The Flashman Papers: The Complete 12-Book Collection. George Fraser MacDonald
that came into my head: “Hamare ghali ana, achha din,” which is what the harlots chant at passers-by, and means “Good day, come into our street”. He seemed very interested, but the man beside him stiffened and stared hard at me.
“What does it mean, Mr Flashman?” says the Queen.
“It is a Hindu greeting, marm,” says the Duke, and my guts turned over as I recalled that he had served in India.
“Why, of course,” says she, “we are quite an Indian gathering, with Mr Macaulay here.” The name meant nothing to me then; he was looking at me damned hard, though, with his pretty little mouth set hard. I later learned that he had spent several years in government out there, so my fat-headed remark had not been lost on him, either.
“Mr Macaulay has ben reading us his new poems,”28 says the Queen, “They are quite stirring and fine. I think his Horatius must have been your model, Mr Flashman, for you know he defied great odds in defence of Rome. It is a splendid ballad, and very inspiring. Do you know the story, Duke?”
He said he did, which put him one up on me, and added that he didn’t believe it, at which she cried out and demanded to know why.
“Three men can’t stop an army, marm,” says he. “Livy was no soldier, or he would hardly have suggested they could.”
“Oh, come now,” says Macaulay. “They were on a narrow bridge, and could not be outnumbered.”
“You see, Duke?” says the Queen. “How could they be overcome?”
“Bows and arrows, marm,” says he. “Slings. Shoot ’em down. That’s what I’d have done.”
At this she said that the Tuscans were more chivalrous than he was, and he agreed that very likely they were.
“Which is perhaps why there are no Tuscan empires today, but an extensive British one,” says the Prince quietly. And then he leaned forward and murmured something to the Queen, and she nodded wisely, and stood up – she was very small – and signed to me to come forward in front of her. I went, wondering, and the Duke came to my elbow, and the Prince watched me with his head on one side. The lady who had been behind the couch came forward, and handed something to the Queen, and she looked up at me, from not a foot away.
“Our brave soldiers in Afghanistan are to have four medals from the Governor-General,” she said. “You will wear them in course of time, but there is also a medal from their Queen, and it is fitting that you should wear it first of all.”
She pinned it on my coat, and she had to reach up to do it, she was so small. Then she smiled at me, and I felt so overcome I didn’t know what to say. Seeing this, she went all soulful about the eyes.
“You are a very gallant gentleman,” says she. “God bless you.”
Oh, lor’, I thought, if only you knew, you romantic little woman, thinking I’m a modern Horatius. (I made a point of studying Macaulay’s “Lays” later, and she wasn’t too far off, really; only the chap I resembled was False Sextus, a man after my own heart.)
However, I had to say something, so I mumbled about her majesty’s service.
“England’s service,” said she, looking intense.
“The same thing, ma’am,” says I, flown with inspiration, and she cast her eyes down wistfully. The Duke gave what sounded like a little groan.
There was a pause, and then she asked if I was married. I told her I was, but that I and my wife had been parted for the past two years.
“What a cruel separation”, says she, as one might say “What delicious strawberry jam”. But she was sure, she said, that our reunion must be all the sweeter for that parting.
“I know what it means to be a devoted wife, with the dearest of husbands,” she went on, glancing at Albert, and he looked fond and noble. God, I thought, what a honeymoon that must have been.
Then the Duke chimed in, making his farewells, and I realised that this was my cue. We both bowed, and backed away, and she sat looking dumpy on the couch, and then we were in the corridor again, and the Duke was striding off through the hovering attendants.
“Well,” says he, “you’ve got a medal no one else will ever have. Only a few of ’em struck, you see, and then Ellenborough announced that he was giving four of his own, which did not please her majesty at all. So her medal is to be stopped.”29
He was right as it turned out; no one else ever received the medal, with its pink and green ribbon (I suspect Albert chose the colours), and I wear it on ceremonial days along with my Victoria Cross, my American Medal of Honour (for which the republic graciously pays me ten dollars a month), my San Serafino Order of Purity and Truth (richly deserved), and all the other assorted tinware which serves to disguise a cowardly scoundrel as a heroic veteran.
We passed through the covey of saluting Guardsmen, bowing officials, and rigid flunkeys to our coach, but there was no getting through the gates at first for the crowd which had collected and was cheering its head off.
“Good old Flashy! Hurrah for Flash Harry! Hip! hip! hooray!”
They clamoured at the railings, waving and throwing up their hats, jostling the sentries, surging in a great press round the gateway, until at last the gates were pushed open and the brougham moved slowly through the struggling mass, all the faces grinning and shouting and the handkerchiefs waving.
“Take off your hat, man,” snaps the Duke, so I did, and they roared again, pressing forward against the sides of the coach, reaching in to clasp my hand, beating on the panels, and making a tremendous racket.
“He’s got a medal!” roars someone. “God save the Queen!”
At that they woke the echoes, and I thought the coach must overturn. I was laughing and waving to them, but what do you suppose I was thinking? This was real glory! Here was I, the hero of the Afghan war, with the Queen’s medal on my coat, the world’s greatest soldier at my side, and the people of the world’s greatest city cheering me to the echo – me! while the Duke sat poker-faced snapping: “Johnson, can’t you get us out of this damned mess?”
What was I thinking? About the chance that had sent me to India? About Elphy Bey? About the horror of the passes on the retreat, or the escape at Mogala when Iqbal died? Of the nightmare of Piper’s Fort or that dreadful dwarf in the snake-pit? About Sekundar Burnes? Or Bernier? Or the women – Josette, Narreeman, Fetnab and the rest? About Elspeth? About the Queen?
None of these things. Strange, but as the coach won clear and we rattled off down the Mall with the cheers dying behind us, I could hear Arnold’s voice saying, “There is good in you, Flashman,” and I could imagine how he would have supposed himself vindicated at this moment, and preach on “Courage” in chapel, and pretend to rejoice in the redeemed prodigal – but all the time he would know in his hypocrite heart that I was a rotter still.30 But neither he nor anyone else would have dared to say so. This myth called bravery, which is half-panic, half-lunacy (in my case, all panic), pays for all; in England you can’t be a hero and bad. There’s practically a law against it.
Wellington was muttering sharply about the growing insolence of the mob, but he left off to tell me he would set me down at the Horse Guards. When we arrived and I was getting out and thanking him for his kindness, he looks sharply at me, and says:
“I wish you every good fortune, Flashman. You should go far. I don’t imagine you’re a second Marlborough, mind, but you appear to be brave and you’re certainly damned lucky. With the first quality you may easily gain command of an army or two, and lead ’em both to ruin, but with your luck you’ll probably lead ’em back again. You have made a good beginning, at all events, and received today the highest honour you can hope for, which is your monarch’s mark of favour. Goodbye to you.”
We shook hands, and he drove off. I never spoke to him