The Flashman Papers: The Complete 12-Book Collection

by George MacDonald Fraser

  “Indeed? And what did I think, pray?”

  She leaned forward to study the map. “You thought, that’s a real bully looker with a patch over her eye; I’d sure like to put her to bed.” She indicated the chair opposite. “Let’s go to work, shall we?”

  It’s one of the secrets of my success with women that however contrary, cool, chilly or downright perverse their airs, I’ll always humour ’em – when it’s worth it. It just maddens them, for one thing. All her tough efficient front didn’t fool me; she was on heat most of the time, I should judge, and while she’d probably had more men than Messalina, she was terrified for fear that her allure would fail her (the eyepatch troubled her, no doubt) – so being female, she had to pretend to be all self-assurance and keep your distance, my lad, till I say jump. Kindly old Dr Flashy knows the symptoms – and the cure. So now I let her rattle on about surveys and options and mortgages and share issues and grants, admiring her profile and waiting for business to close down for the day.

  We were interrupted at luncheon by the arrival on board of Libby Custer and the garrison wives – Libby knew, of course, that I was going off on private business, but when she saw the shape that business took, she sucked in her breath mighty sharp. I learned later that Libby’s purpose aboard was to coax Marsh to take her upriver so that she could be reunited with her loving husband when Far West reached the expedition’s supply camp on the Yellowstone; Marsh wouldn’t have it, though, pointing out that his boat was in Army service now, and couldn’t take passengers. What about this Candy woman, says Libby, and Marsh had told her that was different altogether, since he’d had explicit instructions from his owners. So poor Libby went ashore in some huff, having bidden me a distinctly chill farewell.

  What interested me was the pull that La Candy obviously had; I quizzed Marsh gently about it, and he said he guessed she drew a powerful lot of water in the commercial world, being on very close terms with at least one of his directors. How close, he added drily, he couldn’t say.

  We sailed upriver next day after one of the most damnably frustrating nights of my life. Having been held at a distance by my delectable associate all day, I was nicely on the boil by bedtime – and stab me if the Far West didn’t continue loading the whole night, which meant that the forward saloon beyond the curtain became an orderly room for military clerks and the like, and since our cabins opened on to it, there was no opportunity for me to creep in next door. I lay grinding my teeth and listening to the thump of bales and porters hollering, in the knowledge that all that fine flesh was lying neglected a mere three feet away through my cabin wall. Next morning she was all business with a B again, and we spent ever such jolly hours on the deck as the Far West thrashed upstream, and she pointed out interesting lumps of prairie which we identified on the map. But at least we now had the boat pretty well to ourselves; Marsh and his officers berthed aft, as did the only other passenger, a young journalist who was going up to report the campaign.

  I dutifully kept my hands to myself all day – not without effort, when we bent together over the map and it was all within temptingly easy reach; it was almost enough to make me risk a broken toe. I knew she was getting feverish, too, by the way she drew breath and kept moving her hand on her hip. Good business, thinks I, let the randy baggage sweat, but I was taken aback when she shut her notebook abruptly, glanced at the little gold watch pinned to her dress, and announced:

  “Six o’clock. Yep. That’ll do for today.”

  I remarked carelessly that it was an hour till dinner, and she stood up and crushed out her cigarette. She was wearing her crimson rig, with the velvet eyepatch, and seemed to breathe a little unsteadily as she said in her nasal drawl:

  “I’m not hungry. Are you?”

  “Marsh and the others may think it odd if we don’t put in an appearance.”

  “Who cares what they think – they’re the help,” says she curtly. “Oh-kay … my cabin or yours?”

  I’ve had some coy invitations in my time, but gallant as ever I begged her to state her preference.

  “Yours,” says she, and waited to be ushered in. As she passed me I slipped a finger on her pulse; the patient was satisfactorily agitated. I asked didn’t she want to change into something less formal, and she moistened her full lips and took a deep breath.

  “No,” says she, “I want to watch you watching me while I undress.”

  And a very artistic work she made of it, too, spinning it over half an hour, a lace and a button at a time, never taking her dark eye off me as I sat entranced – and not once did she fumble or show the least loss of composure, although I knew she was inwardly a-tremble with excitement as she gratified herself by making us both wait.

