Flashman on the March Read online

  Flashman on the March

  from

  The Flashman Papers 1867-8

  EDITED AND ARRANGED

  by

  George MacDonald Fraser

  BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

  FLASHMAN, Harry Paget, brigadier-general, V.C., K.C.B., K.C.I.E.: Chevalier, Legion of Honour; Order of Maria Theresa, Austria; Order of the Elephant, Denmark (temporary); U.S. Medal of Honor; San Serafino Order of Purity and Truth, 4th class; b. May 5, 1822, s. of H. Buckley Flashman, Esq., Ashby, and Hon. Alicia Paget; m. Elspeth Rennie Morrison, d. of Lord Paisley, one s., one d. Educ. Rugby School, 11th Hussars, 17th Lancers. Served Afghanistan 1841-2 (medals, thanks of Parliament); chief of staff to H.M. James Brooke, Rajah of Sarawak, Batang Luper expedn, 1844; milit. adviser with unique rank of sergeant-general to H.M. Queen Ranavalona of Madagascar, 1844-5; Sutlej campaign, 1845-6 (Ferozeshah, Sobraon, envoy extraordinary to Maharani Jeendan, Court of Lahore); polit, adviser to Herr (later Chancellor Prince) von Bismarck, Schleswig-Holstein, 1847-8; Crimea, staff (Alma, Sevastopol, Balaclava), prisoner of war, 1854; artillery adviser to Atalik Ghazi, Syr Daria campaign, 1855; India, Sepoy Mutiny, 1857-8, dip, envoy to H.R.H. the Maharani of Jhansi, trooper 3rd Native Cavalry, Meerut, subseq. att. Rowbotham’s Mosstroopers, Cawnpore, (Lucknow, Gwalior, etc., V.C.); adjutant to Captain John Brown, Harper’s Ferry, 1859; China campaign 1860, polit, mission to Nanking, Taiping Rebellion, polit, and other services, Imperial Court, Pekin; U.S. Army (major, Union forces, 1862, colonel (staff) Army of the Confederacy, 1863); a.d.c. to H.I.M. Maximilian, Emperor of Mexico, 1867; interpreter and observer Sioux campaign, U.S., 1875-6 (Camp Robinson conference, Little Big Horn, etc.); Zulu War, 1879 (Isandhlwana, Rorke’s Drift); Egypt 1882 (Kassassin, Tel-el-Kebir); personal bodyguard to H.I.M. Franz-Josef, Emperor of Austria, 1883; Sudan 1884-5 (Khartoum); Pekin Legations, 1900. Travelled widely in military and civilian capacities, among them supercargo, merchant marine (West Africa), agriculturist (Mississippi valley), wagon captain and hotelier (Santa Fe Trail); buffalo hunter and scout (Oregon Trail); courier (Underground Railroad); majordomo (India), prospector (Australia); trader and missionary (Solomon Islands, Fly River, etc.), lottery supervisor (Manila), diamond broker and horse coper (Punjab), dep. marshal (U.S.), occasional actor and impersonator. Hon. mbr of numerous societies and clubs, including Sons of the Volsungs (Strackenz), Mimbreno Apache Copper Mines band (New Mexico), Khokand Horde (Central Asia), Kit Carson’s Boys (Colorado), Brown’s Lambs (Maryland), M.C.C., White’s and United Service (London, both resigned), Blackjack (Batavia). Chmn, Flashman and Bottomley, Ltd; dir. British Opium Trading Co.; governor, Rugby School; hon. pres. Mission for Reclamation of Reduced Females. Publications: Dawns and Departures of a Soldier’s Life; Twixt Cossack and Cannon; The Case Against Army Reform. Recreations: oriental studies, angling, cricket (performed first recorded “hat trick", wickets of Felix, Pilch, Mynn, for 14 runs, Rugby Past and Present v. Kent, Lord’s 1842; five for 12, Mynn’s Casuals v. All-England XI, 1843). Add: Gandamack Lodge, Ashby, Leics.

  Explanatory Note

  In the campaigns covered by the first eleven packets of his autobiographical Papers—Afghanistan, First Sikh War, Crimea, Indian Mutiny, Brooke’s expedition against the Borneo pirates, the march to Pekin, Custer’s Little Big Horn debacle—Sir Harry Flashman, V.C., etc., the notorious Victorian hero and poltroon, has always been at or near the heart of the action, a reluctant and often jaun diced eye-witness of people and events, and uncomfortably aware of history unfolding about him.

