Flashman

The 11th Light Dragoons at this time were newly back from India, where they had been serving since before I was born. They were a fighting regiment, and – I say it without regimental pride, for I never had any, but as a plain matter of fact – probably the finest mounted troops in England, if not in the world. Yet they had been losing officers, since coming home, hand over fist. The reason was James Brudenell, Earl of Cardigan.

You have heard all about him, no doubt. The regimental scandals, the Charge of the Light Brigade, the vanity, stupidity, and extravagance of the man – these things are history. Like most history they have a fair basis of fact. But I knew him, probably as few other officers knew him, and in turn I found him amusing, frightening, vindictive, charming, and downright dangerous. He was God’s own original fool, there’s no doubt of that – although he was not to blame for the fiasco at Balaclava; that was Raglan and Airey between them. And he was arrogant as no other man I’ve ever met, and as sure of his own unshakeable rightness as any man could be – even when his wrong-headedness was there for all to see. That was his great point, the key to his character: he could never be wrong.

They say that at least he was brave. He was not. He was just stupid, too stupid ever to be afraid. Fear is an emotion, and his emotions were all between his knees and his breastbone; they never touched his reason, and he had little enough of that.

For all that, he could never be called a bad soldier. Some human faults are military virtues, like stupidity, and arrogance, and narrow-mindedness. Cardigan blended all three with a passion for detail and accuracy; he was a perfectionist, and the manual of cavalry drill was his Bible. Whatever rested between the covers of that book he could perform, or cause to be performed, with marvellous efficiency, and God help anyone who marred that performance. He would have made a first-class drill sergeant – only a man with a mind capable of such depths of folly could have led six regiments into the Valley at Balaclava.

However, I devote some space to him because he played a not unimportant part in the career of Harry Flashman, and since it is my purpose to show how the Flashman of Tom Brown became the glorious Flashman with four inches in Who’s Who and grew markedly worse in the process, I must say that he was a good friend to me. He never understood me, of course, which is not surprising. I took good care not to let him.

When I met him in Canterbury I had already given a good deal of thought to how I should conduct myself in the army. I was bent on as much fun and vicious amusement as I could get – my contemporaries, who praise God on Sundays and sneak off to child-brothels during the week, would denounce it piously as vicious, anyway – but I have always known how to behave to my superiors and shine in their eyes, a trait of mine which Hughes pointed out, bless him. This I had determined on, and since the little I knew of Cardigan told me that he prized smartness and show above all things, I took some pains over my arrival in Canterbury.

I rolled up to regimental headquarters in a coach, resplendent in my new uniform, and with my horses led behind and a wagonload of gear. Cardigan didn’t see me arrive, unfortunately, but word must have been carried to him, for when I was introduced to him in his orderly room he was in good humour.

‘Haw-haw,’ said he, as we shook hands. ‘It is Mr Fwashman. How-de-do, sir. Welcome to the wegiment. A good turn-out, Jones,’ he went on to the officer at his elbow. ‘I delight to see a smart officer. Mr Fwashman, how tall are you?’

‘Six feet, sir,’ I said, which was near enough right.

‘Haw-haw. And how heavy do you wide, sir?’

I didn’t know, but I guessed at twelve and a half stone.

‘Heavy for a light dwagoon,’ said he, shaking his head. ‘But there are compensations. You have a pwoper figure, Mr Fwashman, and bear yourself well. Be attentive to your duties and we shall deal very well together. Where have you hunted?’

‘In Leicestershire, my lord,’ I said.

‘Couldn’t be better,’ says he. ‘Eh, Jones? Very good, Mr Fwashman – hope to see more of you. Haw-haw.’

