If, as I strongly suspect, that turbulent afternoon’s work was a pleasant consummation for Lady Flashman and Chief Spotted Tail, it wasn’t for anyone else. The Black Hills treaty died then and there, slain by Senator Allison and Little Big Man. There followed another meeting at Camp Robinson – which I didn’t attend because I’d have exploded in his presence – at which Spotted Tail announced the Sioux’s formal rejection of the offer; Allison warned him that the government would go ahead anyway, and fix the price at six million without agreement, but the most they could get from him was a promise to send word of the offer to Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse, and if they accepted it then he and Red Cloud would give it their blessing. Which was so much eyewash, since everyone knew the hostiles wouldn’t accept. Standing Bear was to be the ambassador to the hostile chiefs, since he was apparently a protégé of Sitting Bull’s and well thought of by him.
“So nothing remains,” says Allison resentfully afterwards, “but for this commission to bear the bitter fruit of failure back to Washington. All your care and arduous labour, gentlemen, for which I thank you, have been in vain.” He was fuming with inward rage at being rebuffed by mere aborigines, and him a Senator, too; for the first and only time I saw his pompous mask drop. “These red rascals,” he burst out, “who wax fat on government bounty, have set us at defiance – defiance, I say! Well, the sooner they’re whipped into line, by cracky, the better!”
I’ve wondered since how much either side really wanted a treaty. I believe Red Cloud and Spotted Tail were ready for any terms that even looked honourable, and if Allison had been more tactful and offered a half-decent price, they might have won over enough Sioux to make the opposition of the hostile chiefs unimportant. I don’t know. What I can say is that the Indians went away from Camp Robinson in bitter fury, and while Allison was personally piqued I’m not certain he was altogether surprised, or that Washington minded too much. I’ve wondered even if the commission wasn’t simply a means of proving how stubborn the Indians were, and puting ’em in the wrong; perhaps of testing their mettle, too. If so, it failed disastrously, for it led Washington and the Army to draw a fatally wrong conclusion: after Camp Robinson it became accepted gospel that whatever happened, the Sioux wouldn’t fight. I confess, having seen the way they didn’t cut loose at the grove, it was a conclusion I shared.
So now, with all the treaty nonsense out of the way, the government set about bringing them to heel, ordering them to come in to the agencies before February of 1876. The message didn’t reach them all until Christmas, which meant it was next to impossible for them to comply, with the Powder country deep in snow. Shades of old Macaulay’s Glencoe, if you like – an ultimatum to wild tribes delivered late and in dead of winter, culminating in massacre. Whether the intentions of the U.S. Government were any more honourable than William III’s I can’t say, but they achieved the same result, in a way.
However, I wasn’t giving much thought to Indians that winter. Elspeth and I had concluded our western tour with a rail journey through the Rockies, a week’s hunting in Colorado, and then back to New York before the snow. I received a handsome testimonial from the Indian Bureau, and notes from Grant and Fisha thanking me for my services, which I thought pretty civil since the whole thing had been a fiasco – only a cynic like me would wonder if that’s why they thanked me. In any event, I was ready to wend our way home to England, and we would have done if it hadn’t been for the blasted Centennial.
1876 being the hundredth anniversary of the glorious moment when the Yankee colonists exchanged a government of incompetent British scoundrels for one of ambitious American sharps, it had been decided to celebrate with a grand exposition at Philadelphia – you know the sort of thing, a great emporium crammed with engines and cocoa and ghastly bric-à-brac which the niggers have no further use for, all embellished with flags and vulgar statuary. Our princely muffin the late Albert had set the tone with the Crystal Palace jamboree of 1851, since when you hadn’t been able to stir abroad without tripping over Palaces of Industry and Oriental Pavilions, and now the Yankees were taking it up on the grand scale. Elspeth was all for it; she suffered from the common Scotch mania for improvement and progress through machinery and tracts, and had been on one of the Crystal Palace ladies’ committees, so when she fell in with a gaggle of females who were arranging the women’s pavilion at Philadelphia, it was just nuts to her. She was in the thick of their councils in no time – republican women, you know, love a Lady to distraction – and there could be no question of our going home until after the opening in May.
I didn’t mind too much, since New York was jolly enough, and Elspeth was happy to divide her time between Park Avenue and Philadelphia, where preparations were in full cry, with Chinks and dagoes hammering away, for the whole world was exhibiting its Brummagem rubbish, and great halls were being built to house it. I even attended one of Elspeth’s committee teas, and as a traveller of vast experience my views were ardently sought by the organising trots; I assured them that they must insist on the Turks bringing a troupe of their famous contortionist dancers, a sorority akin to the ancient Vestal Virgins; the religious and cultural significance of their muscular movements was of singular interest, I said, and could not fail to edify the masses.59
Mostly, though, we were in and about the smart set, and New York society being as small as such worlds are, the encounter which I had just after Christmas was probably inevitable. It happened in one of those infernal patent circular hotel doors; I was going in as another chap was coming out, and he halted halfway, staring at me through the glass. Then he tried to reverse, which can’t be done, and then he thrust ahead at such a rate that I was carried past and finished where he had been, and he tried to reverse again. I rapped my cane on the glass.
“Open the damned door, sir!” cries I. “It’s not a merry-go-round.”
He laughed, and round we went again. I stood in the lobby as he tumbled out, grinning, a tall, lean cove with a moustache and goatee and a rakish air that I didn’t fancy above half.
“I don’t believe it!” cries he eagerly. “Aren’t you Flashman?”
“So I am,” says I warily, wondering if he was married. “Why?”
“Well, you can’t have forgotten me!” says he, piqued-like. “It isn’t every day, surely, that you almost chop a fellow’s head off!”
It was the voice, full of sharp conceit, that I remembered, not the face. “Custer! George Custer. Well, I’ll be damned!”
“Whatever brings you to New York?” cries he, pumping my fist. “Why, it must be ten years – say, though, more than that since our encounter at Audie! But this is quite capital, old fellow! I should have known those whiskers anywhere – the very picture of a dashing hussar, eh? What’s your rank now?”
“Colonel,” says I, and since it seemed a deuced odd question, though typical of him, I added: “What’s yours?”
