Flashman on the March fp-12

by George MacDonald Fraser

  “Oh, my friend, my dear friend in Christ! My soldiers betray me, my people turn against me, my generals revile me… and from the ranks of my enemies comes one friend to stand by me!” He wrung my fin like a pump handle. “Ah, you strange British! I did not know you until now! There are no people like you in all the world! None, none, I say!”

  “Oh, I don’t know about that,” says I, but he swore in choked accents that it was so, and sat down on his rock again, howling with sentiment and mopping his face. Then he had a quick pray, saying he had hardened his heart for many years, but now God had softened it, with some assistance from me, and Satan had been at work on him, but was now driven out, and he regretted the dis courtesy of his letter to Napier, and must put that right.

  “For this is Easter, and we are all Christians and friends,” says he. “You are my best friend of all, and I shall open my heart to you and to all your people!”

  Which he did next day with a civil note to Napier and a gift of a thousand cattle and several hundred sheep; [52] bent on reconcilia tion he might be, but he was no fool, knowing that if Napier accepted them, it was tantamount to a truce and might even be regarded as a settlement, since he’d freed the prisoners, which was supposedly all that was required. Crafty old Theodore—but equally crafty old Napier, for he refused the gift, but responded with a decent gesture, sending up the body of old Gabrie, which our stretcher-bearers had collected from the battle-field of Arogee.

  Flad brought it back, and Theodore was much moved; because of some misunderstanding by the interpreters, he didn’t realise at this time that Napier had rejected his cattle, so he was all gladness and good humour, bidding Flad jovially to go up to Magdala and collect Mrs Flad and the remaining prisoners, “and God give you a happy meeting.” So Flad went, and a stranger procession you never saw than that which presently emerged from the Kobet Bar, for where I’d expected about forty Europeans, there was a caravan of more than two hundred folk, mostly black or chi-chi, for most were servants, with a few Ab wives and chicos of the prisoners. There were more than three hundred beasts laden with baggage, and it looked like the Exodus as they churned up the dust down the winding track from Magdala rock, through the empty market stalls at the foot, and out across the deserted plain of Islamgee. There was hardly an Ab soldier in sight, for they’d struck their camp and withdrawn to Selassie and Fala.

  Theodore watched them go by from his pavilion. He’d sent for his queen—the real one, Tooroo-Wark, a lovely slip of a lass—and her son, little Alamayo, and at her request sent a nurse to one of the prisoners’ wives, a Mrs Morris, who was about to pup, and indeed did so the next day in the British camp; they called the kid Theodore in appreciation. Mrs Morris had a palki; Mrs Flad and the other wives were on mules, and presently they disappeared down the road to Arogee, men, women, beasts, babes in arms, porters, bags and baggage—and that, Theodore seemed to think, was the end of it.

  How wrong he was he learned on that sunny Easter Sunday evening, when word came that Napier had turned back his cattle, and it sank in at last that we would settle for nothing less than unconditional surrender, which must mean what he had always dreaded: the delivery of his royal person to a foreign enemy. Perhaps that fear was in his mind when he had his gun-teams drag the artillery from the Fala summit to the far end of the Islamgee plain, either in an effort to convince Napier of his peaceful intent or to prepare a last defence for Magdala. I don’t know which, but I know that his high spirits when the prisoners left wore thin as the hours went by, and no good word came from Napier.

  “What more can they want? Oh, my friend, have I not done all that they asked? They have beaten my army and broken my power; it must be peace, my friend, tell me it must be peace!”

  If he said it once he said it a dozen times, but there was no re assuring him. In the pavilion lamplight the handsome face was tired and haggard; he’d aged a year in a few days, and I’ll swear his hair was even greyer. Strange, there was nothing mad about him now, just a flat sober certainty in his words when Meshisha, his executioner, who’d been in charge of taking the cattle down to our lines, came back after dark to report that they’d been turned back by Speedy; the mention of that name struck Theodore like a blow.

  “The Basha Fallakal My enemy, always my enemy! So now, having got what they want, these people will seek to kill me!” He stood, fists clenched, a picture of despair. “There is nothing left for me here. The time has come to find a new home in the place where I was little, long ago. There, by the power of God, I may find peace at last.”