Now, no one in my life that I could remember had ever been so damned civil to me, except toad-eaters like Speedicut, who didn’t count. I found myself liking his lordship, and did not realise that I was seeing him at his best. In this mood, he was a charming man enough, and looked well. He was taller than I, straight as a lance, and very slender, even to his hands. Although he was barely forty, he was already bald, with a bush of hair above either ear and magnificent whiskers. His nose was beaky and his eyes blue and prominent and unwinking – they looked out on the world with that serenity which marks the nobleman whose uttermost ancestor was born a nobleman, too. It is the look that your parvenu would give half his fortune for, that unrufflable gaze of the spoiled child of fortune who knows with unshakeable certainty that he is right and that the world is exactly ordered for his satisfaction and pleasure. It is the look that makes underlings writhe and causes revolutions. I saw it then, and it remained changeless as long as I knew him, even through the roll-call beneath Causeway Heights when the grim silence as the names were shouted out testified to the loss of five hundred of his command. ‘It was no fault of mine,’ he said then, and he didn’t just believe it; he knew it.

I was to see him in a different mood before the day was out, but fortunately I was not the object of his wrath; quite the reverse, in fact.

I was shown about the camp by the officer of the day, a fair young captain, named Reynolds,3 with a brick-red face from service in India. Professionally, he was a good soldier, but quiet and no blood at all. I was fairly offhand with him, and no doubt insolent, but he took it without comment, confining himself to telling me what was what, finding me a servant, and ending at the stables where my mare – whom I had christened Judy, by the way – and charger were being housed.

The grooms had Judy trimmed up with her best leather-work – and it was the best that the smartest saddler in London could show – and Reynolds was admiring her, when who should ride up but my lord in the devil of a temper. He reined in beside us, and pointed with a hand that shook with fury to a troop that had just come in under their sergeant, to the stable yard.

‘Captain Weynolds!’ he bawled, and his face was scarlet. ‘Is this your twoop?’

Reynolds said it was.

‘And do you see their sheepskins?’ bawled Cardigan. These were the saddle sheepskins. ‘Do you see them, sir? What colour are they, I should like to know? Will you tell me, sir?’

‘White, my lord.’

‘White, you say? Are you a fool, sir? Are you colour-blind? They are not white, they are yellow – with inattention and slovenliness and neglect! They are filthy, I tell you.’

Reynolds stood silent, and Cardigan raged on.

‘This was no doubt very well in India, where you learned what you probably call your duty. I will not have it here, do you understand, sir?’ His eye rolled round the stable and rested on Judy. ‘Whose horse is this?’ he demanded.

I told him, and he turned in triumph on Reynolds.

‘You see, sir, an officer new joined, and he can show you and your other precious fellows from India their duty. Mr Fwashman’s sheepskin is white, sir, as yours should be – would be, if you knew anything of discipline and good order. But you don’t, sir, I tell you.’

‘Mr Flashman’s sheepskin is new, sir,’ said Reynolds, which was true enough. ‘They discolour with age.’

‘So you make excuses now!’ snapped Cardigan. ‘Haw-haw! I tell you, sir, if you knew your duty they would be cleaned, or if they are too old, wenewed. But you know nothing of this, of course. Your slovenly Indian ways are good enough, I suppose. Well, they will not do, let me tell you! These skins will be cwean tomorrow, d’you hear, sir? Cwean, or I’ll hold you wesponsible, Captain Weynolds!’

And with that he rode off, head in the air, and I heard his ‘Haw-haw’ as he greeted someone outside the stable yard.

I felt quite pleased to have been singled out for what was, in effect, praise, and I fancy I said something of this to Reynolds. He looked me up and down as though seeing me for the first time, and said, in that odd, Welsh-sounding voice that comes with long service in India:

‘Ye-es, I can see you will do very well, Mr Flashman. Lord Haw Haw may not like us Indian officers, but he likes plungers, and I’ve no doubt you’ll plunger very prettily.’

I asked him what he meant by plunging.

‘Oh,’ says he, ‘a plunger is a fellow who makes a great turn-out, don’t you know, and leaves cards at the best houses, and is sought by the mamas, and strolls in the Park very languid, and is just a hell of a swell generally. Sometimes they even condescend to soldier a little – when it doesn’t interfere with their social life. Good day, Mr Flashman.’

