I can’t tell you my thoughts as I rose, none too steadily, and dressed, because I don’t remember. I’d been hit where I lived, and hard, and there was nothing for it but to clear my mind of fruitless speculation, and take stock of what I knew, thus:
Starnberg and Kralta were Bismarck agents, and had trapped me, drugged me, threatened me with firearms and the certainty of years in gaol if I didn’t … do what? "Nothing smoky … a dam' good deed"? I doubted that, rather … but on t’other hand, they hadn’t shown hostile, exactly. Kralta had let me roger her as part of the trap, but I knew, from a lifetime’s study of well-rattled women, that she’d taken a shine to me, too. And while Starnberg was probably as wicked and dangerous a son-of-a-bitch as his father, he’d seemed a friendly disposed sort of blackmailing assassin … why, latterly he’d been almost coaxing me. I was at a loss; all I knew was that if they were about to force me into some diabolic plot, or preparing to sell me a fresh cargo of gammon, they were going a rum way about it. I could only wait, and listen, and look for the chance to cut.
So I made myself decent, took another pull at the spa, touched my toes, transferred my clasp-knife from my pocket to my boot (you should have frisked my clothes, Bill), decided I’d felt worse, and was in fair parade order when he returned, preceded by Manon with a loaded tray which she set down on a little folding camp table before making brisk work of converting the berth into a sofa.
"What, not hungry?" says he, when I declined sandwiches and drumsticks. "No, I guess lay-me-down-dead ain’t the best foundation for luncheon—but you’ll take a brandy? Capital! Ah, and here is her highness! A glass of champagne, my sweet, and the armchair. `It is well done, and fitting for a princess', as my Stratford namesake has it. She is a real princess, you know, Harry—and I’m a count, and you’re a belted what-d’ye-call-it, so we’re rather a select company, what?"
It might have been Rudi himself, chattering gaily and keeping between me and the door as he bowed in Kralta, very elegant in a fur-trimmed travelling dress and matching Cossack cap. She gave me her cool stare, and then to my surprise held out her hand with a little smile, asking courteously if I’d slept well, damn her impudence. But I took her hand as a little gentleman ought, with a silent bow, as though she hadn’t fed me puggle and we’d never played two-backed beastie in our lives. A still tongue and sharp eyes and ears were my line until I knew what was afoot—after which I’d be even stiller and sharper.
"All glasses charged?" cries Starnberg. "Capital! To our happy association, then!" He lighted one of his cigarettes and settled on (he sofa corner by the door; I was seated by the window.
"Now then … biznai," says he. "First off, Chancellor Prince Bismarck presents his compliments, apologises for any inconvenience caused, and invites your assistance in preservin' the peace of Europe. And that’s no lie," he added. "It’s in the balance, and if things go wrong we’ll have the bloodiest mess since Bonaparte." He’d stopped smiling, and Kralta was watching me intently.
"Why your assistance?" he went on. "Freak of chance, nothing more. You’ve been told that for five years Bismarck wondered how Blowitz got hold of the Berlin Treaty; that’s true, tho' it didn’t keep him awake. Then a few months ago, idly enough, he suggested to Kralta that she might worm it out of little Stefan. She failed, but here’s the point." He levelled his cigarette at me. "In talkin' to her about Berlin, Blowitz chanced to mention your name in passin'—you know how he gasses about the people he knows—and in reportin' her failure she, in turn, mentioned it to Bismarck. Now," says he, looking leery, "I don’t know what you and Bismarck and the guv’nor were up to in Strackenz years ago, but when Bismarck heard the name Flashman, he sat up straight—didn’t he, Kralta?"
She nodded. "He said: `That man again! I was right—I did see him in Berlin during the Congress!' Then he laughed, and said I should trouble no more about Blowitz; he would find out the secret of the treaty for himself, through other agents."
"And didn’t he just!" cries Stamberg. "All about some courtesan who wormed information out of one o' the Russians, and you passed it to Blowitz in your hat, and a French diplomat was so impressed by Blowitz’s omniscience that he handed over the treaty. Who was the courtesan, Harry?" says he, with a sly glance at Kralta. "Another of your light o' loves?"
I’d kept a straight face through this revelation; now I shook my head. Since Bismarck was so dam' clever, let him find out Cap-rice’s identity for himself, if he wanted to.
