Flashman at the Charge
( Flashman Papers - 4 )
George Macdonald Fraser
Celebrated Victorian bounder, cad, and lecher, Sir Harry Flashman, V.C., returns to play his (reluctant) part in the charge of the Light Brigade in the fourth volume of the critically acclaimed Flashman Papers. As the British cavalry prepared to launch themselves against the Russian guns at Balaclava, Harry Flashman was petrified. But the Crimea was only the beginning: beyond lay the snowbound wastes of the great Russian slave empire, torture and death, headlong escapes from relentless enemies, savage tribal hordes to the right of him, passionate females to the left of him! And finally that unknown but desperate war on the roof of the world, when India was the prize, and there was nothing to stop the armed might of Imperial Russia but the wavering sabre and terrified ingenuity of old Flashy himself.
Explanatory Note
When the Flashman Papers, that vast personal memoir describing the adult career of the notorious bully of Tom Brown's Schooldays, came to light some years ago, it was at once evident that new and remarkable material was going to be added to Victorian history. In the first three packets of the memoirs, already published by permission of their owner, Mr Paget Morrison, Flashman described his early military career, his participation in the ill-fated First Afghan War, his involvement (with Bismarck and Lola Montez) in the Schleswig-Holstein Question, and his fugitive adventures as a slaver in West Africa, an abolitionist agent in the United States, and an erstwhile associate of Congressman Abraham Lincoln, Mr Disraeli, and others.
It will be seen from this that the great soldier's recollections were not all of a purely military nature, and those who regretted that these earlier papers contained no account of his major campaigns (Indian Mutiny, U.S. Civil War, etc.) will doubtless take satisfaction that in the present volume he deals with his experiences in the Crimea, as well as in other even more colourful—and possibly more important—theatres of conflict. That he adds much to the record of social and military history, illumines many curious byways, and confirms modern opinions of his own deplorable character, goes without saying, but his general accuracy where he deals with well-known events and personages, and his transparent honesty, at least as a memorialist, are evidence that the present volume is as trustworthy as those which preceded it.
As editor, I have only corrected his spelling and added the usual footnotes and appendices. The rest is Flashman. G.M.F.
The moment after Lew Nolan wheeled his horse away and disappeared over the edge of the escarpment with Raglan's message tucked in his gauntlet, I knew I was for it. Raglan was still dithering away to himself, as usual, and I heard him cry: "No, Airey, stay a moment—send after him!" and Airey beckoned me from where I was trying to hide myself nonchalantly behind the other gallopers of the staff. I had had my bellyful that day, my luck had been stretched as long as a Jew's memory, and I knew for certain that another trip across the Balaclava plain would be disaster for old Flashy. I was right, too.
And I remember thinking, as I waited trembling for the order that would launch me after Lew towards the Light Brigade, where they sat at rest on the turf eight hundred feet below—this, I reflected bitterly, is what comes of hanging about pool halls and toad-eating Prince Albert. Both of which, you'll agree, are perfectly natural things for a fellow to do, if he likes playing billiards and has a knack of grovelling gracefully to royalty. But when you see what came of these apparently harmless diversions, you'll allow that there's just no security anywhere, however hard one tries. I should know, with my twenty-odd campaigns and wounds to match—not one of 'em did I go looking for, and the Crimea least of all. Yet there I was again, the reluctant Flashy, sabre on hip, bowels rumbling and whiskers bristling with pure terror, on the brink of the greatest cavalry carnage in the history of war. It's enough to make you weep.
You will wonder, if you've read my earlier memoirs (which I suppose are as fine a record of knavery, cowardice and fleeing for cover as you'll find outside the covers of Hansard), what fearful run of ill fortune got me to Balaclava at all. So I had better get things in their proper order, like a good memorialist, and before describing the events of that lunatic engagement, tell you of the confoundedly unlucky chain of trivial events that took me there. It should convince you of the necessity of staying out of pool-rooms and shunning the society of royalty.
