The Flashman Papers: The Complete 12-Book Collection

by George MacDonald Fraser

That was possible … but d’you know, I was inclined to believe they’d told me the truth. Not all of it, perhaps, but true so far as it went. It was wild, but no wilder than some intrigues I’d known – the Strackenz marriage for one, John Brown’s raid for another. That Hungarian fanatics should be after Franz-Josef’s blood was all too credible; what boggled the mind was the scheme Bismarck had designed to stop them … until you studied it and saw that nothing else would have answered. The threat of explosion in Europe had arisen suddenly, like a genie from a bottle, worse than ’48 or Crimea or San Stefano, and faced with the apparently impossible task of ensuring the Emperor’s safety while keeping him in the dark, that ice-cold brain had seen that unlikely old Flashy was the vital cog, having the entrée to Franz-Josef and being eminently blackmailable. And he’d gone calmly and swiftly to work to bring me where I now was, by the most outlandish means, using Kralta and Willem (and Blowitz?) and above all his knowledge of me. His planning had been meticulous … so far. As for what lay ahead, it remained to be seen whether the web which his perverted genius had spun over Ischl would be proof against my frantic efforts to break loose, and the hell with Franz-Josef and the peace of Europe both. Well, he’d spun a similar web over Strackenz, and I’d diddled the bastard then, hadn’t I?

  All very well; my immediate concern was to bolt, and with this son-of-a-bitch Starnberg half-expecting it, I’d have my work cut out. It must be soon; once he’d got me to Ischl, with his gang dogging us, I’d be sunk. Linz, where we were to stop the night, might be my best chance; I’d no doubt he was as restlessly quick on the trigger as his murderous father, but if I yelled for help in the street, or in a hotel, he’d not dare cut loose with his piece … would he? Yes, he would though, and take his chance, and make his excuses to Bismarck later. The local train to Ischl would be no easier to break from than the Orient Express … dear God, had I the nerve to spring at him now, land one solid blow, and leg it for the compartment where Blowitz and the boys would be whiling away the time and I’d be safe even from this bloody young villain … and as the desperate thought flashed across my mind I realised that he was drawing lazily on his cigarette, watching me with that insolent Starnberg smile on his handsome face, and my courage (what there was of it) melted like slush in a gutter.

  Since I was supposed to be meditating on whether to join their frightful scheme or not, they let me be for the rest of the journey, Kralta next door and Willem reading and smoking placidly while I brooded in my corner. Once I made a half-hearted suggestion about bidding farewell to Blowitz, who expected me to get out at Vienna and might wonder where I’d got to; Willem gave me a slantendicular smile and said Kralta would send him a note.

  Dusk was falling when we pulled into Linz, but no more rapidly than my spirits when we left the station, Willem close at my elbow and Kralta alongside, and I saw the closed coach by the kerb, with a couple of burly fellows in billycocks and long coats waiting to usher us aboard. One sat by the driver while the other rode inside with us; he was a beef-faced rascal with piggy little pale eyes which never left me, and great mottled hands resting on his knees – strange, I can see them yet, powerful paws with bitten nails, while the rest of that brief coach-ride has faded from memory, possibly because of the shock I received when we reached our destination, and I saw that it wasn’t the expected hotel or inn, but a detached house on what I suppose were the outskirts of Linz, surrounded by a high ivy-covered wall and approached through an arched gateway which was closed behind us by the chap on the box.

  That put the final touch to my despair. It wasn’t only that there would plainly be no escape from here, or the sight of another brace of bullies waiting by the open front door under a flickering lantern, or the air of gloom that hung over the house itself, conjuring thoughts of bats and barred windows and Varney the Vampire doing the honours as butler; what chilled my skin was the Bismarckian efficiency of it all, the evidence of careful preparation, the smoothness with which I’d been conveyed from train to prison (for that’s what it was). That was the moment when I began to doubt if there was a way out, and the nightmare sketched out by Willem changed from the frighteningly possible to the unspeakably probable.

