Flashman at the Charge fp-4

by George MacDonald Fraser

  It was a sight I'll never forget. Elspeth was standing by the bed, naked except for her long frilled pantaloons; her flowers were still twined in her hair. Her eyes were wide with shock, and her knuckles were against her lips, like a nymph surprised by Pan, or centaurs, or a boozed-up husband emerging from the wardrobe. I goggled at her lecherously for about half a second, and then realized that we were not alone.

  Half way between the foot of the bed and the door stood the 7th Earl of Cardigan. His elegant Cherrypicker pants were about his knees, and the front tail of his shirt was clutched up before him in both hands. He was in the act of advancing towards my wife, and from the expression on his face—which was that of a starving, apoplectic glutton faced with a crackling roast—and from other visible signs, his intention was not simply to compare birthmarks. He stopped dead at sight of me, his mottled face paling and his eyes popping, Elspeth squealed in earnest, and for several seconds we all stood stock still, staring.

  Cardigan recovered first, and looking back, I have to admire him. It was not an entirely new situation for me, you understand—I'd been in his shoes, so to speak, many a time, when husbands, traps, or bullies came thundering in unexpectedly. Reviewing Cardigan's dilemma, I'd have whipped up my britches, feinted towards the window to draw the outraged spouse, doubled back with a spring on to the bed, and then been through the door in a twinkling. But not Lord Haw-Haw; his bearing was magnificent. He dropped his shirt, drew up his pants, threw back his head, looked straight at me, rasped: "Good night to you!", turned about, and marched out, banging the door behind him.

  Elspeth had sunk to the bed, making little sobbing sounds; I still stood swaying in disbelief, trying to get the booze out of my brain, wondering if this was some drunken nightmare. But it wasn't, and as I glared at that big-bosomed harlot on the bed, all those ugly suspicions of fourteen years came flooding back, only now they were certainties. And I had caught her in the act at last, all but in the grip of that lustful, evil old villain! I'd just been in the nick of time to thwart him, too, damn him. And whether it was the booze, or my own rotten nature, the emotion I felt was not rage so much as a vicious satisfaction that I had caught her out. Oh, the rage came later, and a black despair that sometimes wounds me like a knife even now, but God help me, I'm an actor, I suppose, and I'd never had a chance to play the outraged husband before.

  "Well?" It came out of me in a strangled yelp. "Well? What? What? Hey?"

  I must have looked terrific, I suppose, for she dropped her squeaking and shuddering like a shot, and hopped over t'other side of the bed like a jack rabbit.

  "Harry!" she squealed. "What are you doing here?"

  It must have been the booze. I had been on the point of striding—well, staggering—round the bed to seize her and thrash her black and blue, but at her question I stopped, God knows why.

  "I was waiting for you! Curse you, you adulteress!"

  "In that cupboard?"

  "Yes, blast it, in that cupboard. By God, you've gone too far, you vile little slut, you! I'll -"

  "How could you!" So help me God, it's what she said. "How could you be so inconsiderate and unfeeling as to pry on me in this way? Oh! I was never so mortified! Never!"

  "Mortified?" cries I. "With that randy old rip sporting his beef in your bedroom, and you simpering naked at him? You—you shameless Jezebel! You lewd woman! Caught in the act, by George! I'll teach you to cuckold me! Where's a cane? I'll beat the shame out of that wanton carcase, I'll-"

  "It is not true!" she cried. "It is not true! Oh, how can you say such a thing!"

  I was glaring round for something to thrash her with, but at this I stopped, amazed.

  "Not true? Why, you infernal little liar, d'you think I can't see? Another second and you'd have been twobacked-beasting all over the place! And you dare -"

  "It is not so!" She stamped her foot, her fists clenched. "You are quite in the wrong—I did not know he was there until an instant before you came out of that cupboard! He must have come in while I was disrobing—Oh!" And she shuddered. "I was taken quite unawares -"

  "By God, you were! By me! D'you think I'm a fool? You've been teasing that dirty old bull this month past, and I find him all but mounting you, and you expect me to believe -" My head was swimming with drink, and I lost the words. "You've dishonoured me, damn you! You've -"

  "Oh, Harry, it is not true! I vow it is not! He must have stolen in, without my hearing, and -"

  "You're lying!" I shouted. "You were whoring with him!"

