Flashman's Escape

by Robert Brightwell

  I put my pistols in my pockets as I watched them leave. Then I looked at Agustina. She seemed to have aged more than the three years which had passed since we last met. She looked thinner, and when she returned my gaze her face looked tired and drawn, although she still managed a weak smile.

  “Are you all right?”

  “I am now you are here. Things were getting a bit ugly a while back.” I tried to sound casual but my legs were still trembling and it had taken me two attempts to buckle my sword as my hands were shaking with what must have been shock. If she noticed, she did not say anything.

  “Gomez,” she called after her lieutenant, who was now rushing from the room. “I would like you to join us in a few minutes. Bring some food and wine with you.” She cocked a quizzical eyebrow at me and then added, “And some maps. I have a feeling that we will need them and your counsel.” He nodded, appearing ridiculously pleased to be back in her favour, and hurried away. “Despite what you may think, he is a good man,” she declared quietly after he had gone. “His wife and three children were killed by the French. Now what are you doing here?”

  “I was going to ask you the same question. How did you end up in charge of these partisans?”

  “Oh, I have been in several different groups since you knew me,” she replied. “They were all happy to have the famous Maid of Zaragoza in their ranks. I had planned to eventually return to the city, but when I got here the local commander and I became lovers. We were together for over a year. When he was killed they voted for me to take over. My fame brings in new recruits and Hugo hates being beaten by a woman.”

  She had become tougher, I thought. When we had met for the first time she had cried when she had told me that she only fired the cannon that stopped the French assault because an earlier slain lover had begged her to. Now she mentioned the death of this more recent partner as casually as she might describe her dinner. I had no doubt that she must have seen and perhaps committed some appalling atrocities since we last met; the evidence of the forest clearing proved that.

  “Your people certainly have a grotesque way of disposing of prisoners,” I pointed out. “It is not something that I would have thought you would have done, but I suppose we have both changed a lot since we last met.”

  “It was something that they started before my time, but I could not stop it. That would have appeared weak. These men are as tough as iron. For me, as a woman, to lead them, I have to appear even tougher.” She looked uncomfortable, as though this was not something that she wanted to talk about, and said more brightly, “What about you? Why are you here with letters to the French minister of war?”

  “I have been sent to try to help that infernal nuisance Grant escape, or El Granto as you know him. That was why I was riding in disguise with the column he was in. The idiot has given his parole and refuses to escape, and anyway they guard him around the clock. I had been hoping a partisan group would attack; that was why I left the column to find one. Unfortunately your men found me and drew their own conclusions as to my mission.”

  “We cannot attack a column that size; we would lose too many men. They would probably still get Grant away if we tried. Where are they taking him?”

  “To Bayonne and then on to Paris.”

  She looked thoughtful for a moment. “Bayonne is in Basque country. That would be the place to get him.”

  “What is Basque country?”

  “The Basques are a people that live on both sides of the border; there are lots of Basques here. They are a proud mountain people that don’t see themselves as either French or Spanish. Inside France the French will think that they are safe and may drop their guard. They certainly won’t use three hundred men to take Grant all the way to Paris. But if we can capture him in Bayonne we can soon get him away across the mountains. With Wellington’s two thousand dollars in gold to share with those that help, we will not be short of volunteers.”

  I loved the way she used the word ‘we’; my spirits were rising already. These Basque fellows could take all the risks and deliver the doubtless protesting Grant to me. Then I would return to Wellington with a suitably enhanced tale of my endeavour, the hero of the hour. Meanwhile Grant’s reputation would be tarnished by capture, his parole and probably by him whining about being rescued with his honour ruined. I chuckled at the thought. “If your men have to hit Grant to get him to come with them, that will be absolutely fine,” I offered happily.

  Agustina looked puzzled. “But you will need to go with them to find Grant and help plan the capture. My men can hardly march into a French barracks and start asking questions, but you can in your French uniform.”

  I gave her my most winning smile. “But I thought we could renew our old friendship while your men are away. I could lend them my uniform; surely some of them speak French?”

  She reached out and held my hand. “Maybe tonight,” she smiled. “But tomorrow you go with the men. They are not proper soldiers and don’t understand about saluting and ranks. They would soon give themselves away.”

  Her jaw had a determined look when she had finished speaking and I could sense that she was not used to challenges to her commands. What she said made sense too, for at that moment Gomez returned with some maps followed by a girl with food and wine on a tray. I watched Gomez cross the barn; his manner could best be described as furtive, shoulders slightly hunched and not soldierly at all.

  Agustina explained to him the plan while I tore into the bread and guzzled the wine. I had not eaten or drunk anything since breakfast with the French early that morning and I was famished.

  “I would like you to go with Captain Flashman,” Agustina declared to Gomez. “You know the Basque contacts we have in France. Take six trusted men.”

  Gomez shot me a dark look then. Whatever his mistress thought, I sensed that he was yet to be convinced of my loyalty. Agustina, who missed little, noticed the glance.

  “If you go with him, you will be able to see for yourself that he is not working with the French and that he is a British spy.”

