The Flashman Papers: The Complete 12-Book Collection

by George MacDonald Fraser

  “You have a vermilion decree, swaying the wide world? No? Then we waste time. I’ll take his Highness. I have an escort.”

  “Chief Eunuch,” says she, “take his Highness down to the court … at once.” She stood as stately calm as ever, but I caught the shake in her voice, and so did Sang, for he laughed again.

  “Stand still, bladder! Don’t be a fool, Yi Concubine. Your Imperial Guards hero is down there with a broken head, and this fellow’ll take my orders!” He jerked a thumb at my Mongol, glanced in our direction, and noticed me for the first time. For a moment he frowned, and then his eyes dilated and his mouth gaped, which didn’t improve his appearance one bit. “That!” he bawled. “By death, what is it doing here?”

  “He is a Banner Chief of the barbarian army!” she retorted. “A staff officer of the Big Barbarian himself –”

  “I know what he is! I asked how he came here!” His glare fell on Little An, half-hidden behind Yehonala and clinging to the small prince as though he were a lifebelt. “You – capon! Is this some of your work? No, you scum, you never do anything but at her bidding!” He thrust out his jaw at Yehonala. “Well? What is an enemy prisoner doing in the Yi Concubine’s pavilion?”

  “I am not answerable to you!” Her voice trembled with anger. “Now get out of my house! And knock your head as you go, you low-born Mongol!”

  He actually fell back a pace, and then he seemed to swell, towering above her with both mailed hands raised, mouthing like a maniac. My guard took a pace forward, but Sang mastered himself, glaring from one to other of us, and his dirty mind must have come to the right conclusion, for suddenly he gave a snarling grin. “Ah! I begin to see! Well … it’s no matter. We’ll put the foreign filth where he belongs – in the Board of Punishments! And you,” he shouted at Yehonala, “can answer to the Supreme Tribunal … and bring your own silk cord with you, traitress!” He gestured to his men. “Take his Imperial Highness – and that fan-qui rubbish!”

  One of the Tartars stepped towards Yehonala, none too brisk, and she turned and snatched the boy from Little An, pulling him close to her side. She was quivering like a deer, but her eyes were blazing.

  “Dare! Dare to touch him, you stable scum, and you’ll die for it! For treason and sacrilege! The Emperor will –”

  “On the word of a faithless whore?” jeers Sang, and thrust the Tartar brutally forward. “Fetch him, fool!”

  The Tartar took another step, Little An screamed and blundered bravely forward, arms windmilling, to bar his way, and Yehonala swung the prince up in her arms, turned to run in sudden panic, realised it was hopeless, and turned again, helpless. The Tartar flung Little An aside, the ladies behind wailed in terror, and Yehonala flung out a hand to ward off the Tartar, crying out.

  “Help me! Stop them! Help me!” And, by God, she was calling to me.

  Well, you know what follows when a beautiful young woman, threatened by brutal enemies, turns to me in a frenzy of entreaty, hand outstretched and eyes imploring; if she’s lucky I may roar for the bobbies as I slide over the sill. But this was different, for while they’d been trading insults I’d been calculating like sin, and I knew how it must be, even before she hollered for help – if Sang prevailed, I was dead meat; if I turned up trumps, Yehonala would see me right; if Sang thought he could rule out the Mongol, he was wrong, for the brute was not only an Imperial Guardsman worth two Tartars any day, he had a mishandled chief to avenge, and the sight of Yehonala threatened had been causing him to bristle like a chivalrous gorilla. It was his size that determined me, and the fact that there wasn’t a sill to slide over, anyway. It was now or never: I leaped from my chair, crimson with fear, and roared:

  “Sang-kol-in-sen! That lady and her child are under the protection of Her Majesty’s Government! Molest them at your peril! I speak for Lord Elgin and the British Army, so … so back off, d’you see?” And for good measure I added: “You dirty dog, you!”

