They say that from the first cannonade to the final storming of the main gate was three hours, but it might have been three days or three minutes for all I knew. How long I was unconscious I cannot tell, but when I came to, and the first dizzy moments had passed, I was being heaved into a sitting position on a boulder beside the second gate, Theodore was standing a few yards away, a rifle in his hand, his valet Wald Gabr was supporting me with an arm about my shoulders, muttering instructions which I was still too dazed to make out, waves of pain were coursing up my left leg which was wrapped knee to ankle in a bloody cloth which oozed crimson on to my boot, and it penetrated my clouded senses that I’d been wounded. The air was crackling with small-arms fire, thunder was rumbling overhead, the rain was pelting harder than ever, and as Theodore turned from looking down the hill and strode past us without a word, tossing aside his rifle in the second gateway, I looked down the hill myself and saw a sight which I can see still, clear as day, forty years on.
Only a stone’s throw below us the Ab musketeers were falling back from the wall, and above the parapet a flag was fluttering in the fierce wind, a little way to the left of the gate. At first I thought it must be some banner of Theodore’s, but then there were helmets and khaki tunics either side of it, and now they were tumbling over the wall, and the flag was being flourished from side to side as the fellow carrying it was boosted up bodily by his mates to stand on the top. That was when I saw it was a regimental Colour, and here they came, a regular flood of riflemen, whooping and cheering like billy-o, charging the Ab musketeers who fairly ran before them.53
Khaki tunics and white robes were struggling in the gateway, bayonets against spears, and clubbed firearms on both sides; khaki was winning, and as the Abs were driven back some of our fellows were tearing aside the piled stones from the gates, which were thrust wide to admit a crowd of cheering attackers, Sappers and Pioneers and a great mob of Irish of the Dukes. They chased the Abs along the wall, and spears and swords and muskets were being flung aside as their owners threw up their arms in surrender. A few of the hardier spirits were running up the rocky path towards us, turning to fire a last shot at our fellows, and getting a fusilade in return. Shots sang above us and splintered the rocks around us, and Wald Gabr ran from my side, seized Theodore’s fallen rifle, and thrust the butt into my left arm-pit.
“Tenisu, dedjaz, tenisu! Up, up, for our lives!”
Sound notion, and if you think it’s agony to run hobbling with a splinter of steel buried in your calf muscle, you’re right, but it’s wonderful what you can do when Snider slugs are buzzing about your ears. I knew better than to try to identify myself in the heat of battle; with my improvised crutch going and Wald Gabr holding me up on t’other side I lurched through the gate, screaming at every step, and ahead of us Ab civilians were scattering up the slope, mothers with chicos, old folk and striplings, all frantic to escape the murderous struggle behind us.
Ten yards ahead there was a great bale of forage bound with cords, six foot square, and a capital place to go to ground, for my leg was giving out, leaking blood like a tap, my improvised crutch slipped from my grasp, and I lunged at the bale and grabbed it to save myself pitching headlong. I hauled myself round the bale by its cords, so that it was between me and the mischief behind, but lost my hold and fell on all fours, being damned noisy about it, too, for my leg was giving me gyp. Wald Gabr sprawled beside me, and then strong hands seized my arms and hauled me up, yelping, and it was Theodore, gripping me under the shoulders and gently easing me into a sitting position with my back to the bale.
“Be still!” He was breathing hard. “Go, good and faithful servant!” says he to Wald Gabr. “God prosper you … and have you in his keeping!”
The lad hesitated, and Theodore laughed and slapped him on the arm. “Go, I say! Get you to Tigre again! Take a king’s thanks … and blessing! Fare well, gun-bearer!”
Wald Gabr turned and ran, and Theodore watched him disappear among the huts. Then he looked past the bale towards the second gate, still breathless and rubbing the rain from his face; the plain shama over his shoulders was wringing wet and clinging to him. The firing behind had slackened, but there was a distant shouting of orders followed by a ragged cheer. He closed his eyes for a moment and sighed before he spoke, and these were his words, and mine, on that rainy afternoon on Magdala height:
Theodore: I shall never go to Jerusalem now. There will be no Tenth Crusade. [Draws pistol, offers it butt first.] Suicide is an abomination in God’s sight, a sin not to be forgiven. Oh, friend, will you do a last kindness to your enemy?