  There are chaps, I know, who when doom seems certain grit their teeth and find renewed courage in their extremity. I ain’t like that at all, but my native cowardice does take on a sort of reckless frenzy, rather like those fellows who caught the Black Death and thought, oh, well, to hell with everything, we might as well carouse and fornicate to the end, ’cos at least it’s more fun than repentance or prayer. It was in this spirit that I was able to roger that houri in Borneo during the Batang Lupar battle, whimpering fearfully the while, and do justice to Mrs Popplewell while in flight from the outraged townsfolk of Harper’s Ferry. It don’t cast out fear, but it does take your mind off it.

  In my present plight, things were made easier by Willem and Kralta, who kept up the pretence that I was a willing guest, chatting amiably as we went indoors, calling for comforts and refreshments, and when we came to a late supper in the sparsely furnished dining-room, setting themselves to put me at ease – a Herculean task, you’ll allow, but they didn’t shirk. Willem pattered away cheerily, and Kralta, shrewdly guessing that nothing was more likely to put me in trim than a fine display of gleaming shoulders and rampant boobies across the board, had changed into evening rig of red velveteen stuff with jewels sparkling on her bosom and in her hair. Why not, thinks I, it’ll see you through a restless night at any rate. So I joined in their talk, stiff enough at first, but unbending to the extent of reminiscing about a campaign or two, and from their occasional exchange of glances I could see that they were thinking, aha, the brute’s coming round after all. Nothing was said about the Ischl business until we were about to part for the night, by which time I’d drunk enough to swamp my worst fears and prime me for another bout with Kralta. She’d left us to our cigars, with a cool smile for me as I drew back her chair, and when we were alone Willem says:

  “Our proposal … d’you still need to sleep on it?”

  “Do I have a choice?” I wondered.

  “Hardly. But I’d like to think you were with me willingly – for the good cause, oh, and the fun of it!” He chuckled – gad, he was like Rudi, ruthless as cold iron but treating it as a game. “Come on, Harry – what d’you say?”

  “If I say ‘aye’ – would you trust me?”

  “On your word of honour – yes.” Lying bastard, but it gave me the chance to play bluff Flashy to the hilt. I sat up straight and looked him in the eye.

  “Very well,” says I deliberately. “I’ll give it … in return for your word of honour that all you’ve told me is gospel true.”

  He was on his feet like a shot, hand held out, smiling eagerly. “Done!” cries he. “On my honour! Oh, this is famous! I knew you’d come round! Here, we must certainly drink to this!” So we did, neither of us believing the other for an instant, but content with the pretence. At that, I ain’t sure that he didn’t half-believe me, for I can sound damned true-blue when I want to. We drank, and he clapped me on the shoulder, bubbling with spirits, and delivered me to my beefy watchdog, crying “Good night, old fellow! Sweet dreams!” as I was shepherded up the stairs.

  The lout saw me silently into a room, which was as I’d expected – bars on the window, lock clicking behind me, and Kralta sitting up in the great four-post bed, clad in a gauzy night-rail and a look of expectation.

  “Tell me he persuaded you!” cries she.

  “Not for a moment, my dear,” says I, shedding my coat. “You see, I knew his father, and I’d not trust either of ’em round the corner.” The fine long face hardened in dismay, and she drew back against the pillows as I sat down on the side of the bed. “No, he has not persuaded me …” I leaned towards her with my wistful Flashy smile, reaching out to touch her hair “… but you have. You see, I’m a simple sort of chap, Kralta, always have been. I don’t always know a wrong ’un when I meet one, but I do know when someone’s str
aight.” I kissed her gently on the forehead, and felt her quiver distractingly. “You’re straight as a die. And while I ain’t much on politics, or the smoky things these statesmen get up to, or even understand above half all the stuff that Willem told me … well, that don’t matter, truly.” I fondled a tit with deep sincerity, and felt it harden like a blown-up football. “If you think it’s a worthy cause … well, that’s good enough for me.”

  Ever seen a horse weep? Nor I, but having watched the tears well in those fine blue eyes and trickle down her muzzle, and heard her whinny and bare her buck teeth in a smile of glad relief, I don’t need to. Her arms went round my neck.

  “Oh … but all my deceits and lies –”

  “Honourable lies, my darling, to a noble end. Why, I’ve told a few stretchers of that sort myself, in my time, when duty demanded it.” I slipped the flimsy stuff aside to get a proper grip of the meat, and kissed her lingeringly on the mouth. She clung moistly, making small noises of contrition turning to passion, and I went to the glad work of entrapping the alien at the proper time.

