Flashman (The Flashman Papers) by George MacDonald Fraser

Author:George MacDonald Fraser [Fraser, George MacDonald]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780006511250
Amazon: 0006511252
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers Ltd
Published: 1999-02-02T00:00:00+00:00

Flashman

So I looked out Sergeant Hudson, who had been with me at Mogala, and was as reliable as he was stupid. I told him I wanted twelve picked lancers formed into a special detail under my command - not my Gilzais, for in the pre-sent state of the country I doubted whether they would be prepared to get their throats cut on my behalf. The twelve would make as good an escort as I could hope for, and when the time came for the army to founder, we could cut loose and make Jallalabad on our own. I didn’t tell Hudson this, of course, but explained that this troop and I would be employed on the march as a special messenger corps, since orders would be forever passing up and down the column. I told Elphy the same thing, and added that we could also act as mounted scouts and general busybodies. He looked at me like a tired cow.

“This will be dangerous work, Flashman,” says he. “I fear it will be a perilous journey, and this will expose you to the brunt of it.”

“Never say die, sir,” says I, very manful. “We’ll come through, and anyway, there ain’t an Afghan of the lot of them that’s a match for me.”

“Oh, my boy,” says he, and the silly old bastard began piping his eye. “My boy! So young, so valiant! Oh, England,” says he, looking out of the wi?ndow, “what dost thou not owe to thy freshest plants! So be it, Flashman. God bless you.”

I wanted rather more insurance than that, so I made certain that Hudson packed our saddlebags with twice as much hardtack as we would need; supplies were obviously going to be short, and I believed in getting our blow in first. In addition to the lovely little white mare I had taken from Akbar, I picked out another Afghan pony for my own use; if one mount sank I should have the other.

These were the essentials for the journey, but I had an eye to the luxuries as well. Confined to the cantonment? as we were, I had not had a woman for an age, and I was getting peckish. To make it worse, in that Christmas week a messenger had come through from India with mails; among them was a letter from Elspeth. I recognised the handwriting, and my heart gave a skip; when I opened it I got a turn, for it began, “To my most beloved Hector,” and I thought, by God, she’s cheating on me, and has sent me the wrong letter by mistake. But in the second line was a reference to Achilles, and another to Ajax, so I under-stood she was just addressing me in terms which she accounted fitting for a martial paladin; she knew no better. It was a common custom at that time, .in the more roman-tic females, to see their soldier husbands and sweethearts as Greek heroes, instead of the whoremongering, drunken clowns most of them were.

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