Flashy: Don’t be a bloody ass! Throw it away, man! They ain’t coming to kill you – put up your hands and give in, can’t you? It’s all up, dammit!
Theodore: You will not? Do I ask too much, then? So be it. Perhaps God, who marks the fall of humble sparrows and proud kings, will forgive even this, in His infinite mercy …
Flashy: God don’t give a tuppenny dam one way or t’other! Give over, you crazy bastard –
But he was cocking the piece, and now he put the muzzle in his mouth and his thumb on the trigger, and blew the back of his head away. The explosion threw him back, off his feet, but by some freak convulsion of his hand the pistol flew into the air and fell beside my wounded leg. His body twitched for a few seconds and then shrank and was still, head on one side and a bloody puddle spreading beneath it. I could see his face; unmarked, impassive, untroubled, the eyes closed as though in sleep.
D’you know, I wasn’t even shocked at the abruptness of it? It seemed fit and proper, somehow, and I thought then what I think still, that it was a thing almost fore-ordained, as though he’d been searching for it all his life. And there it was, and that was all about it; short, sweet, simple, and saved everyone a deal of bother.
I clenched my eyes shut with a spasm of pain, and when I opened them my eye fell on the pistol, and on the silver plate on its stock. I picked it up, and laughed aloud, but not in mirth. The plate was engraved:
Presented
by
VICTORIA
Queen of Great Britain and Ireland
to
THEODORUS
Emperor of Abyssinia
as a slight token of her gratitude
for his kindness to her servant Plowden
1854
Ironic, you’ll agree, but now came a clatter of running feet, and into sight on my right came two khaki ruffians, helmets askew, dirty bearded faces alight with devilment. The nearer covered me with his rifle.
“Jayzus, ye’re white!” cries he. “Who the hell are ye, den, and what’s to laugh at?”
“Put up that piece and come to attention, you rascal!” I’ve encountered T. Atkins (and P. Murphy) often enough to know how to bring him to heel when the battle-lust is on him. “I’m Colonel Sir Harry Flashman, Seventeenth Lancers! Get me a medical orderly!”
“In de name o’ God!” cries Paddy. “An’ is it yerself, den, Sorr Harry? Be Christ it is, an’ so ye are! ’Tis himself, Mick, de Flash feller – beggin’ yer pardon, Sorr Harry –”
“Are yez sure?” says Mick, all suspicion. “He looks like a bloody buddoo to me.”
“Buddoo? Will ye hear him? Did I not see Ould Slowcoach pin de cross on him at Allahabad – beggin’ his pardon an’ all, Sir Colin, I should say – but man, Sorr Harry, I doubt ye’re woundit –”
“Who’s de nigger?” demands Mick, scowling at Theodore’s corpse and plainly still doubtful of me.
“The King of Abyssinia,” says I. “Let him be – and damn your eyes, get me an orderly and a stretcher!”
“At once, at once!” shouts Paddy. “Run, Mick, an’ see to’t! Just you bide there, Colonel Sorr Harry, sorr, an’ give yer mind peace –”
“There’s no Seventeenth Lancers in your man’s colyum,” says Mick. “An’ if there was, whut’s he doin’ here ahead o’ the Colours, even? Tell me dat, Shaughnessy!”
Shaughnessy told him, in Hibernian terms, but I paid him no heed, for more bog-trotters were arriving, with wild hurrahs and halloos, pausing a moment to gape at me, and then at Theodore’s body, for now there were Abs on hand tugging at their sleeves and pointing – “Toowodros! Toowodros!”54 Presently the man Mick returned with an orderly who set to work on my injured calf, making me yell with the fiery bite of raw spirit in the wound, and drawing cries of delight and commiseration from my audience as he held up a gleaming two-inch sliver of shrapnel which he had removed from my quivering flesh.
