Flashman And The Tiger

What is it like to be run through? I’ll tell you. For an instant, nothing. Then a hideous, tearing agony for another instant—and then nothing again, as you see the blade withdrawn and the blood welling on your shirt, for the pain is lost in shock and disbelief as your eyes meet your assailant’s. It’s a long moment, that, in which you realise that you ain’t dead, and that he’s about to launch another thrust to finish you—and it’s remarkable how swiftly you can move then, with a hole clean through you from front to back, about midway between your navel and your hip, and spouting gore like a pump. (It don’t hurt half as much as a shot through the hand, by the way; that’s the real gyp.)

Well, I moved, as Starnberg whirled up his sabre for a cut, and the pain returned with such a sickening spasm that I was near paralysed, and what should have been a backward spring became an agonised stagger, clutching my belly and squealing (appropriately) like a stuck pig. His cut came so close that the point ripped my sleeve, and then the back of my thighs struck something solid, and I went arse over tip into one of the bogie trucks standing on the rails—and the force of my arrival must have jolted its ancient wheels loose from the dust of ages, for the dam' thing began to move.

For a moment all the sense was jarred out of me, and then Willem shouted—with laughter!—and through waves of pain I remembered that the rails ran slightly downwards from the tunnel mouth, and that the bogie must be rolling, slowly at first but with increasing momentum, towards that ghastly oubliette where the rails ended.

If I’ve sinned in my time, wouldn’t you say I’ve paid for it? There I was, on the broad of my back, legs in the air, leaking blood by the pint with my guts on Are, confined by the sides of the truck, helpless as a beetle on a card as I trundled towards certain death. Bellowing with pain and panic, I grabbed for the top of one side, missed my hold, regained it with a frantic clutch, and heaved myself up bodily with an agonising wrench to my wound. I had a glimpse of Willem shouting in glee—I won’t swear he didn’t flourish his sabre in a farewell salute, the gloating kite—and as I tried to heave myself clear the confounded truck lurched, throwing me off balance, it was gathering speed, bumping and swaying over the last few yards of track, and as the front wheels went over the edge with a grating crash I tumbled over the side, my shoulder hit the stone with a numbing jar—and my legs were kicking in empty air! I flailed my arms for a hold on the stone, and by the grace of God my left hand fell on the nearside rail, and I was hanging on for dear life, my chest on the stone, my bleeding belly below the brink of the chasm, and the rest of me dangling into the void.

Far below the falling truck was crashing against the rock walls, but I’ll swear it made less noise than I did. Feeling my grip slide on the worn wood, I fairly made the welkin ring, striving and failing to haul myself up, getting my numbed right forearm on to the surface, but powerless to gain another inch, my whole right side throbbing with pain … and Willem was striding towards me, sabre in hand, grinning with unholy delight as he came to a halt above me. And then he hunkered down, and (it’s gospel true) spoke the words which were a catchphrase of my generation, employed facetiously when some terrible crisis was safely past:

"Will you have nuts or a cigar, sir?"

I doubt if the noise I made in reply was a coherent request for assistance, for my sweating grasp was slipping on the rail, I was near fainting with my wound, and already falling in tortured imagination into the stygian bowels of the Saltzkammergut. But he got the point, I’m sure, for he stared into my eyes, and then that devilish, mocking smile spread over his young face … and what he did then you may believe or not, as you will, but if you doubt me … well, you didn’t know Willem von Starnberg, or Rudi, for that matter.

He rested on one knee, laid down his sabre, and his right hand closed on my left wrist like a vice, even as my fingers slipped from the rail. With his left hand he brought his cigarette case from his breast pocket, selected one of his funereal smokes, pushed it between my yammering lips, struck a match, and said amiably:

"No cigar, alas … but a last cigarette for the condemned man, what?"