Flashman Papers 3-Book Collection 3: Flashman at the Charge, Flashman in the Great Game, Flashman and the Angel of the Lord. George Fraser MacDonald
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sir, and let us have none of this shirking!”
And with that he wheeled away, leaving me terrified, enraged, and baffled. What could I do? I couldn’t disobey – it just wasn’t possible. He had said I must ride with Cardigan, to those damned redoubts, chasing Raglan’s bloody guns – my God, after what I had been through already! In an instant, by pure chance, I’d been snatched from security and thrust into the melting-pot again – it wouldn’t do. I turned to Cardigan – the last man I’d have appealed to, in any circumstances, except an extremity like this.
“My lord,” says I. “This is preposterous – unreasonable! Lord Raglan will need me! Will you speak to his lordship – he must be made to see –”
“If there is one thing,” says Cardigan, in that croaking drawl, “of which I am tolewably certain in this uncertain world, it is the total impossibiwity of making my Word Wucan see anything at all. He makes it cwear, furthermore, that there is no discussion of his orders.” He looked me up and down. “You heard him, sir. Take station behind me, and to my weft. Bewieve me, I do not welcome your pwesence here any more than you do yourself.”
At that moment, up came George Paget, my cheroot clamped between his teeth.
“We are to advance, Lord George,” says Cardigan. “I shall need close support, do you hear? – your vewy best support, Lord George. Haw-haw. You understand me?”
George took the cheroot from his mouth, looked at it, stuck it back, and then said, very stiff: “As always, my lord, you shall have my support.”
“Haw-haw. Vewy well,” says Cardigan, and they turned aside, leaving me stricken, and nicely hoist with my own petard, you’ll agree. Why hadn’t I kept my mouth shut in Raglan’s presence? I could have been safe and comfy up on the Sapoune – but no, I’d had to try to vent my spite, to get Cardigan in the way of a bullet, and the result was I would be facing the bullets alongside him. Oh, a skirmish round gun redoubts is a small enough thing by military standards – unless you happen to be taking part in it, and I reckoned I’d used up two of my nine lives today already. To make matters worse, my stomach was beginning to churn and heave most horribly again; I sat there, with my back to the Light Brigade, nursing it miserably, while behind me the orders rattled out, and the squadrons reformed; I took a glance round and saw the 17th were now directly behind me, two little clumps of lances, with the Cherrypickers in behind. And here came Cardigan, trotting out in front, glancing back at the silent squadrons.
He paused, facing them, and there was no sound now but the restless thump of hooves, and the creak and jingle of the gear. All was still, five regiments of cavalry, looking down the valley, with Flashy out in front, wishing he were dead and suddenly aware that dreadful things were happening under his belt. I moved, gasping gently to myself, stirring on my saddle, and suddenly, without the slightest volition on my part, there was the most crashing discharge of wind, like the report of a mortar. My horse started; Cardigan jumped in his saddle, glaring at me, and from the ranks of the 17th a voice muttered: “Christ, as if Russian artillery wasn’t bad enough!” Someone giggled, and another voice said: “We’ve ’ad Whistlin’ Dick – now we got Trumpetin’ Harry an’ all!”
“Silence!” cries Cardigan, looking like thunder, and the murmur in the ranks died away. And then, God help me, in spite of my straining efforts to contain myself, there was another fearful bang beneath me, echoing off the saddle, and I thought Cardigan would explode with fury.
I could not merely sit there. “I beg your pardon, my lord,” says I, “I am not well –”
“Be silent!” snaps he, and he must have been in a highly nervous condition himself, otherwise he would never have added, in a hoarse whisper:
“Can you not contain yourself, you disgusting fellow?”
“My lord,” whispers I, “I cannot help it – it is the feverish wind, you see –” and I interrupted myself yet again, thunderously. He let out a fearful oath, under his breath, and wheeled his charger, his hand raised; he croaked out “Bwigade will advance – first squadron, 17th – walk-march – twot!” and behind us the squadrons stirred and moved forward, seven hundred cavalry, one of them palsied with fear but in spite of that feeling a mighty relief internally – it was what I had needed all day, of course, like those sheep that stuff themselves on some windy weed, and have to be pierced to get them right again.
