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George Fraser MacDonald. Flashman and the Mountain of Light
Copyright
How Did I Get the Idea of Flashman?
Dedication
EXPLANATORY NOTE
Discover the rest of The Flashman Papers, with Harry Flashman’s next adventure …
APPENDIX I: The Sutlej Crisis
APPENDIX II: Jeendan and Mangla
APPENDIX III: The Koh-i-Noor
Footnotes
NOTES
GLOSSARY
About the Author
The FLASHMAN Papers (In chronological order)
The FLASHMAN Papers (In order of publication)
Also by George MacDonald Fraser
About the Publisher
Отрывок из книги
The following piece was found in the author’s study in 2013 by the Estate of George MacDonald Fraser.
‘How did you get the idea of Flashman?’ and ‘When are we going to get his U.S. Civil War memoirs?’ are questions which I have ducked more often than I can count. To the second, my invariable response is ‘Oh, one of these days’. Followed, when the inquirer is an impatient American, by the gentle reminder that to an old British soldier like Flashman the unpleasantness between the States is not quite the most important event of the nineteenth century, but rather a sideshow compared to the Mutiny or Crimea. Before they can get indignant I add hastily that his Civil War itinerary is already mapped out; this is the only way of preventing them from telling me what it ought to be.
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I skipped back, slamming the door, looking wildly about for a bolthole which I knew didn’t exist. There wasn’t time to get my pepperbox; they’d be at the door in a second – there was nothing for it but to slip through the screen to the balcony, shuddering back against the balustrade even as I heard the door flung open and men bursting in. In unthinking panic I swung over the side of the balustrade, close to the wall, clutching its pillars from the outside, cowering low with my toes scrabbling for a hold and that appalling drop beneath me, while heavy footsteps and harsh voices rang out from my room.
It was futile, of course. They’d be ravening out on the balcony in a moment, see me through the pillars – I could hear the yell of triumph, feel the agony of steel slicing through my fingers, sending me hurtling to hideous death. I crouched lower, gibbering like an ape, trying to peer under the balcony – God, there was a massive stone bracket supporting it, only inches away! I thrust a foot through it, slipped, and for a ghastly instant was hanging at full stretch before I got one leg crooked over the bracket, made a frantic grab, and found myself clinging to it like a bloody sloth, upside down beneath the balcony, with my fine silk robe billowing beneath me.
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