“Ha! Well may you ask!” says he. “Half-colonel, and on sufferance at that. But with your opportunities, which we are denied, I’d have thought you’d have your brigade at the least, by now. But there,” cries he bitterly, “you’re a fighting soldier, so you’d be the last they’d promote. All services are alike, my boy.”
Here was one with a bee in his bonnet, I saw, and could guess why. In the war, you see, he’d been the boy general – I’m not sure he wasn’t the youngest in the Union Army – but like all the others he’d had to come down the ladder after the peace, and like a fool he was letting it rankle. I’d heard talk of him in the West, of course, for he’d been active against the Indians, and that he’d come under a cloud for dabbling in politics. Grant, they said, detested him.
“But see here,” he went on, “I’ve been itching to see you for ever so long, and wishing I’d looked you out after the war. You see, I never knew then, that you’d been in the Light Brigade!” I was mystified. “Balaclava! The noble Six Hundred!” cries he, and shot if he wasn’t regarding me with admiration. “But I hadn’t the least notion, you see! Well, that’s something I shall want to hear all about, I can tell you, now that chance has brought us together again.”
“Ah, well yes,” says I uncertainly. “I see …”
“Look here,” says he, sporting his ticker, “it’s the most confounded bore, but I have to call on my publisher … oh, yes, I’m more of a writer than a fighter these days, thanks to the Stuffed Gods of Washington.” He grimaced and took my hand again. “But you’ll dine with me, this evening? Is your wife in New York? Capital! Then we’d better say Delmonico’s – Libby will be head over heels to meet you, and we’ll make a party. Fight our battles o’er again, eh? First-rate!”
I wasn’t sure it was, as I watched him striding off through the falling snow. Aside from the Audie skirmish, Appomattox, and an exchange of courtesies in Washington, I’d hardly known him except by reputation as a reckless firebrand who absolutely enjoyed warfare, and would have been better suited to the Age of Chivalry, when he’d have broken the Holy Grail in his hurry to get at it. And while I’d met scores of old acquaintances in America, for some reason running into Custer recalled my meeting with Spotted Tail, with its uncomfortable consequences.
We dined at Delmonico’s, though, with him and wife, a bonny, prim woman who worshipped him, and his brother Tom, a handsomer edition of the Custer family who got on famously with Elspeth, each being an accomplished flirt. Custer was all high spirits and presented me to his wife with:
“Now, here, Libby, is the English gentleman who almost made a widow of you before you were married. What d’you think of that? Sir Harry Flashman, Victoria Cross and Knight of the Bath—” he’d been at the List, by the sound of it “—also formerly of the Army of the Confederacy, with whom I crossed sabres at Audie, didn’t I, old fellow?” The truth of it was that he’d been laying about him like a drunk Cossack among our Johnnie cavalry, and I’d taken one cut at him in self-defence as I fled for safety to the rebel lines, but if he wanted to remember it as a knightly tourney, let him. “Ah, brave days!” cried he, clapping me on the shoulder, and over the soup he regaled us with sentimental fustian about the brotherhood of the sword, now sheathed in respect and good fellowship.
He was all enthusiasm for Balaclava, demanding the most precise account, and vowing over and over that he wished he’d been there, which shows you he should have been in some sort of institution. Though when I think of it, the Charge was ready-made for the likes of him; he and Lew Nolan would have made a pair. When I’d done, he shook his head wistfully, sighed, regarded his glass (lemonade, if you please), and murmured:
“‘When shall their glory fade?’ C’était magnifique! – and never mind what some fool of a Frenchman said about it’s not being war! What does he think war is, without loyalty and heroism and the challenge of impossible odds? And you,” says he, fixing me with a misty eye, “were there. D’you know, I have one of your old troopers in my 7th Cavalry? You know him, my dear – Butler. Splendid soldier, best sergeant I’ve got. Well, sir,” he smiled nobly at me and lifted his glass, “I’ve waited a long time to propose this toast – the Light Brigade!”
I nodded modestly, and remarked that the last time I’d heard it drunk had been by Liprandi’s Russian staff after Balaclava, and d’you know, Custer absolutely blubbed on the spot. On lemonade, too.
“Ah, but you British are lucky!” cries he, after he’d mopped himself and they’d brought him a fresh salad. “When I reflect on the contrasting prospects of an aspiring English subaltern and his American cousin, my heart could break. For the one – Africa, India, the Orient – why, half the world’s his oyster, where he can look forward to active service, advancement, glory! For the other, he’ll be lucky if he sees a skirmish against Indians – and precious thanks he’ll get for that! – and thirty years of weary drudgery in some desert outpost where he can expect to end his days as a forgotten captain entering returns.”
“Come now,” says I, “there’s plenty of drudgery in our outposts, too. As to glory – you’ve had the biggest war since the Peninsula, and no man came out of it with brighter laurels than you did.” Which was true, although I was saying it to sweeten Libby Custer, who’d shown no marked enthusiasm for me on hearing how I’d almost cut off her hero in his prime. She beamed at me now, and laid a fond hand on Custer’s arm.
“That is true, Autie,” says she, and he gave her a noble sigh.
“And where has it led me, my dear? Fort Abe Lincoln, to be sure, under the displeasure of my chiefs. Compare my position with Sir Harry’s splendid record – Indian Mutiny, Crimea, Afghanistan, China, the lord knows where else, and our own war besides. Why, his Queen has knighted him! Don’t think, old fellow,” says he, earnestly, “that I grudge you the honours you’ve won. But I envy you – your past, aye, and your future.”
“Luck of the service,” says I, and because I was bored with his croaking I added: “Anyway, I’ve never been a general, and I’ve got only one American Medal of Honour, you know.”
This was Flashy at his most artistic, you’ll agree, when I tell you that I knew perfectly well that Custer had no Medal of Honour, but his brother Tom had two. I guessed nothing would gall him more than having to correct my apparent mistake, which he did, stiffly, while Tom studied the cutlery and I was all apologies, feigning embarrassment.
“They send ’em up with the rations, anyway,” says I, lamely, and Elspeth, who is the most well-meaning pourer of oil on troubled flames I know, launched into a denunciation of the way Jealous Authority invariably overlooked the Claims of the Most Deserving, “for my own gallant countrymen, Lord Clyde and Sir Hugh Rose, were never awarded the Victoria Cross, you know, and I believe there were letters in the Herald and Scotsman about it, and Harry was only given his at the last minute, isn’t that so, my love? And I am sure, General Custer,” went on the amazing little blatherskite with awestruck admiration, “that if you knew the esteem in which your name and fame are held in military circles outside America, you would not exchange it for anything.”
