The discovery that you’ve been sold a pup is always disconcerting, but your reaction depends on age and experience. In infancy you burst into tears and smash something; in adolescence you may be bewildered (as I was when Lady Geraldine lured me into the long grass on false pretence and then set about me with carnal intent, hurrah!); in riper manhood common sense usually tells you to bolt, which was my instinct on the Pearl River when I learned that my lorcha was carrying not opium, as I’d supposed, but guns for the Taiping rebels. But at sixty-one your brain works faster than your legs, so you reflect, and as often as not reach the right answer by intuition as well as reason.
Kneeling in that cold shadowy chamber, goggling at those five useless rounds gleaming in the dim lamplight, I knew in a split second that Willem himself was the assassin, not the guardian, and now that I’d served my turn by helping him to within striking distance of the Emperor, he’d rendered me powerless to intervene in his murderous scheme. But it was a staggering thought – dammit, why should he, a German Junker, a trusted agent of Bismarck, want to kill Franz-Josef, doing the dirty work of Hungarian fanatics like Kossuth and the Holnup? … Kossuth, by God! That was the bell that rang to confirm my conclusion, as I remembered him telling me on the train that his own mother’s name was Kossuth, and that he was part-Hungarian by blood. Aye, and pure Hungarian, devil a doubt, in heart and soul and allegiance, flown with the wild dream of independence for his mother country, and itching to fire the shot or wield the steel that would set her free – and plunge Europe into civil war.
All this surmised in an instant, and whether ’twas all another great devilment of Bismarck’s, or whether Bismarck was guiltless and Willem had duped him as he’d duped me, didn’t matter. One thing was sure: I was implicated up to the neck, and as I knelt there sweating my imagination was picturing Willem out yonder, full of spite and sin, disposing of the hapless sentry, humouring the lock of the secret door, stealing up the secret stair knife in hand to the room where his royal victim was asleep … or dead already? I glanced in terror towards the passage entry – quick or dead, Franz-Josef was within forty feet of me … oh, Christ, how long had Willem been gone? I didn’t know. Was it too late to stop him? Perhaps not … but that was no work for me, bigod, not if I’d had ten loaded pistols and the Royal Marines at my back; not for Franz-Josef and a dozen like him would I have gone up against Willem von Starnberg, and as for Europe … but even as I took the first instinctive stride of panic-stricken flight, I came to a shuddering halt as the awful truth struck me.
I couldn’t run! It would be certain death, for if Willem had killed, or was about to kill, the Emperor, I’d be seen as his partner in crime, and while he would have his own escape nicely planned, I’d not have the ghost of a chance of avoiding capture, with the whole country on the look-out. And I’d never persuade them I was an innocent tool, or acting under orders from Downing Street – why, it was odds on I’d be shot on sight or cut down on the spot before I could utter a word in my defence.
I didn’t faint at the thought, but only the knowledge that I must act at once enabled me to fight down my mounting panic. Should I raise the alarm? God, no, I daren’t, for if Franz-Josef was already a goner, I’d be cooked. The only hope was that Willem hadn’t done for him yet, and that I could still … and that was when my legs almost gave way, and I found myself fairly sobbing with fear, for I knew I must go out into the ghastly dark, and find the murderous bastard and kill or disable him … why, even if Franz-Josef was already tuning up with the choir invisible I might wriggle clear if I could show that I’d flown to the rescue … too late, alas … oh Jesus, they’d never believe me!
“I’m innocent, gentlemen, I swear it!” I was bleating it softly in the darkness, and time was racing by, and I’d nothing but an empty pistol … but suppose Willem was still picking the lock, or waiting for moon-set, or for his Holnup confederates to arrive, or pausing to relieve himself or have a smoke, or for any other reason you like, and I could just steel myself to sally forth and find him, whispering raucously to identify myself … well, he might wonder what the blazes I was about, but he’d not shoot before asking questions … and I still had the seaman’s knife I’d slipped into my boot on the Orient Express, and he’d be off guard (just as his father had been when I’d parted his hair with the cherry brandy bottle) – he might even turn his back on me … well, it was that or the hangman’s rope, unless they still went in for beheading in Austria.
On that happy thought I put up my empty piece, transferred the knife from my boot to my pocket, and crept as fast as might be down the stairs with my heart against my back teeth. There was the window, pale in the gloom; I slipped over the sill to the ground … and realised I’d no notion where the sundial corner was. I forced myself to envisage the house from above … there was the Emperor’s room, here was I, on t’other side, and there the guardroom by the front porch, so I must make my way cautiously by the back.
There was still faint moonlight, casting shadows from the trees and bushes, and the loom of the house just visible to guide me as I crept along, my fingers brushing the ivy. In my imagination the undergrowth was full of mad Hungarians waiting to leap out and knife me, and once I rose like a startled grouse as an owl hooted only a few yards away. Round one corner, peering cautiously, along the wall towards another – and there was something glittering in the dark off to one side, and I saw that it was the moonlight on a little puddle of rainwater that had collected on what might well be the surface of a sundial. And in that moment, from just beyond the corner I was approaching, came a sound that sent shivers down my spine – a faint clicking noise of metal, and the rustle of someone moving. I tried to whisper, and failed, gulped, and tried again.
“Willem! Are you there? It’s me, Harry!”
Dead silence save for the pounding of my heart, and then the faintest of sounds, a foot scraping the ground, and after what seemed an age, Willem’s whisper:
“Was ist das? Harry, is that you?”
He was still outside! Relief flooded through me – to be followed by a drench of fear at the thought of what I must do. I drew the knife from my pocket, holding it against my thigh, and edged my way round the corner. The ivy was thick on the wall just there, but there was light enough to see a dark opening a couple of yards ahead – the recess of the secret doorway, and just within it the pale outline of a face. I took another step, and the face hissed at me.
“What the hell are you doing here?” In his agitation he lapsed into German. “Stimmi etwas nicht? What’s up, man?”
Where the inspiration came from, God knows. “The Emperor ain’t in bed!” I whispered hoarsely. “He … he got up! His aides made a din, and woke him!”
