Flashman

Flashman

What happened to Flashman, the caddish bully of Tom Brown's Schooldays, after he was expelled in drunken disgrace from Rugby School in the late 1830s? What kind of man grew out of the foul-mouthed, swaggering, cowardly toady who roasted fags for fun and howled when he was beaten himself?

For more than a century the fate of history's most notorious schoolboy remained a mystery - until, in 1966, George MacDonald Fraser decided to discover a vast collection of unpublished manuscripts in a Midland sale-room. Since then the scandalous saga of Flashman, Victorian hero and scoundrel, has emerged in a series of bestselling memoirs in which the arch-cad reviews, from the safety of old age, his exploits in bed and battle.

George MacDonald Fraser served in a Highland regiment in India and the Middle East, worked on newspapers in Britain and Canada, and has written nine other Flashman novels and numerous films, most notably The Three Musketeers, The Four Musketeers, and the James Bond film, Octopussy.

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By the same author

THE FLASHMAN PAPERS

Royal Flash

Flash for Freedom!

Flashman at the Charge

Flashman in the Great Game

Flashman's Lady

Flashman and the Redskins

Flashman and the Dragon

Flashman and the Mountain of Light

Flashman and the Angel of the Lord

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Mr American

The Pyrates

The Candlemass Road

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SHORT STORIES

The General Danced at Dawn

McAuslan in the Rough The Sheikh and the Dustbin

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HISTORY

The Steel Bonnets: The Story of the Anglo-Scottish Border Reivers

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AUTOBIOGRAPHY

Quartered Safe Out Here

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The Hollywood History of the World

FLASHMAN

From The Flashman Papers, 1839-1842

Edited and Arranged by GEORGE MACDONALD FRASER

FOR KATH

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Explanatory Note

The great mass of manuscript known as the Flashman Papers was discovered during a sale of household furniture at Ashby, Leicestershire, in 1965. The papers were subsequently claimed by Mr Paget Morrison, of Durban, South Africa, the nearest known living relative of their author.

A point of major literary interest about the papers is that they clearly identify Flashman, the school bully of Thomas Hughes' Tom Brown's Schooldays, with the celebrated Victorian soldier of the same name. The papers are, in fact, Harry Flashman's personal memoirs from the day of his expulsion from Rugby School in the late 1830s to the early years of the present century. He appears to have written them some time between 1900 and 1905, when he must have been over eighty. It is possible that he dictated them. The papers, which had apparently lain untouched for fifty years, in a tea chest, until they were found in the Ashby saleroom, were carefully wrapped in oilskin covers. From correspondence found in the first packet, it is evident that their original discovery by his relatives in 1915 after the great soldier's death caused considerable consternation; they seem to have been unanimously against publication of their kinsman's autobiography - one can readily understand why - and the only wonder is that the manuscript was not destroyed.

Fortunately, it was preserved, and what follows is the content of the first packet, covering Flashman's early adventures. I have no reason to doubt that it is a completely truthful account; where Flashman touches on historical fact he is almost invariably accurate, and readers can judge whether he is to be believed or not on more personal matters.

Mr Paget Morrison, knowing of my interest in this and related subjects, asked me to edit the papers. Beyond correcting some minor spelling errors, however, there has been no editing to do. Flashman had a better sense of narrative than I have, and I have confined myself to the addition of a few historical notes.

The quotation from Tom Brown's Schooldays was pasted to the top page of the first packet; it had evidently been cut from the original edition of 1856.

G. M. F.

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One fine summer evening Flashman had been regaling himself on gin-punch, at Brownsover; and, having exceeded his usual limits, started home uproarious. He fell in with a friend or two coming back from bathing, proposed a glass of beer, to which they assented, the weather being hot, and they thirsty souls, and unaware of the quantity of drink which Flashman had already on board. The short result was, that Flashy became beastly drunk. They tried to get him along, but couldn't; so they chartered a hurdle and two men to carry him. One of the masters came upon them, and they naturally enough fled. The flight of the rest excited the master's suspicions, and the good angel of the fags in-cited him to examine the freight, and, after examination, to convoy the hurdle himself up to - the School-house; and the Doctor, who had long had his eye on Flashman, arranged for his withdrawal next morning.

- THOMAS HUGHES, Tom Brown's Schooldays.

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Hughes got it wrong, in one important detail. You will have read, in Tom Brown, how I was expelled from Rugby School for drunkenness, which is true enough, but when Hughes alleges that this was the result of my deliberately pouring beer on top of gin-punch, he is in error. I knew better than to mix my drinks, even at seventeen.

I mention this, not in self-defence, but in the interests of strict truth. This story will be completely truthful; I am breaking the habit of eighty years. Why shouldn't I? When a man is as old as I am, and knows himself thoroughly for what he was and is, he doesn't care much. I'm not ashamed, you see; never was - and I have enough on what Society would consider the credit side of the ledger -a knighthood, a Victoria Cross, high rank, and some popular fame. So I can look at the picture above my desk, of the young officer in Cardigan's Hussars; tall, masterful, and roughly handsome I was in those days (even Hughes allowed that I was big and strong, and had considerable powers of being pleasant), and say that it is the portrait of a scoundrel, a liar, a cheat, a thief, a coward - and, oh yes, a toady. Hughes said more or less all these things, and his description was pretty fair, except in matters of detail such as the one I've mentioned. But he was more concerned to preach a sermon than to give facts.

But I am concerned with facts, and since many of them are discreditable to me, you can rest assured they are true. At all events, Hughes was wrong in saying I suggested beer. It was Speedicut who ordered it up, and I had drunk it (on top of all those gin-punches) before I knew what I was properly doing. That finished me; I was really drunk then - "beastly drunk", says Hughes, and he's right - and when they got me out of the "Grapes" I could hardly see, let alone walk. They bundled me into a sedan, and then a beak hove in sight and Speedicut lived up to his name and bolted. I was left sprawling in the chair, and up came the master and saw me. It was old Rufton, one of Arnold's housemasters.

"Good God!" he said. "It's one of our boys - drunk!" I can still see him goggling at me, with his great pale gooseberry eyes and white whiskers. He tried to rouse me, but he might as well have tried to wake a corpse. I just lay and giggled at him. Finally he lost his temper, and banged the top of the chair with his cane and shouted:

"Take him up, chairmen! Take him to the School! He shall go before the Doctor for this!"

So they bore me off in procession, with old Rufton raging behind about disgusting excesses and the wages of sin, and old Thomas and the chairmen took me to the hospital, which was appropriate, and left me on a bed to sober up. It didn't take me long, I can tell you, as soon as my mind was clear enough to think what would come of it. You know what Arnold was like, if you have read Hughes, and he had no use for me at the best of times. The least I could expect was a flogging before the school.

That was enough to set me in a blue funk, at the very thought, but what I was really afraid of was Arnold himself.

They left me in the hospital perhaps two hours, and then old Thomas came to say the Doctor wanted to see me. I followed him downstairs and across to the School-house, with the fags peeping round corners and telling each other that the brute Flashy had fallen at last, and old Thomas knocked at the Doctor's door, and the voice crying "Come in!" sounded like the crack of doom to me.

He was standing before the fireplace, with his hands behind looping up his coat-tails, and a face like a Turk at a christening. He had eyes like sabre-points, and his face was pale and carried that disgusted look that he kept for these occasions. Even with the liquor still working on me a little I was as scared in that minute as I've ever been in my life - and when you have ridden into a Russian battery at Balaclava and been chained in an Afghan dungeon waiting for the torturers, as I have, you know what fear means. I still feel uneasy when I think of him, and he's been dead sixty years.

He was live enough then. He stood silent a moment, to let me stew a little. Then:

"Flashman," says he, "there are many moments in a schoolmaster's life when he must make a decision, and afterwards wonder whether he was right or not. I have made a decision, and for once I am in no doubt that I am right. I have observed you for several years now, with increasing concern. You have been an evil influence in the school. That you are a bully, I know; that you are untruthful, I have long suspected; that you are deceitful and mean, I have feared; but that you had fallen so low as to be a drunkard - that, at least, I never imagined. I have looked in the past for some signs of improvement in you, some spark of grace, some ray of hope that my work here had not, in your case, been unsuccessful. It has not come, and this is the final infamy. Have you anything to say?"

He had me blubbering by this time; I mumbled some-thing about being sorry.

"If I thought for one moment," says he, "that you were sorry, that you had it in you to show true repentance, I might hesitate from the step that I am about to take. But I know you too well, Flashman. You must leave Rugby tomorrow."

If I had had my wits about me I suppose I should have thought this was no bad news, but with Arnold thundering I lost my head.

"But, sir," I said, still blubbering, "it will break my mother's heart!"

He went pale as a ghost, and I fell back. I thought he was going to hit me.

"Blasphemous wretch!" he cried - he had a great pulpit trick with phrases like those - "your mother has been dead these many years, and do you dare to plead her name - a name that should be sacred to you -

in defence of your abominations? You have killed any spark of pity I had for you!"

"My father -"

"Your father," says he, "will know how to deal with you. I hardly think," he added, with a look, "that his heart will be broken." He knew something of my father, you see, and probably thought we were a pretty pair.

He stood there drumming his fingers behind him a moment, and then he said, in a different voice:

"You are a sorry creature, Flashman. I have failed in you. But even to you I must say, this is not the end. You cannot continue here, but you are young, Flashman, and there is time yet. Though your sins be as red as crimson, yet shall they be as white as snow. You have fallen very low, but you can be raised up again. ..."

I haven't a good memory for sermons, and he went on like this for some time, like the pious old hypocrite that he was. For he was a hypocrite, I think, like most of his generation. Either that or he was more foolish than he looked, for he was wasting his piety on me. But he never realised it.

Anyway, he gave me a fine holy harangue, about how through repentance I might be saved - which I've never believed, by the way.

I've repented a good deal in my time, and had good cause, but I was never ass enough to suppose it mended anything. But I've learned to swim with the tide when I have to, so I let him pray over me, and when he had finished I left his study a good deal happier than when I went in. I had escaped flogging, which was the main thing; leaving Rugby I didn't mind a button. I never much cared for the place, and the supposed disgrace of expulsion I didn't even think about. (They had me back a few years ago to present prizes; nothing was said about expulsion then, which shows that they are just as big hypocrites now as they were in Arnold's day. I made a speech, too; on Courage, of all things.)

I left the school next morning, in the gig, with my box on top, and they were damned glad to see me go, I expect. Certainly the fags were; I'd given them toco in my time. And who should be at the gate (to gloat, I thought at first, but it turned out otherwise) but the bold Scud East.

He even offered me his hand.

"I'm sorry, Flashman," he said.

I asked him what he had to be sorry for, and damned his impudence.

"Sorry you're being expelled," says he.

"You're a liar," says I. "And damn your sorrow, too."

He looked at me, and then turned on his heel and walked off. But I know now that I misjudged him then; he was sorry, heaven knows why. He'd no cause to love me, and if I had been him I'd have been throwing my cap in the air and hurrahing. But he was soft: one of Arnold's sturdy fools, manly little chaps, of course, and full of virtue, the kind that schoolmasters love. Yes, he was a fool then, and a fool twenty years later, when he died in the dust at Cawnpore with a Sepoy's bayonet in his back. Honest Scud East; that was all that his gallant goodness did for him.

I didn't linger on the way home. I knew my father was in London, and I wanted to get over as soon as I could the painful business of telling him I had been kicked out of Rugby. So I decided to ride to town, letting my bags follow, and hired a horse accordingly at the

"George". I am one of those who rode as soon as he walked - indeed, horsemanship and my trick of picking up foreign tongues have been the only things in which you could say I was born gifted, and very useful they have been.

So I rode to town, puzzling over how my father would take the good news. He was an odd fish, the guv'nor, and he and I had always been wary of each other. He was a nabob's grandson, you see, old Jack Flashman having made a fortune in America out of slaves and rum, and piracy, too, I shouldn't wonder, and buying the place in Leicestershire where we have lived ever since. But for all their moneybags, the Flashmans were never the thing -"the coarse streak showed through, generation after generation, like dung beneath a rosebush," as Greville said. In other words, while other nabob families tried to make themselves pass for quality, ours didn't, because we couldn't. My own father was the first to marry well, for my mother was related to the Pagets, who as everyone knows sit on the right hand of God. As a consequence he kept an eye on me to see if I gave myself airs; before mother died he never saw much of me, being too busy at the clubs or in the House or hunting - foxes sometimes, but women mostly - but after that he had to take some interest in his heir, and we grew to know and mistrust each other.

He was a decent enough fellow in his way, I suppose, pretty rough and with the devil's own temper, but well enough liked in his set, which was country-squire with enough money to pass in the West End. He enjoyed some lingering fame through having gone a number of rounds with Cribb, in his youth, though it's my belief that Champion Tom went easy with him because of his cash. He lived half in town, half in country now, and kept an expensive house, but he was out of politics, having been sent to the knacker's yard at Reform. He was still occupied, though, what with brandy and the tables, and hunting - both kinds.

I was feeling pretty uneasy, then, when I ran up the steps and hammered on the front door. Oswald, the butler, raised a great cry when he saw who it was, because it was nowhere near the end of the half, and this brought other servants: they scented scandal, no doubt.

"My father's home?" I asked, giving Oswald my coat and straightening my neck-cloth.

"Your father, to be sure, Mr Harry," cried Oswald, all smiles. "In the saloon this minute!" He threw open the door, and cried out: "Mr Harry's home, sir!"

My father had been sprawled on a settee, but he jumped up when he saw me. He had a glass in his hand and his face was flushed, but since both those things were usual it was hard to say whether he was drunk or not. He stared at me, and then greeted the prodigal with:

"What the hell are you doing here?" At most times this kind of welcome would have taken me aback, but not now. There was a woman in the room, and she distracted my attention. She was a tall, handsome, hussy-looking piece, with brown hair piled up on her head and a come-and-catch-me look in her eye. "This is the new one," I thought, for you got used to his string of madames; they changed as fast as the sentries at St James'.

She was looking at me with a lazy, half-amused smile that sent a shiver up my back at the same time as it made me conscious of the schoolboy cut of my clothes. But it stiffened me, too, all in an instant, so that I answered his question pat:

"I've been expelled," I said, as cool as I could. "Expelled? D'ye mean thrown out? What the devil for, sir?"

"Drunkenness, mainly."

"Mainly? Good God!" He was going purple. He looked from the woman back to me, as though seeking enlightenment. She seemed much amused by it, but seeing the old fellow in danger of explosion I made haste to explain what had happened. I was truthful enough, except that I made rather more of my interview with Arnold than was the case; to hear me you would suppose I had given as good as I got.

Seeing the female eyeing me I acted pretty offhand, which was risky, perhaps, with the guv'nor in his present mood. But to my surprise he took it pretty well; he had never liked Arnold, of course.

"Well, I'm damned!" he said, when I had finished, and poured himself another glass. He wasn't grinning, but his brow had cleared.

"You young dog! A pretty state of things, indeed. Expelled in disgrace, by gad! Did he flog you? No? I'd have had the hide off your back -

perhaps I will, damme!" But he was smiling now, a bit sour, though.

"What d'you make of this, Judy?" he said to the woman.

"I take it this is a relative?" she says, letting her fan droop towards me. She had a deep husky voice, and I shivered again.

"Relative? Eh? Oh, dammit, it's my son Harry, girl! Harry, this is Judy . . . er, Miss Parsons."

She smiled at me now, still with that half-amused look, and I preened myself - I was seventeen, remember - and sized up her points while the father got himself another glass and damned Arnold for a puritan hedge-priest. She was what is called junoesque, broad-shouldered and full-breasted, which was less common then than it is now, and it seemed to me she liked the look of Harry Flashman.

"Well," said my father at last, when he had finished fulminating against the folly of putting prigs and scholars in charge of public schools. "Well, what's to be done with you, eh? What'll you do, sir? Now that you've disgraced the home with your beastliness, eh?"

I had been thinking this over on my way home, and said straight out that I fancied the army.

"The army?" he growled. "You mean I'm to buy you colours so that you can live like a king and ruin me with bills at the Guards'

Club, I suppose?"

"Not the Guards," I said. "I've a notion for the 11th Light Dragoons."

He stared at this. "You've chosen a regiment already? By gad, here's a cool hand!"

I knew the 11th were at Canterbury, after long service in India, and unlikely for that reason to be posted abroad. I had my own notions of soldiering. But this was too fast for the guv'nor; he went on about the expense of buying in, and the cost of army life, and worked back to my expulsion and my character generally, and so back to the army again. The port was making him quarrelsome, I could see, so I judged it best not to press him. He growled on:

"Dragoons, damme! D'ye know what a cornet's com-mission costs?

Damned nonsense. Never heard the like. Impudence, eh, Judy?"

Miss Judy observed that I might look very well as a dashing dragoon.

"Eh?" said my father, and gave her a queer look. "Aye, like enough he would. We'll see." He looked moodily at me. "In the meantime, you can get to your bed," he said. "We'll talk of this tomorrow. For the moment you're still in disgrace." But as I left them I could hear him black-guarding Arnold again, so I went to bed well pleased, and relieved into the bargain. He was odd fish, all right; you could never tell how he would take anything.

In the morning, though, when I met my father at breakfast, there was no talk of the army. He was too busy damning Brougham - who had, I gathered, made a violent attack on the Queen in the House(1) -

and goggling over some scandal about Lady Flora Hastings(2) in the Post, to give me much attention, and left presently for his club.

Anyway, I was content to let the matter rest just now; I have always believed in one thing at a time, and the thing that was occupying my mind was Miss Judy Parsons.

Let me say that while there have been hundreds of women in my life, I have never been one of those who are forever boasting about their conquests. I've raked and ridden harder than most, no doubt, and there are probably a number of middle-aged men and women who could answer to the name of Flashman if only they knew it. That's by the way; unless you are the kind who falls in love - which I've never been - you take your tumbles when you've the chance, and the more the better. But Judy has a close bearing on my story.

I was not inexperienced with women; there had been maids at home and a country girl or two, but Judy was a woman of the world, and that I hadn't attempted. Not that I was concerned on that account, for I fancied myself (and rightly) pretty well. I was big and handsome enough for any of them, but being my father's mistress she might think it too risky to frolic with the son. As it turned out, she wasn't frightened of the guv'nor or anyone else.

She lived in the house - the young Queen was newly on the throne then, and people still behaved as they had under the Prince Regent and King Billy; not like later on, when mistresses had to stay out of sight. I went up to her room before noon to spy out the land, and found her still in bed, reading the papers. She was glad to see me, and we talked, and from the way she looked and laughed and let me toy with her hand I knew it was only a question of finding the time. There was an abigail fussing about the room, or I'd have gone for her then and there.

