The Flashman Papers: The Complete 12-Book Collection

by George MacDonald Fraser

  Having known the last two I can tell you that waking to find yourself bound hand and foot on a camp-bed underground, while alarming, ain’t too bad by comparison, and when your smiling captor inquires after your health and offers refreshment … well, hope springs eternal, you know. For Willem von Starnberg was bending over me, all solicitude and sounding absolutely light-hearted.

  “The guv’nor was right, ‘Never forget that fellows like Flashman always come at you when least expected, usually from behind.’ Should ha’ paid more attention to the old chap, shouldn’t I?” He put a hand behind my head, and I yelped hoarsely. “Splittin’ to beat the band, eh? No wonder, Zoltan fetched you a dooce of a clip; you’ve been limp as a dead fish for hours. Care for some schnapps?”

  “Where the hell am I? What … what’s happened?” My voice came out in a quavering croak as he removed the flask from my lips, and as I struggled into a sitting position with his help, my questions trailed off in amazement as I took in my surroundings.

  We were alone, in an enormous cavern of what looked like limestone, grey stone at any rate, but with an odd sheen to its towering walls. We were at one end, close by the black mouth of a tunnel from which ran wooden rails bearing a couple of ancient wheeled bogie trucks; the rails ran for about thirty yards into the cave to what looked like a cleft in the floor, and there must have been a bridge once, for I could see that the rails continued on the other side of the cleft before being lost in the gloom. The place was like some cathedral made by nature, huge and empty and utterly silent, and staring up I saw that high overhead there was a fissure in the roof fringed by a tangle of growth from the world outside, and this was the only source of light, glistening dimly on those gigantic smooth curving walls. The floor of the cavern was smooth too, and innocent of loose rocks or rubble, as though some giant housekeeper had swept the great chamber clean.

  But the wonder of the place, that made me catch my breath even in my groggy condition, was the little lake that covered almost half the cavern floor on the far side away from the rails. Very well, ’twas only water, a natural bath in the stone, but never was water so still or clear or silent. The surface was like glass, extending perhaps thirty yards in length by twenty across to the far wall, and in its crystal depths, undisturbed by current or eddy, you could make out every detail of the stone bottom ten feet down, as though no water had been there at all. No fish could have swum in it, or weeds grown; it was immaculate, like some enchanted mere of fairy tale, an ice-witch’s mirror in the heart of a magic mountain.

  Only by the tunnel mouth where I lay were there signs of human occupation: a rough stone fireplace and utensils, palliasses and camp-beds, plain chairs and table, a couple of packing-cases, and a litter of stores and gear. But like ourselves, these worldly things seemed out of place and dwarfed in the awful majesty of the cavern. The cold was fit to freeze you to the bone.

  “You’re in an old salt-mine in the Saltzkammergut, in the mountains above Ischl,”19 says Willem. “Jolly little tomb, ain’t it? Hark-away!” He had raised his voice, and the echo came back in an eerie whisper, “hark-away … away … away …”, fading ever so softly in the unseen reaches of the cavern. He stood cocking an appreciative ear, very trim in riding boots, breeches, and shooting jacket, and none the worse, it seemed, for the free-for-all shooting match which was the last thing I remembered.

  “We’re near the surface here,” says he, “but God knows how far the tunnels go below. The place hasn’t been worked for years. D’ye know, when I was a nipper I pictured salt-mines as hellish places where slaves with red-rimmed eyes waded knee-deep in the stuff. But it’s rather grand and spooky, don’t you think? Splendid bolt-hole, too, for clandestine plotters like the Holnup. My lads were camped here for a week, but I’ve had to send ’em off now, thanks to you.” He perched on a packing-case, cradling his knee, and gave me his quizzy look. “When did you twig I was the fox at the hen-roost, then?”

  “Cut me loose first!” croaks I, but he only grinned and repeated the question, so I told him about finding the tampered cartridges, and he swore and slapped his thigh, laughing.

  “I’ll be damned! That’s what comes o’ bein’ too clever by half – oh, and bein’ in awe of your fearsome reputation! Ironic, ain’t it? I gave you a harmless pistol by way of insurance, but if I’d given you a loaded one, Franz-Josef would have been with his fathers by now. Or if you’d come on the scene a minute later, even … oh, aye, we had the lock picked and I was about to go aloft when you arrived with your little snickersnee, curse you, and then that damned sergeant and his sentries, and we had to shoot our way clear, and lost two good men – one of ’em your pal Gunther, you’ll be desolated to learn. Ah, well, c’est la guerre!”

