The Flashman Papers: The Complete 12-Book Collection

by George MacDonald Fraser

  And the government dithered, the British and Russian armies rotted away in Bulgaria with dysentery and cholera, the public became hysterical, and Willy and I waited, with our traps packed, for word to sail.

  It came one warm evening, with a summons to Richmond. Suddenly there was great bustle, and I had to ride post-haste to receive from His Grace the Duke of Newcastle despatches to be carried to Raglan without delay. I remember an English garden, and Gladstone practising croquet shots on the lawn, and dragonflies buzzing among the flowers, and over on the terrace a group of men lounging and yawning – the members of the Cabinet, no less, just finished an arduous meeting at which most of ’em had dozed off – that’s a fact, too, it’s in the books.11 And Newcastle’s secretary, a dapper young chap with an ink smudge on the back of his hand, handing me a sealed packet with a “secret” label.

  “The Centaur is waiting at Greenwich,” says he. “You must be aboard tonight, and these are to Lord Raglan, from your hand into his, nothing staying. They contain the government’s latest advices and instructions, and are of the first urgency.”

  “Very good,” says I. “What’s the word of mouth?” He hesitated, and I went on: “I’m on his staff, you know.”

  It was the practice of every staff galloper then – and for all I know, may still be – when he was given a written message, to ask if there were any verbal observations to add. (As you’ll see later, it is a very vital practice.) He frowned, and then, bidding me wait, went into the house, and came out with that tall grey figure that everyone in England knew, and the mobs used to cheer and laugh at and say, what a hell of an old fellow he was: Palmerston.

  “Flashman, ain’t it?” says he, putting a hand on my shoulder. “Thought you had gone out with Raglan.” I told him about Willy, and he chuckled. “Oh, aye, our aspiring Frederick the Great. Well, you may take him with you, for depend upon it, the war is now under way. You have the despatches? Well, now, I think you may tell his lordship, when he has digested them – I daresay Newcastle has made it plain enough – that the capture of Sevastopol is held by Her Majesty’s Government as being an enterprise that cannot but be seen as signally advancing the success of Allied arms. Hum? But that it will be a damned serious business to undertake. You see?”

  I nodded, looking knowing, and he grunted and squinted across the lawn, watching Gladstone trying to knock a ball through a hoop. He missed, and Pam grunted again. “Off you go then, Flashman,” says he. “Good luck to you. Come and see me when you return. My respects to his lordship.” And as I saluted and departed, he hobbled stiffly out on to the lawn, and I watched him say something to Gladstone, and take his mallet from him. And that was all.

  We sailed that night, myself after a hasty but passionate farewell with Elspeth, and Willy after a frantic foray to St John’s Wood for a final gallop at his blonde. I was beginning to feel that old queasy rumbling in my belly that comes with any departure, and it wasn’t improved by Willy’s chatter as we stood on deck, watching the forest of shipping slip by in the dusk, and the lights twinkling on the banks.

  “Off to the war!” exclaimed the little idiot. “Isn’t it capital, Harry? Of course, it is nothing new to you, but for me, it is the most exciting thing I have ever known! Did you not feel, setting out on your first campaign, like some knight in the old time, going out to win a great name, oh, for the honour of your house and the love of your fair lady?”

  I hadn’t, in fact – and if I had, it wouldn’t have been for a whore in St John’s Wood. So I just grunted, à la Pam, and let him prattle.

  It was a voyage, like any other, but faster and pleasanter than most, and I won’t bore you with it. In fact, I won’t deal at any great length at all with those things which other Crimean writers go on about – the fearful state of the army at Varna, the boozing and whoring at Scutari, the way the Varna sickness and the cholera swept through our forces in that long boiling summer, the mismanagement of an untrained commissariat and inexperienced regimental officers, the endless bickering among commanders – like Cardigan for instance. He had left England for Paris within two days of our encounter in Elspeth’s bedroom, and on arrival in Bulgaria had killed a hundred horses with an ill-judged patrol in the direction of the distant Russians. All this – the misery and the sickness and the bad leadership and the rest – you can read if you wish elsewhere; Billy Russell of The Times gives as good a picture as any, although you have to be wary of him. He was a good fellow, Billy, and we got on well, but he always had an eye cocked towards his readers, and the worse he could make out a case, the better they liked it. He set half England in a passion against Raglan, you remember, because Raglan wouldn’t let the army grow beards. “I like an Englishman to look like an Englishman,” says Raglan, “and beards are foreign, and breed vermin. Also, depend upon it, they will lead to filthy habits.” He was dead right about the vermin, but Russell wouldn’t have it; he claimed this was just stiff-necked parade-ground nonsense and red tape on Raglan’s part, and wrote as much. (You may note that Billy Russell himself had a beard like a quickset hedge, and I reckon he took Raglan’s order as a personal insult.)