Not a word of truth in it, but d’you know, Custer blossomed like a flower, he had an astonishing vanity, and his carping about his lot had more of honest fury than self-pity in it. He knew he was a good soldier – and he was, you know, when he was in his right mind. I’ve seen more horse-soldiering than most, and if my life depended on how a mounted brigade was handled, I’d as soon see George Custer in command as anyone I know. His critics, who never saw him at Gettysburg and Yellow Tavern, base their case on one piece of arrant folly and bad luck, when he let his ambition get the better of him. But he was good, and felt with some justice that the knives had been out for him. I reflected, watching him that night, how the best soldiers in war are so often ill-suited to peacetime service; he’d been a damned pest, they said, at West Point, and since the war he’d been collecting no end of black marks – there was one ugly tale of his leaving a detachment to its fate on the frontier, and another of his shooting deserters; he’d been court-martialled and suspended, and only reinstated because Sheridan knew there wasn’t an Indian fighter to touch him. Certainly he hadn’t reached the heights he thought he’d deserved, thanks to his own orneriness, bad luck, and the malignant Stuffed Gods of Washington, as he called them.
The discontent showed, too. He was still in his middle thirties, and I swear without vanity he looked as old as I did at fifty-three. One reason I’d been slow to recognise him was that the brilliant young cavalier I’d seen bearing down on us at Audie, long gold curls streaming from beneath his ridiculous ribboned straw hat, had changed into a worn, restless, middle-aged man with an almost feverish glint in his eyes; his skin was dry, the hair was lank and faded, and the tendons in his neck stuck out when he leaned forward in animated talk. I wondered – and I ain’t being clever afterwards – how long he would last.
We saw a good deal of the Custers that winter, for although he wasn’t the kind I’m used to seek out – being Puritan straight, no booze, baccy, or naughty cuss-words, and full of soldier talk – it’s difficult to resist a man who treats you as though you were a military oracle, and can’t get enough of your conversation. He was beglamoured by my reputation, you see, not knowing it was a fraud, and had a great thirst for my campaign yarns. He’d read the first volume of my Dawns and Departures, and was full of it; I must read his own memoirs of the frontier which he was preparing for the press. So I did, and said it was the finest thing I’d struck, beat Xenophon into a cocked hat; the blighter fairly glowed.
Our womenfolk dealt well, too, and Tom was a cheery soul who kept Elspeth amused with his jokes (I’d run the rule over him and decided he was harmless). So we five dined frequently, and visited the theatre, of which Custer was a great patron; he was a friend of Barrett the actor, who was butchering Shakespeare at Booth’s, and would sit with his eyes glued to the stage muttering “Friends, Romans, countrymen” under his breath.
That should have made me leery; I’m all for a decent play myself, but when you see someone transported from reality by them, watch out. I shan’t easily forget the night we saw some sentimental abomination about a soldier going off to the wars; when the moment came when his wife buckled on his sword for him, I heard sniffing and supposed it was Libby or Elspeth piping her eye. Then the sniff became a baritone groan, and when I looked, so help me it was Custer himself, with his hand to his brow, bedewing his britches with manly tears. Libby and Elspeth began to bawl, too, possibly in sympathy, and had to be helped out, and they all had a fine caterwaul in the corridor, with Libby holding Custer’s arm and whispering, “Oh, Autie, it makes me so fearful for you!” Deuced ominous, you may think, and a waste of five circle tickets to boot. At least with Spotted Tail you got your money’s worth.
It was in February that Custer announced that he and Libby would have to leave New York for Fort Lincoln, the outpost far up the Missouri where his regiment was quartered; when I observed that I didn’t see how he could even exercise cavalry until the snow got properly away, he admitted flat out that they were going because they couldn’t afford to stay in New York any longer: his pockets were to let. Since I knew it would give offence, I toyed with the idea of inviting them to stay with us, but thought better of it; he might have accepted.
“The sooner I am back the better, in any event,” says he. “I must be thoroughly prepared for the spring; I must be. It may be the last chance, you see.” I noticed he was looking more on edge than usual, so I asked him, last chance of what? We were in the Century Club, as I remember; he took a turn up and down, and then sat abruptly, facing me.
“The last chance I’ll ever see of a campaign,” says he, and drummed his fingers on his knee. “The fact is that once this question of the hostile Sioux is settled, as it must be this year, there’s going to be precious little left for the U.S. Army to do – certainly nothing that could be dignified by the name of ‘campaign’. The Sioux,” says he grimly, “are the last worthwhile enemy we’ve got – unlike you we don’t have an empire full of obliging foes, alas! It follows that any senior officer aspiring to general rank had better make his name while the fighting lasts –”
“Hold hard, though,” says I. “It’s common knowledge that the Sioux won’t fight, isn’t it? Why, the Indian Office was quoted in the papers t’other day, doubting if five hundred hostile Indians would ever be gathered together in America again.”
“They’ll fight all right!” cries he. “They’re bound to. You haven’t heard the latest news: Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull have defied the government’s ultimatum to come in to the agencies by the end of January – there are thousands of ’em camped up on the Powder this minute who’ll never come in! That’s tantamount to a declaration of war – and when that war begins this spring I and the 7th Cavalry are going to be in the van, my boy! Which means that the Stuffed Gods of Washington, who have done me down at every turn and would dearly love to retire me to Camp Goodbye to count horseshoes, will have to think again!” He grinned as though he could taste triumph already. “Yes, sir – the American people will be reminded that George A. Custer is too good a bargain to be put on the back shelf. My one fervent prayer,” added this pious vampire fiercely, “is that Crazy Horse doesn’t catch any fatal illness before the spring grass grows.”
“You’re sure he’ll fight, then?”
“If he don’t, he’s not the man I think he is. By gad,” cries he with unusual fervour, “I would, if it was my land and buffalo! So would you.” He smiled at me, knowing-like, and then glanced about conspiratorially, lowering his voice. “In fact, when we ride west in May, I’ll be taking whoever I choose in my command party, and if some distinguished visiting officer cared to accompany me as a guest, why …” He winked, an appalling sight since his eye was bright with excitement. “What about it? Fancy a slap at the redskins, do you? Heaven knows you must have soldiered against everyone else!”