It was early in '54, and I had been at home some time, sniffing about, taking things very easy, and considering how I might lie low and enjoy a quiet life in England while my military colleagues braved shot and shell in Russia on behalf of the innocent defenceless Turk—not that there's any such thing, in my experience, which is limited to my encounter with a big fat Constantinople houri who tried to stab me in bed for my money-belt, and then had the effrontery to call the police when I thrashed her. I've never had a high opinion of Turks, and when I saw the war-clouds gathering on my return to England that year, the last thing I was prepared to do was offer my services against the Russian tyrant.
One of the difficulties of being a popular hero, though, is that it's difficult to wriggle out of sight when the bugle blows. I hadn't taken the field on England's behalf for about eight years, but neither had anyone else, much, and when the press starts to beat the drum and the public are clamouring for the foreigners' blood to be spilled—by someone other than themselves—they have a habit of looking round for their old champions. The laurels I had won so undeservedly in the Afghan business were still bright enough to catch attention, I decided, and it would be damned embarrassing if people in Town started saying: "Hollo, here's old Flash, just the chap to set upon Tsar Nicholas. Going back to the Cherrypickers, Flashy, are you? By Jove, pity the poor Rooskis when the Hero of Gandamack sets about 'em, eh, what?" As one of the former bright particular stars of the cavalry, who had covered himself with glory from Kabul to the Khyber, and been about the only man to charge in the right direction at Chillianwallah (a mistake, mind you), I wouldn't be able to say, "No, thank'ee, I think I'll sit out this time." Not and keep any credit, anyway. And credit's the thing, if you're as big a coward as I am, and want to enjoy life with an easy mind.
So I looked about for a way out, and found a deuced clever one—I rejoined the Army. That is to say, I went round to the Horse Guards, where my Uncle Bindley was still holding on in pursuit of his pension, and took up my colours again, which isn't difficult when you know the right people. But the smart thing was, I didn't ask for a cavalry posting, or a staff mount, or anything risky of that nature; instead I applied for the Board of Ordnance, for which I knew I was better qualified than most of its members, inasmuch as I knew which end of a gun the ball came out of. Let me once be installed there, in a comfortable office off Horse Guards, which I might well visit as often as once a fortnight, and Mars could go whistle for me.
And if anyone said, "What, Flash, you old blood-drinker, ain't you off to Turkey to carve up the Cossacks?", I'd look solemn and talk about the importance of administration and supply, and the need for having at home headquarters some experienced field men—the cleverer ones, of course—who would see what was required for the front. With my record for gallantry (totally false though it was) no one could doubt my sincerity.
Bindley naturally asked me what the deuce I knew about firearms, being a cavalryman, and I pointed out that that mattered a good deal less than the fact that I was related, on my mother's side, to Lord Paget, of the God's Anointed Pagets, who happened to be a member of the small arms select committee. He'd be ready enough, I thought, to give a billet as personal secretary, confidential civilian aide, and general tale-bearer, to a well-seasoned campaigner who was also a kinsman.
"Well-seasoned Haymarket Hussar
," sniffs Bindley, who was from the common or Flashman side of our family, and hated being reminded of my highly-placed relatives. "I fancy rather more than that will be required."
"India and Afghanistan ain't in the Haymarket, uncle," says I, looking humble-offended, "and if it comes to fire-arms, well, I've handled enough of 'em, Brown Bess, Dreyse needles, Colts, Lancasters, Brunswicks, and so forth"—I'd handled them with considerable reluctance, but he didn't know that.
"H'm," says he, pretty sour. "This is a curiously humble ambition for one who was once the pride of the plungers. However, since you can hardly be less useful to the ordnance board than you would be if you returned to the wastrel existence you led in the 11th—before they removed you—I shall speak to his lordship."
I could see he was puzzled, and he sniffed some more about the mighty being fallen, but he didn't begin to guess at my real motive. For one thing, the war was still some time off, and the official talk was that it would probably be avoided, but I was taking no risks of being caught unprepared. When there's been a bad harvest, and workers are striking, and young chaps have developed a craze for growing moustaches and whiskers, just watch out.1 The country was full of discontent and mischief, largely because England hadn't had a real war for forty years, and only a few of us knew what fighting was like. The rest were full of rage and stupidity, and all because some Papists and Turkish niggers had quarrelled about the nailing of a star to a door in Palestine. Mind you, nothing surprises me.