“Arschloch!” Whether he meant me or Franz-Josef I can’t say, but it was enough to assure me I was right: he was bent on murder, for if he’d been the innocent guardian, why the deuce should he care whether the Emperor was abed or not? The clicking I’d heard must have been his working on the lock … Gad, if he decided to give up for the night, I might not have to risk attacking him … I could pour out my tale to the Emperor in the morning, denouncing Willem, clearing myself … a whirlwind of wild hopes, you see, as I crouched peering at the dim face a yard away, near soiling myself in agitation, and then those hopes were dashed as he spoke again, soft and steady.
“Back inside with you! He’s bound to go back to bed presently – and they may still come! Go on, man, be off, quickly!”
And leave you to unpick the lock and do your business, thinks I. There was only one thing for it. I gripped the hilt hard, stepping closer, and as he opened his mouth to speak again I struck upwards, going for his throat, he ducked like lightning, the blade drove past, missing by an inch, his hand clamped on my wrist, and as he twisted and I strove to wrench free, clawing fingers came out of the darkness on my right, fumbling for my throat, a fist smashed against my left temple, and I was hurled backwards and flung to the turf, pinned helpless by a massive body while another seized my legs, and a great stinking paw closed on my mouth – they must have been there, unseen in the gloom, his Holnup accomplices springing into action with the speed and silence of expert bravos. I struggled like be-damned, expecting to feel the agonising bite of steel, but it didn’t come; the hands on my mouth and throat tightened, and I felt rather than saw a bearded face snarling into mine in what may have been Hungarian; above us in the dark voices were whispering urgently – Willem seemed to be giving orders, and for an instant the hand lifted from my mouth, but before I could find the breath to bellow a cloth was thrust between my teeth and I was heaved over on to my face and my wrists pinioned behind me.
Meanwhile the debate overhead was deteriorating into agitated bickering, and since some of it was in German and my mind was most wonderfully concentrated, I gathered that Willem didn’t know why I’d attacked him, and didn’t care, but if the Emperor was up and about they’d best ignore the secret stair and invade the house in force; no, no, says another, the Englander’s lying, they always do, and storming the house was too haphazard and the aroused guardroom would be too many for them, to which a third voice said the hell with such timidity, their lives would be well lost if they could only settle Franz-Josef – there’s always one like that, you know, full of patriotic lunacy, and good luck to him.
The heavyweight atop of me weighed in with the sensible suggestion that since subduing me had caused enough row to wake the dead, they should give over and come back tomorrow, but before this could be put to the vote he was proved right by a challenge from the darkness, a bawled order, the pounding of boots, and a stentorian command to stand in the name of the Emperor. Willem exclaimed: “Mist!”, his Webley cracked, there was a yell of pain, and then bedlam ensued, with shots and oaths and screams, the dark was split by flashes of fire, I heard a clash of steel, my incubus arose bawling in several languages and blazing away, and I hastened to improve my position by scrambling up, inadvertently butting him in the crotch. He fell away, howling, and I managed to gain my feet and would have been going like a stag for the safety of the shrubbery if he hadn’t staggered into me, bewailing his damaged courting tackle, and I fell full length, only to rise again on stepping-stones of my terrified self, but not alas to higher things, for something caught me an excruciating clout on the back of the skull, and the din of shots and shouting faded as I fell again, this time into merciful unconsciousness.
I suppose I’ve been laid out, and come to with a head throbbing like an engine-room, more often than most fellows, and can testify that while one descent into oblivion is much like another, there are two kinds of awakening. After a dizzy moment in which you recall your last conscious memory and wonder where the devil you are, realisation dawns – and it may be blissful, as at Jallalabad or in the cave in the Bighorn Mountains, when I knew that the hell and horror were behind me, and it was bed-time and all well – or you may come round hanging by the heels from a cottonwood with the Apache Ladies Sewing Circle preparing to tickle your fancy, or strapped over a cannon muzzle with the gunners blowing on their fuses.
Having known the last two I can tell you that waking to find yourself bound hand and foot on a camp-bed underground, while alarming, ain’t too bad by comparison, and when your smiling captor inquires after your health and offers refreshment … well, hope springs eternal, you know. For Willem von Starnberg was bending over me, all solicitude and sounding absolutely light-hearted.
“The guv’nor was right, ‘Never forget that fellows like Flashman always come at you when least expected, usually from behind.’ Should ha’ paid more attention to the old chap, shouldn’t I?” He put a hand behind my head, and I yelped hoarsely. “Splittin’ to beat the band, eh? No wonder, Zoltan fetched you a dooce of a clip; you’ve been limp as a dead fish for hours. Care for some schnapps?”
“Where the hell am I? What … what’s happened?” My voice came out in a quavering croak as he removed the flask from my lips, and as I struggled into a sitting position with his help, my questions trailed off in amazement as I took in my surroundings.
We were alone, in an enormous cavern of what looked like limestone, grey stone at any rate, but with an odd sheen to its towering walls. We were at one end, close by the black mouth of a tunnel from which ran wooden rails bearing a couple of ancient wheeled bogie trucks; the rails ran for about thirty yards into the cave to what looked like a cleft in the floor, and there must have been a bridge once, for I could see that the rails continued on the other side of the cleft before being lost in the gloom. The place was like some cathedral made by nature, huge and empty and utterly silent, and staring up I saw that high overhead there was a fissure in the roof fringed by a tangle of growth from the world outside, and this was the only source of light, glistening dimly on those gigantic smooth curving walls. The floor of the cavern was smooth too, and innocent of loose rocks or rubble, as though some giant housekeeper had swept the great chamber clean.
But the wonder of the place, that made me catch my breath even in my groggy condition, was the little lake that covered almost half the cavern floor on the far side away from the rails. Very well, ’twas only water, a natural bath in the stone, but never was water so still or clear or silent. The surface was like glass, extending perhaps thirty yards in length by twenty across to the far wall, and in its crystal depths, undisturbed by current or eddy, you could make out every detail of the stone bottom ten feet down, as though no water had been there at all. No fish could have swum in it, or weeds grown; it was immaculate, like some enchanted mere of fairy tale, an ice-witch’s mirror in the heart of a magic mountain.