That’s the trouble with my derring-do reputation – blood-thirsty asses like Custer think I can’t wait to cry “Ha-ha!” among the trumpets. I’d as soon have walked naked to Africa to join the Foreign Legion. But you have to play up; I made my eyes gleam and chewed my lip like a man sore tempted.
“Get thee behind me, Custer,” I chuckled, and ruefully shook my head. “No-o … I doubt if Horse Guards would approve of my chasing Indians – not that I’d care a button for that, but … Dammit, I’d give a leg to go along with you—”
“Well then?” cries he, all a-quiver.
“But there’s the old girl, you see. She’s waved me off to war so many times, brave little soul … oh, I can leave her when duty calls, but …” I sighed, manly wistful. “But not for fun, George, d’you see? Decent of you to ask, though.”
“I understand,” says he solemnly. “Yes, our women have the harder part, do they not?” I could have told him they didn’t; Elspeth had led a life of reckless and probably wanton pleasure while I was being chased half round the world by homicidal niggers. “Well,” says he, “if you should change your mind, just remember, there’s always a good horse and a good gun – aye, and a good friend – waiting for you at Fort Lincoln.” He shook my hand.
“George,” says I earnestly, “I shan’t forget that.” I don’t forget holes in the road or places I owe money, either.
“God bless you, old fellow,” says he, and off he went, much to my relief, for he’d given me a turn by suggesting active service, the dangerous, inconsiderate bastard. ’Tain’t lucky. I hoped I’d seen the last of him, but several weeks later, sometime in April, when Elspeth was off in the final throes of her Philadelphia preparations, I came home one night to find a note asking me to call on him at the Brevoort. I’d supposed him far out on the prairie, inspecting ammunition and fly-buttons, and here was his card with the remarkable scrawl: “If ever I needed a friend, it is now! Don’t fail me!!”
Plainly he was in a fine state of frenzy, so I tooled round to the Brevoort next morning, anticipating sport, only to find he was at his publisher’s. Aha, thinks I, that’s it: they’ve thrown him and his beastly book into the gutter, or want him to pay for the illustrations; still, Custer as an unhinged author might be diverting, so I waited, and presently he arrived like a whirlwind, crying out at sight of me and bustling me to his room. I asked if they’d set his book in Norwegian by mistake, and he stared at me; he looked fit for murder.
“Nothing to do with my book! I merely saw my publisher in passing – indeed, I’m only in New York because if I had stayed in that … that sink of conspiracy in Washington a moment longer, I believe I’d have run mad!”
“What’s the row in Washington? I thought you were out in Fort Lincoln.”
“So I was, and so I should be! It’s a conspiracy, I tell you! A foul, despicable plot by that scoundrel who masquerades as President –”
“Sam Grant? Come now, George,” says I, “he’s a surly brute, we agree, and his taste in cigars is awful – but he ain’t a plotter.”
“What do you know about it?” snaps he. “Oh, forgive me, old friend! I am so distraught by this – this web they’ve spun about me –”
“What web? Now look here, you take a deep breath, or put your head in the basin there, and tell it plain, will you?”
He let out a great heaving sigh, and suddenly smiled and clasped my hand. Gad, he was a dramatic creature, though. “Good old Flash!” he cries. “The imperturbable Englishman. You’re right, I must take hold. Well, then …”
He’d been at Fort Lincoln, preparing for his precious Sioux campaign, when he’d suddenly been summoned to Washington to give evidence against Belknap, the Secretary for War, no less, who was in a great scandal because of bribes his wife was said to have taken from some post trader or Indian agent (I wasn’t clear on the details). Custer, not wanting to leave his regiment so soon before taking the field, had asked to be excused, but the jacks-in-office had insisted, so off he’d gone and given his evidence which, by his account, wasn’t worth a snuff anyway. The mischief was that Belknap was a great crony of Grant’s, and Grant was furious at Custer for having given evidence at all.
The whole thing stank of politics, and I guessed I wasn’t hearing the half of it. All the world knew Grant’s administration was rotten to the core, and I’d heard hints that Custer himself had political ambitions of no mean order. But what mattered just then was that he’d put Grant in a towering rage.60
“He means to break me!” cries Custer. “I know his vindictive spirit. By his orders I am kept in Washington, like a dog on a lead, at a time when my regiment needs me as never before! It’s my belief Grant intends I shall not return to the West – that his jealous spite is such that he will deny me the chance to take the field! You doubt it? You don’t know Washington, that’s plain, or the toads and curs that infest it! As though I cared a rap for Belknap and his dirty dealings! If Grant would see me I would tell him so – that all I want is to do my duty in the field! But he refuses me an audience!”
I let him rave, and then asked what he wanted of me. He spun round like a jack-in-the-box.
“You know Grant,” says he fiercely. “He respects you, and he is bound to listen to you! You are his old friend and comrade – if you were to urge him to let me go, he could not ignore it. Will you? You know what this campaign means to me!”
I didn’t know whether to laugh more at his brazen cheek or his folly in supposing that Grant would pay the least heed to me. I started to say so, but he brushed it violently aside.
“Grant will listen to you, I say! Don’t you see, you must carry weight? You’re neutral, and free of all political interest – and you have the seal of the greatest American who ever lived! Didn’t Lincoln say: ‘When all other trusts fail, turn to Flashman’? Besides, Grant appointed you to the Indian Commission, didn’t he? He cannot refuse you a hearing. You must speak up for me. If you don’t, I can’t think who will – and I’ll be finished, on the brink of glorious success!”
“But look here,” says I, “there are far better advocates, you know. Sherman, and Sheridan, your friends—”
“Sheridan’s in Chicago. Sherman? I don’t for the life of me know where he stands. By heaven, if Robert Lee were alive, I’d ask him – he’d stand up for me!” He stood working his fists, his face desperate. “You’re my best hope – my only one! I beg of you not to fail me!”