  In any event, this memorial isn’t about the history of the war, but about me, so I’ll confine myself to that all-important subject, and let the war take its chance, just the way the government did.

  We got to Varna, and the stink was hellish. The streets were filthy, there were stretcher-parties everywhere, ferrying fever cases from the camps outside town to the sewers they called hospitals, there was no order about anything, and I thought, well, we’ll make our quarters on board until we can find decent lodgings at leisure. So leaving Willy, I went off to report myself to Raglan.

  He was full of affability and good nature, as always, shook hands warmly, called for refreshment for me, inquired at great length about Willy’s health and spirits, and then settled down to read the despatches I’d brought. It was close and warm in his office, even with the verandah doors wide and a nigger working a fan; Raglan was sweating in his shirt-sleeves, and as I drank my whistle-belly at a side-table and studied him, I could see that even a couple of months out east had aged him. His hair was snow-white, the lines on his face were deeper than ever, the flesh was all fallen in on his skinny wrist – he was an old man, and he looked and sounded it. And his face grew tireder as he read; when he had done he summoned George Brown, who had the Light Division, and was his bosom pal. Brown read the despatch, and they looked at each other.

  “It is to be Sevastopol,” says Raglan. “The government’s direction seems quite clear to me.”

  “Provided,” says Brown, “both you and the French commander believe the matter can be carried through successfully. In effect, they leave the decision to you, and to St Arnaud.”

  “Hardly,” says Raglan, and picked up a paper. “Newcastle includes a personal aide memoire in which he emphasizes the wishes of the Ministers – it is all Sevastopol, you see.”

  “What do we know about Sevastopol – its defences, its garrison? How many men can the Russians oppose to us if we invade Crimea?”

  “Well, my dear Sir George,” says Raglan, “we know very little, you see. There are no reconnaissance reports, but we believe the defences to be strong. On the other hand, I know St Arnaud thinks it unlikely there can be more than 70,000 Russians mustered in the Crimean peninsula.”

  “About our own numbers,” says Brown.

  “Precisely, but that is only conjecture. There may be fewer, there may well be more. It is all so uncertain.” He sighed, and kneaded his brow with his left hand, rather abstracted. “I cannot say for sure that they might not field 100,000 men, you know. There has been no blockade, and nothing to prevent their troop movements.”

  “And we would have to invade across the Black Sea, make a foothold, perhaps face odds of four to three, invest Sevastopol, reduce it speedily – or else carry on a siege through a Russian winter – and all this while relying solely on our fleet for supply, while the Russians may send into the Crimea what s
trength they choose.”

  “Exactly, Sir George. Meanwhile, only one fourth of our siege equipment has arrived. Nor is the army in the best of health, and I believe the French to be rather worse.”

  I listened to this with mounting horror – not so much at what they were saying, but how they said it. Perfectly calmly, reasonably, and without visible emotion, they were rehearsing a formula which even I, ignorant staff-walloper that I was, could see was one for disaster. But I could only keep mum, clutching my pot of beer and listening.

  “I should welcome your observations, my dear Sir George,” says Raglan.

  Brown’s face was a study. He was an old Scotch war horse this, and nobody’s fool, but he knew Raglan, and he knew something of the politics of power and warfare. He put the despatch back on the table.

  “As to the enterprise of Sevastopol which the ministers appear to be suggesting,” says he, “I ask myself how our old master the Duke would have seen it. I believe he would have turned it down flat – there is not enough information about the Crimea and the Russians, and our armies are reduced to the point where we have no leeway to work on. He would not have taken the terrible responsibility of launching such a campaign.”12

  You could see the relief spreading over Raglan’s old face like water.

