Flashman on the March

hauliers straining on its huge hawsers, slithering and ploughing through the muck, and Theodore himself on the cart yelling orders and encouragement. It began to rain, coming down in stair-rods that pitted the mud like buckshot, and the steam came off the sweating gangs in clouds; we were sodden in no time, and our beasts were fairly streaming down their flanks.

Theodore waved and roared to me to come on the wagon with him, which I was glad to do, for he had Samuel and a couple of servants holding great brollies overhead. Even so, he was soaked, and presently tore off his shirt and stood bare to the waist, laughing and rubbing the water over his chest and arms as though he were in a bath. He seemed in capital spirits, exulting over the damage that his mortar would do, “for there has never been such a weapon in the world, and how will your soldiers be able to endure it? Even its thunder will terrify the bravest; they will scatter like frightened sheep!”

I said he’d never seen British and Indian soldiers, and they’d not scatter, because they knew that noise never killed anyone. He looked a bit downcast at this, so I asked him, greatly daring, if he’d decided to fight.

“If I must!” cries he. “I do not want war, but who is this woman who sends her soldiers against a king? By what right does she come to steal my country?”

I wasn’t going to argue, and he ran on about how he had been insulted, and it was not to be borne; he had written in good will and friendship, as one monarch to another, and had been ignored (which I knew was true), and he’d never have laid a finger on any of our people if Cameron hadn’t conspired with his enemies the Egyptians, and he’d have let that pass, even, if only he’d been shown the courtesy due to his rank, but it was plain that the British Government looked down on African kings as petty rulers of no account. So what else could he do, by the power of God, but defy those who had despised and affronted him, even if he died for it?

With him shouting at me through the downpour, getting angrier by the minute, and poor Samuel struggling with his brolly in the wind and beseeching me with his eyes to say something to turn away wrath, I cried that Theodore was absolutely right, he’d been disgracefully put upon, no question, and it was just a shame that so many fine men, Ab and British, should have to die because our Foreign Office had no bloody manners. Even as I said it, I realised that I’d struck a good line, so I expanded on the arrogance, stu pidity, and downright laziness of our civil servants, but what could you expect from folk who’d gone to disgusting dens of vice and ignorance like Harrow and Eton, and had he given any further thought to the idea of sending that splendid little lad to Rugby, capital school, been there myself…

It may be that the best way to talk to a maniac is to drivel as much as he does, especially if you don’t let him get a word in. My balderdash quite disconcerted him, and by good luck the great wagon suddenly lost a wheel, we had to leap clear for our lives, and Sevastopol finished up to its trunnions in mud. It took a couple of hours to right it, and another hour to reach the top of Fala, by which time the rain had cleared, and the sun broke through the sullen clouds—and there, far across the plain of Arogee, was the Dalanta plateau above the Bechelo, black with the tiny figures of men and animals. Hurry, hurry, old Bob, thinks I, you’re almost there.

Gabrie, the Ab field-marshal, was in charge of emplacing the guns, and making by far too good a job of it for my liking, while Theodore stood Napoleon-like on the edge of the bluff, arms folded, sombrely regarding the distant deployment of the army that was coming to destroy him. He seemed not at all alarmed, remarking that it would be most gratifying to see how a European general disposed his troops, and was it true that Napier was the best commander of his day? I said he was the best we had, careful and steady but sure, perhaps not as inspired as Wolseley or the American Lee, but safer than either, and less prodigal of his soldiers’ lives than Grant.

He nodded. “You think he will destroy me?” says he, and I saw what I hoped was a chance.

“Not if you meet him in love and friendship, getow. Those were the words you used to me, if you remember.”

“I said if he came in love and friendship!” He pointed towards the Bechelo. “Do you see them there? He is the invader, I am the besieged! Would you have me submit to the thieves who come to rob me of my throne, of my country?” He was starting to shout now, striding to and fro, waving his arms and shooting angry glares at me. “That is the counsel of cowards like Damash and Dasta and the fool Samuel! Where is he? Where is Samuel?” He looked around, stamping, but Samuel, luckily for him, wasn’t on hand. Theodore stood snarling for a moment, snapped at one of his attendants to give him a shama, and once he’d wrapped it round his shoulders he came muttering to me.