The man was plainly barmy. If I carried weight in Washington it was news to me, and bearding Sam Grant on this crackpot’s behalf wasn’t my idea of a jolly afternoon. On the other hand, it was flattering to be asked, and it might be fun to help stir up what sounded like an uncommon dirty kettle of fish … and to see what effect my unorthodox approach might have on Grant – not for Custer’s sake, but for my own private amusement. I was at a loose end in New York, anyway. So I hemmed a bit, and finally said, very well, I’d come to Washington to oblige him, not that it would do the least good, mind …
“You are the noblest soul alive!” cries he, with tears in his eyes, and swept me down to luncheon, during which he talked like a Gatling about what I should say to Grant, and his own sterling qualities, and the iniquities of the administration. Not that I heeded much of it – my attention had been caught elsewhere.
It was her voice at first high and sharp and Yankee, at the dining-room door: “Yep. A table by the window. Oh-kay.” And then her figure, as she rustled smartly past in the waiter’s wake; fashionable women in the ’70s dressed so tight they could barely sit down,61 and hers was the perfect hourglass shape – a waist I could gladly have spanned with my two hands, but for her upper and lower works you’d have needed the help of the lifeboat crew. Unusually tall, close on six feet from the feathered cap on her piled blue-black hair to the modish calf-boots, and a most arresting profile as she turned to take her seat. Commanding was the word for the straight nose and brow and the full, almost fleshy, mouth and chin, but the complexion was that dusky rose high colour you see on beautiful Italians, and I felt the steam rise under my collar as I drank her in. Then she turned her face full to the room – and arresting wasn’t the word.
Her right eye was covered with a patch of embroidered purple silk with a ribbon across brow and temple, matching her dress. Don’t misunderstand me; I don’t fancy ’em one-legged or hunch-backed or with six toes, and after the first shock you realised that the patch was of no more account than an earring or beauty spot; nothing could distract from the magnetic beauty of that full-lipped arrogant face with its superb colouring – indeed, the incongruous note was her harsh nasal voice carrying sharply as she gave her order: “Mahk turrel soup, feelay Brev’urt medium rayr, Old Injun pudding. Spa warrer. Yep.” Well, she probably needed plenty of nourishment to keep that Amazonian figure up to the mark. Italian-American, probably; the ripe splendour of the Mediterranean with the brash hardness of the Yankee. Ripe was the word, too; she’d be about forty, which made that slim waist all the more remarkable – Lord God, what must she look like stripped? And in that happy contemplation I forgot her eye-patch altogether, which just shows you. My last glimpse of her as we left the dinning-room, she was smoking a long cigarette and trickling the smoke from her shapely nostrils as she sat boldly erect scanning the room with her cool dark eye. Ah, well, thinks I regretfully, ships that pass, and don’t even speak each other, never mind boarding.
From that exotic vision to the surly bearded presence of Ulysses S. Grant was a most damnable translation, I can tell you. I had endured Custer’s rantings on the way down – release from Washington and return to his command were what I was expected to achieve – and while it seemed to me that my uncalled-for Limey interference could only make matters worse, well, I didn’t mind that. I was quite enjoying the prospect of playing bluff, honest Harry at the White House, creating what mischief I could. When Ingalls, the Quartermaster-General, heard what we’d come for, he said bluntly that Grant would have me kicked into the street, and I said I’d take my chance of that, and would he kindly send in my card? He clucked like an old hen, but presently I was ushered into the big airy room, and Grant was shaking hands with fair cordiality for him. He thanked me again for Camp Robinson, inquired after Elspeth, snarled at the thought that he was going to have to open the Philadelphia exhibition, and asked what he could do for me. Knowing my man, I went straight in.
“Custer, Mr President.”
“What’s that?” His cordiality vanished, and his burly shoulders stiffened. “Has he been at you?”
“He asked me to see you, since he can’t. As a friend of his—”
“Have you come here to intercede for him? Is that it?”
“I don’t know, sir,” says I. “Is intercession necessary?”
He took a breath, and his jaw came out like a cannon. “Now see here, Flashman – the affairs of Colonel Custer with this office are no concern of yours, and I am astonished, sir, and most displeased, that you should presume to intrude in them. Poking your goddam nose – I will hear no representations from you, sir! As an officer of a … another country, you should know very well that you have no standing in this. Confound it! None whatsoever. I am gravely angered, sir!”
I let him boil. “May I remind you with the greatest respect, Mr President,” says I gently, “that I hold the rank of major, retired, United States Army, and also the Congressional Medal of Honour? If those do not entitle me to address the Commander-in-Chief on behalf of a brother-officer – then, sir, I can only offer my profound apologies for having disturbed you, and bid you a very good day.”
I stood up as I said it, perfectly composed, bowed slightly, and turned towards the door. If the little bugger had let me go I was prepared to turn on the threshold and roar in a voice they could hear in Maryland: “I deeply regret, sir, that I have found here only the President of the United States; I had hoped to find Ulysses S. Grant!” But I knew Sam; before I’d gone two steps he barked:
“Come back here!” So I did, while he stood hunched, glowering at me. “Very good – major,” says he at last. “Let’s have it.”
“Thank’ee, General.” I knew my line now, I thought. “It’s like this, sir: Custer believes, justly or not, that he has been denied a fair hearing. He also believes he’s being held in Washington to prevent his taking part in the campaign.”
I paused, and he looked at me flint-faced. “Well, sir?”
“If that’s true, General, I’d say he’s entitled to know why, and that he’s sufficiently senior to hear it from you in person. That’s all, Mr President.”
The brevity of it startled him, as I’d known it would. He stuck forward his bullet head, frowning. “That’s all you have to say? No other … plea on his behalf?”
“Not my biznay, sir. There may be political reasons I don’t know about. And I’m no longer your military adviser.”
“You never were!” he barked. “Not that that ever stopped you from advancing your opinions.” He stumped to the windows and peered out, growling; apparently he didn’t care for the view. “Oh, come on!” he snapped suddenly. “You don’t fool me! What have you got to say for this damned jackanapes? I may tell you,” he faced round abruptly, “that I’ve already had appeals from Sherman and Phil Sheridan, urging his professional competence, distinguished service, and all the rest of it. They also conceded, what they couldn’t dam’ well deny,” he added with satisfaction, “that he’s a meddlesome mountebank who’s too big for his britches, and gave me sentimental slop about the shame of not allowing him to ride forth at the head of his regiment. Well, sir, they failed to convince me.” He eyed me almost triumphantly. “I am not inclined, either on professional or personal grounds, to entrust Colonel George A. Custer with an important command. Well – major?”
