The Flashman Papers: The Complete 12-Book Collection

by George MacDonald Fraser

  “Because I’ll give myself away in a hundred things, man! My voice, my actions—God knows what!”

  “That is not so,” said Bismarck. “I tell you, I know the Prince, his voice, his mannerisms—all of it. And I tell you that if you shave your head and upper lip, your own mothers would not know you apart.”

  “It’s true,” says Rudi, from the fireplace. “You aren’t just alike: you’re the same man. If you learn a few of his habits—gestures, that sort of thing—it can’t fail.”

  “But I’m not an actor! How can I—”

  “You wandered in Afghanistan disguised as a native, did you not?” says Bismarck. “I know as much about you as you do yourself, you see. If you can do that, you can easily do this.” He leaned forward again. “All this has been thought of. If you were not a man of action, of proved resource and courage, of geist und geschicklichkeit, wit and aptitude, I would not have entertained this scheme for a moment. It is because you have all these things, and have proved them, that you are here now.”

  Well, that was all he knew. God help him, he believed the newspapers, and my huge, overblown reputation—he thought I was the daredevil Flash Harry of popular report, the Hero of Jallalabad, and all that tommy-rot. And there was no hope that I could persuade him otherwise.

  “But my God!” says I, appalled. “What you are proposing is that I should go to Strackenz and marry this damned woman! I mean—I’m married already!”

  “You are a Protestant. This will be a Roman ceremony. It will be in no way binding on you, morally or in fact.”

  “Who cares about that? What I mean is—I’d have to live with her, as King of Strackenz, or whatever it is. How could I? What about the real Prince Carl?”

  “He will be kept close under lock and key, in a convenient place in Mecklenburg. He will there recover from his illness. And in due course I will explain matters to him—the full truth. I will point out to him that he has no choice but to continue with the remainder of my plan.”

  “And what’s that, in God’s name?”

  “When he has recovered—in perhaps a month or two after your marriage—you will go hunting from a certain lodge. You will become separated from your companions. They will find you, eventually, or rather they will find the real Prince. He will have fallen from his horse, and taken a slight graze on the head. It will necessitate some days’ rest and recovery. Thereafter he will return to Strackenz City and his bride. If she notices any difference in him, it will be attributed to the effect of his head wound. But it will hardly cause her to suspect that he is not the man she married. I expect that they will live and rule long and happily together.”

  “And what the hell happens to me?”

  “You, my dear sir, will by then be far over the frontiers of Germany—with ten thousand pounds sterling in your pocket.” Bismarck permitted himself a smile. “We do not ask you to work for nothing, you see. Your silence will be assured—for if you decided to tell your incredible tale, who would believe it? But why should you? You will have come out of the affair most profitably.”

  Aye, profitably for you, thinks I, with a bullet in the back of my head or a knife between my ribs. It was as clear as day that at the end of the affair I’d be a heap safer dead than alive, from their point of view. I looked from Bismarck to the cheerfully smiling Rudi, who had perched himself on the table edge; to Kraftstein, frowning at me from his massive height; to de Gautet, with his snake’s eyes—I even glanced round at Bersonin, glowering in silence by the door. By gum, I’ve seen some pretty sets of villains in my time, but I believe that if I were ever asked to recruit a band of cut-throats for some nefarious enterprise, Bismarck’s beauties would head my list.

  “I see what is in your mind,” says Bismarck. He rose, taking out his cigar case, and presented me with a weed, which he lit for me from a candle. “You do not trust me. You believe that afterwards I should have you destroyed, nicht wahr? That I would break my promise.”

  “Oh, well,” says I, “the thought hadn’t occurred, but now that you mention it …”

  “My dear Mr Flashman,” says he, “credit me with some intelligence. I have only to put myself in your shoes—as I’m sure you have just been putting yourself in mine. I should be highly suspicious, if I were you. I should require to be convinced that all was—above board, is it not?”

  I said nothing, and he took a turn round the table.

