The Flashman Papers: The Complete 12-Book Collection

by George MacDonald Fraser

  It would have had them thumping on the seat-backs in any theatre in London, I’ll swear, but when I raised my head from my hands there was no sign of frantic applause from this audience. Hansen looked bewildered and Grundvig’s long face was working with rage; Sapten was filling his pipe.

  “And Prince Carl Gustaf—where’s he?” he asked.

  I had thought, at the beginning, that eventually I might bargain with them—my life for the information—but now instinct told me that it wouldn’t answer. Sapten would have hanged me on the spot, I’m sure—anyway, it wouldn’t have suited the character I was trying desperately to establish. In that, I saw, lay my only hope—to make them believe that I had been a helpless victim of a dastardly plot. And God help me, wasn’t it true?

  So I told them about Jotunberg, and the plans for disposing of Carl Gustaf. Grundvig clasped his temples, Hansen exclaimed in horror, Sapten lit his pipe and puffed in silence.

  “Aye,” says he, “and then what? This fellow tried to murder you—you killed him, you say. What did you propose to do next?”

  “Why—why—I hardly knew. I was distraught—my wife and child—the fate of the prince—I was half-mad with anxiety.”

  “To be sure,” says he, and puffed some more. “And this was all played out, you tell us, so that this Otto Bismarck could start to build a German Empire? Well, well.”

  “You’ve heard what I’ve told you, sir,” says I. “I warned you it was incredible, but it’s true—every word of it.”

  Grundvig, who had been pacing up and down, spun on his heel.

  “I for one cannot believe it! It is impossible! Major, Erik! Would anyone but a madman credit such a story? It is not to be imagined!” He glared at me. “This man—this scoundrel—can you believe anyone as infamous as he has confessed himself to be?”

  “Not I, for one,” says Hansen.

  Sapten scratched his grizzled head. “Just so,” says he, and my heart sank. “But I suggest, doctor, and you too, Erik, that there’s a question to be asked. Can either of you—” and his bright eye went from one to the other—“looking at this fellow here, a man who we know has successfully imposed himself for two weeks on a whole nation—can either of you, in the face of the fact, suggest a better story than he’s told us?”

  They stared at him. He nodded at me.

  “There he is. Account for him.” He knocked out his pipe. “If he has lied—then what’s the true explanation?”

  They babbled a good deal at this, but of course there was no answering him. My story was enough to defy imagination, Sapten agreed—but any alternative must be equally incredible.

  “If we can accept that a doppelgänger of the Prince’s can take his place for two weeks—and we know that has happened—then I for one can accept anything,” says he.

  “You mean you believe him?” cries Grundvig.

  “For want of evidence to disprove his story—yes.” My heart fluttered up like a maiden’s prayer, “You see,” says Sapten grimly, “it fits. Haven’t we been starting at every German shadow this twenty years back? You know that, Grundvig. Isn’t fear for the security of our duchy the reason we’re here? What are we Sons of the Volsungs for?” He shook his head. “Show me a hole in this fellow’s tale, for I can’t see one.”

  At this they went into a frantic discussion, which of course got them nowhere. Baffled, they turned back on me.

  “What are we to do with him?” says Grundvig.

  “Hang him,” snaps Hansen. “The swine deserves it.”

  “For the crime he has committed against our duchess,” says Grundvig, glowering at me, “he deserves no less.”

  They were all looking like Scotch elders in a brothel, but I saw that here was my cue again. I looked bewildered, and then let outraged indignation take its place.

  “What do you mean by that?” I cried.

  “You were married to her for more than a week,” says Sapten significantly.

  I made hoarse noises of fury. “You infamous old man!” I shouted. “D’you dare to suggest? … My God, sir, have you forgotten that I am a British officer? Have you the effrontery to imply that I would …”

  I choked as with great rage, but I doubt if Sapten was much impressed. The other two looked doubtful, though.

  “I am not so dead to honour,” says I, trying to look noble and angry together, “that I would stoop to carry my imposture as far as that. There are some things that no gentleman …” And I broke off as though it was too much for me.

  “It must have been thought strange,” mutters Grundvig. Palpitating, I maintained a stiff silence.