  Not so in the Abyssinian War of 1868, surely the strangest of all imperial campaigns, when a British Indian army invaded one of the least known and most dangerous countries on earth, and in the face of apparently insuperable hazards, and predictions of certain failure, marched and fought their way across a trackless wilderness of rocky chasm and jagged mountain to their goal, did what they had come to do, and marched out again with hardly a casualty. There has never perhaps been a success like it in the history of war. It took twelve thousand men, a mighty fleet, nine million pounds (a staggering sum at that time), a meticulous if extravagant organisation, and a remarkable old soldier—and all to rescue a tiny group of British citizens held captive by a mad monster of an African king. Those were, to quote Flashman, the days.

  But if he bore no share in the campaign proper, Flashman’s was still the vital part on which success or failure hung—the intelligence mission which was to take him into a series of fearful perils (some of them new even to him) in a war-torn land of mystery, treachery, intrigue, lonely castles, ghost cities, the most beautiful (and savage) women in Africa, and at last into the power of the demented tyrant in his stronghold at the back of beyond. All of which he records with his customary shameless honesty, and it may be that along with the light he casts on a unique chapter of imperial history, he invites a comparison with a later and less glorious day.

  For Flashman’s story is about a British army sent out in a good and honest cause by a government who knew what honour meant. It was not sent without initial follies and hesitations in high places, or until every hope of a peaceful issue was gone. It went with the fear of disaster hanging over it, but with the British public in no doubt that it was right. It served no politician’s vanity or interest. It went without messianic rhetoric. There were no false excuses, no deceits, no cover-ups or lies, just a decent resolve to do a gov ernment’s first duty: to protect its people, whatever the cost. To quote Flashman again, those were the days.

  As with previous Papers, I have merely corrected his spelling, which in this instance meant introducing consistency into his bizarre renderings of Abyssinian names.

  G.M.F.

  FLASHMAN ON THE MARCH

  “Half a million in silver, did you say?”

  “In Maria Theresa dollars. Worth a hundred thou’ in quids.” He held up a gleaming coin, broad as a crown, with the old girl double-chinned on one side and the Austrian arms on t’sother. “Dam” dis-inheritin” old bitch, what? Mind, they say she was a plum in her youth, blonde and buxom, just your sort, Flashy—”

  “Ne’er mind my sort. The cash must reach this place in Africa within four weeks? And the chap who was to have escorted it is laid up in Venice with yellow jack?”

  “Or the clap, or the sailor’s itch, or heaven knows what.” He spun the coin, grinning foxy-like. “You’ve changed your mind, haven’t you? You’re game to do it yourself! Good old Flash!”

  “Don’t rush your fences, Speed, my boy. When’s it due to be shipped out?”

  “Wednesday. Lloyd packet to Alexandria. But with Sturgess comin’ all over yellow in Venice, that won’t do, and there ain’t another Alex boat for a fortnight—far too late, and the Embassy’ll run my guts up the flagpole, as though ’twas my fault, confound ’em—”

  “Aye, it’s hell in the diplomatic. Well, tell you what, Speed—I’ll ride guard on your dollars to Alex for you, but I ain’t waiting till Wednesday. I want to be clear of this blasted town by dawn tomorrow, so you’d best drum up a steam-launch and crew, and get your precious treasure aboard tonight—where is it just now?”

  “At the station, the Strada Ferrata—but dammit, Flash, a private charter’ll cost the moon—”

  “You’ve got Embassy dibs, haven’t you? Then use ’em! The station ain’t spitting distance from the Klutsch mole, and if you get a move on you can have the gelt loaded by midnight. Heavens, man, steam craft and spaghetti sailors are ten a penny in Trieste! If you’re in such a sweat to get the dollars to Africa—”

  “You may believe it! Let me see… quick run to Alex, then train to Cairo and on to Suez—no camel caravans across the desert these days, but you’ll need to hire nigger porters—”

  “Fo
r which you’ll furnish me cash!”

  He waved a hand. “Sturgess would’ve had to hire ’em, anyway. At Suez one of our Navy sloops’ll take you down the Red Sea—there are shoals of ’em, chasin’ the slavers, and I’ll give you an Embassy order. They’ll have you at Zoola—that’s the port for Abyssinia—by the middle of February, and it can’t take above a week to get the silver up-country to this place called Attegrat. That’s where General Napier will be.”

  “Napier? Not Bob the Bughunter? What the blazes is he doing in Abyssinia? We haven’t got a station there.”

  “We have by now, you may be sure!” He was laughing in dis belief. “D’you mean to tell me you haven’t heard? Why, he’s invadin’ the place! With an army from India! The silver is to help fund his campaign, don’t you see? Good God, Flashy, where have you been? Oh, I was forgettin’—Mexico. Dash it, don’t they have newspapers there?”

