The Flashman Papers: The Complete 12-Book Collection. George Fraser MacDonald
late hour, of making for the shore and taking my chance in the woods, but I realised I could never swim the distance—not at this temperature, and with the sabre strapped to my back and my sodden clothes dragging at me. I had to stay with Hansen, so I struck out after him, as quietly as I could, sobbing with fear and frustration.
God, I remember thinking, this is too bad. What the hell had I done to deserve this? Left alone I’m a harmless enough fellow, asking nothing but meat and drink and a whore or two, and not offending anyone much—why must I be punished in this hellish fashion? The cold seemed to be numbing my very guts; I knew I couldn’t go much longer, and then a blinding pain shot through my left leg, and I was under water, my mouth filling as I tried to yell. Flailing with my good leg I came up, bleating for Hansen.
“Cramp!” I whimpered. “Christ, I’ll drown!” Even then, I had sense enough to keep my voice down, but it was loud enough to reach him, for next time I went under he hauled me up again, swearing fiercely at me to be quiet, and to stop thrashing about.
“My leg! my leg!” I moaned. “Jesus, I’m done for. Save me, you selfish bastard! Oh, God, the cold!” My leg was one blinding pain, but with Hansen gripping me and holding my face above water I was able to rest until gradually it subsided to a dull ache; I stretched it cautiously, and it seemed to be working again.
When he was sure I could swim on, he whispered that we must hurry, or the cold would get us for certain. I was almost past caring, and told him so; he and his bloody prince and Sapten and the rest of them could rot in hell for me, I said, and he struck me across the face and threatened to drown me if I didn’t keep quiet.
“It’s your life, too, fool!” he hissed. “Now be silent, or we’re lost.”
I called him the filthiest names I knew (in a whisper), and then he swam on, with me behind him, striking out feebly enough, but it wasn’t far now; another couple of freezing minutes and we were under the lee of the castle wall, where it seemed to rise sheer out of the water, and there wasn’t a sight or sound to suggest we had been heard.
Hansen trod water in front of me, and when I came up with him he pointed ahead, and I saw what seemed to be a shadowy opening at the foot of the wall.
“There,” says he. “Silence.”
“I can’t take much more of this,” I whispered feebly. “I’ll freeze, I tell you—I’m dying—I know I am. God damn you, you scabby-headed Danish swine, you … wait for me!”
He was swimming slowly into the gap in the wall; and at that moment the moon chose to come out again, striking its cold light on the rearing battlement above us, and showing that the gap was in fact a tiny harbour, cut out of the rock of the Jotunberg itself. To the left and ahead it was enclosed by the castle wall; to the right the wall seemed to be ruined, and there were dark areas of shadow where the moonlight didn’t penetrate.
I felt a chill that was not from the water as I paddled slowly towards it; exhausted and shocked as I was, I could smell danger from the place. When you burgle a house, you don’t go in by the open front door. But Hansen was already out of sight in the shadow; I swam after him round an angle of the rock, and saw him treading water with his hand up on the stone ledge that bordered the harbour. When he saw me he turned face on to the stone, put up his other hand, and heaved himself out of the water.
For a second he hung there, poised, straining to pull his body onto the ledge; the moonlight was full on him, and suddenly something glittered flying above the water and smacked between his shoulder blades; his head shot up and his body heaved convulsively; for a second he hung, motionless, and then with a dreadful, bubbling sigh he flopped face down on the stone and slid slowly back into the water. As he slipped under I could distinctly see the knife-hilt standing out of his back; then he was floating, half-submerged, and I was scrabbling frantically away from him choking back the shriek of terror in my throat.
There was a low, cheerful laugh out of the shadows above me, and then someone whistled a line or two of “Marlbroug s’en va t-en guerre”.
“Swim this way, Flashman, Prince of Denmark,” said Rudi’s voice. “I have you beaded, and you won’t float long if I put lead ballast into you. Come along, there’s a good chap; you don’t want to catch cold, do you?”
He watched me as I clambered miserably out, shaking with fright and cold, and stood hand on hip, smiling easily at me.
“This is a not entirely unexpected pleasure,” says he. “I had a feeling you would turn up, somehow. Eccentric way you have of arriving, though.” He nodded towards the water. “Who’s our dead friend?”
I told him.
“Hansen, eh? Well, serve him right for a meddling fool. I did him rather proud, I think—twenty-five feet, an uncertain light, and a rather clumsy hunting-knife—but I put it right between his shoulders. Rather pretty work, wouldn’t you say? But you’re trembling, man!”
“I’m cold,” I chattered.
“Not as cold as he is,” chuckled this hellish ruffian. “Well, come along. Ah, but first, the formalities.” He snapped his fingers, and two men came out of the shadows behind him. “Michael, take the gentleman’s sabre, and that most un-English knife in his belt. Excellent. This way.”
They took me through a ruined archway, across a paved yard, through a postern-like door in what seemed to be the main keep, and into a vast vaulted hall with a great stone stairway winding round its wall. To my left was a lofty arch through which I could see dimly the outline of massive chains and a great wheel: I supposed this would be the drawbridge mechanism—not that it mattered now.
Rudi, humming merrily, led the way upstairs and into a chamber off the first landing. By contrast with the gloomy medieval stonework through which we had come, it was pleasantly furnished in an untidy bachelor way, with clothes, papers, dog-whips, bottles, and so on scattered everywhere; there was a fire going and I made straight for it.
“Here,” says he, pushing a glass of spirits into my hand. “Michael will get you some dry clothes.” And while I choked over the drink, and then stripped off my soaking weeds, he lounged in an armchair.
“So,” says he, once I had pulled on the rough clothes they brought, and we were alone, “de Gautet bungled it, eh? I told them they should have let me do the business—if I’d been there you would never even have twitched. Tell me what happened.”
Possibly I was light-headed with the brandy and the shock of what I had been through, or my fear had reached that stage of desperation where nothing seems to matter; anyway, I told him how I had disposed of his colleague, and he chuckled appreciatively.
“You know, I begin to like you better and better; I knew from the first that we’d get along splendidly. And then what? Our Dansker friends got hold of you, didn’t they?” Seeing me hesitate, he leaned forward in his chair. “Come along, now; I know much more than you may think, and can probably guess the rest. And if you hold back, or lie to me—well, Mr Play-actor, you’ll find yourself going for a swim with friend Hansen, I promise you. Who sent you here? It was the Danish faction, wasn’t it—Sapten’s precious bandits?”
“The Sons of the Volsungs,” I admitted. I daren’t try to deceive him—and what would have been the point?
“Sons of the Volsungs! Sons of the Nibelungs would be more appropriate. And you and Hansen were to try to rescue Carl Gustaf? I wonder,” he mused, “how they found out about him. No matter. What did you expect to accomplish, in heaven’s name? Two of you couldn’t hope … ah, but wait a moment! You were the mine under the walls, weren’t you? To open the way for the good Major Sapten’s patriotic horde.” He gave a ringing laugh. “Don’t look so surprised, man! D’ye think we’re blind in here? We’ve been watching them scuttle about the shore all day. Why, with a night-glass in the tower we watched your boat set out an hour ago! Of all the bungling, ill-judged, badly-managed affairs! But what would one expect from that pack of yokels?” He roared with laughter again. “And how did they coerce you into this folly? A knife at your back, no doubt. Well, well, I