I could see that Reynolds was jealous, and in my conceit I was well pleased. What he had said, though, was true enough: the regiment was fairly divided between Indian officers – those who had not left since returning home – and the plungers, to whom I naturally attached myself. They hailed me among them, even the noblest, and I knew how to make myself pleasant. I was not as quick with my tongue as I was to become later, but they knew me for a sporting fellow before I had been there long – good on a horse, good with the bottle (for I took some care at first), and ready for mischief. I toadied as seemed best – not openly, of course, but effectively just the same; there is a way of toadying which is better than fawning, and it consists of acting bluff and hearty and knowing to an inch how far to go. And I had money, and showed it.

The Indian officers had a bad time. Cardigan hated them. Reynolds and Forrest were his chief butts, and he was forever pestering them to leave the regiment and make way for gentlemen, as he put it. Why he was so down on those who had served in India, I was never entirely sure; some said it was because they were not of the smart set, or well connected, and this was true up to a point. He was the damnedest snob, but I think his hatred of the Indian officers ran deeper. They were, after all, real soldiers with service experience, and Cardigan had never heard a shot outside the shooting range in his twenty years’ service.4

Whatever the cause, he made their lives miserable, and there were several resignations in my first six months’ service. Even for us plungers it was bad enough, for he was a devil for discipline, and not all the plungers were competent officers. I saw how the wind set, and studied harder than ever I had at Rugby, mastering my drill, which wasn’t difficult, and perfecting myself in the rules of camp life. I had got an excellent servant, named Basset, a square-headed oaf who knew everything a soldier ought to know and nothing more, and with a genius for boot-polish. I thrashed him early in our acquaintance, and he seemed to think the better of me for it, and treated me as a dog does its master.

Fortunately, I cut a good figure on parade and at exercise, which was where it counted with Cardigan. Probably only the regimental sergeant major and one or two of the troop-sergeants were my equals on horseback, and his lordship congratulated me once or twice on my riding.

‘Haw-haw!’ he would say. ‘Fwashman sits well, I tell you. He will make an aide yet.’

I agreed with him. Flashman was sitting very well.

In the mess things went well enough. They were a fast crowd, and the money ran pretty free, for apart from parties and the high state which Cardigan demanded we should keep, there was some heavy gaming. All this expense discouraged the Indian men, which delighted Cardigan, who was forever sneering at them that if they could not keep up with gentlemen they had better return to farming or set themselves up in trade – ‘selling shoes and pots and pans’, he would say, and laugh heartily, as though this were the funniest thing imaginable.

Strangely enough, or perhaps not strangely, his Indian prejudice did not extend to the men. They were a tough lot, and excellent soldiers so far as I could see; he was a tyrant to them, and never a week passed without a court-martial for neglect of duty or desertion or drunkenness. The last offence was common but not seriously regarded, but for the other two he punished hard. There were frequent floggings at the rings in the side of the riding school, when we all had to attend. Some of the older officers – the Indian ones – grumbled a good deal and pretended to be shocked, but I guessed they would not have missed it. Myself, I liked a good flogging, and used to have bets with Bryant, my particular crony, on whether the man would cry out before the tenth stroke, or when he would faint. It was better sport than most, anyway.

Bryant was a queer little creature who attached himself to me early in my career and clung like a leech. He was your open toady, with little money of his own, but a gift of pleasing and being on hand. He was smart enough, and contrived to cut a decent figure, although never splendid, and he had all the gossip, and knew everybody, and was something of a wit. He shone at parties and mess nights which we gave for the local society in Canterbury, where he was very forward. He was first with all the news, and could recount it in a fashion that amused Cardigan – not that this was too difficult. I found him useful, and tolerated him accordingly, and used him as a court jester when it suited – he was adept in this role, too. As Forrest said, if you kicked Bryant’s arse, he always bounced most obligingly.

He had a considerable gift of spite against the Indian officers, which also endeared him to Cardigan – oh, we were a happy little mess, I can tell you – and earned him their hatred. Most of them despised me, too, along with the other plungers, but we despised them for different reasons, so we were square there.

