Flashman at the Charge

Part one of a new adventure satire

Explanatory Note

When the Flashman Papers, that vast personal memoir describing the adult career of the notorious bully of Tom Brown's Schooldays, came to light some years ago, it was at once evident that new and remarkable material was going to be added to Victorian history. In the first three packets of the memoirs, already published by permission of their owner, Mr. Paget Morrison, Flashman described his early military career, his participation in the ill-fated First Afghan War, his involvement (with Bismarck and Lola Montez) in the Schleswig-Holstein Question and his fugitive adventures as a slaver in West Africa, an abolitionist agent in the United States and an erstwhile associate of Congressman Abraham Lincoln, Mr. Disraeli and others.

It will be seen from this that the great soldier's recollections were not all of a purely military nature, and those who regretted that these earlier papers contained no account of his major campaigns (Indian Mutiny, U. S. Civil War, etc.) will doubtless take satisfaction that in the present volume he deals with his experiences in the Crimea, as well as in other even more colourful---and possibly more important---theatres of conflict. That he adds much to the record of social and military history, illumines many curious byways and confirms modern opinions of his own deplorable character goes without saying, but his general accuracy, where he deals with well-known events and personages, and his transparent honesty, at least as a memorialist, are evidence that the present volume is as trustworthy as those which preceded it.

As editor, I have only corrected his spelling and added the usual footnotes and appendices. The rest is Flashman. --- G. M. F.

The moment after lew nolan wheeled his horse away and disappeared over the edge of the escarpment with Raglan's message tucked in his gauntlet, I knew I was for it. Raglan was still dithering away to himself, as usual, and I heard him cry: "No, Airey, stay a moment---send after him!" and Airey beckoned me from where I was trying to hide myself nonchalantly behind the other gallopers of the staff. I had had my bellyful that day, my luck had been stretched as long as a Jew's memory and I knew for certain that another trip across the Balaclava plain would be disaster for old Flashy. I was right, too.

And I remember thinking, as I waited trembling for the order that would launch me after Lew towards the Light Brigade, where they sat at rest on the turf 700 feet below---this, I reflected bitterly, is what comes of hanging about pool halls and toad-eating Prince Albert. Both of which, you'll agree, are perfectly natural things for a fellow to do, if he likes playing billiards and has a knack of grovelling gracefully to royalty. But when you see what came of these apparently harmless diversions, you'll allow that there's just no security anywhere, however hard one tries. I should know, with my 20-odd campaigns and wounds to match---not one of 'em did I go looking for, and the Crimea least of all. Yet there I was again, the reluctant Flashy, sabre on hip, bowels rumbling and whiskers bristling with pure terror, on the brink of the greatest cavalry carnage in the history of war. It's enough to make you weep.

You will wonder, if you've read my earlier memoirs (which I suppose are as fine a record of knavery, cowardice and fleeing for cover as you'll find outside the covers of Hansard), what fearful run of ill fortune got me to Balaclava at all. So I had better get things in their proper order, like a good memorialist, and before describing the events of that lunatic engagement, tell you of the confoundedly unlucky chain of trivial events that took me there. It should convince you of the necessity of staying out of poolrooms and shunning the society of royalty.

It was early in '54, and I had been at home some time, sniffing about, taking things very easy and considering how I might lie low and enjoy a quiet life in England while my military colleagues braved shot and shell in Russia on behalf of the innocent defenceless Turk---not that there's any such thing, in my experience, which is limited to my encounter with a big fat Constantinople houri who tried to stab me in bed for my money belt, and then had the effrontery to call the police when I thrashed her. I've never had a high opinion of Turks, and when I saw the war clouds gathering on my return to England that year, the last thing I was prepared to do was offer my services against the Russian tyrant.

One of the difficulties of being a popular hero, though, is that it's difficult to wriggle out of sight when the bugle blows. I hadn't taken the field on England's behalf for about eight years, but neither had anyone else, much, and when the press starts to beat the drum and the public are clamouring for the foreigners' blood to be spilled---by someone other than themselves---they have a habit of looking round for their old champions. The laurels I had won so undeservedly in the Afghan business were still bright enough to catch attention. I decided, and it would be damned embarrassing if people in town started saying: "Hollo, here's old Flash, just the chap to set upon Tsar Nicholas. Going back to the Cherrypickers, Flashy, are you? By Jove, pity the poor Rooskis when the Hero of Gandamack sets about 'em, eh, what?" As one of the former bright particular stars of the cavalry, who had covered himself with glory from Kabul to the Khyber, I wouldn't be able to say, "No, thank'ee, I think I'll sit out this time." Not and keep any credit, anyway. And credit's the thing, if you're as big a coward as I am and want to enjoy life with an easy mind.

So I looked about for a way out and found a deuced clever one---I rejoined the army. That is to say, I went round to the Horse Guards, where my Uncle Bindley was still holding on in pursuit of his pension, and took up my colours again, which isn't difficult when you know the right people. But the smart thing was, I didn't ask for a cavalry posting, or a staff mount, or anything risky of that nature; instead, I applied for the Board of Ordnance, for which I knew I was better qualified than most of its members, inasmuch as I knew which end of a gun the ball came out of. Let me once be installed there, in a comfortable office off Horse Guards, which I might well visit as often as once a fortnight, and Mars could go whistle for me.

And if anyone said, "What, Flash, you old blood drinker, ain't you off to Turkey to carve up the Cossacks?" I'd look solemn and talk about the importance of administration and supply and the need for having at home headquarters some experienced fieldmen---the cleverer ones, of course---who would see what was required for the front. With my record for gallantry (totally false though it was), no one could doubt my sincerity.

Bindley naturally asked me what the deuce I knew about firearms, being a cavalryman, and I pointed out that that mattered a good deal less than the fact that I was related, on my mother's side, to Lord Paget, of the God's Anointed Pagets, who happened to be a member of the small-arms select committee. He'd be ready enough, I thought, to give a billet as personal secretary, confidential civilian aide and general talebearer to a well-seasoned campaigner who was also a kinsman.

"Well-seasoned Haymarket hussar," sniffs Bindley, who was from the common, or Flashman, side of our family and hated being reminded of my highly placed relatives. "I fancy rather more than that will be required."

"India and Afghanistan ain't in the Haymarket, Uncle," says I, looking humble-offended, "and if it comes to firearms, well, I've handled enough of 'em, brown Bess, Dreyse needles. Colts, Lancasters, Brunswicks, and so forth"---I'd handled them with considerable reluctance, but he didn't know that.

"Hm," says he, pretty sour. "This is a curiously humble ambition for one who was once the pride of the plungers. However, since you can hardly be less useful to the Ordnance Board than you would be if you returned to the wastrel existence you led in the Eleventh---before they removed you---I shall speak to his lordship."

I could see he was puzzled, and he sniffed some more about the mighty being fallen, but he didn't begin to guess at my real motive. For one thing, the war was still some time off and the official talk was that it would probably be avoided, but I was taking no risks of being caught unprepared. When there's been a bad harvest, and workers are striking, and young chaps have developed a craze for growing moustaches and whiskers, just watch out.1 The country was full of discontent and mischief, largely because England hadn't had a real war for 40 years and only a few of us knew what fighting was like. The rest were full of rage and stupidity, and all because some Papists and Turkish niggers had quarrelled about the nailing of a star to a door in Palestine. Mind you, nothing surprises me.

When I got home and announced my intention of joining the Board of Ordnance, my darling wife, Elspeth, was mortified beyond belief.

"Why, oh, why, Harry, could you not have sought an appointment in the hussars or some other fashionable regiment? You looked so beautiful and dashing in those wonderful pink pantaloons! Sometimes I think they were what won my heart in the first place, the day you came to Father's house. I suppose that in the Ordnance they wear some horrid drab overalls, and how can you take me riding in the Row dressed like ... like a common commissary person or something?"

"Shan't wear uniform," says I. "Just civilian toggings, my dear. And you'll own my tailor's a good one, since you chose him yourself."

"That will be quite as bad," says she, "with all the other husbands in their fine uniforms---and you looked so well and dashing. Could you not be a hussar again, my love---just for me?"

When Elspeth pouted those red lips and heaved her remarkable bosom in a sigh, my thoughts always galloped bed-wards, and she knew it. But I couldn't be weakened that way, as I explained.

"Can't be done. Cardigan won't have me back in the Eleventh, you may be sure; why, he kicked me out in 'Forty."

"Because I was a . . . a tradesman's daughter, he said. I know." For a moment I thought she would weep. "Well, I am not so now. Father---"

"Bought a peerage just in time before he died, so you are a baron's daughter. Yes, my love, but that won't serve for Jim the Bear. I doubt if he fancies bought nobility much above no rank at all."

"Oh, how horridly you put it. Anyway, I am sure that is not so, because he danced twice with me last season, while you were away, at Lady Brown's assembly---yes, and at the cavalry ball, I distinctly remember, because I wore my gold ruflled dress and my hair à l'Impératrice, and he said I looked like an empress, indeed. Was that not gallant? And he bows to me in the park, and we have spoken several times. He seems a very kind old gentleman and not at all gruff, as they say."

"Is he, now?" says I. I didn't care for the sound of this: I knew Cardigan for as lecherous an old goat as ever tore off breeches. "Well, kind or not as he may seem, he's one to beware of, for your reputation's sake and mine. Anyway, he won't have me back---and I don't fancy him much, either, so that settles it."

She made a mouth at this. "Then I think you are both very stubborn and foolish. Oh, Harry, I am quite miserable about it; and poor little Havvy, too, would be so proud to have his father in one of the fine regiments, with a grand uniform. He will be so downcast."

Poor little Havvy, by the way, was our son and heir, a boisterous malcontent (continued on page 136)Flashman At The Charge(continued from page 90) five-year-old who made the house hideous with his noise and was forever hitting his shuttlecocks about the place. I wasn't by any means sure that I was his father, for, as I have explained before, my Elspeth hid a monstrously passionate nature under her beautifully innocent roses-and-cream exterior, and I suspected that she had been bounced about by half of London during the 14 years of our marriage. I'd been away a good deal, of course. But I'd never caught her out ---mind you, that meant nothing, for she'd never caught me, and I had had more than would make a handrail round Hyde Park. But whatever we both suspected we kept to ourselves and dealt very well. I loved her, you see, in a way which was not entirely carnal, and I think, I believe, I hope, that she worshipped me, although I've never made up my mind about that.

But I had my doubts about the paternity of little Havvy---so called because his names were Harry Albert Victor, and he couldn't say Harry properly, generally because his mouth was full. My chum Speedicut, I remember, who is a coarse brute, claimed to see a conclusive resemblance to me: When Havvy was a few weeks old and Speed came to the nursery to see him getting his rations, he said the way the infant went after the nurse's tits proved beyond doubt whose son he was.

"Little Havvy," I told Elspeth, "is much too young to care a feather what uniform his father wears. But my present work is important, my love, and you would not have me shirk my duty. Perhaps, later, I may transfer"---I would, too, as soon as it looked safe---"and you will be able to lead your cavalryman to drums and balls and in the Row to your heart's content."

It cheered her up, like a sweet to a child; she was an astonishingly shallow creature in that way. More like a lovely flaxen-haired doll come to life than a woman with a human brain, I often thought. Still, that has its conveniences, too.

In any event, Bindley spoke for me to Lord Paget, who took me in tow, and so I joined the Board of Ordnance. And it was the greatest bore, for his lordship proved to be one of those meddling fools who insist on taking an interest in the work of committees to which they are appointed---as if a lord is ever expected to do anything but lend the light of his countenance and his title. He actually put me to work, and not being an engineer or knowing more of stresses and moments than sufficed to get me in and out of bed, I was assigned to musketry testing at the Woolwich laboratory, which meant standing on firing points while the marksmen of the Royal Small Arms Factory blazed away at the "eunuchs."2 The fellows there were a very common lot, engineers and the like, full of nonsense about the virtues of the Minié as compared with the Long Enfield .577, and the Pritchett bullet, and the Aston back sight---there was tremendous work going on just then, of course, to find a new rifle for the army, and Molesworth's committee was being set up to make the choice. It was all one to me if they decided on harquebuses; after a month spent listening to them prosing about jamming ramrods and getting oil on my trousers, I found myself sharing the view of old General Scarlett, who once told me:

"Splendid chaps the Ordnance, but dammem, a powder monkey's a powder monkey, ain't he? Let 'em fill the cartridges and bore the guns, but don't expect me to know a .577 from a mortar! What concern is that of a gentleman---or a soldier, either? Hey? Hey?"

Indeed, I began to wonder how long I could stand it, and settled for spending as little time as I could on my duties and devoting myself to the social life. Elspeth at 30 seemed to be developing an even greater appetite, if that were possible, for parties and dances and the opera and assemblies, and when I wasn't squiring her, I was busy about the clubs and the Haymarket, getting back into my favourite swing of devilled bones, mulled port and low company, riding round Albert Gate by day and St. John's Wood by night, racing, playing pool, carousing with Speed and the lads and keeping the Cyprians busy. London is always lively, but there was a wild mood about in those days and growing wilder as the weeks passed. It was all: When will the war break out? For soon it was seen that it must come, the press and the street-corner orators were baying for Russian blood.

