The Flashman Papers: The Complete 12-Book Collection. George Fraser MacDonald
at the table, looked up. God, he was like me.
“Sir,” says he slowly, “these gentlemen have been telling me … what has happened in Strackenz of late. It—it defies understanding … mine at least. It seems you have been party to the most dastardly deception, the strangest plot, I ever heard of. Yet it seems it was against your will—is this not so?” He looked at the others, and Grundvig nodded and looked bewildered. “Perhaps I am not clear in my mind,” the Prince went on, “after all this—” and he gestured about him, like a man in a fog, “—but at least I have the evidence of my eyes. Whoever you are, whatever the reasons for what you did …” he broke off, at a loss, and then pulled himself together. “You saved my life tonight, sir. That much I know. If there has been wrong on your side—well, that is for your soul. But it has been cancelled out, for me at least.” He looked at the others, Grundvig still nodding, Sapten puffing grimly and staring at his boots. Then Carl Gustaf stood up, and held out his hand.
I took it, very manly, and we shook and looked each other in the eye. It was not canny, that resemblance, and I know he felt the same eeriness as I did, for his hand fell away.
“Indeed, I think I am in your debt,” says he, a little shaky. “If there is anything I can do … I don’t know.”
Well, to tell the truth, I hadn’t been thinking of rewards, but he seemed to be hinting at something. However, I knew the best policy was to shut up, so I simply waited, and another uncomfortable silence fell. But this time it was Sapten who broke it.
“There’s no question of debt,” says he, deliberately. “Mr Arnold may be said to have made amends. He’s lucky to go off with his life.”
But at this Grundvig and the Prince cried out.
“At least we owe him civility,” says the Prince. “Mr Arnold, you have had my thanks; understand it is the thanks of Strackenz and Denmark also.”
“Aye, very fine,” sneers Sapten. “But with your highness’s leave, a clear passage to our frontier is the most, I think, that Mr Arnold will expect.” He was pretty angry, all right; I began to understand that if Carl Gustaf hadn’t survived it would have been waltzing matilda for Flashy if Sapten had had his way. I didn’t think it politic to mention his promise on behalf of little golden-headed Amelia; the less said about her the better.
“At least he must be allowed to rest first,” says the Prince, “and then conveyed in safety to the border. We owe him that.”
“He can’t stay here,” croaked Sapten. “In God’s name, look at his face! We’ll have difficulty preventing a scandal as it is. If there are two men with the prince’s figurehead in the state, we’ll never keep it quiet.”
The Prince bit his lip, and I saw it was time for a diplomatic intervention.
“If your highness pleases,” says I, “Major Sapten is right. Every moment I continue in Strackenz is dangerous, for both of us, but especially for you. I must go, and quickly. Believe me, it is for the best. And as the major has remarked, there is no debt.”
Wasn’t there, though! I kept my face smooth, but underneath I was beginning to smart with hurt and anger. I hadn’t asked to be embroiled in the politics of their tin-pot little duchy, but I had been bloody near killed more times than I could count, cut and wounded and half-drowned, scared out of my wits—and all I was getting at the end of it was the sneers of Sapten and the handshake of his blasted highness. Ten minutes before I had been thankful to come out with a whole skin, but suddenly now I felt full of spite and anger towards them.
There was a bit of mumbling and grumbling, but it was all hypocrisy; indeed, I don’t doubt that if Carl Gustaf had been given an hour or two longer to recover from the scare he had had, and his consequent gratitude to me, he would have been ready to listen to a suggestion from Sapten that I should be slipped back down the pipe for a second time—with my hands tied this time. After all, his face was like mine, so his character might be, too.
For the moment, though, he had the grace to look troubled; he probably thought he owed it to his princely dignity to do something for me. But he managed to fight it down—they usually do—and the upshot of it was that they agreed that I should ride out as quickly as possible. They would stay where they were for the night, so that his highness could rest and take counsel, and there was a broad hint that I had better be over the frontier by morning. Grundvig seemed the only one who was unhappy about my sudden dismissal; he was an odd one, that, and I gathered from what he said that he alone had come round to the view that I was more sinned against than sinning. He actually seemed rather sorry for me, and he was the one who eventually escorted me up from that dungeon, and ordered a horse to be found, and stood with me in the castle gateway while they went to the mainland for it.
“I am a father, too, you see,” says he, pacing up and down. “I understand what it must mean to a man, when his loved ones are torn from him, and used as hostages against him. Who knows? I, too, might have acted as you did. I trust I should have behaved as bravely when the time came.”
Silly bastard, I thought, that’s all you know. I asked him what had happened to Rudi, and he said he didn’t know. They had seen him vanish through a side door in the outer cell, and had given chase, but had lost him in the castle. Presumably he knew its bolt-holes, and had got away. I didn’t care for the sound of this, but it was long odds I wouldn’t run into him again, anyway. I wasn’t planning on lingering—just long enough for the notion that was beginning to form in my mind.
Then one of the peasants returned with a horse, and a cloak for me. I asked a few directions of Grundvig, accepted a flask and a pouch of bread and cheese, and swung into the saddle. Just the feel of the horse moving under me was heartening; I could hardly wait to be away from that beastly place and everything in it.
Grundvig didn’t shake hands, but he waved solemnly, and then I turned the horse’s head, touched her with my heel, and clattered away across the bridge, out of the lives of Carl Gustaf, the Sons of the Volsungs, Old Uncle Tom Cobley, and all. I took the Strackenz City road, and never looked back at the cold pile of Jotunberg. I hope they all caught pneumonia.
You would think, no doubt, that after what I had gone through, I would have no thought but to get out of Strackenz and Germany as fast as a clean pair of heels could take me. Looking back, I wonder that I had any other notion, but the truth is that I did. It’s a queer thing; while I’m the sorriest coward in moments of danger, there is no doubt that escape produces an exhilaration in me. Perhaps it is simple reaction; perhaps I become light-headed; perhaps it is that in my many aftermaths I have usually had the opportunity of some strong drink—as I had now—and that all three combine to produce a spirit of folly. God knows it isn’t courage, but I wish I had a guinea for every time I’ve come through some hellish crisis, babbling thankfully to be still alive—and then committed some idiocy which I wouldn’t dare to contemplate in a rational moment.
And in this case I was angry, too. To be harried and bullied and exposed to awful danger—and then just cut adrift with hardly a thank-you-damn-your-eyes from a man who, but for me, would have been feeding the fishes—God, I found myself hating that shilly-shally Carl Gustaf, and that sour-faced old turd Sapten—aye, and that mealy Grundvig, with his pious maundering. I’d pay them out, by gum, would I. And it would be poetic justice, too, in a way—Bismarck had promised me a grand reward; well, I’d come out of Strackenz with something for my pains.
And, of course, it was really safe enough. There was hardly any risk at all, for I had a certain start of several hours, and I’d know how to cover my tracks. By God, I’d show them; they’d learn that a little gratitude would have been starvation cheap. I could do their dirty work for them, and then I could just piss off, could I? They’d learn to think a little more of Harry Flashman than that, the mean bastards.
So I reasoned, in my logical way. But the main thing was, I was sure there was no danger in what I intended. And what is there, I ask you, that a man will not dare, so long