter of feet. Looking round for somewhere to hide I saw a couple of carriages drawn up outside a house fronting onto the railed garden; they weren’t far, and the two drivers were together, talking by the horses in the first one. They hadn’t seen me; if I could hobble to the rear coach and crawl in, the peelers would pass me by.

Hopping quietly is difficult, but I got to the coach unseen by the drivers, opened the door and climbed in. I squatted down out of sight, heaving to get my breath back and listening for sounds of pursuit. But for several moments all was still; they must be off the scent, thinks I, and then I heard a new sound. Men’s and women’s voices were coming from the doorway of one of the houses; there was laughter and cries of good night, some chattering on the pavement and the sound of footsteps. I held my breath, my heart pounding, and then the carriage door opened, light came in, and I found myself staring into the surprised face of one of the loveliest girls I have ever seen in my life.

No – the loveliest. When I look back and review the beautiful women I have known, blonde and dark, slim and buxom, white and brown, hundreds of the creatures – still, I doubt if there was one to touch her. She was standing with one foot on the step, her hands holding back the skirts of her red satin gown, bending forward to display a splendid white bosom on which sparkled a row of brilliants matching the string in her jet-black hair. Dark blue eyes, very large, stared down at me, and her mouth, which was not wide but very full and red, opened in a little gasp.

‘God save me!’ exclaims she. ‘A man! What the devil are you doing, sir?’

It wasn’t the kind of greeting you commonly heard from ladies in the young Queen’s day, I may tell you. Any other would have screamed and swooned. Thinking quickly, I decided that for once truth would answer best.

‘I’m hiding,’ says I.

‘I can see that,’ says she smartly. She had a most lovely Irish lilt to her voice. ‘Who from, and why in my carriage, if you please?’

Before I could answer, a man loomed up at her elbow, and at sight of me he let out a foreign oath and started forward as though to protect her.

‘Please, please, I mean no harm,’ I said urgently. ‘I’m being pursued … the police … no, I’m not a criminal, I assure you. I was in a club that was raided.’

The man just stared at me, but the woman showed her teeth in a delightful smile and then threw her head back, chuckling. I smiled as ingratiatingly as I could, but for all the effect my charm had on her companion I might as well have been Quasimodo.

‘Step out at once,’ snaps he, in a cold clipped voice. ‘At once, do you hear?’

I conceived an instant dislike for him. It was not only his manner and his words, but the look of him. He was big, as big as I was, slim-hipped and broad-shouldered, but he was also damned handsome. He had bright grey eyes and one of those clean-cut faces beneath fair hair that make you think of moral Norse gods, too splendid altogether to be in the company of the beauty beside him.

I started to say something, but he barked at me again, and then the woman came to my aid.

‘Oh, let him be, Otto,’ says she. ‘Can’t you see he’s a gentleman?’

I would have thanked her gratefully, but at that moment there were heavy feet on the pavement, and a grave voice inquiring if the gentleman had seen anyone running through the square. The peelers were on the scent again, and this time I was cornered.

But before I could move or speak the lady had seated herself in the coach and hissed:

‘Get up off the floor, you booby!’

I obeyed, in spite of my leg, and dropped gasping into the seat beside her. And then her companion, damn his eyes, was saying:

‘Here is your man, constable. Arrest him, if you please.’

A police sergeant poked his head in at the door, surveyed us, and said to the fair man, doubtfully:

‘This gentleman, sir?’

‘Of course. Who else?’

‘Well …’ The bobby was puzzled, seeing me sitting there large as life. ‘Are you sure, sir?’

The fair man rapped out another foreign oath, and said of course he was sure. He called the sergeant a fool.

‘Oh, stop it, Otto,’ says the lady suddenly. ‘Really, sergeant, it’s too bad of him; he’s making game of you. This gentleman is with us.’

‘Rosanna!’ The fair man looked outraged. ‘What are you thinking of? Sergeant, I—’

‘Don’t play the fool, Otto,’ says I, taking my cue, and delighted to have my hand squeezed by the lady. ‘Come on, man, get in and let’s be off home. I’m tired.’

He gave me a look of utter fury, and then a fine altercation broke out between him and the sergeant, which the lady Rosanna seemed to find vastly amusing. The coachee and another constable joined in, and then suddenly the sergeant, who had been frowning oddly in my direction while the argument raged, stuck his head into the coach again, and says:

‘Wait a minnit. I know you, don’t I? You’re Cap’n Flashman, bigod!’

I admitted it, and he swore and slapped his fist.

‘The ’ero of Julloolabad!’ cries he.

I smiled modestly at Miss Rosanna, who was looking at me wide-eyed.

‘The defender of Piper’s Fort!’ cries the sergeant.

‘Well, well,’ says I, ‘it’s all right, sergeant.’

‘The ’Ector of Afghanistan!’ cries the sergeant, who evidently studied the press. ‘Damme! Well, ’ere’s a go!’

He was beaming all over his face, which didn’t suit my denouncer at all. Angrily he demanded that I be arrested.

‘He is a fugitive,’ he declared. ‘He invaded our coach without permission.’

‘I don’t give a dam’ if ’e invaded Buckin’am Palace without permission,’ says the sergeant, turning back to me. ‘Corporal Webster, sir, Third Guards, under Major Macdonald at ’Ougoumont, sir.’

‘Honoured to know you, sergeant,’ says I, shaking his hand.

‘Honour’s mine, sir, ’deed it is. Now then, you, sir, let’s ’ave no more of this. You’re not English, are you?’