  You’d have thought he was describing a rag in the dormitory, chuckling with hardly a sign of irritation. Oh, he was Rudi’s boy all right, cool as a trout and regarding me with amusement.

  “So there it is!” cries he. “Franz-Josef lives on, two of my boys don’t, there ain’t a hope of a return match with half a regiment round the place by now, I imagine – supposin’ F-J hasn’t decamped for Vienna already. The conspiracy is kaput, I’ve had to disperse the best band of night-runners I ever hope to see, and four weeks of dam’ good plannin’ have gone down the bogs.” He jumped down from his seat, and stood before me, hands on hips. “Yes, sir, the guv’nor was right. You truly are an inconvenient son-of-a-bitch. Still … no hard feelin’s, what? Not on my side, leastways.”

  Call me a sceptic if you will, but I doubted it. I’d come within a whisker of cutting his throat, ruined his plot all unwitting, and cost him two men dead – and he didn’t mind a bit? No, this could only be cat-and-mouse in the best Starnberg tradition, and his claws would show presently; in the meantime, with my innards turning cartwheels, I pretended to take him at face value.

  “Glad to hear it,” says I. “Then you won’t mind cutting these infernal ropes.”

  “Certainly … by and by,” says he. “When my arrangements for departure are complete. Austria’s a trifle warm just now, you see, what with two dead desperadoes under the Emperor’s window, a sentry with a slit weasand, and those two mysterious visitors, Flashman and Starnberg, vanished none knows whither. It wouldn’t surprise me,” says the sardonic pup, “if they started lookin’ for us, which is why I intend to be over the Italian border by daybreak tomorrow. I’ve no inclination to grace an Austrian gallows – or rot in a Brandenburg fortress, which is what’ll happen if Bismarck ever learns the truth of our little soiree yestre’en. He’d have my ballocks for breakfast.”

  That settled one thing. “So last night was off your own bat! Bismarck had nothing to do with it?”

  He stared. “With our gallant attempt to snuff Franz-Josef’s wick, you mean? Good lord, no! My word, you do have a low opinion of our worthy Chancellor!” He grinned at my bewilderment. “I see I’ll have to explain. Two months ago the Holnup learned that F-J was comin’ to Ischl without his usual retinue, and would be a sittin’ bird for assassination. Plans were laid for a night attack on the lodge, but Bismarck got wind of it from a spy in the Holnup council, and devised his great plan for guardin’ the Emperor, just as Kralta and I told you. What he didn’t know, when he entrusted it to me, his loyal agent,” he went on, looking waggish, “was that I happen to be a great-nephew of Lajos Kossuth himself, and have been a member of the Holnup since boyhood. And that in choosin’ me to guard the great booby he was playin’ into our hands, makin’ our task even easier by handin’ me on a plate the golden opportunity that every Hungarian patriot has been prayin’ for this ten years past. You may be sure,” he added, “that we’ve identified the spy in our council, and have left him strictly alone … for the time being.”

  He paused, and just for a moment the bantering manner dropped from him like a cloak. The boyish face was set and his eyes were far away as he said softly: “And we were so close. Another moment – another few seconds – and the blow would have been struck that would have freed Hun
gary from the Hapsburgs forever. Holnup … holnuputan!”a He gave a deep sigh, and slowly unclenched his hands – and then he was himself again, shaking his head at me in mock reproach. “You really have been an uncommon nuisance, you know.”

  For some reason, despite my fears, this infuriated me. “Because I stopped you from committing murder? Why, you dam’ fool, I saved your lousy life, more like! Bismarck would have had more than your ballocks – he’d have had your neck!”

