The Flashman Papers: The Complete 12-Book Collection

by George MacDonald Fraser

  “Imps,” says Szu-Zhan, and I daresay she was right, for they were worse than the rebels. We saw scattered bands of them every hour, and had to lie up as they passed: mobs of Bannermen, in their half-armour and quilted jacks, Tiger soldiers like grotesque harlequins in their close-fitting suits of diagonal black and yellow, Tartar cavalry in fur-edged conical hats and gaudy coats, dragging wailing women behind their ponies. In one place we saw them driving a crowd of peasants – there must have been a couple of hundred – into an open field, and then they just charged among them, and butchered them with their swords and lances. And everywhere the dead, and the death-smell mingling with the acrid smoke of burning homes.

  I don’t describe this to harrow you, but to give some notion of what China was like in that summer of ’60. And this was one small corner, you understand, after one battle, in a vast empire where rebellion had flamed for ten long years. No one can ever count the dead, or tally the destruction, or imagine the enormity of its blood-stained horror. This was the Taiping – the Kingdom of Heavenly Peace.

  After the first day, though, I barely noticed it, any more than you notice fallen leaves in autumn. For one thing, my companions were indifferent to it – they’d lived in it for years. And I had my own skin to think about, which means after a little time that you feel a curious elation; you are alive, and walking free, in the Valley of the Shadow; your luck’s holding. And it’s easy to turn your thoughts to higher things, like journey’s end, and your continued survival, and the next meal, and the slim towering figure ahead, with those muscular buttocks and long legs straining the tight breeches.

  The devil of it was, while we were sleeping out there was no privacy, with those six villains never more than a few yards away, and dossing down beside us at night. She was watching me, though, with that knowing smile getting less lazy, and her mouth tightening with growing impatience as the hours and miles passed. I was getting a mite feverish myself; perhaps it was the barbarous conditions, and the frustration of being so near, but I wanted that strapping body as I wanted salvation; once, when we lay up in a wood while a long convoy of Imp stragglers went by, we found ourselves lying flank to flank in long grass, with the others behind the bushes, and I began to play with her until she turned on me, her mouth shaking and searching for mine. We pawed and grappled, grunting like beasts, and I dare say would have done the trick if the clown Yei hadn’t come and trodden on us.

  By the second afternoon we had struck a patch of country which the war seemed to have passed by; peasants were hard at it standing in the fields, and not far ahead there was a fortified hill-summit, betokening a safe village; we had picked up some baggage and side-arms on our journey, and even a cart to push them in, at which the bandits took complaining turns, and Szu-Zhan said we should stay that night at an inn, because camping out you never knew when you might be molested by prowlers. It’s a great thing, property-owning.

  We were such an evil-looking gang – especially with myself, a big-nosed, fair-skinned barbarian, which is the height of ugliness to the Chinese – that I doubted if they’d let us through the gate, but there was a little temple just outside the wall, with a vulture-like priest ringing a hand-bell and demanding alms, and once Szu-Zhan had given him a handful of cash he croaked to the gate-keeper to admit us. It was a decent village, for China; the piled filth was below window-level, and the Inn of Mutual Prosperity had its own tea-shop and eating-house – quite the Savoy or Brown’s, if you like, a shilling a night, bring your own grub and bedding.

  Indeed, I’ve fared worse at English posting-houses in my schooldays than I have in some rural Chink hotels. This one was walled all round, with a big archway into its central court, and we hadn’t stopped the cart before a fat little host was out with the inevitable tea-pot and cups. Szu-Zhan demanded two rooms – one on the side-wall for the six lads, and another de luxe apartment at the top of the yard, away from the street – those are the better, larger rooms, and cost three hundred cash, or eighteenpence. They’re big and airy – since the door don’t fit and the paper in the windows lets in fine draughts, but they’re dry and warm, with a big kong, or brick platform bed, taking up half the room. Under the bed there’s a flue, for dry grass or dung fuel, so you sleep most comfortably on top of a stove, with the smoke going up a vent in the wall – or rather, not going up, since the chimney’s blocked, and you go to bed in dense fog. Privacy is ensured by closing the door and getting mine host to jam your cart up against it.9

