Читать книгу Flashman Papers 3-Book Collection 4: Flashman and the Dragon, Flashman on the March, Flashman and the Tiger - George Fraser MacDonald - Страница 17

I reached Shanghai at midnight, and the smell of fear was in the air already. Word had run ahead of Ward’s debacle at Chingpu, and that it had been caused by none other than the terrible Loyal Prince Lee himself, who could now be expected to sweep on and overwhelm the city. Even the street lanterns seemed to be burning dimmer in apprehension, and I never saw fewer civilians or more troops abroad in the consular district; usually gates were wide, with lights and music from the houses within, and carriages and palkis moving in the streets; tonight the gates were closed, with strong piquets on guard, and occasional files of marines hurrying along, their tramp echoing in the silence.

Bruce had gone to bed, but they rousted him out, and for once his imperturbability deserted him; he stared at me like a stricken seraph, hair all awry where he’d hauled off his nightcap, but once he’d decided I wasn’t dead after all he wasted no time, but called for lights to his study, thrust me into a chair, ordered up brandy and sandwiches and told me to talk as I ate.

“You’ve got two weeks,” I told him, and launched into it – the date of Lee’s advance, his probable strength, Jen-kan’s conspiracy to ensure his failure – at which he exclaimed in disbelief and even Slater, his secretary, stopped taking notes to gape at me – and then such secondary matters as their detention of yours truly, and those impressions I’d formed which seemed important in the present crisis. I talked for an hour, almost without pause, and he hardly said a word till I’d done, when:

“Thank God I sent you to Nanking!” says he. “We’ve been growing surer by the week that he was coming, but no hint of the date – you’re positive we have two weeks?”

“Ten days, if you like, certainly no less. It’s my guess he’ll put paid to Ward at Sungkiang before he marches on Shanghai.”

“It would be a public service if he did!” exclaimed Bruce. “That Yankee upstart is a greater embarrassment than the French priests!”²⁰

“He might buy you a few days if he’s strong enough,” I reminded him. “I’d turn a blind eye to his recruiting, anyway, if I were you.”

He sniffed, but said he’d make a note of it, and then told me with some satisfaction how he’d been urging the consuls and the Imps for weeks past to put the city in a state of defence; now that they had definite word, and a date, his hand would be strengthened tremendously, and by the time they had improved the fortifications and called in more troops, Lee could whistle for Shanghai, however many Taipings he had at his back. For which, he said handsomely, they were deeply indebted to me, and Lord Palmerston should know of it.

Well, I always say, credit and cash, you can never have too much of either, but the best news he gave me was that he was sending me north without delay to join Elgin, who had just made his landing at the mouth of the Peiho with Grant’s army, and was preparing to advance on Pekin. “There is nothing you can do here, now, my dear Sir Harry, to compare with what you have already done,” says he, all smiles, “and it is of the first importance that Lord Elgin himself should have your account of the Taipings without delay. There will be endless chin-chinning with the Emperor’s people, you may be sure, before he reaches Pekin, and your intelligence will be of incalculable value.”

I heard him with relief, for I’d been fearful that he’d want to keep me by him to advise about Lee’s army, and if there was one place I’d no desire to linger just then, it was Shanghai. You see, Bruce, like Jen-kan, might be certain that Lee was going to get a bloody nose, but I wasn’t; I’d seen his long-haired bastards making mincemeat of Soochow, and I’d no wish to be among the gallant defenders when their black flags went up before our walls. So I looked knowing and serious, and admitted that I’d be glad to get back to proper campaigning again, and he and Slater exchanged glances of admiration at this soldierly zeal.

They couldn’t wait to be rid of me, though; I’d been looking forward to a few days loafing and being lionised, and several restorative romps with my Russian man-eater at the hairdresser’s – I hadn’t had a woman since my last bout with Szu-Zhan (God, what an age ago that seemed) and I didn’t want to forget how it was done. But no; Bruce said I must take the fast steam-sloop for the Peiho that very morning, because Elgin would be in a sweat to have me on hand, and mustn’t be kept waiting. (It’s astonishing, how even the best men start falling over themselves in a fret when it’s a question of contenting their elder brother.)

So now you find Flashy beating nor’-west by south or whatever the proper nautical jargon may be, thundering amain o’er the trackless waste o’ waters – which I did by dossing for fourteen hours straight off, and if there was a typhoon it was all one to me. For the first time in months – since I boarded the steamer Yangtse, in fact – I was free of all care, content to be tired, with nothing ahead but a safe, leisurely campaign in good company, while behind lay the nightmare, ugly and confused; not near as bad as some I’ve known, but disturbing enough. Perhaps it was those unreal weeks in Taipingdom that made the memories distasteful; stark danger and horror you can either fight or run from, but madness spreads a blight there’s no escaping; it still made me feel vaguely unclean to think of Lee’s sharp, crazy eyes, or the blank hypnotic gaze of the arch-lunatic on that incredible night, with the joss-stench like a drug, and those wonderful satin bodies writhing nakedly … by Jove, there’s a lot to be said for starting a new religion. Or the Bearer of Heavenly Decrees, maddeningly out of reach … and far better, the lean face smiling wickedly above the chain collar, and the long bare-breasted shapeliness lounging at the rail. And then the crash of shots, the screaming faces and whirling blades surging out of the mist … masked figures and steel claws dragging me through the dark … red-coated legions stamping up the dust like Jaggernauts … black silk flags and burned corpses heaped … a fat, smiling yellow face telling me I knew too much to live … a crippled figure swathed in bandages urging on his fools to die for a handful of dollars … that same boy’s face distorted with horror as a cageful of poor wretches was plunged to death in a mere spiteful gesture. Surely China must have exhausted its horrors by now?