"Well, Bismarck was amused: said he admired Blowitz’s ingenuity. But that was that; havin' discovered the ploy, Bismarck was content—and none of it matters now; the only important thing about Blowitz and the whole Berlin business was that it brought your name back to Bismarck’s notice, see? So, just by that chance, you were still in his mind a few weeks ago, when he first had word of the threatenin' crisis I mentioned just now. It struck him that you would be useful—nay, essential—to him in meetin' that crisis. `Flashman is the man,' were his very words. `We must have him.' The question was, how to enlist you. He thought you might he reluctant." He glanced at Kralta. "Wasn’t that how he put it?"
"Rather more strongly." For once there was a glimmer of humour in the cool blue eyes. "He said you would have to be compelled. So I was instructed to entice you to Paris." She paused, and Starnberg burst out laughing.
"Tell him what Bismarck said! Oh, well, if you won’t, I will! Ile said you were a lecherous animal governed altogether by lust." lie winked at Kralta. "Which made him irresistible to you, didn’t it, my dear?"
She ignored this. I’d resolved to keep mum, but suddenly the chance to play parfit gentil Flashy seemed sound policy.
"Knowing your parentage, I’m not surprised by your guttersnipe manners," says I. "Get to the point, and keep your impertinences to yourself."
He crowed with delight, clapping his hands. "Why, Kralta, I do believe you’ve got a champion! Bless me if you haven’t won his manly heart—or some other part of his anatomy which I shan’t mention, since delicacy seems to be the order of the day." He grinned from one to other of us. "Lord, what a pair of randy hypocrites you are! The older generation …" He shook his head.
"As I was saying," says Kralta calmly to me, "I was the lure to attract you. As you know, I used the unsuspecting Blowitz to bring us together. He was most obliging, hinting slyly that if I still wished to know how the Berlin Treaty was obtained, you could he persuaded to tell me. Naturally, I did not tell him that we already knew that little secret, but pretended delight, and urged him to lose no time in bringing you to Paris. You may resent the deception we … I have practised, but I cannot regret it." The horse face was proudly serene, but with the little smile at the corner of her mouth. "For several reasons. When you have heard what Prince Bismarck proposes, you will understand one of them." She made a languid gesture to Starnberg to continue.
"Well, thank’ee, ma’am," says he sardonically, and filled my glass. "But before we come to that, we have a few questions, and ’twill save time if you answer without troublin' why we ask ’em. You’ll learn, never fear. How friendly are you with the Emperor of Austria?"
"Franz-Josef? Hardly friendly … I’ve met him—"
"Yes, on his yacht off Corfu in 1868, on your return from Mexico, where you had led the unsuccessful attempt to rescue his brother Maximilian from a Juarista firin' squad. A gallant failure which earned you the imperial gratitude, as well as the Order of Maria Theresa, presented to you …" he cocked a quizzy eyebrow "… by the Empress Elisabeth, and ain’t she a peach, though? I’d call that friendly."
They’d done their lessons, up to a point. The "gallant failure" had been the biggest botch since the Kabul Retreat, thanks to the idiot Maximilian, who was damned if he’d be rescued, so there, and I’d come off by the skin of my chattering teeth and the good offices of that gorgeous little fire-eater, Princess Aggie Salm-Salm, and Jesus Montero’s gang of unwashed bandits who were on hand only because Jesus thought I knew where Montezuma’s treasure was cached, more fool h
e. Another fragrant leaf from my diary, that was, and my only regret for Emperor Max was that he’d been a fairish cricketer for a novice, and might have made a half-decent batter, if he’d lived.' But it was true enough that Franz-Josef had been uncommon civil, for an emperor, and the beautiful Sissi (Empress Elisabeth to you) had given me the glad eye as she’d handed over the white cross. Can’t think what became of it; in a drawer somewhere, I expect.
Kralta asked: "Did the Emperor Franz-Josef shake hands with you?"
A deuced odd question, and I had to think. "I believe he did , , , yes, he did, coming and going."
"Then he’s certainly friendly," says Starnberg, "He only takes the paw of close relatives and tremendous swells, usually. That was the only time you met him … would he be pleased to see you again, d’you think? You know, hospitably inclined, stop over for a weekend, that kind of thing?"
"How the devil should I know? What on earth has this to do -?" "Bismarck is sure he would be. Not that he’s asked—but your name has been mentioned to the Emperor lately, and he spoke of you most warmly. Gratifyin', what—from such a cold fish?"
"And the Empress?" This was Kralta. "Was she well disposed towards you?"
"She was very … gracious. Charming. See here, this is—" "Did you admire her?"