I listened to a mob in Piccadilly singing about how British arms would "tame the frantic autocrat and smite the Russian slave," and consoled myself with the thought that I would be snug and safe down at Woolwich, doing less than my share to see that they got the right guns to do it with. And so I might, if I hadn't loafed out one evening to play pool with Speed in the Haymarket.

We had played a few games of sausage in the Piccadilly Rooms when a dragoon named Cutts came by and offered us a match at billiards for a quid a hundred. But, after he'd taken a fiver apiece from us, I was sick of it. There are some smart alecks I can't abide to be beat by---and Cutts, whose luck was dead in, was crowing too loud for me. So, leaving Speed to play him again, I mooched over to watch a game going on at a corner table. One of the regular sharks---a grinning specimen with ginger-coloured whisker---was fleecing a novice.

The lamb about to be sheared was a proper-looking mama's boy, no more than 18, who looked as though he'd be more at home handing cucumber sandwiches to Aunt Jane than pushing a cue. They were playing pyramids, and I watched as the shark led him on bit by bit, first pretending to have bad luck, then finally potting the last four balls perfectly. He took £15 off the boy and walked away, calling to the waiter for champagne.

The little gudgeon was standing woebegone, holding his limp purse. I thought of speeding him on his way with a taunt or two, but then I had a bright idea. "Cleaned out, Snooks?" says I. "He rooked you properly, didn't he? Care for a drink to drown your sorrows?"

He started to turn away, looking suspicious. "I thank you, no," says he. "I have no money left whatever."

"Hold on," says I, "I'm no Captain Sharp. I'll stand the drinks." In two minutes, I had him looking into a brandy glass, giving him some cheery comfort, and soon we were chatting away like old companions. He was a foreigner, I gathered, doing the tour, and he had managed to slip away from his tutor for a peep at the fleshpots of London.

"At least it has been a lesson to me," says he. "But how shall I explain my empty purse to Dr. Winter?"

"Dam' slack of him to let you slip off," says I. "He'll likely be so glad to get you back that he won't ask too many questions." You may wonder why I was being so pleasant to this flat, but I had my eye on the table where Cutts was trimming up Speed and gloating over it. "I'll tell you what," I went on, "I can't put the fifteen sovs back in your pocket, but I'll see that you win a game just for the credit."

He nodded doubtfully, but I could see that he was still fascinated, staring about at the players in their flowery weskits, tall hats and enormous whiskers, others in the new style of fantastic shirts with death's heads, frogs and serpents all over them. I slipped over to one of the markers whom I knew well and whispered, "Joe, give me a shaved ball, will you? It's just for a lark. No money, no rooking."

He hesitated, but then he went behind the counter and came back with a set of billiard balls. "Spot's the boy," he whispered, "but no nonsense, on your honour, Cap'n Flashman."

I went over to where Cutts had just finished demolishing Speed and told Cutts I had a fellow who wanted to play him, "That little terror over in the corner," says I. And so, with his toadies in his wake, guffawing and making an uproar, he offered to play the little greenhorn.

You've probably never seen a shaved ball used---but you wouldn't know it if you have. It's one that has had just a delicate shaving of ivory peeled from one side of it. The flat, who gets the ball to play, never suspects a thing, because it can't be detected except for the slowest of slow shots, when it will waver ever so slightly before it stops. Well, it did handsomely here. Cutts missed cannons by a whisker; his shots rattled in the jaws of the pockets and stayed out; and when he tried a jenny, he often missed the red altogether.

It all ended up with Cutts's losing by 30 points, swearing and fuming, while Speed took our young champion off for a drink. "You'd better take up whist with old ladies," says I to Cutts. "With all your whiskers, I'd never have guessed you'd get such a close shave." With a sudden oath, he snatched up the spot ball and looked at it.

"Curse you, Flashman, you've sharped me! Where is that little toad?---I'll have him thrashed."

But his pals were all laughing and falling against each other, and I said, "Hold your wind, you lost no money. It will teach you to play billiards with little flats from the nursery." And so I left him, thoroughly shaken down.

I took up with Speed and the greenhorn, who was now waxing voluble in the grip of booze, and off we went. I thought it would be capital sport to take him along to one of the accommodation houses in Haymarket and get him paired off with a whore in a galloping wheelbarrow race, for it was certain he'd never been astride a female in his life, and it would have been splendid to see them bumping across the floor together on hands and knees towards the winning post. But we stopped off for punch on the way and the little snirp got so fuddled he couldn't even walk. We helped him along, but he was maudlin, so we took off his trousers in an alley off Regent Street, painted his arse with blacking which we bought for a penny on the way, and then shouted, "Come on, peelers! Here's the scourge of A Division waiting to set about you! Come on and be damned to you!" And as soon as the bobbies hove in sight we cut, and left them to find our little friend, nose down in the gutter, with his black bum sticking up in the air.

I went home well pleased that night, only wishing I could have been present when Dr. Winter came face to face again with his erring pupil.

And that night's work changed my life and preserved India for the British crown---what do you think of that? It's true enough, though, as you'll see.

However, the fruits didn't appear for a few days after that, and in the meantime, another thing happened which also has a place in my story. I renewed an old acquaintance, who was to play a considerable part in my affairs over the next few months---and that was full of consequence, too, for him, and me, and history.

I had spent the day keeping out of Paget's way at the Horse Guards and chatting part of the time, I remember, with Colonel Colt, the American gun expert, who was there to give evidence before the select committee on firearms.3 (I ought to remember our conversation, but I don't, so it was probably damned dull and technical.) Afterwards, however, I went up to town to meet Elspeth in the Ride and take her on to tea with one of her Mayfair women.

She was sidesaddling it up the Ride, wearing her best mulberry rig and a plumed hat, and looking ten times as fetching as any female in view. But as I trotted up alongside, I near as not fell out of my saddle with surprise, for she had a companion with her, and who should it be but my Lord Haw-Haw himself, the Earl of Cardigan.

I don't suppose I had exchanged a word with him---indeed, I had hardly seen him, and then only at a distance ---since he had packed me off to India 14 years before. I had loathed the brute then, and time hadn't softened the sentiment: He was the swine who had kicked me out of the Cherrypickers for (irony of ironies) marrying Elspeth and committed me to the horrors of the Afghan campaign. And here he was, getting spooney round my wife, whom he had affected to despise once on a day for her lowly origins. And spooning to some tune, too, by the way he was leaning confidentially across from his saddle, his rangy old boozy face close to her blonde and beautiful one, and the little slut was laughing and looking radiant.

She caught my eye and waved and his lordship looked me over in his high-nosed damn-you way which I remembered so well. He would be in his mid-50s by now, and it showed: The whiskers were greying, the gooseberry eyes were watery and the legions of bottles he had consumed had cracked the veins in that fine nose of his. But he still rode straight as a lance, and if his voice was wheezy, it had lost nothing of its plunger drawl.

"Haw-haw," says he, "it is Fwashman, I see. Where have you been, sir? Hiding away these many years, I dare say, with this lovely lady. Haw-haw. How-de-do, Fwashman? Do you know, my dear"--- this to Elspeth, damn his impudence--- "I decware that this fine fellow, your husband, has put on fwesh alarmingly since last I saw him. Haw-haw. Always was too heavy for a wight dwagoon, but now---pwepostewous! You feed him too well, my dear! Haw-haw!"

It was a damned lie, of course, no doubt designed to draw a comparison with his own fine figure---scrawny, some might have thought it. I could have kicked his lordly backside and given him a piece of my mind.

"Good day, milord," says I with my best toady smile. "May I say how well your lordship is looking? In good health, I trust."

"Thank'ee," says he and, turning to Elspeth: "As I was saying, we have the vewy finest hunting at Deene. Spwendid sport, don't ye know, and specially wecommended for young wadies wike yourself. You must come to visit---you, too, Fwashman. You wode pwetty well, as I wecollect. Haw-haw."

"You honour me with the recollection, milord," says I, wondering what would happen if I smashed him between the eyes. "But I---"

"Yaas," says he, turning languidly back to Elspeth. "No doubt your husband has many duties---in the Ordnance, is it not, or some such thing? Haw-haw. But you must come down, my dear, with one of your fwiends, for a good wong stay, what? The faiwest bwossoms bwoom best in countwy aiw, don't ye know? Haw-haw." And the old scoundrel had the gall to lean over and pat her hand.

She, the little ninny, was all for it, giving him a dazzling smile and protesting he was too, too kind---this aged satyr who was old enough to be her father and had vice leering out of every wrinkle in his face. Of course, where climbing little snobs like Elspeth are concerned, there ain't such a thing as an ugly peer of the realm, but even she could surely have seen how grotesque his advances were. Of course, women love it.

"In the meantime, my dear, I shall wook to see you widing hereabouts. Haw-haw. I dewight to see a female who wides so gwacefully. Decidedwy, you must come to Deene. Haw-haw." He took off his hat to her, bowing from the waist--- and a Polish hussar couldn't have done it better, dammem. "Good day to you, Mrs. Fwashman." He gave me the merest nod and cantered off up the Ride, cool as you please.

Of course, swearing and prosing were both lost on Elspeth; when I had vented my bile against Cardigan, I tried to (continued on page 220)Lashman At The Charge(continued from page 138) point out to her the folly of accepting the attentions of such a notorious roué, but she took this as mere jealousy on my part---not jealousy of a sexual kind, mark you, but supposedly rooted in the fact that here she was, climbing in the social world, spooned over by peers, while I was labouring humbly in an office like any Cratchit.

But in the next few days I had other things to distract me from Elspeth's nonsense; my jape in the poolroom with the little greenhorn came home to roost, and in the most unexpected way. I received a summons from my Lord Raglan, of all people.

You will know all about him, no doubt. He was the ass who presided over the mess we made in the Crimea and won deathless fame as the man who murdered the Light Brigade. He should have been a parson, or an Oxford don, or a waiter, for he was the kindliest, softest-voiced old stick who ever spared a fellow creature's feelings---that was what was wrong with him, that he couldn't for the life of him say an unkind word or set anyone down. And this was the man who was the heir to Wellington---as I sat in his office, looking across at his kindly old face, with its rumpled white hair and long nose, and found my eyes straying to the empty right sleeve tucked into his breast, he looked so pathetic and frail, I shuddered inwardly. Thank God, thinks I, that I won't be in this chap's campaign.

They had just made him commander in chief, after years spent bumbling about at the Horse Guards and on the Board of Ordnance, and he was supposed to be taking matters in hand for the coming conflict. So you may guess that the matter on which he had sent for me was one of the gravest national import---Prince Albert, our saintly Bertie the Beauty, wanted a new aide-de-camp, or equerry, or toadeater extraordinary, and nothing would do but our new commander must set all else aside to explain.

Raglan approached the thing in his usual roundabout way, by going through a personal history which his minions must have put together for him.

"I see you are thirty-one years old, Flashman," says he. "Well, well, I had thought you older---why, you must have been only---yes, nineteen, when you won your spurs at Kabul. Dear me! So young. And you have served in India, against the Sikhs, but have been on half pay these six years, more or less. In that time, I believe, you have travelled widely?"

Usually at high speed, thinks I, and not in circumstances I'd care to tell your lordship about. Aloud I confessed to acquaintance with France, Germany, the United States, Madagascar, West Africa and the East Indies.

"And I see you have languages---excellent French, German, Hindoostanee, Persian---bless my soul!---and Pushtu. Thanks of Parliament in 'Forty-two, Queen's Medal---well, well, these are quite singular accomplishments, you know." And he laughed in his easy way. "And apart from Company service, you were formerly, as I apprehend, of the Eleventh Hussars. Under Lord Cardigan. Aha. Well, now, Flashman, tell me, what took you to the Board of Ordnance?"

I was ready for that one and spun him a tale about improving my military education, because no field officer could know too much, and so on, and so on....

"Yes, that is very true, and I commend it in you. But you know, Flashman, while I never dissuade a young man from studying all aspects of his profession---which, indeed, my own mentor, the Great Duke, impressed on us, his young men, as most necessary---still, I wonder if the Ordnance Board is really for you.

"I think it a most happy chance," he went on, "that only yesterday his Royal Highness, Prince Albert"---he said it with reverence---"confided to me the task of finding a young officer for a post of considerable delicacy and importance. He must, of course, be wellborn---your mother was Lady Alicia Paget, was she not? I remember the great pleasure I had in dancing with her, oh, how many years ago? Well, well, it is no matter. A quadrille, I fancy. However, station alone is not sufficient in this case, or I confess I should have looked to the Guards." Well, that was candid, damn him. "The officer selected must also have shown himself resourceful, valiant and experienced in camp and battle. That is essential. He must be young, of equable disposition and good education, unblemished, I need not say, in personal reputation"---God knows how he'd come to pick on me, thinks I, but he went on---"and yet a man who knows his world. But above all---what our good old duke would have called 'a man of his hands.'" He beamed at me. "I believe your name must have occurred to me at once, had His Highness not mentioned it first. It seems our gracious queen had recollected you to him." Well, well, thinks I, little Vicky remembers my whiskers after all these years. I recalled how she had mooned tearfully at me when she pinned my medal on, back in '42---they're all alike, you know, can't resist a dashing boy with big shoulders and a trot-along look in his eye.