When I got home and announced my intention of joining the Board of Ordnance, my darling wife Elspeth was mortified beyond belief.
"Why, oh why, Harry, could you not have sought an appointment in the Hussars, or some other fashionable regiment? You looked so beautiful and dashing in those wonderful pink pantaloons! Sometimes I think they were what won my heart in the first place, the day you came to father's house. I suppose that in the Ordnance they wear some horrid drab overalls, and how can you take me riding in the Row dressed like … like a common commissary person, or something?"
"Shan't wear uniform," says I. "Just civilian toggings, my dear. And you'll own my tailor's a good one, since you chose him yourself."
"That will be quite as bad," says she, "with all the other husbands in their fine uniforms—and you looked so well and dashing. Could you not be a Hussar again, my love—just for me?"
When Elspeth pouted those red lips, and heaved her remarkable bosom in a sigh, my thoughts always galloped bedwards, and she knew it. But I couldn't be weakened that way, as I explained.
"Can't be done. Cardigan won't have me back in the 11th, you may be sure; why, he kicked me out in '40."
"Because I was a … a tradesman's daughter, he said. I know." For a moment I thought she would weep. "Well, I am not so now. Father … "
". . bought a peerage just in time before he died, so you are a baron's daughter. Yes, my love, but that won't serve for Jim the Bear. I doubt if he fancies bought nobility much above no rank at all."
"Oh, how horridly you put it. Anyway, I am sure that is not so, because he danced twice with me last season, while you were away, at Lady Brown's assembly—yes, and at the cavalry ball. I distinctly remember, because I wore my gold ruffled dress and my hair a l'imperatrice, and he said I looked like an Empress indeed. Was that not gallant? And he bows to me in the Park, and we have spoken several times. He seems a very kind old gentleman, and not at all gruff, as they say."
"Is he now?" says I. I didn't care for the sound of this; I knew Cardigan for as lecherous an old goat as ever tore off breeches. "Well, kind or not as he may seem, he's one to beware of, for your reputation's sake, and mine. Any-way, he won't have me back—and I don't fancy him much either, so that settles it."
She made a mouth at this. "Then I think you are both very stubborn and foolish. Oh, Harry, I am quite miserable about it; and poor little Havvy too, would be so proud to have his father in one of the fine regiments, with a grand uniform. He will be so downcast."
Poor little Havvy, by the way, was our son and heir, a boisterous malcontent five-year-old who made the house hideous with his noise and was forever hitting his shuttle-cocks about the place. I wasn't by any means sure that I was his father, for as I have explained before, my Elspeth hid a monstrously passionate nature under her beautifully innocent roses-and-cream exterior, and I suspected that she had been bounced about by half London during the fourteen years of our marriage. I'd been away a good deal, of course. But I'd never caught her out—mind you, that meant nothing, she'd never caught me, and I had had more than would make a hand-rail round Hyde Park. But whatever we both suspected we kept to ourselves, and dealt very well. I loved her, you see, in a way which was not entirely carnal, and I think, I believe, I hope, that she worshipped me, although I've never made up my mind about that.
But I had my doubts about the paternity of little Havvy—so called because his names were Harry Albert Victor, and he couldn't say "Harry" properly, generally because his month was full. My chum Speedicut, I remember, who is a coarse brute, claimed to see a conclusive resemblance to me: when Havvy was a few weeks old, and Speed came to the nursery to see him getting his rations, he said the way the infant went after the nurse's tits proved beyond doubt whose son he was.
"Little Havvy," I told Elspeth, "is much too young to care a feather what uniform his father wears. But my present work is important, my love, and you would not have me shirk my duty. Perhaps, later, I may transfer"—I would, too, as soon as it looked safe—"and you will be able to lead your cavalryman to drums and balls and in the Row to your heart's content."
It cheered her up, like a sweet to a child; she was an astonishingly shallow creature in that way. More like a lovely flaxen-haired doll come to life than a woman with a human brain, I often thought. Still, that has its conveniences, too.
