About the Author
George MacDonald Fraser was born in England and schooled in Scotland. He served in a Highland regiment in India, Africa, and the Middle East, and now lives on the Isle of Man.
From The Washington Post
It is now 40 years since the Flashman papers were fortuitously discovered during a sale of household furniture at Ashby, Leicestershire. As edited and arranged by the distinguished independent scholar George MacDonald Fraser, their gradual publication -- this being the 12th volume -- has provided welcome, if unexpected, insight into the military campaigns and private life of Victorian Britain's most decorated soldier, Sir Harry Paget Flashman (1822-1915). No student of 19th-century history would dispute that this archive has proved anything less than a treasure trove, prompting revisionist interpretations of the "Great Game" in Central Asia as well as renewed understanding of the Crimean War (and of the Charge of the Light Brigade, in particular), deepened insight into the American western expansion, and hitherto unsuspected background to John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry. (Alas, we still await a full account of Sir Harry's presence in North America from 1861-65, though it is well known that he served with both Union and Confederate forces.) No doubt their author's vigorous style and forthrightness, like that of Boswell in his "racy" journals (discovered under comparably romantic circumstances at Malahide Castle), contribute to the papers' popularity outside the academy: Many readers testify that they have in fact made the Pax Britannica "come alive." True, on occasion some pages have been deemed a little shocking by unduly sensitive natures -- one hardly forgets how Flashman, being pursued by angry Russians on horseback, felt compelled to lighten a heavy sled by throwing his virtually unclad mistress out of it. But as the French so wisely observe, autre temps, autre moeurs. Far more worrisome is the scholarly deliberateness of the Flashman publication schedule. Fraser's editing has been impeccable -- and it is impossible to imagine anyone else capable of it -- but he is himself past 80 and only halfway through his subject's long life. Be that as it may, Flashman on the March is at last available.
The story begins. . . . Story? I should obviously say "memoir," but the Flashman papers have proved so exciting that many readers, and even some critics, have adopted the convention of likening them to swashbuckling fiction. This is an understandable error, and easily forgiven. Still, the presence of historical endnotes -- 19 pages of them here -- goes far to undercut any unwarranted suspicions about their strict factual accuracy. At all events, this packet's "story" begins with Flashman escaping from Mexico after the execution of the French Emperor Maximilian, whom he had tried, unsuccessfully, to save from the firing squad. As one somehow expects, the ship bearing our hero back to Europe also bears an alluring young female, in this instance the Austrian captain's great-niece: "Puppy-fat and golden sausage curls ain't my style as a rule, but combined with a creamy complexion, parted rosebud lips, and great forget-me-not eyes alight with idiotic worship, they have their attraction." It is a long voyage to Trieste, and only a prude could blame Sir Harry for beguiling the tedious hours by instructing the little chit in "a few exercises they don't usually teach in young ladies' seminaries."
As so often happens, the value of this pedagogy is rashly undervalued, not to say misunderstood, by Fräulein Gertrude's elderly guardian, and Flashman soon needs to elude the attentions of inquiring agents of the Austro-Hungarian empire. Where better to vanish than into Africa? It seems that Sir Robert Napier, an old friend from the Indian campaigns, is about to march into Abyssinia to rescue a group of Britons being held captive by the insane Emperor Theodore. Flashman need only oversee the transport of 100,000 of silver, and then he can be on his way back to merrie England and the abundant charms of his even merrier wife, Elspeth. An easy job, really. Indeed, he writes, "I was in a tranquil optimistic mood as I set off on my Abyssinian adventure," adding "ass that I was."
"I couldn't foresee the screaming charge of long-haired warriors swinging their hideous sickle-blades against the Sikh bayonets, or the huge mound of rotting corpses under the precipice at Islamgee, or the ghastly forest of crucifixes at Gondar, or feel the agonising bite of steel bars against my body as I swung caged in the freezing gale above a yawning void, or imagine the ghastly transformation of an urbane, cultivated monarch into a murderous tyrant shrieking with hysterical glee as he slashed and hacked at his bound victims."
