Flashman on the March

The Europeans were in the van, and a sorry lot they were, like tramps on the look-out for a hen-roost; if you’d seen ’em at your gate you’d have set the dog on them. There were a dozen or so of them, all strangers to me, of course, but I guessed that the two in red coats must be Prideaux of the Bombay Army and Cameron, the consul whose imprisonment had started the whole row. Prideaux was your Compleat Subaltern, tall, fairish, with moustache and whiskers; Cameron was burly and black-bearded and had a crutch under one arm. They, and one or two of the others, walked in the oddest way, lifting their feet high at every step, as though treading through mud or heather. That, I discovered, is what wearing heavy irons for months on end does to you; they’d been relieved of them only a few days ago.

Leading the group was a chipper little dago with a bristling head of hair and soup-strainer to match, and at his elbow a hulking fellow who was all beard and pouched eyes; they were Rassam and Blanc, and they were the fellows who, with Prideaux, had carried the first request for Cameron’s release to Theodore two years ago, and been promptly jailed themselves. Who the others in the group were I don’t know, and it don’t matter, for these four were the ones singled out by Theodore for introduction to me. He hailed Rassam effusively, with his usual inquiries about health and happiness and had he slept well, and then took them aback by announcing me with a fine flourish. For of course they all knew me, by name and fame, and shook my hand in turn, with varying degrees of enthusiasm, which I found mighty interesting.

Rassam didn’t like me—or rather, he didn’t like my presence. You see, he’d been the leader of the pack, on account of being in some sort of political job at Aden, and was their spokesman with Theodore, with whom he was very thick. I don’t say he toadied (and I’d not blame him if he had, with a creature like Theodore), but he was at pains to be busy, very much the Emperor’s confidant, and I guess he feared being cut out by the celebrated Flashy. If that seems odd, well, captivity breeds strange germs in people’s minds, rival ries and enmities flourish, and little things wax great. Of course, he was some kind of Levantine Turk or Bedouin chi-chi, so you’d not have expected him to behave like the British prisoners.

Prideaux was the youngest, thirty-ish or thereabouts, cool as a trout with an affected lazy look which I guessed concealed a sharp mind and a deal of hard bark; from the way he glanced towards Theodore I knew that captivity hadn’t cracked him. Nor had it done anything to Cameron’s spirit, although it had played havoc with his body; he’d been racked and flogged even worse than the rest, and was a sick man, but he had that dogged, quiet manner which is generally admired, especially by devout Christians. Not my style, but useful in companions in misfortune. Blanc was a sawbones in the Bombay medical service, grave and tough, and respected by the chief men on the amba for his skill in doctoring them and their families.

Rassam, as I say, wasn’t glad to see me; Prideaux was, and showed it; Blanc was, but didn’t, for demonstration wasn’t his style. Cameron was too used up to do more than acknowledge me, and of course all four wondered what my arrival portended, what news did I have of Napier’s progress, and what, above all, was Theodore about to do.

That last remained a mystery. He sat the five of us down before his tent, and started gassing about everything under the sun—how his fancy dress was made of French silk, how he had had to rebuke Damash for belittling our army, and then a great harangue about a rifle that someone had stolen from the King’s tent several months before and poor Damash had led an expedition to recover it and been cut up by the Gallas. From that he passed on to the Crimea, and the American war, and I noticed that Cameron, Blanc and Prideaux had nothing to say, but Rassam was in like quicksilver, always echoing Theodore, and evidently afraid that I’d put him in the shade, having been in both campaigns. I took no part, until Theodore summoned his little son Alamayo, a bright nipper of six, and I chaffed him about going to Rugby, while Rassam listened with a stuffed smile. But not a word was said about Napier, or Theodore’s intentions, and I could feel Prideaux fairly bursting with impatience beside me.

At last Theodore said we might retire to rest in a tent that had been set aside for us, and we withdrew, except for Rassam, who stayed, hinting that he’d be glad of a private word in the King’s ear.

“No doubt to pay him a few well-chosen compliments,” says Prideaux. “Would you believe he wrote Theodore a letter congrat ulating him on getting all his artillery to Magdala? He’ll be offering to taste his food next.” [44]

“Policy,” says Blanc, shrugging. “Theodore likes him, and if he takes advantage of it, do we not all benefit?”