  “Hold up, can’t you? Why is he invading?”

  “To rescue the captives—our consul, envoys, missionaries! They’re held prisoner by this mad cannibal king, and he’s chainin’ ’em, and floggin’ ’em, and kickin’ up no end of a row! Theodore, his name is—and you mean to say you’ve not heard of him? I’ll be damned—why, there’s been uproar in Parliament, our gracious Queen writin’ letters, a penny or more on the income tax—it’s true! Now d’you see why this silver must reach Napier double quick—if it don’t, he’ll be adrift in the middle of nowhere with not a penny to his name, and your old chum Speedicut will be a human sacrifice at the openin’ of the new Foreign Office!”

  “But why should Napier need Austrian silver? Hasn’t he got any sterling?”

  “Abyssinian niggers won’t touch it, or anythin’ except Maria Theresas. Purest silver, [1] you see, and Napier must have it for food and forage when he marches up-country to fight his war.”

  “So it’s a war-chest? You never said a dam’ word about war last night.”

  “You never gave me a chance, did you? Soon as I told you I was in Dickie’s meadow, [2] with this damned fortune to be shipped and Sturgess in dock, what sympathy did dear old friend Flashy offer? The horse’s laugh, and wished me joy! All for England, home, and the beauteous Elspeth, you were… and now,” says he, with that old leery Speedicut look, “all of a sudden, you’re in the dooce of a hurry to oblige… What’s up, Flash?”

  “Not a dam’ thing. I’m sick of Trieste and want away, that’s all!”

  “And can’t wait a day? You and Hookey Walker!”

  “Now, see here, Speed, d’ye want me to shift your blasted bullion, or don’t you? Well, I go tonight or not at all, and since this cash is so all-fired important to Napier, your Embassy funds can stand the row for my passage home, too, when the thing’s done! Well, what d’ye say?”

  “That something is up, no error!” His eyes widened. “I say, the Austrian traps ain’t after you, are they—’cos if they were I daren’t assist your flight, silver or no silver! Dash it, I’m a diplomat—”

  “Of course ’tain’t the traps! What sort of fellow d’ye think I am? Good God, ha’nt we been chums since boyhood?”

  “Yes, and it’s ’cos I know what kind of chum you can be that I repeat ’What’s up, Flash?” He filled my glass and pushed it across. “Come up, old boy! This is old Speed, remember, and you can’t humbug him.”

  Well, true enough, I couldn’t, and since you, dear reader, may be sharing his curiosity, I’ll tell you what I told him that night in the Hôtel Victoria—not the smartest pub in Trieste, but as a patriotic little minion of our Vienna Embassy, Speedicut was bound to put up there—and it should explain the somewhat cryptic exchanges with which I’ve begun this chapter of my memoirs. If they’ve seemed a mite bewildering you’ll see presently that they were the simplest way of setting out the preliminaries to my tale of the strangest campaign in the whole history of British arms—and that takes in some damned odd affairs, a few of which I’ve borne a reluctant hand in myself. But Abyssinia took the cake, currants and all. Never anything like it, and never will be again.

  For me, the business began in the summer of ’67, on the day when that almighty idiot, the Emperor Maximilian of Mexico, strode out before a Juarista firing squad, unbuttoned his shirt cool as a trout, and cried "Viva Mejico! Viva la independencia! Shoot, soldiers, through the heart!” Which they did, with surprising accuracy for a platoon of dagoes, thereby depriving Mexico of its crowned head and Flashy of his employer and protector. I was an anxious spectator skulking in cover on a rooftop nearby, and when I saw Max take a header into the dust I knew that the time had come for me to slip my cable.

  You see, I’d been his fairly loyal aide-de-camp in his recent futile struggle against Juarez’s republicans—not a post I’d taken from choice, but I’d been a deserter from the French Foreign Legion at the time. [3] They were polluting Mexico with their presence in those days, supporting Max on behalf of his sponsor, that ghastly louse Louis Napoleon, and I’d been only too glad of the refuge Max had offered me—he’d been under the mistaken impression that I’d saved his life in an ambush at Texatl, poor ass, when in fact I’d been one of Jesus Montero’s gang of ambushers, but we needn’t go into that at the moment. What mattered was that Max had taken me on the strength, and had given the Legion peelers the rightabout when they’d come clamouring for my unhappy carcase.