Only by the tunnel mouth where I lay were there signs of human occupation: a rough stone fireplace and utensils, palliasses and camp-beds, plain chairs and table, a couple of packing-cases, and a litter of stores and gear. But like ourselves, these worldly things seemed out of place and dwarfed in the awful majesty of the cavern. The cold was fit to freeze you to the bone.
“You’re in an old salt-mine in the Saltzkammergut, in the mountains above Ischl,”19 says Willem. “Jolly little tomb, ain’t it? Hark-away!” He had raised his voice, and the echo came back in an eerie whisper, “hark-away … away … away …”, fading ever so softly in the unseen reaches of the cavern. He stood cocking an appreciative ear, very trim in riding boots, breeches, and shooting jacket, and none the worse, it seemed, for the free-for-all shooting match which was the last thing I remembered.
“We’re near the surface here,” says he, “but God knows how far the tunnels go below. The place hasn’t been worked for years. D’ye know, when I was a nipper I pictured salt-mines as hellish places where slaves with red-rimmed eyes waded knee-deep in the stuff. But it’s rather grand and spooky, don’t you think? Splendid bolt-hole, too, for clandestine plotters like the Holnup. My lads were camped here for a week, but I’ve had to send ’em off now, thanks to you.” He perched on a packing-case, cradling his knee, and gave me his quizzy look. “When did you twig I was the fox at the hen-roost, then?”
“Cut me loose first!” croaks I, but he only grinned and repeated the question, so I told him about finding the tampered cartridges, and he swore and slapped his thigh, laughing.
“I’ll be damned! That’s what comes o’ bein’ too clever by half – oh, and bein’ in awe of your fearsome reputation! Ironic, ain’t it? I gave you a harmless pistol by way of insurance, but if I’d given you a loaded one, Franz-Josef would have been with his fathers by now. Or if you’d come on the scene a minute later, even … oh, aye, we had the lock picked and I was about to go aloft when you arrived with your little snickersnee, curse you, and then that damned sergeant and his sentries, and we had to shoot our way clear, and lost two good men – one of ’em your pal Gunther, you’ll be desolated to learn. Ah, well, c’est la guerre!”
You’d have thought he was describing a rag in the dormitory, chuckling with hardly a sign of irritation. Oh, he was Rudi’s boy all right, cool as a trout and regarding me with amusement.
“So there it is!” cries he. “Franz-Josef lives on, two of my boys don’t, there ain’t a hope of a return match with half a regiment round the place by now, I imagine – supposin’ F-J hasn’t decamped for Vienna already. The conspiracy is kaput, I’ve had to disperse the best band of night-runners I ever hope to see, and four weeks of dam’ good plannin’ have gone down the bogs.” He jumped down from his seat, and stood before me, hands on hips. “Yes, sir, the guv’nor was right. You truly are an inconvenient son-of-a-bitch. Still … no hard feelin’s, what? Not on my side, leastways.”
Call me a sceptic if you will, but I doubted it. I’d come within a whisker of cutting his throat, ruined his plot all unwitting, and cost him two men dead – and he didn’t mind a bit? No, this could only be cat-and-mouse in the best Starnberg tradition, and his claws would show presently; in the meantime, with my innards turning cartwheels, I pretended to take him at face value.
“Glad to hear it,” says I. “Then you won’t mind cutting these infernal ropes.”
“Certainly … by and by,” says he. “When my arrangements for departure are complete. Austria’s a trifle warm just now, you see, what with two dead desperadoes under the Emperor’s window, a sentry with a slit weasand, and those two mysterious visitors, Flashman and Starnberg, vanished none knows whither. It wouldn’t surprise me,” says the sardonic pup, “if they started lookin’ for us, which is why I intend to be over the Italian border by daybreak tomorrow. I’ve no inclination to grace an Austrian gallows – or rot in a Brandenburg fortress, which is what’ll happen if Bismarck ever learns the truth of our little soiree yestre’en. He’d have my ballocks for breakfast.”
That settled one thing. “So last night was off your own bat! Bismarck had nothing to do with it?”
He stared. “With our gallant attempt to snuff Franz-Josef’s wick, you mean? Good lord, no! My word, you do have a low opinion of our worthy Chancellor!” He grinned at my bewilderment. “I see I’ll have to explain. Two months ago the Holnup learned that F-J was comin’ to Ischl without his usual retinue, and would be a sittin’ bird for assassination. Plans were laid for a night attack on the lodge, but Bismarck got wind of it from a spy in the Holnup council, and devised his great plan for guardin’ the Emperor, just as Kralta and I told you. What he didn’t know, when he entrusted it to me, his loyal agent,” he went on, looking waggish, “was that I happen to be a great-nephew of Lajos Kossuth himself, and have been a member of the Holnup since boyhood. And that in choosin’ me to guard the great booby he was playin’ into our hands, makin’ our task even easier by handin’ me on a plate the golden opportunity that every Hungarian patriot has been prayin’ for this ten years past. You may be sure,” he added, “that we’ve identified the spy in our council, and have left him strictly alone … for the time being.”
He paused, and just for a moment the bantering manner dropped from him like a cloak. The boyish face was set and his eyes were far away as he said softly: “And we were so close. Another moment – another few seconds – and the blow would have been struck that would have freed Hungary from the Hapsburgs forever. Holnup … holnuputan!”a He gave a deep sigh, and slowly unclenched his hands – and then he was himself again, shaking his head at me in mock reproach. “You really have been an uncommon nuisance, you know.”
For some reason, despite my fears, this infuriated me. “Because I stopped you from committing murder? Why, you dam’ fool, I saved your lousy life, more like! Bismarck would have had more than your ballocks – he’d have had your neck!”