  She smiled happily at this resolution to Gomez’s concerns, while he looked at me as though he found me as trustworthy as an angry scorpion. We spread the maps out then and I traced the route that the column was planning to take to Bayonne. It was the fastest route over good roads but Gomez knew another we could use where we were less likely to encounter French troops. Mounted on horses, we were set to reach Bayonne at the same time as the French.

  “It is settled then,” pronounced Agustina firmly when the planning was done. “Gomez, select your men and have them ready to leave at noon tomorrow. In the meantime, Captain Flashman and I can catch up on old times.”

  I took the half-drunk jug of wine and two cups with me as we made our way to the woodland hut that was the home of my favourite partisan generalissima. My body was battered and bruised from the beating I had taken in the courtroom, but there were no serious injuries. Now the recent danger was past and the shock was receding, I felt that familiar joy of just having survived another brush with death. Inside the hut, as she lit some candles, I saw hanging on the wall the medal that she had been given by the Spanish government for saving the city of Zaragoza. She had been wearing it the first time we met. Agustina followed my gaze

  “A lot has happened in three years. Did you think of me during that time?”

  “Of course. After what we did in Seville cathedral, people keep reminding me or hinting at it. I am still not sure if you enhanced my reputation or ruined it.” A priest had promised to blacken my name after we had made love in a dark corner of the huge building during a midnight mass. But the British and Spanish had fallen out on strategy shortly afterwards and there had mostly just been muttering behind my back.

  She giggled. “I am sorry I tricked you into entering the cathedral. But if it makes you feel better, no mass I have been to since has been as pleasurable.”

  “I should hope not.”

  She looked beautiful in the candlelight and I stepped ac
ross and took her in my arms, crushing her lips on mine.

  “My my,” she gasped, laughing when she could breathe. “We are not in a cathedral now, you know.”

  “Really?” I growled back. “Because I was thinking we could have our own very special holy communion right here.”

  We were at each other then, tearing off clothes, desperate to renew the passion of former times.

  It was one of the best communions I have ever had. The sacrament was given and received at least twice before we lay naked and sated in her bed, drinking more wine. I reached over with my cup and splashed some red wine between her breasts.

  “Behold the blood of Christ.”

  “Thomas, don’t be blasphemous,” she cried, smiling and wiping it away. “You might be a Protestant but I am a good Catholic girl.”

  “I know a priest in Seville who would disagree. But he is wrong: you are a very good Catholic girl.”

  “Why, thank you, kind sir. But my men are Catholic, and while I have had my disagreements with the Church, I think I still am too. I go to mass when we can get a priest to come up here.”

  “Well, your next confession should be interesting.”

  “Mmm, yes. If I have to do a penance, I might as well make it worthwhile. Perhaps I can perform a Christ-like miracle on Lazarus here.” With that she reached down and started to caress my resting manhood, which began to respond instantly to her touch.

  I pretended to ignore her act of resuscitation while I sipped more wine. “You must have over a hundred fighting men here and their families. How do you survive?”

  “Oh, there are deer and boar in the forest and farmers sell or give us food. We get supplies from enemy columns, but we generally attack small ones so that we can be sure that there are no survivors. That way it takes much longer for them to realise that the convoy is missing and has not been diverted elsewhere.”

  “Aren’t you worried about French attacks?”

  “We have to move camp sometimes and we have people in all the towns where there are French forces who will warn us if an attack is planned. We had messages about your column over a week ago telling us it was on the way.” She paused. “There now, you see? Lazarus has risen and come back to life. I have performed a miracle.” With that she leaned down and gave ‘Lazarus’ a kiss.

  “You are a very wicked woman.”

  “Yes, that is what they say about me,” she purred, running her fingers up my chest. “Oh, I forgot to tell you. Remember when we met before, I had vowed to kill the Frenchman who had refused to help me and let my little son die when I was in prison?”

  “Yes,” I agreed, recalling that she had been captured briefly by the French when Zaragoza finally fell.

  “Well, I found him. He was one of the guards in a supply column we captured.”

  “Did you kill him or was he already dead from the attack?”

  “Oh, I killed him. He had let my little son die in agony over seven days and so I did the same to him. You have to use a hot knife to cauterise the wound or they will bleed to death too quickly,” she claimed matter-of-factly. “I put out an eye, cut off some of his fingers and toes, gelded him and then burnt his cock before slicing his guts open towards the end.” She listed the injuries with the same dispassionate manner that a quartermaster might use counting off supplies. The casual way she spoke about such horrors sent a chill down my spine, while my imagination conjured up such graphic images that my ardour was soon cooled.

  Watching your child die must be awful, but to inflict that torture on another human being in revenge seemed monstrous to me. My mind struggled to reconcile the beautiful woman I had known and had just made love to with someone who could do such a thing. I know she had to appear tough in front of her men and she had probably seen far more brutality in the war than me, but the Agustina I had known before had definitely changed. I tried to rid my mind of a picture of her standing over her naked victim with a glowing hot iron in her hand. To try to distract myself I looked across at her naked loveliness. There were those now familiar curves and a face that looked warm and loving. There was not even a hint that she could be capable of such atrocities. As I watched she raised herself up on one elbow, but then frowned and looked a little disappointed.

