Flashman Papers 3-Book Collection 3: Flashman at the Charge, Flashman in the Great Game, Flashman and the Angel of the Lord. George Fraser MacDonald
on it, and that young idiot riding through the blood and bullets, and I thought, by God, let him go for me. I hesitated, and Raglan shouted again, angrily, so I set my charger towards him, cupping a hand behind my ear, and yelling: “What’s that, my lord?” He shouted and pointed again, stabbing with his finger, and then a shot mercifully ploughed up the ground between us, and as the dirt showered over me I took the opportunity to roll nimbly out of the saddle.
I clambered up again, like a man dazed, and rot him, he was still there, and looking thoroughly agitated. “The Prince, Flashman!” he bawls, and then one of the gallopers plucked at his coat, and pointed to the right, and off they went, leaving me clutching at my horse’s head, and Willy a hundred yards away, in the thick of the advancing infantry, setting his horse to the breastwork of the battery. It baulked, and he reeled in the saddle, his sabre falling, and then he pitched straight back, losing his grip, and went down before the feet of the infantry. I saw him roll a yard or two, and then he lay still, as the advance passed over him.
Christ, I thought, he’s done for, and as our fellows surged into the battery, and the firing from above slackened, I picked my way cautiously along, through those dreadful heaps of dead and dying and wounded, with the stink of blood and powder everywhere, and the chorus of shrieks and moans of agony in my ears. I dropped on one knee beside the little blue-clad figure among the crimson; he was lying face down. I turned him over, and vomited. He had half a face – one glazed eye, and brow, and cheek, and on the other side, just a gory mash, with his brains running out of it.
I don’t know how long I crouched there, staring at him, horror-struck. Above me, I could hear all hell of firing and shouting still going on as the battle surged up the slope, and I shook with fear at it. I wasn’t going near that again, not for a pension, but as I forced myself to look at what was left of Willy, I found myself babbling aloud: “Jesus, what’ll Raglan say? I’ve lost Willy – my God, what will they say?” And I began cursing and sobbing – not for Willy, but out of shock and for the folly and ill-luck that had brought me to this slaughterhouse and had killed this brainless brat, this pathetic princeling who thought war was great sport, and had been entrusted to my safe-keeping. By God, his death could be the ruin of me! So I swore and wept, crouched beside his corpse.
“Of all the fearful sights I have seen on this day, none has so wrung my heart as this.” That’s what Airey told Raglan, when he described how he had found me with Willy’s body above the Alma. “Poor Flashman, I believe his heart is broken. But to see the bravest blade on your staff, an officer whose courage is a byword in the army, weeping like a child beside his fallen comrade – it is a terrible thing. He would have given his own life a hundred times, I know, to preserve that boy.”
I was listening outside the tent-flap, you see, stricken dumb with manly grief. Well, I thought, that’s none so bad; crying with funk and shock has its uses, provided it’s mistaken for noble tears. Raglan couldn’t blame me, after all; I hadn’t shot the poor little fool, or been able to stop him throwing his life away. Anyway, Raglan had a victory to satisfy him, and even the loss of a royal galloper couldn’t sour that, you’d think. Aye, but it could.
He was all stern reproach when finally I stood in front of him, covered in dust, played out with fear, and doing my damndest to look contrite – which wasn’t difficult.
“What,” says he, in a voice like a church bell, “will you tell her majesty?”
“My lord,” says I. “I am sorry, but it was no fault –”
He held up his one fine hand. “Here is no question of fault, Flashman. You had a sacred duty – a trust, given into your hands by your own sovereign, to preserve that precious life. You have failed, utterly. I ask again, what will you tell the Queen?”
Only a bloody fool like Raglan would ask a question like that, but I did my best to wriggle clear.
“What could I have done, my lord? You sent me for the guns, and –”
“And you had returned. Your first thought thereafter should have been for your sacred charge. Well, sir, what have you to say? Myself, in the midst of battle, had to point to where honour should have taken you at once. And yet you paused; I saw you, and –”
“My lord!” cries I, full of indignation. “That is unjust! I did not fully understand, in the confusion, what your order was, I –”
“Did you need to understand?” says he, all quivering sorrow. “I do not question your courage, Flashman; it is not in doubt.” Not with me, either, I thought. “But I cannot but charge you, heavily though it weighs on my heart to do so, with failing in that … that instinct for your first duty, which should have been not to me, or to the army even, but to that poor boy whose shattered body lies in the ambulance. His soul, we may be confident, is with God.” He came up to me, and his eyes were full of tears, the maudlin old hypocrite. “I can guess at your own grief; it has moved not only Airey, but myself. And I can well believe that you wish that you, too, could have found an honourable grave on the field, as William of Celle has done. Better, perhaps, had you done so.” He sighed, thinking about it, and no doubt deciding that he’d be a deal happier, when he saw the Queen again, to be able to say: “Oh, Flashy’s kicked the bucket, by the way, but your precious Willy is all right.” Well, fearful and miserable as I was, I wasn’t that far gone, myself.
He prosed on a bit, about duty and honour and my own failure, and what a hell of a blot I’d put on my copybook. No thought, you’ll notice, for the blot he’d earned, with those thousands of dead piled up above the Alma, the incompetent buffoon.
“I doubt not you will carry this burden all your life,” says he, with gloomy satisfaction. “How it will be received at home – I cannot say. For the moment, we must all look to our duty in the campaign ahead. There, it may be, reparation lies.” He was still thinking about Flashy filling a pit, I could see. “I pity you, Flashman, and because I pity you, I shall not send you home. You may continue on my staff, and I trust that your future conduct will enable me to think that this lapse – irreparable though its consequences are – was but one terrible error of judgment, one sudden dereliction of duty, which will never – nay, can never – be repeated. But for the moment, I cannot admit you again to that full fellowship of the spirit in which members of my staff are wont to be embraced.”
Well, I could stand that. He rummaged on his table, and picked up some things. “These are the personal effects of your … your dead comrade. Take them, and let them be an awful reminder to you of duty undone, of trust neglected, and of honour – no, I will not say aught of honour to one whose courage, at least, I believe to be beyond reproach.” He looked at the things; one of them was a locket which Willy had worn round his neck. Raglan snapped it open, and gave a little gulp. He held it out to me, his face all noble and working. “Look on that fair, pure face,” cries he, “and feel the remorse you deserve. More than anything I can say, it will strike to your soul – the face of a boy’s sweetheart, chaste, trusting, and innocent. Think of that poor, sweet creature who, thanks to your neglect, will soon be draining the bitterest cup of sorrow.”
I doubted it myself, as I looked at the locket. Last time I’d seen her, the poor sweet creature had been wearing nothing but black satin boots. Only Willy in this wide world would have thought of wearing the picture of a St John’s Wood whore round his neck; he had been truly wild about her, the randy little rascal. Well, if I’d had my way, he’d still have been thumping her every night, instead of lying on a stretcher with only half his head. But I wonder if the preaching Raglan, or any of the pious hypocrites who were his relatives, would have called him back to life on those terms? Poor little Willy.
Well, if I was in disgrace, I was also in good health, and that’s what matters. I might have been one of the three thousand dead, or of the shattered wounded lying shrieking through the dusk along that awful line of bluffs. There seemed to be no medical provision – among the British, anyway – and scores of our folk just lay writhing where they fell, or