Flashman Papers 3-Book Collection 1: Flashman, Royal Flash, Flashman’s Lady. George Fraser MacDonald
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squeezed. Like this.” And I reached over and, with a quick fumble in the dark, caught one of her breasts. To my amazement, she didn’t seem to mind.
“Oh, that!” she says. “What an evil creature you are! You know that is nothing; all gentlemen do that, in affection. But you, you monstrous beast, presume on my friendship to try to … Oh, oh, I could die of shame!”
If I had not heard her I shouldn’t have believed it. God knows I have learned enough since of the inadequacies of education given to young Englishwomen, but this was incredible.
“Well,” says I, “if you’re accustomed to gentlemen doing that to you, in affection, you know some damned queer gentlemen.”
“You … you foul person,” says she, in indignation. “It is no more than shaking hands!”
“Good God!” says I. “Where on earth were you brought up?”
At this, by the sound of it, she buried her face in the blankets and began to weep.
“Mrs Parker,” says I, “I beg your pardon. I have made a mistake, and I am very sorry for it.” The quicker I got out of this, the better, or she might start shouting rape round the camp. I’ll say this for her, ignorant and full of amazing misconceptions as she was, she had appeared angry rather than frightened, and had kept her abuse of me down to a whisper. She had her own reputation to think about, of course.
“I shall go,” says I, and started crawling for the flap. “But I may tell you,” I added, “that in polite society it ain’t usual for gentlemen to squeeze ladies’ tits, whatever you may have been told. And it ain’t usual, either, for ladies to let gentlemen do it; it gives the gentlemen a wrong impression, you know. My apologies, again. Good night.”
She gave one last muffled squeak, and then I was out in the snow. I had never heard anything like it in my life, but I didn’t know, then, how astonishingly green young women could be, and what odd notions they could get. Anyway, I had been well set down, for certain; by the looks of it I should have to contain my enthusiasm until we reached India again. And that, as I huddled down in my blankets beside my troopers, with the cold getting keener every minute, was no consolation at all.
Looking back on it now, I suppose it is funny enough, but lying shivering there and thinking of the pains I had been at to get Captain Parker out of the way, I could have twisted Mrs Betty’s pretty neck for her.
It was a bitter, biting night, and there was little sleep to be had, for if the cold was not bad enough the niggers kept up a great whining and wailing to wake the dead. And by morning not a few of the poor devils were dead, for they had no more than a few rags of clothing to cover them. Dawn broke on a scene that was like something from an icy hell; everywhere there were brown corpses lying stiff in the drifts, and the living crackled as they struggled up in their frozen clothes. I saw Mackenzie actually crying over the body of a tiny native child; he was holding her in his arms, and when he saw me he cried out:
“What are we to do? These people are all dying, and those that don’t will be slaughtered by those wolves on the hillside yonder. But what can we do?”
“What, indeed?” says I. “Let ’em be; there’s no help for it.” He was remarkably concerned, it seemed to me, over a nigger. And he was such a ramrod of a man, too.
“If only I could take her with me,” says he, laying the small body back in the snow.
“You couldn’t take ’em all,” says I. “Come on, man, let’s get some breakfast.” He saw this was sensible advice, and we were lucky enough to get some hot mutton at Elphy’s tent.
Getting the column under way was tremendous work; half the sepoys were too frost-bitten to be able to lift their muskets, and the other half had deserted in the night, skulking back to Kabul. We had to flog them into line, which warmed everyone up, but the camp followers needed no such urging. They were crowding ahead in panic in case they should be left behind, and threw Anquetil’s vanguard into tremendous confusion. At this point a great cloud of mounted Ghazis suddenly came yelling out of a nullah in the hillside, and rode into the mob, cutting down everything in their way, soldiers and civilians, and made off with a couple of Anquetil’s guns before he could stop them.
He made after them, though, with a handful of cavalry, and there was a warm skirmish; he couldn’t get back the guns, but he spiked them, while the 44th stood fast and did nothing. Lady Sale damned them for cowards and hang-backs – the old baggage should have been in command, instead of Elphy – but I didn’t blame the 44th myself. I was farther down the column, and in no hurry to get near the action until Anquetil was riding back, when I brought my lancers up at the canter (true to life, Tom Hughes, eh?). The guns were going to be no use to us, anyway.
We blundered along the road for a mile or two, with troops of Afghans hanging on our flanks and every now and then swooping down at a weak part of the column, cutting up a few folk, snatching at the stores, and riding off again. Shelton kept roaring for everyone to hold his place and not be drawn in pursuit, and I took the opportunity to damn his eyes and demand to know what we were soldiers for, if not to fight our enemies when we saw them in front of us.
“Steady on, old Flash,” says Lawrence, who was with Shelton just then. “It’s no use chasing ’em and getting cut up in the hills; they’ll be too many for you.”
“It’s too bad!” I bawled, slapping my sabre. “Are we just to wait for ’em to chew us up as they please, then? Why, Lawrence, I could clear that hillside with twenty Frenchmen, or old ladies!”
“Bravo!” cries Lady Sale, clapping her hands. “You hear, gentlemen?”
There was a knot of the staff round Elphy’s palankeen, with Shelton in the middle of them, and they were none too pleased to hear the old dragon crowing at them. Shelton bristled up, and told me to hold my place and do as I was told.
“At your orders, sir,” says I, mighty stiff, and Elphy joined in.
“No, no, Flashman,” says he. “The Brigadier is right. We must preserve order.” This, in the middle of a column that was a great sprawling mass of troops and people and animals, with no direction at all, and their baggage scattered.
Mackenzie, coming up, told me that my party and his jezzailchis must flank the column closely, watching the likely places, and driving in hard when the Afghans appeared – what the Americans call “riding herd”. You can guess what I thought of this, but I agreed heartily with Mac, especially when it came to picking out the most likely spots for attack, so that I could keep well clear of them. It was simple enough, really, for the Afghans would only come where we were not, and at this time they were less interested in killing soldiers than in cutting up the unarmed niggers and pillaging the baggage animals.
They made pretty good practice at this during the morning, running in and slitting a throat and running off again. I did pretty well, halloo-ing to my lancers and thundering along the line of march, mostly near the headquarters section. Only once, when I was down by the rearguard, did I come face to face with a Ghazi; the fool must have mistook me for a nigger, in my poshteen and turban, for he came yelling down on a party of servants close by and cut up an old woman and a couple of brats. There was a troop of Shah’s cavalry not far off, so I couldn’t hang back; the Ghazi was on foot, so I let out a great roar and charged him, hoping he would sheer off at the sight of a mounted soldier. He did, too, and like an ass I tried to ride him down, thinking it would be safe enough to have a swipe at him. But the brute whipped round and slashed at me with his Khyber knife, and only by the grace of God did I take the cut on my sabre. I drove on past him, and wheeled just in time to see one of my lancers charging in to skewer him beautifully. Still, I had a good hack at him, for luck, and was able to trot up the line presently looking stern, and with my point impressively bloody.
It had been a lesson to me, though, and I took even greater care to be out of distance whenever they made a sortie out of the hills. It was nerve-racking work, and it was all I could do to maintain a bold-looking front as the morning wore on; the brutes were getting braver all the time, and apart from their charges there was an uncomfortable