Flashman. George MacDonald Fraser
marvellous efficiency, and God help anyone who marred that performance. He would have made a first-class drill sergeant – only a man with a mind capable of such depths of folly could have led six regiments into the Valley at Balaclava.
However, I devote some space to him because he played a not unimportant part in the career of Harry Flashman, and since it is my purpose to show how the Flashman of Tom Brown became the glorious Flashman with four inches in Who’s Who and grew markedly worse in the process, I must say that he was a good friend to me. He never understood me, of course, which is not surprising. I took good care not to let him.
When I met him in Canterbury I had already given a good deal of thought to how I should conduct myself in the army. I was bent on as much fun and vicious amusement as I could get – my contemporaries, who praise God on Sundays and sneak off to child-brothels during the week, would denounce it piously as vicious, anyway – but I have always known how to behave to my superiors and shine in their eyes, a trait of mine which Hughes pointed out, bless him. This I had determined on, and since the little I knew of Cardigan told me that he prized smartness and show above all things, I took some pains over my arrival in Canterbury.
I rolled up to regimental headquarters in a coach, resplendent in my new uniform, and with my horses led behind and a wagonload of gear. Cardigan didn’t see me arrive, unfortunately, but word must have been carried to him, for when I was introduced to him in his orderly room he was in good humour.
‘Haw-haw,’ said he, as we shook hands. ‘It is Mr Fwashman. How-de-do, sir. Welcome to the wegiment. A good turn-out, Jones,’ he went on to the officer at his elbow. ‘I delight to see a smart officer. Mr Fwashman, how tall are you?’
‘Six feet, sir,’ I said, which was near enough right.
‘Haw-haw. And how heavy do you wide, sir?’
I didn’t know, but I guessed at twelve and a half stone.
‘Heavy for a light dwagoon,’ said he, shaking his head. ‘But there are compensations. You have a pwoper figure, Mr Fwashman, and bear yourself well. Be attentive to your duties and we shall deal very well together. Where have you hunted?’
‘In Leicestershire, my lord,’ I said.
‘Couldn’t be better,’ says he. ‘Eh, Jones? Very good, Mr Fwashman – hope to see more of you. Haw-haw.’
Now, no one in my life that I could remember had ever been so damned civil to me, except toad-eaters like Speedicut, who didn’t count. I found myself liking his lordship, and did not realise that I was seeing him at his best. In this mood, he was a charming man enough, and looked well. He was taller than I, straight as a lance, and very slender, even to his hands. Although he was barely forty, he was already bald, with a bush of hair above either ear and magnificent whiskers. His nose was beaky and his eyes blue and prominent and unwinking – they looked out on the world with that serenity which marks the nobleman whose uttermost ancestor was born a nobleman, too. It is the look that your parvenu would give half his fortune for, that unrufflable gaze of the spoiled child of fortune who knows with unshakeable certainty that he is right and that the world is exactly ordered for his satisfaction and pleasure. It is the look that makes underlings writhe and causes revolutions. I saw it then, and it remained changeless as long as I knew him, even through the roll-call beneath Causeway Heights when the grim silence as the names were shouted out testified to the loss of five hundred of his command. ‘It was no fault of mine,’ he said then, and he didn’t just believe it; he knew it.
I was to see him in a different mood before the day was out, but fortunately I was not the object of his wrath; quite the reverse, in fact.
I was shown about the camp by the officer of the day, a fair young captain, named Reynolds,3 with a brick-red face from service in India. Professionally, he was a good soldier, but quiet and no blood at all. I was fairly offhand with him, and no doubt insolent, but he took it without comment, confining himself to telling me what was what, finding me a servant, and ending at the stables where my mare – whom I had christened Judy, by the way – and charger were being housed.
The grooms had Judy trimmed up with her best leather-work – and it was the best that the smartest saddler in London could show – and Reynolds was admiring her, when who should ride up but my lord in the devil of a temper. He reined in beside us, and pointed with a hand that shook with fury to a troop that had just come in under their sergeant, to the stable yard.
‘Captain Weynolds!’ he bawled, and his face was scarlet. ‘Is this your twoop?’
Reynolds said it was.
‘And do you see their sheepskins?’ bawled Cardigan. These were the saddle sheepskins. ‘Do you see them, sir? What colour are they, I should like to know? Will you tell me, sir?’
‘White, my lord.’
‘White, you say? Are you a fool, sir? Are you colour-blind? They are not white, they are yellow – with inattention and slovenliness and neglect! They are filthy, I tell you.’
Reynolds stood silent, and Cardigan raged on.
‘This was no doubt very well in India, where you learned what you probably call your duty. I will not have it here, do you understand, sir?’ His eye rolled round the stable and rested on Judy. ‘Whose horse is this?’ he demanded.
I told him, and he turned in triumph on Reynolds.
‘You see, sir, an officer new joined, and he can show you and your other precious fellows from India their duty. Mr Fwashman’s sheepskin is white, sir, as yours should be – would be, if you knew anything of discipline and good order. But you don’t, sir, I tell you.’
‘Mr Flashman’s sheepskin is new, sir,’ said Reynolds, which was true enough. ‘They discolour with age.’
‘So you make excuses now!’ snapped Cardigan. ‘Haw-haw! I tell you, sir, if you knew your duty they would be cleaned, or if they are too old, wenewed. But you know nothing of this, of course. Your slovenly Indian ways are good enough, I suppose. Well, they will not do, let me tell you! These skins will be cwean tomorrow, d’you hear, sir? Cwean, or I’ll hold you wesponsible, Captain Weynolds!’
And with that he rode off, head in the air, and I heard his ‘Haw-haw’ as he greeted someone outside the stable yard.
I felt quite pleased to have been singled out for what was, in effect, praise, and I fancy I said something of this to Reynolds. He looked me up and down as though seeing me for the first time, and said, in that odd, Welsh-sounding voice that comes with long service in India:
‘Ye-es, I can see you will do very well, Mr Flashman. Lord Haw Haw may not like us Indian officers, but he likes plungers, and I’ve no doubt you’ll plunger very prettily.’
I asked him what he meant by plunging.
‘Oh,’ says he, ‘a plunger is a fellow who makes a great turn-out, don’t you know, and leaves cards at the best houses, and is sought by the mamas, and strolls in the Park very languid, and is just a hell of a swell generally. Sometimes they even condescend to soldier a little – when it doesn’t interfere with their social life. Good day, Mr Flashman.’
I could see that Reynolds was jealous, and in my conceit I was well pleased. What he had said, though, was true enough: the regiment was fairly divided between Indian officers – those who had not left since returning home – and the plungers, to whom I naturally attached myself. They hailed me among them, even the noblest, and I knew how to make myself pleasant. I was not as quick with my tongue as I was to become later, but they knew me for a sporting fellow before I had been there long – good on a horse, good with the bottle (for I took some care at first), and ready for mischief. I toadied as seemed best – not openly, of course, but effectively just the same; there is a way of toadying which is better than fawning, and it consists of acting bluff and hearty and knowing to an inch how far to go. And I had money, and showed it.
The Indian officers had a bad time. Cardigan hated them. Reynolds and Forrest were his chief butts, and he was forever pestering them to