However, it seemed my father would be at the club that night, and playing late, as he often did, so I agreed to come back and play ecarte with her in the evening. Both of us knew it wouldn't be cards we would be playing. Sure enough, when I did come back, she was sitting prettying herself before her glass, wearing a bed-gown that would have made me a small handkerchief. I came straight up behind her, took her big breasts out in either hand, stopped her gasp with my mouth, and pushed her on to the bed. She was as eager as I was, and we bounced about in rare style, first one on top and then the other. Which reminds me of something which has stayed in my head, as these things will: when it was over, she was sitting astride me, naked and splendid, tossing the hair out of her eyes - suddenly she laughed, loud and clearly, the way one does at a good joke. I believed then she was laughing with pleasure, and thought myself a hell of a fellow, but I feel sure now she was laughing at me. I was seventeen, you remember, and doubtless she found it amusing to know how pleased with myself I was.

Later we played cards, for form's sake, and she won, and then I had to sneak off because my father came home early. Next day I tried her again, but this time, to my surprise, she slapped my hands and said: "No, no, my boy; once for fun, but not twice. I've a position to keep up here." Meaning my father, and the chance of servants gossiping, I supposed.

I was annoyed at this, and got ugly, but she laughed at me again.

I lost my temper, and tried to blackmail her by threatening to let my father find out about the night before, but she just curled her lip.

"You wouldn't dare," she said. "And if you did, I wouldn't care."

"Wouldn't you?" I said. "If he threw you out, you slut?"

"My, the brave little man," she mocked me. " I misjudged you. At first sight I thought you were just another noisy brute like your father, but I see you've a strong streak of the cur in you as well. Let me tell you, he's twice the man you are - in bed or out of it."

"I was good enough for you, you bitch," I said.

"Once," she said, and dropped me a mock curtsey. "That was enough. Now get out, and stick to servant girls after this."

I went in a black rage, slamming the door, and spent the next hour striding about the Park, planning what I would do to her if I ever had the chance. After a while my anger passed, and I just put Miss Judy away in a corner of my mind, as one to be paid off when the chance came.

Oddly enough, the affair worked to my advantage. Whether some wind of what had happened on the first night got to my father's ears, or whether he just caught something in the air, I don't know, but I suspect it was the second; he was shrewd, and had my own gift of sniffing the wind. Whatever it was, his manner towards me changed abruptly; from harking back to my expulsion and treating me fairly offhand, he suddenly seemed sulky at me, and I caught him giving me odd looks, which he would hurriedly shift away, as though he were embarrassed.

Anyway, within four days of my coming home, he suddenly announced that he had been thinking about my notion of the army, and had decided to buy me a pair of colours. I was to go over to the Horse Guards to see my Uncle Bindley, my mother's brother, who would arrange matters. Obviously, my father wanted me out of the house, and quickly, so I pinned him then and there, while the iron was hot, on the matter of an allowance. I asked for ’500 a year to add to my pay, and to my astonishment he agreed without discussion. I cursed myself for not asking ’750 but ’500 was twice what I'd expected, and far more than enough, so I was pretty pleased, and set off for Horse Guards in a good humour.

A lot has been said about the purchase of commissions -how the rich and incompetent can buy ahead of better men, how the poor and efficient are passed over - and most of it, in my experience, is rubbish.

Even with purchase abolished, the rich rise faster in the Service than the poor, and they're both inefficient anyway, as a rule. I've seen ten men's share of service, through no fault of my own, and can say that most officers are bad, and the higher you go, the worse they get, myself included. We were supposed to be rotten with incompetence in the Crimea, for example, when purchase was at its height, but the bloody mess they made in South Africa recently seems to have been just as bad - and they didn't buy their commissions.

However, at this time I'd no thought beyond being a humble cornet, and living high in a crack regiment, which was one of the reasons I had fixed on the 11th Dragoons. Also, that they were close to town.

I said nothing of this to Uncle Bindley, but acted very keen, as though I was on fire to win my spurs against the Mahrattas or the Sikhs. He sniffed, and looked down his nose, which was very high and thin, and said he had never suspected martial ardour in me.

"However, a fine leg in pantaloons and a penchant for folly seem to be all that is required today," he went on. "And you can ride, as I collect?" "Anything on legs, uncle," says I.

"That is of little consequence, anyway. What concerns me is that you cannot, by report, hold your liquor. You'll agree that being dragged from a Rugby pothouse, reeling, I believe, is no recommendation to an officers' mess?"

I hastened to tell him that the report was exaggerated. "I doubt it," he said. "The point is, were you silent in your drunken state, or did you rave? A noisy drunkard is intolerable; a passive one may do at a pinch. At least, if he has money; money will excuse virtually any conduct in the army nowadays, it seems." This was a favourite sneer of his; I may say that my mother's family, while quality, were not over-rich. However, I took it all meekly.

"Yes," he went on, "I've no doubt that with your allowance you will be able either to kill or ruin yourself in a short space of time. At that, you will be no worse than half the subalterns in the service, if no better. Ah, but wait. It was the 11th Light Dragoons, wasn't it?" "Oh, yes, uncle."

"And you are determined on that regiment?" "Why, yes," I said, wondering a little. "Then you may have a little diversion before you go the way of all flesh," said he, with a knowing smile. "Have you, by any chance, heard of the Earl of Cardigan?"

I said I had not, which shows how little I had taken notice of military affairs.

"Extraordinary. He commands the 11th, you know. He succeeded to the title only a year or so ago, while he was in India with the regiment. A remarkable man. I understand he makes no secret of his intention to turn the 11th into the finest cavalry regiment in the army."

"He sounds like the very man for me," I said, all eagerness.

"Indeed, indeed. Well, we mustn't deny him the service of so ardent a subaltern, must we? Certainly the matter of your colours must be pushed through without delay. I commend your choice, my boy. I'm sure you will find service under Lord Cardigan - ah - both stimulating and interesting. Yes, as I think of it, the combination of his lordship and yourself will be rewarding for you both."

I was too busy fawning on the old fool to pay much heed to what he was saying, otherwise I should have realised that anything that pleased him would probably be bad for me. He prided himself on being above my family, whom he considered boors, with some reason, and had never shown much but distaste for me personally. Helping me to my colours was different, of course; he owed that as a duty to a blood relation, but he paid it without enthusiasm. Still, I had to be civil as butter to him, and pretend respect.

It paid me, for I got my colours in the 11th with surprising speed.

I put it down entirely to influence, for I was not to know then that over the past few months there had been a steady departure of officers from the regiment, sold out, transferred, and posted - and all because of Lord Cardigan, whom my uncle had spoken of. If I had been a little older, and moved in the right circles, I should have heard all about him, but in the few weeks of waiting for my commission my father sent me up to Leicestershire, and the little time I had in town I spent either by myself or in the company of such of my relatives as could catch me.

My mother had had sisters, and although they disliked me heartily they felt it was their duty to look after the poor motherless boy. So they said; in fact they suspected that if I were left to myself I would take to low company, and they were right.

However, I was to find out about Lord Cardigan soon enough.

In the last few days of buying my uniforms, assembling the huge paraphernalia that an officer needed in those days - far more than now

- choosing a couple of horses, and arranging for my allowance, I still found time on my hands, and Mistress Judy in my thoughts. My tumble with her had only whetted my appetite for more of her, I discovered; I tried to get rid of it with a farm girl in Leicestershire and a young whore in Covent Garden, but the one stank and the other picked my pocket afterwards, and neither was any substitute anyway.

I wanted Judy, at the same time as I felt spite for her, but she had avoided me since our quarrel and if we met in the house she simply ignored me.

In the end it got too much, and the night before I left I went to her room again, having made sure the guv'nor was out. She was reading, and looking damned desirable in a pale green negligee; I was a little drunk, and the sight of her white shoulders and red mouth sent the old tingle down my spine again.

"What do you want?" she said, very icy, but I was expecting that, and had my speech ready.

"I've come to beg pardon," I said, looking a bit hangdog.

"Tomorrow I go away, and before I went I had to apologise for the way I spoke to you. I'm sorry, Judy; I truly am; I acted like a cad . . . and a ruffian, and, well. . . I want to make what amends I can. That's all."

She put down her book and turned on her stool to face me, still looking mighty cold, but saying nothing. I shuffled like a sheepish schoolboy - I could see my reflection in the mirror behind her, and judge how the performance was going - and said again that I was sorry.

"Very well, then," she said at last. "You're sorry. You have cause to be."

I kept quiet, not looking at her. "Well, then," she said, after a pause. "Good night." "Please, Judy," I said, looking distraught. "You make it very hard. If I behaved like a boor -" "You did."

"- it was because I was angry and hurt and didn't understand why . . . why you wouldn't let me . . ." I let it trail off and then burst out that I had never known a woman like her before, and that I had fallen in love with her, and only came to ask her pardon because I couldn't bear the thought of her detesting me, and a good deal more in the same strain - simple enough rubbish, you may think, but I was still learning. At that, the mirror told me I was doing well. I finished by drawing myself up straight, and looking solemn, and saying:

"And that is why I had to see you again ... to tell you. And to ask your pardon."

I gave her a little bow, and turned to the door, rehearsing how I would stop and look back if she didn't stop me. But she took me at face value, for as I put my hand to the latch she said:

"Harry." I turned round, and she was smiling a little, and looking sad. Then she smiled properly, and shook her head and said:

"Very well, Harry, if you want my pardon, for what it's worth you have it. We'll say no . .

"Judy!" I came striding back, smiling like soul's awakening. "Oh, Judy, thank you!" And I held out my hand, frank and manly.

She got up and took it, smiling still, but there was none of the old wanton glint about her eye. She was being stately and forgiving, like an aunt to a naughty nephew. The nephew, had she known it, was intent on incest.

"Judy," I said, still holding her hand, "we're parting friends?"

"If you like," she said, trying to take it away. "Good-bye, Harry, and good luck."

I stepped closer and kissed her hand, and she didn't seem to mind. I decided, like the fool I was, that the game was won.

"Judy," I said again, "you're adorable. I love you, Judy. If only you knew, you're all I want in a woman. Oh, Judy, you're the most beautiful thing, all bum, belly and bust, I love you."

And I grabbed her to me, and she pulled free and got away from me.

"No!" she said, in a voice like steel.

"Why the hell not?" I shouted.

"Go away!" she said, pale and with eyes like daggers.

"Goodnight!"

"Goodnight be damned," says I. "I thought you said we were parting friends? This ain't very friendly, is it?"

She stood glaring at me. Her bosom was what the lady novelists call agitated, but if they had seen Judy agitated in a negligee they would think of some other way of describing feminine distress.

"I was a fool to listen to you for a moment," she says. "Leave this room at once!"

"All in good time," says I, and with a quick dart I caught her round the waist. She struck at me, but I ducked it, and we fell on the bed together. I had hold of the softness of her, and it maddened me. I caught her wrist as she struck at me again, like a tigress, and got my mouth on hers, and she bit me on the lip for all she was worth.

I yelped and broke away, holding my mouth, and she, raging and panting, grabbed up some china dish and let fly at me. It missed by a long chalk, but it helped my temper over the edge completely. I lost control of myself altogether.

"You bitch!" I shouted, and hit her across the face as hard as I could. She staggered, and I hit her again, and she went clean over the bed and on to the floor on the other side. I looked round for something to go after her with, a cane or a whip, for I was in a frenzy and would have cut her to bits if I could. But there wasn't one handy, and by the time I had got round the bed to her it had flashed across my mind that the house was full of servants and my full reckoning with Miss Judy had better be postponed to another time.

I stood over her, glaring and swearing, and she pulled herself up by a chair, holding her face. But she was game enough.

"You coward!" was all she would say. "You coward!" "It's not cowardly to punish an insolent whore!" says I. "D'you want some more?"

She was crying - not sobbing, but with tears on her cheeks. She went over to her chair by the mirror, pretty unsteady, and sat down and looked at herself. I cursed her again, calling her the choicest names I could think of, but she worked at her cheek, which was red and bruised, with a hare's foot, and paid no heed. She did not speak at all.

"Well, be damned to you!" says I, at length, and with that I slammed out of the room. I was shaking with rage, and the pain in my lip, which was bleeding badly, reminded me that she had paid for my blows in advance. But she had got something in return, at all events; she would not forget Harry Flashman in a hurry.

The 11th Light Dragoons at this time were newly back from India, where they had been serving since before I was born. They were a fighting regiment, and - I say it without regimental pride, for I never had any, but as a plain matter of fact - probably the finest mounted troops in England, if not in the world. Yet they had been losing officers, since coming home, hand over fist. The reason was James Brudenell, Earl of Cardigan.

You have heard all about him, no doubt. The regimental scandals, the Charge of the Light Brigade, the vanity, stupidity, and extravagance of the man - these things are history. Like most history they have a fair basis of fact. But I knew him, probably as few other officers knew him, and in turn I found him amusing, frightening, vindictive, charming, and downright dangerous. He was God's own original fool, there's no doubt of that - although he was not to blame for the fiasco at Balaclava; that was Raglan and Airey between them. And he was arrogant as no other man I've ever met, and as sure of his own unshakeable Tightness as any man could be - even when his wrong-headedness was there for all to see. That was his great point, the key to his character: he could never be wrong.

They say that at least he was brave. He was not. He was just stupid, too stupid ever to be afraid. Fear is an emotion, and his emotions were all between his knees and his breast-bone; they never touched his reason, and he had little enough of that.

For all that, he could never be called a bad soldier. Some human faults are military virtues, like stupidity, and arrogance, and narrow-mindedness. Cardigan blended all three with a passion for detail and accuracy; he was a perfectionist, and the manual of cavalry drill was his Bible. Whatever rested between the covers of that book he could perform, or cause to be performed, with 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 under-stood 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 sec 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 under-lings 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 turnout, 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 leave the regiment and make way for gentlemen, as he put it. Why he was so down on those who had served in India, I was never entirely sure; some said it was because they were not of the smart set, or well connected, and this was true up to a point. He was the damnedest snob, but I think his hatred of the Indian officers ran deeper. They were, after all, real soldiers with service experience, and Cardigan had never heard a shot outside the shooting range in his twenty years' service.(4)

Whatever the cause, he made their lives miserable, and there were several resignations in my first six months' service. Even for us plungers it was bad enough, for he was a devil for discipline, and not all the plungers were competent officers. I saw how the wind set, and studied harder than ever I had at Rugby, mastering my drill, which wasn't difficult, and perfecting myself in the rules of camp life. I had got an excellent servant, named Basset, a square-headed oaf who knew everything a soldier ought to know and nothing more, and with a genius for boot-polish. I thrashed him early in our acquaintance, and he seemed to think the better of me for it, and treated me as a dog does its master. Fortunately, I cut a good figure on parade and at exercise, which was where it counted with Cardigan. Probably only the regimental sergeant major and one or two of the troop-sergeants were my equals on horseback, and his lordship congratulated me once or twice on my riding.

"Haw-haw!" he would say. "Fwashman sits well, I tell you. He will make an aide yet."

I agreed with him. Flashman was sitting very well.

In the mess things went well enough. They were a fast crowd, and the money ran pretty free, for apart from parties and the high state which Cardigan demanded we should keep, there was some heavy gaming. All this expense discouraged the Indian men, which delighted Cardigan, who was forever sneering at them that if they could not keep up with gentlemen they had better return to farming or set themselves up in trade - "selling shoes and pots and pans", he would say, and laugh heartily, as though this were the funniest thing imaginable.

Strangely enough, or perhaps not strangely, his Indian prejudice did not extend to the men. They were a tough lot, and excellent soldiers so far as I could see; he was a tyrant to them, and never a week passed without a court-martial for neglect of duty or desertion or drunkenness. The last offence was common but not seriously regarded, but for the other two he punished hard. There were frequent floggings at the rings in the side of the riding school, when we all had to attend.

Some of the older officers - the Indian ones - grumbled a good deal and pre-tended to be shocked, but I guessed they would not have missed it.

Myself, I liked a good flogging, and used to have bets with Bryant, my particular crony, on whether the man would cry out before the tenth stroke, or when he would faint. It was better sport than most, anyway.

Bryant was a queer little creature who attached himself to me early in my career and clung like a leech. He was your open toady, with little money of his own, but a gift of pleasing and being on hand.

He was smart enough, and contrived to cut a decent figure, although never splendid, and he had all the gossip, and knew everybody, and was something of a wit. He shone at parties and mess nights which we gave for the local society in Canterbury, where he was very forward.

He was first with all the news, and could recount it in a fashion that amused Cardigan - not that this was too difficult. I found him useful, and tolerated him accordingly, and used him as a court jester when it suited - he was adept in this role, too. As Forrest said, if you kicked Bryant's arse, he always bounced most obligingly.

He had a considerable gift of spite against the Indian officers, which also endeared him to Cardigan - oh, we were a happy little mess, I can tell you - and earned him their hatred. Most of them despised me, too, along with the other plungers, but we despised them for different reasons, so we were square there.

But to only one officer did I take an active dislike, which was prophetic, and I guessed that he returned it from the first. His name was Bernier, a tall, hard hawk of a man with a big nose and black whiskers and dark eyes set very close. He was the best blade and shot in the regiment, and until I came on the scene the best rider as well.

He didn't love me for that, I suppose, but our real hatred dated from the night when he made some reference to nabob families of no breeding, and seemed to me to look in my direction. I was fairly wine-flown, or I'd have kept my mouth shut, for he looked like what the Americans call a "killing gentleman" - indeed, he was very like an American whom I knew later, the celebrated James Hickok, who was also a deadly shot. But being part tipsy, I said I would rather be a nabob Briton, and take my chance on breeding, than be half-caste foreign. Bryant crowed, as he always did at my jokes, and said: "Bravo, Flash! Old England forever!" and there was general laughter, for my usual heartiness and general bluffness had earned me the name of being some-thing of a John Bull. Bernier only half-caught what I said, for I had kept my voice low so that only those nearest heard, but someone must have told him later, for he never gave me anything but an icy stare from then on, and never spoke to me. He was sensitive about his foreign name - actually, he was a French Jew, if you went back far enough, which accounts for it.

But it was a few months after this incident that I really ran foul of Bernier, and began to make my reputation - the reputation which I still enjoy today. I pass over a good deal of what happened in that first year - Cardigan's quarrel with the Morning Post,(5) for example, which had the regiment, and the public generally, in a fine uproar, but in which I had no part - and come to the famous Bernier-Flashman duel, which you will still hear talked about. I think of it only with pride and delight, even now. Only two men ever knew the truth of it, and I was one.