  There wasn’t a “best” room available, until Szu-Zhan shrugged back the cloak she’d picked up, and rested her hand on her cleaver-hilt, at which mine host blenched and wondered if the Paddy-field Suite wasn’t vacant after all; he signified this by grovelling at our feet, beating his head on the ground in the kow-tow (“knocking head”, they call it), pleading with us to wait just a moment, and then scrambling up, grabbing a servant, and getting him to deputise as kow-tow-er while the host scurried off to eject a party who had just booked in. He fairly harried them out, screaming – and they went, too, dumb and docile – while the servant continued to bash his brains out before us, and then we were ushered in, another tea-pot was presented with fawning servility, and we were assured that dinner could be served in the apartment, or in the common-room, where a wide variety of the choicest dishes was available.

  It was the usual vile assortment of slimy roots and gristle which the Chinese call food, but I had a whole chicken, roasted, to myself – and it was during the meal that I realised my companions were not “Chinese”, but Manchoos. The common Chinks eat out of a communal rice-bowl, but even the lowliest Manchoo will have his separate rice-dish, as Szu-Zhan and her companions did. (Better-class Manchoos, by the way, seldom eat rice at all.)

  Other interesting native customs were to be observed after the meal, when the six, gorged to the point of mischief, announced that they were off to the brothel next door. I’ve never seen prostitution so blatant as in China, and this although it’s a hanging offence; all through our meal, shabby tarts with white-painted faces had been becking and giggling in the doorway, calling out and displaying the mutilated feet by which the Chinese set such store, and the lads had been eating faster and faster in anticipation. Now, with the samshu and tea going round, Szu-Zhan, who’d been leaning back against the wall, sipping and eyeing me restively, threw a bag of cash on the table and reminded them that we would be off at dawn. Put money in front of a Chinese, even if he’s starving, and he’ll gamble for it; they turned out the purse, yelping, and fell to choi-mooy, the finger game, in which you whip your hand from behind your back, holding up one or more fingers, and the others have to guess how many, double quick.

  In two minutes they were briefly at blows, with the tarts hanging over the table, egging them on; then they settled down and the fingers shot out to a chorus of shouts, followed by groans or laughter, while Szu-Zhan and I sat apart, nibbling a fiery-tasting ginger root which she’d spoke for, and killing the taste with tea and samshu.

  I watched her, strong teeth tearing at the ginger root, and saw she was breathing hard, and there was a trickle of sweat down the long jaw; she’s on a short fuse now, thinks I, so I took her hand firmly and led her out and quickly across to the room. I had her shirt and breeches away before the door closed, and was just seizing those wonders, yammering with lust, when she spun me round in an iron grip, face to the wall, and disrobed me in turn, with a great rending of linen and thunder of buttons. She held me there with one hand while with the other she drew a long, sharp finger-nail slowly down my back and up again, faster and faster, as she hissed at my ear, biting my neck, and finally slipped her hand round my hips, teasing. I tore free, fit to burst, but she turned, squirming her rump into me, seizing my wrists and forcing my fingers up into her chain collar, panting: “Now, Halli’, now – fight! Fight!” and twisting her head and shoulders frenziedly to tighten my grip.

  Well, strangulation as an accompaniment to la galop was, I confess, new to me, but anything to oblige the weaker
sex (my God!). Besides, the way she was thrashing about it was odds that if I didn’t incapacitate her somehow, she’d break my leg. So I hauled away like fury, and the more she choked the wilder she struggled, plunging about the room like a bronco with Flashy clinging on behind for his life, rolling on the floor – it was three falls to a finish, no error, and if I hadn’t secured a full nelson and got mounted in the same moment, she’d have done me a mischief. After that it was more tranquil, and we didn’t hit the wall above twice; I settled into my stride, which calmed her to a mere frenzy of passion, and by the time we reached the ecstatic finish she was as shuddering clay in my hands. As I lay there, most wonderfully played out, with her gasping exhausted beneath me, I remember thinking: Gad, suppose she and Ranavalona had been joint rulers of Madagascar.