So I thought, in my drowsy waking, like the optimistic idiot I was. You’d think I’d have known better, after twenty years of counting chickens which turned out to be ravening vultures. For China had done no more than spar gently with me as yet, and the first gruesome round of the real battle was only three days away.

That was the time it took from the Yangtse to the mouth of the Peiho, the great waterway to Pekin, and you must take a squint at the map if you’re to follow what happened to me next. The mouth of the Peiho was guarded by the famous Taku Forts, from which we had been bloodily repulsed the previous year, when the Yankees, watching on the touchline, had thrown their neutrality overboard in the crisis and weighed in to help pull Cousin John Bull out of the soup.²¹ The Forts were still there, dragon’s teeth on either bank, and since Elgin couldn’t tell whether the Manchoos would let us pass peacefully or blow us to bits, he and Grant had wisely landed eight miles farther up the coast, at the Pehtang, from whence they and the Frogs could march inland and take the Forts from the landward side, if the Chinks showed any disposition to dispute our passage.

From the Peiho mouth to the Pehtang the sea was covered with our squadrons; to the south, guarded by fighting ships, were the river transports waiting to enter the Peiho when the Forts had been silenced; for the moment they lay safe out of range. Farther north was the main fleet, a great forest of masts and rigging and smoking funnels – troop transports with their tow vessels, supply ships, fighting sail, steamships, and gunboats, and even junks and merchantmen and sampans, with the small boats scuttling between ’em like water-beetles, rowed by coolies or red-faced tars in white canvas and straw hats. It takes a powerful lot of shipping, more than two hundred bottoms, to land 15,000 men, horse, foot, guns, and commissariat, which was what Grant and Montauban had done almost two weeks earlier, and by all accounts it was still bedlam at the Pehtang landing-place.

“Won’t have you ashore until tomorrow, colonel, at this rate,” says my sloop commander, and being impatient by now to be off his pitching little washtub, I took a look at the long flat coast-line a bare mile away, and made a damned fool suggestion.

We were about half-way between Peiho and Pehtang, in the middle of the fleet, but over on the coast itself there seemed to be one or two flat-bottoms putting in, landing horses on the beach. “Could your launch set me down yonder?” says I, and he scratched his head and said he supposed so, with the result that half an hour later we were pitching through the surf to an improvised landing-stage where a mob of half-naked coolies were manhandling a pontoon from which syces were leading horses ashore – big ugly Walers, they were, rearing and neighing like bedamned as they shied at the salt foam. There was a pink-faced youth in a red turban and grey tunic cussing the handlers richly as I splashed ashore.

“Get your fingers in his nose, can’t you?” squeaks he. “Oh, my stars! He ain’t a sheep, you know!”

I hailed him, and his name was Carnac, I remember, subaltern in Fane’s horse, an enterprising lad who, like me, had decided to come in by a side door. The Walers were remounts for his regiment, which he reckoned was somewhere on the causeway between Pehtang and Sinho – a glance at the map will show you how we were placed.

“Fane don’t care to be kept waiting,” says he, “and we’ll need these dam’ screws tomorrow, I imagine. So I’m going to take ’em over there while the tide’s still out –” he gestured north over the mud-flats which stretched away for miles into the misty distance. “Our people ought to be in Sinho by now. That’s over there.” And he pointed dead ahead. “About five miles, but there may be Tartars in between, so I’m taking no chances.”

“Stout fella,” says I. “Got a buckshee Waler for a poor staff colonel, have you? I’m looking for Lord Elgin.”

“Dunno where he is – Pehtang, prob’ly,” says the lad. “But Sir Hope Grant’s sure to be on the causeway, where we’re going.”

“He’ll do,” says I, and when the last of his Walers was ashore, and the syces had mounted, we trotted off across the flat. It was muddy tidal sand as far as you could see, with little pools drying in the morning sun, but the mist was burning away, and presently we heard the thump of guns ahead, and Carnac set off at a canter for higher ground to our right. I followed him, scrambling up onto the harder footing of a little plateau dotted with mounds which looked for all the world like big tents – burial places, not unlike Russian koorgans. We pushed forward to the farther edge of the plateau, and there we were, in a ringside seat.

Running across our front, about a mile ahead, was the causeway, a high banked road, and along it, advancing steadily to the wail of pipes and rattle of drums, were columns of red-coated infantry, our 1st Division; behind them came the khaki coats of native infantry, and then the blue overcoats and kepis of the Frogs; there must have been two thousand men rolling down to the Manchoo entrenchments where the causeway ended on our left front, with the Armstrong guns crashing away behind them and “Blue Bonnets over the Border” keening in front. Behind the Manchoo entrenchment were masses of Chinese infantry, Bannermen and Tiger soldiers, and on their left a great horde of Tartar cavalry; through Carnac’s glass I could make out the red coats and fur hats of the riders, crouched like jockeys on their sheepskins.