It was a year almost to the day after I left Rugby that I was taking the air in Canterbury, in the Park, and on my way to some mama's house or other to make a call. I was in full fig, and feeling generally pleased with myself, when I spied an officer walking under the trees with a lady, arm in arm. It was Bernier, and I looked to see what heifer he was ploughing with. In fact, she was no heifer, but a wicked-looking little black-haired piece with a turned-up nose and a saucy smile. I studied her, and the great thought formed in my head.

I had had two or three mistresses in Canterbury, off and on, but nothing in particular. Most of the younger officers maintained a paramour in the town or in London, but I had never set up any establishment like that. I guessed that this was Bernier's mare of the moment, and the more I looked at her the more she intrigued me. She looked the kind of plump little puss who would be very knowing in bed, and the fact that she was Bernier's - who fancied himself irresistible to women - would make the tumbling all the sweeter.

I wasted no time, but found out her direction by inquiry, chose my time when Bernier was on duty, and called on the lady. She had a pleasant little retreat, very tastefully furnished, but in no great style: Bernier's purse was less fat than mine, which was an advantage. I pursued it. She was French herself, it turned out, so I could be more direct than with an English girl. I told her straight out that I had taken a fancy to her, and invited her to consider me as a friend - a close friend. I hinted that I had money - she was only a whore, after all, for all her fashionable airs.

At first she made a show of being shocked, and la-la'd a good deal, but when I made to leave she changed her tune. My money aside, I think she found me to her fancy; she toyed with a fan and looked at me over it with big, almond-shaped eyes, playing the sly minx.

"You have poor opeenion of French girls, then?" says she.

"Not I," says I, charming again. "I've the highest opinion of you, for example. What's your name?" "Josette." She said it very pretty.

"Well, Josette, let's drink to our future acquaintance - at my expense" - and I dropped my purse on the table, at which her eyes widened. It was not a small purse.

You may think me crude. I was. But I saved time and trouble, and perhaps money, too - the money that fools waste in paying court with presents before the fun begins. She had wine in the house, and we drank to each other and talked a good five minutes before I began to tease her into undressing. She played it very prettily, with much pouting and provocative looks, but when she had stripped she was all fire and wickedness, and I was so impatient I had her without getting out of my chair.

Whether I found her unusually delectable because she was Bernier's mistress or because of her French tricks, I can't say, but I took to visiting her often, and in spite of my respect for Bernier, I was careless. It was within a week, certainly, that we were engaged heavily one evening when there were footsteps on the stair, the door flew open, and there was the man himself. He stood glaring for a moment, while Josette squeaked and dived beneath the covers, and I scrambled to get under the bed in my shirt-tail - the sight of him filled me with panic.

But he said nothing; a moment passed, the door slammed, and I came out scrabbling for my breeches. At that moment I wanted only to put as much distance between myself and him as I could, and I dressed in some haste.

Josette began to laugh, and I asked her what the devil amused her.

"It is so fonnee," she giggled. "You . . . you half beneath de bed, and Charles glaring so fierce at your derriere." And she shrieked with laughter.

I told her to hold her tongue, and she stopped laughing and tried to coax me back to bed again, saying that Bernier had undoubtedly gone, and sitting up and shaking her tits at me. I hesitated, between lust and fright, until she hopped out and bolted the door, and then I decided I might as well have my sport while I could, and pulled off my clothes again. But I confess it was not the most joyous pleasuring I have taken part in, although Josette was at her most spirited; I suspect she was thrilled by the situation.

I was in two minds whether to go back to the mess after-wards, for I was sure Bernier must call me out. But, to my surprise, when I pulled my courage together and went in to dinner, he paid me not the slightest notice. I couldn't make it out, and when next day and the next he was still silent, I took heart again, and even paid Josette another visit. She had not seen him, so it seemed to me that he intended to do nothing at all. I decided that he was a poor-spirited thing after all, and had resigned his mistress to me - not, I was sure, out of fear of me, but because he could not bear to have a trollop who cheated him. Of course the truth was that he couldn't call me out without exposing the cause, and making himself look ridiculous; and knowing more of regimental custom than I did, he hesitated to provoke an affair of honour over a mistress. But he was holding himself in with difficulty.

Not knowing this, I took to throwing my chest out again, and let Bryant into the secret. The toady was delighted, and soon all the plungers knew. It was then only a matter of time before the explosion came, as I should have known it would.

It was after dinner one night, and we were playing cards, while Bernier and one or two of the Indian men were talking near by. The game was vingt-et-un, and it happened that at that game I had a small joke concerning the Queen of Diamonds, which I maintained was my lucky card. Forrest had the bank, and when he set down my five-card hand with an ace and the Queen of Diamonds, Bryant, the spiteful ass, sang out:

"Hullo! He's got your queen, Flashy! That's the biter bit, bigod!"

"How d'ye mean?" said Forrest, taking up the cards and stakes.

"With Flashy it's t'other way, you know," says Bryant. "He makes off with other chaps' queens."

"Aha," says Forrest, grinning. "But the Queen of Diamonds is a good Englishwoman, ain't she, Flash? Mounting French fillies is your style, I hear."

There was a good deal of laughter, and glances in Bernier's direction. I should have kept them quiet, but I was fool enough to join in.

"Nothing wrong in a French filly," I said, "so long as the jockey's an English one. A French trainer is well enough, of course, but they don't last in a serious race."

It was feeble enough stuff, no doubt, even allowing for the port we had drunk, but it snapped the straw. The next I knew my chair had been dragged away, and Bernier was standing over me as I sprawled on the floor, his face livid and his mouth working.

"What the devil-" began Forrest, as I scrambled up, and the others jumped up also. I was half on my feet when Bernier struck me, and I lost my balance and went down again.

"For God's sake, Bernier!" shouts Forrest, "are you mad?" and they had to hold him back, or he would have savaged me on the ground, I think. Seeing him held, I came up with an oath, and made to go for him, but Bryant grabbed me, crying "No, no, Flash! Hold off, Flashy!" and they clustered round me as well.

Truth is, I was nearly sick with fear, for the murder was out now.

The best shot in the regiment had hit me, but with provocation -

fearful or not, I have always been quick and clear enough in my thinking in a crisis - and there couldn't be any way out except a meeting. Unless I took the blow, which meant an end to my career in the army and in society. But to fight him was a quick road to the grave.

It was a horrible dilemma, and in that moment, as they held us apart, I saw I must have time to think, to plan, to find a way out. I shook them off, and without a word stalked out of the mess, like a man who must remove himself before he does someone a mischief.

It took me five minutes of hard thinking, and then I was striding back into the mess again. My heart was hammering, and no doubt I looked pretty furious, and if I shook they thought it was anger.

The chatter died away as I came in; I can feel that silence now, sixty years after, and see the elegant blue figures, and the silver gleaming on the table, and Bernier, alone and very pale, by the fireplace. I went straight up to him. I had my speech ready.

"Captain Bernier," I said, "you have struck me with your hand.

That was rash, for I could take you to pieces with mine if I chose." This was blunt, English Flashman, of course. "But I prefer to fight like a gentleman, even if you do not." I swung round on my heel. "Lieutenant Forrest, will you act for me?"

Forrest said yes, like a shot, and Bryant looked piqued.

He expected I would have named him, but I had another part for him to play.

"And who acts for you?" I asked Bernier, very cool. He named Tracy, one of the Indian men, and I gave Tracy a bow and then went over to the card table as though nothing had happened.

"Mr Forrest will have the details to attend to," I said to the others. "Shall we cut for the bank?"

They stared at me. "By gad, Flash, you're a cool one!" cries Bryant.

I shrugged, and took up the cards, and we started playing again, the others all very excited - too excited to notice that my thoughts were not on my cards. Luckily, vingt-et-un calls for little concentration.

After a moment Forrest, who had been conferring with Tracy, came over to tell me that, with Lord Cardigan's permission, which he was sure must be forthcoming, we should meet behind the riding school at six in the morning. It was assumed I would choose pistols - as the injured party I had the choice.(6) I nodded, very offhand, and told Bryant to hurry with the deal. We played a few more hands, and then I said I was for bed, lit my cheroot and strolled out with an airy goodnight to the others, as though the thought of pistols at dawn troubled me no more than what I should have for breakfast. Whatever happened, I had grown in popular esteem for this night at least.

I stopped under the trees on the way to my quarters, and after a moment, as I had expected, Bryant came hurrying after me, full of excitement and concern. He began to babble about what a devil of a fellow I was, and what a fighting Turk Bernier was, but I cut him off short.

"Tommy," says I. "You're not a rich man." "Eh?" says he. "What the-"

"Tommy," says I. "Would you like ten thousand pounds?" "In God's name," says he. "What for?"

"For seeing that Bernier stands up at our meeting tomorrow with an unloaded pistol," says I, straight out. I knew my man.

He goggled at me, and then began to babble again. "Christ, Flash, are you crazy? Unloaded . . . why ..."

"Yes or no," says I. "Ten thousand pounds."

"But it's murder!" he squealed. "We'd swing for it!" No thought of honour you see, or any of that rot.

"Nobody's going to swing," I told him. "And keep your voice down, d'ye hear? Now, then, Tommy, you're a sharp man with the sleight of hand at parties - I've seen you. You can do it in your sleep. For ten thousand?"

"My God, Flash," says he, "I don't dare." And he began babbling again, but in a whisper this time.

I let him ramble for a moment, for I knew he would come round.

He was a greedy little bastard, and the thought of ten thousand was like Aladdin's cave to him. I explained how safe and simple it would be; I had thought it out when first I left the mess.

"Go and borrow Reynolds' duelling pistols, first off. Take 'em to Forrest and Tracy and offer to act as loader -you're always into everything, and they'll be glad to accept, and never think twice."

"Won't they, by God?" cried he. "They know I'm hellish thick with you, Flashy."

"You're an officer and a gentleman," I reminded him. "Now who will imagine for a moment that you would stoop to such a treacherous act, eh? No, no, Tommy, it's cut and dried. And in the morning, with the surgeon and seconds standing by, you'll load up - carefully. Don't tell me you can't palm a pistol ball."

"Oh, aye," says he, "like enough. But-" "Ten thousands pounds," I said, and he licked his lips. "Jesus," he said at length. "Ten thousand.

Phew! On your word of honour, Flash?"

"Word of honour," I said, and lit another cheroot. "I'll do it!" says he. "My God! You're a devil, Flash! You won't kill him, though? I'll have no part in murder."

"Captain Bernier will be as safe from me as I'll be from him," I told him. "Now, cut along and see Reynolds."

He cut on the word. He was an active little rat, that I'll say for him. Once committed he went in heart and soul.

I went to my quarters, got rid of Basset who was waiting up for me, and lay down on my cot. My throat was dry and my hands were sweating as I thought of what I had done. For all the bluff front I had shown to Bryant, I was in a deathly funk. Suppose something went wrong and Bryant muffed it? It had seemed so easy in that moment of panicky thought outside the mess - fear stimulates thought, perhaps, but it may not be clear thought, because one sees the way out that one wants to see, and makes head-long for it. I thought of Bryant fumbling, or being too closely overseen, and Bernier standing up in front of me with a loaded pistol in a hand like a rock, and the muzzle pointing dead at my breast, and felt the ball tearing into me, and myself falling down screaming, and dying on the ground.

I almost shouted out at the horror of it, and lay there blubbering in the dark room; I would have got up and run, but my legs would not let me. So I began to pray, which I had not done, I should say, since I was about eight years old. But I kept thinking of Arnold and hell -

which is no doubt significant - and in the end there was nothing for it but brandy, but it might as well have been water.

I did no sleeping that night, but listened to the clock chiming away the quarters, until dawn came, and I heard Basset approaching. I had just sense enough left to see that it wouldn't do for him to find me red-eyed and shivering, so I made believe to sleep, snoring like an organ, and I heard him say:

"If that don't beat! Listen to 'im, sound as a babby. Isn't he the game-cock, though?"

And another voice, another servant's, I suppose, replied: "Thay's all alike, bloody fools. 'E won't be snorin' tomorrow mornin', after Bernier's done with 'im. "E'll be sleepin' too sound for that."

Right, my lad, whoever you are, I thought, if I come through this it'll be strange if I can't bring you to the rings at the riding school, and we'll see your backbone when the farrier-sergeant takes the cat to you.

We'll hear how loud you can snore yourself. And with that surge of anger I suddenly felt confidence replacing fear - Bryant would see it through, all right - and when they came for me I was at least composed, if not cheerful.

When I am frightened, I go red in the face, not pale, as most men do, so that in me fear can pass for anger, which has been convenient more than once. Bryant tells me that I went out to the riding school that morning wattled like a turkey cock; he said the fellows made sure I was in a fury to kill Bernier. Not that they thought I had a chance, and they were quiet for once as we walked across the parade just as the trumpeter was sounding reveille.

They had told Cardigan of the affair, of course, and some had thought he might intervene to prevent it. But when he had heard of the blow, he had simply said:

"Where do they meet?"

and gone back to sleep again, with instructions to be called at five. He did not approve of duelling - although he duelled himself in famous circumstances - but he saw that in this case the credit of the regiment would only be hurt if the affair were patched up.

Bernier and Tracy were already there, with the surgeon, and the mist was hanging a little under the trees. Our feet thumped on the turf, which was still wet with dew, as we strode across to them, Forrest at my side, and Bryant with the pistol case beneath his arm following on with the others. About fifty yards away, under the trees by the fence, was a little knot of officers, and I saw Cardigan's bald head above his great caped coat. He was smoking a cigar.

Bryant and the surgeon called Bernier and me together, and Bryant asked us if we would not resolve our quarrel. Neither of us said a word; Bernier was pale, and looked fixedly over my shoulder, and in that moment I came as near to turning and running as ever I did in my life. I felt that my bowels would squirt at any moment, and my hands were shuddering beneath my cloak.

"Very good, then," says Bryant, and went with the surgeon to a little table they had set up. He took out the pistols, and from the corner of my eye I saw him spark the flints, pour in the charges, and rummage in the shot-case. I daren't watch him closely, and anyway Forrest came just then and led me back to my place. When I turned round again the surgeon was stopping to pick up a fallen powder flask, and Bryant was ramming home a wad in one of the barkers.

They conferred a moment, and then Bryant paced over to Bernier and presented a pistol to him; then he came to me with the other.

There was no one behind me, and as my hand closed on the butt, Bryant winked quickly. My heart came up into my mouth, and I can never hope to describe the relief that flooded through my body, tingling every limb. I was going to live.

"Gentlemen, you are both determined to continue with this meeting?" Bryant looked at each of us in turn. Bernier said: "Yes,"

hard and clear. I nodded.

Bryant stepped back to be well out of the line of fire; the seconds and the surgeon took post beside him, leaving Bernier and me looking at each other about twenty paces apart. He stood sideways to me, the pistol at his side, staring straight at my face, as though choosing his spot -he could clip the pips from a card at this distance.

"The pistols fire on one pressure," called Bryant. "When I drop my handkerchief you may level your pistols and fire. I shall drop it in a few seconds from now." And he held up the white kerchief in one hand.

I heard the click of Bernier cocking his pistol. His eyes were steady on mine. Sold again, Bernier, I thought; you're all in a stew about nothing. The handkerchief fell.

Bernier's right arm came up like a railway signal, and before I had even cocked my pistol I was looking into his barrel - a split second and it shot smoke at me and the crack of the charge was followed by something rasping across my cheek and grazing it - it was the wad. I fell back a step. Bernier was glaring at me, aghast that I was still on my feet, I suppose, and someone shouted: "Missed, by Jesus!" and another cried angrily for silence.

It was my turn, and for a moment the lust was on me to shoot the swine down where he stood. But Bryant might have lost his head, and it was no part of my design, anyway. I had it in my power now to make a name that would run through the army in a week - good old Flashy, who stole another man's girl and took a blow from him, but was too decent to take advantage of him, even in a duel.

They stood like statues, every eye on Bernier, waiting for me to shoot him down. I cocked my pistol, watching him.

"Come on, damn you!" he shouted suddenly, his face white with rage and fear.

I looked at him for a moment, then brought my pistol up no higher than hip level, but with the barrel pointing well away to the side. I held it negligently almost, just for a moment, so that everyone might see I was firing deliberately wide. I squeezed the trigger.

What happened to that shot is now regimental history; I had meant it for the ground, but it chanced that the surgeon had set his bag and bottle of spirits down on the turf in that direction, maybe thirty yards off, and by sheer good luck the shot whipped the neck off the bottle clean as a whistle.

"Deloped, by God!" roared Forrest. "He's deloped!" They hurried forward, shouting, the surgeon exclaiming in blasphemous amazement over his shattered bottle. Bryant slapped me on the back, Forrest wrung my hand, Tracy stood staring in astonishment - it seemed to him, as it did to everyone, that I had spared Bernier and at the same time given proof of astounding marksmanship. As for Bernier, he looked murder if ever a man did, but I marched straight up to him with my hand held out, and he was forced to take it. He was struggling to keep from dashing his pistol into my face, and when I said:

"No hard feelings, then, old fellow?" he gave an incoherent snarl, and turning on his heel, strode off.

This was not lost on Cardigan, who was still watching from a distance, and presently I was summoned from a boozy breakfast - for the plungers celebrated the affair in style, and waxed fulsome over the way I had stood up to him, and then deloped. Cardigan had me to his office, and there was the adjutant and Jones, and Bernier looking like thunder.

"I won't have it, I tell you!" Cardigan was saying. "Ha, Fwashman, come here! Haw-haw. Now then, shake hands directly, I say, Captain Bernier, and let me hear that the affair is done and honour satisfied."

I spoke up. "It's done for me, and indeed I'm sorry it ever happened. But the blow was Captain Bernier's, not mine. But here's my hand, again."

Bernier said, in a voice that shook: "Why did you delope? You have made a mock of me. Why didn't you take your shot at me like a man?"

"My good sir," I said. "I didn't presume to tell you where to aim your shot; don't tell me where I should have aimed mine."

That remark, I am told, has found its way since into some dictionary of quotations; it was in The Times within the week, and I was told that when the Duke of Wellington heard it, he observed:

"Damned good. And damned right, too." '

So that morning's work made a name for Harry Flash-man - a name that enjoyed more immediate celebrity than if I had stormed a battery alone. Such is fame, especially in peacetime. The whole story went the rounds, and for a time I even found myself pointed out in the street, and a clergyman wrote to me from Birmingham, saying that as I had shown mercy, I would surely obtain mercy, and Parkin, the Oxford Street gunmaker, sent me a brace of barkers in silver mountings, with my initials engraved -good for trade, I imagine. There was also a question in the House, on the vicious practice of duelling, and Macaulay replied that since one of the participants in the recent affair had shown such good sense and humanity, the Government, while deploring such meetings, hoped this might prove a good example.

