Flashman And The Tiger

We’d risen well before dawn and made a hurried breakfast—schnapps, mostly, for me, in a futile attempt to steady my nerves—and Kralta was on hand to bid the warriors farewell. Her cheek was like ice when she kissed me, but her lips were hungry enough, and there was moisture in the cold blue eyes and strain showing on the long proud face. She was anxious for me, you see, the besotted little aristo—it’s remarkable how even the most worldly of women can be rendered maudlin by Adam’s arsenal. Willem was impatient to be off, and it was more to annoy him than to comfort her that I folded her in a lingering embrace, squeezing her bottom as I assured her that we’d be back in fine trim in a day or two, and then Vienna, ha-ha!

The sun was not yet up, and autumn mist was wreathing over the waters of the Ischl as we crossed the bridges, deserted at that hour, and mounted the slope towards the woods, skirting well to the right of the royal lodge, which lay silent among its surrounding trees; a cock was crowing somewhere, the dew was thick on the short grass, and there was that tang in the nostrils that comes only at daybreak. We were attired as tourist walkers, in tweeds, boots and gaiters, Willem carrying a rucksack and I a flask and sandwich-case, and it was only when we had reached the higher woods and paused to look back at the lodge, and beyond and beneath it the distant roofs of Ischl town, gilded now by the first rays of the rising sun, that it struck me I was without one necessary item of equipment. When, I asked, was I to be armed for the fray?

"Not yet awhile," smiles Willem. "Remember that presently you’re going to be a limping invalid, who’s sure to be examined by a doctor, and we don’t want him blundering through your clobber and finding the likes of these, do we?" He opened the rucksack to display two revolvers, a Webley and a LeVaux. "I like an English piece myself, but the LeVaux' s neat enough for your pocket and fires a .45 slug, guaranteed to give any marauder the deuce of a bellyache. Take your choice."

Without thinking, I indicated the LeVaux … and so saved my life, and Franz-Josef’s, and heaven knows how many million other lives as well. If I’d chosen the Webley, Europe would probably have gone to war in ’83. Think I’m stretching? Wait and see.

"We’ll have twenty rounds apiece," says Willem, stowing away the guns. "If we need more … then we shall also need the Austrian army." His impatience had gone now that we were under way, and he was in that insufferably jocular mood that his father had affected whenever dirty work was imminent. "Now, ’twill be curtain up in a little while, so let’s rehearse our cues, shall we?"

We found a dry fallen tree trunk in the margin of the woods, and he repeated in detail the mad procedure which he’d described on the train, and again at the Golden Ship. It still sounded devilish chancy—suppose Franz-Josef hadn’t got up this morning, or didn’t invite us to stay, what then? I asked. He shook his head as at a mistrustful child, and was just assuring me patiently that it would all fall out precisely as the genius Otto had forecast, when from somewhere in the woods above us there came the distant sound of a gunshot.

"There, you see!" cries he, springing afoot. "Our royal host is doin' the local chamois a piece of no good!"

"How d’ye know it’s him? It might be anyone!"

"It might be the Aston Villa brake-club picnic, but I doubt it! In the Emperor’s personal woods?" He swung up his rucksack and plunged into the trees. "Come on!"

We pushed rapidly uphill into the woods, down into a little hollow, and up again over a steep stony place, and now there came two shots in quick succession, much closer and off to our left.

"Wait here!" says Willem, and was off into the undergrowth at a run. I breathed myself against a tree, debating whether to rush blindly downhill away from this fatal nonsense, remembered Hutton and the Queen, and stood there sweating and gnashing my teeth—and here he was again, face alight with unholy joy, slithering towards me over the fallen leaves and needles.

"Eureka! He’s there, large as life, havin' a smoke while his loader measures the horns of some dead beast which I suppose he’s shot! Couldn’t be better!" He caught me by the shoulder. "Now’s the hour, Harry my boy! This is where you rick your ankle, and I holler for help! Ready?"

"You’re raving mad!" says I, through chattering teeth. "You and Bismarck both—oh, Christ!"

For the swine had fetched me a sudden shattering kick above the ankle, and I went down in agony, fairly writhing on the leaves as I clutched my injured limb and damned him to Hell and beyond. It was as though I’d been shot—and he stepped over me, measured his distance, and kicked me savagely again, in almost the same place.

"If you’ve hurt yourself, the medico’s got to have somethin' to look at, you know!" grins he. "Not so loud, you ass, or they’ll think you’re dyin' ! Groan, and try to look gallantly long-sufferin'!"