had to do, but I'll describe it as best I can, so that you may learn about it as I did, and have the background to the astonishing events that followed.
I had the army, then, to reform and instruct, and if you think that an uncommon responsible job for the newest arrived foreign slave, remember that it was European-modelled, but that they hadn't seen a white instructor in years. There was another good reason, too, for my appointment, but I didn't find out about that until much later. Anyway, there it was, and I'm bound to say the work was as near to being a pleasure as anything could be in that place. For they were absolutely first-class, and as soon as I saw this, when I had the regiments reviewed on the great plain outside the city, I thought to myself, right, my boy, perfection is our ticket. They're good, but there's nothing easier than spending ten hours a day hounding their commanders to make 'em better. And that's what I did.
Fankanonikaka had told me I had a free hand; he came down with me to that first review, when the five regiments stationed at Antan', and the palace guard, marched past under my critical eye.
'Like changing guard, left right, boom-boom, mighty fine!' cries he. 'Being best soldiers in world, not half, eh? Right turning, shouldering arms, altogether, ha-ha!' He beamed at the comic opera generals and colonels who were standing with us, puffed up with pride as they watched their battalions. 'You liking greatly, Sergeant-General Flashman?'
I just grunted, had them halted, and plunged straight in among the ranks, looking for the first fault I could find. There was a black face badly shaven, so I stamped and swore and raved as though they'd just lost a battle, while the staff stared and shook, and little Fankanonikaka was ready to burst into tears.
'Soldiers?' I bellowed. 'Look at that slovenly brute, tripping over his blasted beard! Has he shaved today? Has he ever shaved? Stand still, you mangy bastards, or I'll flog every second man! Slouch in front of me, will you, with your chins like a monkey's backside? I'll show you, my pretties! Oh, yes, we'll take note of this! Mr Fankanonikaka, I thought you spoke to me of an army - you weren't referring to this mouldy rabble, I suppose?'
Of course, it put them into fits. There were generals gaping and protesting and falling over their sabres, while I strode about hazing right and left-dull buttons, unpolished leather, whatever I could find. But I wouldn't let 'em touch the offending soldier - ah, no. I degraded his section commander on the spot, ordered his colonel into arrest, and scarified the staff; that's the way to get 'em hopping. And when I'd done roaring, I had the whole outfit, officers and all, marched and wheeled and turned across that square for three solid hours, and then, when they were fit to drop, I made 'em stand for forty minutes stock-still, at the present, while I ranged among them, sniffing and growling, with Fankanonikaka and the staff trotting miserably at my heels. I was careful to snarl a word of praise here and there, and t hen I singled out the unshaven chap, slapped him, told him not to do it again, pinched his ear a la Napoleon, and said I had high hopes of him. (Talk about discipline; come to old Flash and I'll learn you things they don't teach at Sandhurst.)
After that it was plain sailing. They realized they were in t Ile grip of a mad martinet, and went crazy perfecting their drill and turn-out, with their officers working 'em till they dropped, while Flashy strolled about glaring, or sat in his office yelling for lists and returns of everything under the sun. With my ready ear for languages, I picked up a little Malagassy, but for the most part transmitted my orders in I tench, which the better-educated officers understood. I built a fearsome reputation through stickling over trivialities, and set the seal on it by publicly flogging a colonel (because one of his men was late for roll-call) at the first of the great fortnightly reviews which the Queen and court attended. This shocked the officers, entertained the troops, and delighted her majesty, if the glitter in her eye was anything to go by. She sat like a brooding black idol most of the time, in her red sari and ceremonial gold crown under the striped brolly of state, but as soon as the lashing started I noticed her hand clenching at every stroke, and when the poor devil began to squeal, she grunted with satisfaction. It's a great gift, knowing the way to a woman's heart.
I was careful, though, in my disciplinary methods. I soon got a notion of who the important and influential senior officers were, and toadied 'em sickening in my bluff, soldierly way, while oppressing their subordinates most damnably, and keeping the troops in a state of terrified admiration. Given time I dare say I'd have ruined the morale of that army for good and all.