"So I may now confide in you," he went on, "what this most important duty consists in. You have not heard, I dare say, of Prince William of Celle? He is one of Her Majesty's European cousins, who has been visiting here some time, incognito, studying our English ways, preparatory to pursuing a military career in the British army. It is his family's wish that when our forces go overseas---as soon they must, I believe---he shall accompany us, as a member of my staff. But while he will be under my personal eye, as it were, it is most necessary that he should be in the immediate care of the kind of officer I have mentioned---one who will guide his youthful footsteps, guard his person, shield him from temptation, further His military education and supervise his physical and spiritual welfare in every way." Raglan smiled. "He is very young and a most amiable prince in every way; he will require a firm and friendly hand from one who can win the trust and respect of an ardent and developing nature. Well, Flashman, I have no doubt that between us we can make something of him. Do you not agree?"

By God, you've come to the right shop, thinks I. Flashy and Company, wholesale moralists, ardent and developing natures supervised, spiritual instruction guaranteed, prayers and laundry two bob extra. How the deuce had they picked on me? The queen, of course, but did Raglan know what kind of a fellow they had alighted on? Granted I was a hero, but I'd thought my randying about and boozing and general loose living were well known---by George, he must know! Maybe, secretly, he thought that was a qualification---I'm not sure he wasn't right. But the main point was, all my splendid schemes for avoiding shot and shell were out of court again; it was me for the staff, playing nursemaid to some little German pimp in the wilds of Turkey. Of all the hellish bad luck.

But of course I sat there jerking like a puppet, grinning foolishly---what else was there to do?

You have already guessed, no doubt, the shock that was in store for me at the palace next day. Raglan took me along, we went through the rigmarole of flunkeys with brushes that I remembered from my previous visit with Wellington, and we were ushered into a study where Prince Albert was waiting for us. There was a reverend creature and a couple of the usual court clowns in morning dress looking austere in the background---and there, at Albert's right hand, stood my little greenhorn of the billiard hall. The sight hit me like a ball in the leg---for a moment I stood stock-still while I gaped at the lad and he gaped at me, but then he recovered, and so did I, and as I made my deep bow at Raglan's side, I found myself wondering: Have they got that blacking off his arse yet?

I was aware that Albert was speaking, in that heavy, German voice; he was still the cold, well-washed exquisite I had first met 12 years ago, with those frightful whiskers that looked as though someone had tried to pluck them and left off halfway through. "I un-erstend you were at Rugby School, Captain? Ah, but wait---a captain? That will hardly do, I think. A colonel, no?" And he looked at Raglan, who said the same notion had occurred to him. Well, thinks I, if that's how promotion goes, I'm all for it.

"At Rugby School," repeated Albert. "That is a great English school, Willy," says he to the greenhorn, "of the kind which turns younk boys like yourself into menn like Colonel Flash-mann here." Well, true enough, I'd found it a fair mixture of jail and knocking shop; I stood there trying to look like a chap who says his prayers in a cold bath every day.

"Colonel Flash-mann is a famous soldier in England, Willy; although he is quite younk, he has vun---won---laurelss for brafery in India. You see? Well, he will be your friend and teacher, Willy; you are to mind all that he says and obey him punctually and willingly, ass a soldier should. O-bedience is the first rule of an army, Willy, you un-erstend?"

The lad spoke for the first time, darting a nervous look at me. "Yes, Uncle Albert."

"Ver-ry goot, then. You may shake hands with Colonel Flash-mann."

The lad came forward hesitantly and held out his hand. "How do you do?" says he, and you could tell he had only lately learned the phrase.

"You address Colonel Flash-mann as 'sir,' Willy." says Albert. "He is your superior officer."

The kid blushed, and for the life of me, I can't think how I had the nerve to say it. with a stiff neck like Albert, but the favour I won with this boy was going to be important, after all---you can't have too many princely friends ---and I thought a Flashy touch was in order. So I said:

"With Your Highness' permission, I think 'Harry' will do when we're off parade. Hullo, youngster."

The boy looked startled, and then smiled, the court clowns started to look outraged, Albert looked puzzled, but then he smiled, too, and Raglan humhummed approvingly. Albert said:

"There, now, Willy, you have an English comrade. You see? Ver-ry goot. You will find there are none better. And now, you will go with---with Harry'" ---he gave a puffy smile and the court downs purred toadily---"and he will instruct you in your duties."

• • •

I've been about courts a good deal in my misspent career, and by and large I bar royalty pretty strong. They may be harmless enough folk in themselves, but they attract a desperate gang of placemen and hangers-on, and in my experience, the closer you get to the throne, the nearer you may finish up to the firing line. My occasional attachments to the Court of St. James's have been no exception; nursemaiding little Willy was really the most harrowing job of the lot.

Mind you, the lad was amiable enough in himself, and he took to me from the first.

"You are a brick," he told me as soon as we were alone. "Is that not the word? When I saw you today. I was sure you would tell them of the billiard place and I would be disgraced. But you said nothing---that was to be a true friend."

"Least said, soonest mended," says I. "But whatever did you run away for that night?---why, I'd have seen you home right enough. We couldn't think what had become of you."

"I do not know myself," says he. "I know that some ruffians set upon me in a dark place and ... stole some of my clothes." He blushed crimson and burst out: "I resisted them fiercely, but they were too many for me! And then the police came and Dr. Winter had to be sent for and---oh! There was such a fuss! But you were right---he was too fearful of his own situation to inform on me to their highnesses. However, I think it is by his insistence that a special guardian has been appointed for me." He gave me his shy, happy smile. "What luck that it should be you!"

Lucky, is it? thinks I. We'll see about that. We'd be off to the war, if ever the damned thing got started---but when I thought about it, it stood to reason they wouldn't risk little Willy's precious royal skin very far and his bear leader should be safe enough, too. All I said was:

"Well, I think Dr. Winter's right; you need somebody and a half to look after you, for you ain't safe on your own hook. So look'ee here---I'm an easy chap, as anyone'll tell you, but I'll stand no shines, d'ye see? Do as I tell you and we'll do famously and have good fun. But no sliding off on your own again--- or you'll find I'm no Dr. Winter."

We started off on the right foot, with a very pleasant round of tailors and gunsmiths and bootmakers and the rest, for the child hadn't a stick or stitch for a soldier and I aimed to see him---and myself---bang up to the nines. The luxury of being toadied through all the best shops and referring the bills to Her Majesty was one I wasn't accustomed to, and you may believe I made the most of it. At my tactful suggestion to Raglan, we were both gazetted in the 17th, who were lancers---no great style as a regiment, perhaps, but I knew it would make Cardigan gnash his elderly teeth when he heard of it, and I'd been a lancer myself in my Indian days. Also, to my eye it was the flashiest rig-out in the whole light cavalry, all blue and gold---the darker the better, when you've got the figure for it, which of course I had.

Anyway, young Willy clapped his hands when he saw himself in full fig and ordered another four like it---no one spends like visiting royalty, you know. Then he had to be horsed, and armed, and given lashings of civilian rig, and found servants and camp gear---and I spent a whole day on that alone. If we were going campaigning, I meant to make certain we did it with every conceivable luxury---wine at a sovereign the dozen, cigars at ten guineas the pound, preserved foods of the best, tiptop linen, quality spirits by the gallon and all the best of the stuff that you need if you're going to fight a war properly.

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 soirees in his honour, and Hollands would have to provide new curtains and carpet, and extra servants must be hired, and whom 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 realized, 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.)

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 overfamiliar, 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 Hay-market---we'd been shopping for a pair of thunder and lightnings [striped trousers] 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 scandalized. "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!"

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 to 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 spooney 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 that what young Willy needed was a pair of locked iron drawers with the key at the bottom of the Serpentine, but I nodded wisely and said it was sometimes difficult to restrain a young spirit eager for instruction and experience. In fact, when it came to things like learning the rudiments of staff work and army procedure, Willy couldn't have been sharper; my only fear was that he might become really useful and find himself being actively employed when we went East.

For we were going, there was now no doubt. War was finally declared at the end of March, in spite of Aberdeen's dithering, and the mob bayed with delight from Shetland to Land's End. To hear them, all we had to do was march into Moscow when we felt like it, with the frogs carrying our packs for us and the cowardly Russians skulking away before Britannia's flashing eyes. And mind you, I don't say that the British army and the French together couldn't have done it---given a Wellington. They were sound at bottom and the Russians weren't. I'll tell you something else, which military historians never realize: They call the Crimea a disaster, which it was, and a hideous botch-up by our staff and supply, which is also true, but what they don't know is that even with all these things in the balance against you, the difference between hellish catastrophe and brilliant success is sometimes no greater than the width of a sabre blade; but when all is over, no one thinks of that. Win gloriously---and the clever dicks forget all about the rickety ambulances that never came, and the rations that were rotten, and the boots that didn't fit, and the generals who'd have been better employed hawking bedpans round the doors. Lose---and these are the only things they talk about.

But I'll confess I saw the worst coming before we'd even begun. The very day war was declared, Willy and I reported ourselves to Raglan at Horse Guards. Raglan's anteroom was jammed with all sorts of people, Lucan, and Hardinge, and old Scarlett, and Anderson of the Ordnance, and there were staff-scrapers and orderlies running everywhere and saluting and bustling, and mounds of paper growing on the tables, and great consulting of maps ("Where the devil is Turkey?" someone was saying. "Do they have much rain there, d'ye suppose?"), but in the inner sanctum, all was peace and amiability. Raglan was talking about neck stocks, if I remember rightly, and how they should fasten well up under the chin.

We were kept well up to the collar, though, in the next month before our stout and thickheaded commander finally took his leave for the scene of war---Willy and I were not of his advance party, which pleased me, for there's no greater fag than breaking in new ground. We were all day staffing at the Horse Guards and Willy was either killing himself with kindness in St. John's Wood by night or attending functions about town, of which there were a feverish number. It's always the same before the shooting begins---the hostesses go into a frenzy of gaiety and all the spongers and civilians crawl out of the wainscotting braying with good fellowship because, thank God, they ain't going, and the young plungers and green striplings roister it up, and their fiancées let 'em pleasure them red in the face out of pity, because the poor brave boy is off to the cannon's mouth, and the dance goes on and the eyes grow brighter and the laughter shriller---and the older men in their dress uniforms look tired and sip their punch by the fireplace and don't say much at all.

Elspeth, of course, was in her element, dancing all night, laughing with the young blades and flirting with the old ones---Cardigan was still roostering about her, I noticed, with every sign of the little trollop's encouragement. He'd got himself the Light Cavalry Brigade, which had sent a great groan through every hussar and lancer regiment in the army, and was even fuller of bounce than usual---his ridiculous lisp and growling "Haw-haw" seemed to sound everywhere you went, and he was full of brag about how he and his beloved Cherrypickers would be the elite advanced force of the army.

"I believe they have given Wucan nominal charge of the cavalwy," I heard him tell a group of cronies at one party. "Well, I suppose they had to find him something, don't ye know, and he may vewy well look to wemounts, I dare say. Haw-haw. I hope poor Waglan does not find him too gweat an incubus. Haw-haw."

This was Lucan, his own brother-in-law; they detested each other, which isn't to be wondered at, since they were both detestable, Cardigan particularly. But his mighty lordship wasn't having it all his own way, for the press, who hated him, revived the old jibe about his Cherrypickers' tight pants and Punch dedicated a poem to him called Oh! Pantaloons of Cherry, which sent him wild. It was all gammon, really, for the pants were no tighter than anyone else's---I wore 'em long enough and should know---but it was good to see Jim the Bear roasting on the spit of popular amusement again. By God, I wish that spit had been a real one, with me to turn it.

It was a night in early May, I think, that Elspeth was bidden to some great drum in Mayfair to celebrate the first absolute fighting of the war, which had been reported a week or so earlier---our ships had bombarded Odessa and broken half the windows in the place, so, of course, the fashionable crowd had to rave and riot in honour of the great victory.4 I don't remember seeing Elspeth lovelier than she was that night, in a gown of some shimmering white satin stuff, and no jewels at all but only flowers coiled in her golden hair. I would have had at her before she even set out, but she was all afuss tucking little Havvy into his cot---as though the nurse couldn't do it ten times better---and was fearful that I would disarrange her appearance. I fondled her and promised I would put her through the drill when she came home, but she damped this by telling me that Marjorie had bidden her stay the night, although it was only a few streets away, because the dancing would go on until dawn and she would be too fatigued to return.