  You can always tell when something is coming to an end. You know, by the way events are shaping, that it can’t last much longer, but you think there are still a few days or weeks to go… and that’s the moment when it finishes with a sudden bang that you didn’t expect. Come to think of it, that’s probably true of life, or so it strikes me at the age of ninety—but I don’t expect it to happen before tea. Yet one of these days the muffins will grow cold and the tea-cakes congeal as they summon the lads from belowstairs to cart the old cadaver up to the best bedroom. And if I’ve a moment before the light fades, I’ll be able to cry, “Sold, Starnberg and Ignatieff and Iron Eyes and Gul Shah and Charity Spring and all the rest of you bastards who tried to do for old Flashy, ’cos he’s going out on his own, and be damned to you!”

  This cheery reflection is brought on by my memories of that Easter Sunday night, when I knew the curtain must soon come down on Magdala, perhaps in a day or two… and ’twas all over, receipted and filed before Monday sunset. It happened so quickly that I can remember only the vital moments; the hours between have faded. (Mind you, a shell splinter in the leg is no help to leisurely observation; we’ll come to that presently.)

  But I’m clear enough about the almighty row that broke when Theodore summoned his chiefs and told ’em it was time to cut and run, that they must be off before dawn, making for Lake Tana where Napier could never follow them. They shouted him down, swearing they could never assemble their families and goods in such short time, and demanding that he make peace. He cussed them for dis loyal cowards and they heaped reproaches on him.

  “If you had not released the captives we could have made terms with the farangisV cries one.

  “And if they had refused we could have cut the white dogs’ throats and made the hearts of their countrymen smart!”

  “Aye, at least we could have been revenged! As it is, we have no choice but to make peace!”

  “We are your men to the end, but only if you make terms. If you will not, you are alone.”

  He might have read the end of his rule in the scowls on their black faces, but he still couldn’t bring himself to surrender. He told Damash to start dragging guns and mortars from Islamgee up the rocky track to Magdala, and Engedda, the firebrand, thinking this meant a last stand, swore to stand by him, but the rest dispersed in sullen silence, and it was from that moment that the desertions began in earnest. Scores of warriors and their families left their posts on Selassie and Fala, and only a few hundred were prepared to help Damash move the guns, while Theodore struck his camp below Selassie. Then we must all retire across the Islamgee plain in the gathering dark, Flashy aboard a mule with his heart in his boots, for like Engedda I assumed that his fickle majesty had changed his mind yet again, and was determined to fight it out. I was mistaken, but before I come to that I must tell you how the land lay in the closing act of our Abyssinian drama.

  From the deserted village market-place at the far end of the Islamgee plain, Magdala rock rose three hundred feet sheer, with only one way up: a narrow track that was really no more than a ledge running steeply up the cliff-face. Near the top it turned sharply to the right towards Magdala’s first gate, the Kobet Bar, flanked by a high wall and stockade reinforced by thorn bushes. The gate was massive, with supporting towers and a sloping roof like that of a lych-gate. Fifty yards behind it was a second gate, and beyond that lay the Magdala plateau proper with its little township of houses and churches and th
e palace, big thatched buildings of typical Ab design.

  One thing was plain: given a few decent guns, the Salvation Army could have held Magdala against anyone, Napier included, and if Theodore had got his cannon up to command that narrow track, there would have been no shifting him until his water ran out. But he didn’t, thanks be; and once he and I and his immediate following had struggled up past the gun-teams sweating and blaspheming in the dark, and reached the Kobet Bar Gate, he realised their task was hopeless, and there was nothing for it but flight or surrender.

  There must have been about twenty of us in the little guard tower flanking the gate, waiting breathless on the word of that haggard figure standing with his head bowed in thought. I remember Engedda grim-faced, and little tubby Damash exhausted after his gun-dragging exertions; Hasani, the Magdala commander, Wald Gabr the valet and gun-bearer, and others whose anxious black faces I can still see in the flickering torchlight but whose names I never knew. At last Theodore lifted his head, and the old barmy light was back in his eyes.