  The trouble was that, being so infernally strong, she recovered quickly from athletic exercise, and within the hour we were at it again. But now I insisted that I conduct the orchestra, and by giving of my artistic best, convinced her that grinding is even better fun when you don’t try to kill each other. At least she seemed to agree afterwards, when we lay in each other’s arms and she kissed me lingeringly, calling me fan-qui Halli’ and recalling our contortions in terms that made me blush. So I drifted into a blissful sleep, and about four o’clock she was there again, offering and demanding violence, and this time our exertions were such that we crashed through the top of the bed into the fireplace, and completed the capital act among the warm embers and billowing clouds of ash. Well, I reflected, that’s the first time you’ve done it in a Chinese oven. Semper aliquid novi.

  A little touch of Flashy in the night goes a long way with some women; then again, there are those who can’t wait to play another fixture, and so ad infinitum. I suppose I should be grateful that Szu-Zhan the bandit was one of the latter, since this ensured my safety and also gave me some of the finest rough riding I remember; on the other hand, the way she spun out that journey to Nanking, over another three days and tempestuous nights, it looked long odds that I’d have to be carried the last few miles.

  She gave me concern on another, more spiritual score, too. As you know, I’ve no false modesty about my ability to arouse base passion in the lewder sort of female (and some not so lewd, neither, until I taught ’em how), but I’ve never deluded myself that I’m the kind who inspires deep lasting affection – except in Elspeth, thank God, but she’s an emotional half-wit. Must be; she’s stuck by me for sixty years. However, there were one or two, like Duchess Irma and Susie, who truly loved me, and I was beginning to suspect that Szu-Zhan was one of those.

  For one thing, she couldn’t get enough of my company and conversation on the march, plaguing me to tell her about myself, and England, and my time in the Army, and places I’d visited, and my likes and dislikes … and whether I had a wife at home. I hesitated at that, fearful that the truth might displease her, but decided it was best to let her know I was spoke for already. She didn’t seem to mind, but confessed that she had five husbands herself, somewhere or other – a happy, battered gang they must have been.

  She would listen, intent, to all I said, those slant eyes fixed on my face, and the arch, satisfied smile breaking out whenever I paid her any marked attention. Then on the last lap into Nanking she fell thoughtful, and I knew the poor dear was brooding on journey’s end.

  On the previous afternoon we had come into Taiping country proper, and I saw for the first time those red jackets and blue trousers, and the long hair coiled in plaits round the head that marked the famous Chang Maos, the Long-haired Devils, the Coolie Kings. What I’d heard was true: they were finer-featured than the ordinary Chinks, smarter, more disciplined even in their movements – aye, more austere is the word. Their guard-posts were well-manned, on the march they kept ranks, they were alert, and full of business, holding up their heads … and I began to wonder if perhaps Napoleon was right. The greatest rebellion ever known; the most terrible religious force since Islam.

  Szu-Zhan proved to be well-known to them, by repute, and now I learned how many professional brigands had joined with the Taipings, out of no ideals, but just for the loot and conversation, only to fall away because they wouldn’t take the rigid discipline – quite trivial military crimes were punished by death or savage flogging, and apart from that there was all the rubbish of learning texts and the Heavenly King’s “thoughts” and keeping strictly the Sabbath (Saturday, to them, like the Hebrews). So Szu-Zhan took part with them only when she felt like it, which wasn’t often.10

  They treated her with immense respect – mind you, he’d have been a damned odd man who didn’t. I’ve known a fair number of females who were leaders of men, and every time someone has thought fit to remark on the fact of their sex. Not with Szu-Zhan; her leadership was a matter of course, and not only because she was gigantic in stature and strength. She had a quality; put ’em on an outpost together and even Wellington wouldn’t have pressed his seniority.