So off she fluttered, blowing me a kiss, and I snarled away to the Horse Guards, where I had to burn the midnight oil over sapper transports; Raglan had set out for Turkey leaving most of the work behind him, and those of us who were left were kept at it until three each morning. By the time we had finished, even Willy was too done up to fancy his usual nightly exercise with his Venus, so we sent out for some grub---it was harry and grass [haricot mutton and asparagus], I remember, which didn't improve my temper---and then he went home.

I was tired and cranky, but I couldn't think of sleep, somehow, so I went out and started to get drunk. I was full of apprehension about the coming campaign and fed up with endless files and reports, and my head ached and my shoes pinched, so I poured down the whistlebelly with brandy on top, and the inevitable result was that I finished up three parts tight in some cellar near Charing Cross. I thought of a whore but didn't want one---and then it struck me: I wanted Elspeth and nothing else. By God, there was I, on the brink of another war, slaving my innards into knots, while she was tripping about in a Mayfair ballroom, laughing and darting chase-me glances at party saunterers and young gallants, having a fine time for hours on end, and she hadn't been able to spare me five minutes for a tumble! She was my wife, dammit, and it was too bad. I put away some more brandy while I considered the iniquity of this and took a great drunken resolve---I would go round to Marjorie's at once, surprise my charmer when she came to bed and make her see what she had been missing all evening. Aye, that was it---and it was romantic, too, the departing warrior tupping up the girl he was going to leave behind, and she full of love and wistful longing and be damned. (Drink's a terrible thing.) Anyway, off I set west, with a full bottle in my pocket to see me through the walk, for it was after four and there wasn't even a cab to be had.

By the time I got to Marjorie's place---a huge mansion fronting the park, with every light ablaze---I was taking the width of the pavement and singing Villikins and His Dinah.5 The flunkeys at the door didn't mind me a jot, for the house must have been full of foxed chaps and bemused females, to judge by the racket they were making. I found what looked like a butler, inquired the direction of Mrs. Flashman's chamber and tramped up endless staircases, bounding off the walls as I went. I found a lady's maid, too, who put me on the right road, banged on a door, fell inside and found the place was empty.

It was a lady's bedroom, no error, but no lady, as yet. All the candles were burning, the bed was turned down, a fluffy little Paris night rail which I recognized as one I'd bought my darling lay by the pillow and her scent was in the air. I stood there sighing and lusting boozily; still dancing, hey? We'll have a pretty little hornpipe together by and by, though---aha, I would surprise her. That was it; I'd hide and bound out lovingly when she came up. There was a big closet in one wall, full of clothes and linen and what not, so I toddled in, like the drunken, lovesick ass I was---you'd wonder at it, wouldn't you, with all my experience?---settled down on something soft, took a last pull at my bottle and fell fast asleep.

How long I snoozed I don't know; not long, I think, for I was still well fuddled when I came to. It was a slow business, in which I was conscious of a woman's voice humming Allan Water, and then I believe I heard a little laugh. Ah, thinks I, Elspeth; time to get up, Flashy. And as I hauled myself ponderously to my feet and stood swaying dizzily in the dark of the closet, I was hearing vague confusing sounds from the room. A voice? Voices? Someone moving? A door closing? I can't be sure at all, but just as I blundered tipsily to the closet door, I heard a sharp exclamation which might have been anything from a laugh to a cry of astonishment. I stumbled out of the closet, blinking against the sudden glare of light, and my boisterous view halloo died on my lips.

It was a sight I'll never forget. Elspeth was standing by the bed, naked except for her long frilled pantaloons; her flowers were still twined in her hair. Her eyes were wide with shock and her knuckles were against her lips, like a nymph surprised by Pan, or centaurs, or a boozed-up husband emerging from the wardrobe. I goggled at her lecherously for about half a second, and then realized that we were not alone.

Halfway between the foot of the bed and the door stood the seventh Earl of Cardigan. His elegant Cherrypicker pants were about his knees and the front tail of his shirt was clutched up before him in both hands. He was in the act of advancing towards my wife, and from the expression on his face---which was that of a starving, apoplectic glutton faced with a crackling roast---and from other visible signs, his intention was not simply to compare birthmarks. He stopped dead at sight of me, his mottled face paling and his eyes popping. Elspeth squealed in earnest and for several seconds we all stood stock-still, staring.

Cardigan recovered first, and looking back, I have to admire him. It was not an entirely new situation for me, you understand---I'd been in his shoes, so to speak, many a time, when husbands, traps or bullies came thundering in unexpectedly. Reviewing Cardigan's dilemma, I'd have whipped up my breeches, feinted towards the window to draw the outraged spouse, doubled back with a spring onto the bed, and then been through the door in a twinkling. But not Lord Haw-Haw; his bearing was magnificent. He dropped his shirt, drew up his pants, threw back his head, looked straight at me, rasped: "Good night to you!," turned about and marched out, banging the door behind him.

Elspeth had sunk to the bed, making little sobbing sounds; I still stood swaying in disbelief, trying to get the booze out of my brain, wondering if this was some drunken nightmare. But it wasn't, and as I glared at that big-bosomed harlot on the bed, all those ugly suspicions of 14 years came flooding back, only now they were certainties. And I had caught her in the act at last, all but in the grip of that lustful, evil old villain! I'd just been in the nick of time to thwart him, too, damn him. And whether it was the booze or my own rotten nature, the emotion I felt was not rage so much as a vicious satisfaction that I had caught her out. Oh, the rage came later, and a black despair that sometimes wounds me like a knife even now, but God help me, I'm an actor, I suppose, and I'd never had a chance to play the outraged husband before.

"Well?" It came out of me in a strangled yelp. "Well? What? What? Hey?"

I must have looked terrific, I suppose, for she dropped her squeaking and shuddering like a shot and hopped over t'other side of the bed like a jack rabbit.

"Harry!" she squealed. "What are you doing here?"

It must have been the booze. I had been on the point of striding---well, staggering---round the bed to seize her and thrash her black and blue, but at her question I stopped, God knows why.

"I was waiting for you! Curse you, you adulteress!

"In that cupboard?"

"Yes, blast it, in that cupboard. By God, you've gone too far, you vile little slut, you! I'll-----"

"How could you?" So help me, God, it's what she said. "How could you be so inconsiderate and unfeeling as to pry on me in this way? Oh! I was never so mortified! Never!"

"Mortified?" cries I. "With that randy old rip sporting his beef in your bedroom and you simpering naked at him? You---you shameless Jezebel! You lewd woman! Caught in the act, by George! I'll teach you to cuckold me! Where's a cane? I'll beat the shame out of that wanton carcass, I'll-----"

"It is not true!" she cried. "It is not true! Oh, how can you say such a thing?"

I was glaring round for something to thrash her with, but at this I stopped, amazed.

"Not true? Why, you infernal little liar, d'you think I can't see? Another second and you'd have been two-backed-beasting all over the place! And you dare-----"

"It is not so!" She stamped her foot, her fists clenched. "You are quite in the wrong---I did not know he was there until an instant before you came out of that cupboard! He must have come in while I was disrobing---Oh!" And she shuddered. "I was taken quite unawares------"

"By God, you were! By me! D'you think I'm a fool? You've been teasing that dirty old bull this month past, and I find him all but mounting you and you expect me to believe---"My head was swimming with drink and I lost the words. "You've dishonoured me, damn you! You've------"

"You are wicked to say such a thing! Oh, you have no thought for my feelings! Oh, Harry, to have that evil old creature steal up on me---the shock of it---oh, I thought to have died of fear and shame! And then you---you!" And she burst into tears and flung herself down on the bed.

I didn't know what to say or do. Her behaviour, the way she had faced me, the fury of her denial---it was all unreal. I couldn't credit it, after what I'd seen. I was full of rage and hate and disbelief and misery, but in drink and bewilderment I couldn't reason straight. I tried to remember what I'd heard in the closet---had it been a giggle or a muted shriek? Could she be telling the truth? Was it possible that Cardigan had sneaked in on her, torn down his breeches in an instant and been sounding the charge when she turned and saw him? Or had she wheedled him in, whispering lewdly, and been stripping for action when I rolled out? All this, in a confused brandy-laden haze, passed through my mind---as you may be sure it has passed since, in sober moments.

I was lost, standing there half drunk. That queer mixture of shock and rage and exultation, and the vicious desire to punish her brutally, had suddenly passed.

Mind you, it was still touch and go whether I suddenly went for her or not: but for the booze, I probably would have done. There was all the suspicion of the past and the evidence of my eyes tonight. I stood, panting and glaring, and suddenly she swung up in a sitting position, like Andersen's mermaid, her eyes full of tears, and threw out her arms. "Oh, Harry! Comfort me!"

If you had seen her---aye. It's so easy, as none knows better than I, to sneer at the Pantaloons of this world, and the cheated wives, too, while the rakes and tarts make fools of them---"If only they knew, ho-ho!" Perhaps they do, or suspect, but would just rather not let on. I don't know why, but suddenly I was seated on the bed, with my arm round those white shoulders, while she sobbed and clung to me, calling me her "jo"---it was that funny Scotch word, which she hadn't used for years, since she had grown so grand, that made me believe her---almost.

She sobbed away a good deal, and protested, and I babbled a great amount, no doubt, and she swore her honesty, and I didn't know what to make of it. She might be true, but if she was a cheat and a liar and a whore, what then? Murder her? Thrash her? Divorce her? The first was lunatic, the second I couldn't do, not now, and the third was unthinkable. With the trusts that old swine Morrison had left to tie things up, she controlled all the cash, and the thought of being a known cuckold living on my pay---well, I'm fool enough for a deal, but not for that. Her voice was murmuring in my ear, and all that naked softness was in my arms, and her fondling touch was reminding me of what I'd come here for in the first place, so what the devil, thinks I, first things first, and if you don't pleasure her now till she faints, you'll look back from your grey-haired evenings and wish you had. So I did.

I still don't know---and what's more, I don't care. But one thing only I was certain of that night---whoever was innocent, it wasn't James Brudenell, Earl of Cardigan. I swore then inwardly, with Elspeth moaning through her kiss, that I would get even with that one. The thought of that filthy old goat trying to board Elspeth---it brought me out in a sweat of fury and loathing. I'd kill him, somehow. I couldn't call him out---he'd hide behind the law and refuse. Even worse, he might accept. And apart from the fact that I daren't face him, man to man, there would have been scandal for sure. But somehow, someday, I would find a way.

We went to sleep at last, with Elspeth murmuring in my ear about what a mighty lover I was, recalling me in doting detail and how I was at my finest after a quarrel.

While all these important events in my personal affairs were taking place---Willy and Elspeth and Cardigan, and so forth---you may wonder how the war was progressing. The truth is, of course, that it wasn't, for it's a singular fact of the Great Conflict against Russia that no one---certainly no one on the allied side---had any clear notion of how to go about it. You will think that's one of these smart remarks, but it's not; I was as close to the conduct of the war in the summer of '54 as anyone, and I can tell you truthfully that the official view of the whole thing was:

"Well, here we are, the French and ourselves, at war with Russia, in order to protect Turkey. Very good. What shall we do, then? Better attack Russia, eh? Hm, yes. [Pause] Big place, ain't it?"

So they decided to concentrate our army, and the froggies, in Bulgaria, where they might help the Turks fight the Ruskis on the Danube. But the Turks flayed the life out of the Russians without anyone's help, and neither Raglan who was now out in Varna in command of the allies, nor our chiefs at home could think what we might usefully do next. I had secret hopes that the whole thing might be called off; Willy and I were still at home, for Raglan had sent word that for safety's sake, His Highness should not come out until the fighting started---there was so much fever about in Bulgaria, it would not be healthy for him.

But there was never any hope of a peace being patched up, not with the mood abroad in England that summer. They were savage---they had seen their army and navy sail away with drums beating and fifes tootling, and Rule Britannia playing, and the press promising swift and condign punishment for the Muscovite tyrants and street-corner orators raving about how British steel would strike oppression down, and they were like a crowd come to a prize fight where the two pugs don't fight but spar and weave and never come to grips. They wanted blood, gallons of it, and to read of grapeshot smashing great lanes through Russian ranks, and stern and noble Britons skewering Cossacks, and Russian towns in flames---and they would be able to shake their heads over the losses of our gallant fellows, sacrificed to stern duty, and wolf down their kidneys and muffins in their warm breakfast rooms, saying: "Dreadful work, this, but by George, England never shirked yet, whatever the price. Pass the marmalade, Amelia; I'm proud to be a Briton this day, let me tell you."6

And all they got that summer was---nothing. It drove them mad, and they raved at the government, and the army, and each other, lusting for butchery, and suddenly there was a cry on every lip, a word that ran from tongue to tongue and was in every leading article---"Sebastopol!" God knows why, but suddenly that was the place. Why were we not attacking Sebastopol, to show the Russians what was what, eh? It struck me then, and still does, that attacking Sebastopol would be rather like an enemy of England investing Penzance and then shouting towards London: "There, you insolent bastard, that'll teach you!" But because it was said to be a great base, and The Times was full of it, an assault on Sebastopol became the talk of the hour.