He regarded me pityingly. “Oh, ye of little faith! D’you think I’m a half-wit? It was all arranged – once F-J had kicked the bucket we’d have fetched you out o’ the house, quiet-like, tapped you gently on your great fat head, laid you out beside the royal corpse with a bloody knife in your hand, and left you to explain matters when you woke up.” He regarded my expression of stupefied horror with cheerful satisfaction. “Of course they’d have hanged you – if they hadn’t finished you off on the spot. But don’t you see, I could then have pleaded injured innocence to Bismarck, pointing out that it wasn’t I who brought you into the business, and that you must have gone berserk, or been a Holnup hireling all unsuspected, or killed F-J for love of the beauteous Sissi … or anythin’ at all. He’d ha’ swallowed it. Besides, that would have been the least of his troubles, with the dogs of war slippin’ all over the parish, and everyone blamin’ perfidious Albion as usual, and Gladstone havin’ apoplexy.” He shrugged. “Aye, me, the best-laid schemes …”
What was the phrase young Hawkins used in his book? “Surely, while you’re above ground, Hell wants its master!” Spoken of the fictitious image of Rudi von Starnberg, but by God it fitted his abominable son even better, sitting there while he lighted another of his blasted cigarettes.20 Was he mad, perhaps … and why had he brought me to this ghastly solitude? It made no sense, for if he’d wanted me dead they could have done for me in the fight at the lodge. Was it possible that his geniality was genuine, and that he didn’t mean me harm after all? No, for why was I bound hand and foot? The evil bastard had brought me here to gloat … and he must have read my thoughts, for:
“So what now, you wonder?” says he. “Well, Harry, that’s a hard one … damned hard. You see, the fact is that I like you – and none the less because you’ve baulked me altogether. Indeed, all the more. And it’s just a lost trick in the game, anyway – I’ll settle Franz-Josef, one way or t’other, and before long, too. You may count on that. And then …’twill all come right, and Hungary will be free soil. But that’s by the way.”
He seated himself on his packing-case again, blowing smoke-rings and watching them hang motionless in that windless cavern, while my skin crawled.
“The hard thing, though, is that while you’re a man after my own heart, just as you were after the guv’nor’s, and I’d like to clap hands and part friends …” and damned if he didn’t sound as though he meant it “…Šyou know too much, you see. At the moment, what happened last night is all a great mystery – officially. What do they know, Franz-Josef’s people? That someone was tryin’ to do him in – the unlocked door and dead sentry tell ’em that. And that it was a Holnup job – the other dead ’un we had to leave with Gunther was a Magyar, and a notorious firebrand. And that you and I were in the business, some way or other. What then? Whatever they suspect, they can’t prove a blessed thing against you and me, unless we’re fool enough to let ourselves be collared in the next day or two, while the trail’s hot and they’re still full of zeal. After that, they’ll be quite thankful to forget about us, and they can keep the whole unfortunate business quiet. See?”
I saw, all right, and was struck by the sinister significance of the words “you know too much”. He continued:
“Which is why I shall lie low in Italy for a spell, before presentin’ myself to Bismarck, who’ll have no earthly reason to suspect me. Au contraire, he’ll welcome me with open arms! On the face of it, his great scheme will have worked to admiration, don’t you see?” He sat forward, eyes shining. “The Holnup struck, failed, and left two of their number stark and stiff! Bravo, Starnberg and Flashy, cries Otto, couldn’t have done better myself! That’s what he’s bound to think … and I shan’t disillusion him. If he wonders why we didn’t stay to take the credit, I’ll say it seemed best to fade modestly away. Oh, he’ll swallow it. But …” he shook his head solemnly, “…Šsuppose you were to tell the true story of what happened last night, eh? I’d be embarrassed, Harry. Embarrassed to death, like as not –”
“But I wouldn’t say a word!” It came out in a bellow that made the echo ring. “Never, I swear it! My God, no! I wouldn’t dream of it! Why the hell should I want to? You can’t believe that I’d ever –”
“So you say, in the Saltzkammergut,” he interrupted. “But safe in London or Paris? Who knows? Very well, you might keep mum – but I’m certain sure you won’t if the Austrian polizei nab you before you can get out o’ the country. And you haven’t a hope of doin’ that.”
“Why not? If you’re making for Italy, we can –”
“I can, but you can’t. I’ve a horse up topsides, and I know the country. But I can’t risk a passenger. Sorry, old ’un,” says he, all manly regret, the hypocritical hound, “but I must take the high road … while you take the low.” He gestured beyond me, towards the recesses of the cavern.
“You can’t mean it! My God, Starnberg … Willem – I swear I’ll not let on! On my honour! Christ, man, think – who’d believe me if I were fool enough to blab? Bismarck? You know dam’ well he wouldn’t – never trusted me an inch, the swine! And I’d never peach to the Austrians – you said yourself they can’t prove anything! And I could explain, somehow, why I disappeared from the lodge last night – oh, God, I don’t know exactly, but I could spin ’em some yarn about how the Holnup abducted me, or anything –”
“I don’t doubt that you could!” he agreed. “But would you, when the truth might save your skin? I doubt it. I know dam’ well I wouldn’t.” He paused, reflecting. “Anyway, there’s another reason why I can’t let you … live to tell the tale – even if I could be sure you wouldn’t tell it.”
“Jesus, man – why?”
He sat a moment, frowning and smiling together, and then flicked away his cigarette and stood up, took a few slow paces, and turned to face me – and, d’ye know, he looked almost wistful.
“Debt of honour, I guess you’d call it,” says he. “I feel I owe it to the guv’nor.” And as I gagged in appalled disbelief, he went on:
“I’ve never known, as I told you, what you and he were up to in Strackenz all those years ago. Some stunt of Otto Bismarck’s, wasn’t it? But I do know that you had the deuce of a turn-up at the last, sabre to sabre, in some castle or other – and ’twas the guv’nor’s lastin’ regret that it didn’t go á l’outrance. I don’t know what came between you, but I wouldn’t mind havin’ a quid for every time I heard the old chap say: ‘I only wish I’d settled Flashman! He was a strong swordsman, and up to every foul trick, but I was better. Aye, if only I could ha’ finished it!’ That’s what he said.”