  Chapter 6

  Ischl’s a pretty little place, almost an island enclosed on three sides by the rivers Traun and Ischl, and lying at the heart of some of the finest scenery in Europe, forest country and lakes and the mountains of the Saltzkammergut. Bad Ischl they call it nowadays, and I believe it’s become a favourite resort of the squarehead quality, but even in ’83 the Emperor’s patronage had made it fashionable, and there was more of Society about than you’d have expected, come to take the waters, inhabit the fine villas along the Traun, drive in the woods and on the river boulevards, promenade in the gardens of the New Casino, and throng the more elegant shops and cafés, of which there were a surprising number. The townsfolk were stout and prosperous, and the inevitable peasantry in their awful little black pants and suspenders seemed to know their place, and gave the scene an air of picturesque gaiety.

  Which didn’t reflect my mood, exactly. Willem, I think, reckoned I was reluctant still, but would be bound to go through with his ghastly scheme; Kralta, on t’other hand, having a romantic and patriotic heart beneath her glacial exterior, and being partial to pork, was convinced I’d seen the light. She’d taken to me, no error, and wanted to trust me, you see. That was fine, but left me no nearer to finding a means of escape. The journey from Linz had afforded no chance at all, with Willem close on hand, and his four thugs in the next compartment, and at Ischl, where we were installed at the Golden Ship, in a side-street off the Marktplatz, they never let me out of their sight. That very first day, when we’d settled in and got our bearings in the town, strolling by the Traun, admiring the casino gardens, taking coffee in an opulent pâtisserie, and generally idling like well-bred little tourists, Willem stuck like a burr, and my beefy scoundrel lurked in the background.

  How they’d act if I suddenly darted to the nearest copper, yelling that I was being kidnapped, I couldn’t guess and didn’t dare find out. Set aside that Willem might well have put a slug in my spine and faded out of sight, you’re at the deuce of a disadvantage being a foreigner, even if you speak the lingo. The authorities ain’t inclined to believe you, not in the face of explanations from an imposing lady of quality and her Junker escort, backed by four worthy cabbage-eaters in hard hats. “Poor cousin Harry, he’s English you know, and has fits. Don’t be alarmed, constable, we have a strait-jacket at the hotel.” That would be their line, or something like it – and where would Cock Flashy be then, poor thing? At the bottom of the Traun the same evening, likely, with a bag of coal at his feet and Kralta dropping a sentimental tear.

  So I played up as seldom before, smiling politely, talking wittily at ease, breathing in the breezes of the distant mountains with every sign of content, coaxing Kralta to buy a monstrous hat in one of the boutiques, drinking in a beer-garden with Willem and shaking my head ruefully as he cheated me at bezique (father’s son, no question), laughing heartily at the drolleries of Frosch the gaoler in Fledermaus at the little theatre in the evening, remarking at dinner that Austria’s contribution to civilisation must surely be the art of cooking cabbage decently,17 rogering Kralta to stupefaction when we’d retired, and lying awake later with her sleeping boobies across my chest, cudgelling my wits for a way out.

  I made the experiment of rising early next morning and dressing quietly while she was still asleep, slipping out on to the landing – and there was Beefy square-bottomed on a chair, glowering. I bade him a civil good-day and sauntered down into the street, and he simply followed a few paces behind as I strolled to the river and back for breakfast. Willem was already down; he raised an eyebrow, glancing at Beefy, and then asked me if I’d had a pleasant stroll. No alarms, no warning, so they must be sure enough of their grip on me to delegate the task of watchdog to a single ruffian, armed and ruthless no doubt, but still just one man. Interesting … and sufficient to raise my hopes a little.

  And then, on that second day in Ischl, the whole affair changed, unbelievably, and escape became unthinkable.

  It was Wednesday, the day which Willem had appointed for a scout in the direction of Franz-Josef’s lodge. It stood on rising ground on the other side of the town, above and beyond the little river Ischl, secluded enough among woodland to give royalty privacy, but an easy walk from the Ischl bridges which span the river by way of a little island lying in midstream.