‘I am a Prussian officer,’ says the man called Otto, ‘and I demand—’

‘Cap’n Flashman is a British officer, so you don’t demand nothink,’ says the sergeant. ‘Now, then! Let’s ’ave no trouble.’ He touched his hat to us and gave me a broad wink. ‘Wish you good night, sir, an’ you, ma’am.’

I thought the German would have an apoplexy, he looked so wild, and his temper was not helped by the lovely Rosanna’s helpless laughter. He stood glaring at her for a moment, biting his lip, and then she controlled herself sufficiently to say:

‘Oh, come along, Otto, get into the coach. Oh, dear, oh, dear,’ and she began laughing again.

‘I am happy you are amused,’ says he. ‘You make a fool of me: it is of a piece with your conduct of this evening.’ He looked thoroughly vicious. ‘Very good, madam, perhaps you will regret it.’

‘Don’t be so pompous, Otto,’ says she. ‘It’s just a joke; come and—’

‘I prefer choicer company,’ says he. ‘That of ladies, for example.’ And clapping on his hat he stepped back from the carriage door.

‘Oh, the devil fly away with you then!’ cried she, suddenly angry. ‘Whip up, driver!’

And then I had to open my mouth. Leaning across her, I called to him:

‘How dare you talk so to a lady, damn you!’ says I. ‘You’re a foul-mouthed foreign dog!’

I believe if I had kept silent he would have forgotten me, for his temper was concentrated on her. But now he turned those cold eyes on me, and they seemed to bore like drills. For a moment I was frightened of the man; he had murder on his face.

‘I shall remember you,’ says he. And then, oddly, I saw a look of curiosity come into his eyes, and he stepped a pace closer. Then it was gone, but he was memorising me, and hating me at the same time.

‘I shall remember you,’ he said a second time, and the coach jerked forward and left him standing by the gutter.

In spite of the momentary fear he had awakened in me, I didn’t give a button for his threats – the danger was past, I had recovered my breath, and I could devote my attention to the important question of the beauty alongside me. I had time to examine the splendour of her profile – the broad brow and raven-black hair, the small ever so slightly curved nose, the pouting red cupid’s bow, the firm little chin, and the white round breasts pushing themselves impudently up from the red satin gown.

The scent of her perfume, the sidelong look of her dark blue eyes, and the wanton husky Irish voice, were all invitations. As anyone will tell you, put Harry Flashman next to a woman like that and one of two things is inevitable – there will either be screams and slaps, or the lady will surrender. Sometimes both. In this case, just from the look of her, I knew there would be no screaming and slapping, and I was right. When I kissed her it was only a moment before her mouth opened under mine, and I promptly suggested that since my leg was still painful, a woman’s touch on it would soothe the cramp out of my muscles. She complied, very teasingly, and with her free hand was remarkably skilful at fending off my advances until the coach reached her house, which was somewhere in Chelsea.

By this time I was in such a state of excitement that I could barely keep my hands still while she dismissed her maid and conducted me to her salon, talking gaily about anything and acting the cool minx. I soon put a stop to that by popping her breasts out the minute the door was closed, and bearing her down on to the settee. Her reaction was startling; in a moment she was grappling with me, digging her nails into me and twining her limbs round mine. The fury of her love-making was almost frightening – I’ve known eager women, plenty of them, but Miss Rosanna was like a wild animal.

The second time, later in the night, was even more feverish than the first. We were in bed by then, and I had no clothing to protect me from her biting and raking nails; I protested, but it was like talking to a mad woman. She even began to leather me with something hard and heavy – a hair-brush, I believe – and by the time she had stopped writhing and moaning I felt as though I had been coupling with a roll of barbed wire.6 I was bruised, scratched, bitten, and stabbed from neck to backside.

In between, she was a different creature, gay, talkative, witty, and of a gentleness to match her voice and looks. I learned that she was Marie Elizabeth Rosanna James, no less, the wife of a fellow-officer who was conveniently out of town on garrison duty. Like myself, she was recently returned from India, where he had been stationed; she found life in London deadly dull; such friends as she knew were stiff and boring; there was hardly any of the bright life she craved; she wished she was back in India, or anywhere she might have some fun. That was why my appearance in her carriage had been so welcome; she had spent a preposterously dull evening with her husband’s relatives, escorted by the German Otto, whom she found stuffy to a degree.

‘Just the sight of a man who looked as though he had some – oh, some spunk in him – was enough for me,’ says she. ‘I wouldn’t have turned you over to the police, my dear, not if you had been a murderer. And it was a chance to take down that conceited Prussian muff – would you believe that a man who looks so splendid could have ice and vinegar in his veins?’

‘Who is he?’ I asked.

‘Otto? Oh, one of these Germans making the Grand Tour in reverse. Sometimes I think there’s a bit of the devil in him, but he keeps it well hid; he behaves so properly because like all foreigners he likes to impress the English. Tonight, just to try and breathe some life into that collection of prigs, I offered to show them a Spanish dance – you would have thought I’d said something indecent. They didn’t even say, “Oh, my dear!” Just turned their heads to one side, the way these English women do, as though they were going to be sick.’ She tossed her head enchantingly, kneeling on the bed like a naked nymph. ‘But I saw the glitter in Otto’s eyes, just for an instant. I’ll be bound he’s not so prim among the German wenches at Schönhausen, or wherever it is.’

I thought there was too much of Otto, and said so.