Flashman In The Great Game
George MacDonald Fraser
Explanatory note
One of the most encouraging things about editing the first four volumes of the Flashman Papers has been the generous response from readers and students of history in many parts of the world. Since the discovery of Flashman's remarkable manuscript in a Leicestershire sale-room in 1965, when it was realised that it was the hitherto-unsuspected autobiographical memoir of the notorious bully of Tom Brown's Schooldays, letters have reached the editor from such diverse places as Ascension Island, a G.I. rest camp in Vietnam, university faculties and campuses in Britain and America, a modern caravanserai on the Khyber Pass road, a police-station cell in southern Australia, and many others.
What has been especially gratifying has been not only the interest in Flashman himself, but the close historical knowledge which correspondents have shown of the periods and incidents with which his memoirs have dealt so far — the first Afghan War, the solution of the Schleswig-Holstein Question (involving as it did Count Bismarck and Lola Montez), the Afro-American slave trade, and the Crimean War. Many have contributed interesting observations, and one or two have detected curious discrepancies in Flashman's recollections which, regrettably, escaped his editor. A lady in Athens and a gentleman in Flint, Michigan, have pointed out that Flashman apparently saw the Duchess of Wellington at a London theatre some years after her death, and a letter on Foreign Office notepaper has remarked on his careless reference to a 'British Ambassador' in Washington in 1848, when in fact Her Majesty's representative in the American capital held a less exalted diplomatic title. Such lapses are understandable, if not excusable, in a hard-living octogenarian.
Equally interesting have been such communications as those from a gentleman in New Orleans who claims to be Flashman's illegitimate great-grandson (as the result of a liaison in a military hospital at Richmond, Va., during the U.S. Civil War), and from a British serving officer who asserts that his grandfather lent fifty dollars and a horse to Flashman during the same campaign; neither, apparently, was returned.
It is possible that these and other matters of interest will be resolved when the later papers are edited. The present volume deals with Flashman's adventures in the Indian Mutiny, where he witnessed many of the dramatic moments of that terrible struggle, and encountered numerous Victorian celebrities — monarchs, statesmen, and generals among them. As in previous volumes, his narrative tallies closely with accepted historical fact, as well as furnishing much new information, and there has been little for his editor to do except correct his spelling, deplore his conduct, and provide the usual notes and appendices.
Flashman In The Great Game
They don't often invite me to Balmoral nowadays, which is a blessing; those damned tartan carpets always put me off my food, to say nothing of the endless pictures of German royalty and that unspeakable statue of the Prince Consort standing knock-kneed in a kilt. King Teddy's company is something I'd sooner avoid than not, anyway, for he's no better than an upper-class hooligan. Of course, he's been pretty leery of me for forty-odd years (ever since I misguided his youthful footsteps into an actress's bed, in fact, and brought Papa Albert's divine wrath down on his fat head) and when he finally wheezed his way on to the throne I gather he thought of dropping me altogether — said something about my being Falstaff to his Prince Hal. Falstaff, mark you — from a man with piggy eyes and a belly like a Conestoga wagon cover. Vile taste in cigars he has, too.
In the old Queen's time, of course, I was at Balmoral a great deal. She always fancied me, from when she was a chit of a girl and pinned the Afghan medal on my manly breast, and after I had ridden herd on that same precious Teddy through the Tranby Croft affair and saved him from the worst consequences of his own folly, she couldn't do enough for me. Each September after that, regular as clockwork, there would come a command for 'dear General Flashman' to take the train north to Kailyard Castle, and there would be my own room, with a bowl of late roses on the windowsill, and a bottle of brandy on the side-table with a discreet napkin over it — they knew my style. So I put up with it; she was all right, little Vicky, as long as you gave her your arm to lean on, and let her prattle on endlessly, and the rations were adequate. But even then, I never cottoned to the place. Not only, as I've said, was it furnished in a taste that would have offended the sensibilities of a nigger costermonger, it had the most awful Highland gloom about it — all drizzle and mist and draughts under the door and holy melancholy: even the billiard-room had a print on the wall of a dreadful ancient Scotch couple glowering devoutly. Praying, I don't doubt, for me to be snookered.
But I think what really turns me against Balmoral in my old age is its memories. It was there that the Great Mutiny began for me, and on my rare excursions north nowadays there's a point on the line where the rhythm of the wheels changes, and in my imagination they begin to sing: 'Mera-Jhansi-denge-nay, mera-Jhansi-denge-nay', over and over, and in a moment the years have dropped away, and I'm remembering how I first came to Balmoral half a century ago; aye, and what it led to — the stifling heat of the parade ground at Meerut with the fettering-hammers clanging; the bite of the muzzle of the nine-pounder jammed into my body and my own blood steaming on the sun- scorched iron; old Wheeler bawling hoarsely as the black cavalry sabres come thundering across the maidan towards our flimsy rampart ('No surrender! One last volley, damn 'em, and aim at the horses!'); the burning bungalows, a skeleton hand in the dust, Colin Campbell scratching his grizzled head, the crimson stain spreading in the filthy water below Suttee Ghat, a huge glittering pile of silver and gold and jewels and ivory bigger than anything you've ever seen — and two great brown liquid eyes shadowed with kohl, a single pearl resting on the satin skin above them, open red lips trembling … and, blast him, here's the station-master, beaming and knuckling his hat and starting me out of the only delightful part of that waking nightmare, with his cry of 'Welcome back tae Deeside, Sir Harry! here we are again, then!'
And as he hands me down to the platform, you may be sure the local folk are all on hand, bringing their brats to stare and giggle at the big old buffer in his tweed cape and monstrous white whiskers ('There he is! The V.C. man, Sir Harry Flashman — aye, auld Flashy, him that charged wi' the Light Brigade and killed a' the niggers at Kau-bool — Goad, but isnae he the auld yin? — hip, hooray!'). So I acknowledge the cheers with a wave, bluff and hearty, as I step into the dog-cart, stepping briskly to escape the inevitable bemedalled veteran who comes shuffling after me, hoping I'll slip him sixpence for a dram when he assures me that we once stood together in the Highlanders' line at Balaclava. Lying old bastard, he was probably skulking in bed.
Not that I'd blame him if he was, mark you; given the chance I'd have skulked in mine — and not just at Balaclava, neither, but at every battle and skirmish I've sweated and scampered through during fifty inglorious years