“I just wish he didn’t seem to like Theodore quite so much,” says Prideaux. “I like to be sure our spokesman is on our side. But that’s no matter,” he added, turning eagerly on me. “However did they come to take you, sir, and what can you tell us? Is Napier about to attack?”

I’d made up my mind to tell them nothing of my mission to Masteeat, on the principle of least said, soonest mended, and also I was leery of Rassam. So I said I’d been on a long scout and run into an ambush. Napier I believed to be no more than a day’s march away, but did Theodore mean to fight him, that was the point? I asked if they had any notion.

“All we know is that he is insane,” says Blanc, “and altogether unpredictable. He has received a letter of ultimatum from Sir Robert Napier, and Rassam urges him to write in reply, but it is dangerous even to hint that he would be well advised to sue for peace.”

“Theodore’ll fight,” says Cameron, sounding dog-tired. “He cannot back down now.”

“Then God help us all,” says Blanc. “But I believe you are right, Consul. Even if he faces certain defeat, he will give battle, out of pride and superstition. Oh, he is ruled by his astrologers, and his lunatic fatalism! You heard him just now, lamenting his lost rifle? He regarded it as a talisman, and is sure that catastrophe will follow if it is not recovered! That is why he is here, at Magdala—nothing but superstition.” Seeing my expression, he laughed, and explained.

“Magdala is another talisman; he believes that while he holds it, he cannot fail. Only last week he cried aloud that while he had lost all Abyssinia, Magdala remained, and he would hold it and emerge again as a conqueror. He truly believes it, too.”

“He can’t believe it!” Automatically I added: “He must be—”

“Mad?” says Prideaux. “You’ve noticed, sir? Yes, his majesty is a trifle erratic.”

“We can thank God for it,” says Cameron. “If he didn’t think of that rock as a symbol of victory, he would not have determined to hold it… and God knows where we would have been taken to by now. At least we’re here, where Napier can find us.”

They were silent, and I knew they were thinking: “If we survive.” At least they were sane enough to do nothing but wait; no wild talk of trying to break out, or blow up the powder magazine which was only a few yards from our tent, by the artillery park. Captivity had taught them patience; that was evident from what they told me of schemes for escape that had been considered and rejected, of plots with the rebels to storm the amba in Theodore’s absence, and of the hideous consequences of conspiracies gone amiss, with the guilty being mutilated and flung over cliffs, and one girl of sixteen being flogged to death with girafs. Small wonder that attempts to suborn their jailers hadn’t got far, although in some respects even leading men on the amba had been helpful and friendly, despite the risk of arousing Theodore’s displeasure.

Thus there had been a continuous correspondence carried on with our politicals in Egypt and Aden, with letters sewn into the clothes of Ab couriers, and supplies of money and comforts coming in for the prisoners. You may read about it at length in the memoirs of Blanc and Rassam, if you’ve a mind to, and it’s the strangest tale—in a way, my own experience of Theodore mirrors it in minia ture. For sometimes they’d been treated as honoured guests, some times beaten and tortured; splendidly fed with luxurious dinners of seven courses, and loaded with chains; well housed and allowed the freedom to wander, tend their gardens, and promised early release, then dragged away from one prison to another. There had simply been no pattern to their strange existence. No wonder, when Samuel the ferret came to summon us back to the royal presence, my companions exchanged anxious looks. “Now what?” wonders Prideaux. “Chains or candy?”

In fact it was to be given an alarming reassurance—reassuring because it was a promise from Theodore, speaking at his sanest, that in the event of danger we’d be put in a safe place, along with his family; alarming because it suggested that battle was imminent.

That was not my only anxiety. Among the great concourse of priests, generals, courtiers, astrologers, and servants assembled before the red pavilion to hear his majesty’s pronouncements were a number of his women, with the bloated “Queen” Tamagno to the fore. She was seated with her attendants close to the King, being fanned with great ostrich plumes, and once again I was conscious of being appraised like a prize bullock in the ring. Prideaux mut tered beside me.