He turned away to reach in among some gear piled on a case by the tunnel mouth, and when he faced me again he had a dress sabre unsheathed in either hand, the slim blades glittering wickedly in the pale light from the cavern roof.
“So I feel bound to finish it for him,” says he.
“But … but …” I struggled for speech. “You must be crazy! For God’s sake, man, there’s no need! I’ve told you I shan’t breathe a bloody word! I’ll be silent as the grave –”
“That’s the ticket!” cries he. “Couldn’t ha’ put it better myself! And speakin’ of graves, you couldn’t ask a grander mausoleum than this!” He flourished a point at our ghastly surroundings. “Pretty gothic, what? Oh, shut up, do! Don’t tell me you’d not squeal your head off when the traps got you, ’cos it’s a lie and we both know it, and it don’t matter anyway – I’m doin’ this out o’ filial piety.” He inserted the blade between my ankles and cut the cord. “There now, you can frisk like a lamb and limber up for the fray. Harry be nimble, eh? You’ll need to be, I promise.”
“Damn you for a fool!” I struggled off the bed. “You can’t mean it! Why, it’s madness! I’ve told you I shan’t talk, haven’t I? You can trust me, I tell you!” I took an unsteady step and tumbled, rolling on the floor. “Loose my hands, rot you – and listen, you ass! Your guv’nor would never have stood for this – we were chums, dammit, comrades, Rudi and I – you said it yourself, he told you I was a man after his own heart –”
“He did. He also advised me to shoot you on sight, so count yourself lucky. Come on, upsadaisy!” He whacked me on the rump with the flat of the blade and I scrambled up cursing. “Now then … I’m goin’ to untie your wrists, give you a moment to ease the cramps away, and when you’re ready you’re goin’ to pick up that sabre …” he tossed one of them on to the bed “…Šand we’ll take up where you and the guv’nor left off, savvy?”
“Savvy be damned, I’ll not do it! Heavens, man, where’s the sense to it? You can’t bear me any grudge,” I whined, “I didn’t try to spoil your beastly plot –”
“Apart from almost severin’ my jugular. But I don’t hold that against you. All in the way o’ business.” He tapped his point on my breast. “So is this.”
“I’ll not fight, I tell you!” I shouted, almost in tears. “You can’t make me!”
“True enough,” says he. “And I can’t run a helpless man through, can I?” His smile became wicked. “Might persuade you, though … if you’ll just step this way …” He prodded me backwards, along by the rails, and perforce I retreated, pleading and blaspheming by turn, while he requested me to “Pass along the bus, please,” before seizing my shoulder, spinning me round, and gripping my bound wrists. “Steady the Buffs! Don’t want you fallin’ and hurtin’ yourself … yet.”
I dam’ near swooned. We were on the very lip of the cleft where the rails ended, and I was staring down aghast into a narrow chasm whose smooth walls were visible for only a few yards before they vanished into black nothingness. I swayed giddily on the brink, my crotch shrinking as I tried to rear back from that awful void, but Willem held me in an iron grip, chuckling at my shoulder.
“A soldier’s sepulchre, what? That’s where your mortal coil is goin’, when you’ve shuffled it off. Can’t tell how deep it is, but it looks as though it narrows a bit, some distance down, like those jolly French oubliettes, so you’ll probably stick fast. You won’t mind, bein’ dead. On t’other hand, if you won’t fight I’ll just have to drop you in alive, and the stickin’ process might last some time, wouldn’t you think?”
That was when I broke. The horror of that gaping shaft, the thought of falling into blackness, the tearing agony of rasping to a flayed, bloody stop between the confining walls, jammed and helpless, to die by inches, rotting in the bowels of the earth … I raved, begging him to let me be, promising never to tell, struggling like a maniac until he pulled me away, and I sank to my knees, weeping buckets and babbling for mercy, promising him a fortune if he’d only spare me. He listened in some wonder, and then laughed as though a light had dawned.
“I’ll be jiggered!” cries he. “It’s the Flashman gambit … grovel and whine – then strike when your man’s off guard! Didn’t I tell you the guv’nor warned me to beware when you started showin’ the white feather? Well, you’re doin’ it a shade too brown, Harry – and t’won’t answer, you know. I’m fly to you. ‘Sides, I probably have more cash in the bank than you do.”
“Help!” I hollered. “Help, murder! Let me be, you lousy bully, you cruel bastard, you! I ain’t shamming, you infernal idiot, I swear I’m not! Oh, please, Starnberg … Willem, Bill, let me go and I’ll never tell! Help!”
“Oh, cheese it, you daft dummy!” He grabbed my neck and pushed me prone, and the cords at my wrists fell away as he cut them through. He stepped swiftly back, as though expecting me to go for him, and watched me warily – he absolutely wasn’t sure whether I was bluffing or not. That’s what a reputation does for you. Then he wheeled about, strode away to the camp-bed, picked up the other sabre, and sent it slithering and clinking over the stone in my direction.
“‘Play-actor’, the guv’nor called you, didn’t he?” says he. “Well, I don’t know – and what’s more, I don’t much care, but I’m gettin’ cold, and if you don’t take up that tool double quick I’ll pitch you down that hole without benefit of clergy, d’ye hear? So get up and come on!”
“You can’t mean to butcher me!” I wailed. “My God, man, haven’t you any bowels?”
“Ne’er mind about my bowels!” sneers he, casting aside his jacket. “You’ll be admirin’ your own presently. On guard!”
There’s a moment, and I’ve faced it more often than I care to remember, when you’re rat-in-the-corner, all your wriggling and lying and imploring have failed, there’s nowhere to run, and your only hope is to do your damnedest and trust to luck and every dirty dodge you know. For a split second I wondered if his last threat had meant that he’d tackle me bare-handed, and if perhaps I was stronger than he … but no, in my lusty youth perhaps, but not now against that lithe young athlete, all steel and whipcord. I must just take my chance with the blade.