I couldn’t credit he hadn’t been swayed, at least a little, by Sherman and Sheridan, otherwise he wouldn’t be wasting time talking to me. My guess was they’d pushed him to the edge, and another touch would do it, if properly applied.
“Well, Mr President,” says I, “I’ve no doubt you’re right.”
“Damned right I’m right.” He frowned. “What’s that mean? Don’t you agree with Sherman and Sheridan?”
“Well, sir,” says I doubtfully, “I gather you don’t agree with them yourself …”
“What I agree or don’t agree with is not to the point,” says he testily. “You’re here to badger me on this fellow’s behalf, aren’t you? Well, get on with it! I’m listening.”
“Mr President, I submitted only that if he’s to lose his command he should be told so, and not kept kicking his heels in your anteroom—”
“I’m not seeing him, so now! And that’s flat!”
“Well, beyond that, sir, it’s not for me to press my views.”
“That’s a day I’ll live to see!” scoffs he. “I know you – you’re like all the rest. You think I’m being unjust, don’t you? That I’m putting personal and political considerations – of which, by the way, you know nothing – above the good of the service? You want to tell me George Custer’s the finest thing since Murat—”
“Hardly that, sir,” says I, and quietly gave him both barrels. “I wouldn’t give him charge of an escort, myself.”
I’m possibly the only man who’s ever seen Ulysses S. Grant with his eyes wide open. His mouth, too.
“Then hell you say! What are you talking about – escort? What’s the matter with you?” He stared at me, suspiciously. “I thought you were a friend of his?”
“Indeed, sir. I hope that wouldn’t prejudice me, though.”
“Prejudice?” He looked nonplussed. “Now see here, let’s get this straight. I’m not denying that Custer’s a competent cavalry commander—”
“Jeb Stuart gave him the right about at Yellow Tavern,” I mused. “But then, Stuart was exceptional, we know—”
“The hell with Stuart! What’s that to the matter? I don’t understand you, Flashman. I am not disputing Custer’s professional merits, within limits. I’m aware of them – no man better … Escort, indeed! What did you mean by that, sir?”
“Well, perhaps that was coming in a bit raw,” I admitted. “I’ve always thought, though, that George was a trifle excitable … headstrong, you know … inclined to play to the gallery …”
“He’s given proof enough of that!” says Grant warmly. “Which is one reason I intend to send out a man who won’t use the campaign as an excuse for gallivanting theatrically to impress the public for his own ambitious reasons.”
“Ah, well, that’s not my province, you see. I can only talk as a soldier, Mr President, and if I have … well, any reservations about old George – I daresay that having come up with the Light Brigade and Jeb Stuart I tend to—”
“You and Jeb Stuart! ‘Jine the cavalree!’” He snorted and gave me another of his suspicious squints. “See here – have you got it in for Custer?”
“Certainly not, sir!” I was bluff indignation at once, and tried a contemptuous snort of my own. “And I’m absolutely not one of those cheap fogies who can’t forget he came foot of the class at West Point—”
“I should hope not! We know what that’s worth.” He shook his head and glowered a bit. “I came twenty-first out of thirty-nine myself. Yeah. First in horsemanship, though.”
“I never knew that,” says I, all interest.
“Yes, sir.” He looked me up and down with a sour grin. “You dandy boys with lancer figures think you’re the only ones can ride, don’t you?” He hesitated, but being Sam, not for long. “Care for a drink?”
He poured them out, and we imbibed, and after he’d got the taste of it and ruminated, he came back to the matter in hand, shaking his head. “No, I’d be the last man to belittle Custer as a soldier. Escort! I like that! But as to seeing him – no, Flashman, I can’t do it. ’Twould only make bad worse. I know what you mean about excitable, you see. Impassioned appeals to me as an old brother-in-arms – I won’t have that.” He gulped his drink and sighed. “I don’t know. We’ll say no more about it, then.”
Taking this for dismissal, I was ready to be off, well satisfied with having thoroughly muddied the waters, and he saw me to the door, affably enough. Then a thought seemed to strike him, and he coughed uncertaintly, glancing at me sidelong. Suddenly he came out with it, peering under his brows.
“Tell me … something I’ve often wondered, but never cared to ask. Would you be … that is, were you … the Flashman in Tom Brown’s Schooldays?”
I’m used to it by now, and vary my reply according to the inquirer. “Oh, yes, don’t you know,” says I. “That’s me.”
“Oh.” He blinked. “Yes, I see … well.” He didn’t know which way to look. “Uh-huh. But … was it true? What he says, I mean … about you?”
I considered this. “Oh, yes, I’d say so. Every word of it.” I chuckled reminiscently. “Great days they were.”
He scratched his beard and muttered, “I’ll be damned!” and then shook my hand, rather uncomfortably, and stumped off, with an anxious glance or two over his shoulder.62 I strolled out, and Custer leaped from ambush, demanding news.
“He thinks you’re a damned good cavalryman,” says I, “but he won’t see you.”
“But my reinstatement? I may leave Washington?”
“No go there, either, I’m afraid. He don’t hold it against you that you came last at the Point, by the way.”
“What?” He was fairly hopping. “You … you could not move him at all? He concedes me nothing? In heaven’s name, what did you say? Didn’t you urge my—”
“Now, calm yourself. I’ve done you a better day’s work than you know, if I’m any judge. Sherman and Sheridan have been at him, too. So just rest easy, and it’ll come right, you’ll see.”
“How can I rest easy? If you have failed me … oh, you must have bungled it!” cries this grateful specimen. “Ah, this is too much! The corrupt, mean-spirited villain! I am to be kept like a lackey at his door, am I? Well, if he thinks that, he doesn’t know his man! I defy him!”
And he stormed off in a passion, vowing to catch the next train west, and Grant could make of it what he liked. I ambled back to the hotel, whistling, and found a note at the porter’s cabin; Grant wanting me to autograph his copy of Tom Brown, no doubt. But it wasn’t. A very clerkly hand:
“The Directors of the Upper Missouri Development Corporation present their compliments to Sir Harry Flashman, etc., and request the privilege of a conference in Room 26/28 of this hotel at 3 o’clock, to discuss a Proposal which they are confident will be of mutual advantage.”