  It stopped ’em dead in sheer amazement, Dick Dauntless facing the stricken heathen, and I wished Elspeth could have seen me just then – or perhaps, considering what Yehonala looked like, better not. There was a breathless pause, and then Sang went literally mad with rage, howling and lugging out his sword. I yelped and sprang away, turning for the sabre which I knew was on the wall, since Yehonala had indicated it to An last night – and the damned thing wasn’t there! Sang’s blade whirled in a glittering arc, and I hurled myself aside, bellowing, as it shattered a table in my rear. There was the sabre, three yards along – I leaped and snatched it from the wall, whirling to meet another furious cut, roaring to the Mongol to get on parade, and breaking ground as Sang came after me, frothing like a pi-dog. On clear floor I fell on guard, parrying two cuts to take his measure, and my heart leaped as I realised I’d been right in one vital hope – he couldn’t use a sabre to save himself. He was a blind, furious lasher, so I exposed my flank, took the cut on the forte, waited his lurching recovery, and ran him through the left arm. (I ain’t Guillaume Danet, you understand, but Sang’s swordplay would have broken the troop-sergeant’s heart.)

  I needn’t have fretted about the Mongol. One Tartar was down, with his guts on the rug, and the other was in desperate retreat, with my lad coming in foot and hand. I had a brief glimpse of the room – wailing women stampeding for the archway passage leading to the court; Little An carrying the prince and herding them like a fat collie; Yehonala standing half-way, watching us, clutching her fur to her neck – and then Sang was on me again, spraying gore and hewing like a woodman; oh, he was game. Right, you swine, thinks I, this’ll read well in the Morning Post, and I went in to kill him. I’d have done it, too, but the cowardly bastard got behind a table, roaring for help; Yehonala suddenly cried out, and I stole a glance behind – there were fur caps and swords in the doorway, with the Mongol charging them. More of Sang’s riders, three at the least, but the Mongol was holding them in the narrow entrance; useful chap he was.

  “Die hard, Attila!” I roared to encourage him, took a last cut at Sang, and turned to race along the room. Yehonala was at the archway, glancing back anxiously while Little An, who seemed to have got shot of the prince to one of the women, pleaded with her to make haste. I seconded that as I ran, for I wanted no one hindering my line of retreat: “Get out, woman! Run for it! We’ll stand ’em off!” By which I meant that the Mongol would, but just as I came level with him, moving smoothly, the mob in the doorway forced him back, and I must turn to cover his flank.

  He’d done for the original two, but had taken a couple of cuts in the process, one an ugly gash on the face that was running like a tap. There were four new swords against us, and as the Mongol reeled I could only ply the Maltese Cross for my very life (that’s the Afghan’s last resort, an up-down-across pattern that no opponent can get by until you fall down exhausted, which happens after about ten seconds, in my condition). Then he recovered, and we retreated shoulder to shoulder for the arch, while Sang came steaming up, with shouts and great action, damning ’em for sluggards but keeping his distance.

  That Mongol was a complete hand. I’ve never seen a faster big man, and with his tremendous reach he could have given my old chum de Gautet a few minutes’ trouble. He fought left-handed, with a short sword in his right, and didn’t mind at all taking a cut in a good cause; he stopped one with his bare shoulder, grunted, and chopped like lightning – and there was a head trundling away across the polished floor while the Mongol bayed triumphantly, and the three other Tartars checked aghast and reviewed the position, with Sang going demented.

  We were under the arch and into the passage, and since there was room for only one I considerately went first, while Genghiz turned and dared the foemen to come on, clashing his hilts against his mailed chest and howling with laughter. He seemed in such spirits that I left him to it, flying along the passage and round the corner, and not so much as a mouse-hole to hide in, so I must career down the stairs and into the starlit dark of the walled court.

  Two horse-
palkis were clattering out and away along an avenue of high impenetrable hedges; one remained, and Yehonala was drawing aside its curtain, preparing to climb in but looking back anxiously – for me, I like to think, for she gave a little cry as I appeared. Little An was trying to climb aboard the lead horse and making sad work of it, squealing oaths and slipping under its neck; I heaved him up bodily – it was like handling a mattress full of blancmange – and slapped the beast with the flat of my sabre. It started forward, and as the palki came by Yehonala had the curtain raised; she said nothing, but stretched out her hand; I caught it for a second, and she smiled; then the palki was past, and I got a foot on the shaft and swung aboard the rear horse and we were away, the palki swaying like a hammock between the two beasts. As we lumbered down the avenue, I looked back; the court was empty under the stars, which suggested that my Mongol was still at profitable labour – and if you cry out on me for a deserter, so I am, and you can spare your sympathy for his opponents.