And the government dithered, the British and Russian armies rotted away in Bulgaria with dysentery and cholera, the public became hysterical and Willy and I waited, with our traps packed, for word to sail.

[The orders finally came. Flashman's account continues with a description of the voyage to Varna in Bulgaria, where the British and French armies were wasting away from disease. Here Flashman met William Russell, correspondent for The Times, and Captain Lewis Nolan, a young expert on cavalry tactics and aide to General Airey, chief of staff. A somewhat muddled decision to attack the Russians at Sebastopol was made and we return to Flashman's memoir as the army is about to land in the Crimea.---Ed.]

The only thing was---no one knew where we were going. We ploughed about the Black Sea, while Raglan and the frogs wondered where we should land, and sailed up and down the Russian coast looking for a likely spot. We found one, and Raglan stood there smiling and saying what a capital beach it was. "Do you smell the lavender?" says he. "Ah, Prince William, you may think you are back in Kew Gardens."

Well, it may have smelled like it at first, but by the time we had spent five days crawling ashore, with everyone spewing and soiling himself in the pouring rain, and great piles of stores and guns and rubbish growing on the beach, and the sea getting fouler and fouler with the dirt of 60,000 men---well, you may imagine what it was like. The army's health was perhaps a little better than it had been on the voyage, but not much, and when we finally set off down the coast, and I watched the heavy, plodding tread of the infantry, and saw the stretched look of the cavalry mounts---I thought, how far will this crowd go, on a few handfuls of pork and biscuit, no tents, devil a bottle of jallop, and the cholera, the invisible dragon, humming in the air as they marched?

Mind you, from a distance it looked well. When that whole army was formed up, it stretched four miles by four, a great glittering host from the Zouaves on the beach, in their red caps and blue coats, to the shakos of the 44th almost directly behind us---and they were a sight of omen to me, for the last time I'd seen them they'd been standing back to back in the bloodied snow of Gandamack, with the Ghazi knives whittling 'em down, and Souter with the flag wrapped round his belly. I never see those 44th facings but I think of the army of Afghanistan dying in the ice hills and shudder.

I was privileged, if that is the word, to give the word that started the whole march, for Raglan sent me and Willy to gallop first to the rear guard and then to the advance guard with the order to march. In fact, I let Willy deliver the second message, for the advance guard was led by none other than Cardigan, and it was more than I could bear to look at the swine. We cantered through the army, and the fleeting pictures are in my mind still---the little French canteen tarts sitting laughing on the gun limbers, the scarlet stillness of the Guards, rank on rank, the bearded French faces with their kepis and Bosquet balancing his belly above a horse too small for him, the singsong chatter of the Highlanders in their dark-green tartans, the red jackets of the Light Division, the red yokel faces burning in the heat, the smell of sweat and oil and hot serge, the creak of leather and the jingle of bits, the glittering points of the lances where the 17th sat waiting---and Willy burst out in excitement: "Our regiment, Harry! See how grand they look! What noble fellows they are!" ---Billy Russell sitting athwart his horse and shouting, "What is it, Flash? Are we off at last?" and I turned away to talk to him while Willy galloped ahead to where the long pink-and-blue line of the 11th marked the van of the army.

"I haven't seen our friends so close before," says Billy. "Look yonder." And following his pointing finger, far out to the left flank, with the sun behind them, I saw the long silent line of horsemen on the crest, the lances twigs in the hands of Pygmies.

"Cossacks," says Billy. We'd seen 'em before, of course, the first night, scouting our landing, and I'd thought then, it's well seen you ain't Ghazis, my lads, or you'd pitch our whole force back into the sea before we're right ashore. And as the advance was sounded and the whole great army lumbered forward into the heat haze, with a band lilting Garryowen and the chargers of the 17th snorting and fidgeting at the sound, I saw to my horror that Willy, having delivered his message, was not riding back towards me but was moving off at a smart gallop towards the left flank.

I cut out at once, to head him off, but he was light and his horse was fast and he was a good 300 yards clear of the left flank before I came up with him. He was cantering on, his eyes fixed on the distant ridge---and it was none so distant now; as I came up roaring at him, he turned and pointed: "Look, Harry---the enemy!"

"You little duffer, what are you about?" cries I. "D'you want to get your head blown off?"

"They are some way off," says he, laughing, and indeed they were---but close enough to be able to see the blue and white stripes of the lances and make out the shaggy fur caps. They sat immobile while we stared at them, and I felt the sweat turn icy on my spine in spite of the heat. These were the famous savages of Tatary, watching, waiting---and God knew how many of them there might be, in great hordes advancing on our pathetic little army, as it tootled along with its gay colours by the sea. I pulled Willy's bridle round.

"Oh, very well," says he. "But you need not be so careful of me, you know---I don't mean to go astray just yet." And seeing my expression, he burst out laughing: "My word, what a cautious old stick you are, Harry---you are getting as bad as Dr. Winter!"

And I wish I were with Dr. Winter this minute, thinks I, whatever the old whoreson's doing. But I was to remember what Willy had said---and in the next day or so, too, when the army had rolled on down the coast, choking with heat by day and shivering by the fires at night, and we had come at last to the long slope that runs down to the red-banked river with great bluffs and gullies beyond. Just a little Russian creek, and today in any English parish church you may see its name on stone memorials, on old tattered flags in cathedrals, in the metalwork of badges and on the name plates of grimy back streets beside the factories. Alma.

You have seen the fine oil paintings, I dare say---the perfect lines of guardsmen and Highlanders fronting up the hill towards the Russian batteries, with here and there a chap lying looking thoughtful with his hat on the ground beside him, and in the distance fine silvery clouds of cannon smoke, and the colours to the fore, and fellows in cocked hats waving their swords. I dare say some people saw and remember the Battle of the Alma like that, but Flashy is not among them. And I was in the middle of it, too, all on account of a commander who hadn't the sense to realize that generals ought to stay in the rear, directing matters.

It was bloody lunacy, from the start, and bloody carnage, too. You may know what the position was---the Russians, 40,000 strong, on the bluffs south of the Alma, with artillery positions dug on the forward slopes above the river, and our chaps, with the frogs on the right, advancing over the river and up the slopes to drive the Ruskis out. If Men-schikoff had known his work, or our troops had had less blind courage, they'd have massacred the whole allied army there and then. But the Russians fought as badly and stupidly as they nearly always do, and by sheer blind luck on Raglan's part and idiot bravery on ours, the thing went otherwise.

You may read detailed accounts of the slaughter, if you wish, in any military history, but you may take my word for it that the battle was for all practical purposes divided into four parts, as follows. One, Flashy observes preliminary bombardment from his post in the middle of Raglan's staff, consoling himself that there are about 20,000 other fellows between him and the enemy. Two, Flashy is engaged in what seem like hours of frantic galloping behind the lines of the frog battalions on the right, keeping as far from the firing as he decently can and inquiring on Lord Raglan's behalf why the hell the frogs are not driving the seaward flank of the Russian position before them. Three, Flashy is involved in the battle with Lord Raglan. Four, Flashy reaps the fruits of allied victory, and bitter they were.

It was supposed to begin, you see, with the frogs' turning the Ruskis' flank, and then our chaps would roll over the river and finish the job. So for hours we sat there, sweating in the heat and watching the powder-puff clouds of smoke popping out of the Russian batteries and peppering our men in the left and centre. But the frogs made nothing of their part of the business and Nolan and I were to and fro like shuttlecocks to the French general St.-Arnaud; he was looking like death and jabbering like fury, while a bare half mile away his little bluecoats were swarming up the ridges and being battered and the smoke was rolling back over the river in long grey wreaths.

"Tell milor it will take a little longer," he kept saying, and back we would gallop to Raglan. "We shall never beat the French at this rate," says he, and when he was reminded that the enemy were the Russians, not the French, he would correct himself hurriedly and glance round to see that no frog gallopers were near to overhear. And at last, seeing our silent columns being pounded by the Russian shot as they lay waiting for the advance, he gave the word and the long red lines began rolling down the slope to the river.

There was a great reek of black smoke drifting along the banks from a burning hamlet right before us and the white discharge of the Russian batteries rolled down in great clouds to meet it. The huge wavering lines of infantry vanished into it and through gaps we could see them plunging into the river, their pieces above their heads, while the crash-crash-crash of the Russian guns reverberated down from the bluffs and the tiny white spots of musket fire began to snap like firecrackers along the lips of the Russian trenches. And then the ragged lines of our infantry appeared beyond the smoke, clambering up the foot of the bluffs, and we could see the shot ploughing through them, tearing up the ground, and our guns were thundering in reply, throwing great fountains of earth up round the Russian batteries. Willy beside me was squirming in his saddle, yelling his head off with excitement, the little fool: It made no odds, for the din was deafening.

And Raglan looked round and, seeing the boy, smiled and beckoned to me. He had to shout. "Keep him close, Flashman!" cries he. "We are going across the river presently," which was the worst news I had heard in weeks. Our attack was coming to a standstill; as the Russian firing redoubled, you could see our men milling at the foot of the bluffs, and the ground already thick with still bodies, in little heaps where the cannon had caught them, or singly where they had gone down before the muskets.

Then Nolan comes galloping up, full of zeal and gallantry, damn him, and shouted a message from the frogs, and I saw Raglan shake his head, and then he trotted off towards the river, with the rest of us dutifully tailing on behind. Willy had his sabre out, God knows why, for all we had to worry about just then was the Russian shot, which was bad enough. We spurred down to the river, myself keeping Willy at the tail of the group, and I saw Airey throw aside his plumed hat just as we took the water. There were bodies floating in the stream, which was churned up with mud, and the smoke was billowing down and catching at our throats, making the horses rear and plunge---I had to grip Willy's bridle to prevent his being thrown. On our left men of the Second Division were crowded on the bank, waiting to go forward; they were retching and coughing in the smoke, and the small shot and balls were whizzing and whining by in a hideously frightening way. I just kept my head down, praying feverishly, as is my wont, and then I saw one of the other gallopers, just ahead of me, go reeling out of his saddle with the blood spouting from his sleeve. He staggered up, clutching at my stirrup and bawling, "I am perfectly well, my lord, I assure you!" and then he rolled away and someone else jumped down to see to him.

Raglan halted, cool as you like, glancing right and left, and then summoned two of the gallopers and sent them pounding away along the bank to find Evans and Brown, whose divisions were being smashed to pieces at the foot of the bluffs. Then he says, "Come along, gentlemen. We shall find a vantage point," and cantered up the gully that opened up before us just there in the bluff face. For a wonder it seemed empty, all the Ruskis being on the heights to either side, and the smoke was hanging above our heads in such clouds you couldn't see more than 20 yards up the hill. A hell of a fine position for a general to be in, you may think, and Raglan must have thought so, too, for suddenly he spurred his horse at the hill to the left and we all ploughed up behind him, scrambling on the shale and rough tufts, through the reeking smoke, until suddenly we were through it and on the top of a little knoll at the bluff foot.

I'll never forget that sight. Ahead and to our left rose the bluffs, bare steep hillside for 500 feet. We could see the Russian positions clear as day, the plumes of musket smoke spouting down from the trenches and the bearded faces behind them. Directly to our left was a huge redoubt, packed with enemy guns and infantry; there were other great batteries above and beyond. In front of the big redoubt the ground was thick with the bodies of our men, but they were still swarming up from the river, under a hail of firing. And beyond, along the bluffs, I saw some of them suddenly turn into pulp as a fusillade struck them, but the white crossbelts kept clawing their way up, falling, scattering, reforming and pressing on. For a mile, as far as one could see, they were surging up, over that hellish slope with the dead scattered before them, towards the smoking positions of the enemy.

Better here than there, thinks I, until I realized that we were sitting up in full view, unprotected, with the Ruski infantry not 100 yards away. We were absolutely ahead of our own infantry, thanks to that fool Raglan---and he was sitting there, with his blue coat flapping round him and his plumed hat on his head, as calm as if it were a review, clinging to his saddle with his knees alone, while he steadied his glass with his single arm. There was so much shot whistling overhead, you couldn't be sure whether they were firing on us with intent or not.

And then right up on the crest, above the batteries, we saw the Russian infantry coming down the slope---a great brown mass, packed like sardines, rank after rank of them. They came clumping slowly, inexorably down towards the batteries, obviously intent on rolling into our infantry below. They looked unstoppable and Raglan whistled through his teeth as he watched them.

"Too good to miss, by George!" cries he and, turning, caught my eye. "Down with you, Flashman! Guns, at once!" and you may understand that I didn't need telling twice.

