Flashman And The Tiger

So you understand why I say it takes a deal of thought before you determine to go after a man like that with fatal intent, knowing that your speed and cunning have been undermined by a lifetime of booze and evil living and your white hair’s coming out in handfuls. Dammit, I wouldn’t have tackled him in my prime, when I had size and strength and viciousness to set in the balance against my yellow belly. But there I was, a hoary old grandfather, full of years and dignity and undeserved military honours, with my knighthood and V.C., as respectable an old buffer as ever shuffled down St James’s with a flower in my buttonhole, pausing only to belch claret or exchange grave salutes with Cabinet Ministers and clubmen ("Why, there’s old General Flashman," they’d say, "dear old Sir Harry—wonderful how he keeps going. They say it’s the brandy that does it; grand old chap he is." That was all they knew.) But there I was, I say, at a time when I ought to have had nothing to do but drink my way gently towards an honoured grave, spend my wife’s fortune, gorge at the best places, leer at the young women, and generally enjoy a dissolute old age—and suddenly, I had to kill Tiger Jack. Nothing else for it.

What brought the beads out on my withered brow more than anything else was my recollection of our first meeting, so many years before, when I’d seen for myself what an ice-cold killing villain he was—aye, and it was in a place where sheer cool nerve and skill with a gun were the narrow margin between escape and horrible death. You’ll remember the name: Isan’lwana. I can see it still, the great jagged rock of the "Little House" rearing up above the stony, sun-baked African. plain, the scattered lines of our red-coated infantry, joking and cat-calling among themselves as they waited for the ammunition that never came; the red-capped Natal Kaffirs scurrying back to take their positions on the rocky slope; a black-tunicked rider of Frontier Horse leaping the gun limbers bellowing a fatuous order to laager the wagons, which went unheeded and was too late by hours; Pulleine fumbling with his field-glasses and shouting hoarsely: "Is that a rider from Lord Chelmsford?"; a colour-sergeant frantically hammering at the lid of an ammunition box; the puffs of smoke from our advanced line firing steadily at the Zulu skirmishers; the rattle of musketry over the ridge to the left; the distant figures of Dumford’s men on the right flank falling back, firing as they came; a voice croaking: "Oh, dear God Almighty!"—and it was mine, as I looked nor’east over the ranks of the 24th, and saw the skyline begin to move, like a brown blanket stirred by something beneath it, and then all along the crest there was the rippling, twinkling flash of thousands of spear-points, and a limitless line of white and coloured shields with nodding plumes behind them, rank after rank, and down the forward slope came the black spilling tide of Ketshwayo’s impis, twenty thousand savages rolling towards our pitiful position with its far-stretched line of defenders, Death sweeping towards us at that fearful thunderous jog-trot that made the earth tremble beneath our very feet, while the spears crashed on the ox-hide shields, and the dust rolled up in a bank before them as they chanted out their terrible bass chorus: "Uzitulele, kagali ’muntu!"—which, you’ll be enchanted to know, means roughly: "He is silent, he doesn’t start the attack."

Which was a bloody lie, from where I was standing petrified, and the horrible thing was, I wasn’t even in the Army, but was there by pure chance (how, exactly, I’ll tell you another time). Much consolation that was, you can imagine, as that frightful black horde came surging across the plain towards our makeshift camp beneath Isan’lwana rock, the great mass in the centre coming on in perfect formation while the flank regiments raced out in the "horns" which would encircle our position. And there was poor old Flashy, caught behind the companies of the 24th as they poured their volley-firing into the "chest" of the Zulu army, cheering and shouting for the ammunition-carriers, and Durnford' s bald forehead glinting in the sun above his splendid whiskers as he pulled his men back to the donga and blazed away at the left "horn" sweeping in towards them.