Flash For Freedom!

You'd hardly credit it, but in a way he'd had much the same thought as myself, although I don't claim to know by what amazing distortions of logic he arrived at it. But the upshot of his panic-stricken meditations on that day and the following night, when he was still expecting the mob to reassemble and run him out of town on a rail, was the amazing notion that I ought to go into Parliament.

'It's your duty,' cries he, sitting there in his night-cap with his ankle all bandaged up, while the family chittered round him, offering gruel. He waved his spoon at me. 'Ye should hiv a seat i' the Hoose.'

I'm well aware that when a man has been terrified out of his wits, the most lunatic notions occur to him as sane and reasonable, but I couldn't follow this.

'Me, in Parliament?' I loosed a huge guffaw. 'What the devil would I do there? D'ye think that would keep the Chartists at bay?'

At this he let loose a great tirade about the parlous state of the country, and the impending dissolution of constitutional government, and how it was everyone's duty to rally to the flag. Oddly enough, it reminded me of the kind of claptrap I'd heard from Bismarck — strong government, and lashing the workers — but I couldn't see how Flashy, M.P., was going to bring that about.

'If yesterday's nonsense has convinced you that we need a change at Westminster,' says I, '— and I'd not disagree with you there — why don't you stand yourself?'

He glowered at me over his gruel-bowl. 'I'm no' the Hero of Kabul,' says he. 'Forbye, I've business enough to attend to. But you — ye've nothing to hinder ye. Ye're never tired o' tellin' us whit a favourite ye are wi' the public. Here's your chance to make somethin' o't.'

'You're out of your senses,' says I. 'Who would elect me?'

'Anybody,' snaps he. 'A pug ape frae the zoological gardens could win a seat in this country, if it was managed right.' Buttering me up, I could see.

'But I'm not a politician,' says I. 'I know nothing about it, and care even less.'

'Then ye're the very man, and ye'll find plenty o' kindred spirits at Westminster,' says he, and when I hooted at him he flew into a tremendous passion that drove the females weeping from the room. I left him raging.

But when I came to think about it, do you know, it didn't seem quite so foolish after all. He was a sharp man, old Morrison, and he could see it would do no harm to have a Member in the family, what with his business interests and so on. Not that I'd be much use to him that I could see — I didn't know, then, that he had been maturing some notion of buying as many as a dozen seats. I'd no idea, you see, of just how wealthy the old rascal was, and how he was scheming to use that wealth for political ends. You won't find much in the history books about John Morrison, Lord Paisley, but you can take my word for it that it was men like him who pulled the strings in the old Queen's time, while the political puppets danced. They still do, and always will.

And from my side of the field, it didn't look a half bad idea. Flashy, M.P. Sir Harry Flashman, M.P., perhaps. Lord Flash of Lightning, Paymaster of the Forces, with a seat in the Cabinet, d—n your eyes. God knows I could do that job as well as Thomas Babbling Macaulay. Even in my day dreaming I stopped short of Flashy, Prime Minister, but for the rest, the more I thought of it the better I liked it. Light work, plenty of spare time for as much depraved diversion as I could manage in safety, and the chance to ram my opinions down the public's throat whenever I felt inclined. I need never go out of London if I didn't want to — I would resign from the army, of course, and rest on my considerable if ill-gotten laurels — and old Morrison would be happy to foot the bills, no doubt, in return for slight services rendered.

The main thing was, it would be a quiet life. As you know, in spite of the published catalogue of my career — Victoria Cross, general rank, eleven campaigns, and all that mummery — I've always been an arrant coward and a peaceable soul. Bullying underlings and whipping trollops always excepted, I'm a gentle fellow — which means I'll never do harm to anyone if there's a chance he may harm me in return. The trouble is, no one would believe it to look at me; I've always been big and hearty and looked the kind of chap who'd go three rounds with the town tough if he so much as stepped on my shadow, and from what Tom Hughes has written of me you might imagine I was always ready for devilment. Aye, but as I've grown older I've learned that devilment usually has to be paid for. God knows I've done my share of paying, and even in '48, at the ripe old age of twenty-six, I'd seen enough sorrow, from the Khyber to German dungeons by way of the Borneo jungles and the torture-pits of Madagascar, to convince me that I must never go looking for trouble again.² Who'd have thought that old Morrison's plans to seat me at Westminster could have led to … well, ne'er mind. All in good time.