  “Oh dear,” she exclaimed. “Lazarus seems to have died again.”

  Chapter 22

  Agustina understood that talk of gelding and burning was not ideal foreplay to get me in the mood, and I confess that I never felt entirely comfortable with her afterwards. That is not to say that I was immune to her considerable charms and persuasive skills. Like a well-run monastery we continued regular communion during the night, observing the services of Matins and Prime, and we would have enjoyed the communion religious houses call Terce at mid-morning if someone had not knocked on the door. It was Gomez, ostensibly come to check on arrangements for the journey, but probably because he did not like me getting too close to Agustina.

  A short while later and I was mounting my horse alongside Gomez and five other swarthy cut-throats. I saw then what Agustina had meant: they could no more have passed as soldiers than my Aunt Agnes. I was in my British uniform with the French coat once more in the saddlebags. Word had got round the camp that our mission involved earning the two-thousand-dollar reward and quite a few came to see us off. There was no cheering, though, and most looked damn sheepish when they caught my eye, remembering that they had been baying to crucify me just the previous day. Having given me a long, lingering farewell kiss in her room, Agustina was more formal in front of her men, wishing us all well before we set off along a forest track.

  We had gone just a few miles when we reached a crossroads and Gomez pulled his horse up to a stop. I had already decided that I was set for a tedious journey as the man had ignored half my questions about the route and had given short, unhelpful answers when he did speak. Still, that was better than his companions, who pretended to speak only Basque so that they could ride in a group together behind me. Now, though, Gomez did turn to talk to me.

  “Hand over your pistols,” he ordered curtly.

  “What is this?” I responded indignantly. “You know I am a British officer and that I am on your side.”

  For a moment I wondered if it was Gomez who was a French spy and the story about his lost family was just a cover. But then I heard hammers cocking behind me and turned to see the other Basques all with pistols or carbines levelled in my direction. I realised that I did not have a choice and slowly reached into my pockets to withdraw the weapons.

  “You can keep your fancy sword,” continued Gomez, “but when I am riding in front of a man I do not trust, I do not want him to be able to shoot me in the back.”

  “Oh, for God’s sake, there are six of you. How am I supposed to kill six of you with two pistols? And anyway, your chief has told you that she knows me as British from three years back.”

  “Agustina might trust you, but I do not. From what I hear you have spent time wearing many different uniforms and I wonder where your true loyalties lie. If we get back here with Major Grant then I will give you your pistols back and apologise. But until then my men and I will be watching you closely.”

  I suppose I should have been glad that they let me keep the sword, but if we had happened across strangers, it would have seemed odd for an officer to be seen without such a weapon at his hip.

  With comrades like those you can imagine how joyless the journey was over the mountains. Everywhere I went, even to the privy, one of the Basques would be watching me. We often stopped at little villages in the hills. They would all talk Basque so that I could not understand and often I could tell that they were talking about me. From the hostile looks, whatever Gomez and the others were saying it was not favourable.

  One morning after about four or five days of this icy camaraderie, Gomez called me over.

  “We are in France now,” he announced. “From now on you wear this.” And with that he threw down on the dirt my French coat that he had taken from
my saddlebag. As I shrugged the blue cloth over my shoulders, the look of dislike from the villagers intensified. Despite being in France, the French army was clearly not popular with the Basques.

  We picked up a local guide on the French side of the border who took us north via back roads and footpaths where we were unlikely to meet any genuine French soldiers or French authorities. Just to be on the safe side Gomez had one of his men ride scout ahead, and often we would leave a man back to check we were not being followed. Eventually, after two days of this furtive travelling, we crested a hill early one evening and saw a large town some miles ahead of us and a stranger sitting under a tree.

  Gomez pointed at the city and announced, “Bayonne,” before spurring on to talk to the stranger alone. The rest of the partisans and I rested just below the crest of the hill so that we would not stand out on the horizon. After some minutes Gomez came back and announced that the French column was approaching the city several miles to our east. We rode along the ridge for a while until we could see the main road. I reached into my pocket for my telescope and studied the dusty little snake that seemed to be moving along it. The sun was low in the sky behind me but there was enough light to show that they were still moving along in six blocks comprising infantry, a cannon and two wagons in each segment. As far as I could tell the infantry detachments looked roughly the same size as when I had last seen them. At the front I could just make out a group of horsemen. I felt a touch of admiration for Lagarde, who seemed to have brought his men cautiously, but unscathed, through hundreds of miles of partisan territory. He would have probably cursed me and my stupidity, thinking I was the only casualty of the journey.

  “The city gates of Bayonne shut at dusk so they will camp at the town of Villefranque tonight,” said Gomez. He turned to look at me. “They will enter the city tomorrow morning and you will enter just afterwards. Jorge and Hernando” – he gestured at two of the Basques – “will come with you. Find out when and where Grant is travelling to Paris and let them know. They will get a message to the rest of us.”