“Nate as Hogan’s knapsack!” they cried. “A darlin’ little spike, compliments o’ Colonel Penn!” and laughed heartily, urging me to be aisy, Sorr Harry dear, for I must ha’ tekken worse at Balaclavy, sure an’ I had, is dat not so, eh, Madigan? It was a mercy when a Colour Sergeant came bawling for them to fall in, and they melted away, all but the orderly and Private Pat Shaughnessy, my self-appointed sponsor and protector … and suddenly I felt not too poorly at all, for all the throbbing discomfort of my leg, and my aching skull, sitting with my back to the bale in the gentle rain.
I’d been here before … wounded and propped up against a gun-wheel at Gwalior ten years since, at the end of the great Mutiny, with the same tired, overwhelming feeling of relief because I knew ’twas all over at last, and here I was none too much the worse, watching content as the Duke of Wellington’s Irish fell in, with the markers shouting, and a young chap was planting the Colour to thunderous cheers and helmets flying before all came to attention for “God Save the Queen” followed by “Rule, Britannia”, and the orderly was bidding Shaughnessy bring me a stretcher, and a huge figure with a spreading black beard was stooping over me with a roar of greeting, and my hand was being gripped in an enormous paw.
“Good God!” cries Speedy. “Sir Harry!”
“Right enuff y’are, yer honour!” agrees the departing Shaughnessy. “’Tis himself, so it is, an’ none other!”
“You’re wounded!” cries Speedy. “But you’re well, what? Oh, this is famous! It will crown Sir Robert’s day! We’d almost given you up after Prideaux said Theodore wouldn’t release you!” He pumped my hand, beaming. “And here you are – and what a splendid job you did with the Gallas! Sealed this amba tight as a drum – oh, aye, we know how he tried to run for it! But who’d have thought Magdala would fall so fast and easy! Thanks to you, sir! Thanks to you!”
Which was music to the ears, of course … and then he glanced round at a cry of “Toowodros! Toowodros!”, and there was an Ab eagerly identifying Theodore’s body for a couple of officers who had just come up.
Now, what followed meant nothing to me at first, but it did an hour later, after … well, the events I’m about to relate. They’re no great matter, but they provide an interesting glimpse of human nature, I think, and demonstrate how people will believe what they want to believe, and honourable men will swear to what they think is a damned lie, never realising that it happens to be true. Thus:
Speedy heard the Ab, and stared, shot me a brief wondering glance, and strode across to the corpse. He bent over it and came back exclaiming “Phew!” in astonishment. Then he checked, and I saw he was looking at my left hand which, to my surprise, was resting on Theodore’s revolver. Speedy glanced back at the body, then at me with just a hint of knowing in his eyes, and stooped quickly to snatch up the gun and thrust it under his tunic.
“We’ll have you under cover in a jiff – out o’ the rain!” cries he, and Shaughnessy arriving with the stretcher, he and the orderly bore me into one of the thatched houses nearby. Speedy chivvied them away, Shaughnessy adjuring me to hiv a care, Sorr Harry man, dear, and outside the bands were striking up “Hail the Conquering Hero Comes”, almost drowned out by another great roar of cheering. It was Napier, never far behind the infantry as usual, come to take possession of his conquest; Speedy stood chafing in the doorway, and I heard him summon a soldier and order him to stand guard and let no one in or out.
There were a couple of scared-looking Ab women in the house, and Speedy dashed them some dollars, telling them to give me a flask of tej, and whatever else I might need. Then he was off, promising to be back presently, and I guess about an hour passed, in which I discovered I could walk with only a little discomfort, and the women brought me some humbasha,a and I sat listening to the bands playing and the bustle and shouted orders until I heard Speedy returning – and Napier with him, his voice raised in anger, which wasn’t his style at all.
“Have him covered up at once!” he was barking. “Good God, was there ever anything more disgraceful? Have him taken into a house directly and made decent! Has the Queen been informed? Ah, Rassam is seeing to her; very good.” I was to learn that his great bate was about Theodore’s body lying in the rain, stripped almost naked by chaps seeking souvenirs. Speedy said something I didn’t catch, and Napier said: “To be sure, the doctors must examine the body tomorrow and report to a board of inquiry … now, where is our Ambassador Extraordinary?”