  The avenue ran straight for half a mile, and we picked up a good pace. With the panic of action over I was suddenly reeling tired, and trembling at the thought of the risks I’d run; the temptation to sink forward on the horse’s mane, sobbing with relief, mastered me for a moment, and then I thought, sit up, you fool, you’re still in the wood. The avenue was curving now, and the hedge had thinned to a border of bushes; two furlongs ahead there were lanterns burning, and the helmets of horsemen – Jung Lu’s troop waiting on the Jehol road. Time to go, so I swung my leg over, gripped my sabre, and hopped down. The palki faded into the night, there were faint shouts from the gate, and the lanterns were moving up the avenue to meet it.40

  Why did I slip my cable when I’d just won the gratitude of a powerful and beautiful woman who was half-crazy about me to start with? Well, I’ll tell you: gratitude’s a funny thing; do a favour, and often as not you’ve made an enemy, or at best a grudging friend. Folk hate to feel obliged. And in Yehonala’s case, how long would it have been before she remembered how much dangerous knowledge I had of her and her ambitions, and the debt had dwindled into insignificance, with Little An putting in his twopenn’orth of hate?

  Perhaps I misjudge her; perhaps she could feel gratitude with the same intensity she gave to her vice, but I doubt it. Gratitude feeds best on love, and the only love she had for me was an insatiable appetite for jolly roger. I, on the other hand, was perfectly ready for a change from Chink-meat – and yet, even now I can feel a stopping of the heart when I see in memory that lovely pale oval mask suspended in the blackness of the palki, smiling at me, and the slim fingers brushing for a moment across mine. Oh, she had a magic, and it’s with me still; when I saw her again, forty years later, I was gulping like a boy. That was during the Boxer nonsense, when she was “Old Buddha”, still with China helpless in those tiny silver talons. She’d hardly changed – a little plumper in the face, more heavily-painted, but the eye was as bright as a girl’s, and the voice – when I heard those soft, singing tones the years fell away, and I was in the Summer Palace, on a sunlit lawn, watching that perfect profile against the dark leaves, listening to the bells across the lake … She didn’t recognise the big, silver-whiskered grog-faced ruffian among the diplomatic riff-raff, and I didn’t make myself known. We spoke for only a moment; I remember she talked of Western dancing as two people holding hands and jumping all over the room, and then she gave a little sigh and said: “We should have thought it a very … tame amusement, in my young day …” I wonder if she did recognise me?

  Anyway, wild horses wouldn’t have got me to Jehol; my one thought was the army and safety, so I put the Pole Star just abaft my left shoulder and set off on my last quiet stroll through the Summer Palace; I was close by the boundary, well clear of Sang and his scoundrels – supposing the Mongol hadn’t slaughtered them all, with luck – and knew that an hour’s easy march should bring me in reach of the Pekin road; there I’d take stock and cast about for our fellows. Mind you, looking back, I was uncommon reckless, for heaven knew what Imps might be loose about the night; but it seemed so quiet and serene under the starlight, with the breeze soft in the branches and long cypress shadows reaching across the lawns, the distant glimmer of a lake, the twinkle of light from a pavilion half-hidden in the groves … I remember thinking as I walked, you’ll never find such peace again; you’ll forget the blood and terror in which you came to it and came away, and remember only the starlit garden … her place … and call it heaven. As I moved silently up the last slope, I looked back, and there it lay, fairyland on earth, the last Elysium, stretching away in the dawn dark, seen through the misty vision of her face.

  It struck me that there might be some good portable loot in the Ewen-ming-ewen, and never a better chance, with the Empress’s suite cleared out in haste, and everyone else either fled or occupied with events around Pekin; it wasn’t much out of my way, so I slipped swiftly through the trees until I saw the great gold Hall of Audience ahead, and scouted through the bushes for a look-see. And d’you know what – the plundering Froggy bastards had got there first! I heard their racket ahead and couldn’t make out who it might be, for our folk couldn’t be so close, surely … then I tripped over a dead eunuch, and saw there were about a dozen of ’em, still figures sprawled on the sward towards the great gate; one poor fat sod was clutching a huge ornamental snickersnee of carved ivory, and another had a little lady’s bow and golden arrows. And they’d tried to defend their treasure house against European infantry …41

  The hall entrance was lit by flickering lanterns, and people were hurrying in and out; there were marching feet down by the gate, and then I heard: “Halte! Sac a terre!” and I whooped for joy and ran across the lawn shouting.