  “I concur exactly in what you say, Sir George,” says he, “in which case –”

  “On the other hand,” says Brown, “I judge from this despatch that the government are determined on Sevastopol. They have made up their minds at home. Now, if you decline to accept the responsibility, what will they do? In my opinion, they will recall you; in fine, if you will not do the job, they’ll send out someone who will.”

  Raglan’s face lengthened, and I saw an almost pettish set to his mouth as he said:

  “Dear me, that is to be very precise, Sir George. Do you really think so?”

  “I do, sir. As I see it, things have reached a pass where they will have action, whatever it may be.” He was breathing heavy, I noticed. “And I believe that with them, one place is as good as another.”

  Raglan sighed. “It may be as you say; it may be. Sevastopol. Sevastopol. I wonder why? Why that, rather than the Danube or the Caucasus?” He glanced round, as though he expected to see the answer on the wall, and noticed me. “Ah, Colonel Flashman, perhaps you can enlighten us a little in this. Are you aware of any factor in affairs at home that may have determined the government on this especial venture?”

  I told him what I knew – that the Press was yelping Sevastopol right and left, and that everyone had it on the brain.

  “Do they know where it is?” says Brown.

  I wasn’t too sure myself where it was, but I said I supposed they did. Raglan tapped his lip, looking at the despatch as though he hoped it would go away.

  “Did you see anyone when the despatch was delivered to you – Newcastle, or Argyll, perhaps?”

  “I saw Lord Palmerston, sir. He remarked that the government were confident that the occupation of Sevastopol would be an excellent thing, but that it would be a damned serious business. Those were his words, sir.”

  Brown gave a bark of disgust, and Raglan laughed. “We may agree with him, I think. Well, we must see what our Gallic allies think, I suppose, before we can reach a fruitful conclusion.”

  So they did – all the chattering Frogs of the day, with St Arnaud, the little mountebank from the Foreign Legion, who had once earned his living on the stage and looked like an ice-cream vendor, with his perky moustache, at their head. He had the feverish look of a dying man – which he was – and Canrobert, with his long hair and ridiculous curling moustaches, wasn’t one to inspire confidence either. Not that they were worse than our own crew – the ass Cambridge, and Evans snorting and growling, and old England burbling, and Raglan sitting at the table head, like a vicar at a prize-giving, being polite and expressing gratified pleasure at every opinion, no matter what it was.

  And there was no lack of opinions. Raglan thought an invasion might well come off – given luck – Brown was dead against it, but at first the Frogs were all for it, and St Arnaud said we should be in Sevastopol by Christmas, death of his life and sacred blue. Our navy people opposed the thing, and Raglan got peevish, and then the Frogs began to have their doubts, and everything fell into confusion. They had another meeting, at which I wasn’t present, and then the word came out: the Frogs and Raglan were in agreement again, Brown was over-ruled and the navy with him, we were to go to the Crimea.

  “I dare say the sea air will do us good and raise everyone’s spirits,” says Raglan, and by God, he didn’t raise mine. I’ve wondered since, if I could have done anything about it, and decided I could. But what? If Otto Bismarck had been in my boots and uniform, I daresay he could have steered them away, as even a junior man can, if he goes about it right. But I’ve never meddled if I could avoid it, where great affairs are concerned; it’s too chancy. Mind you, if I could have seen ahead I’d have sneaked into Raglan’s tent one night and brained the old fool, but I didn’t know, you see.

  So there was tremendous sound and fury for the next month, with everyone preparing for the great invasion. Willy and I had established ourselves snugly in a cottage outside the town, and with all our provisions and gear we did comfortably enough, but being staff men we couldn’t shirk too much, although Raglan worked Willy lightly, and was forever encouraging him to go riding and shooting and taking it easy. For the rest, it was touch and go, so far as I could see, whether the army, which was still full of fever and confusion, would ever be well enough to crawl on the transports, but as you know, the thing was done in the end. I’ve written about it at length elsewhere – the fearful havoc of embarking, with ships full of spewing soldiers rocking at anchor for days on end, the weeping women who were ordered to stay behind (although my little pal, Fan Duberly,13 sneaked aboard disguised as a washerwoman), the horses fighting and smashing in their cramped stalls, the hideous stink, the cholera corpses floating in the bay, Billy Russell standing on the quay with his note-book damning Lord Lucan’s eyes – “I have my duty, too, my lord, which is to inform my readers, and if you don’t like what you’re doing being reported, why then, don’t do it! And that’s my advice to you!” Of course he was daft and Irish, was Billy, but so was Lucan, and they stood and cussed each other like Mississippi pilots.

