Flashman In The Great Game fp-5

by George MacDonald Fraser

  Flashman In The Great Game

  ( Flashman Papers - 5 )

  George Macdonald Fraser

  Flashman in the Great Game begins with Flashman at Balmoral as a guest of Queen Victoria. Here he meets with Lord Palmerston, who recruits him to go to Jhansi in India and investigate rumors of an upcoming rebellion among the Sepoys. Flashman skulks through India in various disguises, narrowly avoiding death several times and witnessing firsthand the carnage of the Sepoy Mutiny. Flashman in the Great Game covers the years 1856 to 1858. It also contains a number of notes by Fraser, in the guise of editor, giving additional historical information on the events described.

  Plot summary

  Flashman not only encounters Lord Palmerston at Balmoral, but also his old nemesis Nicholas Pavlovich Ignatiev. He escapes assassination narrowly and journeys to Jhansi in India, where he meets Rani Lakshmi Bai, the beautiful queen. He listens to her grievances against the British Raj and attempts to seduce her. Whether or not he is successful is unclear, but immediately afterwards Flashman is nearly garroted by Thuggees. In disguise as Makarram Khan, a Hasanzai of the Black Mountain, he takes refuge in the native cavalry at Meerut. Unfortunately, Meerut is where the Sepoy Mutiny begins.

  Flashman In The Great Game

  George MacDonald Fraser

  Explanatory note

  One of the most encouraging things about editing the first four volumes of the Flashman Papers has been the generous response from readers and students of history in many parts of the world. Since the discovery of Flashman's remarkable manuscript in a Leicestershire sale-room in 1965, when it was realised that it was the hitherto-unsuspected autobiographical memoir of the notorious bully of Tom Brown's Schooldays, letters have reached the editor from such diverse places as Ascension Island, a G.I. rest camp in Vietnam, university faculties and campuses in Britain and America, a modern caravanserai on the Khyber Pass road, a police-station cell in southern Australia, and many others.

  What has been especially gratifying has been not only the interest in Flashman himself, but the close historical knowledge which correspondents have shown of the periods and incidents with which his memoirs have dealt so far — the first Afghan War, the solution of the Schleswig-Holstein Question (involving as it did Count Bismarck and Lola Montez), the Afro-American slave trade, and the Crimean War. Many have contributed interesting observations, and one or two have detected curious discrepancies in Flashman's recollections which, regrettably, escaped his editor. A lady in Athens and a gentleman in Flint, Michigan, have pointed out that Flashman apparently saw the Duchess of Wellington at a London theatre some years after her death, and a letter on Foreign Office notepaper has remarked on his careless reference to a "British Ambassador" in Washington in 1848, when in fact Her Majesty's representative in the American capital held a less exalted diplomatic title. Such lapses are understandable, if not excusable, in a hard-living octogenarian.

  Equally interesting have been such communications as those from a gentleman in New Orleans who claims to be Flashman's illegitimate great-grandson (as the result of a liaison in a military hospital at Richmond, Va., during the U.S. Civil War), and from a British serving officer who asserts that his grandfather lent fifty dollars and a horse to Flashman during the same campaign; neither, apparently, was returned.

  It is possible that these and other matters of interest will be resolved when the later papers are edited. The present volume deals with Flashman's adventures in the Indian Mutiny, where he witnessed many of the dramatic moments of that terrible struggle, and encountered numerous Victorian celebrities — monarchs, statesmen, and generals among them. As in previous volumes, his narrative tallies closely with accepted historical fact, as well as furnishing much new information, and there has been little for his editor to do except correct his spelling, deplore his conduct, and provide the usual notes and appendices.

  G.M.F.

  Flashman In The Great Game

  They don't often invite me to Balmoral nowadays, which is a blessing; those damned tartan carpets always put me off my food, to say nothing of the endless pictures of German royalty and that unspeakable statue of the Prince Consort standing knock-kneed in a kilt. King Teddy's company is something I'd sooner avoid than not, anyway, for he's no better than an upper-class hooligan. Of course, he's been pretty leery of me for forty-odd years (ever since I misguided his youthful footsteps into an actress's bed, in fact, and brought Papa Albert's divine wrath down on his fat head) and when he finally wheezed his way on to the throne I gather he thought of dropping me altogether — said something about my being Falstaff to his Prince Hal. Falstaff, mark you — from a man with piggy eyes and a belly like a Conestoga wagon cover. Vile taste in cigars he has, too.