  “Ask yourself,” says he, “what I have to gain by playing you false. Security? Hardly so, since you will be in no case, living, to do harm to us. As I’ve said, no one would believe your story, which indeed would incriminate you if you were foolish enough to tell it. What else? Killing you would present … problems. You are not a child, and disposing of you might well cause some unforeseen complication in my plans.”

  “We’re honest with you, you see,” says Rudi, and Kraftstein nodded vigorously. De Gautet tried to smile reassuringly, like a contrite wolf.

  “And ten thousand pounds, you may believe me, is neither here nor there,” went on Bismarck. “It is a cheap price to pay for laying the foundation of the new Germany—and that is what is at stake here. You may think we are daydreaming, that we are foolish visionaries—you may even think us villains. I do not care. It does not matter. It is a great thing that we are going to do, and you are only a tiny pawn in it—but, like all tiny pawns, vital. I need you, and I am willing to pay for what I need.” He drew himself up, virile, commanding, and full of mastery. “You seek guarantees of my good faith. I have tried to show you that it is in my interest, and Germany’s, to keep faith. To this I add my word as a junker, a soldier, and a gentleman: I swear on my honour that what I have promised I shall fulfil, and that when you have concluded your part in this scheme you shall have safe-conduct out of Germany, with your reward, and that no harm shall come to you.”

  He swung about on his heel and went back to his chair; the others sat dead still. And then, after just the right interval had elapsed, he added:

  “If you wish, I can swear it on the Bible. For my own part, I believe that a man who will tell a lie will swear one also. I do neither. But I am at your disposal.”

  It was very prettily said. For a moment he almost had me believing him. But I’d moved in just as seedy company as friend Bismarck, and was up to all the dodges.

  “I don’t care about Bible oaths,” says I. “And, anyway, I’m not sure that I like your little plot. I’m no pauper, you know—” which was a damned lie, but there—“and I’m not sweatin’ to earn your ten thousand. It’s dishonest, it’s deceitful, and it’s downright dangerous. If there was a slip, it would cost me my head—”

  “And ours, remember,” says de Gautet. “You would be in a position to betray us, if you were taken.”

  “Thanks very much,” says I. “That would be a great consolation. But, d’you know, I don’t think I care for the whole thing. I’m all for a quiet life, and—”

  “Even in a Bavarian prison,” says young Rudi sweetly, “serving ten years as a ravisher?”

  “That cock won’t fight,” says I. “Even suppose you took me back to Munich now, how would you explain my absence between the supposed crime and my arrest? It might not be so easy.”

  That made them think, and then Bismarck chimed in.

  “This is to waste time. Whatever pressures were used on you initially, the point is that you are here, now, and I need hardly tell you what will happen if you refuse my offer. We are very lonely here. None saw you come; none would ever see you go. Am I plain? You have no choice, in fact, but to do as I require, and collect the fee which, I promise, will be paid.”

  So there we were; the good old naked threat. They could slit my throat as neat as ninepence if they chose, and none the wiser. I was in a most hellish fix, and my innards were churning horribly. But there was no way out—and they might be honest at the end of the day. By God, I could use ten thou. But I couldn’t believe they would come up to scratch (I wouldn’t have, in Bismarck’s place, once I’d got
what I wanted). I didn’t even dare think of the risks of their hare-brained impersonation scheme, but on the other hand I couldn’t contemplate the alternative if I refused. On the one side, a lunatic adventure fraught with frightful danger, and possibly a handsome reward; on the other side—death, no doubt at the bare hands of Herr Kraftstein.

  “Tell you what, Bismarck,” says I. “Make it fifteen thousand.”

  He stared at me coldly. “That is too much. The reward is ten thousand, and cannot be increased.”

  I tried to look glum, but this had cheered me up. If he was intending to play me false in the end, he wouldn’t have hesitated to raise the stakes; the fact that he didn’t suggested he might be going to level after all.

  “You’re no pauper, you know,” chuckled Rudi, damn him.

  I sat like a man undecided, and then I cried:

  “I’ll do it, then.”

  “Good man!” cries Rudi, and clapped me on the back. “I swear you’re one after my own heart!”