Even as we watched, the Tartar cavalry began to move, wheeling away from the causeway and charging en masse away from our advancing columns and out on to their far flank. Carnac stood in his stirrups, his voice cracking with excitement:

“That’s the 2nd Division over yonder! Can’t see ’em for the haze! By Jove, the Chinks are charging ’em! Would you believe it?”

It was too far to see clearly, but the Tartars were certainly vanishing into the haze, from which came barking salvo after salvo of field pieces, and while our columns on the causeway held back, there was evidently hell breaking loose to their right front. Sure enough, after a moment back came the Tartars, flying in disorder and scattering across the plain, and out of the haze behind them came a thundering line of grey tunics and red puggarees, lances lowered, and behind I saw the red coats of the heavies, the Dragoon Guards. Carnac went wild.

“Look at ’em go! Those are my chaps! Tally-ho, Fane’s! Give ’em what for! By crumbs, there’s an omen – first action an’ we’re chasing ’em like hares!”

He was right. The Chinks were all to pieces, with the Indian lancers and Dragoon sabres in among them, and now the columns on the causeway were deploying from the road, quickening their pace as they swept on to the Chink entrenchment. There was the plumed smoke of a volley as they charged, a ragged burst of firing from the Chinks, and then they were into the earthworks, and the Manchoo gunners and infantry were flying in rout, with the Armstrong shells bursting among them. Behind their lines the ground was black with fugitives, streaming back to a village which I supposed was Sinho. Carnac was hallooing like a madman, and even I found myself exclaiming: “Dam’ good, Grant! Dam’ fine!” for I never saw a smarter right and left in my life, and that was the Battle of Sinho receipted and filed, and the road to the Taku Forts open.

Carnac was in a fever to reach his regiment, and made off for the causeway with his syces at the gallop, but I was in no hurry. Sinho was a good three miles away, with swamp and salt-pans and canals in between, and if I knew anything about battle-fields the ground would be littered with bad-tempered enemy wounded just ready to take out their spite on passers-by. I’d give ’em time to crawl away or die; meanwhile I watched the 2nd Division moving in from the plain, and the 1st cheering ’em into the Chinese positions, with great hurrahing and waving of hats. That was where Grant would be, and rather than trot the mile to the causeway which was crowded with our traffic, I presently rode down to the flat and made a bee-line for Sinho across country. I doubted if any sensible Manchoos would be disporting themselves in the vicinity by now; I forgot that every army has its share of idiots.

Down on the salt-flats I no longer had much view; it was nothing but great crusted white beds and little canals, with occasional brackish hollows; ugly country, and after a few minutes there wasn’t a soul to be seen anywhere, just the glittering lips of the salt-pans either side, cutting off sight and sound, and only the dry scuff of the Waler’s hooves to break the stillness. Suddenly I remembered the Jornada, the Dead Man’s Journey under the silent New Mexican moon, and shivered, and I was just about to wheel right and make for the direction of the causeway when I became aware of sounds of true British altercation ahead. I trotted round a salt-bank and beheld an interesting tableau.

Well, there was a Scotsman, an Irishman, and a Chinaman, and they were shouting drunken abuse at each other over a grog-cart which was foundered with a broken wheel. The Paddy, a burly red-head with a sergeant’s chevrons, was trying to wrest a bottle from the Scot, a black-avised scoundrel in a red coat who was beating him off and singing an obscene song about a ball at Kirriemuir which was new to me; the Chink was egging ’em on and shrieking with laughter. Various other coolies stood passively in the background.

“Ye nigger-faced Scotch sot!” roars the Murphy. “Will ye come to order, now? I’m warnin’ ye, Moyes – I’m warnin’ ye! It’ll be the triangle and a bloody back for ye if ye don’t surrinder that bottle, what’s left of it, ye guzzlin’ pig, ye! Give over!”

The Scot left off singing long enough to knock him down, and lurched against the cart. “See you, Nolan,” cries he. “See your grandmither? She wiz a hoor! Nor she couldnae read nor write! So she had your mither, by a Jesuit! Aye, an’ your mither had you, by a b’ilerman! Christ, Nolan, Ah’m ashamed o’ ye! Ye want a drink?”

The Irishman came up roaring, and flew at him, and since brawling rankers ain’t my touch I was about to ride on, when there was a pounding of hooves behind me, a chorus of yells, and over the lip came a section of Tartar cavalry, bent on villainy. After which much happened in a very short space.

I was off the Waler and shooting under its neck with my Colt in quick time, and down goes the lead Tartar. His mates hauled up, unslinging their bows, and I barely had time to leap aside before my Waler was down and thrashing, feathered with shafts. I turned, ran, and fell, rolling over and blowing shots at the red coats which seemed to be swarming everywhere; out of the tail of my eye I saw the Irishman grabbing a Tartar’s leg and heaving him from the saddle; the Scotchman, whom I’d have thought too screwed for anything, was on top of the grog cart, crashing his bottle on the head of another Tartar and then diving on to him, stabbing with the shards. I took an almighty crack on the head, which didn’t stun me, but caused me to lose the use of my limbs entirely; then I was being hauled up between two red coats, with evil yellow faces yelling at me from under conical fur hats, and the stink was fit to knock you down – the fact is, they never wash; even the Chinese complain. The scene was swimming round me; I remember seeing the Irishman being frog-marched and bound, and the Scot lying on the ground, apparently dead, and that’s all.

Now, I say I don’t believe I lost consciousness, but I must have done, for piecing events together later, there’s a day missing. So they tell me, anyway, but it don’t matter. I know what I remember – and can never forget.

