and a swarm of people about us.
'Come on,' says the Duke, and led the way through a small doorway, and I have a hazy recollection of stairs and liveried footmen, and long carpeted corridors, and great chandeliers, and soft-footed officials escorting us - but my chief memory is of the slight, grey-coated figure in front of me, striding along and people getting out of his way.
We brought up outside two great double doors with a flunkey in a wig at either side, and a small fat man in a black tail coat bobbed in front of us, and darted forward muttering to twitch at my collar and smooth my lapel.
'Apologies,' he twittered. 'A brush here.' And he snapped his fingers. A brush appeared and he flicked at my coat, very deftly, and shot a glance in the Duke's direction. 'Take that damned thing away,'
says the Duke, 'and stop fussing. We know how to dress without your assistance.'
The little fat man looked reproachful and stood aside, motioning to the flunkeys. They opened the door, and with my heart thumping against my ribs I heard a rich, strong voice announce:
'His Grace the Duke of Wellington. Mr Flashman.' It was a large, magnificently furnished drawing-room, with a carpet stretching away between mirrored walls and a huge chandelier overhead. There were a few people at the other end, two men standing near the fireplace, a girl sitting on a couch with an older woman standing behind, and I think another man and a couple of women near by. We walked forward towards them, the Duke a little in advance, and he stopped short of the couch and bowed.
'Your Majesty,' says he, 'may I have the honour to present Mr Flashman.'
And only then did I realise who the girl was. We are accustomed to think of her as the old queen, but she was ? just a child then, rather plump, and pretty enough beneath the neck. Her eyes were large and popped a little, and her teeth stuck out too much, but she smiled and murmured in reply - by this time I was bowing my backside off, naturally. When I straightened up she was looking at me, and Wellington was reciting briskly about Kabul and jallalabad -
'distinguished defence', 'Mr Flashman's notable behaviour' are the only phrases that stay in my mind. When he stopped she inclined her head at him, and then said to me:
'You are the first we have seen of those who served so bravely in Afghanistan, Mr Flashman. It is realty a great joy to see you returned safe and well. We have heard the most glowing reports of your gallantry, and it is most gratifying to be able to express our thanks and admiration for such brave and loyal service.'
Well, she couldn't have said fairer than that I suppose, even if she did recite it like a parrot. I just made a rumbling sound in my throat and ducked my head again. She had a thick, oddly-accented voice, and came down heavy on her words every now and then, nodding as she did so.
'Are you entirely recovered from your wounds?' she asked.
'Very well, thank'ee, your majesty,' says I.
'You are exceedingly brown,' says one of the men, and the heavy German accent startled me. I'd noticed him out of the tail of my eye, leaning against the mantel, with one leg crossed over the other. So this is Prince Albert, I thought; what hellish-looking whiskers.
'You must be as brown as an Aff-ghan,' says he, and they laughed politely.
I told him I had passed for one, and he opened his eyes and said did I speak the language, and would I say some-thing in it. So without thinking I said the first words that came into my head: 'Hamare ghali ana, achha din,' which is what the harlots chant at passers-by, and means 'Good day, come into our street'. He seemed very interested, but the man beside him stiffened and stared hard at me.
'What does it mean, Mr Flashman?' says the Queen.
'It is a Hindu greeting, marm,' says the Duke, and my guts turned over as I recalled that he had served in India.
'Why, of course,' says she, 'we are quite an Indian gathering, with Mr Macaulay here.' The name meant nothing to me then; he was looking at me damned hard, though, with his pretty little mouth set hard. I later learned that he had spent several years in government out there, so my fat-headed remark had not been lost on him, either.
'Mr Macaulay has been reading us his new poems,'(28) says the Queen. 'They are quite stirring and fine. I think his Horatius must have been your model, Mr Flashman, for you know he defied great odds in defence of Rome. It is a splendid ballad, and very inspiring. Do you know the story, Duke?'
He said he did, which put him one up on me, and added that he didn't believe it, at which she cried out and demanded to know why.
'Three men can't stop an army, marm,' says he. 'Livy was no soldier, or he would hardly have suggested they could.'
'Oh, come now,' says Macaulay. 'They were on a narrow bridge, and could not be outnumbered.'
'You see, Duke?' says the Queen. 'How could they be overcome?'
'Bows and arrows, marm,' says he. 'Slings. Shoot 'em down.
That's what I'd have done.'
At this she said that the Tuscans were more chivalrous than he was, and he agreed that very likely they were.
'Which is perhaps why there are no Tuscan empires today, but an extensive British one,' says the Prince quietly. And then he leaned forward and murmured some-thing to the Queen, and she nodded wisely, and stood up -she was very small - and signed to me to come forward in front of her. I went, wondering, and the Duke came to my elbow, and the Prince watched me with his head on one side. The lady who had been behind the couch came for-ward, and handed something to the Queen, and she looked up at me, from not a foot away.
'Our brave soldiers in Afghanistan are to have four medals from the Governor-General,' she said. 'You will wear them in course of time, but there is also a medal from their Queen, and it is fitting that you should wear it first of all.'
She pinned it on my coat, and she had to reach up to do it, she was so small. Then she smiled at me, and I felt so overcome I didn't know what to say. Seeing this, she went all soulful about the eyes.
'You are a very gallant gentleman,' says she. 'God bless you.'
Oh, lor', I thought, if only you knew, you romantic little woman, thinking I'm a modern Horatius. (I made a point of studying Macaulay's 'Lays' later, and she wasn't too far off, really; only the chap I resembled was False Sextus, a man after my own heart.) However, I had to say something, so I mumbled about her majesty's service.
