Flashman And The Tiger

Before I could speak, Joe got his word in. "Short notice—" he was beginning, and got no further.

"When did he ever need notice? Some notice he had at Pekin, didn’t he? Remember, Garnet? Or at Balaclava, or Cawnpore, or Kabul!" He wasn’t soft-spoken at the best of times, and in his excitement he was almost shouting, and passengers were turning to stare at us. "He don’t need more than a word and a clear road! Do you?"

This was desperate, but the suddenness of it all still had me at a loss for words—that was the effect that Gordon had, you know, when he was in full cry. He was all over you, beating you down by his vanity-fed fervour, blind to everything but his own point of view. Five minutes ago I’d been carelessly eyeing a jaunty backside while Fred or Ginger looked for my luggage—and now I was being dragooned into God knew what horror by this arrogant zealot—and they called the Mahdi a fanatic!

"Hold on, Charley!" I blurted out. "I … I’m looking for my traps, dammit! And … and I haven’t seen my wife yet, or … or—"

"Your traps can be sent on!" cries he. "Why, you’re all packed! And Wolseley’ll make your excuses at home, won’t you, Garnet? We shan’t be away forever, you know. Besides," cries he merrily, "if I know bonny Elspeth she’ll never let you hear the last of it if you don’t fall in now! Why, if she were here she’d be bustling you aboard!"

That was the God’s truth, by the way. Duty was Elspeth’s watch-word, especially when it was my duty—hadn’t she shot me off to India more than once, weeping, I grant you (though what she’d been up to with those grinning Frogs after Madagascar, once I’d been despatched to the cannon’s mouth, I didn’t care to imagine). But just the thought of her now, not a couple of miles away, and the radiant smile and glad cry with which she’d run to me, lovelier by far than those stale loves I’d been wasting my time on for weeks past, and her adoring blue eyes … no, the hell with Gordon, the selfish lunatic, having the impudence to buttonhole me in this outrageous fashion! And I was bracing myself to put my foot down when Cambridge spoke.

"Irregular, I suppose," says he, shaking his fat head—but not in denial. "But, even so … well, nothing to hinder … if you’re sure, Gordon?"

"Of course I’m sure!" He always was, and not about to have his judgment questioned by a mere grandson of George the Third. He was absolutely frowning at them—the Army commander, the Foreign Secretary, and the greatest soldier of the age (who was carrying his bag for him, God love me!)[24] And they were helpless, glancing resignedly at each other and apologetically at me—because he was Gordon, you see. What he was doing wouldn’t have washed with them for a moment, if he had been any other man. But then, no other man would have done it.

Granville was raising his fine brows in a why-not fashion. "It rests with Colonel Flashman, of course." There was a silence, and then Joe Wolseley gave me a shrug and a nod. "I’d be only too glad … to explain to Lady Flashman, if you …" He left it there.

They were all looking at me … and I knew it was all up. It was appalling, and beyond belief, and no fate was too dreadful for Gordon, damn his arrogant confidence as he stood there smiling triumphantly … but I knew, as I’d known so often, what the answer must be. The Great Christian Hero had tapped my shoulder and I’d never live it down if I refused. I could have wept at the cruelty of the malign fate that had guided me to Platform Three at that hour—ten minutes later, and the blasted train would have been away, carrying Gordon to Hell or Honolulu for all I cared.

But when the cards are dealt, you must play ’em—and with style, for your reputation’s sake. Flashy has his own way of bowing t o the inevitable—and I knew dam' well it would run round Horse Guards and the clubs like wildfire in the morning …

"I say—you know Chinese Gordon’s gone to the Sudan? Fact and taken Flashman with him! Met him quite by chance at the station, told Wolseley and Cambridge he must have him along."

Appendix

The Emperor Franz-Josef (1830-1916) and Empress Elisabeth (1837-1898)