("Hear, hear," and cheers.) My Uncle Bindley was heard to say that his nephew had more to him than he supposed, and even Basset went about throwing a chest at being servant to such a cool blade.

The only person who was critical was my own father, who said in one of his rare letters:

"Don't be such an infernal fool another time. You don't fight duels in order to delope, but to kill your adversary."

So, with Josette mine by right of conquest - and she was in some awe of me, I may say - and a reputation for courage, marksmanship, and downright decency established, I was pretty well satisfied. The only snag was Bryant, but I dealt with that easily.

When he had finished toadying me on the day of the duel, he got round to asking about his ten thousand - he knew I had great funds, or at least that my father did, but I knew perfectly well I could never have pried ten thousand out of my guv'nor. I told Bryant so, and he gaped as though I had kicked him in the stomach.

"But you promised me ten thousand," he began to bleat.

"Silly promise, ain't it? - when you think hard about it," says I.

"Ten thousand quid, I mean - who'd pay out that much?"

"You lying swine!" shouts he, almost crying with rage. "You swore you'd pay me!"

"More fool you for believing me," I said.

"Right, by God!" he snarled. "We'll see about this! You won't cheat me, Flashman, I'll - "

"You'll what?" says I. "Tell everyone all about it? Con-fess that you sent a man into a duel with an unloaded gun? It'll make an interesting story. You'd be confessing to a capital offence - had you thought of that? Not that anyone'd believe you - but they'd certainly kick you out of the service for conduct unbecoming, wouldn't they?"

He saw then how it lay, and there was nothing he could do about it. He actually stamped and tore his hair, and then he tried pleading with me, but I laughed at him, and he finished up swearing to be even yet.

"You'll live to regret this!" he cried. "By God, I'll get you yet!"

"More chance of that then you have of getting ten thousand anyway," I told him, and he slunk off.

He didn't worry me; what I'd said was gospel true. He daren't breathe a word, for his own safety's sake. Of course if he had thought at all he would have sniffed some-thing fishy about a ten thousand bribe in the first place. But he was greedy, and I've lived long enough to discover that there isn't any folly a man won't contemplate if there's money or a woman at stake.

However, if I could congratulate myself on how the matter had turned out, and can look back now and say it was one of the most important and helpful incidents of my life, there was trouble in store for me very quickly as a result of it. It came a few weeks afterwards, and it ended in my having to leave the regiment for a while.

It had happened not long before that the regiment had been honoured (as they say) by being chosen to escort to London the Queen's husband-to-be, Albert, when he arrived in this country. He had become Colonel of the Regiment, and among other things we had been given a new-designed uniform and had our name changed to the Eleventh Hussars. That by the way; what mattered was that he took a close interest in us, and the tale of the duel made such a stir that he took special notice of it, and being a prying German busybody, found out the cause of it.

That almost cooked my goose for good. His lovely new regiment, he found, contained officers who consorted with French whores and even fought duels over them. He played the devil about this, and the upshot was that Cardigan had to summon me and tell me that for my own good I would have to go away for a while.

"It has been demanded," said he, "that you weave the wegiment -I take it the official intention is that that should be permanent, but I intend to interpwet it as tempowawy. I have no desire to lose the services of a pwomising officer - not for His Woyal Highness or anyone, let me tell you. You might go on weave, of course, but I think it best you should be detached. I shall have you posted, Fwashman, to another unit, until the fuss has died down."

I didn't much like the idea, and when he announced that the regiment he had chosen to post me to was stationed in Scotland, I almost rebelled. But I realised it would only be for a few months, and I was relieved to find Cardigan still on my side - if it had been Reynolds who had fought the duel it would have been a very different kettle offish, but I was one of his favourites. And one must say it of old Lord Haw Haw, if you were his favourite he would stand by you, right, reason or none. Old fool.

I have soldiered in too many countries and known too many peoples to fall into the folly of laying down the law about any of them. I tell you what I have seen, and you may draw your own conclusions. I disliked Scotland and the Scots; the place I found wet and the people rude. They had the fine qualities which bore me - thrift and industry and long-faced holiness, and the young women are mostly great genteel boisterous things who are no doubt bedworthy enough if your taste runs that way. (One acquaintance of mine who had a Scotch clergyman's daughter described it as like wrestling with a sergeant of dragoons.) The men I found solemn, hostile, and greedy, and they found me insolent, arrogant, and smart.

This for the most part; there were exceptions, as you shall see.

The best things I found, however, were the port and the claret, in which the Scotch have a nice taste, although I never took to whisky.

The place I was posted to was Paisley, which is near Glasgow, and when I heard of the posting I as near as a toucher sold out. But I told myself I should be back with the 11th in a few months, and must take my medicine, even if it meant being away from all decent living for a. while. My forebodings were realised, and more, but at least life did not turn out to be boring, which was what I had feared most. Very far from it.

At this time there was a great unrest throughout Britain, in the industrial areas, which meant very little to me, and indeed I've never troubled to read up the particulars of it.' The working people were in a state of agitation, and one heard of riots in the mill towns, and of weavers smashing looms, and Chartists(7) being arrested, but we younger fellows paid it no heed. If you were country-bred or lived in London these things were nothing to you, and all I gathered was that the poor folk were mutinous and wanted to do less work for more money, and the factory owners were damned if they'd let them. There may have been more to it than this, but I doubt it, and no one has ever convinced me that it was anything but a war between the two. It always has been, and always will be, as long as one man has what the other has not, and devil take the hindmost.

The devil seemed to be taking the workers, by and large, with government helping him, and we soldiers were the government's sword. Troops were called out to subdue the agitators, and the Riot Act was read, and here and there would be clashes between the two, and a few killed. I am fairly neutral now, with my money in the bank, but at that time everyone I knew was damning the workers up and down, and saying they should be hung and flogged and transported, and I was all for it, as the Duke would say. You have no notion, today, how high feeling ran; the mill-folk were the enemy then, as though they had been Frenchmen or Afghans. They were to be put down when-ever they rose up, and we were to do it.

I was hazy enough, as you see, on the causes of k all, but I saw further than most in some ways, and what I saw was this: it's one thing leading British soldiers against foreigners, but would they fight their own folk? For most of the troopers of the 11th, for example, were of the class and kind of the working people, and I couldn't see them fighting their fellows. I said so, but all I was told was that discipline would do the trick. Well, thought I, maybe it will and maybe it won't, but whoever is going to be caught between a mob on one side and a file of red coats on the other, it isn't going to be old Flashy.

Paisley had been quiet enough when I was sent there, but the authorities had a suspicious eye on the whole area, which was regarded as being a hotbed of sedition. They were training up the militia, just in case, and this was the task I was given - an officer from a crack cavalry regiment instructing irregular infantry, which is what you might expect. They turned out to be good material, luckily; many of the older ones were Peninsular men, and the sergeant had been in the 42nd Regiment at Waterloo. So there was little enough for me to do at first.

I was billeted on one of the principal mill-owners of the area, a brass-bound old moneybags with a long nose and a hard eye who lived in some style in a house at Renfrew, and who made me welcome after his fashion when I arrived.

"We've no high opeenion o' the military, sir," said he, "and could well be doing without ye. But since, thanks to slack government and that damnable Reform nonsense, we're in this sorry plight, we must bear with having soldiers aboot us. A scandal! D'ye see these wretches at my mill, sir? I would have the half of them in Australia this meenit, if it was left to me! And let the rest feel their bellies pinched for a week or two - we'd hear less of their caterwaulin' then."

"You need have no fear, sir," I told him. "We shall protect you."

"Fear?" he snorted. "I'm not feart, sir. John Morrison doesnae tremble at the whine o' his ain workers, let me tell you. As for protecting, we'll see." And he gave me a look and a sniff.

I was to live with the family - he could hardly do less, in view of what brought me there - and presently he took me from his study through the gloomy hall of his mansion to the family's sitting-room.

The whole house was hellish gloomy and cold and smelled of must and righteousness, but when he threw open the sitting-room door and ushered me in, I forgot my surroundings.

"Mr Flashman," says he, "this is Mistress Morrison and my four daughters." He rapped out their names like a roll-call. "Agnes, Mary, Elspeth, and Grizel."

I snapped my heels and bowed with a great flourish -I was in uniform, and the gold-trimmed blue cape and pink pants of the 11th Hussars were already famous, and looked extremely well on me. Four heads inclined in reply, and one nodded - this was Mistress Morrison, a tall, beaknosed female in whom one could detect all the fading beauty of a vulture. I made a hasty inventory of the daughters: Agnes, buxom and darkly handsome - she would do. Mary, buxom and plain - she would not. Grizel, thin and mousy and still a schoolgirl - no. Elspeth was like none of the others. She was beautiful, fair-haired, blue-eyed, and pink-cheeked, and she alone smiled at me with the open, simple smile of the truly stupid. I marked her down at once, and gave all my attention to Mistress Morrison.

It was grim work, I may tell you, for she was a sour tyrant of a woman and looked on me as she looked on all soldiers, Englishmen, and men under fifty years of age - as frivolous, Godless, feckless, and unworthy. In this, it seemed, her husband supported her, and the daughters said not a word to me all evening. I could have damned the lot of them (except Elspeth), but instead I set myself to be pleasant, modest, and even meek where the old woman was concerned, and when we went into dinner - which was served in great state - she had thawed to the extent of a sour smile or two.

Well, I thought, that is something, and I went up in her estimation by saying "Amen" loudly when Morrison said grace, and struck while the iron was hot by asking presently - it was Saturday -

what time divine service was next morning. Morrison went so far as to be civil once or twice, after this, but I was still glad to escape at last to my room - dark brown tomb though it was.

You may wonder why I took pains to ingratiate myself with these puritan boors, and the answer is that I have always made a point of being civil to anyone who might ever be of use to me. Also, I had half an eye to Miss Elspeth, and there was no hope there without the mother's good opinion.

So I attended family prayers with them, and escorted them to church, and listened to Miss Agnes sing in the evening, and helped Miss Grizel with her lessons, and pretended an interest in Mistress Morrison's conversation - which was spiteful and censorious and limited to the doings of her acquaintances in Paisley - and was entertained by Miss Mary on the subject of her garden flowers, and bore with old Morrison's droning about the state of trade and the incompetence of government. And among these riotous pleasures of a soldier's life I talked occasionally with Miss Elspeth, and found her brainless beyond description. But she was undeniably desirable, and for all the piety and fear of hell-fire that had been drummed into her, I thought there was sometimes a wanton look about her eye and lower lip, and after a week I had her as infatuated with me as any young woman could be. It was not so difficult; dashing young cavalrymen with broad shoulders were rare in Paisley, and I was setting myself to charm.

However, there's many a slip 'twixt the crouch and the leap, as the cavalry used to say, and my difficulty was to get Miss Elspeth in the right place at the right time. I was kept pretty hard at it with the militia during the day, and in the evenings her parents chaperoned her like shadows. It was more for form's sake than anything else, I think, for they seemed to trust me well enough by this time, but it made things damnably awkward, and I was beginning to itch for her considerably. But eventually it was her father himself who brought matters to a successful conclusion -and changed my whole life, and hers. And it was because he, John Morrison, who had boasted of his fearlessness, turned out to be as timid as a mouse.

It was on a Monday, nine days after I had arrived, that a fracas broke out in one of the mills; a young worker had his arm crushed in one of the machines, and his mates made a great outcry, and a meeting of workmen was held in the streets beyond the mill gates. That was all, but some fool of a magistrate lost his head and demanded that the troops be called "to quell the seditious rioters". I sent his messenger about his business, in the first place because there seemed no danger from the meeting - although there was plenty of fist-shaking and threat-shouting, by all accounts - and in the second because I do not make a practice of seeking sorrow.

Sure enough, the meeting dispersed, but not before the magistrate had spread panic and alarm, ordering the shops to close and windows in the town to be shuttered and God knows what other folly. I told him to his face he was a fool, ordered my sergeant to let the militia go home (but to have them ready on recall), and trotted over to Renfrew.

There Morrison was in a state of despair. He peeped at me round the front door, his face ashen, and demanded:

"Are they comin', in Goad's name?" and then "Why are ye not at the head of your troops, sir? Are we tae be murdered for your neglect?"

I told him, pretty sharp, that there was no danger, but that if there had been, his place was surely at his mill, to keep his rascals in order. He whinnied at me - I've seldom seen a man in such fright, and being a true-bred poltroon myself, I speak with authority.

"My place is here," he yelped, "defendin' my hame and bairns!"

"I thought they were in Glasgow today," I said, as I came into the hall.

"My wee Elspeth's here," said he, groaning. "If the mob was tae break in . . ."

"Oh, for God's sake," says I, for I was well out of sorts, what with the idiot magistrate and now Morrison, "there isn't a mob. They've gone home."

"Will they stay hame?" he bawled. "Oh, they hate me. Mr Flashman, damn them a'! What if they were to come here? O, wae's me

- and my poor wee Elspeth!"

Poor wee Elspeth was sitting on the window-seat, admiring her reflection in the panes and perfectly unconcerned. Catching sight of her, I had an excellent thought.

"If you're nervous for her, why not send her to Glasgow, too?" I asked him, very unconcerned.

"Are ye mad, sir? Alone on the road, a lassie?"

I reassured him: I would escort her safely to her Mama.

"And leave me here?" he cried, so I suggested he come as well.

But he wouldn't have that; I realised later he probably had his strongbox in the house.

He hummed and hawed a great deal, but eventually fear for his daughter - which was entirely groundless, as far as mobs were concerned - overcame him, and we were packed off together in the gig, I driving, she humming gaily at the thought of a jaunt, and her devoted parent crying instruction and consternation after us as we rattled off.

"Tak' care o' my poor wee lamb, Mr Flashman," he wailed.

"To be sure I will, sir," I replied. And I did.

The banks of the Clyde in those days were very pretty; not like the grimy slums that cover them now. There was a gentle evening haze, I remember, and a warm sun setting on a glorious day, and after a mile or two I suggested we stop and ramble among the thickets by the waterside. Miss Elspeth was eager, so we left the pony grazing and went into a little copse. I suggested we sit down, and Miss Elspeth was eager again - that glorious vacant smile informed me. I believe I murmured a few pleasantries, played with her hair, and then kissed her. Miss Elspeth was more eager still. Then I got to work in earnest, and Miss Elspeth's eagerness knew no bounds. I had great red claw-marks on my back for a fortnight after.

When we had finished, she lay in the grass, drowsy, like a contented kitten, and after a few pleased sighs she said:

"Was that what the minister means when he talks of fornication?"

Astonished, I said, yes, it was.

"Um-hm," said she. "Why has he such a down on it?"

It seemed to me time to be pressing on towards Glasgow.

Ignorant women I have met, and I knew that Miss Elspeth must rank high among them, but I had not supposed until now that she had no earthly idea of elementary human relations. (Yet there were even married women in my time who did not connect their husbands' antics iii bed with the conception of children.) She simply did not understand what had taken place between us. She liked it, certainly, but she had no thought of anything beyond the act - no notion of consequences, or guilt, or the need for secrecy. In her, ignorance and stupidity formed a perfect shield against the world: this, I suppose, is innocence.

It startled me, I can tell you. I had a vision of her remarking happily: "Mama, you'll never guess what Mr Flashman and I have been doing this evening ..." Not that I minded too much, for when all was said I didn't care a button for the Morrison's' opinion, and if they could not look after their daughter it was their own fault. But the less trouble the better: for her own sake I hoped she might keep her mouth shut.

I took her back to the gig and helped her in, and I thought what a beautiful fool she was. Oddly enough, I felt a sudden affection for her in that moment, such as I hadn't felt for any of my other women - even though some of them had been better tumbles than she. It had nothing to do with rolling her in the grass; looking at the gold hair that had fallen loose on her cheek, and seeing the happy smile in her eyes, I felt a great desire to keep her, not only for bed, but to have her near me. I wanted to watch her face, and the way she pushed her hair into place, and the steady, serene look that she turned on me. Hullo, Flashy, I remember thinking; careful, old son. But it stayed with me, that queer empty feeling in my inside, and of all the recollections of my life there isn't one that is clearer than of that warm evening by the Clyde, with Elspeth smiling at me beneath the trees.

Almost equally distinct, however, but less pleasant, is my memory of Morrison, a few days later, shaking his fist in my face and scarlet with rage as he shouted:

"Ye damned blackguard! Ye thieving, licentious, raping devil! I'll have ye hanged for this, as Goad's my witness! My ain daughter, in my ain hoose! Jesus Lord! Ye come sneaking here, like the damned viper that ye are ..."

And much more of the same, until I thought he would have apoplexy. Miss Elspeth had almost lived up to my expectation - only it had not been Mama she had told, but Agnes. The result was the same, of course, and the house was in uproar. The only calm person was Elspeth herself, which was no help. For of course I denied old Morrison's accusation, but when he dragged her in to confront me with my infamy, as he called it, she said quite matter-of-fact, yes, it had happened by the river on the way to Glasgow. I wondered, was she simple? It is a point on which I have never made up my mind.

At that, I couldn't deny it any longer. So I took the other course and damned Morrison's eyes, asking him what did he expect if he left a handsome daughter within a man's reach? I told him we were not monks in the army, and he fairly screamed with rage and threw an inkstand at me, which fortunately missed. By this time others were on the scene, and his daughters had the vapours - except Elspeth -and Mrs Morrison came at me with such murder in her face that I turned tail and ran for dear life.

I decamped without even having time to collect my effects - which were not sent on to me, by the way - and decided that I had best set up my base in Glasgow. Paisley was likely to be fairly hot, and I resolved to have a word with the local commandant and explain, as between gentlemen, that it might be best if other duties were found for me that would not take me back there. It would be somewhat embarrassing, of course, for he was another of these damned Presbyterians, so I put off seeing him for a day or two. As a result I never called on him at all.

Instead I had a caller myself.

He was a stiff-shouldered, brisk-mannered fellow of about fifty; rather dapper in an almost military way, with a brown face and hard grey eyes. He looked as though he might be a sporting sort, but when he came to see me he was all business.

"Mr Flashman, I believe?" says he. "My name is Abercrombie."

"Good luck to you, then," says I. "I'm not buying anything today, so close the door as you leave."

He looked at me sharp, head on one side. "Good," says he. "This makes it easier. I had thought you might be a smooth one but I see that you're what they call a plunger.". I asked him what the devil he meant. "Quite simple," says he, taking a seat as cool as you please. "We have a mutual acquaintance. Mrs Morrison of Renfrew is my sister.

Elspeth Morrison is my niece."

This was an uneasy piece of news, for I didn't like the look of him.

He was too sure of himself by half. But I gave him a stare and told him he had a damned handsome niece. "I'm relieved that you think so,"

said he. "I'd be distressed to think that the Hussars were not discriminating." He sat looking at me, so I took a turn round the room.

