Flashman on the March

Impatient at still being in irons with another hungry night ahead of them, they were in no mood to go quietly to the stables, hence the row they were making, but no one paid much heed, least of all Theodore; three o’clock was when he started drinking as a rule, and being an hour late he lost no time in embarking on a splendid spree in his tent, with the tej flowing like buttermilk, and myself expected to go bowl for bowl with him. I couldn’t; the amount he sank in the first hour would have put me on the floor, and he jeered at me for a weakling and summoned “Queen” Tamagno to join us, vowing that she would show me how to drink.

Which I’m bound to say she did, seating her ponderous bulk beside him and laying into the liquor like a thirsty marine. Theodore applauded and kept her goblet brimmed, kissing and caressing her between his own hearty swigs, murmuring endearments like a lovesick swain, which was sufficiently repellent, but what was truly unnerving was that she never took her eyes off me once. I believe he sensed her interest, for after a while he left off cuddling and told her to leave us, and she heaved up her great jelly of a body in its gaudy silks and went, giving me a last long stare over her fat shoulder. Again, I was damned glad to see her away.

When she’d gone he drank in silence for some time, pretty moody, eyeing me in a most discomforting way, as though on the point of an outburst, but when it came it was the last thing I might have expected. For he heaved a great sigh, supped some more tej, and exclaimed:

“My dear friend, do not misjudge me. I truly love you, not you alone but my good friend Mr Rassam, and Mr Prideaux also, although it is difficult to love the Consul Cameron who betrayed me to the Egyptians. But I try.” A longish pause in which he stared at the roof of the tent. “I also love the Dr Blanc, who has healed many of my people. But you I love most of all, for you have shown no fear of me.” Then I’m a sight better actor than I thought I was, thinks I. “I have behaved ill to you, dear friend, but I had an end to serve.” He paused again, looking heavy, and then came the most astonishing declaration I ever heard from this astonishing man.

“I never used to believe I was mad,” says he, and the tears were rolling down his cheeks. “People said I was mad, but I did not believe it. But after the way I have behaved to you, raising my hand to strike you, putting you in chains, I believe I am mad.” He gave a great retching sigh, wiping his cheeks. “But you will forgive me. As Christians we ought to forgive each other.”

I cried amen to that in a hurry, assuring him there was nothing to forgive, he’d behaved like a perfect gentleman, and if all kings played such a straight bat the world would be a better place… that was the gist of it, anyway.

“I try to be a good Christian,” says he, “although some of the priests doubt my devotion. It is the bane of a monarch’s life, in all religions and countries, that his priests are forever at work to gain ascendancy over him. It was so, I have heard, with some of your English kings. My priests, in their insolence, say that I wear three matabs—a Christian one, a Muslim one, and a Frankish one! What folly! I told them: ’You pretend that I wish to change my religion, but it is a lie! I would sooner cut my throat!” And on that he stopped, drank, and raised his head to listen.

I’d been aware for a few moments of another sound above the faint murmur of the camp, but only now, when he cocked his head, frowning, did I identify it: a distant chant, one word over and over: 'Abiet! Abietl', which means “Lord, master” in Amharic, and with it now came a faraway clashing of chains, and Theodore was exclaiming impatiently and calling out to know what was the matter. Samuel came hurrying to explain that the chained prisoners were pleading for water and bread, and knowing his unpredictable majesty I’d not have been surprised if he’d told Samuel to shut them up p.d.q., or ordered him to serve them a hearty supper.

He did neither. For a moment he sat perfectly still, and then came to his feet without haste, staring from Samuel to me and back again, and then his expression changed, uncannily and quite slowly, from blank to wondering to frowning to growing rage and then to such a glare of demonic malevolence as sent a shudder up my spine. He let out an almighty scream of fury, scrambling over his couch to snatch up his sabre from the table, and swept it from its sheath.

“Swine! Filth! Treacherous vermin! I shall school them, by the power of God!” He lunged at me, seizing my arm, and dragged me after him. “Come! Oh, come and see how I teach them to squeal for food while my faithful soldiers are starving!” It was news to me that they were starving, but I didn’t mention that. He was bawling for his guards, hauling me out of the pavilion, hurling Samuel out of his path, and rushing on, brandishing his sword. I’d no choice but to run with him, for his grip was like a vice on my arm, and I’d no wish to resist and have him decapitate me.