This as he appeared in the doorway, helmet in hand, with Speedy at his elbow muttering that the less said the better, at all costs the press mustn’t get wind –
“Sir Harry!” Napier was gripping my hand, eyes alight in the tired old face. “No, no, sit still, my dear fellow! Not too painful a hurt, I trust? Ah, that is good news!” Then he was echoing Speedy’s earlier congratulations, thanking me for “a task well done as only you could have done it,” without which the campaign might have come adrift, and so forth, etc. “It was a body blow when we learned you’d been taken, I can tell you. But we’ll hear all about that presently, and your other adventures. For the moment it’s enough that you’re here!” He beamed, paused a moment, and sat down, fingering his dreary moustache.
“So … the work’s done, by the mercy of Providence,” says he. “And the King is dead. A sad end. But not untimely. How did it happen?”
I told him straight, suicide. He glanced at Speedy, and nodded.
“Suicide,” says he. “I see.”
Something in his tone made me repeat it. “That’s right, sir. He put the piece in his mouth and let fly.”
Another thoughtful nod. “Apart from yourself, was any other person present?”
“No, sir. No one.”
“Very good.” He looked decidedly pleased. “Very good. Dr Blanc will confirm your account when he examines the body tomorrow.”
“Johnson’ll convene the board of inquiry. They’ll make it official,” says Speedy. “Suicide, that is.”
There followed a brief silence during which I kept a straight face. Suddenly it had become plain that they were under the incredible delusion that I had shot Theodore, but they didn’t care to say so in as many words, which was vastly diverting. Of course it was what they’d wanted, and had hinted to me through Prideaux, and Speedy, having seen the pistol in my hand and Theodore stark and stiff, had concluded that I’d done the dirty deed to save H.M.G. the painful embarrassment of having to try and possibly hang the black bugger. (“But no one must ever know, Sir Robert … controversy … press gang, scoundrel Stanley … questions in the House … uproar … regicide, scandalum magnatum … honour of the Army …”)
Which explained why, within an hour of the last shot in the war being fired, when the Commander-in-Chief should have been consolidating his victory, with a hundred important military matters awaiting his decision, he was here post-haste to ensure a conspiracy of silence, leave me in no doubt that I’d not suffer for my good deed, and join Speedy in regarding me with that rather awed respect which says more clearly than words, gad, you’re a ruthless son-of-a-bitch, thank God.
I might have protested my innocence, but I didn’t get the chance.
Napier was addressing me in his gentlest voice, with that old familiar Bughunter smile.
“Harry,” he began. So I was “Harry” now, without any formal honorific; well, well. “Harry, you and I have known each other ever so long. Yes, ever since you lobbed that blessed diamond at old Hardinge … ‘Here, catch!’” He gave a stuffed chuckle. “You should have seen their faces, Speedy! However … that’s by the way.” He became serious. “Since then, I have known no officer who has done more distinguished service, or earned greater fame, than you … no, no, it is true.” He checked my modest grunts with a raised hand. “Well, what I wish you to know is that whatever services you may have done in the past, none has been more … gratefully valued, than those performed in Abyssinia. I refer not only to your mission to the Queen of Galla, so expertly accomplished, but to that … that other service which you have done today.”
He paused, choosing his words, and when he resumed he didn’t look at me directly. “I know it cannot have been easy for you. Perhaps to some of our old comrades, those stern men with their iron sense of duty, men like Havelock and Hope Grant and Hodson (God rest them), it might have seemed nothing out of the way … but not, I think, to you. Not to one in whom, I believe, duty has always been tempered with humanity, yes, and chivalry. Not,” he concluded, looking me in the eye, “to good-hearted Harry Flashman.” He stood up and shook my hand again. “Thank you, old fellow. That said, we’ll say no more.”