  There was a young lieutenant posting pickets around the building, and when I’d made myself known he was in a rare frenzy, and I must see his captain, for I was the first prisoner they’d seen, death of his life, and where were the others, I’Abbé and M. Gommelle, and see, mon capitaine, un colonel Anglais, quel phénomène, avec un glaive et les pantalons Chines. I answered his questions as best I could, and learned that they were the advance guard of a French regiment sent to secure the northern approach to the city – and what was this place? Le Palais Estival, le residence impérial, ma foi! Ici, Corporal Fromage, and listen to this! Pardon? Oh, yes, there were British cavalry about somewhere, but in the dark, who knew? Now, if I would excuse him …

  I sat on a rocket-box, dog tired, eating bread and issue wine, watching an endless stream of chattering, yelling Frog infantry swarming out of the Hall of Audience, weighed down with bolts of silk, bundles of shimmering dragon robes, jade vases, clocks, jewelled watches, pictures, everything they could lay hands on. Some were wearing women’s dresses and hats; I remember one roaring bearded sergeant, with a magnificent cloth of gold gown kilted up above his red breeches, dancing a can-can as his mates yelled and clapped; another was skimming plumed picture hats up in the air like a juggler’s plates; my little lieutenant had a cashmere shawl embroidered with tiny gems about his shoulders, and the major was casting a connoisseur’s eye over a fine gilt-framed painting and exclaiming that it was a Petitot, as ever was. There were enormous piles of loot growing in the court-yard – silks here, clocks there, paintings over yonder, vases farther on … very orderly in their plundering were our Gallic allies, but what would you? When grandpapa has followed Napoleon, you know how such things should be done, so the French army loot by numbers, with a shrewd eye to quality, while the indiscriminate British will lift (or smash) anything that comes in their way, just for the fun of it.

  It was sunrise, and the Frogs were exclaiming over the sight of the Hall of Audience gleaming in the first rays, shading their eyes and running off for a better look, when I managed to collar a mule and set off at a nice amble down the Pekin road. The French were camped everywhere, but only a mile along I struck a troop of Dragoons boiling their dixies by the roadside. No, we weren’t in Pekin yet, and Grant intended to force a capitulation by wheelin
g up his guns to the Anting Gate and putting his finger on the trigger, so to speak; so the campaign was over. I commandeered a horse, and a few minutes later was trotting in to the grounds of a fine temple where advance head-quarters had been set up, and the first thing I saw was Elgin still in his night-shirt, the rising sun gilding his pate, munching a bun and waving a bottle of beer at a big map on an easel, with Hope Grant and the staff ringed round him.

  There was a tremendous yell when I hove in view, and a tumult of questions as I slid from the saddle, and fellows slapping me on the back and shouting: “The prisoners are safe!” and hurrahing, and Elgin came bustling to shake my hand, crying:

  “Flashman, my dear chap! We’d given you up for dead! Thank God you’re safe! My dear fellow, wherever have you been? This is capital! My boy, are you hurt? Have those villains ill-used you?”

  I couldn’t answer, because all of a sudden I felt very weak and wanted to blub. I think it was the kind words – the first I’d heard in ever so long, although it was barely three weeks – and the English voices and everyone looking so cheery and glad to see me, and the anxious glower on Elgin’s bulldog face at the thought that I’d been mistreated, and just the knowledge that I was home. Then someone whistled, exclaiming, and they were all staring at the sabre which I’d hung from my saddle, dried blood all over the blade – Sang’s blood, and that struck me as ever so funny, for some reason, and I’d have laughed if I’d had the energy. But I just stood mum and choking while they cried out and shouted questions and rejoiced, until Hope Grant shouldered them all aside, pretty rough, even Elgin, and pushed me down on to a stool, and put a cup of tea in my hand, and stood with his hand round my shoulders, not saying a word. Then I blubbed.

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