“Guards! Guards!” he kept shouting. “Attend me! To the stables!” They came running out of the dusk from the tents, and behind me I heard Rassam’s voice demanding to know what was up, and Samuel begging him to go back to his tent and keep his compan ions under cover. I’d have given a pension to join them, but Theodore urged me on, vowing vengeance on the villains who’d dared to disturb his leisure. There was a squall of rain, I remember, just as we reached the stable buildings near the edge of the Islamgee cliff, and a rumble of thunder overhead.

“Bring them out!” bawls Theodore. “Let us see these pampered animals! Have them out, I say!” He let go my arm at last, yelling at me out of a face that seemed to have lost all human expression; he was like a demented ape, spraying spittle and gibbering at me. “You’ll see! You’ll see!”

A guard drew the bar from its sockets and flung open the double doors, and a chained woman, bent double, stumbled out into the half-light. Theodore ran forward, shrieking curses, and brought down the sabre in a sickening cut that fell between neck and shoulder and almost severed the arm. The woman fell screaming, blood spurting up in a fountain, and as a second prisoner blundered out Theodore buried the sabre in his skull. It snapped with the force of the blow and the fellow sank dead with the foible embedded in his brow, leaving the bloody truncheon of the sword in Theodore’s hand. He glared at it, mouthing incoherently, and raised it to slash his next victim… a naked boy of about five who came running out, howling, with his fists screwed into his eyes.

Stricken horrified as I was, I thought, that’ll sober him, the beastly lunatic, and indeed he did throw the bloody shard of the sabre away, but he screamed an order at the nearest guard, and the brute seized the child and hurled him wailing over the cliff.

That was how it began, the horror in the twilight at Islamgee, but it got worse. For with that ghastly infanticide, his mad rage seemed to cool, and I thought that ends it, but I was wrong; he continued his hellish extermination of the prisoners with a calm deliberation that was infinitely more terrible than his murderous fury; killing in a frenzy is at least to be understood, but what can you say of one who, in level tones, inquires of a poor devil his name and offence, and on being answered, almost idly condemns him to be flung to his death?

That is what Theodore did to two hundred prisoners in the next two hours. As thus:

“What is your name, and country, and why are you here?”

“Maryahm, great abiet, of Magdala! I only laughed with my friend Zaudi, your page—”

“Away with him!”

So Maryahm was flung down two hundred feet, and a moment later Zaudi followed him, condemned because he’d handed Theodore a musket that had misfired.

You may think I am inventing horrors to freeze your blood, but look in Blanc and Rassam and you’ll find it’s simple truth. He sat on a rock, like the chairman of governors at a prizegiving, mad as a hatter, and as each unfortunate was dragged out there was the same ritual of question, answer, and execution, with musketeers being sent down the cliff to finish off any survivors. Some went begging and screaming, a few flung defiance at him, others went sheeplike, without protest. Two young lads, I remember, were thrown over because their father had taken liberties with one of the royal concubines, but when the man himself was hauled out, Theodore had him unchained and let go. That was the folly of it; no sense, no logic, no reason, and the lousy bastard didn’t enjoy it, or even care. He just killed them, and I watched, and marvelled, and found myself hoping that Arnold was right, and that there was a Hell for him.

Blanc says 307 were thrown down, and 91, all rebel chiefs and his deadly enemies, were reserved for slaughter another day. Rassam puts the total of dead at 197, of whom he says only 35 had committed any crime, the rest having broken cups or lost rifles or laughed, like Maryahm, or been the sons of a flirtatious father. I take Rassam’s figure as more likely, but I was too stunned to keep count. I don’t even know why he stopped; probably because he was bored, or it was getting dark. [46]

He was silent on the way back to his tent, insisting that I join him for a supper which I couldn’t bring myself to eat, but sat mute while he gorged with great appetite and drank himself insensible after an almighty prose about his ancestors and how he’d fight to the death and be worthy of them. “You will see my body,” says he, slurred and