  He regarded me pityingly. “Oh, ye of little faith! D’you think I’m a half-wit? It was all arranged – once F-J had kicked the bucket we’d have fetched you out o’ the house, quiet-like, tapped you gently on your great fat head, laid you out beside the royal corpse with a bloody knife in your hand, and left you to explain matters when you woke up.” He regarded my expression of stupefied horror with cheerful satisfaction. “Of course they’d have hanged you – if they hadn’t finished you off on the spot. But don’t you see, I could then have pleaded injured innocence to Bismarck, pointing out that it wasn’t I who brought you into the business, and that you must have gone berserk, or been a Holnup hireling all unsuspected, or killed F-J for love of the beauteous Sissi … or anythin’ at all. He’d ha’ swallowed it. Besides, that would have been the least of his troubles, with the dogs of war slippin’ all over the parish, and everyone blamin’ perfidious Albion as usual, and Gladstone havin’ apoplexy.” He shrugged. “Aye, me, the best-laid schemes …”

  What was the phrase young Hawkins used in his book? “Surely, while you’re above ground, Hell wants its master!” Spoken of the fictitious image of Rudi von Starnberg, but by God it fitted his abominable son even better, sitting there while he lighted another of his blasted cigarettes.20 Was he mad, perhaps … and why had he brought me to this ghastly solitude? It made no sense, for if he’d wanted me dead they could have done for me in the fight at the lodge. Was it possible that his geniality was genuine, and that he didn’t mean me harm after all? No, for why was I bound hand and foot? The evil bastard had brought me here to gloat … and he must have read my thoughts, for:

  “So what now, you wonder?” says he. “Well, Harry, that’s a hard one … damned hard. You see, the fact is that I like you – and none the less because you’ve baulked me altogether. Indeed, all the more. And it’s just a lost trick in the game, anyway – I’ll settle Franz-Josef, one way or t’other, and before long, too. You may count on that. And then …’twill all come right, and Hungary will be free soil. But that’s by the way.”

  He seated himself on his packing-case again, blowing smoke-rings and watching them hang motionless in that windless cavern, while my skin crawled.

  “The hard thing, though, is that while you’re a man after my own heart, just as you were after the guv’nor’s, and I’d like to clap hands and part friends …” and damned if he didn’t sound as though he meant it “… you know too much, you see. At the moment, what happened last night is all a great mystery – officially. What do they know, Franz-Josef’s people? That someone was tryin’ to do him in – the unlocked door and dead sentry tell ’em that. And that it was a Holnup job – the other dead ’un we had to leave with Gunther was a Magyar, and a notorious firebrand. And that you and I were in the business, some way or other. What then? Whatever they suspect, they can’t prove a blessed thing against you and me, unless we’re fool enough to let ourselves be collared in the next day or two, while the trail’s hot and they’re still full of zeal. After that, they’ll be quite thankful to forget about us, and they can keep the whole unfortunate business quiet. See?”

  I saw, all right, and was struck by the sinister significance of the words “you know too much”. He continued:

  “Which is why I shall lie low in Italy for a spell, before presentin’ myself to Bismarck, who’ll have no earthly reason to suspect me. Au contraire, he’ll welcome me with open arms! On the face of it, his great scheme will have worked to admiration, don’t you see?” He sat forward, eyes shining. “The Holnup struck, failed, and left two of their number stark and stiff! Bravo, Starnberg and Flashy, cries Otto, couldn’t have done better myself! That’s what he’s bound to think … and I shan’t disillusion him. If he wonders why we didn’t stay to take the credit, I’ll say it seemed best to fade modestly away. Oh, he’ll swallow it. But …” he shook his head solemnly, “… suppose you were to tell the true story of what happened last night, eh? I’d be embarrassed, Harry. Embarrassed to death, like as not –”

  “But I wouldn’t say a word!” It came out in a bellow that made the echo ring. “Never, I swear it! My God, no! I wouldn’t dream of it! Why the hell should I want to? You can’t believe that I’d ever –”

  “So you say, in the Saltzkammergut,” he interrupted. “But safe in London or Paris? Who knows? Very well, you might keep mum – but I’m certain sure you won’t if the Austrian polizei nab you before you can get out o’ the country. And you haven’t a hope of doin’ that.”

  “Why not? If you’re making for Italy, we can –”

  “I can, but you can’t. I’ve a horse up topsides, and I know the country. But I can’t risk a passenger. Sorry, old ’un,” says he, all manly regret, the hypocritical hound, “but I must take the high road … while you take the low.” He gestured beyond me, towards the recesses of the cavern.