There was terrible pain in my wrists and ankles: when the Chinese tie a man up, they do it as tight as possible, so that his hands are quickly useless, and in time will mortify. There was darkness, too, and an agonising jolting: plainly I was carried on one of their ponies. But my first clear recollection is of a foul cell, a foot deep in mud, and no feeling in my hands or feet, which were still bound. I couldn’t speak for raging thirst that had dried my tongue and lips bone hard; all I could do was lie in pain, with my senses dulled almost to idiocy – I could hear, though, and I remember that coarse Scotch voice yelling obscenities, and the Irish voice hoarse and begging him to lay off, and the wailing of coolies somewhere near me in the dark.

And then there was blinding light in the cell, and Tartar swine yelling and dragging us to a low doorway, kicking and beating us as we went. I remember recalling that the Manchoos treated all prisoners alike – as vermin – so being an officer meant nothing, not that I could have proclaimed myself, with my tongue like a board. I half-fell out into the light, and was hauled to my feet, and after a moment my vision cleared, and the first thing I saw was a face.

No doubt I’m biased, but it was the most cruel, evil human visage I ever set eyes on, and I’ve seen some beauties. This one was as flat and yellow as a guinea, grinning in sheer pleasure at our pain, turning to laugh bestially to someone nearby; it had a drooping moustache and a little chin-beard, and was crowned with a polished steel helmet. The figure that went with the face was all in steel and leather armour, even to mailed gauntlets, with a splendid robe of red silk round the shoulders. He was seated on a gilded chair of state, with a great sword across his knees, and beside him stood a nondescript Chink official and a burly Tartar, bare to the waist, with an axe on his shoulder.

We were in a courtyard with high walls, lined by fur-capped Tartars; to my right were half-a-dozen cringing coolies, and to my left, barely recognisable for the mud that plastered them, stood the Paddy and the Scot from the grog-cart; the Irishman had his eyes closed, muttering Hail-Mary; the Scot was staring ahead. His tunic was half-torn off, but I noted dully that it bore the ochre facing of the Buffs, and that he had old cat-scars on his shoulder. My eyes went back to the huge Tartar with the axe, and with a thrill of sheer horror I knew that we were going to die.

Suddenly the brute in the chair spoke, or rather shrieked in Chinese, flinging out a pointing hand of which two fingers were sheathed in nail-cases.

“Filth! Lice! White offal! You dare to show your dog-faces in the Celestial Kingdom, and defile the sacred soil! You dare to defy the Complete Abundance! But the day of your humiliation is coming! Like curs, you have fed your pride for twenty years! Now, like curs, you will hang your heads, lay back your ears, wag your tails, and beg for mercy!” There was foam at his thin lips, and he jerked and glared like a maniac. “Kneel! Kneel down, vermin! Kow-tow! Kow-tow!”

There were squeals and whimpers on my right; the coolies were down and knocking head for dear life. The two Britons on my left, not understanding a word, didn’t move, and as the mailed tyrant screamed with rage the little official hurried forward, snarling in a fearful parody of English:

“Down! Down to legs! Down to Prince Sang! Makes kill! See! Makes kill!”

He was gesticulating at the big Tartar, who stumped forward grinning, flourishing that awful axe above his head with both hands. There was no doubt what was demanded – and the alternative. It was enough for me: I was down and butting my way to the Antipodes before the little bastard had done speaking. I still thought we were doomed, but if a timely grovel would help, he could have it from me and welcome; you don’t catch Flashy standing proud and unflinching at the gates of doom. There was one who did, though.

“Down! Down to Prince Sang! Not – makes kill! Not kow-tow, makes kill! Kow-tow! Kow-tow!” The official was screaming again, and with my head on the earth I stole a sideways glance. This is what I saw.

The Paddy was a brave man – he absolutely hesitated. His face was crimson, and he glared and gulped horribly, and then he fell to his knees and put his face in the dust like the rest of us. Beyond him the Sawney was standing, frowning at the Prince as though he couldn’t credit what he’d heard; his mouth was hanging slack, and I wondered was he still drunk. But he wasn’t.

“Ye what?” says he, in that rasping gutter voice, and as the Prince glared and the little official jabbered, I heard the Irishman, hoarse and urgent:

“Fer God’s sake, Moyes, get down! Ye bloody idiot, he’ll kill ye, else! Get down, man!”

Moyes turned his head, and his eyes were wide in disbelief. By God, so were my ears. For clear as a bell, says he:

“Tae a —in’ Chink? Away, you!”

And he stood straight as he could, stared at Prince Sang, and stuck out his dirty, unshaven chin.

For a full ten seconds there wasn’t a sound, and then Sang screamed like an animal, and leaped from his chair. The Tartar, square in front of Moyes, brought the glittering axe-blade round slowly, within inches of the Scot’s face, and then whirled it up, poised to strike. The official repeated the order to kow-tow – and Moyes lifted his chin just a trifle, looked straight at Sang, and spat gently out of the corner of his mouth.

Sang quivered as though he’d been struck, and for a moment I thought he’d spring at the bound man. But all he did was glare and hiss an order to the Tartar, who raised the axe still higher, his huge shoulders bunched to strike. The Irishman’s voice sounded in a pleading croak:

“Jaysus, man – will ye do as he bids ye, for the love o’ Mary? Ye’ll be kilt, ye fool! He’ll murther ye!”