  "Oh, that is untrue! It is unjust! How can you think such a thing? How can you say it?" There were tears in her eyes, as well there might be, and now her mouth trembled and drooped, and she turned her head away. "I can see," she sobbed, "that you merely wish to make this an excuse for a quarrel."

  God knows what I said in reply to that; sounds of rupture, no doubt. I couldn't believe my ears, and then she was going on, sobbing away:

  "You are wicked to say such a thing! Oh, you have no thought for my feelings! Oh, Harry, to have that evil old creature steal up on me—the shock of it—oh, I thought to have died of fear and shame! And then you—you!" And she burst into tears in earnest and flung herself down on the bed.

  I didn't know what to say, or do. Her behaviour, the way she had faced me, the fury of her denial—it was all unreal. I couldn't credit it, after what I'd seen. I was full of rage and hate and disbelief and misery, but in drink and bewilderment I couldn't reason straight. I tried to remember what I'd heard in the closet—had it been a giggle or a muted shriek? Could she be telling the truth? Was it possible that Cardigan had sneaked in on her, torn down his breeches in an instant, and been sounding the charge when she turned and saw him? Or had she wheedled him in, whispering lewdly, and been stripping for action when I rolled out? All this, in a confused brandy-laden haze, passed through my mind—as you may be sure it has passed since, in sober moments.

  I was lost, standing there half-drunk. That queer mixture of shock and rage and exultation, and the vicious desire to punish her brutally, had suddenly passed. With any of my other women, I'd not even have listened, but taken out my spite on them with a whip—except on Ranavalona, who was bigger and stronger than I. But I didn't care for the other women, you see. Brute and all that I am, I wanted to believe Elspeth.

  Mind you, it was still touch and go whether I suddenly went for her or not; but for the booze I probably would have done. There was all the suspicion of the past, and the evidence of my eyes tonight. I stood, panting and glaring, and suddenly she swung up in a sitting position, like Andersen's mermaid, her eyes full of tears, and threw out her arms. "Oh, Harry! Comfort me!"

  If you had seen her—aye. It's so easy, as none knows better than I, to sneer at the Pantaloons of this world, and the cheated wives, too, while the rakes and tarts make fools of them—"If only they knew, ho-ho!" Perhaps they do, or suspect, but would just rather not let on. I don't know why, but suddenly I was seated on the bed, with my arm round those white shoulders, while she sobbed and clung to me, calling me her "jo"—it was that funny Scotch word, which she hadn't used for years, since she had grown so grand, that made me believe her—almost.

  "Oh, that you should think ill of me!" she sniffled. "Oh, I could die of shame!"

  "Well," says I, breathing brandy everywhere, "there he was, wasn't he? By God! Well, I say!" I suddenly seized her by the shoulders at arms' length. "Do you -? No, by God! I saw him—and you—and—and -"

  "Oh, you are cruel!" she cried. "Cruel, cruel!" And then her arms went round my neck, and she kissed me, and I was sure she was lying—almost sure.

  She sobbed away a good deal, and protested, and I babbled a great amount, no doubt, and she swore her honesty, and I didn't know what to make of it. She might be true, but if she was a cheat and a liar and a whore, what then? Murder her? Thrash her? Divorce her? The first was lunatic, the second I couldn't do, not now, and the third was unthinkable. With the trusts that old swine Morrison had left to tie things up, she co
ntrolled all the cash, and the thought of being a known cuckold living on my pay—well, I'm fool enough for a deal, but not for that. Her voice was murmuring in my ear, and all that naked softness was in my arms, and her fondling touch was reminding me of what I'd come here for in the first place, so what the devil, thinks I, first things first, and if you don't pleasure her now till she faints, you'll look back from your grey-haired evenings and wish you had. So I did.