“They would surrender, Damash and the others. They hate me, all of them, and would run away if they had the courage. Why do they not kill me, eh? Because they fear me, by death, and dare not strike!” He was starting to froth again, and the mad stare was in his eyes. “Well, they had better kill me, because if they do not I shall kill them all, by the power of God, one at a time!” Suddenly he seized me by the shirt, thrusting his face into mine, raving in a whisper.

“You know I must sleep with loaded pistols under my pillow? They know it, too, and fear to murder me in my bed! They would poison me, but my food and drink are tasted! But I do not fear!” He released his grip, closed his eyes, and began to mumble to himself as though in prayer. Then he looked up at the darkening sky, and his voice was shaking. “If He who is above does not kill me, no one will. If He says I must die, no one can save me!”

It came out in a yell, and I looked round to see what Gabrie and his staff were making of it—but they weren’t even looking at him, but busied themselves even more with the teams slewing the cannon into place. They knew he was stark mad, but they were too fearful to do anything about it. And it wasn’t just fear; they were in thrall to him, to the sheer power of his will and spirit. I felt it too, as well as my terror of him; he had that force that I’d seen in others, like Brooke of Sarawak and old John Brown; they weren’t to be resisted, or reasoned with, just avoided if possible—but I couldn’t avoid Theodore.

And then in a moment the morbid fury that had possessed him so suddenly was gone, and he was striding about the gun positions, commending and criticising and even laughing; I saw him slap an Ab gunner on the shoulder and say something that set them in a roar; then he was deep in consultation with one of his Germans, climbing up on to Sevastopol to examine the firing mechanism. He was still chuckling as he came back to me, putting a hand on my shoulder confidential-like.

“They are easy to amuse, are they not? Do you not find it so, with your soldiers? Come, we shall go down and drink a little tej together.” He seemed content to walk, nodding to the gunners and assuring them that when they were called on to load up and fire, he would be on hand to direct them. They cheered and hammered their hilts on the guns as we went down the hill.

“You heard me speak to them yesterday, my friend, did you not? Did I rouse them on to battle? Did I inspire them? Oh, my good friend, I was fakering, (* Bragging. Not in OED, but apparently a favourite word of Theodore’s.) no more than that. But they believe, because they are simpletons and love me.” It didn’t seem to occur to him that they might just as easily believe what he’d shouted at the old general, that they were doomed to defeat. “If I say, ‘Fight, my chil dren!’ they will fight, even if it means death. But are your soldiers any different, Ras Flashman? Why do they do it, my friend?”

I told him, because they took the shilling; the sepoys, for their salt. He said it was a great mystery, and waxed philosophical about the minds and motives of fighting men—sane, sensible chat such as you’d hear in a gathering of civilians, if not from soldiers, who ain’t interested. But the point is, if you’d seen and heard him then, you’d have said here was this intelligent, good-humoured, per fectly normal man of authority, with not an ounce of harm in him. Quite so.

We came off the Fala saddle just as it began to drizzle, with clouds gathering overhead and the light starting to fade. It was about four in the afternoon, and the armourers who’d been freeing pris oners were packing up their traps and shepherding those who were still chained to some old broken-down stables on the south side of the Islamgee plain, not a furlong from Theodore’s tent and ours. They were to be kept there overnight, and freed next day, the last of the six hundred or so whom Miriam and I had seen being brought down from Magdala two days earlier. About two hundred had been freed yesterday, but only half as many today, most of the armourers having been diverted to the work on Fala. Those still chained and sent to the stables were more than two” hundred in number.

I’m exact about this so that you can be clear about how things stood on that close, sultry afternoon as I walked with Theodore and his attendants to his pavilion, aware of a slight commotion from the chained prisoners as they were driven towards the stables. I didn’t know, of course, that they’d had no food since they’d left Magdala, and only such water as they’d begged from the soldiers’ camp nearby. Nor did I know that most of them were “political” prisoners who’d offended, often in the most trivial ways—as Miriam said, by laughing when his majesty was in the dumps, and vice versa.