"Of course he did!" laughs Willem. "Who doesn’t? Half Europe’s in love with the beautiful Sissi!"
"You met her again, later," says Kralta. "In England." "I hunted with her, once or twice, yes."
"Hunted, eh?" Willem’s tongue was in his cheek. "Was that the only … exercise you took with her?"
"Yes, damn your eyes! And if that’s where you’ve been leading with your infernal questions—"
"It had to be asked," says Kralta sharply. She stared down her nose. "Then there are no grounds at all for the Emperor to feel … jealousy towards you? Where his wife is concerned?"
"Or to put it tactfully," says Willem, "if you happened along, Franz-Josef wouldn’t bar the door on you just because little Sissi was on the premises?" He gave the snorting little chuckle which I was beginning to detest. "Ve-ry good! D’ye know what, Kralta? Bismarck was right. `Flashman is the man' … I say, Munich already! How time flies in jolly company!" He stood up and consulted his watch. "We stop only five minutes … but you won’t do anythin' rash, Harry, will you? A German gaol wouldn’t suit, you know."
He needn’t have fretted. One thought alone was in my mind as we waited, looking out on the orderly bustle of Munich station: the Austrian frontier lay a bare sixty miles off, we’d cross it in two hours, and if (a large if, granted) I could give ’em the slip I’d be beyond the reach of Bavarian law in a country at loggerheads with Germany and as likely to oblige Bismarck by returning a fugitive as I was to take holy orders.
As to what he could want of me, I was no wiser. What could it matter what the Emperor and Empress of Austria thought of a mere British soldier? She had an eye for men, and it was common talk that Franz-Josef had warned her off various gallants with whom her relations had probably been innocent enough, but I hadn’t been among ’em. I dare say I could have added her scalp to my belt, but I’d never tried, for good reason: everyone knew that Franz-Josef, whose ambition seemed to be to bag every chamois and woman in Austria, had given her cupid’s measles, and while the poultice-wallopers had doubtless put her in order again, you can’t be too careful. And while she looked like Pallas Athene, I suspected she was half-cracked—flung herself about in gymnasiums and went on starvation diets and wrote poetry and asked for a lunatic asylum as a birthday present, so I’d been told. She and Franz-Josef hadn’t dealt too well since he’d poxed her, and she’d taken to wandering Europe while he pleaded with her to forgive and forget. Royal marriages are the very devil.
I tell you this because it’s pertinent to the catechism which Willem resumed as soon as we’d pulled out of Munich. He began by asking what I knew of the Austrian Empire. I retorted that they seemed to be good at losing wars and territory, having been licked lately by France, Prussia, and Italy, for heaven’s sake, and that the whole concern was pretty ramshackle. Beyond that I knew nothing and cared less.
He nodded. "Aye, ramshackle enough. Fifty million folk of a dozen different nations bound together in a discontented mass under a stiff-necked autocrat who don’t know how to manage ’em. He’s a dull dog, Franz-Josef, whose blunders have cost him the popularity he enjoyed as the handsome boy-emperor of thirty-five years ago. But his empire’s the heart and guts of Europe, and if it were to suffer any great convulsion … well, it better not. Know anythin' about Hungary?"
I understood it was the biggest state in the empire bar Austria itself, and that the natives were an ornery lot, but fine horsemen. He grinned.
"Proper little professor of international politics, you are! Well, I’m quarter Hungarian myself, through Mama; rest o' me’s Prussian. And you’re right, they’re an ornery lot, and don’t care above half for Austrian rule. They’ve declared independence in the past, risin' in revolt, and Franz-Josef made the mistake of gettin' the Tsar to put ’em down with Russian troops—they’ll never forgive him that. He’s been at his wit’s end to keep ’em quiet, makin' concessions, havin' himself and Sissi crowned King and Queen of Hungary, but there are still plenty of Magyar nationalists who’d like to cut with Austria altogether. People like Lajos Kossuth, regular firebrand who led the uprisin', now in his eighties and exiled in Italy but still hatin' the Hapsburgs like poison and dreamin' of Free Hungary. Believe it or not, he and his nationalist pals have the sympathy of Empress Sissi and the Emperor’s son and heir, Crown Prince Rudolf, who favour constitutional reform.[14] And there are others, extremists who’d like to take a shorter way."