  “You’ve done this before,” says I, in a nonchalant croak.

  “Yep.”

  “Tell me, Mrs Candy,” I asked. “Do you ever smile?”

  She made a minute adjustment at the mirror to her red velvet eyepatch, which now constituted her entire clothing, and turned to face me.

  “This is no laughing matter,” says she, and I shan’t attempt to describe the impression she made as she stood there, drawn up to her full magnificent height, one hand poised lightly on that incredibly slender waist, the other at her side. I gloated all over her for a full minute; I’ve seen as fine, but never better, and my ears were fairly roaring with the tightness of my collar as I got to my feet – whereupon she sat down on her stool, crossed her legs, lighted a cigarette, inhaled luxuriously, and leaned an elbow on her dressing-table.

  “Oh-kay,” says she briskly. “Your tum.”

  In justice I must record that when Mrs Arthur Candy, president of the Upper Missouri Development Corporation, finally applied herself to the task at hand, she more than lived up to anticipation. Mind you, she continued to take her time; Susie Willinck I had always supposed to be the arch-protractor of the capital act, but she was greased lightning to this one. It must have been another hour before I persuaded her on to the bed – she was too tall to manhandle easily, you see – and even then she went to work with a slow deliberation which would have induced dementia if she hadn’t been so wondrously good at it so often. It was a pale ghost named Flashman who eventually waved her a feeble good-night as she carefully gathered up her attire and departed, with a whispered “Yep. Oh-kay” as the door closed.

  I wondered weakly if I’d ever known the like. Yes, a thousand times, but surely never with such a cool unhurried efficiency. It became clear why she wouldn’t play during the day – there’d never have been a stroke of work done, and she’d have had a corpse on her hands by tea-time. Well, it promised to be a most satisfactory cruise, and with the distant throb of the paddle-wheel to lull me I was drifting off to sleep when another noise, muffled but closer at hand, began to pull me slowly back to consciousness. I listened drowsily, the hairs on my neck beginning to rise – but no, I must be mistaken. It must be some murmur of the boat, and not what I’d thought it was at first: the sound, faintly through the panels from Mrs Candy’s cabin, of deep sobbing.

  Chapter 19

  If you care to examine the log of the Far West you will find an exact account of her voyagings on the Missouri and Yellowstone in the days that followed, but for my purpose the barest facts will do. A glance at the map will show you how it was – she was bringing the forage and gear for Terry’s column which had struck due west from Fort Lincoln across the Dacotah Territory for the mouth of the Powder River; advancing to meet them from the west along the Yellowstone were old Gibbon and his walkaheaps, and they were to join forces and push down into the wild country between the Big Horn and the Powder to find the hostile bands who were in there somewhere – no one had much notion where, for it was territory that only a few bold scouts and trappers had ever penetrated. Crook with a third column was traipsing about somewhere to the south, out of touch with Terry, but as Custer had told me, the hostiles would be effectively hemmed in by the three forces.

  Now you’ll wonder if I was wise to be forn
icating carelessly on a boat that was going so near to the scene of operations, but it didn’t look like that at all from the warm embrace of Mrs Candy, or from the hurricane deck of the Far West as she thrashed up the Missouri to Fort Buford, and then into the beautiful grove-lined valley of the Yellowstone. For one thing there wasn’t going to be any fighting worth the name beyond a skirmish or two if some of the hostile bands proved recalcitrant, and that would be far to the south of the Yellowstone, with a large and efficient army in between. In fact, it was quite jolly to be on the fringe of the action, so to speak, in the perfect safety of a comfortable steamboat, where one could loaf and stuff and yarn with Marsh and the boys, and gorge oneself with Candy after dark, if you’ll pardon the pun, and lie snug and cosy listening to the churning of the great wheel. The Yellowstone is one of the finest river valleys I know, with its woodlands and islands and quiet inlets and clear rippling waters; sometimes you might think yourself on the Thames – and an hour later you’re steaming between grand red bluffs as unlike England as anything could be.