“That’ll mak’ him a man afore his mither,” says Moyes quietly, and for flat, careless contempt I never heard its equal. He stood like a rock – and suddenly the axe flashed down, with a hideous thud, his body was sent hurtling back, and I was face down in the dirt, gasping bile and sobbing with horror.

That was how it happened – the stories that he laughed in defiance, or made a speech about not bowing his head to any heathen, or recited a prayer, or even the tale that he died drunk – they’re false. I’d say he was taken flat aback at the mere notion of kow-towing, and when it sank in, he wasn’t having it, not if it cost him his life. You may ask, was he a hero or just a fool, and I’ll not answer – for I know this much, that each man has his price, and his was higher than yours or mine. That’s all. I know one other thing – whenever I hear someone say “Proud as Lucifer”, I think, no, proud as Private Moyes.²²

But I’d no time for philosophy just then; I was numb with shock and a blinding pain in my wounded head as they dragged us back to our cell, still in mortal fear of our lives; someone, I believe it was a coolie, loosed my bonds and poured water over my face and down my throat, and I remember the excruciating pain as the blood flowed back to my hands and feet. Gradually it eased, and I must have slept in that bed of stinking mud, for suddenly I was awake, and it was freezing cold, and though my skull was still aching dully, I was clear-headed – and I was alone in the cell and the door was open.

By the cold, and the dim light, it could only be dawn, and there was a cannonading shaking the ground, from not far away. It stopped of a sudden, with much Chinese yelling, and then came the crash of exploding Armstrongs, followed by a distant rattle of musketry, growing closer, and culminating in a babble of voices cheering. More shots, and steps pounding outside, and a voice bellowing excitedly: “En avant! En avant! Chat huant! Chat huant!”, and as I scrambled up, soaked in mud, I was thinking: “Frogs, and Bretons, at that!”²³ and I stumbled from the cell into the arms of a big cove in a blue overcoat and kepi, who gave back roaring in disgust from this muddy spectre pawing at him.

This was how it was. I’d been taken prisoner by the Tartars on the afternoon of August 12, and carried by them to the village of Tang-ku, the last Chink outpost before Taku Forts. I’d been groggy with the clout on my head until next day, when we’d been dragged out to the yard where Moyes was murdered. I must have lain in the cell through the next night, and when our people attacked Tang-ku at dawn on the 14th, and the Chinese fired a few salvoes and abandoned the place, leaving us unheeded – why, there I was. Where the Irishman and the coolies had gone, I’d no notion, but I gave it some thought while a Frog rifleman helped me back to a field dressing-station – and decided to be French for the moment. I mort-de-ma-vied and sacred-blued like anything while an orderly flung water over me to disperse my filth and then clapped a cold compress on my battered scalp. I gave him a torrent of garlic gratitude and withdrew from the bedlam of the station, muttering like an Apache, and considering, now that the peril was past, how to preserve my precious credit.

You see, I’d grovelled, and been seen to grovel, to that infernal Chink warlord – but only by a Paddy sergeant who didn’t know me from Adam; besides, I’d been in khaki mufti and so plastered with dung as to be unrecognisable. I doubted if the Mick had even seen me at the grog-cart, it had all happened so quickly – so now, if I minded my step for a while, and covered my tracks, there was no earthly reason why the inconvenient Fenian (wherever he was) or anyone else, should ever identify the spruce and heroic Flashy, who would shortly appear at head-quarters, with the craven scarecrow who’d been first to knock head before the heathen’s feet. Ve-ry good; all we needed was a razor and somebody’s clean shirt and trousers …

It’s a crying shame, as I keep telling Royal Commissions, that among all the military manuals there ain’t a line about foraging and decorating, those essential arts whereby the soldier keeps body and soul together in adversity. Offered to write ’em one, but they wouldn’t have it, more fool them, for I’ve lifted everything from chickens to Crown Jewels, and could have set generations of young fellows right, if they’d let me. It was child’s play to kit myself out after Tang-ku; the two miles back to Sinho was a carnival of support troops and baggage following the advance, setting up tents and quarters, and a great confusion through which I ambled, airing my French when I had to, and being taken, no doubt, for a rather unkempt commissariat-wallah, or a correspondent, or a Nonconformist missionary. Within ten minutes I’d replaced my soiled garments with a fine tussore coat, coolie pants, solar helmet, and umbrella, with a handsome morocco toilet case in my back pocket – and if you think that outlandish, let me tell you that armies were a deal more informally attired in my day. Campbell at Lucknow looked like a bus conductor, and old Raglan in the Crimea appeared to have robbed a jumble sale.

So when I’d shaved in a quiet corner, got rid of my bandages, and covered my cracked sconce with the topi, I was in pretty good fig, though feeling like a stretcher case. I hopped aboard an empty Frog ammunition cart going back to Sinho, spied Grant’s marker by a covered wagon, and strolled up to report, swinging my gamp. Two staff infants were within, Addiscombe all over ’em.

“Hollo, my sons!” cries I cheerily, with my head splitting. “I’m Flashman. Not a bit of it, sit down, sit down! Don’t tell me you haven’t learned the great headquarters rule yet!”

They looked at each other, blushing and respectful in the presence of the celebrated beau sabreur. “No, sir,” says one, nervously. “What’s that?”