I’d had ’em before, at home, fly-by-night company sharps hoping to enlist a well-known public man (if you’ll forgive me) in some swindle or other, and prepared to grease the palm according. I’d not have thought I was prominent enough over here, though, and was about to crumple it up when I noted that these merchants were at least flush enough to engage a suite of rooms. No harm in investigating, so at the appointed hour I rapped the timber of Number 26, and was admitted by a sober nondescript who conducted me to the inner door and said the company president was expecting me.
I went in, and the company president rose from behind a desk covered with papers and held out a hand in welcome. The company president was wearing crimson velvet today, and as before, the eye-patch and ribbon were to match.
“Good of you to be so prompt, Sir Harry.” Her handshake was firm and brisk, like her voice. “Yep. Pray be seated. A cigarette?” She had one smoking in a copper tray, and while I lighted another she sat down with a graceful rustle and appraised me with that single dark eye. “Forgive me. I’d expected you to be older. Yep. The letters after your name, and all.”
If there’s one thing I can tolerate it’s a voluptuous beauty who expected me to be older. I was still recovering from my surprise, and blessing my luck. At point-blank she was even more overpowering than I’d have imagined; the elegant severity of the dress which covered her from ankle to chin emphasized her figure in a most distracting way. It was abundantly plain that her shape was her own, and certainly no corset – they were thrusting across the desk of their own free will, and the temptation to seize one and cry “How’s that?” was strong. No encouragement, though, from that commandingly handsome dark face with the crimson strip cutting obliquely across brow and cheek; the fleshy mouth and chin were all business, and the smile coldly formal. The high colour of her skin, I noticed, was artfully applied, but she wore no perfume or jewellery, and her hands were strong and capable. In a word, she looked like a belly-dancer who’s gone in for banking.
I said I believed I’d seen her lunching at the Brevoort, in New York, and she nodded curtly and disposed of it in her harsh nasal voice.
“Yep, correct. You were engaged, so I didn’t intrude. I meant to speak with you later, but they said you’d left for Washington. I had business here, so I figured to kill two birds with one stone. Oh-kay,” she drawled, and folded her hands on the table. “Business. I understand you have the acquaintance of Chancellor Prince von Bismarck.”
That was a facer. For one thing, “acquaintance” wasn’t how I’d have described that German ruffian who’d dragged me into his diabolical Strackenz plot and tried to murder meb, and how did she—
“You allude to him in your book—” She tapped a volume on the table “—in a way that suggests you’ve met him. Dawns and Departures. Most interesting. I take it you do know him?”
“Fairly well,” says I, on my guard. “At one time we were … ah, close associates. Haven’t seen him for some years, though.” Twenty-eight, to be exact. I’d kept count, thankfully.
“That’s very good. Yep. The Upper Missouri Development Corporation, of which I am president and principal shareholder – pardon me, is something amusing you?” Her single eye was like a flint. “Perhaps you think it’s unusual for a woman to be head of a large corporation?”
In fact I’d been musing cheerfully on the words “upper” and “development”, but I couldn’t tell her that. “No, I was remembering how I introduced Prince Bismarck to boxing – I do beg your pardon. As to your position, I know several ladies who preside over quite large enterprises, including the Queens of England and Madagascar, the Empress of China, and the late Ranee of an Indian kingdom. You remind me of her very much; she was extraordinarily beautiful.”
She didn’t bat an eyelid. “Our company,” she went straight on, “owns extensive lands on the Missouri river – it mayn’t be familiar to you? Oh-kay – the area in question is located around a steamboat landing recently renamed Bismarck, after your friend the Chancellor, although I guess he doesn’t know it.”63 She drew on her cigarette. “We intend to take advantage of that coincidence to attract German settlers and financial interests to the region. Yep. Vast sums will be involved, and a personal endorsement – maybe even a visit – by the German Chancellor would be invaluable to us. Oh-kay?”
“My dear lady! You don’t expect Bismarck to come to America? He’s fairly well occupied, you know.”
“Obviously that’s highly unlikely.” She said it dismissively. “But an endorsement – even an expression of interest and good will on his part – is certainly not. Naturally we’ll canvass the German government. But a personal approach, from one who knows him well, would be far more likely to enlist his personal sympathy, wouldn’t you say? Just his signature, on a letter approving the plan, would be worth many thousands of dollars to us.”
“You’re suggesting,” says I, “that I should ask Otto Bismarck to give his blessing to your scheme?”
“Yep. Correct.”
Well, I’d heard of Yankee enterprise, but this beat the band. Mind you, it wasn’t crazy. A respectable scheme, brought to Bismarck’s attention, might well win a kind word from him, and trust the Americans to know how to turn that sort of thing into hard cash. The beautiful thought was Flashy writing: “My dear Otto, I wonder if you remember the jolly times we had in Schonhausen with Rudi and the rats, when you made me impersonate that poxy prince …” Could I blackmail him, perhaps? Perish the thought. But I could smell profit in her scheme, money and … I was watching her inhale deeply. By Jove, yes, money was the least of it. She stroked her cheek with the hand holding the cigarette and watched me speculatively. Was there a glimmer of more than commercial interest in that fine dark eye? We’d see.
“I’d have to know a good deal about your scheme before—”
“Yep. We’d want you to visit the town of Bismarck, as well as examining our plans in detail. A few weeks would—”
“Bismarck!” I exclaimed. “Wait – isn’t that the place – yes, on the Missouri – close by an army post called Fort Abraham Lincoln? Why, it’s right out on the frontier!”
“Corr-ect. Why, d’you know it?”
“No, but a friend of mine – in fact, the man you saw lunching with me at the Brevoort – commands at Fort Lincoln. Well, that’s an extraordinary thing! Why, I was with him only today—”
“Is that so? I was about to say that when you’d been shown the area, and had the plans explained, you would be able to write Prince Bismarck – or visit him if you thought it advisable. The corporation would meet all expenses, naturally, in addition to—”
“Who’d show me the area? Yourself, personally?”
“—in addition to a fee of fifteen thousand dollars. Yep.” She crushed out her cigarette. “Myself. Personally.”
“In that case,” says I gallantly, “I should find it impossible to refuse.” She looked at me woodenly and put another cigarette between her full lips, lighting it herself before I could bound to assist.
