one of those randy classical goddesses, wearing nothing but the big ostrich-plume fan I'd brought her from Egypt, and her sniggering maid turning the lamp down low. Elspeth clothed could stop a monk in his tracks; naked and pouting expectantly over a handful of red feathers, she'd have made the Grand Inquisitor burn his books. I hesitated between love and duty for a full second, and then 'The hell with Palmerston, let him wait!' cries I, and was plunging for the bed before the abigail was fairly out of the room. Never miss the chance, as the Duke used to say.
'Lord Palmerston? Oooo-ah! Harry — what do you mean?'
'Ne'er mind!' cries I, taking hold and bouncing away. 'But Harry — such impatience, my love! And, dearest — you're wearing your hat!'
'The next one's going to be a boy, dammit!' And for a few glorious stolen moments I forgot Palmerston and minions in the hall, and marvelled at the way that superb idiot woman of mine could keep up a stream of questions while performing like a harem houri — we were locked in an astonishing embrace on her dressing-table stool, I recall, when there was a knock on the door, and the maid's giggling voice piped through to say the gentleman downstairs was getting impatient, and would I be long.
'Tell him I'm just packing my baggage,' says I. 'I'll be down directly,' and presently, keeping my mouth on hers to stem her babble of questions, I carried my darling tenderly back to the bed. Always leave things as you would wish to find them.
'I cannot stay longer, my love,' I told her. 'The Prime Minister is waiting.' And with bewildered entreaties pursuing me I skipped out, trousers in hand, made a hasty toilet on the landing, panted briefly against the wall, and then stepped briskly down. It's a great satisfaction, looking back, that I kept the government waiting in such a good cause, and I set it down here as a deserved tribute to the woman who was the only real love of my life and as the last pleasant memory I was to have for a long time ahead.
It's true enough, too, as Ko Dali's daughter taught me, that there's nothing like a good rattle for perking up an edgy chap like me. It had shaken me for a moment, and it still looked rum, that Palmerston should want to see me, but as we bowled through the driving rain to Balmoral I was telling myself that there was probably nothing in it after all; considering the good odour I stood in just then, hob-nobbing with royalty and being admired for my Russian heroics, it was far more likely to be fair news than foul. And it wasn't like being bidden to the presence of one of your true ogres, like the old Duke or Bismarck or Dr Wrath-of-God Arnold (I've knocked tremulously on some fearsome doors in my time, I can tell you).
No, Pam might be an impatient old tyrant when it came to bullying foreigners and sending warships to deal with the dagoes, but everyone knew he was a decent, kindly old sport at bottom, who put folk at their ease and told a good story. Why, it was notorious that the reason he wouldn't live at Downing Street, but on Piccadilly, was that he liked to ogle the good-lookers from his window, and wave to the cads and crossing-sweepers, who loved him because he talked plain English, and would stump up a handsome subscription for an old beaten prize-pug like Tom Sayers. That was Pam — and if anyone ever tells you that he was a politically unprincipled old scoundrel, who carried things with a high and reckless hand, I can only say that it didn't seem to work a whit worse than the policies of more high-minded statesmen. The only difference I ever saw between them and Pam was that he did his dirty work bare-faced (when he wasn't being deeper than damnation) and grinned about it.
So I was feeling pretty easy as we covered the three miles to Balmoral — and even pleasantly excited — which shows you how damned soft and optimistic I must have grown; I should have known that it's never safe to get within range of princes or prime ministers. When we got to the Castle I followed Hutton smartly through a side-door, up some back-stairs, and along to heavy double doors where a burly civilian was standing guard; I gave my whiskers a martial twitch as he opened the door, and stepped briskly in.