  In the old Queen's time, of course, I was at Balmoral a great deal. She always fancied me, from when she was a chit of a girl and pinned the Afghan medal on my manly breast, and after I had ridden herd on that same precious Teddy through the Tranby Croft affair and saved him from the worst consequences of his own folly, she couldn't do enough for me. Each September after that, regular as clockwork, there would come a command for "dear General Flashman" to take the train north to Kailyard Castle, and there would be my own room, with a bowl of late roses on the windowsill, and a bottle of brandy on the side-table with a discreet napkin over it — they knew my style. So I put up with it; she was all right, little Vicky, as long as you gave her your arm to lean on, and let her prattle on endlessly, and the rations were adequate. But even then, I never cottoned to the place. Not only, as I've said, was it furnished in a taste that would have offended the sensibilities of a nigger costermonger, it had the most awful Highland gloom about it — all drizzle and mist and draughts under the door and holy melancholy: even the billiard-room had a print on the wall of a dreadful ancient Scotch couple glowering devoutly. Praying, I don't doubt, for me to be snookered.

  But I think what really turns me against Balmoral in my old age is its memories. It was there that the Great Mutiny began for me, and on my rare excursions north nowadays there's a point on the line where the rhythm of the wheels changes, and in my imagination they begin to sing: "Mera-Jhansi-denge-nay, mera-Jhansi-denge-nay", over and over, and in a moment the years have dropped away, and I'm remembering how I first came to Balmoral half a century ago; aye, and what it led to — the stifling heat of the parade ground at Meerut with the fettering-hammers clanging; the bite of the muzzle of the nine-pounder jammed into my body and my own blood steaming on the sun-scorched iron; old Wheeler bawling hoarsely as the black cavalry sabres come thundering across the maidan towards our flimsy rampart ("No surrender! One last volley, damn 'em, and aim at the horses!"); the burning bungalows, a skeleton hand in the dust, Colin Campbell scratching his grizzled head, the crimson stain spreading in the filthy water below Suttee Ghat, a huge glittering pile of silver and gold and jewels and ivory bigger than anything you've ever seen — and two great brown liquid eyes shadowed with kohl, a single pearl resting on the satin skin above them, open red lips trembling … and, blast him, here's the station-master, beaming and knuckling his hat and starting me out of the only delightful part of that waking nightmare, with his cry of "Welcome back tae Deeside, Sir Harry! here we are again, then!"

  And as he hands me down to the platform, you may be sure the local folk are all on hand, bringing their brats to stare and giggle at the big old buffer in his tweed cape and monstrous white whiskers ("There he is! The V.C. man, Sir Harry Flashman — aye, auld Flashy, him that charged wi' the Light Brigade and killed a' the niggers at Kau-bool — Goad, but isnae he the auld yin? — hip, hooray!"). So I acknowledge the cheers with a wave, bluff and hearty, as I step into the dog-cart,
stepping briskly to escape the inevitable bemedalled veteran who comes shuffling after me, hoping I'll slip him sixpence for a dram when he assures me that we once stood together in the Highlanders' line at Balaclava. Lying old bastard, he was probably skulking in bed.

  Not that I'd blame him if he was, mark you; given the chance I'd have skulked in mine — and not just at Balaclava, neither, but at every battle and skirmish I've sweated and scampered through during fifty inglorious years of unwilling soldiering. (Leastways, I know they were inglorious, but the country don't, thank heaven, which is why they've rewarded me with general rank and the knighthood and a double row of medals on my left tit. Which shows you what cowardice and roguery can do, given a stalwart appearance, long legs, and a thumping slice of luck. Aye, well whip up, driver, we mustn't keep royalty waiting.)