  De Gautet shook my hand, and announced that they were damned lucky to have such a resolute, resourceful, cool hand in the business with them; Kraftstein brought me another glass of brandy and pledged me; even Bersonin deserted his post at the door and joined in the toast. Bismarck, however, said no more than “Very good. We will begin our further preparations tomorrow,” and then took himself off, leaving me with the four jacks in the pack. They were all affability now; we were comrades in fortune, and jolly good fellows, and they did their best to get me gloriously fuddled. I didn’t resist; I was shaking with the strain and in need of all the fortifying liquor I could get. But through all their noisy bonhomie and back-slapping one thought kept pounding in my brain; oh, Jesus, in the soup again; how in God’s name shall I get out this time?

  You can guess how much sleep I had that first night at Schönhausen. Well liquored as I was when Bersonin and Kraftstein helped me to bed and pulled my boots off, my mind was all too clear; I lay there, fully clothed, listening to the wind whining round the turrets, and watching the candle shadows flickering on the high ceiling, and my heart was pumping as though I had run a race. The room was dank as a tomb, but the sweat fairly ran off me. How the devil had it all happened? And what the devil was I to do? I actually wept as I damned the folly that had ever made me come to Germany. I could have been safe at home, pleasuring myself groggy with Elspeth and sponging off her skinflint father, facing nothing worse than the prospect of bear-leading her family in Society, and here I was imprisoned in a lonely castle with five dangerous lunatics bent on dragooning me into a hare-brained adventure that was certain to put my head in a noose. And if I resisted, or tried to escape, they would wipe me out of existence as readily as they would swat a fly.

  However, as usual, once I had cursed and blubbered myself empty, my mind started searching for some ray of comfort—anything to cling to, for if you are coward enough your vainest hopes can be magnified beyond all reason. Six weeks, Bismarck had said, before this impossible wedding—say five weeks or a month at least before my substitution for Carl Gustaf had to take place. Surely much could happen in that time. Clever and wary as they were, Bismarck’s gang couldn’t watch me all the time—in four weeks there must be a moment when such a practised absconder as myself could cut and run for it. A horse, that was all I needed, and a look at the sun or the stars, and I was confident that my terror could outstrip Bismarck’s vengeance. God knew how far away the frontier was, but I was willing to wager my neck that I could reach it faster than any rider living. My neck, of course, was exactly what I would be wagering.

  With these jolly musings I passed the night, imagining a score of madcap means of escape—and as many nightmares in which Bismarck caught me in the act. It was all a waste of time, of course; within me I knew that anyone who could plot as subtly as he had done wasn’t going to give me the ghost of a hope of escaping. And I had a shrewd suspicion that if a chance did arise, I’d be too funky to take it. These fellows would stop at nothing.

  They proved it, too, on my first morning at Schönhausen.

  The great oaf Kraftstein summoned me at dawn, and I was pulling on my boots when Rudi strode in, very fresh and whistling cheerfully, rot him.

  “And did your highness sleep well?” says he. “I trust your highness is sufficiently rested after your journey.”

  I told him sourly that I wasn’t in a mood for his comedy.

  “Oh, no comedy at all,” says he. “High drama, and unless you want it to develop into tragedy you’ll act as you’ve never acted before. From this moment you are His Highness Prince Carl Gustaf, blood royal and Lord’s anointed. Do you follow me? You speak German, and nothing else—your Danish we’ll take care of presently—and you will comport yourself as a member of the Danish ruling house.”

  “Talk sense,” I growled. “I don’t know how.”

  “No, but we’re going to teach you—your highness,” says he, and for once his eyes had no laughter in them. “So. The first thing is to make you look the part. All right, Kraftstein.”

  And then and there, despite my protests, Kraftstein sat me in a chair and set to work, first cropping my hair and whiskers, and then soaping and shaving my skull. It was a long and unpleasant process, and when it was done and I looked in the glass I could have burst into tears. The ghastly creature with his great, gleaming dome of a skull was a horrid parody of me—my face, surmounted by a naked convict head.

  “Damn you!” I burst out. “Damn you! You’ve ruined me!”