  Willem and I walked through the town and across the bridge to the island, which was laid out as a park, with pleasant gardens among the trees and bushes. We found a quiet spot from which we could look across the river towards the high bank above which the lodge could be seen among the trees. Willem scanned it through field-glasses and then we crossed the farther bridge for a closer look, strolling up the curving road, circling the lodge itself, and back to the road again. Here Willem led the way north, farther up the slope, to a point slightly above the lodge, and took a long slant through the glasses. There were a few folk about, tourists driving and strolling for a look at the royal residence.

  “But there won’t be a soul this side of the river after dark,” says Willem. “Gad, ain’t it made for murder, though! Come across from Ischl by day, lie up in the woods –” he nodded to where the trees grew thicker above us “– then swoop down at night, break in, do old F-J’s business, and flee any way you like … across into the town to your hidey-hole, or back into the woods, or down the Ischl and then the Traun by boat!” He passed me the glasses, chuckling. “But since we shan’t give ’em the chance to flee, that don’t signify.”

  He lounged back on the turf, chewing a blade of grass and shading his eyes against the autumn sun while I surveyed the lodge, a white three-storeyed building with a high-pitched roof to one side in which there were dormer windows. Odd little minarets decorated the gable ends, and at what seemed to be the front of the house there was a large square porch with ivy-covered pillars and a flat roof surrounded by a little balustrade. The whole place had an informal, almost untidy look; not very grand for an emperor, I thought.

  “I told you he liked to play the simple soul,” says Willem. “All ceremony and etiquette at the Hofburg or Schonbrunn, but hail-fellow with the peasants when he’s out of town – provided he does the hailing and they knuckle their foreheads like good little serfs. He acts the genial squire, but he’s a pompous prig at heart, and God help anyone who comes the familiar with him. Or so I’m told; you’ve met him, I haven’t.”

  I’d thought him stiff and stupid on short acquaintance, but what exercised me just then was that his lodge, while modest enough, was a sight too large to be guarded by a file of soldiers.

  “But not by two clever lads inside the place, who stick close by his nibs night and day, and know the geography,” says Willem. “And who know also exactly where the Holnup will try to break in.”

  I almost dropped the glasses. “How the devil can you know that?”

  He gave me his smart-alec smile. “I’ve never set foot in that bijou residence, but I know every foot of it
like my own home. Builders’ plans, old boy – you don’t think Bismarck overlooks items like that! I could find my way round it in the dark, and probably will.”

  “But you can’t guess which way they’ll come –”

  “There’s a secret stair leading down from the Emperor’s bedroom to an outside door – no doubt so that he could sneak out for a night’s whoring in town without Sissi knowing … although why he should, with that little beauty waiting to be bounced about, beats me,” he added, with fine irrelevance. “Anyway, even the servants don’t know about the secret stair –”

  “But you and Bismarck do, absolutely!”

  “Absolutely … and it’s St Paul’s to the parish pump that the Holnup know, too. Heavens, they’re not amateurs! They’d be mad not to take advantage of it, wouldn’t you say?”

  “And if they don’t? Or if it’s locked, as it’s bound to be?”

  He smote his forehead. “Damn! They’ll never have thought of that! So they won’t bring pick-locks or bolt-shears or anything useful, will they? Ah, well,” says the sarcastic brute, “we can tell Bismarck he’s fretting about nothing. Oh, come along.” He got to his feet, laughing at me. “The thing is, where to take ’em? At the door, or inside, or where? Well, we’ll have to think about that. One thing at a time …”

  We walked down the hill and back across the bridges to Ischl town, and had just reached the spot where the Landstrasse runs into the Kreutzplatz when we were aware of some commotion ahead; people on the Landstrasse were drawing aside to the pavements with a great raising of hats and bobbing of curtsies as a smart open carriage came bowling up the street, its occupant responding to the salutes of the whiffers by making stiff inclinations and tipping his tile. A couple of Hussars trotted ahead, and as they came level with us Willem drew me quickly back into a doorway.

  “The Grand Panjandrum himself,” says he, “and the less he sees of us just now, the better. Don’t want to spoil tomorrow’s surprise, do we? Let’s grin into our hats ’till he’s past.” We doffed, covering ourselves, and as the carriage crossed the Kreutzplatz to polite cheering, Willem laughed. “Tell you what, Harry – he looks more than half like you!”