“Hark’ee, my boy. If bread is the staff of life, what is the life of the staff?”

“Dunno, sir,” says he, grinning.

“One long loaf,” says I, winking. “So take your ease, and tell me where’s Sir Hope Grant?”

They said he was with the 60th, and when I inquired for Elgin, they looked astonished and told me he was back at Pehtang.

“You mean I’ve trekked all across those confounded mudflats for nothing? Now, that’s too bad! Ah, well, Pehtang it must be. My compliments to Sir Hope, and tell Wolseley that if I hear he’s been fleecing you young chaps at piquet, I’ll call him out. So long, my sons!”

Alibi nicely established, you see, with two gratified young gallopers reporting that Flashy had just tooled in from the coast (which was true, give or take a couple of days). I could now depart for Pehtang in the certainty that no one would ever imagine I’d been near Tang-ku, and the scene of my shame. It’s just a question of taking thought and pains, and well worth it.

I was feeling decidedly flimsy by now, and wondering if I’d last as far as Pehtang, but by good luck the first man I ran into outside Grant’s wagon was Nuxban Khan, who’d been second to my blood-brother, Ilderim Khan, in the irregular horse at Jhansi. He hailed me with a great whoop and roarings in Pushtu, a huge Afghan thug in a sashed coat and enormous top-boots, grinning all over his dreadful face as he demanded how I did, and recalling those happy days when the Thugs all but had me outside the Rani’s pavilion until he and Ilderim and the rest of the Khyber Co-operative Society arrived to carve them up so artistically. He was a great man now, rissaldar in Fane’s Horse, and when he heard where I was bound nothing would do but I must travel in style in the regimental gig.

“Shall Bloody Lance walk, or ride like a common sowar? No, by God! Thou’lt ride like a rajah, old friend – ah, the Colonel husoor’s pardon! – for the honour of Ilderim’s band! Aye, Ilderim! He ate his last salt at Cawnpore, peace be with him!” Suddenly there were tears running down his evil face. “Bismillah! Where are such friends as Ilderim today? Or such foes? Have ye seen these Tartars, Bloody Lance? Mice! Aye, but we’ll go mouse-hunting anon, thou and I!” Then he was shouting. “Hey, Probyn Sahib! Probyn Sahib! See who is here!”

And now he was making me known to Probyn, whom I’d never met – tall, handsome, soft-spoken Probyn, whom some called the best irregular cavalryman since Skinner (though I’d have rated Grant above both). He was only a subaltern in his regular regiment, yet here he was, with an independent command of his own, and a V.C. to boot. He in turn presented a few of his officers, Afghans to a man, and as ugly a crowd as ever crossed the border, and it made me feel downright odd, when he indicated me as “Flashman bahadur”, to see how they straightened and beamed and clicked their heels.

D’you know, it was like coming home? Suddenly, among those wicked friendly faces, with Nuxban exclaiming and Probyn smiling and eyeing me respectfully, the terror of the past two days melted away, and even my head didn’t ache so fierce. I realised what it was – for the first time, in China, I wasn’t alone: I had the best army on earth with me, the bravest of the brave, terrible men who hailed me as a comrade, and an admired comrade, at that – unless your belly’s as yellow as mine, you can’t imagine what it means. I felt downright proud, and safe at last.

Probyn rode along with me when I rolled off in Nuxban’s gig, and for the first time I had a proper look at the great British and French army camped outside Sinho. On either side of the causeway road stretched the long lines of tents, white and khaki and green, with the guidons fluttering and the troops at exercise or loafing: here was a company of Frogs with their overcoats and great packs counter-marching on the right of the road to “Marche Lorraine”, in competition with a Punjabi battalion, very trim in beards and tight puggarees, drilling to “John Peel” on the left; there was a Spahi squadron practising wheels at the gallop, the long cloaks flying, and a line of Probyn’s riders, Sikhs and Afghans in shirt-sleeves, taking turns to ride full tilt past an officer who was tossing oranges in the air – they were taking ’em with their sabres on the fly, roars of applause greeting each successful cut.

“Fane’s boys will be doing it with grapes tomorrow, I expect,” says Probyn.

I said it was a pity the Chinese Emperor couldn’t see ’em, and be brought to his senses – the neat artillery parks and rocket batteries, the endless lines of supply carts and ordnance wagons, manned by the milling Coolie Corps, whiskered Madrassis wrestling in their loin-cloths, brawny Gunners playing cricket on a mat wicket, bearded Sikhs grinding their lance-points on the emery wheel, green-jacketed 60th riflemen close-order-drilling like clockwork, a squadron of Dragoon Guards trotting by, each pith helmet and sloped sabre at an identical angle, Royals in their shirt-sleeves mingling with the Tirailleurs to swap baccy and gossip (it’s damned sinister, if you ask me, how the Jocks and Frogs always drift together), and something that would have made his Celestial Majesty’s eyes start from his princely head – two sowars of Fane’s in full fig being carried carefully to their horses by their mates for guard-mounting, so that no speck of dust should blemish the perfection of tunic and long boots, or the polish of lance, sword, pistols, and carbine. Probyn eyed them jaundiced-like, stroking his fair moustache.

“If they take the stick²⁴ again, Fane’ll be insufferable,” says he. “What, you’d like the Manchoo Emperor to see all this? Don’t fret, old fellah – he will.”

