Flashman at the Charge. George Fraser MacDonald
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I cheered him up with a few tales of my own desperate deeds in Afghanistan and elsewhere, just to remind him that a cautious campaigner isn’t necessarily a milksop. Then I took him the rounds, of clubs, and the Horse Guards, and the Park, presented him to anyone of consequence whom I felt it might be useful to toady – and, by George, I had no shortage of friends and fawners when the word got about who he was. I hadn’t seen so many tuft-hunters since I came home from Afghanistan.
You may imagine how Elspeth took the news, when I notified her that Prince Albert had looked me up and given me a Highness to take in tow. She squealed with delight – and then went into a tremendous flurry about how we must give receptions and soirées in his honour, and Hollands would have to provide new curtains and carpet, and extra servants must be hired, and who should she invite, and what new clothes she must have – ‘for we shall be in everyone’s eye now, and I shall be an object of general remark whenever I go out, and everyone will wish to call – oh, it will be famous! – and we shall be receiving all the time, and—’
‘Calm yourself, my love,’ says I. ‘We shan’t be receiving – we shall be being received. Get yourself a few new duds, by all means, if you’ve room for ’em, and then – wait for the pasteboards to land on the mat.’
And they did, of course. There wasn’t a hostess in Town but was suddenly crawling to Mrs Flashman’s pretty feet, and she gloried in it. I’ll say that for her, there wasn’t an ounce of spite in her nature, and while she began to condescend most damnably, she didn’t cut anyone – perhaps she realised, like me, that it never pays in the long run. I was pretty affable myself, just then, and pretended not to hear one or two of the more jealous remarks that were dropped – about how odd it was that Her Majesty hadn’t chosen one of the purple brigade to squire her young cousin, not so much as Guardee even, but a plain Mr – and who the deuce were the Flashmans anyway?
But the press played up all right; The Times was all approval that ‘a soldier, not a courtier, has been entrusted with the grave responsibility entailed in the martial instruction of the young prince. If war should come, as it surely must if Russian imperial despotism and insolence try our patience further, what better guardian and mentor of His Highness could be found than the Hector of Afghanistan? We may assert with confidence – none.’ (I could have asserted with confidence, any number, and good luck to ’em.)
Even Punch, which didn’t have much to say for the Palace, as a rule, and loathed the Queen’s great brood of foreign relations like poison, had a cartoon showing me frowning at little Willy under a signpost of which one arm said ‘Hyde Park’ and the other ‘Honour and Duty’, and saying: ‘What, my boy, do you want to be a stroller or a soldier? You can’t be both if you march in step with me.’ Which delighted me, naturally, although Elspeth thought it didn’t make me look handsome enough.
Little Willy, in the meantime, was taking to all this excitement like a Scotchman to drink. Under a natural shyness, he was a breezy little chap, quick, eager to please, and good-natured; he could be pretty cool with anyone over-familiar, but he could charm marvellously when he wanted – as he did with Elspeth when I took him home to tea. Mind you, the man who doesn’t want to charm Elspeth is either a fool or a eunuch, and little Willy was neither, as I discovered on our second day together, as we were strolling up Haymarket – we’d been shopping for a pair of thunder-and-lightningsfn2 which he admired. It was latish afternoon, and the tarts were beginning to parade; little Willy goggled at a couple of painted princesses swaying by in all their finery, ogling, and then he says to me in a reverent whisper:
‘Harry – I say, Harry – those women – are they—’
‘Whores,’ says I. ‘Never mind ’em. Now, tomorrow, Willy, we must visit the Artillery Mess, I think, and see the guns limbering up in—’
‘Harry,’ says he. ‘I want a whore.’
‘Eh?’ says I. ‘You don’t want anything of the sort, my lad.’ I couldn’t believe my ears.
‘I do, though,’ says he, and damme, he was gaping after them like a satyr, this well-brought-up, Christian little princeling. ‘I have never had a whore.’
‘I should hope not!’ says I, quite scandalised. ‘Now, look here, young Willy, this won’t answer at all. You’re not to think of such things for a moment. I won’t have this … this lewdness. Why, I’m surprised at you! What would – why, what would Her Majesty have to say to such talk? Or Dr Winter, eh?’
‘I want a whore,’ says he, quite fierce. ‘I … I know it is wrong – but I don’t care! Oh, you have no notion what it is like! Since I was quite small, they have never even let me talk to girls – at home I was not even allowed to play with my little cousins at kiss-in-the-ring, or anything! They would not let me go to dancing-classes, in case it should excite me! Dr Winter is always lecturing me about thoughts that pollute, and the fearful punishments awaiting fornicators when they are dead, and accusing me of having carnal thoughts! Of course I have, the old fool! Oh, Harry, I know it is sinful – but I don’t care! I want one,’ says this remarkable youth dreamily, with a blissful look coming over his pure, chaste, boyish visage, ‘with long golden hair, and big, big round—’
‘Stop that this minute!’ says I. ‘I never heard the like!’
‘And she will wear black satin boots buttoning up to her thighs,’ he added, licking his lips.
I’m not often stumped, but this was too much. I know youth has hidden fires, but this fellow was positively ablaze. I tried to cry him down, and then reason with him, for the thought of his cutting a dash through the London bordellos and trotting back to Buckingham Palace with the clap, or some harpy pursuing him for blackmail, made my blood run cold. But it was no good.
‘If you say me nay,’ says he, quite determined, ‘I shall find one myself.’
I couldn’t budge him. So in the end I decided to let him have his way, and make sure there were no snags, and that it was done safe and quiet. I took him off to a very high-priced place I knew in St John’s Wood, swore the old bawd to secrecy, and stated the randy little pig’s requirements. She did him proud, too, with a strapping blonde wench – satin boots and all – and at the sight of her Willy moaned feverishly and pointed, quivering, like a setter. He was trying to clamber all over her almost before the door closed, and of course he made a fearful mess of it, thrashing away like a stoat in a sack, and getting nowhere. It made me quite sentimental to watch him – reminded me of my own ardent youth, when every coupling began with an eager stagger across the floor trying to disentangle one’s breeches from one’s ankles.
I had a brisk, swarthy little gypsy creature on the other couch, and we were finished and toasting each other in iced claret before Willy and his trollop had got properly buckled to. She was a knowing wench, however, and eventually had him galloping away like an archdeacon on holiday, and afterwards we settled down to a jolly supper of salmon and cold curry. But before we had reached the ices Willy was itching to be at grips with his girl again – where these young fellows get the fire from beats me. It was too soon for me, so while he walloped along I and the gypsy passed an improving few moments spying through a peephole into the next chamber, where a pair of elderly naval men were cavorting with three Chinese sluts. They were worse than Willy – it’s those long voyages, I suppose.
When we finally took our leave, Willy was fit to be blown away by the first puff of wind, but pleased as punch with himself.
‘You are a beautiful whore,’ says he to the blonde. ‘I am quite delighted with you, and shall visit you frequently.’ He did, too, and must have spent a fortune on her in tin, of which he had loads, of course. Being of a young and developing nature, as Raglan would have said, he tried as many other strumpets in the establishment as he could manage, but it was the blonde lass as often as not. He got quite spoony over her. Poor Willy.
So his military education progressed, and Raglan chided me for working him too hard. ‘His Highness appears quite pale,’ says he. ‘I fear you have him too much at the grindstone, Flashman. He must have some recreation as well, you know.’ I could have told him