Royal Flash

I wasn't hungry, but Ruth attacked his food in good spirits, and chattered away throughout the meal. He treated me with a nice blend of familiarity and respect, and you would never have guessed if you had seen us that it was all a sham. He was a splendid actor, and although it would have made me feel a complete fool if I hadn't been too miserable to mind, I began to realise even then that there was method in what he was doing. Kraftstein just put his head down and gorged, but on the one occasion he addressed me, he too called me 'highness'.

Bismarck came in just as we were finishing, and he for one wasn't playing charades. He stopped dead on the threshold, though, at sight of me, and then came into the room slowly, studying my face, walking round me, and examining me carefully for a minute or more. Finally he says:

'The likeness is astounding. In effect, he is Carl Gustaf.'

'So your friends have been trying to convince me,' I muttered.

'Excellent. It is not quite perfect, though. Two small details remain.'

'What's that?' says Rudi.

'The scars. One either side, the left immediately above the ear, the one on the right an inch lower and running slightly downward—so.' And he drew his finger across my shaven skin; the touch sent mice scampering down my spine.

'By heaven, you're right,' says Rudi. 'I'd forgotten. How do we give him those?'

My innards turned to water as Bismarck surveyed me with his icy smile.

'Surgery? It is possible. I've no doubt Kraftstein here could employ his razor most artistically… .'

'You're not cutting my bloody head, you bastard!' I shouted, and tried to struggle out of my chair, but Kraftstein seized me with his enormous hands and thrust me back. I yelled and struggled, and he clamped his paw across my jaws and squeezed until the pain made me subside, terrified.

'But there is a better way,' says Bismarck. 'They can be administered in the proper form—with the schlager. De Gautet can do it without difficulty.' He added, with a nasty look at me: 'And it will satisfy a small debt that I owe to our friend here.'

'Aye,' says Rudi doubtfully, 'but can he do it exactly—they must be in precisely the right places, mustn't they? No use giving him a wound where Carl Gustaf doesn't have one.'

'I have every confidence in de Gautet,' says Bismarck. 'With a sabre he can split a fly on the wing.'

I was listening to them appalled; these two monsters calmly discussing the best means of giving me a slashed head. If there is one thing I can't endure, it is pain, and the thought of cold steel slicing into my skull nearly made me swoon. As soon as Kraf tstein took his hand away I was yammering at them; Bismarck listened scornfully for a few seconds, and then says:

'Silence him, Kraftstein.'

The giant seized the nape of my neck, and a fearful pain shot down my back and across my shoulders. He must have fixed on some nerve, and I screamed and writhed in his grasp.

'He can go on doing that until you die,' says Bismarck. 'Now get up, and stop behaving like an old woman. It won't kill you to have a couple of cuts from a schlager. Every German youth is proud to take them; a little drink from the 'soup-plate of honour' will do you good.'

'For God's sake!' I burst out. 'Look, I've agreed to do what you want, but this is abominable! I won't—'

'You will,' says Bismarck. 'Prince Carl Gustaf has two duelling scars, received while he was a student at Heidelberg. There is no question of your impersonating him without them. I am sure,' he went on, smiling unpleasantly, 'that de Gautet will administer them as painlessly as possible. And if they cause you some triffing smart, you may console yourself that they have been paid for in advance, by your amiable friend Mr Gully. You recall the occasion?'

I recalled it all right, and it was no consolation at all. So now the swine was going to get his own back, and if I resisted I'd have Kraftstein pulling pieces out of me with his bare hands for my pains. There was nothing for it but to submit, and so I allowed myself to be led down to a big bare room off the courtyard where there were fencing masks and foils hung on the walls, and chalk lines on the floor, like a fencing school.

'Our gymnasium,' says Bismarck. 'You will spend some time here during your preparation—you are heavier than Carl Gustaf by a pound or two, I should judge. Perhaps we can relieve you of some of it this morning.'

Coming from a man with sausages of fat beginning to bulge over his collar, this was pretty cool, but I was too busy gulping down my fear to mind. Presently de Gautet arrived, looking even more snake-like than he had the previous night, and when Bismarck explained what was to do, you could see the rascal's mouth start to water.

