Flashman on the March

Ab women are, but one or two were older and pretty puggish; they were in various states of undress, despite the night chill, some in tunics of Uliba’s cut, others in skirts or trowsers, and a few of the younger vain misses flaunted themselves like Diana in flimsy head-dresses, cloaks, and loincloths, a most fetching rig. Every woman-jill of them was fully armed.

Amazons, but very different from the Dahomey variety, who were under discipline and drilled like guardsmen. These were irreg ulars and, unlike Gezo’s Gorgons, they behaved like women; half of them were chattering round their own wounded with squeals of concern and comfort; one very young member of the bare-chest brigade was weeping buckets and pouring dust on her head while they covered the face of her dead comrade—and suddenly she was up and raving shrilly, plunging her spear again and again into a Galla corpse until she noticed a live target hard by: Uliba-Wark! She was bleeding from a dozen wounds, held spreadeagled with Diana apparently interrogating her, when the hysterical stabber ran in and planted her spear in Uliba’s body. In an instant the rest were hacking at her like things demented, while the stabber lay wailing and Diana shrugged and turned away, bored like.

I was physically sick on the spot. The Lord knows I had cause to loathe and fear her for the ghastly revenge she had been about to take on me, and I’ll not pretend I was sorry to have her can celled out… but to see her slashed to pieces, that beautiful body that I’d held in my arms and loved to ecstasy, butchered by these creatures from the Pit, was more than I could bear. Just for an instant I had the vision of her, gleaming wet and naked, laughing on the black rock in Lake Tana, and I absolutely wept and moaned. Oh, I’m vile all right; we’d travelled well together until her death had become necessary to my survival, and I’d tried to murder her without compunction. Foul work indeed. But would I rather she was still living and doing what she’d been about to do? On the whole, no; but I still stopped my ears against the awful chopping sounds and eldritch laughter of the executioners.

Having known Uliba, I dare say I shouldn’t have been aston ished to encounter Ab fighting women, but no advance warning could have prepared me for these terrifying bitches. Who the blazes could they be, whose side were they on, and what had I to hope from them? They’d rescued me, no doubt on the ground that anyone whom their enemies wanted to castrate and roast alive must have something to be said for him, but that didn’t make ’em bosom pals.

Speaking of which, I couldn’t help admiring Diana’s as she strode across in my direction. She knew it, too, sweeping back the tails of her cloak and striking a pose, a hand on her pistol butt. Blue eyes, bigod, piercing bright in a lovely face that was no darker than tawny, peacock proud and sassy with it… and now came an even greater shock, for she was standing aside to make way for two who were following her, and they were men. I hadn’t seen either in the fight or its aftermath, but from the deference Diana showed, one of them at least must be a big gun indeed.

He was small and portly and black as your boot, rolling along on stubby legs and standing arms akimbo to survey me. He was bald, with a fringe of woolly white hair, and wore the red-fringed shama of consequence. His companion looked like a bodyguard, for he wore a steel back and breast and carried spear and sword, a tall, likely Adonis, middling dark and moved like a dancer, taking station at Portly’s shoulder. All three regarded me in silence for a moment, and then Portly opened the bowling, most disconcertingly.

“I know what you are, but not who you are!” He spoke in Amharic, with authority. “So tell me your name, and what you have done that these Galla savages should wish to slay you.”

I answered in Arabic, taken aback but head up. “I’m English. My name is Flashman. I’m a colonel… a ras, a chief in the British Army advancing on Magdala. May I ask who you are?”

There was a gasp from Diana and some of the women who pre sumably understood Arabic. They’d suspended the agreeable task of polishing off the enemy wounded at Portly’s arrival, and crowded in to listen. Diana dropped to one knee to study me more closely—gad, she was a little satin stunner, and I bestowed my most courtly smile on her, which she received with a startled look followed by a dis dainful toss of the head and tits. Portly was equally unimpressed.

“I know what a colonel is, and who I am can wait!” snaps he. “So how came a British officer in the hands of the Galla?” He stamped impatiently. “And why should they seek your death?”

