Flashman and the Tiger by George MacDonald Fraser

Author:George MacDonald Fraser [Fraser, George MacDonald]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Historical, Fiction
ISBN: 9780007217229
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers Limited
Published: 2006-03-09T00:00:00+00:00

Flashman And The Tiger

Starnberg because it struck her (being female) ?as the fitting and tidy thing to do - and gave her the last word, so there. Delzons, her chief, who knew her better than anyone, had a different explanation which he gave me the day before we left Ischl, and you must make of it what you will.

Hutton had gone back to London by then, after assuring me that Government was satisfied; no official approval, of course, but no censure either; my assistance had been noted, and would be recorded in the secret papers. Aye, I’m still waiting for my peerage.

Delzons had stayed on to close the Ischl house as soon as I was fit to take the open air. Paris was no keener on maintaining bolt-holes out of secret funds than London, and the pair of us transferred to the Golden Ship, myself to complete my convalescence and Delzons to enjoy a holiday - or so he said, but I suspect he was keeping an eye on me to see that I didn’t get into mischief. I was glad enough of his company, for he was the best kind of Frog, shrewd and tough as teak, but jolly and with no foolish airs.

It would be late November, when I was healed and feeling barely a twinge, that we walked across the Ischl bridges and up the hill to the royal lodge. The trees were bare, there was a little snow lying, and the river was grey and sullen with icy patches under the banks. The lodge itself was silent under a leaden sky, with only a servant in sight, sweeping leaves and snow from the big porch; it would be months before Franz-Josef returned to add to the collection of heads in that dark panelled chamber where his aides had crawled about, giggling in drink, and I’d had conniptions as I stared at the doctored cartridges.

We circled the place, and Delzons pointed out the spot where he’d lain doggo and Caprice had slipped away to shadow the Holnups. I studied the open ground, dotted with trees and bushes, between where we stood and the lodge, and remarked that a night-stalk would have been ticklish even for my old Apache chums, Quick Killer and Yawner.

“But not for la petite,” smiles Delzons. “She has no equal. Is it not remarkable, one so delicately feminine, so pretty and vivace, so much a child almost, but of a skill and courage and É and firm purpose beyond any agent I have seen?” He nodded thought-fully. “We have a word, colonel, that I think has no equivalent in

English, which I apply to nothing and no one but her. Formidable.”

“She’s all o’ that.” Plainly he was as smitten with her as Hutton had been, but with Delzons it was fond, almost paternal. “Where did she learn to stalk and É so on?”

“In the Breton woods as a child, with her three elder brothers.” Ile chuckled. “She was une luronne - a tomboy, no? Oui, un garcon manquŽ.

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