And that was how it began. Ahead of me I could see the short turf of the valley turning to plough, and beyond that the haze at the valley end, a mile and more away, and only a few hundred yards off, on either side, the enclosing slopes, with the small figures of Russian infantry clearly visible. You could even see their artillerymen wheeling the guns round, and scurrying among the limbers – we were well within range, but they were watching, waiting to see what we would do next. I forced myself to look straight ahead down the valley; there were guns there in plenty, and squadrons of Cossacks flanking them; their lance points and sabres caught the sun and threw it back in a thousand sudden gleams of light. Would they try a charge when we wheeled right towards the redoubts? Would Cardigan deploy the 4th Lights? Would he put the 17th forward as a screen when we made our flank movement? If I stuck close by him, would I be all right? Oh, God, how had I landed in this fix again – three times in a day? It wasn’t fair – it was unnatural, and then my innards spoke again, resoundingly, and perhaps the Russian gunners heard it, for far down the Causeway on the right a plume of smoke blossomed out as though in reply, there was the crash of the discharge and the shot went screaming overhead, and then from all along the Causeway burst out a positive salvo of firing; there was an orange flash and a huge bang a hundred paces ahead, and a fount of earth was hurled up and came pattering down before us, while behind there was the crash of exploding shells, and a new barrage opening up from the hills on the left.
Suddenly it was, as Lord Tennyson tells us, like the very jaws of hell; I realized that, without noticing, I had started to canter, babbling gently to myself, and in front Cardigan was cantering too, but not as fast as I was (one celebrated account remarks that, “In his eagerness to be first at grips with the foe, Flashman was seen to forge ahead; ah, we can guess the fierce spirit that burned in that manly breast” – I don’t know about that, but I’m here to inform you that it was nothing to the fierce spirit that burned in my manly bowels). There was a crash-crash-crash of flaming bursts across the front, and the scream of shell splinters whistling by; Cardigan shouted “Steady!”, but his own charger was pacing away now, and behind me the clatter and jingle was being drowned by the rising drum of hooves, from a slow canter to a fast one, and then to a slow gallop, and I tried to rein in that little mare, smothering my own panic, and snarling fiercely to myself: “Wheel, wheel, for God’s sake! Why doesn’t the stupid bastard wheel?” For we were level with the first Russian redoubt; their guns were levelled straight at us, not four hundred yards away, the ground ahead was being torn up by shot, and then from behind me there was a frantic shout.
I turned in the saddle, and there was Nolan, his sabre out, charging across behind me, shouting hoarsely, “Wheel, my lord! Not that way! Wheel – to the redoubts!” His voice was all but drowned in the tumult of explosion, and then he was streaking past Cardigan, reining his beast back on its haunches, his face livid as he turned to face the brigade. He flourished his sabre, and shouted again, and a shell seemed to explode dead in front of Cardigan’s horse; for a moment I lost Nolan in the smoke, and then I saw him, face contorted in agony, his tunic torn open and gushing blood from shoulder to waist. He shrieked horribly, and his horse came bounding back towards us, swerving past Cardigan with Lew toppling forward on to the neck of his mount. As I stared back, horrified, I saw him careering into the gap between the Lancers and the 13th Light, and then they had swallowed him, and the squadrons came surging down towards me.
I turned to look for Cardigan; he was thirty yards ahead, tugging like damnation to hold his charger in, with the shot crashing all about him. “Stop!” I screamed. “Stop! For Christ’s sake, man, rein in!” For now I saw what Lew had seen – the fool was never going to wheel, he was taking the Light Brigade straight into the heart of the Russian army, towards those massive batteries at the valley foot, that were already belching at us, while the cannon on either side were raking us from the flanks,