"Stay there!" shouts I to Willy, and then had my charger down that slope like a jack rabbit. There were gun teams labouring and splashing up the bank, and I bawled to them to make haste to the ridge. The horses were lashed up the muddy slope, the guns swinging wildly behind them; one of our gallopers got them positioned, with the gunners hauling them round by main force, and as I came back up the hill---none too swiftly---the first salvos were screaming away to crash into the Russian columns.

It was havoc all along the bluffs and smoking hell on that little hill. There were infantry pouring past us now, sweating, panting, smoke-blackened faces, and bayonets thrust out ahead as they surged by and upwards towards the Russian positions. They were shrieking and bawling like madmen, heedless, apparently, of the bloody holes torn in their ranks by the Russian firing; I saw one of them lying screaming with a thigh shot away. I looked for Raglan and saw him with a couple of gallopers preparing to descend the hill; I looked for Willy and there he was, his hat gone, shouting at the passing infantry.

And then, by God, he whirled up his sabre and went flying along with them, across the face of the slope towards the nearest battery. His horse stumbled and recovered and he waved his sword and huzzaed. "Come back, you German lunatic!" I yelled, and Raglan must have heard me, for he checked his horse and turned.

Even with the shot flying and the screaming and the thunder of the guns, with the fate of the battle in his hands, those ears which were normally deaf to sense caught my words. He saw me, he saw Willy, careering away along the bluffs among the infantry, and he sang out: "After him, Flashman!"

Probably, addressed to any other man in the army, that order would have evoked an immediate response. The eye of the chief and all that. But I took one look along that shell-swept slope, with the bodies thick on it, and that young idiot riding through the blood and bullets, and I thought, by God, let him go for me. I hesitated and Raglan shouted again, angrily, so I set my charger towards him, cupping a hand behind my ear and yelling: "What's that, my lord?" He shouted and pointed again, stabbing with his finger, and then a shot mercifully ploughed up the ground between us, and as the dirt showered over me, I took the opportunity to roll nimbly out of the saddle.

I clambered up again, like a man dazed, and rot him, he was still there and looking thoroughly agitated. "The prince, Flashman!" he bawls, and then one of the gallopers plucked at his coat and pointed to the right and off they went, leaving me clutching at my horse's head, and Willy 100 yards away, in the thick of the advancing infantry, setting his horse to the breastwork of the battery. It baulked, and he reeled in the saddle, his sabre falling, and then he pitched straight back, losing his grip, and went down before the feet of the infantry. I saw him roll a yard or two, and then he lay still, as the advance passed over him.

Christ, I thought, he's done for, and as our fellows surged into the battery and the firing from above slackened, I picked my way cautiously along, through those dreadful heaps of dead and dying and wounded, with the stink of blood and powder everywhere, and the chorus of shrieks and moans of agony in my ears. I dropped onto one knee beside the little blue-clad figure among the crimson; he was lying face down. I turned him over, and vomited. He had half a face---one glazed eye and brow and cheek, and on the other side, just a gory mash, with his brains running out of it.

I don't know how long I crouched there, staring at him, horror-struck. Above me, I could hear all hell of firing and shouting still going on as the battle surged up the slope, and I shook with fear at it. I wasn't going near that again, not for a pension, but as I forced myself to look at what was left of Willy, I found myself babbling aloud: "Jesus, what'll Raglan say? I've lost Willy---my God, what will they say?" And I began cursing and sobbing---not for Willy but out of shock and for the folly and ill luck that had brought me to this slaughterhouse and had killed this brainless brat, this pathetic princeling who thought war was great sport and had been entrusted to my safekeeping. By God, his death could be the ruin of me! So I swore and wept, crouched beside his corpse.

"Of all the fearful sights I have seen on this day, none have so wrung my heart as this." That's what Airey told Raglan, when he described how he had found me with Willy's body above the Alma. "Poor Flashman, I believe his heart is broken. But to see the bravest blade on your staff, an officer whose courage is a byword in the army, weeping like a child beside his fallen comrade---it is a terrible thing. He would have given his own life a hundred times, I know, to preserve that boy."

I was listening outside the tent flap, you see, stricken dumb with manly grief. Well, I thought, that's none so bad; crying with funk and shock has its uses, provided it's mistaken for noble tears. Raglan couldn't blame me, after all; I hadn't shot the poor little fool nor been able to stop him throwing his life away. Anyway, Raglan had a victory to satisfy him and even the loss of a royal galloper couldn't sour that, you'd think. Aye, but it could.

He was all stern reproach when finally I stood in front of him, covered in dust, played out with fear and doing my damnedest to look contrite---which wasn't difficult.

"What," says he, in a voice like a church bell, "will you tell Her Majesty?"

"My lord," says I, "I am sorry, but it was no fault---"

He held up his one fine hand. "Here is no question of fault, Flashman. You had a sacred duty---a trust, given into your hands by your own sovereign, to preserve that precious life. You have failed, utterly. I ask again, what will you tell the queen?"

Only a bloody fool like Raglan would ask a question like that, but I did my best to wriggle clear.

"What could I have done, my lord? You sent me for the guns, and---"

"And you had returned. Your first thought thereafter should have been for your sacred charge. Well, sir, what have you to say? Myself, in the midst of battle, had to point to where honour should have taken you at once; and yet you paused; I saw you, and---"

"My lord!" cries I, full of indignation. "That is unjust! I did not fully understand, in the confusion, what your order was, I---"

"Did you need to understand?" says he, all quivering sorrow. "I do not question your courage, Flashman; it is not in doubt." Not with me, either, I thought. "But I cannot but charge you, heavily though it weighs on my heart to do so, with failing in that ... that instinct for your first duty, which should have been not to me, nor to the army, even, but to that poor boy whose shattered body lies in the ambulance. His soul, we may be confident, is with God." He came up to me and his eyes were full of tears, the maudlin old hypocrite. "I can guess at your own grief; it has moved not only Airey but myself. And I can well believe that you wish that you, too, could have found an honourable grave on the field, as William of Celle has done. Better, perhaps, had you done so." He sighed, thinking about it, and no doubt deciding that he'd be a deal happier, when he saw the queen again, to be able to say: "Oh, Flashy's kicked the bucket, by the way, but your precious Willy is all right." Well, fearful and miserable as I was, I wasn't that far gone, myself.

He prosed on a bit, about duty and honour and my own failure and what a hell of a blot I'd put on my copybook. No thought, you'll notice, for the blot he'd earned, with those thousands of dead piled up above the Alma, the incompetent buffoon.

"I pity you, Flashman, and because I pity you, I shall not send you home. You may continue on my staff, and I trust that your future conduct will enable me to think that this lapse---irreparable though its consequences are---was but one terrible error of judgement, one sudden dereliction of duty, which will never---nay, can never---be repeated. But for the moment, I cannot admit you again to that full fellowship of the spirit in which members of my staff are wont to be embraced."

Well, I could stand that. He rummaged on his table and picked up some things. "These are the personal effects of your ... your dead comrade. Take them and let them be an awful reminder to you of duty undone, of trust neglected and of honour---no, I will not say aught of honour to one whose courage, at least, I believe to be beyond reproach." He looked at the things; one of them was a locket which Willy had worn round his neck. Raglan snapped it open and gave a little gulp. He held it out to me, his face all noble and working. "Look on that fair, pure face," cries he, "and feel the remorse you deserve. More than anything I can say, it will strike to your soul---the face of a boy's sweetheart, chaste, trusting and innocent. Think of that poor, sweet creature who, thanks to your neglect, will soon be draining the bitterest cup of sorrow."

I doubted it myself, as I looked at the locket. Last time I'd seen her, the poor, sweet creature had been wearing nothing but black-satin boots. Only Willy in this wide world would have thought of wearing the picture of a St. John's Wood whore round his neck; he had been truly wild about her, the randy little rascal. Well, if I'd had my way, he'd still have been thumping her every night, instead of lying on a stretcher with only half his head. But I wonder if the preaching Raglan, or any of the pious hypocrites who were his relatives, would have called him back to life on those terms? Poor little Willy.

• • •

Well, if I was in disgrace, I was also in good health, and that's what matters. I might have been one of the 3000 dead or of the shattered wounded lying shrieking through the dusk along that awful line of bluffs. In spite of the good efforts of Surgeon Munro, the medical provision was not enough---and scores of our folk just lay writhing where they fell or died in the arms of mates hauling and carrying them down to the beach hospitals. The Russian wounded lay in piles by the hundred round our bivouacs, crying and moaning all through the night---I can hear their sobbing "Pajalusta! Pajalusta!" still. The camp-ground was littered with spent shot and rubbish and broken gear among the pools of congealed blood---my stars, wouldn't I just like to take one of our ministers, or street-corner orators, or blood-lusting, breakfast-scoffing papas, over such a place as the Alma hills---not to let him see, because he'd just tut-tut and look anguished and have a good pray and not care a damn---but to shoot him in the belly with a soft-nosed bullet and let him die screaming where he belonged. That's all they deserve.

Not that I cared a fig for dead or wounded that night. I had worries enough on my own account, for in brooding about the injustice of Raglan's reproaches, I convinced myself that I'd be broke in the end. The loss of that mealy little German pimp swelled out of all proportion in my imagination, with the queen calling me a murderer and Albert accusing me of high treason and The Times trumpeting for my impeachment. It was only when I realized that the army might have other things to think about that I cheered up.

I was feeling as lonely as the policeman at Herne Bay7 when I loafed into Billy Russell's tent and found him scribbling away by a storm lantern, with Lew Nolan perched on an ammunition box, holding forth as usual.

"Two brigades of cavalry!" Nolan was saying. "Two brigades, enough to have pursued and routed the whole pack of 'em! And what do they do? Sit on their backsides, because Lucan's too damned scared to order a bag of oats without a written order from Raglan. Lord Lucan? Bah! Lord bloody Look-on, more like."

"Hmm," says Billy, writing away, and he glanced up. "Here, Flash---you'll know. Were the Highlanders first into the redoubt? I say yes, but Lew says not.8 Stevens ain't sure and I can't find Campbell anywhere. What d'ye say?"

I said I didn't know and Nolan cried what the devil did it matter, anyway, they were only infantry. Billy, seeing he would get no peace from him, threw down his pen, yawned and says to me:

"You look well used up, Flash. Are you all right? What's the matter, old fellow?"

I told him Willy was lost and he said aye, that was a pity, a nice lad, and I told him what Raglan had said to me, and at this, Nolan forgot his horses for a minute and burst out:

"By God, isn't that of a piece? He's lost the best part of five brigades and he rounds on one unfortunate galloper because some silly little ass who shouldn't have been here at all, at all, gets himself blown up by the Russians! If he was so blasted concerned for him, what did he let him near the field for in the first place? And if you was to wet-nurse him, why did he have you galloping your arse off all day? The man's a fool! Aye, and a bad general, what's worse---there's a Russian army clear away, thanks to him and those idle frogs, and we could have cut 'em to bits on this very spot! I tell you, Billy, this fellow'll have to go."

"Come, Lew, he's won his fight," says Russell, stroking his beard. "It's too bad he's set on you, Flash---but I'd lose no sleep over it. Depend upon it, he's only voicing his own fears of what may be said to him---but he's a decent old stick and bears no grudges. He'll have forgotten about it in a day or so."

"You think so?" says I, brightening.

"I should hope so!" cries Nolan. "Mother of God, if he hasn't more to think about, he should have. Here's him and Lucan between 'em have let a great chance slip, but by the time Billy here has finished tellin' the British public about how the matchless Guards and stern Caledonians swept the Muscovite horde aside on their bayonet points---"

"I like that," says Billy, winking at me. "I like it, Lew; go on, you're inspiring."

"Ah, bah, the old fool'll be thinking he's another Wellington," says Lew. "Aye, you can laugh, Russell---tell your readers what I've said about Lucan, though---I dare ye! That'd startle 'em!"

This talk cheered me up, for, after all, it was what Russell thought---and wrote ---that counted, and he never even mentioned Willy's death in his despatches to The Times.

And Nolan was right---raglan and everyone else had enough to occupy them after Alma. The clever men were for driving on hard to Sebastopol, a bare 20 miles away, and with our cavalry in good fettle, we could obviously have taken it. But the frogs were too tired, or too sick, or too froggy, if you ask me, and days were wasted, and the Ruskis managed to bolt the door in time.

What was worse, the carnage at Alma and the cholera had thinned the army horribly, there was no proper transport, and by the time we had lumbered on to Sebastopol peninsula, we couldn't have robbed a hen roost. But the siege had to be laid and Raglan, looking wearier all the time, was thrashing himself to be cheerful and enthusiastic, with his army wasting and winter coming and the frogs groaning at him. Oh, he was brave and determined and ready to take on all the odds---the worst kind of general imaginable. Give me a clever coward every time (which, of course, is why I'm such a dam' fine general myself).