Ahem. Those hitherto unfamiliar with the Flashman Papers should note that here, as on other occasions, Sir Harry, though a reliable witness to such gruesome matters, occasionally betrays a taste for the stylistic excesses of the penny dreadful and shilling shocker, just as he also sometimes gives way to the rough humor of the officer's mess (e.g., "The place shook like a New Orleans brothel in Holy Week"). In consequence, many readers will find themselves simply turning the pages of Flashman on the March as if they were lost in the exciting adventures of a Victorian James Bond -- and by so doing fail to appreciate fully how much they are learning about the Abyssinian War. Moreover, the doubly attentive will sometimes detect a surprisingly prescient critique of contemporary world affairs: Great powers, this old campaigner suggests, were once able to go into hostile lands, do what they came to do and, in this instance at least, get out with minimal casualties.
It obviously goes without saying that Flashman's memoirs don't only deal with public events and battlefields. They show us the reverse of the medal, too, those private moments that so enliven human existence. As Flashman confesses, he didn't foresee the horrors, but neither did he foresee his opportunity to grow acquainted with the indigenous people, among them "the loveliest women in all Africa . . . a smiling golden nymph in her little leather tunic, teasing me as she sat by a woodland stream plaiting her braids . . . a gaudy barbarian queen lounging on cushions surrounded by her tame lions . . . a tawny young beauty remarking to my captors: 'If we feed him into the fire, little by little, he will speak. . . .' Aye, it's an interesting country, Abyssinia."
Uliba-Wark, Malee, Queen Masteeat -- each actually plays an important role in the bloody politics of Abyssinia, and each recognizes the need to win over Her Majesty's envoy. Flashman consequently relates the back and forth of some extremely heated conferences, usually in camera. Thankfully, he is able to draw on worldly insights gleaned from his own considerable and varied experience. If, as he counsels at one point, "you're lucky enough to be bedded unexpected with a beauty like Sarafa's wench, you must just follow the wisdom imparted to me by an Oriental lady of my acquaintance, after she'd filled me with hasheesh and ridden me ruined: 'Lick up the honey, stranger, and ask no questions.' "
Much happens in this 12th packet of the papers, though the second half of the narrative slows considerably as Flashman lingers over the madness of King Theodore and the tactics behind the siege of Magdala. But even in the first half, which is made up of a trek across a forbidding landscape, in the company of a voluptuous woman, pursued by ruthless enemies, with dangers and captures and escapes rapidly succeeding one another, Flashman periodically grows wistful, nostalgic. Where once he took life as it came, perhaps thinking just a little about his own personal survival, he now constantly compares the present to the past. When he meets the mad Theodore, he recalls monsters of his own previous exploits: "Mangas Colorado, Ranavalona, General Sang-kol-in-sen, Crazy Horse, Dr. Arnold." At various times he remembers his remarkable encounters with Kit Carson, John Brown, Lola Montez, the Empress of China, and many others, including Abraham Lincoln and Count Bismarck.
To those of a critical cast, a man of 45 shouldn't be old enough for quite so much sentimental reminiscence, even if he has enjoyed a rich, full life of almost non-stop derring-do. Which is certainly Flashman's case. After all, you don't win the Victoria Cross, the Legion of Honor, the Order of Maria Theresa and our own Medal of Honor, among other recognitions, by endeavoring to stay out of harm's way like a cowardly shirker and a poltroon -- or do you?
Though Flashman on the March can and should be appreciated by almost anyone, its bouts of retrospection usefully serve as either reminders or tantalizing advertisements for all that has come before. Happily, today's reader can readily acquire Flashman (covering the years 1839-42) and then go on to Royal Flash (1842-43), Flashman's Lady (1842-45), Flashman and the Mountain of Light (1845-46) and all the other adventures in Afghanistan, India, Madagascar and Borneo, Europe, Africa, China, America. Sometimes it really does seem utterly astonishing, almost unbelievable, that one man could have been present at the Charge of the Light Brigade, Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, the Little Big Horn and the Siege of Peking, or that he should enjoy le repos du guerrier -- the warrior's rest -- with so many warm-hearted, albeit quite morally lax females. But then Sir Harry Paget Flashman isn't just another eminent Victorian; he is also the stuff of legend and truly an inspiration to us all.