  I still don't know—and what's more I don't care. But one thing only I was certain of that night—whoever was innocent, it wasn't James Brudenell, Earl of Cardigan. I swore then inwardly, with Elspeth moaning through her kiss, that I would get even with that one. The thought of that filthy old goat trying to board Elspeth—it brought me out in a sweat of fury and loathing. I'd kill him, somehow. I couldn't call him out—he'd hide behind the law, and refuse. Even worse, he might accept. And apart from the fact that I daren't face him, man to man, there would have been scandal for sure. But somehow, some day, I would find a way.

  We went to sleep at last, with Elspeth murmuring in my ear about what a mighty lover I was, recalling me in doting detail, and how I was at my finest after a quarrel. She was giggling drowsily about how we had made up our previous tiff, with me tumbling her in the broom closet at home, and what fun it had been, and how I'd said it was the most famous place for rogering, and then suddenly she asked, quite sharp:

  "Harry—tonight—your great rage at my misfortune was not all a pretence, was it? You did not—you are sure?—have some … some female in the cupboard?"

  And damn my eyes, she absolutely got out to look. I don't suppose I've cried myself to sleep since I was an infant, but it was touch and go then.

  While all these important events in my personal affairs were taking place—Willy and Elspeth and Cardigan and so forth—you may wonder how the war was progressing. The truth is, of course, that it wasn't, for it's a singular fact of the Great Conflict against Russia that no one—certainly no one on the Allied side—had any clear notion of how to go about it. You will think that's one of these smart remarks, but it's not; I was as close to the conduct of the war in the summer of '54 as anyone, and I can tell you truthfully that the official view of the whole thing was:

  "Well, here we are, the French and ourselves, at war with Russia, in order to protect Turkey. Ve-ry good. What shall we do, then? Better attack Russia, eh? H'm, yes. (Pause). Big place, ain't it?"

  So they decided to concentrate our army, and the Froggies, in Bulgaria, where they might help the Turks fight the Ruskis on the Danube. But the Turks flayed the life out of the Russians without anyone's help, and neither Raglan, who was now out in Varna in command of the allies, nor our chiefs at home, could think what we might usefully do next. I had secret hopes that the whole thing might be called off; Willy and I were still at home, for Raglan had sent word that for safety's sake his highness should not come out until the fighting started—there was so much fever about in Bulgaria, it would not be healthy for him.

  But there was never any hope of a peace being patched up, not with the mood abroad in England that summer. They were savage—they had seen their army and navy sail away with drums beating and fifes tootling, and "Rule Britannia" playing, and the press promising swift and condign punishment for the Muscovite tyrant, and street-corner orators raving about how British steel would strike oppression down, and they were like a crowd come to a prize-fight where the two pugs don't fight, but spar and weave and never come to grips. They wanted blood, gallons of it, and to read of grape-shot smashing great lanes through Russian ranks, and stern and noble Britons skewering Cossacks, and Russian towns in flames—and they would be able to shake their heads over the losses of our gallant fellows, sacrificed to stern duty, and wolf down their kidneys and muffins in their warm breakfast rooms, saying: "Dreadful work this, but by George, England never shirked yet, whatever the price. Pass the marmalade, Amelia; I'm proud to be a Briton this day, let me tell you."10

  And all they got that summer, was—nothing. It drove them mad, and they raved at the Government, and the army, and each other, lusting for butchery, and suddenly there was a cry on every lip, a word that ran from tongue to tongue and was in every leading article—"Sevastopol!" God knows why, but suddenly that was the place. Why were we not attacking Sevastopol, to show the Russians what was what, eh? It struck me then, and still does, that attacking Sevastopol would be rather like an enemy of England investing Penzance, and then shouting towards London: "There, you insolent bastard, that'll teach you!" But because it was said to be a great base, and The Times was full of it, an assault on Sevastopol became the talk of the hour.

  And the government dithered, the British and Russian armies rotted away in Bulgaria with dysentery and cholera, the public became hysterical, and Willy and I waited, with our traps packed, for word to sail.

  It came one warm evening, with a summons to Richmond. Suddenly there was great bustle, and I had to ride post-haste to receive from His Grace the Duke of Newcastle despatches to be carried to Raglan without delay.