  “You can’t mean it! My God, Starnberg … Willem – I swear I’ll not let on! On my honour! Christ, man, think – who’d believe me if I were fool enough to blab? Bismarck? You know dam’ well he wouldn’t – never trusted me an inch, the swine! And I’d never peach to the Austrians – you said yourself they can’t prove anything! And I could explain, somehow, why I disappeared from the lodge last night – oh, God, I don’t know exactly, but I could spin ’em some yarn about how the Holnup abducted me, or anything –”

  “I don’t doubt that you could!” he agreed. “But would you, when the truth might save your skin? I doubt it. I know dam’ well I wouldn’t.” He paused, reflecting. “Anyway, there’s another reason why I can’t let you … live to tell the tale – even if I could be sure you wouldn’t tell it.”

  “Jesus, man – why?”

  He sat a moment, frowning and smiling together, and then flicked away his cigarette and stood up, took a few slow paces, and turned to face me – and, d’ye know, he looked almost wistful.

  “Debt of honour, I guess you’d call it,” says he. “I feel I owe it to the guv’nor.” And as I gagged in appalled disbelief, he went on:

  “I’ve never known, as I told you, what you and he were up to in Strackenz all those years ago. Some stunt of Otto Bismarck’s, wasn’t it? But I do know that you had the deuce of a turn-up at the last, sabre to sabre, in some castle or other – and ’twas the guv’nor’s lastin’ regret that it didn’t go á l’outrance. I don’t know what came between you, but I wouldn’t mind havin’ a quid for every time I heard the old chap say: ‘I only wish I’d settled Flashman! He was a strong swordsman, and up to every foul trick, but I was better. Aye, if only I could ha’ finished it!’ That’s what he said.”

  He turned away to reach in among some gear piled on a case by the tunnel mouth, and when he faced me again he had a dress sabre unsheathed in either hand, the slim blades glittering wickedly in the pale light from the cavern roof.

  “So I feel bound to finish it for him,” says he.

  “But … but …” I struggled for speech. “You must be crazy! For God’s sake, man, there’s no need! I’ve told you I shan’t breathe a bloody word! I’ll be silent as the grave –”

  “That’s the ticket!” cries he. “Couldn’t ha’ put it better myself! And speakin’ of graves, you couldn’t ask a grander mausoleum than this!” He flourished a point at our ghastly surroundings. “Pretty gothic, what? Oh, shut up, do! Don’t tell me you’d not squeal your head off when the traps got you, ’cos it’s a lie and we both know it, and it don’t matter anyway – I’m doin’ this out o’ filial piety.” He inserted the blade between my ankles and cut the cord. “There now,
you can frisk like a lamb and limber up for the fray. Harry be nimble, eh? You’ll need to be, I promise.”

  “Damn you for a fool!” I struggled off the bed. “You can’t mean it! Why, it’s madness! I’ve told you I shan’t talk, haven’t I? You can trust me, I tell you!” I took an unsteady step and tumbled, rolling on the floor. “Loose my hands, rot you – and listen, you ass! Your guv’nor would never have stood for this – we were chums, dammit, comrades, Rudi and I – you said it yourself, he told you I was a man after his own heart –”

  “He did. He also advised me to shoot you on sight, so count yourself lucky. Come on, upsadaisy!” He whacked me on the rump with the flat of the blade and I scrambled up cursing. “Now then … I’m goin’ to untie your wrists, give you a moment to ease the cramps away, and when you’re ready you’re goin’ to pick up that sabre …” he tossed one of them on to the bed “… and we’ll take up where you and the guv’nor left off, savvy?”

  “Savvy be damned, I’ll not do it! Heavens, man, where’s the sense to it? You can’t bear me any grudge,” I whined, “I didn’t try to spoil your beastly plot –”

  “Apart from almost severin’ my jugular. But I don’t hold that against you. All in the way o’ business.” He tapped his point on my breast. “So is this.”

  “I’ll not fight, I tell you!” I shouted, almost in tears. “You can’t make me!”

  “True enough,” says he. “And I can’t run a helpless man through, can I?” His smile became wicked. “Might persuade you, though … if you’ll just step this way …” He prodded me backwards, along by the rails, and perforce I retreated, pleading and blaspheming by turn, while he requested me to “Pass along the bus, please,” before seizing my shoulder, spinning me round, and gripping my bound wrists. “Steady the Buffs! Don’t want you fallin’ and hurtin’ yourself … yet.”