If I sat blinking dumbly it was not in manly embarrassment but in amazement at his remarkable misreading of my nature. All my life people had been taking me at face value, supposing that such a big, bluff daredevilish-looking fellow must be heroic, but here was a new and wondrous misconception. Just because I’d tickled his funnybone years ago by my offhand impudence to Hardinge, and been hail-fellow Flash Harry with the gift of popularity (as Thomas Hughes observed), I must therefore be “good-hearted” … and even humane and chivalrous, God help us, the kind of decent Christian whose conscience would be wrung to ribbons because he’d felt obliged to do away with an inconvenient nigger for the sake of the side.
That was why Napier had been gassing away like a benign vicar, judging me by himself, quite unaware that I’ve never had the least qualm about kicking the bucket of evil bastards like Theodore – but only when it’s suited me. You may note, by the way, that for once my eye-witness report conforms exactly with accepted historic fact. All the world (Napier and Speedy excepted) believes that King Theodore took his own life, and all the world is right.
I messed in Napier’s tent that night, with Speedy and Merewether and a couple of staff-wallopers, and Henty and Austin of the Times the only correspondents. Henty was eager to know what I’d been up to, but Napier proved to have a nice easy gift of diplomatic deflection, and a frosty look or two from Austin showed Henty what the Thunderer thought of vulgar curiosity.
“We must beware of the others, though,” says Speedy later, when he and I were alone with Napier. “Stanley’s a damned ferret, and his editor hates us like poison.55 The less they know of Sir Harry’s activities, the better.”
I didn’t see that it mattered, but Napier agreed with him. “You should not become an object of their attention. Indeed, I think it best that your part in the whole campaign should remain secret. If it were known that you had been our emissary to Queen Masteeat’s court, it would be sure to excite the correspondents’ interest, and if they were to discover that you were alone with Theodore when he died, it might lead to … unwelcome speculation.” Speedy was nodding like a mechanical duck. “Fortunately, when Prideaux brought the news that you were in Theodore’s hands, I was able to send another agent to Queen Masteeat to carry on the work you had so expertly begun. You will not mind,” says he, giving me the Bughunter smile, “if I mention him in my despatches, rather than yourself?56 For security, you understand. Have no fear, your credit will be whispered in the right ears – and what’s a single leaf more or less in a chaplet like yours?”
There was nothing to say to this, and I didn’t much care anyway, so I allowed myself to succumb to the Napier charm.
“It means you’ll be spared the labour of a written report!” cries he genially. “You can do it verbatim, here and now! Give him a b. and s., Speedy, and one of your cheroots. Now then, Harry, fire away!”
So I told ’em the story pretty much as I’ve told it to you, omitting only those tender passages with Uliba and Masteeat and that bint at Uliba’s amba whose name escapes me … no, Malee, that was it … and the attempt on my virtue by Theodore’s queen-concubine. Nor did I tell them of my plunge down the Silver Smoke. Why? ’Cos they wouldn’t have believed it. But the horrors of Yando’s aerial cage, and the atrocities of Gondar, and my ordeal at the hands of the kidnappers whom Uliba had ordered to abduct me so that she could do me atrociously to death, and how I’d been rescued by Theodore’s fighting women, and Uliba given her passage out – these I narrated in my best laconic Flashy style, and had Speedy’s hair standing on end – an alarming sight.
