Flashman Papers 3-Book Collection 4: Flashman and the Dragon, Flashman on the March, Flashman and the Tiger. George Fraser MacDonald
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far parapet, splinters whining everywhere; the Armstrongs had ranged on the Chinese guns’ positions, and through the thunder of the Imperial salvoes we could hear the thumping strains of the “Marseillaise”; there were the dear little Crapauds storming into the Chinese forward positions, with the Armstrong bursts creeping ahead of them; behind the Chink front line it was like an antheap kicked over, and then another shell burst plumb on the summit of the bridge and we were dashed to the floor of the cage.
When I raised my head Brabazon was back at the bars, staring down in disgust at a bloody palpitating mass on the flags which had been a Bannerman, or possibly two. The ugly mandarin was standing beside it, staring at a bloody gash on his hand, and Brabazon, the eternal oaf, had to sing out:
“Take that, you villain! That’ll teach you to attack a prisoner!”
The mandarin looked up. He couldn’t understand the words, but he didn’t need to. I never saw such livid hate in a human face, and I thought we were goners there and then. Then he strode to the cage, gibbering with fury.
“Fan-qui scum! You see this?” He flourished his bloody hand. “For every wound I take, one of you dies! I’ll send his head back to your gunners, you spawn of the White Whore!” He turned to scream orders to his men, and I thought, oh Jesus, here goes one of us, but it was evidently a promise for the future, for all their response was to line the parapet and blaze away with their jingals at the Frogs, who were still engaged in the forward entrenchments three hundred yards away.
“What did he say?” Brabazon was demanding. “Sir – what was he shouting at us?”
None of them understood Chinese, of course. The unwounded Sikh and the little priest were bandaging the wounded man’s leg; Nolan was a yard off, slightly behind me; Brabazon at my side, questioning. And in that moment I had what I still maintain was one of the most brilliant inspirations of my life – and I’ve had one or two.
Hoaxing Bismarck into a prize-fight, convincing Jefferson Davis that I’d come to fix the lightning-rod, hitting Rudi Starnberg with a bottle of Cherry Heering, hurling Valentina out of the sledge into a snow-drift – all are fragrant leaves to press in the book of memory. But I’m inclined to think Pah-li-chao was my finest hour.
“What did he say, sir?” cried Brabazon again. I shook my head, shrugging, and spoke just loud enough for Nolan to overhear.
“Well, someone’s in luck. He’s going to send one of us under a white flag to the Frogs. Try to make terms, I suppose. Well, he can see it’s all up.”
“Good heavens!” cries Brabazon. “Then we’re saved!”
“I doubt that,” says I. “Oh, the chap who goes will be all right. But the Frogs won’t parley – I wouldn’t, if I commanded ’em. What, trust these yellow scoundrels? When the game’s all but won? No, the French ain’t such fools. They’ll refuse … and we know what our captors will do then …” I looked him in the eye. “Don’t we?”
Now, if we’d been a directors’ meeting, no doubt there’d have been questions, and eleventeen holes shot in my specious statement – but prisoners in a cage surrounded by blood-thirsty Chinks don’t reason straight (well, I do, but most don’t). Anyway, I was the bloody colonel, so he swallowed it whole.
“My God!” says he, and went grey. “But if the French commander knows that five lives are –”
“He’ll do his duty, my boy. As you or I would.”
His head came up. “Yes, sir … of course. Who shall go, sir? It ought to be … you.”
I gave him my wryest Flashy grin and clapped him on the shoulder. “Thanks, my son. But it won’t do. No … I think we’ll leave it to chance, what? Let the Chinks pick the lucky one.”
He nodded – and behind me I could almost hear Nolan’s ears waving as he took it all in. Brabazon stepped resolutely away from the cage door. I stayed at the bars, studying the mandarin’s health.
There had been a brief lull in the Armstrong barrage, but now they began again; the Frogs were trying to carry the second line of works, and making heavy weather of it. The jingal-men were firing volleys from the bridge, the ugly mandarin rushing about in the smoke, exhorting ’em to aim low for the honour of old Pekin High School, no doubt. He even jumped on the parapet, waving his sword; you won’t last long, you silly sod, thinks I – sure enough, came a blinding flash that rocked the cage, and when the smoke had cleared, there were half a dozen Manchoos splattered on the marble, and the mandarin leaning on the parapet, clutching his leg and bawling for the ambulance.
My one fear was that he’d have Brabazon marked down as his victim, but he hadn’t. He was a man of his word, though; he screamed an order, there was a rush of armoured feet, the cage door was flung open, a Manchoo officer poked his head in, shrieking – and Trooper Nolan, glaring desperately about him, had made good and sure he was closest to the door. The Manchoo officer shouted again, gesturing; Nolan, wearing what I can best describe as a grin of gloating guilt, took a step towards him; Brabazon was standing back, ramrod-straight, while I did my damnedest not to catch the chairman’s eye.
“Take him!” yells the officer, and two of his minions plunged in and flung Nolan from the cage. The door slammed shut, I sighed and loafed across to it, looking down through the bars at him as he stood gripped by two Bannermen.
“Be sure and tell ’em about Tang-ku Fort,” says I softly, and he goggled in bewilderment. Then, as they ran him to the parapet, he must have realised what was happening, for he began to struggle and yell, and I staggered back from the door, crying to Brabazon in stricken accents:
“My God! What are they doing? Why, that lying hound of a mandarin – ah, no, it cannot be!”
They had forced Nolan to his knees before the wounded mandarin, who left off bellowing long enough to spit in his face; then they hauled him up on to the parapet, and while two gripped his arms and bent him double, a third seized his hair and dragged his head forward. The officer drew his sword, shook back his sleeve, and braced himself.
“Mother o’ mercy! Oh, Christ, don’t –!”
The scream ended abruptly – cut off, as you might say, and I sank my face into my hands with a hollow groan, reflecting that who steals my purse may get away with it, but he who filches from me my good name will surely find his tits in the wringer.
“The filthy butchers!” roars Brabazon. “Oh, the poor fellow! But why, in heaven’s name, when they’d said –”
“Because that’s the kind of swine John Chinaman is!” I growled. “They lie for the pleasure of it, Brabazon!”
He gritted his teeth and drew a shuddering breath. “And my last words to him were a rebuke! Did you … did you know him well, sir?”
“Well enough,” I said. “A rough diamond, but … Here, how are the Frogs getting along?”
In fact, they were making capital progress, bayonetting away with élan in the second entrenchment, and while the Chinese positions to the right were hidden by smoke, from the sounds of things the British attack was going well. The Imps seemed to be giving back all along the line; hundreds of them were streaming over the bridge, with officers trying to rally them, riding about and howling, but there was only one way the battle could go – the question was, would they slaughter us before we could be rescued? Torn between terror and hope, I reckoned it was odds on our preservation, unless that reckless fool of a mandarin stopped another splinter – in which case we’d better chivvy up the priest, he being well stricken in years and presumably in a state of grace. I looked anxiously for the mandarin, and saw he was being held up by two of his pals while directing operations; but the Armstrongs seemed to have given over for the moment, and clattering up the bridge came a cavalcade of gorgeously-armoured nobles, accompanied by standard-bearers; my heart rose in my throat as I saw that their leader was Sang-kol-in-sen.
He was reining up, addressing the mandarin, and now the whole gang turned towards the cage, the mandarin pointing and