"The point is," he said, "that we have to make arrangements for the wedding. You'll not want to lose time."

I had picked up a bottle and glass, but I set them down sharp at this. He had taken my breath away.

"What the hell d'ye mean?" says I. Then I laughed. "You don't think I'll marry her, do you? Good God, you must be a lunatic."

"And why?" says he.

"Because I'm not such a fool," I told him. Suddenly I was angry, at this damned little snip, and his tone with me. "If every girl who's ready to play in the hay was to get married, we'd have damned few spinsters left, wouldn't we? And d'you suppose I'd be pushed into a wedding over a trifle like this?"

"My niece's honour."

"Your niece's honour! A mill-owner's daughter's honour! Oh, I see the game! You see an excellent chance of a match, eh? A chance to marry your niece to a gentleman? You smell a fortune, do you? Well, let me tell you-"

"As to the excellence of the match," said he, "I'd sooner see her marry a Barbary ape. I take it, however, that you decline the honour of my niece's hand?"

"Damn your impudence! You take it right. Now, get out!"

"Excellent, says he, very bright-eyed. "It's what I hoped for." And he stood up, straightening his coat.

"What's that meant to mean, curse you?"

He smiled at me. "I'll send a friend to talk to you. He will arrange matters. I don't approve of meetings, myself, but I'll be delighted, in this case, to put either a bullet or a blade into you." He clapped his hat on his head. "You know, I don't suppose there has been a duel in Glasgow these fifty years or more. It will cause quite a stir."

I gaped at the man, but gathered my wits soon enough. "Lord,"

says I, with a sneer, "you don't suppose I would fight you?"

"No?"

"Gentlemen fight gentlemen," I told him, and ran a scornful eye over him. "They don't fight shop-keepers."

"Wrong again," says he, cheerily. "I'm a lawyer."

"Then stick to your law. We don't fight lawyers, either."

"Not if you can help it, I imagine. But you'll be hard put to it to refuse a brother officer, Mr Flashman. You see, although I've no more than a militia commission now, I was formerly of the 93rd Foot - you have heard of the Sutherlands, I take it? - and had the honour to hold the rank of captain. I even achieved some little service in the field." He was smiling almost benignly now. "If you doubt my bona fides may I refer you to my former chief, Colonel Colin Campbell?(8) Good day, Mr Flashman."

He was at the door before I found my voice.

"To hell with you, and him! I'll not fight you!"

He turned. "Then I'll enjoy taking a whip to you in the street. I really shall. Your own chief- my Lord Cardigan, isn't it? - will find that happy reading in The Times, I don't doubt."

He had me in a cleft stick, as I saw at once. It would mean professional ruin - and at the hands of a damned provincial infantryman, and a retired one at that. I stood there, overcome with rage and panic, damning the day I ever set eyes on his infernal niece, with my wits working for a way out. I tried another tack.

"You may not realise who you're dealing with," I told him, and asked if he had not heard of the Bernier affair: it seemed to me that it must be known about, even in the wilds of Glasgow, and I said so.

"I think I recollect a paragraph," says he. "Dear me, Mr Flashman, should I be overcome? Should I quail? I'll just have to hold my pistol steady, won't I?"

"Damn you," I shouted, "wait a moment."

He stood attentive, watching me.

"All right, blast you," I said. "How much do you want?"

"I thought it might come to that," he said. "Your kind of rat generally reaches for its purse when cornered. You're wasting time, Flashman. I'll take your promise to marry Elspeth - or your life. I'd prefer the latter. But it's one or the other. Make up your mind."

And from that I could not budge him. I pleaded and swore and promised any kind of reparation short of marriage; I was almost in tears, but I might as well have tried to move a rock. Marry or die - that was what it amounted to, for I'd no doubt he would be damnably efficient with the barkers. There was nothing for it: in the end I had to give in and say I would marry the girl. "You're sure you wouldn't rather fight?" says he, regretfully. "A great pity. I fear the conventions are going to burden Elspeth with a rotten man, but there." And he passed on to discussion of the wedding arrangements - he had it all pat.

When at last I was rid of him I applied myself to the brandy, and things seemed less bleak. At least I could think of no one I would rather be wedded and bedded with, and if you have money a wife need be no great encumbrance. And presently we should be out of Scotland, so I need not see her damnable family. But it was an infernal nuisance, all the same - what was I to tell my father? I couldn't for the life of me think how he would take it - he wouldn't cut me off, but he might be damned uncivil about it.

I didn't write to him until after the business was over. It took place in the Abbey at Paisley, which was appropriately gloomy, and the sight of the pious long faces of my bride's relations would have turned your stomach. The Morrisons had begun speaking to me again, and were very civil in public - it was represented as being a sudden love-match, of course, between the dashing hussar and the beautiful provincial, so they had to pretend I was their beau ideal of a son-in-law. But the brute Abercrombie was never far away, to see I came up to scratch, and all in all it was an unpleasant business.

When it was done, and the guests had begun to drink themselves blind, as is the Scottish custom, Elspeth and I were seen off in a carriage by her parents. Old Morrison was crying drunk, and made a disgusting spectacle.

"My wee lamb!" he kept snuffling. "My bonny wee lamb!"

His wee lamb, I may say, looked entrancing, and no more moved than if she had just been out choosing a pair of gloves, rather than getting a husband - she had taken the whole thing without a murmur, neither happy nor sorry, apparently, which piqued me a little.

Anyway, her father slobbered over her, but when he turned to me he just let out a great hollow groan, and gave place to his wife. At that I whipped up the horses, and away we went.

For the life of me I cannot remember where the honey-moon was spent - at some rented cottage on the coast, I remember, but the name has gone - and it was lively enough. Elspeth knew nothing, but it seemed that the only thing that brought her out of her usual serene lethargy was a man in bed with her. She was a more than willing play-mate, and I taught her a few of Josette's tricks, which she picked up so readily that by the time we came back to Paisley I was worn out.

And there the shock was waiting: it hit me harder, I think, than anything had in my life. When I opened the letter and read it, I couldn't speak at first; I had to read it again and again before it made sense.

"Lord Cardigan [it read] has learned of the marriage contracted lately by Mr Flashman of this regiment, and Miss Morrison, of Glasgow. In view of this marriage, his lordship feels that Mr Flashman will not wish to continue to serve with the 11th Hussars (Prince Albert's), but that he will wish either to resign or to transfer to another regiment."

That was all. It was signed "Jones" - Cardigan's toady.

What I said I don't recall, but it brought Elspeth to my side. She slid her arms round my waist and asked what was the matter.

"All hell's the matter," I said. "I must go to London at once."

At this she raised a cry of delight, and babbled with excitement about seeing the great sights, and society, and having a place in town, and meeting my father - God help us - and a great deal more drivel. I was too sick to heed her, and she never seemed to notice me as I sat down among the boxes and trunks that had been brought in from the coach to our bedroom. I remember I damned her at one point for a fool and told her to hold her tongue, which silenced her for a minute; but then she started off again, and was debating whether she should have a French maid or an English one.

I was in a furious rage all the way south, and impatient to get to Cardigan. I knew what it was all about - the bloody fool had read of the marriage and decided that Elspeth was not "suitable" for one of his officers. It will sound ridiculous to you, perhaps, but it was so in those days in a regiment like the 11th. Society daughters were all very well, but anything that smacked of trade or the middle classes was anathema to his lofty lord-ship. Well, I was not going to have his nose turned up at me, as he would find. So I thought, in my youthful folly.

I took Elspeth home first. I had written to my father while we were on honeymoon, and had had a letter back saying: "Who is the unfortunate chit, for God's sake? Does she know what she has got?" So all was well enough in its way on that front. And when we arrived there who should be the first person we met in the hall but Judy, dressed for riding. She gave me a tongue-in-the-cheek smile as soon as she saw Elspeth - the clever bitch probably guessed what lay behind the marriage - but I got some of my own back by my introduction.

"Elspeth," I said, "this is Judy, my father's tart."

That brought the colour into her face, and I left them to get acquainted while I looked for the guv'nor. He was out, as usual, so I went straight off in search of Cardigan, and found him at his town house. At first he wouldn't see me, when I sent up my card, but I pushed his footman out of the way and went up anyway.

It should have been a stormy interview, with high words flying, but it wasn't. Just the sight of him, in his morning coat, looking as though he had just been inspecting God on parade, took the wind out of me. When he had demanded to know, in his coldest way, why I intruded on him, I stuttered out my question: why was he sending me out of the regiment?

"Because of your marriage, Fwashman," says he. "You must have known very well what the consequences would be. It is quite unacceptable, you know. The lady, I have no doubt, is an excellent young woman, but she is - nobody. In these circumstances your resignation is imperative."

"But she is respectable, my lord," I said. "I assure you she is from an excellent family; her father-"

"Owns a factory," he cut in. "Haw-haw. It will not do. My dear sir, did you not think of your position? Of the wegiment? Could I answer, sir, if I were asked: 'And who is Mr Fwashman's wife?' 'Oh, her father is a Gwasgow weaver, don't you know?'"

"But it will ruin me!" I could have wept at the pure, blockheaded snobbery of the man. "Where can I go? What regiment will take me if I'm kicked out of the 11th?"

"You are not being kicked out, Fwashman," he said, and was being positively kindly. "You are wesigning. A very different thing.

Haw-haw. You are twansferring. There is no difficulty. I wike you, Fwashman; indeed, I had hopes of you, but you have destwoyed them with your foolishness. Indeed, I should be extwemely angwy. But I shall help in your awwangements: I have infwuence at the Horse Guards, you know."

"Where am I to go?" I demanded miserably.

"I have given thought to it, let me tell you. It would be impwoper to twansfer to another wegiment at home; it will be best if you go overseas, I think. To India. Yes-"

"India?" I stared at him in horror.

"Yes, indeed. There are caweers to be made there, don't you know? A few years' service there, and the matter of your wesigning fwom my wegiment will be forgotten. You can come home and be gazetted to some other command."

He was so bland, so sure, that there was nothing to say. I knew what he thought of me now: I had shown myself in his eyes no better than the Indian officers whom he despised. Oh, he was being kind enough, in his way; there were "caweers" in India, all right, for the soldier who could get nothing better - and who survived the fevers and the heat and the plague and the hostile natives. At that moment I was at my lowest; the pale, haughty face and the soft voice seemed to fade away before me; all I was conscious of was a sullen anger, and a deep resolve that wherever I went, it would not be India - not for a thousand Cardigans.

"So you won't, hey?" said my father, when I told him.

"I'm damned if I do," I said.

"You're damned if you don't," chuckled he, very amused. "What else will you do, d'you suppose?"

"Sell out," says I.

"Not a bit of it," says he. "I've bought your colours, and by God, you'll wear 'em."

"You can't make me."

"True enough. But the day you hand them back, on that day the devil a penny you'll get out of me. How will you live, eh? And with a wife to support, bigad? No, no, Harry, you've called the tune, and you can pay the piper."

"You mean I'm to go?"

"Of course you'll go. Look you, my son, and possibly my heir, I'll tell you how it is. You're a wastrel and a bad lot - oh, I daresay it's my fault, among others, but that's by the way. My father was a bad lot, too, but I grew up some kind of man. You might, too, for all I know. But I'm certain sure you won't do it here. You might do it by reaping the consequences of your own lunacy - and that means India. D'you follow me?"

"But Elspeth," I said. "You know it's no country for a woman."

"Then don't take her. Not for the first year, in any event, until you've settled down a bit. Nice chit, she is. And don't make piteous eyes at me, sir; you can do without her a while - by all accounts there are women in India, and you can be as beastly as you please."

"It's not fair!" I shouted.

"Not fair! Well, well, this is one lesson you're learning. Nothing's fair, you young fool. And don't blubber about not wanting to go and leave her - she'll be safe enough here."

"With you and Judy, I suppose?"

"With me and Judy," says he, very softly. "And I'm not sure that the company of a rake and a harlot won't be better for her than yours."

That was how I came to leave for India; how the foundation was laid of a splendid military career. I felt myself damnably ill-used, and if I had had the courage I would have told my father to go to the devil.

But he had me, and he knew it. Even if it hadn't been for the money part of it, I couldn't have stood up to him, as I hadn't been able to stand up to Cardigan. I hated them both, then. I came to think better of Cardigan, later, for in his arrogant, pig-headed, snobbish way he was trying to be decent to me, but my father I never forgave. He was playing the swine, and he knew it, and found it amusing at my expense. But what really poisoned me against him was that he didn't believe I cared a button for Elspeth.

There may be better countries for a soldier to serve in than India, but I haven't seen them. You may hear the greenhorns talk about heat and flies and filth and the natives and the diseases; the first three you must get accustomed to, the fifth you must avoid - which you can do, with a little common sense - and as for the natives, well, where else will you get such a docile humble set of slaves? I liked them better than the Scots, anyhow; their language was easier to understand.

And if these things were meant to be drawbacks, there was the other side. In India there was power - the power of the white man over the black - and power is a fine thing to have. Then there was ease, and time for any amount of sport, and good company, and none of the restrictions of home. You could live as you pleased, and lord it among the niggers, and if you were well-off and properly connected, as I was, there was the social life among the best folk who clustered round the Governor-General. And there were as many women as you could wish for.

There was money to be had, too, if you were lucky in your campaigns and knew how to look for it. In my whole service I never made half as much in pay as I got from India in loot - but that is another story.

I knew nothing of this when we dropped anchor in the Highly, off Calcutta, and I looked at the red river banks and sweated in the boiling sun, and smelt the stink, and wished I was in hell rather than here. It had been a damnable four-months voyage on board the crowded and sweltering Indiaman, with no amusement of any kind, and I was prepared to find India no better.

I was to join one of the Company's native lancer regiments(9) in the Benares District, but I never did. Army inefficiency kept me kicking my heels in Calcutta for several weeks before the appropriate orders came through, and by that time I had taken fortune by the foreskin, in my own way.

In the first place, I messed at the Fort with the artillery officers in the native service, who were a poor lot, and whose messing would have sickened a pig. The food was bad to begin with, and by the time the black cooks had finished with it you would hardly have fed it to a jackal.

I said so at our first dinner, and provoked a storm among these gentlemen, who considered me a Johnny Newcomer.

"Not good enough for the plungers, eh?" says one. "Sorry we have no foiegras for your lordship, and we must apologise for the absence of silver plate." "Is it always like this?" I asked. "What is it?" "What is the dish, your grace?" asked the wit. "Why, it's called curry, don't you know? Kills the taste of old meat."

"If that's all it kills, I'm surprised," says I, disgusted. "No decent human being could stomach this filth."

"We stomach it," said another. "Ain't we human beings?"

"You know best about that," I said. "If you take my advice you'll hang your cook." And with that I stalked out, leaving them growling after me. Yet their mess, I discovered, was no worse than any other in India, and better than some. The men's messes were indescribable, and I wondered how they survived such dreadful food in such a climate.

The answer was, of course, that many of them didn't.

However, it was obvious to me that I would be better shifting for myself, so I called up Basset, whom I had brought with me from England - the little bastard had blubbered at the thought of losing me when I left the 11th, God knows why - gave him a fistful of money, and told him to find a cook, a butler, a groom, and half a dozen other servants. These people were to be hired for virtually nothing. Then I went myself to the guard room, found a native who could speak English passably well, and went out to find a house.(10) I found one not far from the Fort, a pleasant place with a little garden of shrubs, and a verandah with screens, and my nigger fetched the owner, who was a great fat rogue with a red turban; we haggled in the middle of a crowd of jabbering blacks, and I gave him half what he asked for and settled into the place with my establishment.

First of all I sent for the cook, and told him through my nigger:

"You will cook, and cook cleanly. You'll wash your hands, d'ye see, and buy nothing .but the finest meat and vegetables. If you don't, I'll have the cat taken to you until there isn't a strip of hide left on your back."

He jabbered away, nodding and grinning and bowing, so I took him by the neck and threw him down and lashed him with my riding whip until he rolled off the verandah, screaming.

"Tell him he'll get that night and morning if his food's not fit to eat," I told my nigger. "And the rest of them may take notice."

They all howled with fear, but they paid heed, the cook most of all. I took the opportunity to flog one of them every day, for their good and my own amusement, and to these precautions I attribute the fact that in all my service in India I was hardly ever laid low with anything worse than fever, and that you can't avoid. The cook was a good cook, as it turned out, and Basset kept the others at it with his tongue and his boot, so we did very well.

My nigger, whose name was Timbu-something-or-other, was of great use at first, since he spoke English, but after a few weeks I got rid of him. I've said that I have a gift of language, but it was only when I came to India that I realised this. My Latin and Greek had been weak at school, for I paid little attention to them, but a tongue that you hear spoken about you is a different thing. Each language has a rhythm for me, and my ear catches and holds the sounds; I seem to know what a man is saying even when I don't understand the words, and my tongue slips easily into any new accent. In any event, after a fortnight listening to Timbu and asked him questions, I was speaking Hindustani well enough to be understood, and I paid him off. For one thing, I had found a more interesting teacher.

Her name was Fetnab, and I bought her (not officially, of course, although it amounted to the same thing) from a merchant whose livestock consisted of wenches for the British officers and civilian residents in Calcutta. She cost me 500 rupees, which was about 50

guineas, and she was a thief s bargain. I suppose she was about sixteen, with a handsome enough face and a gold stud fixed in her nostril, and great slanting brown eyes. Like most other Indian dancing girls, she was shaped like an hour-glass, with a waist that I could span with my two hands, fat breasts like melons, and a wobbling backside.

If anything she was a shade too plump, but she knew the ninety-seven ways of making love that the Hindus are supposed to set much store by - though mind you, it is all nonsense, for the seventy-fourth position turns out to be the same as the seventy-third, but with your fingers crossed. But she taught me them all in time, for she was devoted to her work, and would spend hours oiling herself with perfume all over her body and practising Hindu exercises to keep herself supple for night-time. After my first two days with her I thought less and less about Elspeth, and even Josette paled by comparison.

However, I put her to other good uses. In between bouts we would talk, for she was a great chatterbox, and I learned more of the refinements of Hindi from her than I would have done from any munshi. I give the advice for what it is worth: if you wish to learn a foreign tongue properly, study it in bed with a native girl - I'd have got more of the classics from an hour's wrestling with a Greek wench than I did in four years from Arnold.

So this was how I passed my time in Calcutta - my nights with Fetnab, my evenings in one of the messes, or someone's house, and my days riding or shooting or hunting, or simply wandering about the town itself. I became quite a well-known figure to the niggers, because I could speak to them in their own tongue, unlike the vast majority of officers at that time - even those who had served in India for years were usually too bored to try to learn Hindi, or thought it beneath them.