But to only one officer did I take an active dislike, which was prophetic, and I guessed that he returned it from the first. His name was Bernier, a tall, hard hawk of a man with a big nose and black whiskers and dark eyes set very close. He was the best blade and shot in the regiment, and until I came on the scene the best rider as well. He didn’t love me for that, I suppose, but our real hatred dated from the night when he made some reference to nabob families of no breeding, and seemed to me to look in my direction.

I was fairly wine-flown, or I’d have kept my mouth shut, for he looked like what the Americans call a ‘killing gentleman’ – indeed, he was very like an American whom I knew later, the celebrated James Hickok, who was also a deadly shot. But being part tipsy, I said I would rather be a nabob Briton, and take my chance on breeding, than be half-caste foreign. Bryant crowed, as he always did at my jokes, and said: ‘Bravo, Flash! Old England forever!’ and there was general laughter, for my usual heartiness and general bluffness had earned me the name of being something of a John Bull. Bernier only half-caught what I said, for I had kept my voice low so that only those nearest heard, but someone must have told him later, for he never gave me anything but an icy stare from then on, and never spoke to me. He was sensitive about his foreign name – actually, he was a French Jew, if you went back far enough, which accounts for it.

But it was a few months after this incident that I really ran foul of Bernier, and began to make my reputation – the reputation which I still enjoy today. I pass over a good deal of what happened in that first year – Cardigan’s quarrel with the Morning Post,5 for example, which had the regiment, and the public generally, in a fine uproar, but in which I had no part – and come to the famous Bernier–Flashman duel, which you will still hear talked about. I think of it only with pride and delight, even now. Only two men ever knew the truth of it, and I was one.

It was a year almost to the day after I left Rugby that I was taking the air in Canterbury, in the Park, and on my way to some mama’s house or other to make a call. I was in full fig, and feeling generally pleased with myself, when I spied an officer walking under the trees with a lady, arm in arm. It was Bernier, and I looked to see what heifer he was ploughing with. In fact, she was no heifer, but a wicked-looking little black-haired piece with a turned-up nose and a saucy smile. I studied her, and the great thought formed in my head.

I had had two or three mistresses in Canterbury, off and on, but nothing in particular. Most of the younger officers maintained a paramour in the town or in London, but I had never set up any establishment like that. I guessed that this was Bernier’s mare of the moment, and the more I looked at her the more she intrigued me. She looked the kind of plump little puss who would be very knowing in bed, and the fact that she was Bernier’s – who fancied himself irresistible to women – would make the tumbling all the sweeter.

I wasted no time, but found out her direction by inquiry, chose my time when Bernier was on duty, and called on the lady. She had a pleasant little retreat, very tastefully furnished, but in no great style: Bernier’s purse was less fat than mine, which was an advantage. I pursued it.

She was French herself, it turned out, so I could be more direct than with an English girl. I told her straight out that I had taken a fancy to her, and invited her to consider me as a friend – a close friend. I hinted that I had money – she was only a whore, after all, for all her fashionable airs.

At first she made a show of being shocked, and la-la’d a good deal, but when I made to leave she changed her tune. My money aside, I think she found me to her fancy; she toyed with a fan and looked at me over it with big, almond-shaped eyes, playing the sly minx.

‘You have poor opeenion of French girls, then?’ says she.

‘Not I,’ says I, charming again. ‘I’ve the highest opinion of you, for example. What’s your name?’

‘Josette.’ She said it very pretty.

‘Well, Josette, let’s drink to our future acquaintance – at my expense’ – and I dropped my purse on the table, at which her eyes widened. It was not a small purse.

You may think me crude. I was. But I saved time and trouble, and perhaps money, too – the money that fools waste in paying court with presents before the fun begins. She had wine in the house, and we drank to each other and talked a good five minutes before I began to tease her into undressing. She played it very prettily, with much pouting and provocative looks, but when she had stripped she was all fire and wickedness, and I was so impatient I had her without getting out of my chair.