So the siege was laid, the French and ourselves sitting down on the muddy, rain-sodden gullied plateau before Sebastopol, the dismalest place on earth, with no proper quarters but a few poor huts and tents, and everything to be carted up from Balaclava on the coast eight miles away. Soon the camp, and the road to it, was a stinking quagmire; everyone looked and felt filthy, the rations were poor, the work of preparing the siege was cruel, hard (for the men, anyway), and all the bounce there had been in the army after Alma evaporated in the dank, feverish rain by day and the biting cold by night. Soon half of us were lousy and the other half had fever or dysentery or cholera or all three---as some wag said, who'd holiday at Brighton if he could come to sunny Sebastopol instead?

I didn't take any part in the siege operations myself, not because I was out of favour with Raglan but for the excellent reason that, like so many of the army, I spent several weeks on the flat of my back with what was thought at first to be cholera but was, in fact, a foul case of dysentery and wind, brought on by my own hoggish excesses. On the march south after, the Alma, I had been galloping a message from Airey to our advance guard and had come on a bunch of our cavalry who had bushwhacked a Russian baggage train and were busily looting it.9 Like a good officer, I joined in and bagged as much champagne as I could carry and a couple of fur cloaks as well. The cloaks were splendid, but the champagne must have carried the germ of the Siberian pox or something, for within a day I was blown up like a sheep on weeds and spewing and skittering damnably. They sent me down to a seedy little house in Balaclava, not far from where Billy Russell was established, and there I lay sweating and rumbling and wishing I were dead. Part of it I don't remember, so I suppose I must have been delirious, but my orderly looked after me well, and since I still had all the late Willy's gear and provisions---not that I ate much until the last week---I did tolerably well. Better, at least, than any other sick man; they were being carted down to Balaclava in droves, rotten with cholera and fever, lying in the streets as often as not.

Lew Nolan came down to see me when I was mending and gave me all the gossip---about how Cardigan's yacht had arrived and his noble lordship, pleading a weak chest, had deserted his Light Brigade for the comforts of life aboard, where he slept soft and stuffed his guts with the best. There were rumours, too, Lew told me, of Russian troops moving up in huge strength from the east, and he thought that if Raglan didn't look alive, he'd find himself bottled up in the Sebastopol peninsula.

Now, although I couldn't guess it, as I lay pampering myself with a little preserved jellied chicken and Rhine wine---of which Willy's store chest yielded a fine abundance---that terrible day was approaching, that awful thunderclap of a day when the world turned upside down in a welter of powder smoke and cannon shot and steel, which no one who lived through it will ever forget. Myself least of all. I never thought that anything could make Alma or the Kabul retreat seem like a charabanc picnic, but that day did, and I was through it, dawn to dusk, as no other man was. It was sheer bad luck that it was the very day I returned to duty. Damn that Russian champagne; if it had kept me in bed just one day longer, what I'd have been spared. Mind you, we'd have lost India, for what that's worth. But I'd convalesced as long as I dared and old Colin Campbell, who commanded in Balaclava, had dropped me a sour hint that I ought to be back with Raglan in the main camp up on the plateau. So on the evening of October 24, I got my orderly to assemble my gear, left Willy's provisions with Russell and loafed up to headquarters.

Whether I'd exerted myself too quickly or it was the sound of the Russian bands in Sebastopol, playing their hellish doleful music, that kept me awake, I was taken damned ill in the night. My bowels were in a fearful state, I was blown out like a boiler and I was unwise enough to treat myself with brandy, on the principle that if your guts are bad, they won't feel any worse for your being foxed. They do, though, and when my orderly suddenly tumbled me out before dawn, I felt as though I were about to give birth. I told him to go to the devil, but he insisted that Raglan wanted me, p.d.q., so I huddled into my clothes in the cold, shivering and rumbling, and went to see what was up.

They were in a great sweat at Raglan's post: Word had come from Lucan's cavalry that our advanced posts were signalling enemy in sight to the eastward, and gallopers were being sent off in all directions, with Raglan dictating messages over his shoulder while he and Airey pored over their maps.

"My dear Flashman," says Raglan, when his eye lit on me, "why, you look positively unwell. I think you would be better in your berth." He was all benevolent concern this morning---which was like him, of course. "Don't you think he looks ill, Airey?" Airey agreed that I did but muttered something about needing every staff rider we could muster, so Raglan tut-tutted and said he much regretted it, but he had a message for Campbell at Balaclava and it would be a great kindness if I would bear it. (He really did talk like that, most of the time: consideration fairly oozed out of him.) I wondered if I should plead my belly, so to speak, but finding him in such a good mood, with the Willy business apparently forgotten, I gave him my brave, suffering smile and pocketed his message, fool that I was.

I felt damned shaky as I hauled my self into the saddle and resolved to take my time over the broken country that lay between headquarters and Balaclava. Indeed, I had to stop several times and try to vomit, but it was no go and I cantered on over the filthy road, with its litter of old stretchers and broken equipment, until I came out onto the open ground some time after sunrise.

After the downpour of the night before, it was dawning into a beautiful clear morning, the kind of day when, if your innards aren't heaving and squeaking, you feel like a fine gallop with the wind in your face. Before me the Balaclava plain rolled away like a great greygreen blanket, and as I halted to have another unsuccessful retch, the scene that met my eyes was like a galloping field day. On the left of the plain, where it sloped up to the long line of the Cause way Heights, our cavalry were deployed in full strength, more than 1000 horsemen, like so many brilliant little puppets in the sunny distance, trotting in their squadrons, wheeling and reforming. About a mile away, nearest to me, I could easily distinguish the Light Brigade ---the pink trousers of the Cherrypickers, the scarlet of Light Dragoons and the blue tunics and twinkling lance points of the 17th. The trumpets were tootling on the breeze, the words of command drifted across to me as clear as a bell and even beyond the Lights I could see, closer in under the Causeway and retiring slowly in my direction, the squadrons of the Heavy Brigade---the grey horses with their scarlet riders, the gold-coloured helmets of the Skins and the hundreds of tiny glittering slivers of the sabres. It was for all the world like a green nursery carpet, with tiny toy soldiers deployed upon it, and as pretty as these pictures of reviews and parades that you see in the galleries.

Until you looked beyond, to where Causeway Heights faded into the haze of the eastern dawn and you could see why our cavalry were retiring. The far slopes were black with scurrying antlike figures---Russian infantry pouring up to the gun redoubts which we had established along the three miles of the Causeway: the thunder of cannon rolled continuously across the plain, the flashes of the Russian guns stabbing away at the redoubts, and the sparkle of their muskets was all along the far end of the Causeway. They were swarming over the gun emplacements, engulfing our Turkish gunners, and their artillery was pounding away towards our retreating cavalry, pushing it along under the shadow of the Heights.

I took all this in and looked off across the plain to my right, where it sloped up into a crest protecting the Balaclava road. Along the crest there was a long line of scarlet figures, with dark-green blobs where their legs should be---Campbell's Highlanders, at a safe distance, thank God, from the Russian guns, which were now ranging nicely on the Heavy Brigade under the Heights. I could see the shot plumping just short of the horses and hear the urgent bark of commands: A troop of the Skins scattered as a great column of earth leaped up among them, and then they reformed, trotting back under the lee of the Causeway.

[Flashman here describes two actions taking place that morning: the repulse of a large body of Russian cavalry by Sir Colin Campbell's 93rd Highlanders ---the famous "thin red line"---and the successful charge of Scarlett's Heavy Brigade against another greatly superior Russian force. Flashman, in the course of carrying messages, was inadvertently caught up in both of these actions. The full text of his description will appear in the forthcoming fourth volume of the Flashman Papers. We return to the account as he reports to Lord Raglan's command post on the heights of Sapoune Ridge.---Ed.]

Raglan was beaming, as well he might be, and demanded details of the action I had seen. So I gave 'em, fairly offhand, saying I thought the Highlanders had behaved pretty well---"Yes, and if we had just followed up with cavalry, we might have regained the whole Causeway by now!" pipes Nolan, at which Airey told him to be silent and Raglan looked fairly stuffy. As for the Heavies, they had seen all that, but I said it had been warm work and Ivan had got his bellyful, from what I could see.

"Gad, Flashy, you have all the luck!" cries Lew, slapping his thigh, and Raglan clapped me on the shoulder.

"Well done, Flashman," says he. "Two actions today and you have been in the thick of both. I fear you have been neglecting your staff duties in your eagerness to be at the enemy, eh?" And he gave me his quizzical beam, the old fool. "Well, we shall say no more about that."

I looked confused and went red and muttered something about not being able to abide these damned Ruskis, and they all laughed again and said that was old Flashy, and the young gallopers, the pink-cheeked lads, looked at me with awe. If it hadn't been for my aching belly, I'd have been ready to enjoy myself, now that the horror of the morning was past and the cold sweat of reaction hadn't had a chance to set in.

While my impressions of the early morning are fairly vague and consist of a series of coloured and horrid pictures, I'm in no doubt about what took place in the late forenoon. That is etched forever; I can shut my eyes and see it all and feel the griping pain ebbing and clawing at my guts---perhaps that sharpened my senses, who knows? Anyway, I have it all clear; not only what happened but what caused it to happen. I know, better than anyone else who ever lived, why the Light Brigade was launched on its famous charge, because I was the man responsible, and it wasn't wholly an accident. That's not to say I'm to blame---if blame there is, it belongs to Raglan, the kind, honourable, vain old man. Not to Lucan, nor to Cardigan, nor to Nolan, nor to Airey, nor even to my humble self: We just played our little parts. But blame? I can't even hold it against Raglan, not now. Of course, your historians and critics and hypocrites are full of virtuous zeal to find out who was "at fault" and wag their heads and say, "Ah, you see," and tell him what should have been done, from the safety of their studies and lecture rooms---but I was there, you see, and while I could have rung Raglan's neck or blown him from the muzzle of a gun at the time---well, it's all by now and we either survived it or we didn't. Proving someone guilty won't bring the 600 to life again---most of 'em would be dead by now, anyway. And they wouldn't blame anyone. What did that trooper of the 17th say afterwards: "We're ready to go in again." Good luck to him, I say; once was enough for me---but, don't you understand, nobody else has the right to talk of blame or blunders? Just us, the living and the dead. It was our indaba. Mind you, I could kick Raglan's arse for him and my own.

I sat up there on the Sapoune crest, feeling bloody sick and tired, refusing the sandwiches that Billy Russell offered me and listening to Lew Nolan's muttered tirade about the misconduct of the battle so far.

The Sapoune, on which we stood, is a great bluff rising hundreds of feet above the plain. Looking east from it, you see below you a shallow valley, perhaps two miles long and half a mile broad; to the north, there is a little clump of heights on which the Russians had established guns to command that side of the valley. On the south, the valley is bounded by the long spine of the Causeway Heights, running east from the Sapoune for two or three miles. The far end of the valley was fairly hazy, even with the strong sunlight, but you could see the Russians there as thick as fleas on a dog's back ---guns, infantry, cavalry, everything except Tsar Nick himself, tiny puppets in the distance, just holding their ground. They had guns on the Causeway, too, pointing north; as I watched, I saw the nearest team of them unlimbering just beside the spot where the Heavies' charge had ended.

So there it was, plain as a pool table---a fine empty valley with the main force of the Russians at the far end of it, and us at the near end, but with Ruskis on the heights to either side, guns and sharpshooters both---you could see the grey uniforms of their infantry moving among their cannon down on the Causeway, not a mile and a half away.

Directly beneath where I stood, at the near end of the valley, our cavalry had taken up station just north of the Causeway, the Heavies slightly nearer the Sapoune and to the right, the Lights just ahead of them and slightly left. They looked as though you could have lobbed a stone into the middle of them---I could easily make out Cardigan, threading his way behind the ranks of the 17th, and Lucan, with his gallopers, and old Scarlett, with his bright scarf thrown over one shoulder of his coat---they were all sitting out there waiting, tiny figures in blue and scarlet and green, with here and there a plumed hat and an occasional bandage.

Well, thinks I, there they all are, doing nothing and taking no harm; let 'em be and let's go home. For it was plain to see the Ruskis were going to make no advance up the valley towards the Sapoune; they'd had their fill for the day and were content to hold the far end of the valley and the heights either side. But Raglan and Airey were forever turning their glasses on the Causeway, at the Russian artillery and infantry moving among the redoubts they'd captured from the Turks; I gathered both our infantry and cavalry down on the plain should have been moving to push them out, but nothing was happening and Raglan was getting the frets. "Why does not Lord Lucan move?" I heard him say once, and again: "He has the order; what delays him now?"

"Why doesn't Raglan make 'em move, dammit?" says Lew, coming over to Billy Russell and me after reporting back to Raglan. "It's too bad! If he would give 'em one clear simple command, to push in an' sweep those fellows off the Causeway---oh, my God! An' he won't listen to me---I'm a young pup green behind the ears. The cavalry alone could do it in five minutes---it's about time Cardigan earned his general's pay, anyway!"