  I remember an English garden, and Gladstone practising croquet shots on the lawn, and dragonflies buzzing among the flowers, and over on the terrace a group of men lounging and yawning—the members of the Cabinet, no less, just finished an arduous meeting at which most of 'em had dozed off—that's a fact, too, it's in the books.11 And Newcastle's secretary, a dapper young chap with an ink smudge on the back of his hand, handing me a sealed packet with a "secret" label.

  "The Centaur is waiting at Greenwich," says he. "You must be aboard tonight, and these are to Lord Raglan, from your hand into his, nothing staying. They contain the government's latest advices and instructions, and are of the first urgency."

  "Very good," says I. "What's the word of mouth?" He hesitated, and I went on: "I'm on his staff, you know."

  It was the practice of every staff galloper then—and for all I know, may still be—when he was given a written message, to ask if there were any verbal observations to add. (As you'll see later, it is a very vital practice.) He frowned, and then, bidding me wait, went into the house, and came out with that tall grey figure that everyone in England knew, and the mobs used to cheer and laugh at and say, what a hell of an old fellow he was: Palmerston.

  "Flashman, ain't it?" says he, putting a hand on my shoulder. "Thought you had gone out with Raglan." I told him about Willy, and he chuckled. "Oh, aye, our aspiring Frederick the Great. Well, you may take him with you, for depend upon it, the war is now under way. You have the despatches? Well, now, I think you may tell his lordship, when he has digested them—I daresay Newcastle has made it plain enough—that the capture of Sevastopol is held by Her Majesty's Government as being an enterprise that cannot but be seen as signally advancing the success of Allied arms. Hum? But that it will be a damned serious business to undertake. You see?"

  I nodded, looking knowing, and he grunted and squinted across the lawn, watching Gladstone trying to knock a ball through a hoop. He missed, and Pam grunted again. "Off you go then, Flashman," says he. "Good luck to you. Come and see me when you return. My respects to his lordship." And as I saluted and departed, he hobbled stiffly out on to the lawn, and I watched him say something to Gladstone, and take his mallet from him. And that was all.

  We sailed that night, myself after a hasty but passionate farewell with Elspeth, and Willy after a frantic foray to St John's Wood for a final gallop at his blonde. I was beginning to feel that old queasy rumbling in my belly that comes with any departure, and it wasn't improved by Willy's chatter as we stood on deck, watching the forest of shipping slip by in the dusk, and the lights twinkling on the banks.

  "Off to the war!" exclaimed the little idiot. "Isn't it capital, Harry? Of course, it is nothing new to you, but for me, it is the most exciting thing I have ever known! Did you not feel, setting out on your first campaign, like some knight in the old time, going out to win a great name, oh, for the honour of your house and the love of your fair lady?"

  I had
n't, in fact—and if I had, it wouldn't have been for a whore in St John's Wood. So I just grunted, a la Pam, and let him prattle.

  It was a voyage, like any other, but faster and pleasanter than most, and I won't bore you with it. In fact, I won't deal at any great length at all with those things which other Crimean writers go on about—the fearful state of the army at Varna, the boozing and whoring at Scutari, the way the Varna sickness and the cholera swept through our forces in that long boiling summer, the mismanagement of an untrained commissariat and inexperienced regimental officers, the endless bickering among commanders—like Cardigan for instance. He had left England for Paris within two days of our encounter in Elspeth's bedroom, and on arrival in Bulgaria had killed a hundred horses with an ill-judged patrol in the direction of the distant Russians. All this the misery and the sickness and the bad leadership and the rest—you can read if you wish elsewhere; Billy Russell of The Times gives as good a picture as any, although you have to be wary of him. He was a good fellow, Billy, and we got on well, but he always had an eye cocked towards his readers, and the worse he could make out a case, the better they liked it. He set half England in a passion against Raglan, you remember, because Raglan wouldn't let the army grow beards. "I like an Englishman to look like an Englishman," says Raglan, "and beards are foreign, and breed vermin. Also, depend upon it, they will lead to filthy habits." He was dead right about the vermin, but Russell wouldn't have it; he claimed this was just stiff-necked parade-ground nonsense and red tape on Raglan's part, and wrote as much. (You may note that Billy Russell himself had a beard like a quickset hedge, and I reckon he took Raglan's order as a personal insult.)