  But to return to the point, which is the Mutiny, and that terrible, incredible journey that began at Balmoral — well, it was as ghastly a road as any living man travelled in my time. I've seen a deal of war, and agree with Sherman that it's hell, but the Mutiny was the Seventh Circle under the Pit. Of course, it had its compensations: for one, I came through it, pretty whole, which is more than Havelock and Harry East and Johnny Nicholson did, enterprising lads that they were. (What's the use of a campaign if you don't survive it?) I did, and it brought me my greatest honour (totally undeserved, I needn't tell you), and a tidy enough slab of loot which bought and maintains my present place in Leicestershire — I reckon the plunder's better employed keeping me and my tenants in drink, than it was decorating a nigger temple for the edification of a gang of blood-sucking priests. And along the Mutiny road I met and loved that gorgeous, wicked witch Lakshmibai — there were others, too, naturally, but she was the prime piece.

  One other thing about the Mutiny, before I get down to cases — I reckon it must be about the only one of my campaigns that I was pitched into through no fault of mine. On other occasions, I'll own, I've been to blame; for a man with a white liver a yard wide I've had a most unhappy knack of landing myself neck-deep in the slaughter through my various follies — to wit, talking too much (that got me into the Afghan debacle of '41); playing the fool in pool-rooms (the Crimea); believing everything Abraham Lincoln told me (American Civil War); inviting a half-breed Hunkpapa whore to a regimental ball (the Sioux Rising of '76), and so on; the list's as long as my arm. But my involvement in the Mutiny was all Palmerston's doing (what disaster of the fifties wasn't?).

  It came out of as clear and untroubled a sky as you could wish, a few months after my return from the Crimea, where, as you may know, I'd won fresh laurels through my terrified inability to avoid the most gruelling actions. I had stood petrified in the Thin Red Streak, charged with the Heavies and Lights, been taken prisoner by the Russians, and after a most deplorable series of adventures (in which I was employed as chief stud to a nobleman's daughter, was pursued by hordes of wolves and Cossacks, and finally was caught up in a private war between Asian bandits and a Ruski army bound for India — it's all in my memoirs somewhere) had emerged breathless and lousy at Peshawar. *(*See Flashman at the Charge.)

  There, as if I hadn't had trouble enough, I was restoring my powers by squandering them on one of those stately, hungry Afghan Amazons, and she must have been a long sight better at coupling than cooking, for something on her menu gave me the cholera. I was on the broad of my back for months, and it took a slow, restful voyage home before I was my own man again, in prime fettle for the reunion with my loving Elspeth and to enjoy the role of a returned hero about town. And, I may add, a retired hero; oxen and wainropes weren't going to drag Flashy back to the Front again. (I've made the same resolve a score of times, and by God I've meant it, but you can't fight fate, especially when he's called Palmerston.)

  However, there I was in the summer of '56, safely content on half-pay as a staff colonel, with not so much as a sniff of war in sight, except the Persian farce, and that didn't matter. I was comfortably settled with Elspeth and little Havvy (the first fruit of our union, a guzzling lout of seven) in a fine house off Berkeley Square which Elspeth's inheritance maintained in lavish style, dropping by occasionally at Horse Guards, leading the social life, clubbing and turfing, whoring here and there as an occasional change from my lawful brainless beauty, and being lionised by all London — well, I'd stood at Armageddon and battled for the Lord (ostensibly) hadn't I, and enough had leaked out about my subsequent secret exploits in Central Asia (though government was damned cagey about them, on account of our delicate peace negotiations with Russia) to suggest that Flashy had surpassed all his former heroics. So with the country in a patriotic fever about its returning braves, I was ace-high in popular esteem — there was even talk that I'd get one of the new Victoria Crosses (for what that was worth) but it's my belief that Airey and Cardigan scotched it between them. Jealous bastards.

  I suspect that Airey, who'd been chief of staff to Raglan in Crimea, hadn't forgotten my minor dereliction of duty at the Alma, when the Queen's randy little cousin Willy got his fool head blown off while under my care. And Cardigan loathed me, not least because I'd once emerged drunk, in the nick of time, from a wardrobe to prevent him cocking his lustful leg over my loving Elspeth. (She was no better than I was, you know.) And since coming home, I hadn't given him cause to love me any better.