I picked it up, and somehow the feel of the wire-bound grip steadied me, not much, but enough to face him as he waited, poised on his toes, sleek as a panther, the fine tawny head thrown back and the arrogant smile on his lips – and I felt the tiniest spark of hope.
Whether my blubbering had truly made him wonder or not, I couldn’t tell, but one thing was sure – he hadn’t fooled me. Oh, he needed me dead for his skin’s sake, right enough, but he wasn’t thinking of that now, nor of sacrificing me to Rudi’s shade, which was so much eyewash. No, what was gripping Master Starnberg was the sheer wanton delight in killing, of adding my distinguished head to his trophy room, of proving his mastery and seeing the fear in the eyes of the beaten opponent at his mercy – I know all about it, you see, for I’ve enjoyed it myself, but while it’s a luxury that a wary coward can afford, it’s a weakness in a brave man who’s sure of his own superiority, for he forgets what your cold-blooded assassin (and your coward) never forget – that killing is a business, not a pleasure, and you must keep your sense of fun well in check.
Another thing: he was an academic swordsman if ever I saw one, beautifully balanced as he glided forward and saluted, smirking, falling into the sabre guard with an ease that would have done de Gautet’s heart good to see. Well, I’d taken the brilliant de Gautet unawares (once), and I doubted if Starnberg was any smarter. So I gripped my hilt tight, like the rawest dragoon recruit, took a hesitant shuffle forward, and played my first card.
“It ain’t fair!” I whined. “I’ve been trussed like a fowl – and I’m an old man, damn you! By gad, if I were your age, you’d think twice, you prancing pimp! Ain’t you your father’s son, though, taking every mean advantage … wait, rot your boots, I ain’t ready –”
God, he was quick! One whip of his wrist and his blade was slicing at my neck, and if I hadn’t practised my favourite retire, which is to fall backwards, howling, my head would have been on the carpet. I scrambled up, shaken, one hope gone, for I’d intended to move close, mumping piteously, and give him the point unexpected. Now he came in like a dancer, unsmiling and bursting with blood-lust, cutting left and right, the blades clashing and grating, and I had to break ground to avoid being driven back to that awful chasm, side-stepping and tripping over those confounded rails, tumbling down the smooth slope almost to the water’s edge.
He bore up, swearing. “D’you do all your fightin’ flat on your back, then? Come on, man, get up and look alive!”
“I can’t! I’ve jarred my elbow! A-hh, I think it’s broken –”
“No, it’s not, you lyin’ skunk! You ain’t hurt, so pick up your sword and stay on your feet!” And the callous swine pricked me on the leg, drawing blood. I damned his eyes and came afoot, moving cautiously back to the level, and as he cut high and low I gave back again, towards the tunnel mouth. If I could lure him in among the clutter of beds and cases he’d be hampered, and might even stumble … but he knew a trick worth two of that and drove me clear of the obstacles – and hope leaped within me, for if I retreated into the tunnel at my back we’d both be fighting in the dark, and I could drop flat and slash at his ankles …
“You damned old fox!” shouts he, and with one lightning flurry of his blade he was past me while I cowered and scurried, warding his cuts any old how, and then he was after me again, snarling with laughter as he harried me back into the cavern proper. His sabre seemed to be everywhere, at head and shoulder and flank, and once he feinted low and gave me the point, but I turned it with the forte and in desperation loosed a wild scything sweep which he parried well enough, but paused, eyeing me with some respect.
“Why, you ain’t so old, you faker!” cries he. “Though how you troubled the guv’nor, blowed if I know! He must ha’ been ill!”
“He was full o’ wind and piss, like you!” I panted. “Ran like a whippet – aye, he didn’t tell you it ended with him turning tail, did he? No, he wouldn’t, not Slimy Starnberg!” I reviled Rudi with every insult I could muster, wheezing hoarsely as he drove me ever back, for I knew ’twas my only hope; my lungs and legs were labouring, and his young strength must prevail unless I could rile him into recklessness. But he was as cool as his father, damn him, chuckling triumphantly as I staggered away, swiping and swearing.
“Bellows to mend, what?” says he. “Best save your breath … oh, stop sprintin’, can’t you? Come on, you old duffer, stand for once and let’s see what you’re made of!”
So I did, not from choice but ’cos I was too used up to run, employing the rotten swordsman’s last resort, the Khyber-knife guard of the Maltese Cross, up-down-across with all your might. No opponent can touch you, but he don’t need to, since you’ll die of apoplexy from exertion, as I’d discovered back in ’60, when old Ghengiz the Mongol and I repelled Sam Collinson’s bannermen at the Summer Palace – leastways, old Ghengiz did while I lit out for pastures new.b But there was no Ghengiz now to bear the brunt, and I knew I couldn’t last but a few moments more, and then my aching arm and shoulder must fail, and this grinning, handsome sadist would beat down my feeble guard and drive his old steel through my shrinking carcase … and it would end here, in this clammy cavern, with the two tiny mannikins hacking away across its floor and the echoes of clashing swords resounding from the great stone arch overhead. I’d be cut down to death in this forgotten desolation, I who had survived Balaclava and Cawnpore and Greasy Grass, Fort Raim dungeon and Gettysburg and the guns of Gwalior, slaughtered by this mountebank who wasn’t more than half a swordsman anyway, for all his academic antics, or he’d have settled an old crock like me ages ago, and the hellish injustice and meanness of it all was like gall to my craven soul as I felt my strength ebbing and gave voice yet again to what I dare say will be my dying words one day:
“It ain’t fair! I don’t deserve this – no, no, wait, for God’s sake, not yet … a-hhh, I’m done for … the doctor was right …” And I dropped my sabre, clutching at my heart, face contorted in agony, and sank to my knees.
“What the devil!” cries Willem, as I clasped both hands to my bosom, groaning in unutterable pain, gaping wide to emit a croaking wheeze – and he stopped dead, sabre raised for the coup de grace.
