Flash For Freedom!

and into another, and there I overtook the figure ahead of me.

'Captain Spring,' says I. 'Captain Spring — it's me.'

He swung round as if stung, as near startled as I'd ever seen him.

'The devil!' he exclaimed. 'You!'

'Captain,' says I, 'in God's name, will you give me a passage out of here? You're leaving, on the College, aren't you? For pity's sake, take me with you — out of this blasted —'

'What?' cries he, his scar beginning to jump like St Vitus dance. 'Take you? Why the devil should I? You —'

'Listen, please, captain,' says I. 'Look, I played up today, didn't I? I could have sworn you to kingdom come, couldn't I? But I didn't — I didn't! I got you off —'

'You got me off!' He tilted back his hat and glared at me. 'You saved your own dirty little neck, you Judas, you! And you've the nerve to come crawling to me?'

'I'll buy my passage!' I pleaded. 'Look, I'm not just begging — I can buy it with something you want.'

'And what would that be?' But he stepped aside with me into a doorway, the pale eyes fixed on me.

'You heard in court — I got Comber's papers — the things he'd filched from you. Well —' I forced myself not to notice the darkening scar on his brow. '— I've still got 'em. Are they price enough?'

His face was like flint. 'Where are they?' he growled.

'In a safe place — a very safe place. Not on me,' I lied, praying he'd believe it. 'But I know where they are, and unless I say the word — well, they could get into the wrong hands, couldn't they? You'd be clear and away before that, of course, but your owners wouldn't like it. Morrison, for one.'

'Where are they?' he demanded, and his hands came up, as though to seize me. But I shook my head.

'I'll tell you,' says I, 'in Liverpool or Bristol — not before. They'll be safe until then, on my word.'

'Your word!' he sneered. 'We know what that's worth! You perjured rascal. Look at you!' He laughed softly. 'Post ecjuitem sedet atra cura.*[* Dark care sits behind the horseman (A guilty man cannot escape himself).] Your friends in the American Navy are looking for you, I don't doubt.'

'if they find me, they find those papers,' says I. 'But if you take me with you, I swear you'll have 'em.' And welcome, I thought privately. Even when I'd handed them over, the knowledge of what was in 'em would still be in my head, and I'd use it to squeeze old Morrison dry. 'You'll have them, captain,' I repeated. 'I promise.'

'By God I will,' says Spring. 'I'll see to that.' He stood considering me, 'What a worthless creature you are — what shreds of loyalty have you, you object?'

'Plenty — to myself,' says I. 'Just as you have, Captain Spring.' His scar went pink; then he laughed again. 'Well, well. You've picked up some Yankee sauce over here, I believe. Perhaps you're right, though. Horace reminds me, why should I sneer at you? Mutato nomine de te fabula narratur.'*[* Change the name, and the story is told of yourself.] He looked up and down the street. 'I'll take you. But you tell me those papers are safe, do you? For if they're not — by God, I'll drop you overside with a bag of coal on your feet, if we're within ten feet of the Mersey. Or Brest, which is where I'm going. Well?'

'You have my word,' says I.

'No,' says he. 'But I've got your carcase, and I'll settle for that. Now, then — are these damned Yankees close behind you? Then step lively, Mr Flashman!'

Strange, I thought, how long it was since anyone had called me by my proper name. For the first time in months I felt I was almost home again. With Elspeth, and the youngster, too. Aye, and my dear papa-in-law — I was looking forward to presenting my account to him.