  You see, there was a deal of fine malicious tittle-tattle going about that summer, over Cardigan's part in the Light Brigade fiasco — not so much about his responsibility for the disaster, which was debatable, if you ask me, but for his personal behaviour at the guns. He'd been at the head of the charge, right enough, with me alongside on a bolting horse, farting my fearful soul out, but after we'd reached the battery he'd barely paused to exchange a cut or two with the Ruski gunners before heading for home and safety again. Shocking bad form in a commander, says I, who was trying to hide under a gun limber at the time — not that I think for a moment that he was funking it; he hadn't the brains to be frightened, our Lord Haw-Haw. But he had retreated without undue delay, and since he was never short of enemies eager to believe the worst, the gossips were having a field day now. There were angry letters in the press, and even a law-suit, l and since I'd been in the thick of the action, it was natural that I should be asked about it.

  In fact, it was George Paget, who'd commanded the 4th Lights in the charge, who put the thing to me point-blank in the card-room at White's (can't imagine what I was doing there; must have been somebody's guest) in front of a number of people, civilians mostly, but I know Spottswood was there, and old Scarlett of the Heavies, I think.

  "You were neck and neck with Cardigan," says Paget, "and in the battery before anyone else. Now, God knows he's not my soul-mate, but all this talk's getting a shade raw. Did you see him in the battery or not?"

  Well, I had, but I wasn't saying so — far be it from me to clear his lordship's reputation when there was a chance of damaging it. So I said offhand: "Don't ask me, George; I was too busy hunting for your cigars," which caused a guffaw.

  "No gammon, Flash," says he, looking grim, and asked again, in his tactful way: "Did Cardigan cut out, or not?"

  There were one or two shocked murmurs, and I shuffled a pack, frowning, before I answered. There are more ways than one of damning a man's credit, and I wanted to give Cardigan of my best. So I looked uncomfortable, and then growled, slapped the pack down as I rose, looked Paget in the eye, and said:

  "It's all by and done with now, ain't it? Let's drop it, George, shall we?" And I went out then and there, leaving behind the impression that bluff, gallant Flashy didn't want to talk about it — which convinced them all that Cardigan had shirked, better than if I'd said so straight out, or called him a coward to his face. I had a chance to do that, too, a bare two hours later, when the man himself came raging up to me with a couple of his toadies in tow, just as Spottswood and I were coming out of the Guards Club. The hall was full of fellows, goggling at the sensation.

  "Fwashman! You there, sir!" he cro
aked — they were absolutely the first words between us since the Charge, nearly two years before. He was breathing frantically, like a man who has been running, his beaky face all mottled and his grey whiskers quaking with fury. "Fwashman — this is intolewable! My honour is impugned — scandalous lies, sir! And they tell me that you don't deny them! Well, sir? Well? Haw-haw?"

  I tilted back my tile with a forefinger and looked him up and down, from his bald head and pop eyes to his stamping foot. He looked on the edge of apoplexy; a delightful sight.

  "What lies are these, my lord?" says I, very steady.

  "You know vewy well!" he cried. "Bawacwava, sir — the storming of the battewy! Word George Paget has asked you, in pubwic, whether you saw me at the guns — and you have the effwontewy to tell him you don't know!

  Damnation, sir! And one of my own officers, too —"

  "A former member of your regiment, my lord — I admit the fact."

  "Blast your impudence!" he roared, frothing at me. "Will you give me the lie? Will you say I was not at the guns?"

  I settled my hat and pulled on my gloves while he mouthed.

  "My lord," says I, speaking deliberately clear, "I saw you in the advance. In the battery itself — I was otherwise engaged, and had no leisure nor inclination to look about me to see who was where. For that matter, I did not see Lord George himself until he pulled me to my feet. I assumed —" and I bore on the word ever so slightly "— that you were on hand, at the head of your command. But I do not know, and frankly I do not care. Good day to you, my lord." And with a little nod I turned to the door.

  His voice pursued me, cracking with rage.

  "Colonel Fwashman!" he cried. "You are a viper!"

  I turned at that, making myself go red in the face in righteous wrath, but I knew what I was about; he was getting no blow or challenge from me — he shot too damned straight for that.