  It was a prime holiday altogether, and the president of the corporation improved with every performance, although she still remained as impersonal as ever during the day. I’d supposed that after Fort Buford she might unbend a little; after all, by then I’d absorbed all there was to know of her Bismarck scheme, and seen the kind of country to be settled; I’d even drafted (with a straight face) a letter to Otto explaining the thing and inviting his approval – God alone knew what he’d make of it if it ever reached him, with my monicker on it. Mrs Candy commended it briskly and said she’d submit it to her directors, and I thought, first-rate, now we can get to know each other socially as well as carnally. But not a bit of it; it was still B for business from breakfast till dinner, with her making notes and sketches of the Yellowstone country like a good little land speculator, and anyone seeing us on deck or in the saloon would have taken us for fellow-passengers who were formally polite and no more.

  I didn’t much mind; there was even a strange excitement in knowing that this sharp, no-nonsense Yankee businesswoman, all efficiency and assurance, could turn into the most wanton of concubines when the blinds were drawn. I say concubine because she was by no means a lover; she’d talk civilly enough, without much interest, between bouts, but there was none of the intimacy you find in a mistress or even a high-quality whore. How much she enjoyed our couplings was hard to say; how much does a hopeless drunkard enjoy drinking? There was a hungry compulsion that drove her, always in that intense, deliberate way, like an inexorable beautiful machine. Ideal from my point of view, but then I’m a sensual brute, and I dare say if she’d been warm or loving I’d have tired of her sooner; as it was the cold passion with which she gave and took her pleasure demanded nothing but stamina.

  With the other men on board she was politely discouraging; one or two of the Army officers whom we took aboard for short stages were disposed to be gallant, and short shrift she gave then – one, I’m sure, had her heel stamped on his instep, for I saw him follow her on to the foredeck one evening, only to return red-faced and hobbling visibly.

  Marsh and his mate, Campbell, must have known how it stood with Candy and me, but tactfully said nothing. Marsh was a splendid sort, a capital pilot and skipper and tough as they came, I guessed, but with a fund of yarns and partial to a convivial glass or a hand at euchre.

  It was about ten days out of Bismarck that we came to the Powder mouth, where a great military camp was taking shape. With the arrival of Terry’s advance guard, and Gibbon only a few days’ march away, there was tremendous work and bustle; the Far West was back and forth ferrying troops and stores and equipment; her steerage was a bedlam of men and gear, while our deck was invaded by all manner of staff-wallopers in search of comfort; Terry held his meetings in the saloon; messengers went galloping pell-mell along the banks; a forest of tents and lean-tos sprang up in the meadows; the woods rang and hummed with the noise of men and horses, rumours of Indian movement far to the south were discussed and as quickly discounted; no one knew what the blazes was happening – indeed, it was like the beginning of any campaign I’d ever seen.67

  Terry seemed pleased, if surprised, to see me, and preserved his amiable urbanity when I presented him to Mrs Candy; his staff men eyed her with lascivious respect and me with envy. Marsh had explained our presence, and since Far West could carry far more passengers than there were staff, no objections could be raised. Indeed, Terry made no bones about talking shop with me; we’d got on well at Camp Robinson, and I sensed that he was anxious about his new responsibilities; he’d never campaigned against Indians, and regarding me as an authority on the Sioux, poor soul, and knowing I’d smelled powder on the frontier, he canvassed me in his quiet, cautious way. Not about his duties, you understand, but on whether Spotted Tail might have talked sense to the hostiles during the winter, and the possibility of defections to the agencies. Something else was troubling him, too.

  “George Custer hasn’t shaved since we left Abe Lincoln,” he confided. “A small thing enough, but it worries me. I’ve never known him so melancholy and restless. I begin to wonder if I was wise in urging Grant to let him come.”

  “Nerves,” says I. “Get the doctor to give him a purge. George is like a cat on hot bricks about this campaign, and a fortnight’s trekking over empty prairie won’t have improved his temper. Give him work and you’ll see a difference.”

  He made a lip. “I’ve a notion, between ourselves, that secretly he resents my authority. I only hope he’ll behave sensibly and not … imagine he can be a law unto himself, d’you know?”