Copyright 2005, The Washington Post. All Rights Reserved.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
“Half a million in silver, did you say?”
“In Maria Theresa dollars. Worth a hundred thou’ in quids.” He held up a gleaming coin, broad as a crown, with the old girl double-chinned on one side and the Austrian arms on t’other. “Dam’ disinheritin’ old bitch, what? Mind, they say she was a plum in her youth, blonde and buxom, just your sort, Flashy—”
“Ne’er mind my sort. The cash must reach this place in Africa within four weeks? And the chap who was to have escorted it is laid up in Venice with yellow jack?”
“Or the clap, or the sailor’s itch, or heaven knows what.” He spun the coin, grinning foxy-like. “You’ve changed your mind, haven’t you? You’re game to do it yourself! Good old Flash!”
“Don’t rush your fences, Speed, my boy. When’s it due to be shipped out?”
“Wednesday. Lloyd packet to Alexandria. But with Sturgess comin’ all over yellow in Venice, that won’t do, and there ain’t another Alex boat for a fortnight—far too late, and the Embassy’ll run my guts up the flagpole, as though ’twas my fault, confound ’em—”
“Aye, it’s hell in the diplomatic. Well, tell you what, Speed—I’ll ride guard on your dollars to Alex for you, but I ain’t waiting till Wednesday. I want to be clear of this blasted town by dawn tomorrow, so you’d best drum up a steam-launch and crew, and get your precious treasure aboard tonight—where is it just now?”
“At the station, the Strada Ferrata—but dammit, Flash, a private charter’ll cost the moon—”
“You’ve got Embassy dibs, haven’t you? Then use ’em! The station ain’t spitting distance from the Klutsch mole, and if you get a move on you can have the gelt loaded by midnight. Heavens, man, steam craft and spaghetti sailors are ten a penny in Trieste! If you’re in such a sweat to get the dollars to Africa—”
“You may believe it! Let me see . . . quick run to Alex, then train to Cairo and on to Suez—no camel caravans across the desert these days, but you’ll need to hire nigger porters—”
“For which you’ll furnish me cash!”
He waved a hand. “Sturgess would’ve had to hire ’em, anyway. At Suez one of our Navy sloops’ll take you down the Red Sea—there are shoals of ’em, chasin’ the slavers, and I’ll give you an Embassy order. They’ll have you at Zoola—that’s the port for Abyssinia—by the middle of February, and it can’t take above a week to get the silver up-country to this place called Attegrat. That’s where General Napier will be.”
“Napier? Not Bob the Bughunter? What the blazes is he doing in Abyssinia? We haven’t got a station there.”
“We have by now, you may be sure!” He was laughing in disbelief. “D’you mean to tell me you haven’t heard? Why, he’s invadin’ the place! With an army from India! The silver is to help fund his campaign, don’t you see? Good God, Flashy, where have you been? Oh, I was forgettin’—Mexico. Dash it, don’t they have newspapers there?”
“Hold up, can’t you? Why is he invading?”
“To rescue the captives—our consul, envoys, missionaries! They’re held prisoner by this mad cannibal king, and he’s chainin’ ’em, and floggin’ ’em, and kickin’ up no end of a row! Theodore, his name is—and you mean to say you’ve not heard of him? I’ll be damned—why, there’s been uproar in Parliament, our gracious Queen writin’ letters, a penny or more on the income tax—it’s true! Now d’you see why this silver must reach Napier double quick—if it don’t, he’ll be adrift in the middle of nowhere with not a penny to his name, and your old chum Speedicut will be a human sacrifice at the openin’ of the new Foreign Office!”
“But why should Napier need Austrian silver? Hasn’t he got any sterling?”
“Abyssinian niggers won’t touch it, or anythin’ except Maria Theresas. Purest silver, you see, and Napier must have it for food and forage when he marches up-country to fight his war.”
“So it’s a war-chest? You never said a dam’ word about war last night.”