  But my own humble presence in the party helped to speed us on our way, too, for they were eager to welcome any outside Christians who might take word home of what splendid chaps they were; they knew, you see, that what their movement needed was the approval of the great Powers: Britain, France and America for preference, but Paraguay would do at a pinch. So we rode the last day, all eight of us, in our cart hauled by forty straining peasants in harness, with Taiping guards flogging ’em on; when one collapsed they kicked him into the ditch and whistled up another.

  I’ll not forget that ride in a hurry, for it took us not into Nanking, but into the heart of the vast army of Golden Lions, commanded by General Lee Hsiu-chen, the Loyal Prince, and the man I had come to see. I had mixed feelings about meeting him; great men are chancy, and best viewed from a distance as the parade goes by.

  And didn’t this one have a parade of his own, just! Mile after mile of outposts and lines and bivouacs, swarming with orderly mobs of red coats and white straw coolie hats; parks of artillery, laagers of store-wagons and equipment carts; great encampments for the separate corps – the Youths, the Earths, the Waters, the Women, who are respectively the light infantry and scout battalions, the sappers and builders, the river navy, and the female regiments, who alone were a hundred thousand strong. I looked on those anthills of disciplined humanity, covering the ground into the hazy distance, and thought: Palmerston, you should see this. God knows about their quality, although they look well, but for weight of numbers they’ll be bad to beat. Take on the Russians, or the Frogs, or the Yankees, if you like, but don’t tangle with this, because you’ll never come to the end of them.11

  Well, I was wrong, as you know. A dreamy young Scot and a crazy American between them brought the Great Kingdom of Heavenly Peace down in bloody wreck in the end. But I wouldn’t have bet on it that day below Nanking. And this wasn’t the half of them; the rest were still out yonder, murdering Imps.

  When we were clearly coming to the centre of the camp, I decided it was time to announce myself as an English gentleman seeking General Lee. That cleared our way to a cluster of head-quarter tents, where I made myself known to an officer outside the biggest marquee of all, with stalwart bowmen in fur caps and steel breastplates standing guard, a golden lion standard at its canopy, and yellow ribbons fluttering from its evaes. He told me to wait, and I turned to Szu-Zhan, asking her to act as my sponsor. She shook her head.

  “No. Go in alone. He will not wish to see me.”

  “He will when I tell him that it’s thanks to you I’m here,” says I. “Come on, tall girl! I need you to speak up for me.”

  She shook her head again. “Better you speak to him alone. Don’t worry, he will understand what you say.” She glanced round at the six wise men, who were studying their orderly surroundings with contempt, and spitting over the edge of the cart. “You’ll get no credit from this company, fan-qui.”

  Something in her voice made me look closer – she’d been calling me “Halli’”, not “fan-qui” for days now. Her eyes seemed
bigger, and suddenly I realised, before she turned her head away sharply, it was because there were tears in them.

  “For God’s sake!” says I, stepping up. “Here, come down this minute! Come down, I say!”

  She slipped over the edge of the cart and leaned against it with that artless elegance that could make me come all over of a heat, and looked sullenly down at me. “What the devil’s the matter?” says I. “Why won’t you come in?”

  “It is not fitting,” says she stubbornly, and brushed a hand over her eyes, the bangles tinkling.

  “Not fitting? What stuff! Why … Here!” A thought struck me. “It’s not … anything you’ve done, is it? You’re not … wanted … for being a bandit, I mean?”

  She stared, and then laughed her great deep laugh, with her head back, the steel collar shaking above her bosom. Gad, but she was fine to see – so tall and strong and beautiful. “No, Halli’, I am not … wanted.” She shrugged impatiently. “But I would rather stay here. I’ll wait.”

  Well, the darlings have their own reasons, so when the officer returned I went in alone, and was conducted through a long canvas passage ending in a heavy cloth of gold curtain. He drew it back … and I stepped from the world into the Kingdom of Heavenly Peace.