In any event, Bindley spoke for me to Lord Paget, who took me in tow, and so I joined the Board of Ordnance. And it was the greatest bore, for his lordship proved to be one of those meddling fools who insist on taking an interest in the work of committees to which they are appointed—as if a lord is ever expected to do anything but lend the light of his countenance and his title. He actually put me to work, and not being an engineer, or knowing more of stresses and moments than sufficed to get me in and out of bed, I was assigned to musketry testing at the Woolwich laboratory, which meant standing on firing-points while the marksmen of the Royal Small Arms Factory blazed away at the "eunuchs".2 The fellows there were a very common lot, engineers and the like, full of nonsense about the virtues of the Minie as compared with the Long Enfield .577, and the Pritchard bullet, and the Aston backsight—there was tremendous work going on just then, of course, to find a new rifle for the army, and Molesworth's committee was being set up to make the choice. It was all one to me if they decided on arquebuses; after a month spent listening to them prosing about jamming ramrods, and getting oil on my trousers, I found myself sharing the view of old General Scarlett, who once told me:
"Splendid chaps the ordnance, but dammem, a powder monkey's a powder monkey, ain't he? Let 'em fill the cartridges and bore the guns, but don't expect me to know a .577 from a mortar! What concern is that of a gentleman—or a soldier, either? Hey? Hey?"
Indeed, I began to wonder how long I could stand it, and settled for spending as little time as I could on my duties, and devoting myself to the social life. Elspeth at thirty seemed to be developing an even greater appetite, if that were possible, for parties and dances and the opera and assemblies, and when I wasn't squiring her I was busy about the clubs and the Haymarket, getting back into my favourite swing of devilled bones, mulled port and low company, riding round Albert Gate by day and St John's Wood by night, racing, playing pool, carousing with Speed and the lads, and keeping the Cyprians busy. London is always lively, but there was a wild mood about in those days, and growing wilder as the weeks passed. It was all: when will the war break out? For soon it was seen that it must come, the press and the street-corner orators were baying
for Russian blood, the Government talked interminably and did nothing, the Russian ambassador was sent packing, the Guards marched away to embark for the Mediterranean at an unconscionably early hour of the morning—Elspeth, full of bogus loyalty and snob curiosity, infuriated me by creeping out of bed at four to go and watch this charade, and came back at eight twittering about how splendid the Queen had looked in a dress of dark green merino as she cried farewell to her gallant fellows—and a few days later Palmerston and Graham got roaring tight at the Reform Club and made furious speeches in which they announced that they were going to set about the villain Nicholas and drum him through Siberia.3
I listened to a mob in Piccadilly singing about how British arms would "tame the frantic autocrat and smite the Russian slave," and consoled myself with the thought that I would be snug and safe down at Woolwich, doing less than my share to see that they got the right guns to do it with. And so I might, if I hadn't loafed out one evening to play pool with Speed in the Haymarket.
As I recall, I only went because Elspeth's entertainment for the evening was to consist of going to the theatre with a gaggle of her female friends to see some play by a Frenchman—it was patriotic to go to anything French just then, and besides the play was said to be risque, so my charmer was bound to see it in order to be virtuously shocked.4 I doubted whether it would ruffle my tender sensibilities, though—not enough to be interesting, anyway—so I went along with Speed.
We played a few games of sausage in the Piccadilly Rooms, and it was a dead bore, and then a chap named Cutts, a Dragoon whom I knew slightly, came by and offered us a match at billiards for a quid a hundred. I'd played with him before, and beat him, so we agreed, and set to.
I'm no pool-shark, but not a bad player, either, and unless there's a goodish sum riding, I don't much care whether I win or lose as a rule. But there are some smart-alecs at the table that I can't abide to be beat by, and Cutts was one of them. You know the sort—they roll their cues on the tables, and tell the bystanders that they play their best game off list cushions instead of rubber, and say "Mmph?" if you miss a shot they couldn't have got themselves in a hundred years. What made it worse, my eye was out, and Cutts' luck was dead in—he brought off middle-pocket jennies that Joe Bennet wouldn't have looked at, missed easy hazards and had his ball roll all round the table for a cannon, and when he tried long pots as often as not he got a pair of breeches. By the time he had taken a fiver apiece from us, I was sick of it.
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