  They were quiet for a moment, contemplating their duchess’s virginity, I suppose. Then Grundvig said:

  “Do you swear … that … that …”

  “My word of honour,” says I, “as a British officer.”

  “Oh, well, that settles it,” says Sapten, and I’ll swear his mouth twitched under his moustache. “And at the risk of seeming disloyal, gentlemen, I’d suggest that the fate of Prince Carl Gustaf is perhaps as important as what may or mayn’t have happened to … well, let it be.” He swung round on me. “You’ll stay here. If you move outside this hut you’re a dead man—which you may be, anyway, before we’re done. I suggest we continue our deliberations elsewhere, doctor. If what we have learned today is true, we haven’t much time to prevent our duchess becoming a widow before she’s been a bride. To say nothing of saving her duchy for her. Come.”

  The door slammed behind them, and I was left alone with my thoughts. Not pleasant ones, but they could have been worse. They seemed to have accepted my story, and I was pretty sure that the fictitious parts of it would defy their efforts to pick holes—they weren’t important lies, anyway, but merely colour to enhance my character of innocent-in-the-grip-of-cruel-fate. Best of all, I was reasonably sure they weren’t going to hang me. Sapten was the strong mind among them, and while I read him as one who wouldn’t think twice about taking human life if he had to, there didn’t seem any good reason why they should do away with me. He was a realist, and not swayed by emotion like Grundvig and Hansen. But Grundvig, too, I believed would stop short of murder—he seemed a decent, sensitive sort of fool. Hansen was the one I offended most, probably because he was the Prince’s close friend. He would have slaughtered me for old time’s sake, so to speak, but I fancied he would be out-voted.

  So there I was, with nothing to do but wait and think. At least I was safe from Bismarck’s bravos, which was something. If these were the Sons of the Volsungs—the clandestine Danish sympathisers whom Rudi had spoken of with contempt—I couldn’t be in better hands, from that point of view. Rudi, it seemed to me, had under-estimated them; I had no idea what they could do about rescuing their precious prince from Jotunberg, and didn’t care either, but they looked a lively and workmanlike lot. It was pleasant to think that they might put a spoke in bloody Otto’s little wheel, after all—Sapten was just the man for that, if I knew anything. He was steady, and saw quickly to the heart of things, and seemed to be full of all the best virtues, like resolution and courage and what-not, without being over-hampered by scruple. Given him on the retreat from Kabul our army would have got home safe enough, and probably brought all the loot of the Bala Hissar into the bargain.

  Anyway, I wasn’t too displeased with my own situation, and passed the time wondering when they would let me go. God knows why I was so optimistic—reaction, possibly, after having escaped unpleasant death twice in one day—but I ought to have known better. If I had been thinking clearly I’d have realised that from their point of view, the safest place for me was six feet under, where I couldn’t cause any scandal. As it was, what they got me into was very nearly as bad, and caused me to die several more of Shakespeare’s deaths.

  I was left alone for several hours, during which time the only soul I saw was the big peasant, who brought me some food and beer (still addressing me as “highness”, but in a rather puzzled way). It was night before my three inquisitors retur
ned, and I noticed that both Sapten and Hansen were splashed with mud about the legs, as though they’d ridden hard. Sapten set down a lamp on the table, threw aside his cloak, and eyed me grimly.

  “Captain Arnold,” says he, “if that is your name, you puzzle me. I don’t like being puzzled. As these gentlemen here have pointed out, no sane man would believe your story for a moment. Well, maybe I’m not sane, but I’ve decided to believe it—most of it anyway. I don’t know whether you’re the biggest knave or the unluckiest wretch who ever drew breath—I incline to the first view, personally, having a nice nose for knavery—no, don’t bother to protest, we’ve heard all that. But I can’t be sure, you see, and it suits me to assume that you’re honest—up to a point. So there.”

  I kept quiet, fearful and hopeful together. He produced his pipe and began to rub tobacco.

  “Fortunately, we can test you and serve our own ends at the same time,” he went on. “Now then,”—he fixed me with that cold eye—“here’s the point. Victim or scoundrel, whichever you may be, you’ve committed a monstrous wrong. Are you prepared to help to set it right?”