This was dangerous ground, and I must hedge until I’d found out who Portly and these dreadful women were. But for his presence I’d have taken them for bandits, like the female dacoits of India; he was obviously someone of official importance—could he be an agent of some petty ruler like Menelek or Gobayzy of whom I’d heard so much —or even of Masteeat’s rival, the despised Warkite? All I knew for certain was that the women enjoyed killing Gallas, and weren’t likely to be well disposed to anyone whose task it was to enlist them as allies. So I assumed my gallant-pathetic expression and asked Diana if I might have a reviving sip of tej and some food, just a morsel would do, to revive me after my ordeal.

Portly made an Ab noise which would translate as “Bah!” but Diana, dear girl, snapped her fingers and Gorilla Jane hastened to offer a flask and wallet of toasted beef. I thought quickly as I imbibed and chewed, decided I’d best not try Portly’s patience by asking a second time who he was, and resolved, since the truth wouldn’t do, to follow the golden rule by sticking as close to it as possible.

I’d been scouting ahead of Napier’s advance, I said, and had been ambushed by these people—Gallas, had he called them? But thank heaven he and his splendid ladies had turned up, and if he would be so obliging as to return me to my army, the British dedjaz, who was noted for his generosity, would reward them with dollars and all kinds of good things: food, drink, weapons… and of course clothes, silks and satins and ornaments…

The women showed eager interest, but Portly gave another furious stamp. “Do I look like a fool? You dare talk to me of dollars and silks as though I were a fellaheen beggar or a bedawi, and evade my question!” He drew breath, and Diana surprised me by putting in her oar unexpected, with a curl-of-the-lip smile.

“Would your dedjaz’s generosity give us the spoiling of Magdala?” Her women gasped eagerly, the bodyguard burst out laughing, and before Portly could explode I said that I couldn’t answer for the dedjaz, but whatever the spoil of Magdala might be, she could count on getting equivalent value, and meanwhile, the sooner I was restored to my army…

“Perhaps he will not be able to take Magdala.” The bodyguard spoke for the first time. “It is the strongest amba in Habesh.”

“He’ll take it, soldier,” says I. “Have no doubt of that.”

“With the help of the Galla warriors of Queen Masteeat?” bawls Portly, taking me flat aback, although I tried desperately to cover it.

“Galla warriors—these people?” I gestured at the bodies. “I don’t understand… why should the British seek anyone’s help? We have no need of it… and I know nothing of this queen—”

“You lie!” cries Portly. “All Habesh knows by now that the British seek alliance with the Wollo Galla, and who are you to be ignorant?” He shot out a fat finger. “You have been sent by your dedjaz to win the Gallas with silver and a crown for Masteeat! So why, then… should they wish you dead?”

When in doubt, play the bewildered loony. That I was blown upon to the far end of Kingdom Come was plain… Uliba had been right, Yando’s gang had guessed who I was and spread the word. But I daren’t admit anything, to unknown accusers, in a country where everybody knew the far end of a fart before it had even erupted. So I babbled.

“I don’t know what you mean! My dear sir, how should I know why these foul villains wanted to kill me? As to winning anyone with silver…” I threw up my hands. “Please, if you’ll only escort me to my army, you’ll receive a mighty reward for my return, I assure you.” I continued in this vein while he stood glaring, and then Diana, who’d been eyeing me like an Arcadian nymph mis trustful of a satyr of doubtful repute, put in her confounded oar again.

“If we feed him into the fire, little by little, he will speak,” says she, but Portly seemed undecided, for he turned away, and after a word with his bodyguard, told Diana curtly to muster the women and prepare to march. She gave a disappointed grunt and issued brisk orders for them to fall in as soon as they’d finished despoiling and mutilating the dead—you can guess what that meant, and I was happy to avert my eyes from that bloodied ground and dese crated bodies—and Uliba’s among them!—and those barbarian sluts, some of ’em mere slips of girls, chattering and laughing as they went about their grisly work.

“Are you sick, farangi? Why do you look away? Does the sight of blood distress