He left me at the causeway, and I drove on alone to Pehtang, a moth-eaten village on the river boasting one decent house, where Elgin and his staff were quartered. I tiffined first with Temple of the military train, who deafened me with complaints about the condition of our transport – poor forage for the beasts, useless coolies, officers over-worked (“for a miserly nine and sixpence a day buckshee, let me tell you!”), the native ponies were hopeless, the notion of issuing a three-day cooked ration in this climate was lunacy, and it was a rooten, piddling war, anyway, which no one at home would mind a bit. It sounded like every military train I’d seen.

“Frogs just a damned nuisance, of course – no proper provision, an’ three days late,” says he with satisfaction. “How the blazes Bonaparte ever got ’em on parade beats me. We should go without ’em.”

Everyone says that about the French, and it’s gospel true – until it’s Rosalie’s breakfast time^a, and then Froggy’ll be first into the breach ahead of us, just out of spite.

Elgin was in the backyard of his house, stamping about in his shirt-sleeves, snapping dictation at Loch, his secretary, while my Canton inquisitor, Parkes, sat by. I heard Elgin’s sharp, busy voice before I saw him; as I halted in the gateway he turned, glaring like a belligerent Pickwick, and hailed me in mid-sentence with a bark and a wave.

“…Šand I have the honour to refer your excellency to the Superintendent’s letter of whenever-it-was … Ha, Flashman! At last! … and to repeat the assertion … wait, Loch, make that warning … aye, the warning conveyed in my notes of so-and-so and so-and-so … that unless we have your assurance … solemn assurance … that our ultimatum will be complied with directly …”

Still dictating, he rummaged in a letter-case and shoved a packet at me; to my astonishment it was addressed in my wife’s simpleton scrawl, and I’d have pocketed it, but Elgin waved me peremptorily to read it, so I did, while he went on dictating full spate.

“Oh, my Darlingest Dear One, how I long to see you!” it began, and plunged straight into an account of how Mrs Potter was positive that the laundry were pinching our Best Linen sheets and sending back rubbish, so she had approved Mrs Potter’s purchase of one of Williamson’s new patent washing-machines and did I think it a Great Extravagance? “I am sure it must prove Useful, and a Great Saving. Shirts require no hand-rubbing! Qualified Engineers are prompt to carry out repairs, tho’ such are seldom necessary Mrs Potter says.” She (Elspeth, not Mrs Potter) loved me Excessively and had noticed in the press an Item which she was sure I must find droll – a Bishop’s duaghter had married the Rev. Edward Cheese! Such a comical name! She had been to Hanover Square to hear Mr Ryder read “MacBeth” – most moving altho’ Shakespeare’s notions of Scottish speech were outlandish and silly, and she and Jane Speedicut had been twice to “The Pilgrim of Love” at the Haymarket, and Jane had wept in a most Affected way “just to attract Attention, which she needn’t have bothered in that unfortunate lilac gown, so out of style!!” She missed me, and please, I must not mind about the washing-machine for if she hadn’t Mrs P. might have Given Notice! Little Havvy hoped his Papa would kill a Chinaman, and enclosed a picture of Jesus which he had drawn at school. “Oh, come to us soon, soon, dear Hero, to the fond arms of your Loving, Adoring Elspeth. x x x x x!!!”

I ain’t given to sentimental tears, but it was a close thing, standing in that hot, dusty yard with the smell of China in my nostrils, holding that letter which I could picture her writing, sighing and frowning and nibbling her pen, rumpling her golden curls for inspiration, burrowing in her dictionary to see how many s’s in “necessary”, smiling fondly as she kissed young Havvy’s execrable drawing – eleven years old the little brute was, and apparently thought Christ had a green face and feathers in his hair. If she’d written pages of Undying Devotion and slop, as she had in our young days, I’d have yawned at it – but all the nonsense about washing-machines and “MacBeth” and Jane’s dress and the man Cheese was so … so like Elspeth, if you know what I mean, and I felt such a longing for her, just to sit by her, and have her hand in mind, and look into those beautiful wide blue eyes, and tear off her corset, and –

“Flashman!” Elgin was grasping my hand, demanding my news. “Ha! I’m glad to see you! You were despaired of at Shanghai!” The sharp eyes twinkled for an instant. “So you’ll write directly to reassure that bonny little wife whose letter I brought, hey? She’s in blooming health. Well, sit down, sit down! Tell me of Nanking.”

So I did, and he listened with his bare forearms set on the table, John Bull to the life; he’d be fifty then, the Big Barbarian, as the Chinese called him, bald as an egg save for a few little white wisps, with his bulldog lip and sudden barks of anger or laughter. A peppery old buffer, and a deal kinder than he looked – how many ambassadors would call on a colonel’s wife to carry a letter to her man? – and the shrewdest diplomatic of his day, hard as a hammer and subtle as a Spaniard. Best of all, he had common sense.