  “Warriors who love me, gird yourselves!” cries he, and shook his spear. “Leave everything behind but your arms, and follow me! Hasani, assemble them and those others who remain true at the upper gate! Away!” And as they trooped out, he turned to me. “Dear friend, we part here. You can serve me no longer. I go now beyond your army’s vengeance, and you and I will never meet again.” He seized my hand in both of his. “Farewell, British soldier! Think kindly of Theodore who is your friend! If you should hear of my death at the hands of my foes, do not grieve. My destiny is my destiny!”

  He strode out with a flourish worthy of Macbeth, and I heard him bawling orders to Hasani. I was left, mighty relieved and quite used up, with a couple of Ab artillerymen for company; the rest were lying tuckered out, down the track by their abandoned guns; there was no point in my moving, with Islamgee crawling with confused and disgruntled warriors who mightn’t take kindly to a stray farangi. Better to wait patiently for Napier to arrive, so I dis posed myself for a nap, thanking God I was rid of a royal knave.

  I wasn’t, of course. He was back at dawn with his fretful fol lowers, several hundred of ’em; they’d tried to break out of Magdala by the back door, which would have meant a terrifying descent of the Sangalat cliffs in pitch darkness, if they’d been mad enough to attempt it. They’d been discouraged by the presence of Gallas who were waiting for them at the foot of the precipice chanting, “Come down, beloved, oh come down!” I must say I liked the Gallas’ style.

  With his retreat cut off and the greater part of his army milling about down on Islamgee, waiting to surrender, I was sure he must call it a day. But even now he couldn’t bear to submit. He told his little band of loyalists that they and any others on the plateau were free to go, and if he was disheartened at the stampede down to Islamgee, he didn’t show it. With the few score who remained he made a last futile attempt to bring the guns and mortars up the track, and when that failed he had them piling rocks behind the wings of the Kobet Bar Gate, lifting and carrying himself and shouting encouragement.

  It wouldn’t have been tactful to stand watching while they laboured away, so I waited until the gate tower was empty, pur loined Theodore’s telescope which he had left with his baggage, and withdrew along the inside of the wall to a spot where I could take survey of the Islamgee plain. There were a few folk in the market-place at the foot of the track, children playing on the guns which had been left behind by Damash’s crew, but farther along the plain there were great multitudes of Abs of every sort, civilian and military, stirring in a confused way but going nowhere—waiting for the invaders to arrive, in fact. They were thick on the slope of Selassie, a bare mile from my perch, and farther off I could see them on Fala; there must have been a good twenty or thirty thou-i sand of them.

  How long I sat watching I’m not sure, but the sun was well up and disappearing behind dark rain clouds when I heard a faint distant sound that had me on my feet and put an abrupt end to the barrier-building at the gate—the whisper of a bugle far off beyond Fala, and now the mass of folk on Islamgee were moving off towards the sound, and streaming down the Selassie slope to the gap leading to Arogee. There was sudden activity at Kobet Bar, men moving down the track to the guns which Damash had been able to get part way up; I saw Theodore ordering them as they tailed on the tackles, trying to haul the heavy pieces up the steep incline but making poor work of it. There was a great murmur from the moving throng on the plain, and then another faraway sound rising above it, stirring and shrill, and I found myself whispering “Oh, oh, the dandy oh!", for I knew it of old, the music of the Sherwood Foresters, and it couldn’t be more than a couple of miles away, beyond the Fala saddle, growing louder by the minute, and now the movement of the crowds was becoming a flood, and damned if I wasn’t doing a Theodore myself, brushing the tears from my cheeks, and mut tering about the young May moon a-beaming love, the glow-worm’s lamp a-gleaming love, and even exclaiming aloud, “Good for you, old Bughunter, that’s your sort!", for here he was, horse, foot and guns, at the end of the impossible march to the back of beyond which the wiseacres had sworn could never be made.