[EDITOR'S POSTSCRIPT. On this optimistic note the third packet of the Flashman Papers comes to an end. How far the optimism was justified may be judged from the fact that, instead of describing his return in gloating detail, Flashman concluded this portion of his memoirs by attaching to the last page of manuscript a clipping, cracked and faded with age, from a newspaper (probably, from its type face and extreme column width, the Glasgow Herald) dated January z6, 1849. The news it contains was, of course, unknown to him when he left New Orleans homeward bound. It reads, in part: 'It is with deep regret that we impart to our readers news of the death of Lord Paisley. This untimely event occurred last week at the home of his daughter, Mrs Harry Flashman, in London, where he had been residing for some time past. Those who knew him, either as John Morrison of Paisley and this city, where he was formerly Deacon of Weavers in the Trades' House of Glasgow, or by the title to which he was raised by a gracious sovreign only in November last, will be united in mourning his sudden melancholy demise…' ]

NOTES

1. The great Chartist Demonstration of Monday, April 10, 1848, was, as Flashman says, a frost. Following the numerous continental revolutions, there were those who feared that civil strife would break out in Britain, and in addition to extra troops brought to the capital, the authorities enlisted 170,000 special constables between April 6 and 10 to deal with disturbances. Peel, Gladstone, Prince Louis Napoleon (later Napoleon III), about half the House of Lords and an immense number of middle-class volunteers were among the 'specials'. In the event, only about twenty to thirty thousand Chartists demonstrated, instead of the half million expected, and there was little violence apart from the fight between the butcher's boy and the French agitator, which happened as Flashman describes it. (Foreign agitators and hooligan elements were a frequent embarrassment to the Chartists, since they discredited the movement). Of the two (not five) million signatures to the great petition, about one-fifth are said to have been bogus — 'Punch' noted caustically that if they had all been genuine, the Chartist procession should have been headed by the Queen and seventeen Dukes of Wellington. (See Halevy's History of the English People in the Nineteenth Century, vol. 4, pp. 242-6.)

2. From this and other allusions it is obvious that Flashman spent at least part of the 1843 — 47 period (the 'missing years' so far untouched by his memoirs) in Madagascar and Borneo. He is known to have been both military adviser to Queen Ranavalona and chief of staff to Rajah Brooke of Sarawak; it now seems probable that he held these appointments between 1843 and 1847. Other evidence suggests that he may also have taken part in the First Sikh War of 1845-6.

3. Lord John Russell was then Prime Minister; Lansdowne was Lord President of the Council.

4. Berlins: articles, particularly gloves, knitted of Berlin wool.

5. Attendance money. A charge introduced on the railway about this time, which amounted to a kind of cover or service charge. It appears to have been levied for as small a service as asking a railway servant the time of day. Flashman's memory may be playing him false when he speaks of a railway book-stall; it was more probably a railway library.

6. Frances Isabella Locke (1829-1903) was to become famous in later years as Mrs Fanny Duberly, Victorian heroine, campaigner, and 'army wife' extraordinary. She left celebrated journals of her service in the Crimea and the Indian Mutiny. (See E.E.P. Tisdall's Mrs Duberly's Campaigns.)

7. Lord George Bentinck (1802-48), one of the foremost sporting figures of his day, and leader of the Protectionist Tory opposition in the Commons. Handsome, arrogant, and viciously aggressive in political argument, Bentinck was widely respected as a guardian of the purity of the turf, although after his death his former friend Greville alleged that he was guilty of 'fraud, falsehood, and selfishness' and 'a mass of roguery' in his racing conduct. Bentinck resigned his leadership of the opposition early in 1848, but was still the power in his party at the time of his meeting with Flashman at Cleeve. He died suddenly only a few months later, on September 21, 1848.

Disraeli, who then succeeded him as Tory leader in the Commons, was not to become Prime Minister for another twenty years. Flashman's view of him in 1848 fairly reflects the feeling of many Tories — 'they detest D'Israeli, the only man of talent', wrote Greville in that year. His extravagances of dress and speech, his success as a novelist, and his Jewish antecedents combined to render him unpopular — Flashman, like Greville, insists on spelling him D'Israeli, although Disraeli himself had dropped the apostrophe ten years earlier. The nickname Codlingsby is a pun on Coningsby, perhaps his best novel, published in 1844. (See Charles Greville's Memoirs, January 7-September 28, 1843.)

8. Surplice had just beaten Shylock in the Derby, and on the following day the Jewish Disabilities Bill failed in the House of Lords.

9. With revolution everywhere on the Continent in 1848, it was confidently expected that Ireland would erupt,