“Of course,” says I, “I can’t promise that Bismarck will—”
“We would pay five thousand of the fee on despatch of your personal letter to the Chancellor, drafted in consultation with us,” says she crisply, and blew out her match. “The balance would be dependent on his reply – five thousand if he replies but declines, ten thousand if he approves. According to the warmth of that approval, a bonus might be paid.”
A business-like bitch if ever there was one; cold as a dead Eskimo, rapping out her terms and looking like the Borgias’ governess. I told her it all sounded perfectly satisfactory.
“Oh-kay.” She struck a bell on her desk, and spoke past me as the door opened. “Reserve a first-class sleeping berth for Sir Harry Flashman, V.C., K.C.B., to Bismarck and return.” The door closed. “There’s a hotel there, but I wouldn’t put a dawg in it. Can you arrange to stay with your military friend? If not, we’ll rent the best rooms available. You can? Oh-kay.”
She put down her cigarette, rose, and went to an escritoire against the wall. I watched the tall, shapely figure lustfully, considering the curls that nestled around her ears, and the entrancing profile under the lustrous piled hair. It’s my experience that a woman with a shape like that will invariably use it for the purpose which Nature intended. She might be a proper little Scrooge, with her cold efficiency and twanging voice and impersonal stare, but she didn’t dress in that style, and paint in that artful way, to help balance the books. If I couldn’t charm her supine, it was time to retire. As I got up she turned and came towards me with that smooth stride, holding out an envelope towards me.
“It’s the corporation’s policy,” says she, “to pay a retainer in advance.” At a yard’s distance I realised she was barely three inches shorter than I.
“Quite unnecessary, my dear,” says I pleasantly. “By the way, you still have the advantage of me, Miss … or Mrs …?”
“Candy. Mrs Arthur B. Candy.” She continued to hold out the envelope. “We’d prefer that you took it.”
“And I’d prefer that I didn’t. Arthur,” says I, “has a sweet tooth,” and before she could stir I had my hands on that willowy waist. She quivered – and stood still. I drew her swiftly against me, mouth to mouth, feeling the glorious benefits and working to get her lips apart; suddenly they opened, her tongue flickered against mine, she writhed against me for five delicious seconds, and as I changed my grip to the half-Flashman – one hand on her right tit, t’other clasping her left buttock, and stand back, referee – she slipped smoothly from my embrace.
“Yep,” says she, and without the least appearance of hurry she was behind her desk again, seating herself and making a minute adjustment to her eyepatch ribbon. “Arthur Candy,” she went on calmly, “never existed. But in working hours, the inital B. stands for business.” Her hand rested beside her bell, “Oh-kay?”
“Business is so fatiguing, you know. Don’t you think you ought to lie down? All work and no play—”
“I have a full sked-yool for the next ten days,” she went on briskly, consulting her calendar. “Yep. I intend to be in Bismarck around the third week of May. That gives you ample time to travel out at your convenience. When I arrive I’ll check with Coulson’s, the steamboat people, and we can meet at their office.”
“I’ve a much better notion. Suppose we travel out together?”
“That’s quite impossible, I’m afraid. I have appointments.”
“I’m sure you have,” says I, sitting on the corner of her desk à la Rudi Starnberg, although I don’t recall his knocking a tray of pins to the floor. “But, d’you know, Mrs Candy, there’s a good deal I ought to know about your corporation beforehand, I think. After all—”
“You can check with the New York City Bank as to our standing, if that bothers you. And there’s the retainer.” She gestured with her cigarette. I picked up the envelope – a sheaf of greenbacks, in hundreds – and dropped it back on her desk.
“The only thing that bothers me, as you are well aware,” says I, “is the corporation president. Will she do me the honour of dining with me this evening? Please?”
“Thank you, Sir Harry, but I’m engaged this evening.”
“Tomorrow, then?”
“Tomorrow I leave for Cincinnati.” She stood up and held out her hand. “May I say on behalf of the corporation that we’re both pleased and honoured that you are joining us in this enterprise?” She said it with calm formality, eye steady, the full mouth firm and expressionless. “Also that I am wearing a boot with a sharp toe and a pointed heel, and I’d like my hand back. Thank you.” She struck the bell, and her bloody watchdog appeared. “I’ll probably arrive at Bismarck by steamboat – the corporation has an interest in the company, so if your friend can put you up till then, perhaps we can arrange accommodation aboard afterwards.” Her smile was admirably polite and impersonal. “They’re extremely comfortable, and it will be so much pleasanter if we travel by water. Easier to see the country, too. Yep. You’re sure you won’t take the retainer? Oh-kay. Good afternoon, Sir Harry.”
And there I was in the corridor, considering various things. Chiefly, that I admired Mrs Candy’s style – the hard, no nonsense aloofness, punctuated by a brief impassioned lechery, was one I’d encountered occasionally, but I’d never known it better done. Why, though? Her proposal was rum, but plausible – even reasonable. There’d been a cool thou. at least in that envelope, and my sensitive nose hadn’t smelled swindle – it would have been all the way to the sofa and break the springs if she was crooked, which was one reason I’d tested her with a grapple. No, my guess was that she was a lusty bundle who kept a tight rein on her appetite during office hours, just as she’d said, but would let rip once the shop was shut. For the rest, her scheme made sense: Otto’s blessing would be worth a fortune to her (not that she’d ever get it through me), and even if I didn’t make more than the first payment out of it, playing with the corporation president on a steamboat cruise would be ample compensation – for her, too, lucky Mrs Candy. And Elspeth would be fast in Philadelphia for another month anyway.
The one fishbone in my throat was the queer chance that I’d be going to Bismarck, next door to George Custer’s fort. It’s the sort of coincidence I don’t trust an inch, but I was damned if I could see a catch. He’d sworn he was going to defy Grant and leave town tomorrow, so why shouldn’t I go west with him? – I might even pretend that I was taking him up on his invitation to join his ghastly campaign, supposing the silly ass was allowed to have one. It might be an amusing trip to Bismarck with him, too …
By God, but it was all suspiciously pat! The wild notion that Custer had set Mrs Candy on to lure me west so that he could drag me along in pursuit of the Sioux crossed my mind, and I found I was grinning. No, that didn’t answer – not having seen the exotic Mrs Candy. Not puritan George.
a Hamilton Fish, Secretary of State.
b See Royal Flash.