I approved heartily of that myself. Every time I heard Cardigan's name mentioned or saw his hateful boozy vulture face, I remembered that vile scene in Elspeth's bedroom and felt my fury boiling up. Several times it had occurred to me on the campaign that it would be a capital thing if he could be induced into action where he might well be hit between the legs and so have his brains blown out, but he'd not looked like taking a scratch so far. And there seemed scant chance of it today; I heard Raglan snapping his glass shut with impatience and saying to Airey: "I despair almost of moving our horse. It looks as though we shall have to rely on Cambridge alone---whenever his infantry come up! Oh, this is vexing! We shall accomplish nothing against the Causeway positions at this rate!"

And just at that moment, someone sang out: "My lord! See there---the guns are moving! The guns in the second redoubt---the Cossacks are getting them out!"

Sure enough, there were Russian horsemen limbering up away down the Causeway crest, tugging at a little toy cannon in the captured Turkish emplacement. They had tackles on it and were obviously intent on carrying it off to the main Russian army. Raglan stared at it through his glass, his face working.

"Airey!" cries he. "This is intolerable! What is Lucan thinking of---why, these fellows will clear the guns away before our advance begins!"

You may say it was out of pure malice towards Cardigan that I piped up---taking care that my back was to Raglan but talking loud enough for him to hear:

"There goes our record---Wellington never lost a gun, you know."

I've heard since, from a galloper who was at Raglan's side, that it was those words, invoking the comparison with his god Wellington, that stung him into action---that he started like a man shot, that his face worked and he jerked at his bridle convulsively. Maybe he'd have made up his mind without my help---but I'll be honest and say that I doubt it. He'd have waited for the infantry. As it was, he went pale and then red and snapped out:

"Airey---another message to Lord Lucan! We can delay no longer---he must move without the infantry. Tell him---ah, he is to advance the cavalry rapidly to the front, to prevent the enemy carrying off the guns---ah, to follow the enemy and prevent them. Yes, Yes. He may take troop horse artillery, at his discretion. There---that will do. You have it, Airey? Read it back, if you please."

I see it so clearly still---Airey's head bent over the paper, jabbing at the words with his pencil, as he read back (more or less in Raglan's words, certainly in the same sense). Nolan's face alight with joy beside me---"At last, at last, thank God!" he was muttering---and Raglan sitting, nodding carefully. Then he cried out:

"Good. It is to be acted on at once---make that clear!"

"Ah, that's me darlin'!" whispers Lew, and nudged me. "Well done, Flashy, me boy---you've got him movin'!"

"Send it immediately," Raglan was telling Airey. "Oh, and notify Lord Lucan that there are French cavalry on his left. Surely that should suffice." And he opened his glass again, looking down at Causeway Heights. "Send the fastest galloper."

I had a moment's apprehension at that---having started the ball, I'd no wish to be involved---but Raglan added: "Where is Nolan?---yes, Nolan," and Lew, beside himself with excitement, wheeled his horse beside Airey, grabbed at the paper, tucked it in his gauntlet, smacked down his forage cap, threw Raglan the fastest of salutes and would have been off like a shot, but Raglan stayed him, repeating that the message was of the utmost importance, that it was to be delivered with all haste to Lucan personally and that it was vital to act at once, before the Ruskis could make off with our guns.10 All unneces sary repetition, of course, and Lew was in a fever, going pink with impatience.

"Away, then!" cries Raglan at last, and Lew was over the brow in a twinkling, with a flurry of dust---showy devil---and Raglan shouting after him: "At once, Nolan---tell Lord Lucan at once, you understand."

That's how they sent Nolan off---that and no more, on my oath. And so I come to the point with which I began this memoir, with Raglan having a second thought and shouting to Airey to send after him, and Airey looking round, and myself retiring modestly, you remember, and Airey spotting me and gesturing me violently up beside him.

"Flashman," says Raglan, "Nolan must make it clear to Lord Lucan---he is to behave defensively and attempt nothing against his better judgement. Do you understand me?"

Well, I understand the words, but what the hell Lucan was expected to make of them, I couldn't see. Told to advance, to attack the enemy, and yet to act defensively. But it was nothing to me; I repeated the order, word for word, making sure Airey could hear me, and then went over the bluff after Lew.

It was as steep as hell's half acre, like a seaside sand cliff shot across by grassy ridges. At any other time, I'd have picked my way down nice and leisurely, but with Raglan and the rest looking down, and in full view of our cavalry in the plain, I'd no choice but to go hell for leather. Besides, I wasn't going to let that cocky little pimp Nolan distance me---I may not be proud of much, but I fancied myself against any galloper in the army and was determined to overtake him before he reached Lucan. So down I went, with the game little mare under me skipping like a mountain goat, sliding on her haunches, careering headlong, and myself clinging on with my knees aching and my hands on the mane, jolting and swaying wildly, and in the tail of my eye, Lew's red cap jerking crazily on the escarpment below.

I was the better horseman. He wasn't 20 yards out on the level when I touched the bottom and went after him like a bolt, yelling to him to hold on. He heard me and reined up, cursing and demanding to know what was the matter. "On with you!" cries I, as I came alongside, and as we galloped, I shouted my message.

He couldn't make it out but had to pluck the note from his glove and squint at it while he rode. "What the hell does it mean, in the first place?" cries he. "It says here, 'Advance rapidly to the front.' Well, God love us, the guns ain't in front; they're in flank front if they're anywhere."

"Search me," I shouted, "But he says Look-on is to act defensively and undertake nothing against his better judgement. So there!"

"Defensive?" cries Lew. "Defensive be damned! He must have said offensive---how the hell could he attack defensively? And this order says nothin' about Lucan's better judgement. For one thing, he's got no more judgement than Mulligan's bull pup!"

"Well, that's what Raglan said!" I shouted. "You're bound to deliver it."

I eased up as we shot through the ranks of the Greys, letting him go ahead; he went streaking through the Heavies and across the intervening space towards the Lights. I cantered easily up to the Fourth Lights, and there was George Paget, wanting to know what was up.

"You're advancing shortly," says I.

"Damned high time, too," says he. "Got a cheroot, Flash?---I haven't a weed to my name."11

I gave him one and he squinted at me. "You're looking peaky," says he. "Anything wrong?"

"Bowels," says I. "Damn all Russian champagne. Where's Lord Look-on?"

He pointed and I saw Lucan out ahead of the Lights, with some galloper beside him and Nolan just reining up. Lew was saluting and handing him the paper, and while Lucan pored over it, I looked about me.

It was drowsy and close down here on the plain after the breezy heights of the Sapoune; hardly a breath of wind, and the flies buzzing round the horses' heads and the heavy smell of dung and leather. I suddenly realized I was damned tired and my belly wouldn't lie quiet again; I grunted in reply to George's questions and took stock of the brigade, squirming uncomfortably in my saddle---there were the Cherrypickers in front, all very spruce in blue and pink, with their pelisses trailing; to their right the mortarboard helmets and blue tunics of the 17th, with their lances at rest and the little red point plumes hanging limp; to their right again, not far from where Lucan was sitting, the 13th Lights, with the great Lord Cardigan himself out to the fore, sitting very aloof and alone and affecting not to notice Lucan and Nolan, who weren't above 20 yards from him.

And then I heard Lucan's voice, clear as a bugle. "Guns, sir? What guns, may I ask? I can see no guns."

He was looking up the valley, his hand shading his eyes, and when I looked, by God, you couldn't see the redoubt where the Ruskis had been limbering up to haul the guns away---just the long slope of Causeway Heights and the Russian infantry uncomfortably close.

I could see Lew's face working; he was scarlet with fury and his hand was shaking as he came up by Lucau's shoulder, pointing along the line of the Causeway. "There, my lord---there, you see, are the guns! There's your enemy!"

He brayed it out, as though he were addressing a dirty trooper, and Lucan stiffened as though he'd been hit. Lew wheeled abruptly away and cantered off, making straight for me where I was sitting to the right of the 17th. He was shaking with passion, and as he drew abreast of me, he rasped out:

"The bloody fool! Does he want to sit on his great arse all day and every day?"

"Lew," says I, pretty sharp, "did you tell him he was to act defensively and at his own discretion?"

"Tell him?" says he, baring his teeth in a savage grin. "By Christ, I told him three times over! As if that bastard needs telling to act defensively---he's capable of nothing else! Well, he's got his bloody orders---now let's see how he carries them out!"

And with that, he went over to Tubby Morris and I thought, well, that's that---now for the Sapoune, home and beauty, and let 'em chase to their hearts' content down here. And I was just wheeling my horse, when from behind me I heard Lucan's voice.

"Colonel Flashman!" He was sitting with Cardigan, before the 13th Lights. "Come over here, if you please!"

Now what? thinks I, and my belly gave a great windy twinge as I trotted over towards them. Lucan was snapping at him impatiently as I drew alongside:

"I know, I know, but there it is. Lord Raglan's order is quite positive and we must obey it."

"Oh, vewy well," says Cardigan, damned ill-humoured; his voice was a mere croak, no doubt with his roupy chest or overboozing on his yacht. He flicked a glance at me and looked away, sniffing; Lucan addressed me.

"You will accompany Lord Cardigan," says he. "In the event that communication is needed, he must have a galloper."

I stared horrified, hardly taking in Cardigan's comment: "I envisage no necessity for Colonel Fwashman's pwesence or for communication with your wordship."

"Indeed, sir," says I, "Lord Raglan will need me ... I dare not wait any longer ... with your lordship's permission, I---"

"You will do as I say!" barks Lucan. "Upon my word, I have never met such insolence from mere gallopers before tills day! First Nolan and now you! Do as you are told, 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.

"My lord," says I to Cardigan, "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 looked me up and down. "You read 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."

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 re-formed; 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 in 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, Seventeenth---walk-march---twot!" and behind us the squadrons stirred and moved forward, 700 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 these 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. 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 100 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.

1Possibly because of the war scare, as Flashman suggests, there was a craze for growing moustaches, in addition to beards and whiskers, in the early months of 1854. Another fashion among the young men was for brilliantly coloured shirts with grotesque designs, skulls, snakes, flowers and the like. Both fads bore an interesting resemblance to modern "hippie" fashions, not least in the reactions they provoked: Bank of England clerks were expressly forbidden to join "the moustache movement," as it was called.

2The "eunuchs." The open-range musketry target in use at this time consisted of the usual concentric circles but with a naked human figure in the centre; the bull was a black disk discreetly placed below the figure's waistline.

3Sir William Molesworth's Commons committee met in March 1854 to consider small-arms production. Lord Paget was among the members and Lieutenant Colonel Sam Colt, the American inventor of the Colt revolver, was among those who gave evidence.

4The main bombardment of Odessa by British ships took place on April 22 but without doing great damage.

5"Villikins and His Dinah" was the hit song of 1854.

6From this, and one later reference, it seems obvious that Flashman was particularly impressed by a Punch cartoon, published shortly after Balaclava, showing a stout British father brandishing a poker with patriotic zeal in the morning room as he reads news of the charge of the Light Brigade.

7The policeman at Herne Bay. This mythical policeman was a humourous by-word of the time.

8It is interesting to note that William Howard Russell, in his original despatch to The Times, made the mistake of reporting that the Highlanders were involved in the attack on the redoubt but corrected this in later despatches. His histories of the Crimea are the work of a brilliant newspaperman, and even those who question his criticism of Raglan and other British leaders (see General Sir John Adye's "Review of the Crimean War") acknowledge the quality of his reporting. Anyone interested in verifying Flashman's statements cannot do better than to refer to Russell, or to Kinglake, who was also an eyewitness. Incidentally, Flashman's account of the Alma action is extremely accurate, especially where Lord Raglan's movements are concerned, but his memory has surely played him false in a slightly earlier passage when he suggests that the Russian gunners fired on the army at the start of its march down the Crimean coast: This took place some hours later.

9For an account of this incident, see Russell's "The War: From the Landing at Gallipoli to the Death of Lord Raglan (1855)."

10The original pencilled order, scribbled by Airey, is still preserved. It reads: "Lord Raglan wishes the Cavalry to advance rapidly to the front, follow the Enemy & try to prevent the Enemy carrying away the guns. Troop Horse Attily may accompany. French Cavalry is on yr left. Immediate." As to what verbal instructions may have been added, there is no certainty, but one of the rumours which later arose (see H. Moyse-Bartlett's "Lewis Edward Nolan") was that Nolan had been told to tell Lucan to act on the defensive but had passed on the vital word as offensive.

11It is one of the true curiosities of the charge of the Light Brigade that Lord George Paget rode into action smoking a cheroot---obviously, the one which Flashman gave him---and did not actually draw his sabre until the moment of entering the battery, when his orderly, Parkes, advised him to do so. Paget's coolness, which as much as anything saved the remnants of the Light Brigade, was notorious: Trooper Farquharson, who rode with him in the charge, recalled how earlier in the battle Paget was hit by a shell splinter and reacted only by telling his orderly to collect it as a souvenir.

This is the first of three installments of a condensed version of "Flashman at the Charge." The second installment will appear in the May issue.