  With those three grim faces on me in the lamplight, I was in no doubt about the right answer here—no doubt at all.

  “Gentlemen,” says I, “God bless you. Whatever I can do”—and I couldn’t think, thank God, that there was much—“that I shall do, with all the power at my command. I have been thinking, as I sat here, of the terrible—”

  “Aye, we know,” Sapten cut in. “You needn’t tell us.” He lit his pipe, pup-pup-pup, and blew smoke. “All we want is yes or no, and I take it the answer’s yes.”

  “With all my heart,” I cried earnestly.

  “I doubt it,” says Sapten, “but never mind. You’re a soldier, you say. Tell me—have you seen much service?”

  Well, I could answer truthfully to that—I had seen plenty, and I didn’t see any need to tell him that I’d been sweating with panic all through it. Like a fool, I implied that I’d been in some pretty sharp stuff, and come out with (in all manly modesty) some distinction. The words were out before I realised that I might be talking myself into more trouble.

  “So,” says he, “well enough—you’ve the look of a man of your hands. We may have cause to be glad of that. Now then, here’s the position. You tell us that Prince Carl Gustaf is in Jotunberg under guard of Bismarck’s men, and that they can do away with him—and leave no evidence—at the first sign of alarm. They’ll weight his body, shove it down this hell-hole of theirs—and good-bye.” I noticed Grundvig shudder. “So if we were to storm the place—and it wouldn’t be easy—all that we would find would be a party of gentlemen who no doubt would have an innocent tale of being the guests of Adolf Bülow, the owner—he’s tactfully out of the country, by the way. And we’d have lost Prince Carl. The Jotunsee is deep, and we’d never even find his body.”

  Hansen gave a little gasp, and I saw there were absolute tears on his cheek.

  “So that won’t do,” says Sapten, puffing away. “Now—suppose we leave Jotunberg alone. Suppose we return you to Strelhow, and wait and see what our German friends in the castle do then. It would gain us time.”

  By God, I didn’t like this. De Gautet might have failed with me, but some one else would surely succeed—the last place I wanted to be was anywhere on public view in Strackenz.

  “They would hardly murder the prince,” says Grundvig, “while you were on the consort’s throne. At least, they have not done it yet.”

  “It offers us time,” repeated Sapten slowly, “but what could we do with it, eh?”

  I tried to think of something—anything.

  “Perhaps if I were to abdicate,” I suggested hurriedly. “I mean … if it would help …”

  “Waiting increases the risks, though,” went on Sapten, as though I hadn’t spoken. “Of your discovery; of the Prince’s murder.”

  “We cannot leave him there, with those villains!” burst out Hansen.

  “No, so we’ve rejected that,” says Sapten. “And we come back to the only course—a desperate and dangerous one, for it may cost his life in the end. But nothing else remains.”

  He paused, and I felt my spine dissolve. Oh, Jesus, here it was again—whenever I hear the words “desperate and dangerous” I know that I’m for it. I could only wait to hear the worst.

  “To storm Jotunberg is impossible,” says Sapten. “It stands in the lake of the Jotunsee, and only at one point is it accessible from the shore, where a causeway runs out towards it. There were two guards on the causeway tonight, at the outer end, where the gap between causeway and castle is spanned by a drawbridge. That bridge is raised, which is a sign that those within know that their plans have gone astray. Doubtless when the man you killed this morning failed to return to his friends, they took alarm. Two of them, at any rate, rode into the castle tonight—Hansen and I saw them; a youngster, a gay spark, for all he looked little more than a boy, and a big ruffian along with him—”

  “Starnberg and Kraftstein,” says I. “Major Sapten, they are a devilish pair—they’ll stop at nothing!”

  “Well, how many more were already in the castle, we don’t know. Probably no more than a handful. But we could never hope to surprise them. So we must find another way, and quickly.” He sat back. “Erik, it is your scheme. Let him hear it.”

  One look at Hansen’s face—his eyes were glittering like a fanatic’s—prepared me for the worst.

