Flashman And The Tiger fp-11

by George MacDonald Fraser

  "Willem! Are you there? It’s me, Harry!"

  Dead silence save for the pounding of my heart, and then the faintest of sounds, a foot scraping the ground, and after what seemed an age, Willem’s whisper:

  "Was ist das? Harry, is that you?"

  He was still outside! Relief flooded through me—to be followed by a drench of fear at the thought of what I must do. I drew the knife from my pocket, holding it against my thigh, and edged my way round the corner. The ivy was thick on the wall just there, but there was light enough to see a dark opening a couple of yards ahead—the recess of the secret doorway, and just within it the pale outline of a face. I took another step, and the face hissed at me.

  "What the hell are you doing here?" In his agitation he lapsed into German. "Stimmt etwas nicht? What’s up, man?"

  Where the inspiration came from, God knows. "The Emperor ain’t in bed!" I whispered hoarsely. "He … he got up! His aides made a din, and woke him!"

  "Arschloch!" Whether he meant me or Franz-Josef I can’t say, but it was enough to assure me I was right: he was bent on murder, for if he’d been the innocent guardian, why the deuce should he care whether the Emperor was abed or not? The clicking I’d heard must have been his working on the lock … Gad, if he decided to give up for the night, I might not have to risk attacking him … I could pour out my tale to the Emperor in the morning, denouncing Willem, clearing myself … a whirlwind of wild hopes, you see, as I crouched peering at the dim face a yard away, near soiling myself in agitation, and then those hopes were dashed as he spoke again, soft and steady.

  "Back inside with you! He’s bound to go back to bed presently—and they may still come! Go on, man, be off, quickly!"

  And leave you to unpick the lock and do your business, thinks I. There was only one thing for it. I gripped the hilt hard, stepping closer, and as he opened his mouth to speak again I struck upwards, going for his throat, he ducked like lightning, the blade drove past, missing by an inch, his hand clamped on my wrist, and as he twisted and I strove to wrench free, clawing fingers came out of the darkness on my right, fumbling for my throat, a fist smashed against my left temple, and I was hurled backwards and flung to the turf, pinned helpless by a massive body while another seized my legs, and a great stinking paw closed on my mouth—they must have been there, unseen in the gloom, his Holnup accomplices springing into action with the speed and silence of expert bravos. I struggled like bedamned, expecting to feel the agonising bite of steel, but it didn’t come; the hands on my mouth and throat tightened, and I felt rather than saw a bearded face snarling into mine in what may have been Hungarian; above us in the dark voices were whispering urgently—Willem seemed to be giving orders, and for an instant the hand lifted from my mouth, but before I could find the breath to bellow a cloth was thrust between my teeth and I was heaved over on to my face and my wrists pinioned behind me.

  Meanwhile the debate overhead was deteriorating into agitated bickering, and since some of it was in German and my mind was most wonderfully concentrated, I gathered that Willem didn’t know why I’d attacked him, and didn’t care, but if the Emperor was up and about they’d best ignore the secret stair and invade the house in force; no, no, says another, the Englander’s lying, they always do, and storming the house was too haphazard and the aroused guardroom would be too many for them, to which a third voice said the hell with such timidity, their lives would be well lost if they could only settle Franz-Josef—there’s always one like that, you know, full of patriotic lunacy, and good luck to him.

  The heavyweight atop of me weighed in with the sensible suggestion that since subduing me had caused enough row to wake the dead, they should give over and come back tomorrow, but before this could be put to the vote he was proved right by a challenge from the darkness, a bawled order, the pounding of boots, and a stentorian command to stand in the name of the Emperor. Willem exclaimed: "Mist!", his Webley cracked, there was a yell of pain, and then bedlam ensued, with shots and oaths and screams, the dark was split by flashes of fire, I heard a clash of steel, my incubus arose bawling in several languages and blazing away, and I hastened to improve my position by scrambling up, inadvertently butting him in the crotch. He fell away, howling, and I managed to gain my feet and would have been going like a stag for the safety of the shrubbery if he hadn’t staggered into me, bewailing his damaged courting tackle, and I fell full length, only to rise again on stepping-stones of my terrified self, but not alas to higher things, for something caught me an excruciating clout on the back of the skull, and the din of shots and shouting faded as I fell again, this time into merciful unconsciousness.

  • • •

  I suppose I’ve been laid out, and come to with a head throbbing like an engine-room, more often than most fellows, and can testify that while one descent into oblivion is much like another, there are two kinds of awakening. After a dizzy moment in which you recall your last conscious memory and wonder where the devil you are, realisation dawns—and it may be blissful, as at Jallalabad or in the cave in the Bighorn Mountains, when I knew that the hell and honor were behind me, and it was bed-time and all well—or you may come round hanging by the heels from a cottonwood with the Apache Ladies Sewing Circle preparing to tickle your fancy, or strapped over a cannon muzzle with the gunners blowing on their fuses.

  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 Flash-man 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, "harkaway … 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 Hungary from the Hapsburgs forever. Holnup … holnuputan!"["Tomorrow … the day after tomorrow!"] 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 i
f 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

  "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 a 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."