Another thing I learned, because of the regiment to which I was due to be posted, was how to manage a lance. I had been useful at sword exercise in the Hussars, but a lance is something else again. Any fool can couch it and

(ride straight, but if you are to be any use at all you must be able to handle all nine feet of it so that you can pick a playing card off the ground with the point, or pink a running rabbit. I was determined to shine among the Company men, so I hired a native rissalder of the Bengal Cavalry to teach me; I had no thought then of anything beyond tilting at dummies or wild pig sticking, and the thought of couching a lance against enemy cavalry was not one that I dwelt on much. But those lessons were to save my life once at least - so that was more well-spent money. They also settled the question of my immediate future, in an odd way.

I was out on the maidan one morning with my rissalder, a big, lean, ugly devil of the Pathan people of the frontier; named Muhammed Iqbal. He was a splendid horseman and managed a lance perfectly, and under his guidance I was learning quickly. That morning he had me tilting at pegs, and I speared so many that he said, grinning, that he must charge me more for my lessons.

We were trotting off the maidan, which was fairly empty that morning, except for a palankeen escorted by a couple of officers, which excited my curiosity a little, when Iqbal suddenly shouted:

"See, huzoor, a better target than little pegs!" and pointed towards a pariah dog which was snuffling about some fifty yards away.

Iqbal couched his lance and went for it, but it darted out of his way, so I roared "Tally-ho!" and set off in pursuit. Iqbal was still ahead of me, but I was only a couple of lengths behind when he made another thrust at the pi-dog, which was racing ahead of him, swerving and yelping.

He missed again, and yelled a curse, and the pi-dog suddenly turned almost beneath his hooves and leaped up at his foot. I dropped my point and by great good luck spitted the beast through the body.

With a shout of triumph I heaved him, twisting and still yelping, high into the air, and he fell behind me. Iqbal cried: "Shabash!" and I was beginning to crow over him when a voice shouted:

"You there! You, sir! Come here, if you please, this moment."

It came from the palankeen, towards which our run had taken us. The curtains were drawn, and the caller was revealed as a portly, fierce-looking gentleman in a frock coat, with a sun-browned face and a fine bald head. He had taken off his hat, and was waving insistently, so I rode across.

"Good morning," says he, very civil. "May I inquire your name?"

It did not need the presence of the two mounted dandies by the palankeen to tell me that this was a highly senior officer. Wondering, I introduced myself.

"Well, congratulations, Mr Flashman," says he. "Smart a piece of work as I've seen this year: if we had a regiment who could all manage a lance as well as you we'd have no trouble with damned Sikhs and Afghans, eh, Bennet?"

"Indeed not, sir," said one of the exquisite aides, eyeing me. "Mr Flashman; I seem to know the name. Are you not lately of the 11th Hussars, at home?"

"Eh, what's that?" said his chief, giving me a bright grey eye.

"Bigod, so he is; see his Cherrypicker pants" - I was still wearing the pink breeches of the Hussars, which strictly I had no right to do, but they set off my figure admirably - "so he is, Bennet. Now, dammit, Flashman, Flashman - of course, the affair last year! You're the deloper! Well I'm damned. What are you doing here, sir, in God's name?"

I explained, cautiously, trying to hint without actually saying so, that my arrival in India had followed directly from my meeting with Bernier (which was almost true, anyway), and my questioner whistled and exclaimed in excitement. I suppose I was enough of a novelty to rouse his interest, and he asked me a good deal about myself, which I answered fairly truthfully; in my turn I learned as he questioned me that he was General Crawford, on the staff of the Governor-General, and as such a commander of influence and importance.

"Bigod, you've had bad luck, Flashman," says he. "Banished from the lofty Cherrypickers, eh? Damned nonsense, but these blasted militia colonels like Cardigan have no sense. Eh, Bennet? And you're bound for Company service, are you? Well, the pay's good, but it's a damned shame. Waste your life teaching the sowars how to perform on galloping field days. Damned dusty work. Well, well, Flashman, I wish you success. Good day to you, sir."

And that would have settled that, no doubt, but for a queer chance. I had been sitting with my lance at rest, the point six feet above my head, and some of the pi-dog's blood dribbled down onto my hand; I gave an exclamation of disgust, and turning to Iqbal, who was sitting silently behind, I said:

"Khabadar, rissaldar! Larnce sarf karo, juldi!" which is to say,

"Look out, sergeant-major. Take this lance and get it clean, quickly."

And with that I tossed it to him. He caught it, and I turned back to take my leave of Crawford. He had stopped in the act of pulling his palankeen curtains.

"Here, Flashman," says he. "How long have you been in India?

What, three weeks, you say? But you speak the lingo, dammit!"

"Only a word or two, sir."

"Don't tell me, sir; I heard several words. Damned sight more than I learned in thirty years. Eh, Bennet? Too many 'ee's' and 'urn's'

for me. But that's damned extraordinary, young man. How'd you pick it up?"

I did more explaining, about my gift for languages, and he shook his bald head and said he'd never heard the like. "A born linguist and a born lancer, bigod. Rare combination - too dam' good for Company cavalry - all ride like pigs, anyway. Look here, young Flashman, I can't think at this time in the morning. You call on me tonight, d'ye hear?

We'll go into this further. Hey, Bennet?"

And presently away he went, but I did call on him that evening, resplendent in my Cherrypicker togs, as he called them, and he looked at me and said:

"By God, Emily Eden mustn't miss this! She'd never forgive me!"

To my surprise, this was his way of indicating that I should go with him to the Governor-General's palace, where he was due for dinner, so of course I went, and had the privilege of drinking lemonade with their excellencies on their great marble verandah, while a splendid company stood about, like a small court, and I saw more quality in three seconds than in my three weeks in Calcutta. Which was very pleasant, but Crawford almost spoiled it by telling Lord Auckland about my duel with Bernier, at which he and Lady Emily, who was his sister, looked rather stiff- they were a stuffy pair, I thought - until I said fairly coolly to Crawford that I would have avoided the whole business if I could, but it had been forced upon me.

At this Auckland nodded approval, and when it came out that I had been under Arnold at Rugby, the old bastard became downright civil.

Lady Emily was even more so - thank God for Cherrypicker pants - and when she discovered I was only nineteen years old she nodded sadly, and spoke of the fair young shoots on the tree of empire.

She asked about my family, and when she learned I had a wife in England, she said:

"So young to be parted. How hard the service is."

Her brother observed, fairly drily, that there was nothing to prevent an officer having his wife in India with him, but I muttered something about winning my spurs, an inspired piece of nonsense which pleased Lady E. Her brother remarked that an astonishing number of young officers somehow survived the absence of a wife's consolation, and Crawford chortled, but Lady E. was on my side by now, and giving them her shoulder, asked where I was to be stationed.

I told her, and since it seemed to me that if I played my cards right I might get a more comfortable posting through her interest -

Governor-General's aide was actually in my mind -I indicated that I had no great enthusiasm for Company service.

"Don't blame him, either," said Crawford. "Man's a positive Pole on horseback; shouldn't be wasted, eh, Flashman? Speaks Hindustani, too. Heard him."

"Really?" says Auckland. "That shows a remarkable zeal in study, Mr Flashman. But perhaps Dr Arnold may be to thank for that."

"Why must you take Mr Flashman's credit away from him?" says Lady E. "I think it is quite unusual. I think he should be found a post where his talents can be properly employed. Do you not agree, General?"

"Own views exactly, ma'am," says Crawford. "Should have heard him. 'Hey, rissaldar', says he, 'um-tiddly-o-karo', and the fellow understood every word."

Now you can imagine that this was heady stuff to me; this morning I had been any old subaltern, and here I was hearing compliments from a Governor-General, and General, and the First Lady of India - foolish old trot though she was. You're made, Flashy, I thought; it's the staff for you, and Auckland's next words seemed to bear out my hopes.

"Why not find something for him, then?" says he to Crawford.

"General Elphinstone was saying only yesterday that he would need a few good gallopers."

Well, it wasn't the top of the tree, but galloper to a General was good enough for the time being.

"Bigod," says Crawford, "your excellency's right. What d'you say, Flashman? Care to ride aide to an army commander, hey? Better than Company work at the back of beyond, what?"

I naturally said I would be deeply honoured, and was starting to thank him, but he cut me off.

"You'll be more thankful yet when you know where Elphinstone's service'll take you," says he, grinning. "By gad, I wish I was your age and had the same chance. It's a Company army mostly, of course, and a damned good one, but it took 'em a few years of service - as it would have taken you - to get where they wanted to be."

I looked all eagerness, and Lady E. sighed and smiled together.

"Poor boy," she said. "You must not tease him."

"Well, it will be out by tomorrow, anyway," says Crawford. "You don't know Elphinstone, of course, Flashman - commands the Benares Division, or will do until midnight tonight. And then he takes over the Army of the Indus - what about that, eh?"

It sounded all right, and I made enthusiastic noises.

"Aye, you're a lucky dog," says Crawford, beaming. "How many young blades would give their right leg for the chance of service with him? In the very place for a dashing lancer to win his spurs, bigad!"

A nasty feeling tickled my spine, and I asked where that might be.

"Why, Kabul, of course," says he. "Where else but Afghanistan?"

The old fool actually thought I must be delighted at this news, and of course I had to pretend to be. I suppose any young officer in India would have jumped at the opportunity, and I did my best to look gratified and eager, but I could have knocked the grinning idiot down, I was so angry. I had thought I was doing so well, what with my sudden introduction to the exalted of the land, and all it had won me was a posting to the hottest, hardest, most dangerous place in the world, to judge by all accounts. There was talk of nothing but Afghanistan in Calcutta at that time, and of the Kabul expedition, and most of it touched on the barbarity of the natives, and the unpleasantness of the country. I could have been sensible, I told myself, and had myself quietly posted to Benares - but no, I had had to angle round Lady Emily, and now looked like getting my throat cut for my pains.

Thinking quickly, I kept my eager smile in place but wondered whether General Elphinstone might not have preferences of his own when it came to choosing an aide; there might be others, I thought, who had a better claim . . .

Nonsense, says Crawford, he would go bail Elphinstone would be delighted to have a man who could talk the language and handle a lance like a Cossack, and Lady Emily said she was sure he would find a place for me. So there was no way out; I was going to have to take it and pretend that I liked it.

That night I gave Fetnab the soundest thrashing of her pampered life and broke a pot over the sweeper's head.

I was not even given a decent time to prepare myself. General Elphinstone (or Elphy Bey, as the wags called him) received me next day, and turned out to be an elderly, fussy man with a brown wrinkled face and heavy white whiskers; he was kind enough, in a doddering way, and as unlikely a commander of armies as you could imagine, being nearly sixty, and not too well either.

"It is a great honour to me," says he, speaking of his new command, "but I wish it had fallen on younger shoulders - indeed, I am sure it should." He shook his head, and looked gloomy, and I thought, well, here's a fine one to take the field with.

However, he welcomed me to his staff, damn him, and said it was most opportune; he could use me at once. Since his present aides were used to his service, he would keep them with him just now, to prepare for the journey; he would send me in advance to Kabul - which meant, I supposed, that I was to herald his coming, and see that his quarters were swept out for his arrival. So I had to gather up my establishment, hire camels and mules for their transport, lay in stores for the journey, and generally, go to a deal of expense and bother. My servants kept well out of my way in those days, I can tell you, and Fetnab went about whimpering and rolling her eyes. I told her to shut up or I would give her to the Afghans when we got to Kabul, and she was so terrified that she actually kept quiet.

However, after my first disappointment I realised there was no sense crying over spilt milk, and looked on the bright side. I was, after all, to be aide to a general, which would be helpful in years to come, and gave one great distinction. Afghanistan was at least quiet for the moment, and Elphy Bey's term of command could hardly last long, at his age. I could take Fetnab and my household with me, including Basset, and with Elphy Bey's influence I was allowed to enlist Muhammed Iqbal in my party. He spoke Pushtu, of course, which is the language of the Afghans, and could instruct me as we went. Also, he was an excellent fellow to have beside you, and would be an invaluable companion and guide.

Before we started out, I got hold of as much information as I could about matters in Afghanistan. They seemed to stand damned riskily to me, and there were others in Calcutta - but not Auckland, who was an ass - who shared this view. The reason we had sent an expedition to Kabul, which is in the very heart of some of the worst country in the world, was that we were afraid of Russia. Afghanistan was a buffer, if you like, between India and the Turkestan territory which Russia largely influenced, and the Russians were forever meddling in Afghan affairs, in the hope of expanding southwards and perhaps seizing India itself. So Afghanistan mattered very much to us, and thanks to that conceited Scotch buffoon Burnes the British Government had invaded the country, if you please, and put our puppet king, Shah Sujah, on the throne in Kabul, in place of old Dost Mohammed, who was suspected of Russian sympathies.

I believe, from all I saw and heard, that if he had Russian sympathies it was because we drove him to them by our stupid policy; at any rate, the Kabul expedition succeeded in setting Sujah on the throne, and old Dost was politely locked up in India. So far, so good, but the Afghans didn't like Sujah at all, and we had to leave an army in Kabul to keep him on his throne. This was the army that Elphy Bey was to command. It was a good enough army, part Queen's troops, part Company's, with British regiments as well as native ones, but it was having its work cut out trying to keep the tribes in order, for apart from Dost's supporters there were scores of little petty chiefs and tyrants who lost no opportunity of causing trouble in the unsettled times, and the usual Afghan pastimes of blood-feud, robbery, and murder-for-fun were going ahead full steam. Our army prevented any big rising - for the moment, anyway - but it was forever patrolling and manning little forts, and trying to pacify and buy off the robber chiefs, and people were wondering how long this could go on. The wise ones said there was an explosion coming, and as we started out on our journey from Calcutta my foremost thought was that whoever got blown up, it should not be me. It was just my luck that I was going to end up on top of the bonfire.

Travelling, I think, is the greatest bore in life, so I'll not weary you with an account of the journey from Calcutta to Kabul. It was long and hot and damnably dull; if Basset and I had not taken Muhammed Iqbal's advice and shed our uniforms for native dress, I doubt whether we would have survived. In desert, on scrubby plain, through rocky hills, in the forests, in the little mud villages and camps and towns -

the heat was horrible and ceaseless; your skin scorched, your eyes burned, and you felt that your body was turning into a dry bag of bones. But in the loose robes and pyjamy trousers one felt cooler - that is, one fried without burning quite black.

Basset, Iqbal and I rode horses, the servants tramped behind with Fetnab in a litter, but our pace was so slow that after a week we got rid of them all but the cook. The servants we turned off, amid great lamentations, and Fetnab I sold to a major in the artillery, whose camp we passed through. I regretted that, for she had become a habit, but she was peevish on the journey and too tired and mopish at night to be much fun. Still, I can't recall a wench I enjoyed more.

We pushed on faster after that, west and then northwest, over the plains and great rivers of the Punjab, through the Sikh country, and up to Peshawar, which is where India ends. There was nothing to remind you of Calcutta now; here the heat was dry and glaring, and so were the people - lean, ugly, Jewish-looking creatures, armed and ready for mischief by the look of them. But none was uglier or looked readier for mischief than the governor of the place, a great, grey-bearded ox of a man in a dirty old uniform coat, baggy trousers, and gold-tasselled forage cap. He was an Italian, of all things, with the spiky waxed moustache that you see on organ-grinders nowadays, and he spoke English with a dreadful dago American accent. His name was Avitabile,(11) and the Sikhs and Afghans were more scared of him than of the devil himself; he had drifted to India as a soldier of fortune, commanded Shah Sujah's army, and now had the job of keeping the passes open to our people in Kabul.

He did it admirably, in the only way those brutes under-stood -

by fear and force. There were five dead Afghans swinging in the sunlight from his gateway arch when we rode through, which was both reassuring and unnerving at once. No one minded them more than if they had been swatted flies, least of all Avitabile, who had strung them up.

"Goddam, boy," says he, "how you think I keep the peace if I don'

keep killing these bastards? These are Gilzais, you know that? Good Gilzais, now I've 'tended to them. The bad Gilzais are up in the hills, between here and Kabul, watchin' the passes and lickin' their lips and thinkin' - but thinkin's all they do just now, 'cos of Avitabile. Sure, we pay 'em to be quiet; you think that would stop them? No, sir, fear of Avitabile" - and he jerked a huge thumb at his chest - "fear's what stops 'em. But if I stopped hangin' 'em now and then, they'd stop bein'

afraid. See?"

He had me to dinner that night, and we ate an excellent stew of chicken and fruit on a terrace looking over the dirty rooftops of Peshawar, with the sounds and smells of the bazaar floating up to us.

Avitabile was a good host, and talked all night of Naples and women and drink; he seemed to take a fancy to me, and we got very drunk together. He was one of your noisy, bellowing drunkards, and we sang uproariously, I remember, but at dawn, as we were staggering to our beds, he stopped outside my room, with his great dirty hand on my shoulder, and looked at me with his bright grey eyes, and said in a very sober, quiet voice: "Boy, I think you are another like me, at heart: a condottieri, a rascal. Maybe with a little honour, a little courage. I don't know. But, see now, you are going beyond the Khyber, and some day soon the Gilzais and others will be afraid no longer. Against that day, get a swift horse and some Afghans you can trust - there are some, like the Kuzzilbashis - and if the day comes, don't wait to die on the field of honour." He said it without a sneer. "Heroes draw no higher wages than the others, boy. Sleep well."

And he nodded and stumped off down the passage, with his gold cap still firmly on his head. In my drunken state I took little heed of what he had said, but it came back to me later.

In the morning we rode north into one of the world's awful places

- the great pass of the Khyber, where the track twists among the sun-scorched cliffs and the peaks seem to crouch in ambush for the traveller. There was some traffic on the road, and we passed a commissary train on its way to Kabul, but most of those we saw were Afghan hillmen, rangy warriors in skull caps or turbans and long coats, with immensely long rifles, called jezzails, at their shoulders, and the Khyber knife (which is like a pointed cleaver) in their belts.

Muhammed Iqbal was gay at returning to his own place, and had me airing my halting Pushtu on those we spoke to; they seemed taken aback to find an English officer who had their own tongue, however crudely, and were friendly enough. But I didn't like the look of them; you could see treachery in their dark eyes - besides, there is something odd about men who look like Satan and yet wear ringlets and love-locks hanging out beneath their turbans.