  “Where a storming party must fail, we may prevail by stealth. Two brave men could cross the Jotunsee at night from the opposite bank, by boat as close as they dared, and then by swimming. Part of the fortress is in ruin; they could land in the darkness, enter the castle silently, and discover where the prince is hidden. Then, while one guarded him, the other would hasten to the drawbridge and lower it so that our people, hidden on the shore, could storm across the causeway. They could easily overpower its garrison—but somehow the prince’s life would have to be preserved while the fighting lasted. Whether this could be done—” he shrugged. “At least the two who had entered first could die trying.”

  And the very fact that they were telling me this informed me who one of those two was going to be. Of all the lunatic, no-hope schemes I ever heard, this seemed to be the primest yet. If they thought they were going to get me swimming into that place in the dark, with the likes of Rudi and Kraftstein waiting for me, they didn’t know their man. The mere thought was enough to set my guts rumbling with fright. I’d see them damned first. I’d sooner be—swinging at the end of Sapten’s rope? That was what would happen, of course, if I refused.

  While I was gulping down these happy thoughts, Grundvig—whom I’d known from the first was a clever chap—sensibly suggested that where two men could swim, so could a dozen, but Hansen shook his fat head with determination.

  “No. Two may pass unobserved, but not more. It is out of the question.” He turned to look at me, his face set, his eyes expressionless. “I shall be one of the two—Carl Gustaf is my friend, and if he is to die I shall count myself happy to die with him. You do not know him—yet without you, he would not be where he is. Of all people, you at least owe him a life. Will you come with me?”

  Whatever I may be, I’m not slow-witted. If ever there was a situation made for frantic pleading in the name of common sense, I was in it now—I could have suggested that they try to bargain with Rudi, or send a messenger to Bismarck (wherever he was) and tell him that they were on to his games; I could have gone into a faint, or told them that I couldn’t swim, or that I got hay fever if I went out after dark—I could simply have roared for mercy. But I knew it wouldn’t do; they were deadly serious, frightened men—frightened for that Danish idiot, instead of for themselves, as any sane man would have been—and if I hesitated, or argued, or did anything but accept at once they would rule me out immediately for a coward and a hypocrite and a backslider. And then it would be the Newgate hornpipe for Flashy, with the whole damned crew of Sons of the Volsungs hauling
on the rope. I knew all this in the few seconds that I sat there with my bowels melting, and I heard a voice say in a deadly croak:

  “Yes, I’ll come.”

  Hansen nodded slowly. “I do not pretend that I take you from choice; I would sooner take the meanest peasant in our band. But you are a soldier, you are skilled in arms and in this kind of work.” (Dear lad, I thought, how little you know.) “You are a man of resource, or you could never have done the infamous thing that has brought you here. Perhaps there is a queer fate at work in that. At all events, you are the man for this.”

  I could have discussed that with some eloquence, but I knew better. I said nothing, and Hansen said: “It will be for tomorrow night, then,” and he and Grundvig got up and went without another word.

  Sapten lingered, putting on his cloak, watching me. At last he spoke.

  “It is one of the lessons a man learns as he grows old,” says he, “to put away desires and emotions—aye, and even honour—and to do what must be done with the tools to hand, whatever they may be. So I let you go with Hansen tomorrow. Succeed in what is to do, for as God’s my witness, if you don’t I’ll kill you without pity.” He turned to the door. “Perhaps I misjudge you; I don’t know. In case I am guilty of that, I promise that whatever befalls, I shall not rest until I have ensured the safety of that wife and daughter who so concerned you earlier today, but whom you seem to have forgotten tonight. Take comfort from the knowledge that little golden-haired Amelia is in my thoughts.” He opened the door. “Goodnight, Englishman.”

  And he went out, no doubt very pleased with himself.

  I spent the next hour frantically trying to dig under the wall of the cabin with my bare hands, but it was no go. The earth was too hard, and full of roots and stones; I made a pitifully small scrape, and then hurriedly filled it in again and stamped it down in case they saw what I’d been up to. Anyway, even if I had succeeded in breaking out, they’d have run me to earth in the forest; they were trained woodsmen and I’d no idea where I was.