“You’re shammin’, you old sod!” cries he … but he came that vital step closer, and I hurled myself forward, my right fist aimed at his groin – and I missed, God damn it to Hell, for my blow caught him on the thigh and sent him staggering but not disabled, and as I grabbed my sabre and let go an almighty cut that should have taken his leg off, the brute parried it and came in hand and foot, eyes blazing.
I turned and ran, shrieking in anticipation of his point in my back, eyes closed in panic, felt myself stumbling down an incline, and plunged flat on my face in freezing water. I was floundering in the shallows of the little lake, and as he came bounding to the margin, sabre raised for a downward cut, I scrambled away until I was knee-deep and out of reach. I daren’t go farther, for the cold of that hell-created tarn was fit to freeze Grendel, numbing my feet and calves in seconds, and I knew that immersion would mean death in minutes. He stopped on the brink, measuring the distance, but too wary to come after me, for the water must hinder his feet. He swore, snaking his point at me, and made as downright foolish a statement as ever I heard.
“Come out of that, blast you! You can’t run forever!”
“You callous swine!” I yammered. “Go away, you dirty rotter, let me alone, can’t you? Oh, Lor’, my legs are freezing, you hound!”
“Well, come out, then! I ain’t stoppin’ you!”
“Damned if I will! You’d cut me down foul, while I was climbing out!”
“Don’t be an ass! As if I needed to. Oh, well, freeze or drown, as you please!”
He backed up to the level, and I took a step towards the brink, where my sabre lay.
“Come on, pick it up!” says he. “’Pon my soul, you’re as good as a play, you are!”
“You won’t take me unawares?” cries I, crouching furtive-like, extending a wary hand towards my sabre. “You’ll give me a moment … Bill? Please? My feet are frozen solid … won’t answer …”
“God forbid that the renowned Flashman should die with cold feet!” He laughed impatiently. “Never fear, I’ll wait.” And as I put a foot on the dry stone, gasping elaborately, he half-turned away in contempt – and I thought, now or never, put my hand on the forte of the blade, grasped it, and launched it spear-fashion with all my remaining strength at his unguarded flank.
For an instant I thought I’d got him, for the sabre flew true as an arrow, but his speed saved him. He’d no time to dodge, but his sword-hand moved like lightning, the blades rang together, and the flying sabre was swept high into the air to fall clattering almost at the mouth of the tunnel. By which time I was on him, fists and cold feet flying, grappling him, and down we went together in a tangle of limbs, Flashy roaring and Willem spitting curses. I took a wild punch at his head and missed, yelping as my knuckles struck the stone, and as I rolled away blind with pain he was on his feet, cutting down at me. His sword struck sparks within an inch of my head, I scrambled on to all fours and came erect – and there he was, extending himself in a lunge that there was no avoiding, and I died in that split second as his point sank home in my unprotected body.
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 fire, 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?”
You may say it was the limit of diabolic cruelty, and I’ll not dispute it. Or you may say he was stark crazy, and I’ll not dispute that, either. At the moment I had no thoughts on the matter, for I was barely conscious, with no will except that which kept my right forearm on the stone, knowing that when it slipped I’d be hanging there by his grip on my other wrist alone … until he let go. I know he said something about cigars being bad for the wind anyway, and then: “Gad, but you do give a fellow a run for his money,” and on those words he gripped my collar, and with one almighty heave deposited me limp, gasping, and bleeding something pitiful, on the floor of the cave.
For several minutes I couldn’t stir, except to tremble violently, and when I had breath to spare from groaning and wheezing and lamenting my punctured gut, which was now more numb than painful, I know I babbled a blessing or two on his head, which I still maintain was natural. It didn’t suit him a bit, though; he stood looking vexed and then flung away the gasper and demanded: “Why the devil can’t you die clean?” to which I confess I had no ready answer. If I had a thought it was that having saved me, he was now bound to spare me, and I guess the same thing was occurring to him and putting him out of temper. But I can’t say what was passing in his mind – indeed, to this day I can’t fathom him at all. I can only tell you what was said and done that morning in that godforsaken salt-mine above Ischl.
“It ain’t a reprieve, you know!” cries he.
“What d’ye mean?” says I.
“I mean that it’s still the Union Jack for you, Flashman!” retorts he – the only time, I think, he’d ever used my surname formal-like, and with a sneer he added words he could only have heard from Rudi. “The game ain’t finished yet, play-actor!” Then he snapped something I didn’t catch about how if he had let me fall down the cleft I’d likely have found a way out at the bottom. “So you’ll go the way I choose, d’ye see? When you’re done pukin’ and snivellin’ you’ll get up and take that sabre and stand your ground for a change, my Rugby hero, ’cos if you don’t, I’ll … Wer ist das?”
My wail of protest was drowned by his shouted challenge, and I saw he was staring towards the tunnel mouth, suddenly on his guard, crouched like a great cat – and my heart leaped as I saw why.
Someone was standing just within the tunnel mouth, motionless and silent, a dark figure clad in close-fitting shirt and britches and peaked cap, but too much in shadow for the features to be made out. Seconds passed without reply, and Willem started forward a couple of paces and stopped, shouting again: “Who are you? What d’ye want?”
Still there came no reply, but as the echoes resounded from the cavern walls and died away in whispers, the figure stepped swiftly forward, stooped to retrieve my fallen sabre, and straightened again in a stance that left no doubt of his intentions, for he stood like an epee fighter at rest between bouts, left hand on hip, point inclined downwards above the advanced right foot. Willem swore in astonishment and shot a glance at me, lying bemused and bleeding, but I was as baffled as he – and my hopes were shooting skywards, for this mysterious apparition was Salvation, surely, issuing an unspoken challenge to my oppressor, and I was mustering breath to bawl for help when:
“Speak up, damn you!” cries Willem. “Who are you?” The newcomer said not a word, but tilted up his point in invitation.