  His army was as he’d said it would be, bone weary and strug gling up the last few miles, filthy and sunbaked and rain-sodden and still unsure of what was waiting, for rumour said that Theodore had ten thousand warriors at his back, and as he looked up at the heights of Fala and Selassie on either hand, Napier must have shuddered at the thought of how his force could have been shot to tatters by an enemy with heavy pieces determined to dispute his passage. Now, on the Fala height that might have been our undoing, there were figures moving, and when I steadied the telescope on the parapet, there in the glass circle were the green coats of the Baluch, their Enfields at the trail as they came on in skirmishing order, and behind them the devil’s own legion of the 10th Native Infantry, Sikhs and Pathans and Punjabis in all the colours of the rainbow, and along the Fala saddle I could make out the red coats and helmets of the Sappers with their scaling ladders, and khaki-clad riflemen were swarming up the Selassie slopes, but whether Sherwoods or King’s Own or Dukes, I couldn’t tell.

  There was no fighting at all, for the Abs had no thought but total surrender, and thousands of them laid down their arms and trooped on to Arogee while our people were struggling to get the mountain guns on to the Selassie summit, to be turned on Magdala if need be. That ain’t liable to happen, thinks I, not with Theodore down to his last few hundred and his guns still stuck halfway up the mountain—and as though in contradiction of that thought, there he was, the lunatic, going hell-for-leather on horseback down the track to the market-place, with a score of riders at his back, Engedda and Hasani among them. A trumpet sounded, and across the Islamgee plain I saw the glitter of sabres where a squadron of bearded sowars were cantering to meet them—Bombay Lights, I’m told, and just the boys to do Theodore’s homework for him if he lingered.

  He did, though, standing in his stirrups, flourishing his sword and yelling defiance. I was too far away to make out the words, but according to Loch, who commanded the Lights, he was shouting challenges, daring anyone to meet him in single combat, taunting them as women, boasting of his prowess—“Theodore’s finest hour", according to some romantic idiot, but it didn’t last long, for no one took the least bit of notice of him, and behind the Lights the Dukes were advancing in open order, halting and firing by ranks, and his majesty and friends were obliged to scatter and run. I watched them scrambling back to the Kobet Bar Gate, one of ’em clutching a bloody arm, Theodore last man in, still waving his sword and shouting the odds.

  Now was the time to hammer some sense into him at last, so I abandoned my perch and came back to the gate where the members of his sortie were unsaddling and gasping for breath. Theodore was throwing his reins to Wald Gabr and ordering everyone to the para pets; apart from his riders there were perhaps fifty or sixty war riors armed with muskets—and they were preparing to hold their fortress against three British and
two Indian battalions, three detach ments of cavalry, four batteries of artillery, plus Sappers and Miners, the Naval Brigade, and those Sikh Pioneers who had given them bayonet at Arogee. Sixty against the three and a half thousand that Napier was about to launch at Magdala.

  I didn’t know, then, how great the odds were, but it was plain that he was staking everything on a frontal assault with the pick of his army; Islamgee was turning into a parade ground for British infantry, six companies at least of Dukes in the lead with the Royal Engineers and the Madras Sappers and Miners at their head—the storming party whose work it would be to mine and blow open the gate—and behind them the Sherwoods in line, and then the reserve battalions, and far in the rear I could see the Armstrongs and steel guns deploying under Selassie, and there were even elephants coming into view with the mortars.

  It wasn’t a time for ceremony. Theodore was stripping off his gaudy harlequin robe, bare to the waist until Wald Gabr threw a plain coat over his shoulders; I marched up to him and handed him his glass.

  “You must raise a white flag,” says I. “There’s nothing else for it. Take a look from the wall.”

  He took the glass in silence, motioned me to follow him, and turned to jump nimbly on to the parapet, where his musketeers were already lining the firing-step. I took post by him as he surveyed the advance, still distant but inexorable, rank upon khaki rank with the red Sappers before, the Dukes’ Colours flapping in the rainy gusts, swinging along with rifles sloped and bayonets fixed, and the Foresters’ band breaking from “Young May Moon” into “British Grenadiers". Theodore lowered the telescope, smiling as he shook it in time to the music.

  “What a sight!” cries he. “It is a pleasure to behold! Ah, my friend, they do me great honour! I shall make a noble end!”