You know how it can be when you enter a strange room — everything can look as safe and merry as ninepence, and yet there's something in the air that touches you like an electric shock. It was here now, a sort of bristling excitement that put my nerves on edge in an instant. And yet there was nothing out of the ordinary to see — just a big, cheerful panelled room with a huge fire roaring under the mantel, a great table littered with papers, and two sober chaps bustling about it under the direction of a slim young fellow — Barrington, Palmerston's secretary. And over by the fire were three other men — Ellenborough, with his great flushed face and his belly stuck out; a slim, keen-looking old file whom I recognized as Wood, of the Admiralty; and with his back to the blaze and his coat-tails up, the man himself, peering at Ellenborough with his bright, short-sighted eyes and looking as though his dyed hair and whiskers had just been rubbed with a towel — old Squire Pam as ever was. As I came in, his brisk, sharp voice was ringing out (he never gave a damn who heard him):
'… so if he's to be Prince Consort, it don't make a ha'porth of difference, you see. Not to the country — or me. However, as long as Her Majesty thinks it does — that's what matters, what? Haven't you found that telegraph of Quilter's yet, Barrington? — well, look in the Persian packet, then.'
And then he caught sight of me, and frowned, sticking out his long lip. 'Ha, that's the man!' cries he. 'Come in, sir, come in!'
What with the drink I'd taken, and my sudden nervousness, I tripped over the mat — which was an omen, if you like — and came as near as a toucher to oversetting a chair.
'By George,' says Pam, 'is he drunk? All these young fellows are, nowadays. Here, Barrington, see him to a chair, before he breaks a window. There, at the table.' Barrington pulled out a chair for me, and the three at the fireplace seemed to be staring ominously at me while I apologised and took it, especially Pam in the middle, with those bright steady eyes taking in every inch of me as he nursed his port glass and stuck a thumb into his fob — for all the world like the marshal of a Kansas trail-town surveying the street. (Which is what he was, of course, on a rather grand scale.)
He was very old at this time, with the gout and his false teeth forever slipping out, but he was evidently full of ginger tonight, and not in one of his easygoing moods. He didn't beat about, either.
'Young Flashman,' growls he. 'Very good. Staff colonel, on half-pay at present, what? Well, from this moment you're back on the full list, an' what you hear in this room tonight is to go no further, understand? Not to anyone — not even in this castle. You follow?'
I followed, sure enough — what he meant was that the Queen wasn't to know: it was notorious that he never told her anything. But that was nothing; it was his tone, and the solemn urgency of his warning, that put the hairs up on my neck.
'Very good,' says he again. 'Now then, before I talk to you, Lord Ellenborough has somethin' to show you — want your opinion of it. All right, Barrington, I'll take that Persian stuff now, while Colonel Flashman looks at the damned buns.'
I thought I'd misheard him, as he limped past me and took his seat at the table-head, pawing impatiently among his papers. But sure enough, Barrington passed over to me a little lead biscuit-box, and Ellenborough, seating himself beside me, indicated that I should open it. I pushed back the lid, mystified, and there, in a rice- paper wrapping, were three or four greyish, stale-looking little scones, no bigger than captain's biscuits.
'There,' says Pam, not looking up from his papers. 'Don't eat 'em. Tell his lordship what you make of those.'
I knew, right off; that faint eastern smell was unmistakable, but I touched one of them to make sure.
'They're chapattis, my lord,' says I, astonished. 'Indian chapattis.'
Ellenborough nodded. 'Ordinary cakes of native food. You attach no signal significance to them, though?' 'Why … no, sir.'
Wood took a seat opposite me. 'And you can conjecture no situation, colonel,' says he, in his dry, quiet voice, 'in which the sight of such cakes might occasion you … alarm?'
Obviously Ministers of the Crown don't ask damnfool questions for nothing, but I could only stare at him. Pam, apparently deep in his papers at the table-head, wheezing and sucking his teeth and muttering to Barrington, paused to grunt: 'Serve the dam' things at dinner an' they'd alarm me,' and Ellenborough tapped the biscuit box.
'These chapattis came last week from India, by fast steam sloop. Sent by our political agent at a place called Jhansi. Know it? It's down below the Jumna, in Maharatta country. For weeks now, scores of such cakes have been turning up among the sepoys of our native Indian garrison at Jhansi — not as food, though. It seems the sepoys pass them from hand to hand as tokens —'
'Have you ever heard of such a thing?' Wood interrupted.
I hadn't, so I just shook my head and looked attentive, wondering what the devil this was all about, while