  Then the Frogs cleared out in March of ’67, leaving Max in the lurch with typical Gallic loyalty, but while that removed one menace to my wellbeing, there remained others from which Max could be no protection, quick or dead—like the Juaristas, who’d rather have strung up a royalist a.d.c. than eaten their dinners, or that persevering old bandolero Jesus Montera, who was bound to find out eventually that I didn’t know where Montezuma’s treasure was. Hell of a place, Mexico, and dam’ confused.

  But all you need to know for the present is that after Max bought the bullet I’d have joined him in the dead-cart if it hadn’t been for the delectable Princess Agnes Salm-Salm, and the still happily ignorant Jesus. They’d been my associates in a botched attempt to rescue Max on the eve of his execution. We’d failed because (you’ll hardly credit this) the great clown had refused point-blank to escape because it didn’t sort with his imperial dignity, Austro-Hungarian royalty preferring to die rather than go over the wall. Well, hell mend ’em, I say, and if the House of Hapsburg goes to the knackers it won’t be my fault; I’ve done my unwilling best for them, ungrateful bastards. [4]

  At all events, darling Aggie and greasy Jesus had seen me safe to Vera Cruz, where she had devised the most capital scheme for getting me out of the country. Max having been brother to the Austrian Emperor Franz Josef, his death had caused a sensation in Vienna; they hadn’t done a dam’ thing useful to save his life, but they made up for it with his corpse, sending a warship to ferry it home, with a real live admiral and a great retinue of court reptiles. And since Aggie was the wife of a German princeling, a heroine of the royalist campaign, and handsome as Hebe, they were all over her when we went aboard the Novara frigate at Sacraficios. Admiral Tegethoff, a bluff old sport, all beard and belly, munched her knuckles and gave glad welcome even to the begrimed and ragged peon whom she presented as the hoch und wohlgeboren Oberst Sir Harry Flashman, former aide, champion, and all-round hero of the campaign and the ill-starred attempt to snatch his imperial majesty from the firing squad.

  “The Emperor’s English right arm, gentlemen!” says Aggie, who was a great hand at the flashing-eyed flourish. “So his majesty called him. Who more fitting to guard his royal master and friend on his last journey home?”

  Blessed if they could think of anyone fitter, and I was received with polite enthusiasm: the reptiles left off sneering at my beastly peasant appearance and clicked their heels, old Tegethoff stopped just short of embracing me, and I was aware of the awestruck ad miration in the wide blue eyes of the enchanting blonde poppet whom he presented as his great-niece, Gertrude von und zum some-thing-or-other. My worldly Aggie noticed it too, and observ
ed after wards, when we made our adieus at the ship’s rail, that if I looked like a scarecrow I was at least a most romantic one.

  “The poor little idiot will doubtless break her foolish heart over you en voyage,” says she. “And afterwards wonder what she saw in the so dashing English rascal.”

  “Jealous of her, princess?” says I, and she burst out laughing.

  “Of her youth, perhaps—not of her infatuation.” She gave that slantendicular smile that had been driving me wild for months. “Well, not very much. But if I were sixteen again, like her, who knows? Adios, dear Harry.” And being royally careless of propriety, she kissed me full on the lips before the startled squareheads—and for a delightful moment it was the kiss of the lover she’d never been, which I still count a real conquest. Pity she was so crazy about her husband, I remember thinking, as she waved an elegant hand from her carriage and was gone. [5]

  After that they towed Max’s coffin out to the ship in a barge and hoisted it inboard, and as the newly appointed escort to his cadaver I was bound to give Tegethoff and his entourage a squint at the deceased, so that they could be sure they’d got the right chap. It was no end of a business, for his Mexican courtiers had done him proud with no fewer than three coffins, one of rosewood, a second of zinc, and the third of cedar, with Max inside the last like one of those Russian dolls. He’d been embalmed, and I must say he looked in capital fettle, bar being a touch yellow and his hair starting to fall out. We screwed him in again, a chaplain said a prayer, and all that remained was to weigh anchor to thunderous salutes from various attendant warships, and for me to remind Tegethoff that a bath and a change of clobber would be in order.

  I’ve never had any great love for the cabbage-chewers, having been given my bellyful by Bismarck and his gang in the Schleswig-Holstein affair,* (* See Royal Flash.) and Tegethoff’s party included more than one of the crop-headed schlager-swingers whom I find especially detestable, but I’m bound to say that on that voyage, which lasted from late November ’67 to the middle of January, they couldn’t have been more amiable and hospitable—until the very morning we dropped anchor off Trieste, when Tegethoff discovered that I’d been giving his great-niece a few exercises they don’t usually teach in young ladies’ seminaries.