“Impossible! I cannot credit it!” He was horror-stricken. “You say Uliba tried to kill you? Had Galla renegades carry you off so that she could … could murder you? No, no, Sir Harry … that cannot be –”
“I’m sorry, Speedy, but it’s true.” I was deliberately solemn now. “I would not believe it either, had I not seen it. I know you had the highest regard for her – not least for her loyalty. So did I. But I know what she did, and –”
“But why?” bawls he. “Why should she wish you harm?” He was in a great wax, glowering through his beard like an ape in a thicket, suspicion mingling with his shocked disbelief. “It wasn’t in her, I tell you! Oh, I know she was a vixen, and cruel as the grave to her enemies, and would have seized her sister’s throne – but that was honest ambition! She was true to her salt, and to her friends –”
“A moment, Speedy,” says Napier. “You may have touched it – her designs on the Galla throne. Did she,” turning to me, “try to enlist your help in her coup? Because if she did, and was refused, might she not, in resentment –”
He was interrupted by Speedy’s furious gobble of protest; plainly Uliba had kindled more than mere professional admiration in his gargantuan bosom, and he simply could not bring himself to believe her capable of murderous betrayal … and yet here was the redoubtable Flashman swearing to it, so it must be true. But WHY? Fortunately she was no longer alive to tell how I’d tried to kick her into a watery grave (not that anyone would have believed her; after all, Masteeat hadn’t); still, it would be best if some perfectly splendid explanation for her sudden hatred of me could be found; an explanation that would convince Speedy beyond all doubt. Napier’s wouldn’t wash with him, but I had one that would lay him out cold … so I waited until his indignant wattling had subsided, and weighed briskly in.
“’Fraid that won’t answer, Sir Robert. Oh, she’d have welcomed our help in usurping her sister’s crown, but she never asked me point-blank. Dare say she might have done, but as I told you, Theodore’s riders pursued us, we were separated, and when I reached Masteeat’s court, Uliba had made her bid and failed and been arrested –”
“With respect, Sir Harry,” roars Speedy, showing no respect whatever, “we know that! But it don’t answer the question why she should want you dead! Bah, it’s madness! I will not believe it!” And then he gave me the cue I’d been waiting for. “What offence could you possibly have given her, to provoke such … such malice?”
I sat frowning, tight-lipped, for a long artistic moment, took a sip at my glass, sighed, and said: “The greatest offence in the world.”
Napier’s brows rose by the merest trifle, but Speedy goggled, bewildered. “What the … whatever d’ye mean, Sir Harry?”
I hesitated, drew a deep reluctant breath, and spoke quiet and weary, looking anywhere but at him. “If you must have it, Speedy … yes, your protégé Uliba-Wark was a first-class jancada, a brave and resolute comrade, as fine a scout and guide as I ever struck … and a vain, proud, passionate, unbridled, promiscuous young savage!” What I could see of his face through the furze was showing utter consternation; he was mouthing “Promiscuous?” dumbly, so I made an impatient noise and spoke quickly.
“Oh, what the devil, she made advances, I rejected ’em, and I dare say you’ve heard of the fury of a woman scorned! Aye, think of Uliba, a barbarian, a cruel vixen as you’ve said yourself … scorned!” Now I looked him in the eye. “Does that answer you?”
Between ourselves, I ain’t sure it would have answered me, but I’m a cynical rotter. To decent folk, the sight of bluff, straight, manly old Flashy (good-hearted, remember), badgered into saying things that shouldn’t be said, dammit, traducing a woman’s good name, and a dead woman at that … well, it’s a discomforting sight. The man’s so moved, and reluctant, you’re bound to respect his emotions. You wouldn’t dream of doubting him.
Speedy was making strange noises, and Napier answered for him. “I am sure it does.”
“My … my dear Sir Harry!” Speedy sounded as though he’d been kicked in the essentials. “I … I … oh, I am at a loss! I … I know not what to say!” He didn’t, either, muttering confused. “Uliba … so trusted … oh, wild, to be sure … but depraved? A traitress? And to attempt your life … wounded vanity …” He made vague gestures. “I can only beg your pardon for … oh, I did not doubt your report for a moment, I assure you!” Bloody liar. “But it seemed so impossible … I could not take it in …”
Here he ran out of words, and drew himself up, beard at the high port, shaking his great head while he clasped my hand, and I meditated on the astonishing ease with which strong men of Victorian vintage could be buffaloed into incoherent embarrassment by the mere mention of feminine frailty. Something to do with public school training, I fancy.
“My dear chap!” I clapped his arm in comradely style; it was like patting an elephant’s leg. “I’m sorry, believe me. Truly sorry.” Sigh. “I can guess what you feel … disappointment, mostly, eh? When someone lets you down … Well, best just to have a drink and forget it, what?”
a A large flat loaf of coarse bread.