  I asked what he’d heard, and he said nothing, really, beyond a feeling that Custer regarded Terry’s job as the transport and supply of the 7th Cavalry, who could be left to take care of the soldiering on their own. I assured Terry that all cavalry commanders talked that way, and cited my old bête noire Cardigan, who had resented the least interference from his superiors.

  “He was the man who led your light cavalry at Balaclava, wasn’t he?” says Terry thoughtfully, and after that he seemed rather withdrawn, and presently went to bed with a hot toddy.

  I raised an eyebrow myself when the boy general arrived a few days later, all brave in fringed buckskin and red scarf over his uniform, but with a face like a two-day corpse. He came striding up the gangplank barking orders to his galloper, slapping his gloves impatiently against his legs, brightened momentarily at sight of me, and went straight into a nervous fret because Libby wasn’t aboard.

  “Why didn’t you bring her?” he demanded pettishly. “Who said she should not come?” He was bright-eyed with strain and hollow-cheeked under his four-week beard; his hair had been close-cropped and he looked even learner and more worn than in Washington. “It’s too bad! As if I hadn’t had checks enough!” I told him Terry was in the saloon, and he snorted and strode off to berate Marsh for leaving Libby behind.

  From then on the Far West was like a hotel-cum-orderly-room. Staff men were working in the saloon all day, and several chaps from the 7th, including Tom and Boston Custer, as well as Terry’s party, occupied berths. Mrs Candy kept a good deal to her cabin, but I had to endure any number of digs and sallies from the fellows; I told ’em they were a young Army yet, and hadn’t learned about campaign equipment. Her presence gave Custer another excuse to abuse Marsh over Libby; he didn’t berth aboard, but had his tent pitched on the bank. “Our buckskin Achilles,” grunts Benteen, grinning at me over his pipe.

  Now, as the expedition moved leisurely up the Yellowstone, I was enjoying life hugely. I could watch the martial activity ashore, hobnob with the boys in the saloon, play poker in the evenings, drink hearty, pile into Mrs Candy by night (Terry, bless him, allowed no late carousing, and all were snug down by midnight), listen to the professional gossip – and reflect contentedly that for once it was nothing to do with me. When the columns swung south into the blue, I’d be left safely behind to loaf and roger in these idyllic surroundings. I can’t recall
when I’ve been in better fettle.

  For now the grip was coming as the columns converged. At the mouth of the Tongue we halted, under the high bluffs to the north, with the troops camped on an old torontoa on the south bank, where there were many Sioux burial platforms, mostly broken and derelict, but some quite new, and the troops thought it great sport to scatter them to bits. I remarked in Terry’s hearing that it was bad medicine for one thing, his Ree and Crow scouts wouldn’t like it – and he ordered it stopped. If you wonder why I put in my oar, I’ll answer that I’ve soldiered far and hard enough to learn one invariable rule, superstition or not: never monkey with the local gods. It don’t pay.

  And now the expedition began to buzz with definite news at last of hostiles far to the south. Reno had been off on a scout, and had found an abandoned camp ground where there had been several hundred tipis, as well as a heavy trail heading west towards the Big Horn Mountains. Custer was in great excitement at this. “The hunt is up!” says he, and was off with the 7th to meet Reno at the Rosebud mouth. Far West was there ahead of him, and I was on the hurricane deck, watching his long blue column jingling down under the trees to bivouac, when I found Mrs Candy at my elbow. Making chat, I asked her what she thought of Custer.

  “They say he has good political connections,” says she indifferently. “Yep. I wouldn’t do business with him.”

  “Oh? Why ever not?”

  “In business you have to be able to rely on people – not to say trust them, just to know how they’ll act. Oh-kay. I wouldn’t rely on him. He’s crazy.”

  “Good Lord, what makes you say that?”

  “He likes killing Indians, doesn’t he?” She shrugged. “That’s what I hear. I suppose he means to kill a lot of them, up there.” She gestured idly towards the low brown bluffs to the south. Her costume today was of some pale material, and the eyepatch contrasted vividly with that rich dusky-rose complexion which had taken on a most becoming tint from the Yellowstone sunshine.