Flashman - 06 - Flashman's Lady by George MacDonald Fraser

Author:George MacDonald Fraser
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Military Fiction
ISBN: 9780452264892
Published: 1988-03-31T23:00:00+00:00

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As you know - or rather, you don't, but if you're intelligent you'll have guessed - I'm a truthful man, at least where these memoirs are concerned. I've got nothing to lie for any longer, who lied so consistently - and successfully - all my life. But every now and then, in writing, I feel I have to remind you, and myself, that what I tell you is unvarnished fact. There are things that strain belief, you see, and Madagascar was one of them. So I will only say that if, at any point, you doubt what follows, or think old Flash is telling stretchers, just go to your local libraries, and consult the memoirs of my dear old friend Ida Pfeiffer, of the elastic-sided boots, or Messrs Ellis and Oliver, or the letters of my fellow-captives, Laborde of Bombay and Jake Heppick the American shipmaster, or Hastie the missionary.33 Then you'll realize that the utterly unbelievable things I tell you of that hellish island, straight out of "Gulliver", are simple, sober truth. You couldn't make 'em up.

Now I won't bore you by describing the shock and horror I experienced, either at the beginning, when I realized I had escaped from Solomon's frying-pan into something infinitely worse, or later, as further abominations unfolded. I'll just recount what I saw and experienced, as plain as I can.

My first thoughts, when they threw me chained and battered, into a stuffy go-down at Tamitave, were that this must be some bad dream from which I should soon awake. Then my mind turned to Elspeth; from what had passed on the jetty it had seemed that they'd been going to drag her ashore, too - for what fate I could only guess. You see, I was at a complete nonplus, quite out of my depth; once I'd had my usual little rave and blubber to myself, I tried to remember what Solomon had told me about Madagascar on the voyage out, which hadn't been much, and what I recalled was far from comforting. Wild and savage beyond description, he'd said … weird customs and superstitions … half the population in slavery … a she-monster of a queen who aped European fashions and held ritual executions by the thousand … a poisonous hatred of all foreigners - well, my present experience confirmed that, all right. But could it truly be as awful as Solomon had painted it? I hadn't believed him above half, but when I thought of that frightful nigger commandant in his bumbee tartan kilt and brolly … well.

Fortunately for my immediate peace of mind I didn't know one of the worst things about Madagascar, which was that once you were inside it, you were beyond hope of rescue. Even the most primitive native countries, in my young days, were at least approachable, but not this one; its capital, Antananarivo (Antan', to you), might as well have been on the moon. There was no appeal to outside, or even communication; no question of Pam or the Frogs or Yanks sending a gunboat, or making diplomatic representations, even.

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