“Well enough, then!” cries Willem, and laughed. “Whoever you are, we’ll have two for the price o’ one, what?” And he went in at a run, cutting left and right at the head, but the newcomer side-stepped nimbly, parrying and riposting like an Angelo, so help me, tossing aside the peaked cap to clear his vision – and as the light from above fell full on his features I absolutely cried out in amazement. Either this was all a dream, or the horrors I’d endured had turned my brain, for I was staring at a stark impossibility, a hallucination. The face of the swordsman, fresh and youthful under its mop of auburn curls, was one that I’d last seen smiling wantonly up at me from a lace pillow five years ago: the face of my little charmer of Berlin: Caprice.
It was mad, ridiculous, couldn’t be true, and I was seeing things – until Willem’s startled oath told me I wasn’t. The graceful lines of the figure in its male costume, the dainty shift of the small feet, as much as the pretty little face so unexpectedly revealed, fairly shouted her sex, and he checked in mid-cut and sprang back exclaiming as she came gliding in at speed, boot stamping and point darting at his throat. It was sheer disbelief, not gallantry, that took him aback, for there’s no more chivalry in a Starnberg than there is in me; he recovered in an instant and went on the defensive, for that first lightning exchange when she’d turned his cuts with ease and came after him like a fury, told him that suddenly he was fighting for his life, woman or no.
I couldn’t believe it, but I didn’t care; it was my life in the balance too, and even my wound was forgotten as I watched the shuffling figures and flickering blades, clash-clash and pause, clash-scrape-clash and pause again, but the pauses were of a split second’s duration, for she was fighting full tilt with a speed and energy I’d not have believed was in that slight body, and with a skill to take your breath away. I’m no great judge, and am only as good a cut-and-thruster as the troop-sergeant could make me, but I know an expert when I see one; there’s an assurance of bearing and movement that’s beyond technique, and Caprice had it. When Willem attacked suddenly, hewing to beat her guard down by main force, she stood her ground, feet still and warding his cuts with quick turns of her wrist; when he feinted and bore in at her flank she pivoted like a ballet-dancer, facing me with her back to the lake, and I saw that the girlish face was untroubled; I remembered fencing against Lakshmibai at Jhansi, the lovely fierce mask contorted and teeth gritted as she fought like a striking cobra, but Caprice was almost serene; even when she attacked it was without a change of expression, lips closed, chin up, eyes unwavering on Willem’s, as though all her emotions were concentrated in point and edge.
Once I thought he had her, when her foot slipped, her blade faltered, and he leaped in, smashing at her hilt to force the sabre from her hand, the bully-swordsman’s trick that I favour myself, but he hadn’t the wit or experience to combine it with a left fist to the face and a stamp on the toes, and she escaped by yielding to the blow, dropping to one knee, and rolling away like a gymnast, cutting swiftly as she regained her feet. At that moment a sudden spasm of excruciating pain in my side reminded me of more immediate troubles; my head was swimming with that dizzying weakness that is the prelude to unconsciousness, and in panic I clutched at the oozing gash in my side – dear God, I was lying in a pool of gore, if I fainted now I’d bleed to death. I pressed with all my might, trying to stem the flow, dragging myself up on an elbow with some idiot notion that if I could bend my trunk it would close the wound, and sparing a stricken glance at the combatants.
Joy was followed instantly by dismay. Willem’s left sleeve was bloody where she’d caught him in rolling away, but she was falling back now, and he was after her relentlessly, cutting high and low as she retreated; her speed was deserting her, her strength, so much less than his to begin with, was failing under those hammering strokes. He had a six-inch advantage in height, and as much in reach, and he was making it tell. He was laughing again, harsh and triumphant, and as she circled, all on the defensive now, he spoke for the first time, the words coming out in a breathless snarl: “Drop it, you bitch! Give over … you’re done … damn you!”
My heart sank, for her mouth was open now, panting with sheer weariness, and she fairly ran back several steps to avoid his pursuit, halting flat-footed to parry a cut at her head before breaking away again towards the lake. Another wave of giddiness shook me, I could feel myself going, but as he wheeled and drove in and she was forced to halt, guarding and parrying desperately, I summoned the last of my strength to yell:
“Look out, Starnberg – behind you!”
He never even flinched, let alone looked round, the iron-nerved swine, and as she took a faltering side-step that brought them side-on to me, her blade swept dangerously wide in a hurried parry, exposing her head, and he gave an exultant yell as he cut backhanded at her neck, a finishing stroke that must decapitate her – and she ducked, the blade whistled an inch above her curls, and she was dropping full stretch on her left hand like an Italian, driving her point up at his unprotected front. He recovered like lightning, his sabre sweeping across to save his body, but only at the expense of his sword-arm; her point transfixed it just below the elbow, he shrieked and his sword fell, he tottered back a step … and Caprice came erect like an acrobat, poised on her toes, her point flickered up to his breast, for a moment they were still as statues, and then her knee bent and her arm straightened with academic precision as she deliberately ran him through the heart.
I saw the point come out six inches through his back, vanishing as she withdrew in graceful recovery. Willem took a step, his mouth opening soundlessly, and then he fell sideways down the incline to the lake, rolling into the shallows with barely a ripple, sliding slowly out from the shore, his body so buoyed by the salt water that his limbs floated on the surface while the crimson cloud of blood wreathed down like smoke into the transparent depths beneath him. Half-conscious as I was, I could see his face ever so clear, and I remember ’twasn’t glaring or hanging slack or grinning as corpses often do, but tranquil as a babe’s, eyes closed, like some sleeping prince in Norse legend.
The cold stone beneath me seemed to be heaving, and my vision was dimming and clearing and dimming in a most alarming way, but I recall that Caprice tossed her sabre into the lake as she turned and ran towards me, calling something in French that I couldn’t make out, and her running shape blurred to a shadow with the light failing behind it, and as the shadow stooped above me the light went out altogether and in the darkness an arm was round my shoulders and fingers were brushing my brow and my face was buried between her bosoms, and my last conscious thought was not of going to find the Great Perhaps, but rather what infernally bad luck to be pegging out at such a moment.
a “Tomorrow … the day after tomorrow!”
b See Flashman and the Dragon