He’d made a name in the West Indies and Canada, negotiated the China treaty which we were now going to enforce, and had saved India, no question, by diverting troops from China at the outbreak of the Mutiny, without waiting orders from home. As to his diplomatic style – when the Yankees still had their eye on Canada, and looked like trying annexation, Elgin went through Washington’s drawing-rooms like a devouring flame, wining and dining every Southern Democrat he could find, dazzling ’em with his blue blood, telling ’em racy stories, carrying on like Cheeryble – and hinting, ever so delicate, that if Canada joined the Great Republic, it would give the Northern Yankees a fine majority in Congress, with all those long-nosed Scotch Calvinists (to say nothing of French Papists) becoming American voters overnight. That set the fire-bells ringing from Charleston to the Gulf, and with the South suddenly dead set against annexation – why Canada never did join the U.S.A., did she? Wily birds, these earls – this one’s father had pinched all the best marbles in Greece, so you could see they were a family to be watched.²⁵

“An unsavoury crew of fanatics,” was his comment when I’d told him of the Taipings. “Well, thanks to you, we should be able to keep them from Shanghai, and once the treaty’s signed, their bolt’s shot. The Imperial Chinese Government can set about ’em in earnest – with our tacit support, but not our participation. Eh, Parkes?”

“Yes … the trouble is, my lord,” says Parkes, “that those two terms have a deplorable habit of becoming synonymous.”

“Synonymous be damned!” snaps Elgin. “H.M.G. will not be drawn into war against the Taipings. We’d find ourselves with a new empire in China before we knew it.” He heaved up from the table and poured coffee from a spirit kettle. “And I have no intention, Parkes, of presiding over any extension of the area in which we exhibit the hollowness of our Christianity and our civilisation. Coffee, Flashman? Yes, you can light one of your damned cheroots if you want to – but blow the smoke the other way. Poisoning mankind!”

There you have three of Elgin’s fads all together – he hated tobacco, was soft on Asiatics, and didn’t care for empire-building. I recall him on this very campaign saying he’d do anything “to prevent England calling down God’s curse on herself for brutalities committed on yet another feeble Oriental race.” Yet he did more to fix and maintain the course of British empire than any man of his day, and is remembered for the supreme atrocity. Ironic, ain’t it?

The letter he’d been dictating had been yet another demand to the local Manchoo governor for free passage to Pekin, which the Chinks had previously agreed to – and were now hindering for all they were worth, as at Sinho and Tang-ku.

“Perhaps when we’ve stormed the forts they may realise the folly of resistance,” says Loch. He was a tall, grave young file with a great beard, who looked a muff until you learned he’d been a Navy middy at 13, aide to Gough at 17, adjutant of Skinner’s Horse at 23, and come through Sutlej and Crimea. Parkes laughed.

“Why should they? The Emperor’s not there; he won’t suffer. Nor his ministers, Prince Sang and the like, who feed him vain lies about sweeping us into the sea. The Emperor believes them, the decree goes forth, the local commanders put up a futile fight, and send wild accounts to Pekin of how they’ve licked us. So the fool’s encouraged in his folly, and all his concubines clap their little hands and tell him he’s lord of creation.”

“He’s bound to learn the truth eventually, though.”

“In the Imperial Palace? My dear Loch, it’s another world! Suppose they do learn they’ve lost Sinho, for example – it won’t have happened before their eyes, at Pekin, so … it simply didn’t happen, you see? That’s Chinese Imperial logic.”

“Who’s Prince Sang?” I asked, remembering the swine who’d had Moyes butchered – and to whom I’d kow-towed.

“A brute and a firebrand,” grunts Elgin. “Prince Sang-kol-in-sen – our fellows call him Sam Collinson. Mongol general commanding the Emperor’s forces; he’s in the Taku Forts this minute, which is why we’ll certainly have to fight for them.” ’Nuff said; I’d met Prince Sang.

I asked when we’d advance on the forts, and he glowered and said, in a week, twiddling his scanty wing of hair, a sure sign of irritation.

“We’re too damned cumbersome by half!” says he. “I told Palmerston five thousand men would do; but no, Parliament thinks we’re still fighting the damned Bengal sepoys, so we must have three times that number.” He champed and snorted, tugging away. “A confounded waste of men, material, and time! Wait till the Commons get the bill, though! And to be sure, the fools of public will ask what it was for – they’ll expect victories, a dozen V.C.s, and enough blood and massacre to make their flesh creep. Well, they’ll not get ’em if I can help it! This is not a war, but an embassy. And this is not an expeditionary force, it’s an escort!”

He’d gone quite pink, and by the way Parkes was pulling his nose and Loch studying the distance, I could guess it was a well-played air. After a moment he left off trying to pull his hair loose.

“Our assault on Taku will take a week to prepare because the field command changes daily, to keep the French happy – Grant handed over to Montauban during our attack on Sinho, if you please! Oh, ’twas safe enough, and Montauban’s a sensible man – but it’s not a system that makes for expedition. We’d have been better with a small, mobile force – and no French.²⁶ Ah, well!” He gave his hair a final wrench and suddenly grinned. “We shall have to see. Eh, Loch? As our old nurses would have said, ‘a sair fecht’. For your benefit, Parkes, that means a long, weary struggle.”

How long, I asked Parkes when he showed me to my billet, and he pursed his lips officially.

“To Pekin? Oh, a month, perhaps … six weeks?”

“God save us – you ain’t serious?”

“I try to be. Elgin’s perfectly correct – we’re too many, and Sir Hope, with his many fine qualities is … methodical. What with the French, and the Manchoos lying and procrastinating at every step … well, as his lordship’s interpreter, I expect to be chin-chinning to Chinamen quite excessively.” He paused in my doorway and gave a resigned sigh. “Ah, well … at least it should be a quiet little war. We dine at six, by the way; a coat is sufficient.”

^a Time for action. Rosalie was the long French sword-bayonet.