We were three nights on the road beyond the Khyber, and the country got more hellish all the way - it beat me how a British army, with all its thousands of followers and carts and wagons and guns had ever got over those flinty paths. But at last we came to Kabul, and I saw the great fortress of Bala Hissar lowering over the city, and beyond it to the right the neat lines of the cantonment beside the water's edge, where the red tunics showed like tiny dolls in the distance and the sound of a bugle came faintly over the river. It was very pretty in the summer's evening, with the orchards and gardens before us, and the squalor of Kabul Town hidden behind the Bala Hissar. Aye, it was pretty then.

We crossed the Kabul River bridge and when I had reported myself and bathed and changed into my regimentals I was directed to the general commanding, to whom I was to deliver despatches from Elphy Bey. His name was Sir Willoughby Cotton, and he looked it, for he was round and fat and red-faced. When I found him he was being hectored by a tall, fine-looking officer in faded uniform, and I at once learned two things - in the Kabul garrison there was no sense of privacy or restraint, and the most senior officers never thought twice about discussing their affairs before their juniors.

". . . the biggest damned fool this side of the Indus," the tall officer was saying when I presented myself. "I tell you, Cotton, this army is like a bear in a trap. If there's a rising, where are you? Stuck helpless in the middle of a people who hate your innards, a week from the nearest friendly garrison, with a bloody fool like McNaghten writing letters to that even bloodier fool Auckland in Calcutta that everything's all right. God help us! And they're relieving you -"

"God be thanked," said Cotton.

"- and sending us Elphy Bey, who'll be under McNaghten's thumb and isn't fit to command an escort anyway. The worst of it is, McNaghten and the other political asses think we are safe as on Salisbury Plain! Burnes is as bad as the rest - not that he thinks of anything but Afghan women - but they're all so sure they're right!

That's what upsets me. And who the devil are you?"

This was to me. I bowed and presented my letters to Cotton, who seemed glad of the interruption.

"Glad to see you, sir," says he, dropping the letters on the desk.

"Elphy's herald, eh? Well, well. Flashman, did you say? Now that's odd.

There was a Flashman with me at Rugby, oh, forty years ago. Any relation?"

"My father, sir."

"Ye don't say? Well, I'm damned. Flashy's boy." And he beamed all over his red face. "Why, it must be forty years . . . He's well, I trust?

Excellent, excellent. What'll you have, sir? Glass of wine? Here, bearer.

Of course, your father will have spoke of me, eh? I was quite a card at school. Got expelled, d'ye know."

This was too good a chance to miss, so I said: "I was expelled from Rugby, too, sir."

"Good God! You don't say! What for, sir?"

"Drunkenness, sir."

"No! Well, damme! Who'd have believed they would kick you out for that? They'll be expellin' for rape next. Wouldn't have done in my time. I was expelled for mutiny, sir - yes, mutiny! Led the whole school in revolt!(12) Splendid! Well, here's your health, sir!"

The officer in the faded coat, who had been looking pretty sour, remarked that expulsion from school was all very well but what concerned him was expulsion from Afghanistan.

"Pardon me," said Cotton, wiping his lips. "Forgot my manners.

Mr Flashman, General Nott. General Nott is up from Kandahar, where he commands. We were discussing the state of the army in Afghanistan. No, no, Flashman, sit down. This ain't Calcutta. On active service the more you know the better. Pray proceed, Nott."

So I sat, a little bewildered and flattered, for generals don't usually talk before subalterns, while Nott resumed his tirade. It seemed that he had been offended by some communication from McNaghten - Sir William McNaghten, Envoy to Kabul, and head British civilian in the country. Nott was appealing to Cotton to support him in protest, but Cotton didn't seem to care for the idea.

"It is a simple question of policy," said Nott. "The country, whatever McNaghten may think, is hostile, and we have to treat it as such. We do this in three ways -through the influence which Sujah exerts on his unwilling subjects, which is little enough; through the force of our army here, which with respect is not as all-powerful as McNaghten imagines, since you're outnumbered fifty to one by one of the fiercest warrior nations in the world; and thirdly, by buying the good will of important chiefs with money. Am I right?"

"Talking like a book," said Cotton. "Fill your glass, Mr Flashman."

"If one of those three instruments of policy fails - Sujah, our strength, or our money - we're done for. Oh, I know I'm a 'croaker', as McNaghten would say; he thinks we are as secure here as on Horse Guards. He's wrong, you know. We exist on sufferance, and there won't be much of that if he takes up this idea of cutting the subsidy to the Gilzai chiefs."

"It would save money," said Cotton. "Anyway, it's no more than a thought, as I understand."

"It would save money if you didn't buy a bandage when you were bleeding to death," said Nott, at which Cotton guffawed. "Aye, laugh, Sir Willoughby, but this is a serious matter. Cutting the subsidy is no more than a thought, you say. Very good, it may never happen. But if the Gilzais so much as suspect it might, how long will they continue to keep the passes open? They sit above the Khyber - your lifeline, remember - and let our convoys come and go, but if they think their subsidy is in danger they'll look for another source of revenue. And that will mean convoys ambushed and looted, and a very pretty business on your hands. That is why McNaghten's a fool even to think of cutting the subsidy, let alone talk about it." "What do you want me to do?" says Cotton, frowning. "Tell him to drop the notion at all costs.

He won't listen to me. And send someone to talk to the Gilzais, take a few gifts to old what's-his-name at Mogala - Sher Afzul. He has the other Gilzai khans under his thumb, I'm told."

"You know a lot about this country," said Cotton, wagging his head. "Considering this ain't your territory."

"Someone's got to," said Nott. "Thirty years in the Company's service teaches you a thing or two. I wish I thought McNaghten had learned as much. But he goes his way happily, seeing no farther than the end of his nose. Well, well, Cotton, you're one of the lucky ones.

You'll be getting out in time."

Cotton protested at this that he was a "croaker" after all - I soon discovered that the word was applied to everyone who ventured to criticise McNaghten or express doubts about the safety of the British force in Kabul. They talked for a while, and Cotton was very civil to me and seemed intent on making me feel at home. We dined in his headquarters, with his staff, and there for the first time I met some of the men, many of them fairly junior officers, whose names were to be household words in England within the next year - "Sekundar" Burnes, with his mincing Scotch voice and pretty little moustache; George Broadfoot, another Scotsman, who sat next to me; Vincent Eyre,

"Gentleman Jim" Skinner, Colonel Oliver, and various others. They talked with a freedom that was astonishing, criticising or defending their superiors in the presence of general officers, condemning this policy and praising that, and Cotton and Nott joined in. There was not much good said about McNaghten, and a general gloom about the army's situation; it seemed to me they scared rather easily, and I told Broadfoot so.

"Wait till ye've been here a month or two, and ye'll be as bad as the rest," he said brusquely. "It's a bad place, and a bad people, and if we don't have war on our hands inside a year I'll be surprised. Have you heard of Akbar Khan? No? He's the son of the old king, Dost Mohammed, that we deposed for this clown Sujah, and he's in the hills now, going from this chief to that, gathering support for the day when he'll raise the country against us. McNaghten won't believe it, of course, but he's a gommeril."

"Could we not hold Kabul?" I asked. "Surely with a force of five thousand it should be possible, against undisciplined savages."

"These savages are good men," says he. "Better shots than we are, for one thing. And we're badly placed here, with no proper fortifications for the cantonment - even the stores are outside the perimeter - and an army that's going downhill with soft living and bad discipline. Forbye, we have our families with us, and that's a bad thing when the bullets are flying - who thinks of his duty when he has his wife and weans to care for? And Elphy Bey is to command us when Cotton goes." He shook his head. "You'll know him better than I, but I'd give my next year's pay to hear he wasn't coming and we had Nott instead. I'd sleep at nights, anyway."

This was depressing enough, but in the next few weeks I heard this kind of talk on all hands - there was obviously no confidence in the military or political chiefs, and the Afghans seemed to sense this, for they were an insolent crowd and had no great respect for us. As an aide to Elphy Bey, who was still on his road north, I had time on my hands to look about Kabul, which was a great, filthy sprawling place full of narrow lanes and smelling abominably. But we seldom went there, for the folk hardly made us welcome, and it was pleasant out by the cantonment, where there was little attention to soldiering but a great deal of horseracing and lounging in the orchards and gossiping on the verandahs over cool drinks. There were even cricket matches, and I played myself - I had been a great bowler at Rugby, and my new friends made more of the wickets I took than of the fact that I was beginning to speak Pushtu better than any of them except Burnes and the politicals.

It was at one of these matches that I first saw Shah Sujah, the king, who had come down as the guest of McNaghten.

He was a portly, brown-bearded man who stood gravely contemplating the game, and when McNaghten asked him how he liked it, said:

"Strange and manifold are the ways of God."

As for McNaghten himself, I despised him on sight. He had a clerk's face, with a pointed nose and chin, and peered through his spectacles suspiciously, sniffing at you. He was vain as a peacock, though, and would strut about in his tall hat and frock-coat, lording it greatly, with his nose turned up. It was evident, as someone said, that he saw only what he wanted to see. Anyone else would have realised that his army was in a mess, for one thing, but not McNaghten. He even seemed to think that Sujah was popular with the people, and that we were honoured guests in the country; if he had heard the men in the bazaar calling us "kaffirs" he might have realised his mistake. But he was too lofty to hear.

However, I passed the time pleasantly enough. Burnes, the political agent, when he heard about my Pushtu, took some interest in me, and as he kept a splendid table, and was an influential fellow, I kept in with him. He was a pompous fool, of course, but he knew a good deal about the Afghans, and would go about from time to time in native dress, mixing with the crowds in the bazaar, listening to gossip and keeping his nose to the wind generally. He had another reason for this, of course, which was that he was forever in pursuit of some Afghan woman or other, and had to go to the city to find them. I went with him on these expeditions frequently, and very rewarding they were.

Afghan women are handsome rather than pretty, but they have this great advantage to them, that their own men don't care for them overmuch. Afghan men would as soon be perverts as not, and have a great taste for young boys; it would sicken you to see them mooning over these painted youths as though they were girls, and our troops thought it a tremendous joke. However, it meant that the Afghan women were always hungry for men, and you could have your pick of them - tall, graceful creatures they were, with long straight noses and proud mouths, running more to muscle than fat, and very active in bed.

Of course, the Afghans didn't care for this, which was another score against us where they were concerned.

The first weeks passed, as I say, pleasantly, and I was beginning to like Kabul, in spite of the pessimists, when I was shaken out of my pleasant rut, thanks to my friend Burnes and the anxieties of General Nott, who had gone back to Kandahar but left his warnings ringing in Sir Willoughby Cotton's ears. They must have rung an alarm, for when he sent for me to his office in the cantonment he was looking pretty glum, with Burnes at his elbow.

"Flashman," says Cotton. "Sir Alexander here tells me you get along famously with the Afghans."

Thinking of the women, I agreed.

"Hm, well. And you talk their frightful lingo?"

"Passably well, sir."

"That means a dam' sight better than most of us. Well, I daresay I shouldn't do it, but on Sir Alexander's suggestion" - here Burnes gave me a smile, which I felt somehow boded no good - "and since you're the son of an old friend, I'm going to give you some work to do - work which'll help your advancement, let me say, if you do it well, d'you see?" He stared at me a moment, and growled to Burnes: "Dammit, Sandy, he's devilish young, y'know."

"No younger than I was," says Burnes.

"Umph. Oh, well, I suppose it's all right. Now, look here, Flashman - you know about the Gilzais, I suppose? They control the passes between here and India, and are devilish tricky fellows. You were with me when Nott was talking about their subsidy, and how there were rumours that the politicals would cut it, dam' fools, with all respect, Sandy. Well, it will be cut - in time - but for the present it's imperative they should be told that all's well, d'you see? Sir William McNaghten has agreed to this - fact is, he's written letters to Sher Afzul, at Mogala, and he's the leader of the pack, so to speak."

This seemed to me a pretty piece of duplicity on McNaghten's part, but it was typical of our dealings with the Afghans, as I was to discover.

"You're going to be our postman, like Mr Rowland Hill's fellows at home. You'll take the messages of good will to Sher Afzul, hand 'em over, say how splendid everything is, be polite to the old devil - he's half-mad, by the way - set his mind at rest if he's still worried about the subsidy, and so forth."

"It will all be in the letters," says Burnes. "You must just give any added reassurances that may be needed."

"All right, Flashman?" says Cotton. "Good experience for you.

Diplomatic mission, what?"

"It's very important," says Burnes. "You see, if they thought there was anything wrong, or grew suspicious, it could be bad for us."

It could be a damned sight worse for me, I thought. I didn't like this idea above half - all I knew of the Gilzais was that they were murderous brutes, like all country Afghans, and the thought of walking into their nests, up in the hills, with not the slightest hope of help if there was trouble - well, Kabul might not be Hyde Park, but at least it was safe for the present. And what the Afghan women did to prisoners was enough to start my stomach turning at the thought - I'd heard the stories.

Some of this must have showed in my face, for Cotton asked fairly sharply what was the matter. Didn't I want to go?

"Of course, sir," I lied. "But - well, I'm pretty raw, I know. A more experienced officer ..."

"Don't fret yourself," says Burnes, smiling. "You're more at home with these folk than some men with twenty years in the service." He winked. "I've seen you, Flash-man, remember. Hah-ha! And you've got what they call a 'fool's face'. No disrespect: it means you look honest.

Besides, the fact that you have some Pushtu will win their confidence."

"But as General Elphinstone's aide, should I not be here ..."

"Elphy ain't due for a week," snapped Cotton. "Dammit, man, this is an opportunity. Any young feller in your shoes would be bursting to go."

I saw it would be bad to try to make further excuses, so I said I was all eagerness, of course, and had only wanted to be sure I was the right man, and so forth. That settled it: Burnes took me to the great wall map, and showed me where Mogala was - needless to say, it was at the back of nowhere, about fifty miles from Kabul, in hellish hill country south of the Jugdulluk Pass. He pointed out the road we should take, assuring me I should have a good guide, and produced the sealed packet I was to deliver to the half-mad (and doubtless half-human) Sher Afzul.

"Make sure they go into his own hands," he told me. "He's a good friend to us -just now - but I don't trust his nephew, Gul Shah. He was too thick with Akbar Khan in the old days. If there's ever trouble among the Gilzais, it will come from Gul, so watch out for him. And I don't have to tell you to be careful of old Afzul - he's sharp when he's sane, which he is most of the time. He's lord of life and death in his own parish, and that includes you. Not that he's likely to offer you harm, but keep on his good side."

I began to wonder if I could manage to fall ill in the next hour or two -jaundice, possibly, or something infectious. Cotton set the final seal on it.

"If there's trouble," says he, "you must just ride for it." To this fatherly advice he and Burnes added a few words about how I should conduct myself if the matter of subsidy was discussed with me, bidding me be reassuring at all costs - no thought of who should reassure me, I may say - and dismissed me. Burnes said they had high hopes of me, a sentiment I found it difficult to share.

However, there was nothing for it, and next morning found me on the road east, with Iqbal and an Afghan guide on either side and five troopers of the 16th Lancers for escort. It was a tiny enough guard to be useless against anything but a stray robber - and Afghanistan never lacked for those - but it gave me some heart, and what with the fresh morning air, and the thought that all would probably be well and the mission another small stepping stone in the career of Lieutenant Flashman, I felt rather more cheerful.

The sergeant in charge of the Lancers was called Hudson, and he had already shown himself a steady and capable man. Before setting out he had suggested I leave behind my sabre - they were poor weapons, the Army swords, and turned in your grip(13) - and take instead one of the Persian scimitars that some of the Afghans used.

They were light and strong, and damned sharp. He had been very business-like about it, and about such matters as rations for the men and fodder for the horses. He was one of those quiet, middle-sized, square-set men who seem to know exactly what they are doing, and it was good to have him and Iqbal at my back.

Our first day's march took us as far as Khoord-Kabul, and on the second we left the track at Tezeen and went south-east into the hills.

The going had been rough enough on the path, but now it was frightful

- the land was all sun-scorched rock and jagged peaks, with stony defiles that were like ovens, where the ponies stumbled over the loose stones. We hardly saw a living creature for twenty miles after we left Tezeen, and when night came we were camped on a high pass, in the lee of a cliff that might have been the wall of hell. It was bitter cold, and the wind howled up the pass; far away a wolf wailed, and we had barely enough wood to keep our fire going. I lay in my blanket cursing the day I got drunk at Rugby, and wishing I were snug in a warm bed with Elspeth or Fetnab or Josette.

Next day we were picking our way up a long stony slope when Iqbal muttered and pointed, and far ahead on a rocky shoulder I made out a figure which vanished almost as soon as I saw it.

"Gilzai scout," said Iqbal, and in the next hour we saw a dozen more of them; as we rode upwards we were aware of them in the hills on either side, behind boulders or on the ledges, and in the last few miles there were horsemen shadowing us on either side and behind.

Then we came out of a defile, and the guide pointed ahead to a height crowned with a great grey fortress, with a round tower behind its outer wall, and a cluster of huts outside its embattled gate. This was Mogala, stronghold of the Gilzai chieftain, Sher Afzul. I seldom saw a place I liked less at first sight.

We went forward at a canter, and the horsemen who had been following us galloped into the open on either side, keeping pace to the fort, but not approaching too close to us. They rode Afghan ponies, carried long jezzails and lances, and were a tough-looking crowd; some wore mail over their robes, and a few had spiked helmets; they looked like warriors from an Eastern fairy tale, with their outlandish clothes and fierce bearded faces - and of course, they were.

Close by the gate was a row of four wooden crosses, and to my horror I realised that the blackened, twisted things nailed to them were human bodies. Sher Afzul obviously had his own notions of discipline. One or two of the troopers muttered at the sight, and there were anxious glances at our shadowers, who had lined up on either side of the gateway. I was feeling a trifle wobbly myself, but I thought, to hell with these blackamoors, we are English-men, and so I said,

"Come on, lads, ride to attention," and we clattered under the frowning gateway.

I suppose Mogala is about a quarter of a mile from wall to wall, but inside its battlements, in addition to its huge keep, there were barracks and stables for Sher Afzul's warriors, storehouses and armouries, and the house of the Khan himself. In fact, it was more of a little palace than a house, for it stood in a pretty garden under the shadow of the outer wall, shaded by cypress tress, and it was furnished inside like something from Burton's Arabian Nights. There were tapestries on the walls, carpets on the paved floor, intricately carved wood screens in the archways, and a general air of luxury - he did himself well, I thought, but he took no chances. There were sentries all over the place, big men and well armed.

Sher Afzul turned out to be a man about sixty, with a beard dyed jet black, and a lined, ugly face whose main features were two fierce, burning eyes that looked straight through you. He received me civilly enough in his fine presence chamber, where he sat on a small throne with his court about him, but I couldn't doubt Burnes's assertion that he was half-mad. His hands twitched continuously, and he had a habit of jerking his turbanned head in a most violent fashion as he spoke.