“You never gave me a chance, did you? Soon as I told you I was in Dickie’s meadow, with this damned fortune to be shipped and Sturgess in dock, what sympathy did dear old friend Flashy offer? The horse’s laugh, and wished me joy! All for England, home, and the beauteous Elspeth, you were . . . and now,” says he, with that old leery Speedicut look, “all of a sudden, you’re in the dooce of a hurry to oblige . . . What’s up, Flash?”
“Not a dam’ thing. I’m sick of Trieste and want away, that’s all!”
“And can’t wait a day? You and Hookey Walker!”
“Now, see here, Speed, d’ye want me to shift your blasted bullion, or don’t you? Well, I go tonight or not at all, and since this cash is so all-fired important to Napier, your Embassy funds can stand the row for my passage home, too, when the thing’s done! Well, what d’ye say?”
“That something is up, no error!” His eyes widened. “I say, the Austrian traps ain’t after you, are they—’cos if they were I daren’t assist your flight, silver or no silver! Dash it, I’m a diplomat—”
“Of course ’tain’t the traps! What sort of fellow d’ye think I am? Good God, ha’nt we been chums since boyhood?”
“Yes, and it’s ’cos I know what kind of chum you can be that I repeat ‘What’s up, Flash?’ ” He filled my glass and pushed it across. “Come up, old boy! This is old Speed, remember, and you can’t humbug him.”
Well, true enough, I couldn’t, and since you, dear reader, may be sharing his curiosity, I’ll tell you what I told him that night in the Hôtel Victoria—not the smartest pub in Trieste, but as a patriotic little minion of our Vienna Embassy, Speedicut was bound to put up there—and it should explain the somewhat cryptic exchanges with which I’ve begun this chapter of my memoirs. If they’ve seemed a mite bewildering you’ll see presently that they were the simplest way of setting out the preliminaries to my tale of the strangest campaign in the whole history of British arms—and that takes in some damned odd affairs, a few of which I’ve borne a reluctant hand in myself. But Abyssinia took the cake, currants and all. Never anything like it, and never will be again.
For me, the business began in the summer of ’67, on the day when that almighty idiot, the Emperor Maximilian of Mexico, strode out before a Juarista firing squad, unbuttoned his shirt cool as a trout, and cried “Viva Méjico! Viva la independencia! Shoot, soldiers, through the heart!” Which they did, with surprising accuracy for a platoon of dagoes, thereby depriving Mexico of its crowned head and Flashy of his employer and protector. I was an anxious spectator skulking in cover on a rooftop nearby, and when I saw Max take a header into the dust I knew that the time had come for me to slip my cable.
You see, I’d been his fairly loyal aide-de-camp in his recent futile struggle against Juarez’s republicans—not a post I’d taken from choice, but I’d been a deserter from the French Foreign Legion at the time. They were polluting Mexico with their presence in those days, supporting Max on behalf of his sponsor, that ghastly louse Louis Napoleon, and I’d been only too glad of the refuge Max had offered me—he’d been under the mistaken impression that I’d saved his life in an ambush at Texatl, poor ass, when in fact I’d been one of Jesús Montero’s gang of ambushers, but we needn’t go into that at the moment. What mattered was that Max had taken me on the strength, and had given the Legion peelers the right about when they’d come clamouring for my unhappy carcase.
Then the Frogs cleared out in March of ’67, leaving Max in the lurch with typical Gallic loyalty, but while that removed one menace to my well-being, there remained others from which Max could be no protection, quick or dead—like the Juaristas, who’d rather have strung up a royalist a.d.c. than eaten their dinners, or that persevering old bandolero Jesús Montero, who was bound to find out eventually that I didn’t know where Montezuma’s treasure was. Hell of a place, Mexico, and dam’ confused.
But all you need to know for the present is that after Max bought the bullet I’d have joined him in the dead-cart if it hadn’t been for the delectable Princess Agnes Salm-Salm, and the still happily ignorant Jesús. They’d been my associates in a botched attempt to rescue Max on the eve of his execution. We’d failed because (you’ll hardly credit this) the great clown had refused point-blank to escape because it didn’t sort with his imperial dignity, Austro-Hungarian royalty preferring to die rather than go over the wall. Well, hell mend ’em, I say, and if the House of Hapsburg goes to the knackers it won’t be my fault; I’ve done my unwillin...
