The Flashman Papers: The Complete 12-Book Collection. George Fraser MacDonald
at Piper’s Fort. It was an impressive collection—and even if most of them were in the rear, they weren’t the kind of decorations you normally see on a coward.
“You’ve been lucky,” says he. “So far.”
When we had been thoroughly greased, we put on rough woollen underclothes—a most disgusting process—and then heavy woollen shirts and smocks, tucked into our breeches. We wore stockings and light shoes, and Sapten bound bandages round our wrists and ankles to keep our clothing gathered in place.
“Now, then,” says he, “to arms,” and produced a couple of heavy broadswords and an assortment of hunting knives. “If you want fire-arms you’ll have to persuade our friends in Jotunberg to give you some,” he added. “Useless to try to take them with you.”
Hansen took a sword and a long dagger, but I shook my head.
“Haven’t you a sabre?”
Sapten looked doubtful, but a search among his band of brigands outside produced the required article—it was old but a good piece of steel, and I shuddered inwardly at the sight of it. But I took it—if I have to fight, God forbid, I’ll do it with a weapon I understand, and if I was no Angelo38 with a sabre, at least I’d been trained in its use. For the rest, they gave me back my seaman’s knife, and each of us was provided with a flask of spirits.
We carried the swords on our backs, looped securely at shoulder and waist, and Hansen bound a length of cord round his middle. There was some debate as to whether we should take flint and steel, but there seemed no point to it. Finally, we each had an oilskin packet containing some meat and bread and cheese, in case, as Sapten cheerfully remarked, we had time to stop for a snack.
“You may feel the need of something when you get out of the water,” he added. “Eat and drink if chance serves. Now, then, Mr Thomas Arnold, attend to me. From here we ride to the Jotunsee, which will take us the best part of three hours. There the boat is waiting, with two stout men at the oars; they will take you as close to the castle as seems advisable—there is a moon, but we can’t help that. The clouds are thick, so you should get close in unobserved. Then you swim for it—and remember, they will be watching and listening in yonder.”
He let me digest this, his head cocked and his hands thrust deep in his pockets—strange how these pictures stay with one—and then went on:
“Once inside the castle, Hansen is in command, you understand? He will decide how to proceed—who is to guard the prince, who to lower the bridge. So far as we know, it is wound up and down by a windlass. Knock out the pin and the bridge will fall. That will be our signal to storm the causeway—fifty men, led by myself and Grundvig here.” He paused, pulling out his pouch. “It is not our intention to leave any survivors of the garrison.”
“They must all die,” says Grundvig solemnly.
“To the last man,” says Hansen.
It seemed to call for something from me, so I said: “Hear, hear.”
“Serve us well in this,” added Sapten, “and the past will be forgotten. Try to play us false—” He left it unspoken. “Now, is all clear?”
It was clear, right enough, all too clear; I did my best not to think of it. I didn’t want to know any more dreadful details—indeed, the only question in my mind was a completely unimportant one, and had nothing to do with what lay ahead. But I was curious, so I asked it.
“Tell me,” I said to Hansen. “Back in Strackenz City—what made you think I wasn’t Carl Gustaf?”
He stared at me in surprise. “You ask now? Very well—I was not sure. The likeness is amazing, and yet … there was something wrong. Then I knew, in an instant, what it was. Your scars are in the wrong places—the left one is too low. But there was more than that, too. I don’t know—you just were not Carl Gustaf.”
“Thank’ee,” says I. Poor old Bismarck—wrong again.
“How did you come by these scars?” asked Sapten.
“They cut them in my head with a schlager,” says I, offhand, and Grundvig drew in his breath. “Oh, yes,” I added to Hansen, “this is no kindergarten you are venturing into, my lad. These are very practical men, as you may discover.” I was eager to take some of the bounce out of him.
“That’ll do,” growls Sapten. “All ready, then? Lassen sie uns gehen.”
There were horses outside, and men moving about us in the gloom; we rode in silent cavalcade through the woods, along a path that wound upwards into the Jotun Gipfel, and then down through dense thickets of bush and bracken. There was no chance of escape, even if I had dared; two men rode at my stirrups all the way. We halted frequently—while scouts went ahead, I suppose—and I took the opportunity to sample the contents of my flask. It held brandy, about half a pint, and it was empty by the time the journey was half done. Not that it made much odds, except to warm me; I could have drunk a gallon without showing it just then.
At last we halted and dismounted; shadowy hands took my bridle, and I was pushed forward through the bushes until I found myself on the banks of a tiny creek, with water lapping at my feet. Hansen was beside me, and there was much whispering in the dark; I could see the vague outline of a boat and its rowers, and then the moon came out from behind the clouds, and through the tangled branches at the creek’s mouth I saw the choppy grey water of the lake, and rising out of it, not three furlongs off, the stark outline of Jotunberg.
It was a sight to freeze your blood and make you think of monsters and vampires and bats squeaking in gloomy vaults—a gothic horror of dark battlements and towers with cloud-wrack behind it, silent and menacing in the moonlight. My imagination peopled it with phantom shapes waiting at its windows—and they wouldn’t have been any worse than Rudi and Kraftstein. Given another moment I believe I would have sunk down helpless on the shore, but before I knew it I was in the boat, with Hansen beside me.
“Wait for the moon to die.” Sapten’s hoarse whisper came out of the dark behind, and presently the light was blotted out, and Jotunberg was only a more solid shadow in the dark. But it was still there, and all the more horrid in my mind’s eye. I had to grip my chin to stop my teeth chattering.
Sapten muttered again in the gloom, the boat stirred as the dim forms of the rowers moved, and we were sliding out of the creek onto the face of the Jotunsee. The breeze nipped as we broke cover, and then the bank had vanished behind us.
It was as black as the earl of hell’s weskit, and deadly silent except for the chuckle of water under our bow and the soft rustle as the oarsmen heaved. The boat rocked gently, but we were moving quite quickly, with the dim shape of the castle growing bigger and uglier every moment. It seemed to me that we were rowing dangerously close to it; I could see the faint glare of a light at one of the lower windows, and then Hansen softly said “Halt”, and the oarsmen stopped rowing.
Hansen touched my shoulder. “Ready?” I was trying to suppress the bile of panic that was welling up into my throat, so I didn’t answer. “Folgen sie mir ganz nahe,” says he, and then he had slipped over the side like an otter, with hardly a sound.
For the life of me I couldn’t bring myself to follow; my limbs were like jelly; I couldn’t move. But petrified though I was, I knew I daren’t stay either; let me refuse now, and Sapten would make cold meat of me very shortly afterwards. I leaned over the side of the boat, clumsily trying to copy Hansen, and then I had overbalanced, and with an awful, ponderous roll I came off the gunwale and plunged into the Jotunsee.
The cold was hideous, cutting into my body like a knife, and I came up spluttering with the sheer pain of it. As I gasped for breath Hansen’s face came out of the darkness, hissing at me to be quiet, his hand searching for me underwater.
“Geben sie acht, idiot! Stop splashing!”
“This is bloody madness!” I croaked at him. “Christ, it’s mid-winter, man! We’ll freeze to death!”
He