  I had my work cut out latterly in bagging a berth on the Caradoc, which was Raglan’s flagship, and managed to get not a bad billet for Willy and myself and Lew Nolan, who was galloper to Airey, the new chief of staff. He was another Irish, with a touch of dago or something, this Nolan, a cavalry maniac who held everybody in contempt, and let ’em feel it, too, although he was a long way junior. Mind you, he came no snuff with me, because I was a better horseman, and he knew it. We three bunked in together, while major-generals and the like had to make do with hammocks – I played Willy’s royalty for all it was worth, you may be sure. And then, heigh-ho, we were off on our balmy cruise across the Black Sea, a huge fleet of sixty thousand soldiers, only half of ’em rotten with sickness, British, Frogs, Turks, a few Bashi-bazooks, not enough heavy guns to fire more than a salute or two, and old General Scarlett sitting on top of a crate of hens learning the words of command for manoeuvring a cavalry brigade, closing his book on his finger, shutting his boozy old eyes, and shouting, “Walk, march, trot. Damme, what comes next?”

  The only thing was – no one knew where we were going. We ploughed about the Black Sea, while Raglan and the Frogs wondered where we should land, and sailed up and down the Russian coast looking for a likely spot. We found one, and Raglan stood there smiling and saying what a capital beach it was. “Do you smell the lavender?” says he. “Ah, Prince William, you may think you are back in Kew Gardens.”

  Well, it may have smelled like it at first, but by the time we had spent five days crawling ashore, with everyone spewing and soiling themselves in the pouring rain, and great piles of stores and guns and rubbish growing on the beach, and the s
ea getting fouler and fouler with the dirt of sixty thousand men – well, you may imagine what it was like. The army’s health was perhaps a little better than it had been on the voyage, but not much, and when we finally set off down the coast, and I watched the heavy, plodding tread of the infantry, and saw the stretched look of the cavalry mounts – I thought, how far will this crowd go, on a few handfuls of pork and biscuit, no tents, devil a bottle of jallop, and the cholera, the invisible dragon, humming in the air as they marched?

  Mind you, from a distance it looked well. When that whole army was formed up, it stretched four miles by four, a great glittering host from the Zouaves on the beach, in their red caps and blue coats, to the shakos of the 44th on the far horizon of the plain – and they were a sight of omen to me, for the last time I’d seen them they’d been standing back to back in the bloodied snow of Gandamack, with the Ghazi knives whittling ’em down, and Souter with the flag wrapped round his belly. I never see those 44th facings but I think of the army of Afghanistan dying in the ice-hills, and shudder.

  I was privileged, if that is the word, to give the word that started the whole march, for Raglan sent me and Willy to gallop first to the rear guard and then to the advance guard with the order to march. In fact, I let Willy deliver the second message, for the advance guard was led by none other than Cardigan, and it was more than I could bear to look at the swine. We cantered through the army, and the fleeting pictures are in my mind still – the little French canteen tarts sitting laughing on the gun limbers, the scarlet stillness of the Guards, rank on rank, the bearded French faces with their kepis, and Bosquet balancing his belly above a horse too small for him, the sing-song chatter of the Highlanders in their dark green tartans, the sombre jackets of the Light Division, the red yokel faces burning in the heat, the smell of sweat and oil and hot serge, the creak of leather and the jingle of bits, the glittering points of the lances where the 17th sat waiting – and Willy burst out in excitement: “Our regiment, Harry!’ See how grand they look! What noble fellows they are!” – Billy Russell sitting athwart his mule and shouting “What is it, Flash? Are we off at last?”, and I turned away to talk to him while Willy galloped ahead to where the long pink and blue line of the 11th marked the van of the army.