As to getting a suitable seat, that would be easy enough, with Morrison's gelt greasing the way. Which prompted the thought that I ought to have a word with him about issues of political importance.

'Two thousand a year at least,' says I.

'Five hundred and no' a penny more,' says he.

'Dammit, I've appearances to keep up,' says I. 'Elspeth's notions ain't cheap.'

'I'll attend to that,' says he. 'As I always have done.' The cunning old bastard wouldn't even let me have the administration of my own wife's household; he knew better.

'A thousand, then. Good God, my clothes'll cost that.'

'Elspeth can see tae your wardrobe,' says he, smirking. 'Five hundred, my buckie; it's mair than your worth.'

'I'll not do it, then,' says I. 'And that's flat.'

'Aye, weel,' says he, 'that's a peety. I'll just have to get one that will. Ye'll find it a wee bit lean on your army half-pay, I'm thinkin'.'

'Damn you,' says I. 'Seven-fifty.'

And eventually I got it, but only because Elspeth told her father I should have it. She, of course, was delighted at the thought of my having a political career. 'We shall have soirees, attended by Lord John and the Marquis of Lansdowne,'³ she exclaimed. 'People with titles, and their ladies, and —'

'They're Whigs,' says I. 'I've an idea your papa will expect me to be a Tory.'

'It doesn't signify in the least,' says she. 'The Tories are a better class of people altogether, I believe. Why, the Duke is a Tory, is he not?'

'So the rumour runs,' says I. 'But political secrets of that kind must be kept quiet, you know.'

'Oh, it is all quite wonderful,' says she, paying me no heed at all. 'You will be famous again, Harry — you are so clever, you are sure to be a success, and I — I will need at least four page boys with buttons, and footmen in proper uniform.' She clapped her hands, her eyes sparkling, and pirouetted. 'Why, Harry! We shall need a new house! I must have clothes — oh, but papa will see to it, he is so kind!'

It occurred to me that papa might decide he had bitten off more than he could chew, listening to her, although personally I thought her ideas were excellent. She was in tremendous spirits, and I took the opportunity to make another assault on her; she was so excited that I had her half out of her dress before she realised what I was about, and then the wicked little b—-h teased me along until I was thoroughly randified, only to stop me in the very act of boarding her, because of her concern for dear little Harry Albert Victor, blast his impudence.

'To think,' says she, 'that he will have a great statesman for a father!' She had me in the Cabinet already, you see. 'Oh, Harry, how proud we shall be!'

Which was small consolation to me just then, having to button myself up and restrain my carnal appetites. To be sure I eased them considerably in the next week or two, for I looked out some of the Haymarket tarts of my acquaintance, and although they were a poor substitute for Elspeth they helped me to settle in again to London life and regular whoring. So I was soon enjoying myself, speculating pleasantly about the future, taking my ease with the boys about the town, forgetting the recent horrors of Jotunberg and Rudi Starnberg's gang of assassins, and waiting for old Morrison to start the wheels of my political career turning.

He was helped, of course, by my own celebrity and the fact that my father — who was now happily settled down with his delirium tremens at a place in the country — had been an M.P. in his time, and a damned fine hand at the hustings; he had got in on a popular majority after horse-whipping his opponent on the eve of the poll and offering to fight bare-knuckle with any man the Whigs could put up, from Brougham down. He had a good deal more bottom than I, but they did for him at Reform, and if I didn't have his ardour I was certain I had a greater talent for survival, political and otherwise.

Anyway, it was some weeks before Morrison announced that I was to meet some 'men in the know' as he called them, and that we were to go down to Wiltshire for a few days, to the house of a local big-wig, where some politicos would be among the guests. It sounded damned dull, and no doubt would have been, had it not been for