'You must be exact to the inch,' says Bismarck. 'Look here.' He stood in front of me, drawing from his pocket the little miniature he had shown me last night, glancing at it and then at me and frowning. 'You see how they run—so and so. Now, the crayon.' And to my horror he took a fat black pencil which Kraftstein held out, and with great care began to mark on the skin of my head the places where the cuts were to go.

It was the final obscene touch that brought the bile up into my mouth, so that I almost spewed at him. He stood there, his face close to mine, hissing gently through his teeth and sketching away on my crawling flesh as though it had been a blackboard. I shuddered away, and he growled at me to be still, I was paralysed— I don't think that of all the beastly things that man ever did, or all the terror he caused me, that there was anything as loathsome as that casual marking of my skin for de Gautet to cut at. There is only one word for it—it was German. And if you don't understand what I mean, thank God for it.

At last he was done, and Kraftstein could arm us for the schlager play. It seemed horrible to me at the time, but looking back from the safety of old age I can see that it is more childish than anything else. For all their pride in taking scars to impress everyone with how manly they are, the Germans are damned careful not to cause themselves any serious damage. Kraftstein fitted big metal caps onto the crowns of our heads; they were equipped with spectacles of iron in front to protect the eyes and nose, and there were heavy padded stocks to go round our necks. Then there was a quilted body armour to buckle round our middles, with flaps to cover the thighs, and a padded bandage to wrap round the right arm from wrist to shoulder. By the time we were fully equipped I felt like Pantaloon with dropsy; it was so ridiculous that I almost forgot to be afraid.

Even when the schlager was put into my hand it looked such a ludicrous weapon that I couldn't take it seriously. It was more than a yard long, with a triangular blade, and had a huge metal bowl at the hilt to protect the hand: it must have been about a foot across.[26]

'The soup-plate of honour,' says Bismarck. 'You have used a sabre, I suppose?'

'Ask your man about that when we've finished,' says I, blustering with a confidence I didn't feel: de Gautet was swishing his schlager in a frighteningly professional way.

'Very good,' says Bismarck. 'You will observe that your opponent's head is covered, as is yours, at all points except for the cheeks and lower temples. These are your targets—and his. I may tell you that, with de Gautet, you are as likely to hit those targets as I was to strike Mr Gully. You may cut, but not thrust. Do you understand? I shall call you to begin and to desist.'

He stepped back, and I found myself facing de Gautet across the chalked floor; Rudi and Kraftstein had taken their places along the walls, but Bismarck stayed within a couple of yards of us, armed with a schlager to strike up our blades if need be.

De Gautet advanced, saluting with a flourish; in his padding he looked like some kind of sausage-doll, but his eyes were bright and nasty through the spectacles. I didn't salute, but came on guard sabre-fashion, right hand up above my head and blade slanting down before my face.

'Salute!' snaps Bismarck.

'Pish to you!' says I, guessing that it would offend his fine Teutonic spirit to ignore the formalities. I was getting cocky, you see, because all this paraphernalia had convinced me that the business wasn't really serious at all. I'm not a sabre expert—a strong swordsman, rather than a good one, was how the masterat-arms in the 11th Hussars had described me— and if I have to use one I'd rather it wasn't in single combat, but in a melee, where you can hang about on the outskirts, roaring your heart out and waiting for an opponent with his back turned. However, it seemed to me now that I ought to be able to guard the unprotected areas that de Gautet would be cutting at.

He came on guard, the blades grated between us, and then he twitched his wrist, quick as light, right and left, aiming deft little cuts at the sides of my head. But Flashy's nobody's fool; I turned my wrist with his, and caught the cuts on my own blade. He cut again, and the blade rang on my cap, but I broke ground and let go a regular roundhouse slash at him, like a dragoon full of drink. With the schlager, I learned later, you are supposed to employ only wrist cuts, but I was just an ignorant foreigner. My sweep, if it had landed,