Since most of the leading aristocrats held high military rank, and took their duties seriously in a pathetically incompetent way (just like our own, really), I gradually became acquainted - not to say friendly - with the governing class, and began to see how the land lay in court, camp, city, and countryside. It was simple enough, for society was governed by a rigid caste system even stricter than that of India, although there was no religious element at all. There were eleven castes, starting at the bottom with the black Malagassy slaves; above them, in tenth place, were the white slaves, of whom there weren't many apart from me, and I was special, as I'll explain - but ain't that interesting, that a black society held white superior to black, in the slave line? We were, of course, but it didn't make much odds, since all of us were far below the ninth caste, which consisted of the general public, who had to work for a living, and included everyone from professional people and merchants right down to the free labourers and peasantry.
Then there were six castes of nobles, from the eighth to the third, and what the differences were I never found out, except that they mattered immensely. The Malagassy upper crust are fearful snobs, and put on immense airs with each other - a third-rank count or baron (these are the titles they give themselves) will be far more civil to a slave than to a sixth-rank nobleman, and the caste rules governing them are harsher even than for the lower orders. For example, a male noble can't marry a woman of superior caste; he can marry beneath himself, but he mustn't marry a slave - if he does, he's sold into slavery himself and the woman is executed. Simple, says you, they just won't marry slaves, then - but the silly bastards do, quite often, because they're crazy, like their infernal country.
The second caste consisted of the monarch's family, poor souls, and at the top came the first caste, an exclusive group of one - the Queen, who was divine, although quite what that meant wasn't clear, since they don't have gods in Madagascar. What was certain, though, was that she was the most absolute of absolute tyrants, governing solely by her own whim and caprice, which, since she was stark mad and abominably cruel, made for interesting times all round.
That much you have probably gathered already, from my description of her and of the horrors I'd seen, but you have to imagine what it was like to be living at the mercy of that creature, day in day out, without hope of release. Fear spread from her like a mist, and if her court was a proper little viper's nest of intrigue and spying and plotting, it wasn't because her noble and advisers were scheming for power, but for sheer survival. They went in terror of those evil snake eyes and that flat grunting voice so rarely heard - and then usually to order arrest, torture, and horrible death. Those are easy words to write, and you probably think they're an exaggeration; they're not. That beastly slaughter I'd witnessed under the cliff at Ambohipotsy was just a piece of the regular ritual of purge and persecution and butchery which was everyday at Antan' in my time; her appetite for blood and suffering was insatiable, and all the worse because it was unpredictable.
It wouldn't have seemed so horrible, perhaps, if Madagascar had been some primitive nigger tribal state where everyone ran about naked chanting mumbo-jumbo and living in huts. Well, I remember my old chum King Gezo of Dahomey, sitting slobbering like a beast before his death-house (built of skulls, if you please) tucking into his luncheon while his fighting women chopped prisoners into bloody gobbets within a yard of him. But he was an animal, and looked like one; Ranavalona wasn't - quite.
She had not bad taste in clothes, for example, and knew enough to hang pictures on the walls, and have her banquets laid with knives and forks just so, and place-cards (Solomon was right: I saw 'em —'Serjeant-General Flatchman, Esq., yours truly' was what mine said on one occasion, in copperplate handwriting). I mean, she had carpets, and silk sheets, and a piano, and her nobles wore trousers and frock coats, and addressed their women- folk as 'Mam'selle'— my God, haven't I seen a couple of her Comtesses, sitting at a palace dinner, chattering like civilized women, with silver and crystal and linen before them, ignoring the cutlery and gobbling food with their fingers, and then one turning to t'other and twittering: 'Permittez-moi, cherie,' and proceeding to delouse her neighbour's hair. That was Madagascar - savagery and civilization combined into a horrid comic-opera, a world turned upside down.
And at the head of the table she would sit, in a fine yellow satin gown from Paris, a feather boa stuck through her crown, pearls on her black bosom and in her long earrings, chewing on a chicken leg, holding up her goblet to be refilled, and getting drunker and drunker - for when it came to lowering the booze she could have seen a sergeants' mess under the table. It didn't show in her face; the plump black features never changed expression, only the eyes