  I expected them to mock me, of course, but neither twitched so much as a muscle.

  “Your highness will be under the necessity of shaving your head daily,” murmured Rudi. “Kraftstein will instruct you. Now, may I suggest that your highness wears uniform today?”

  They had that, too; rather a trim rig, I had to admit, in bottle green, which fitted me perfectly and would have given me a fine dashing air if it hadn’t been for that bald monstrosity above the collar.

  “Admirable,” says Rudi, standing back from me. “May I compliment your highness on your appearance?”

  “Drop that, blast you!” I snarled at him. “If I have to play your damned game, you’ll spare me your infernal nonsense until it starts, at least. I’m your prisoner, ain’t I? Isn’t that enough for you?”

  He waited a moment, and then says, in exactly the same tone:

  “May I compliment your highness on your appearance?

  I stood glaring at him, on the point of swinging my fist into his impassive face, but he just stared me down, and I found myself saying:

  “All right. If you must—all right.”

  “Very good, your highness,” says he gravely. “May I respectfully suggest that we go down to breakfast. I find that Schönhausen gives one a rare appetite—the country air, of course. Will you lead on, Kraftstein?”

  I wasn’t hungry, but Rudi attacked his food in good spirits, and chattered away throughout the meal. He treated me with a nice blend of familiarity and respect, and you would never have guessed if you had seen us that it was all a sham. He was a splendid actor, and although it would have made me feel a complete fool if I hadn’t been too miserable to mind, I began to realise even then that there was method in what he was doing. Kraftstein just put his head down and gorged, but on the one occasion he addressed me, he too called me “highness”.

  Bismarck came in just as we were finishing, and he for one wasn’t playing charades. He stopped dead on the threshold, though, at sight of me, and then came into the room slowly, studying my face, walking round me, and examining me carefully for a minute or more. Finally he says:

  “The likeness is astounding. In effect, he is Carl Gustaf.”

  “So your friends have been trying to convince me,” I muttered.

  “Excellent. It is not quite perfect, though. Two small details remain.”

  “What’s that?” says Rudi.

  “The scars. One either side, the left immediately above the ear, the one on the right an inch lower and runn
ing slightly downward—so.” And he drew his finger across my shaven skin; the touch sent mice scampering down my spine.

  “By heaven, you’re right,” says Rudi. “I’d forgotten. How do we give him those?”

  My innards turned to water as Bismarck surveyed me with his icy smile.

  “Surgery? It is possible. I’ve no doubt Kraftstein here could employ his razor most artistically …”

  “You’re not cutting my bloody head, you bastard!” I shouted, and tried to struggle out of my chair, but Kraftstein seized me with his enormous hands and thrust me back. I yelled and struggled, and he clamped his paw across my jaws and squeezed until the pain made me subside, terrified.

  “But there is a better way,” says Bismarck. “They can be administered in the proper form—with the schlager. De Gautet can do it without difficulty.” He added, with a nasty look at me: “And it will satisfy a small debt that I owe to our friend here.”

  “Aye,” says Rudi doubtfully, “but can he do it exactly—they must be in precisely the right places, mustn’t they? No use giving him a wound where Carl Gustaf doesn’t have one.”

  “I have every confidence in de Gautet,” says Bismarck. “With a sabre he can split a fly on the wing.”

  I was listening to them appalled; these two monsters calmly discussing the best means of giving me a slashed head. If there is one thing I can’t endure, it is pain, and the thought of cold steel slicing into my skull nearly made me swoon. As soon as Kraftstein took his hand away I was yammering at them; Bismarck listened scornfully for a few seconds, and then says:

  “Silence him, Kraftstein.”

  The giant seized the nape of my neck, and a fearful pain shot down my back and across my shoulders. He must have fixed on some nerve, and I screamed and writhed in his grasp.

  “He can go on doing that until you die,” says Bismarck. “Now get up, and stop behaving like an old woman. It won’t kill you to have a couple of cuts from a schlager. Every German youth is proud to take them; a little drink from the ‘soup-plate of honour’ will do you good.”