But he listened attentively as one of his ministers read aloud McNaghten's letter, and seemed satisfied, and he and his people exclaimed with delight over the present that Cotton had sent - a pair of very handsome pistols by Manton, in a velvet case, with a matching shot pouch and powder flask. Nothing would do but we must go straight into the garden for the Khan to try them out; he was a rotten shot, but at the fourth attempt he managed to blow the head off a very handsome parrot which sat chained on a perch, screeching at the explosions until the lucky shot put an end to it.

There was loud applause, and Sher Afzul wagged his head and seemed well pleased.

"A splendid gift," he told me, and I was pleased to find that my Pushtu was quite good enough for me to follow him. "You are the more welcome, Flashman bahadur, in that your guns are true. By God, it is a soldier's weapon!"

I said I was delighted, and had the happy idea of presenting one of my own pistols on the spot to the Khan's son, a bright, handsome lad of about sixteen, called Ilderim. He shouted with delight, and his eyes shone as he handled the weapon -I was off to a good start.

Then one of the courtiers came forward, and I felt a prickle up my spine as I looked at him. He was a tall man -as tall as I was - with those big shoulders and the slim waist of an athlete. His coat was black and well fitting, he wore long boots, and there was a silk sash round his waist to carry his sabre. On his head he had one of those polished steel casques with vertical prongs, and the face under it was strikingly handsome in the rather pretty Eastern way which I personally don't like. You have seen them - straight nose, very full lips, woman's cheeks and jaw. He had a forked beard and two of the coldest eyes I ever saw.

I put him down as a nasty customer, and I was right.

"I can kill parrots with a sling," he said. "Are the feringhee pistols good for anything else?"

Sher Afzul damned his eyes, more or less, for casting doubts on his fine new weapons, and thrusting one into the fellow's hand, told him to try his luck. And to my amazement, the brute turned straight about, drew a bead on one of the slaves working in the garden, and shot him on the spot.

I was shaken, I can tell you. I stared at the twitching body on the grass, and the Khan wagging his head, and at the murderer handing back the pistol with a shrug. Of course, it was only a nigger he had killed, and I knew that among Afghans life is dirt cheap; they think no more of killing a human being than you and I do of shooting a pheasant or catching a fish. But it's a trifle unsettling to a man of my temperament to know that he is in the power - for, guest or no, I was in their power - of blackguards who kill as wantonly and readily as that.

That thought, more than the killing itself, rattled me.

Young Ilderim noticed this, and rebuked the black-coated man -

not for murder, mark you, but for discourtesy to a guest!

"One does not bite the coin of the honoured stranger, Gul Shah,"

was what he said, meaning you don't look a gift horse in the mouth.

For the moment I was too fascinated at what I had seen to pay much heed, but as the Khan, talking rapidly, escorted me inside again, I remembered that this Gul Shah was the customer Burnes had warned me about - the friend of the arch-rebel, Akbar Khan. I kept an eye on him as I talked with Sher Afzul, and it seemed to me he kept an eye on me in return.

Sher Afzul talked sanely enough, mostly about hunting and blood-letting of a sterner kind, but you couldn't miss the wild gleam in his eye, or the fact that his evil temper was never far from the surface.

He was used to playing the tyrant, and only to young Ilderim, whom he adored, was he more than civil. He snarled at Gul from time to time, but the big man looked him in the eye and didn't seem put out.

That evening we dined in the Khan's presence chamber, sitting about on cushions forking with our fingers into the bowls of stew and rice and fruit, and drinking a pleasant Afghan liquor which had no great body to it. There would be about a dozen there, including Gul Shah, and after we had eaten and belched accordingly, Sher Afzul called for entertainment. This consisted of a good conjurer, and a few weedy youths with native flutes and tom-toms, and three or four dancing girls. I had pretended to be amused by the conjurer and musicians, but one of the dancing girls struck me as being worth more than a polite look: she was a glorious creature, very tall and long-legged, with a sulky, cold face and hair that had been dyed bright red and hung down in a tail to her backside. It was about all the covering she had; for the rest she wore satin trousers clasped low on her hips, and two brass breastplates which she removed at Sher Afzul's insistence.

He beckoned her to dance close in front of him, and the sight of the golden near-naked body writhing and quivering made me forget where I was for the moment. By the time she had finished her dance, with the tom-toms throbbing and the sweat glistening on her painted face, I must have been eating her alive with my eyes; as she salaamed to Sher Afzul he suddenly grabbed her by the arm and pulled her towards him, and I noticed Gul Shah lean forward suddenly on his cushion.

Sher Afzul saw it too, for he looked one way and the other, grinning wickedly, and with his free hand began to fondle the girl's body. She took it with a face like stone, but Gul was glowering like thunder. Sher Afzul cackled and said to me:

"You like her, Flashman bahadur? Is she the kind of she-cat you delight to scratch with? Here, then, she is yours!" And he shoved her so hard towards me that she fell headlong into my lap. I caught her, and with an oath Gul Shah was on his feet, his hand dropping to his hilt.

"She is not for any Frank dog," he shouted. "By God, is she not?" roared Sher Afzul. "Who says so?"

Gul Shah told him who said so, and there was a pretty little exchange which ended with Sher Afzul ordering him from the room -

and it seemed to me that the girl's eyes followed him with disappointment as he stamped off. Sher Afzul apologised for the disturbance, and said I must not mind Gul Shah, who was an impudent bastard, and very greedy where women were concerned. Did I like the girl? Her name was Narreeman, and if she did not please me I was not to hesitate to flog her to my heart's content.

All this, I saw, was deliberately aimed at Gul Shah, who presumably lusted after this female himself, thus giving Sher Afzul a chance to torment him. It was a dilemma for me: I had no desire to antagonise Gul Shah, but I could not afford to refuse Sher Afzul's hospitality, so to speak - also the hospitality was very warm and naked, and was lying across my lap, gasping still from the exertion of her dance, and causing me considerable excitement.

So I accepted at once, and waited impatiently while the time wore on with Sher Afzul talking interminably about his horses and his dogs and his falcons. At last it was over, and with Narreeman following I was conducted to the private room that had been allotted to me - it was a beautiful, balmy evening with the scents wafting in from the garden, and I was looking forward to a sleepless night. As it turned out, it was a tremendous sell, for she simply lay like a side of beef, staring at the roof as though I weren't there. I coaxed at first, and then threatened, and then taking Sher Afzul's advice I pulled her across my knees and smartened her up with my riding switch. At this she suddenly rounded on me like a panther, snarling and clawing, and narrowly missed raking my eyes. I was so enraged that I laid into her for all I was worth, but she fought like fury, naked as she was, and only when I got home a few good cuts did she try to run for it. I hauled her away from the door, and after a vicious struggle I managed to rape her - the only time in my life I have found it necessary, by the way. It has its points, but I shouldn't care to do it regularly. I prefer willing women.

Afterwards I shoved her out - I'd no wish to get a thumbnail in my eye during the night - and the guards took her away. She had not uttered a word the whole time.

Sher Afzul, seeing my scratched face in the morning, demanded details, and he and his toadies crowed which delight when I told them.

Gul Shah was not present, but I had no doubt willing tongues would bear the tale to him.

Not that I cared, and there I made a mistake. Gul was only a nephew of Sher Afzul, and a bastard at that, but he was a power among the Gilzais for his fighting skill, and was itching to topple old Sher Afzul and steal his throne. It would have been a poor look-out for the Kabul garrison if he had succeeded, for the Gilzais were trembling in the balance all the time about us, and Gul would have tipped the scale. He hated the British, and in Afzul's place would have closed the passes, even if it had meant losing the lakhs that were paid from India to keep them open. But Afzul, although ageing, was too tough and clever to be deposed just yet, and Ilderim, though only a boy, was well liked and regarded as certain to succeed him. And both of them were friendly, and could sway the other Gilzai chieftains.

A good deal of this I learned in the next two days, in which I and my party were the honoured guests of Mogala. I kept my eyes and ears open, and the Gilzais were most hospitable, from Afzul down to the villagers whose huts crouched outside the wall. This I will say for the Afghan - he is a treacherous, evil brute when he wants to be, but while he is your friend he is a first-rate fellow. The point is, you must judge to a second when he is going to cease to be friendly. There is seldom any warning.

Looking back, though, I can say that I probably got on better with the Afghans than most Britons do. I imagine Thomas Hughes would have said that in many respects of character I resembled them, and I wouldn't deny it. However it may be, I enjoyed those first two days: we had horse races and other riding competitions, and I earned a good deal of credit by showing them how a Persian pony can be put over the jumps. Then there was hawking, in which Sher Afzul was an adept, and tremendous feasting at nights, and Sher Afzul gave me another dancing girl, with much cackling and advice on how to manage her, which advice proved to be unnecessary.

But while it was pleasant enough, you could never for-get that in Afghanistan you are walking a knife-edge the whole time, and that these were cruel and blood-thirsty savages. Four men were executed on the second day, for armed robbery, in front of a delighted crowd in the courtyard, and a fifth, a petty chieftain, was blinded by Sher Afzul's physician. This is a common punishment among the Afghans: if a man is too important to be slaughtered like an ordinary felon, they take away his sight so that he can do no more harm. It was a sickening business, and one of my troopers got into a fight with a Gilzai over it, calling them filthy foreigners, which they could not understand. "A blind man is a dead man," was how they put it, and I had to make excuses to Sher Afzul and instruct Sergeant Hudson to give the trooper a punishment drill.

In all this I had nearly forgotten Gul Shah and the Narreeman affair, which was careless. I had my reminder on the third morning, when I was least expecting it.

Sher Afzul had said we must go boar-hunting, and we had a good hour's sport in the thicketed gullies of the Mogala valley, where the wild pigs bred. There were about twenty of us, including Hudson, Muhammed Iqbal and myself, with Sher Afzul directing operations. It was exciting work, but difficult in that close country, and we were frequently separated. Muhammed Iqbal and I made one sortie which took us well away from the main body, into a narrow defile where the forest ended, and there they were waiting for us - four horsemen, with spears couched, who made not a sound but thundered straight down on us. Instinctively I knew they were Gul's people, bent on murdering me

- and no doubt compromising Sher Afzul with the British at the same time.

Iqbal, being a Pathan and loving a fight, gave a yell of delight,

"Come on, huzoor!" and went for them. I didn't hesitate; if he wanted to take on odds it was his affair; I wheeled my pony and went hell-for-leather for the forest, with one eye cocked over my shoulder for safety.

Whether he realised I was leaving him alone, I don't know; it wouldn't have made any difference to him. Like me, he had a lance, but in addition he had a sword and pistol in his belt, so he got rid of the lance at once, hurling it into the chest of the leading Gilzai, and driving into the other three with his sabre swinging. He cut one down, but the other two swerved past him - it was me they wanted.

I dug my spurs in as they came tearing after me, with Iqbal wheeling after them in turn. He was bawling at me to turn and fight, the fool, but I had no thought but to get away from those hellish lance-points and the wolf-like bearded faces behind them. I rode like fury -

and then the pony stumbled and I went over his head, crashing into the bushes and finishing up on pile of stones with all the breath knocked out of me.

The bushes saved me, for the Gilzais couldn't come at me easily.

They had to swerve round the clump, and I scrambled behind a tree.

One of the ponies reared up and nearly knocked the other off balance; the rider yelled and had to drop his lance to save being thrown, and then Iqbal was on them, howling his war-cry. The Gilzai who was clutching his pony's mane was glaring at me and cursing, and suddenly the snarling face was literally split down the middle as Iqbal's sabre came whistling down on his head, shearing through cap and skull as if they had been putty. The other rider, who had been trying to get in a thrust at me round the tree-trunk, wheeled as Iqbal wrenched his sword free, and the pair of them closed as their ponies crashed into each other.

For one cursing, frantic moment they were locked together, Iqbal trying to get his point into the other's side, and the Gilzai with his dagger out, thrusting at Iqbal's body. I heard the thuds as the blows struck, and Iqbal shouting: "Huzoor! huzoor!" and then the ponies parted and the struggling men crashed into the dust.

From behind my tree I suddenly noticed that my lance was lying within a yard of me, where it had dropped in my fall. Why I didn't follow the instinct of a lifetime and simply run for it and leave them to fight it out, I don't know - probably I had some thought of possible disgrace. Anyway, I darted out and grabbed the lance, and as the Gilzai struggled uppermost and raised his bloody knife, I jammed the lance-point squarely into his back. He screamed and dropped the knife, and then lurched into the dust, kicking and clutching, and died.

Iqbal tried to struggle up, but he was done for. His face was grey, and there was a great crimson stain welling through his shirt. He was glaring at me, and as I ran to him he managed to rear up on one elbow.

"Soor kabaj," he gasped. "Ya, huzoor! Soor kabaj!"

Then he groaned and fell back, but as I knelt over him his eyes opened for a moment, and he gave a little moan and spat in my face, as best he could. So he died, calling me "son of a swine" in Hindi, which is the Muslim's crowning insult. I saw his point of view, of course.

So there I was, and there also were five dead men - at least, four were dead and the one whom Iqbal had sabred first was lying a little way up the defile, groaning with the side of his skull split. I was shaken by my fall and the scuffle, but it came to me swiftly that the quicker that one breathed his last, the better, so I hurried up with my lance, took a rather unsteady aim, and drove it into his throat. And I had just jerked it out, and was surveying the shambles, when there was a cry and a clatter of hooves, and Sergeant Hudson came galloping out of the wood.

He took it in at a glance - the corpses, the blood-stained ground, and the gallant Flashy standing in the middle, the sole survivor. But like the competent soldier he was, as soon as he realised that I was all right, he went round the bodies, to make sure no one was playing possum. He whistled sadly over Iqbal, and then said quietly: "Orders sir?"

I was getting my wind and my senses back, and wondering what to do next. This was Gul's work, I was sure, but what would Sher Afzul do about it? He might argue that here was his credit destroyed with the British anyway, and make the best of a bad job by cutting all our throats. This was a happy thought, but before I had time to digest it there was a crashing and hallooing in the woods, and out came the rest of the hunting party, with Afzul at their head.

Perhaps my fear sharpened my wits - it often does. But I saw in a flash that the best course was to take a damned high hand. So before they had done more than shout their astonishment and call on the name of God and come piling off their ponies, I had strode forward to where Afzul was sitting his horse, and I shook the bloody lance point under his nose.

"Gilzai hospitality!" I roared. "Look on it! My servant murdered, myself escaped by a miracle! Is this Gilzai honour?"

He glared at me like someone demented, his mouth working horribly, and for a minute I thought we were done for. Then he covered his face with his hands, and began bawling about shame and disgrace and the guests who had eaten his salt. He was mad enough at the moment, I think, and probably a good thing too, for he kept wailing on in the same strain, and tearing at his beard, and finally he rolled out of the saddle and began beating at the ground. His creatures hurried round him, lamenting and calling on Allah - all except young Ilderim, who simply gazed at the carnage and said:

"This is Gul Shah's doing, my father!" This brought old Afzul up short, and he set off on a new tack, raving about how he would tear out Gul's eyes and entrails and hang him on hooks to die by inches, and more excellent ideas. I turned my back on him, and mounted the pony which Hudson had brought, and at this Afzul came hurrying up to me, and grabbed my boot, and swore, with froth on his lips, that this assault on my person and his honour would be most horribly avenged.

"My person is my affair," says I, very British-officer-like, "and your honour is yours. I accept your apology."

He raved some more at this, and then began imploring me to tell him what he could do to put things right. He was in a rare taking for his honour - and no doubt his subsidy - and swore that anything I named should be done: only let him and his be forgiven.

"My life! My son's life! Tribute, treasure, Flashman bahadur!

Hostages! I will go to McNaghten huzoor, and humble myself! I will pay!"

He went babbling on, until I cut him short by saying that we did not accept such things as payment for debts of honour. But I saw that I had better go a little easier while his mood lasted, so I ended by saying that, but for the death of my servant, it was a small matter, and we would put it from our minds.

"But you shall have pledges of my honour!" cries he. "Aye, you shall see that the Gilzai pay the debt! In God's name! My son, my son Ilderim, I will give as a hostage to you! Carry him to McNaghten huzoor, as a sign of his father's faith! Let me not be shamed, Flashman huzoor, in my old age!"

Now this business of hostages was a common one with the Afghans, and it seemed to me that it had great advantages in this case.

With Ilderim in my keeping, it wasn't likely that this hysterical old lunatic, when his madness took a new turn, would try any mischief.

And young Ilderim looked pleased enough at the idea; he was probably thinking of the excitement of going to Kabul, and seeing the great Queen's army, and riding with it, too, as my protege.

So there and then I took Sher Afzul at his word, and swore that the dishonour would be wiped out, and Ilderim would ride with me until I released him. At this the old Khan grew maudlin, and hauled out his Khyber knife and made Ilderim swear on it that he would be my man, which he did, and there was general rejoicing, and Sher Afzul went round and kicked all the corpses of the Gilzais and called on God to damn them good and proper. After which we rode back to Mogala, and I resisted the old Khan's entreaties to stay longer in proof of friendship: I had orders, I said, and must go back to Kabul. It would not do, I added, for me to linger when I had so important a hostage as the son of the Khan of Mogala to take back.

He took this most seriously, and swore that his son would go as befitted a prince (which was stretching it a bit), and gave him a dozen Gilzai riders as escort, to stay with him and me. So there was more oath-swearing, and Sher Afzul finished up in excellent humour, vowing it was an honour to the Gilzais to serve such a splendid warrior as Flashman huzoor, who had accounted for four enemies single-handed (Iqbal being conveniently forgotten), and who would forever be dear to the Gilzais for his courage and magnanimity. As proof of which he would send me Gul Shah's ears, nose, eyes, and other essential organs as soon as he could lay hold of them.

So we left Mogala, and I had collected a personal following of Afghan tribesmen, and a reputation, as a result of the morning's work.

The twelve Gilzais and Ilderim were the best things I found in Afghanistan, and the nickname "Bloody Lance", which Sher Afzul conferred, did me no harm either. Incidentally, as a result of all this Sher Afzul was keener than ever to maintain his alliance with the British, so my mission was a success as well. I was pretty pleased with myself as we set off for Kabul.

Of course, I had not forgotten that I had also made an outstanding enemy in Gul Shah. How bitter an enemy I was to find out in time.

Any excitement that the affair at Mogala might have caused in Kabul when we got back and told our tale was overshadowed by the arrival on the same day of the new army commander, General Elphinstone, my chief and sponsor. I was piqued at the time, for I thought I had done pretty well, and was annoyed to find that no one thought my skirmish with the Gilzais and securing of hostages worth more than a cocked eyebrow and an "Oh, really?"