He paused to light a cigarette, blowing out the match and watching its smoke. "Terrorists like the Holnup, which is Hungarian for `tomorrow', ’nuff said. They skulk in secret, plottin' bloody revolution, but most Hungarians regard ’em as a squalid gang of fanatics not to be taken seriously." He threw aside the spent match. "So did we … until about a month ago, when Bismarck got word, through his private intelligence service, that the Holnup were about to take the warpath in earnest. Here, let me give you another brandy."
He poured out a stiff tot, and a cloud must have passed over the sun just then, for the brightness faded from the pretty autumn colours speeding past the window, and to my nervous imagination it seemed that the shadow penetrated into the compartment, robbing the trickling brandy of its sparkle, and that even the rumble of the wheels had taken on a menacing, insistent note.
"The Holnup intend to assassinate Franz-Josef," says Willem, filling a second glass for himself. "If they succeed, there’ll be civil war. Oh, pottin' royalty’s nothing new, and usually there’s no great harm done—various lunatics have tried for Franz-Josef before, there have been two attempts on the German Emperor, and the Tsar was blown up a couple of years ago … but this would be different.[15] What, Hungarians killin' the Austrian monarch, at a time when Hungary’s boilin' with unrest, when it’s known that Sissi supports its independence, and surrounds herself with worshippin' Magyars, and corresponds with Kossuth, and there’s even been rumour of a conspiracy to bestow the crown of Hungary on Prince Rudolf, who hates Papa and is as pro-Hungarian as his beautiful idiot of a mother?" He gave a mirthless bark of laughter. "Think what use the nationalists could make of those two half-wits, willin' or not! Casus belli, if you like! Civil war in Austria-Hungary—and how long before France and Germany and Russia, aye, and perhaps even England, were drawn in? And that is what will happen if Franz-Josef stops a Hungarian bullet."
Somewhere or other that downy bird Kipling observes that the lesson of the island race is to put away all emotion and entrap the alien at the proper time.[16] I learned it in my cradle, long before he wrote it, and have practised it all my life with some success, and only this difference, that for "entrap" I prefer to substitute "escape". The putting-away-emotion business ain’t always easy, but I like to think I managed it pretty well in the face
of Starnberg’s disgusting proposal, concealing my shocked bewilderment before that grinning young devil and his steely-eyed accomplice as they watched to see how I would respond to their bombshell.
There was no point in protest or roaring refusal. As you know, I’d been press-ganged aboard the good ship Disaster before, by legions of experts from Palmerston to Lincoln, with the likes of Colin Campbell and Alick Gardner and U. S. Grant and Broadfoot and J. B. Hickok and Raglan and God knew who else along the way, all urging hapless Flashy into the soup by blackmail and brute force, and nothing to be done about it. Ah, but this time there was, you see, with the Austrian border drawing nearer by the minute, so I must bide my time and delude the aliens as seemed best, listening to their lunatic notions as though I might be persuadable, and waiting my chance to cut and run. My strong card was that despite Willem’s menaces, they’d made it plain that they wanted me as a willing ally; I must play on that, but not too hard. The question was, which role to adopt (ain’t it always?), balancing righteous outrage at the way I’d been treated against the chivalrous impulses which they’d expect from an officer and gentleman. So now I let out a soft "Ha!" and gave Willem my most sardonic stare.
"Are we , indeed? Just the two of us, eh? Well, setting aside your optimism and impudence, perhaps you’ll tell me how, precisely?" "You mean you’re game?" cries he eagerly. "You’re with us?" "Suppose you tell me why I should be."
"How can you not?" Kralta couldn’t believe her ears, like a queen with a farting courtier. "With the peace of Europe in the balance, and the lives of thousands, perhaps millions, at stake?"
"Ah, but are they? Forgive me if after being hoodwinked, lied to, held against my will, and threatened with prison and pistols, I: can’t help wondering if this great tale of a plot is true."
"Of course it’s true!" cries Willem. "Heavens, man, why should we invent it?" I gave this the shrug it deserved, and he cursed softly. "Look here, if you’re in a bait ’cos you’ve been bobbled and made a muffin of—" he sounded like a third-form fag "—well, I don’t wonder, but can’t you see we had no choice? Bismarck was sure we’d have to force your hand, and that this was the only way. Havin' seen you, I ain’t so sure he’s right." He ran a hand through his hair, and leaned forward, looking keen. "You ask me how you and I can stop the Holnup, and I’ll tell you the ins and outs presently, but in principle, now—ain’t it a stunt after your own heart? As I told you, nothin' smoky, but a dam' good deed, and a rare adventure! Why, the old guv’nor would have jumped at it—and you’d ha' been the first he’d have wished to have alongside!"
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