The Flashman Papers: The Complete 12-Book Collection. George Fraser MacDonald

me say that while there have been hundreds of women in my life, I have never been one of those who are forever boasting about their conquests. I’ve raked and ridden harder than most, no doubt, and there are probably a number of middle-aged men and women who could answer to the name of Flashman if only they knew it. That’s by the way; unless you are the kind who falls in love – which I’ve never been – you take your tumbles when you’ve the chance, and the more the better. But Judy has a close bearing on my story.

      I was not inexperienced with women; there had been maids at home and a country girl or two, but Judy was a woman of the world, and that I hadn’t attempted. Not that I was concerned on that account, for I fancied myself (and rightly) pretty well. I was big and handsome enough for any of them, but being my father’s mistress she might think it too risky to frolic with the son. As it turned out, she wasn’t frightened of the guv’nor or anyone else.

      She lived in the house – the young Queen was newly on the throne then, and people still behaved as they had under the Prince Regent and King Billy; not like later on, when mistresses had to stay out of sight. I went up to her room before noon to spy out the land, and found her still in bed, reading the papers. She was glad to see me, and we talked, and from the way she looked and laughed and let me toy with her hand I knew it was only a question of finding the time. There was an abigail fussing about the room, or I’d have gone for her then and there.

      However, it seemed my father would be at the club that night, and playing late, as he often did, so I agreed to come back and play écarte with her in the evening. Both of us knew it wouldn’t be cards we would be playing. Sure enough, when I did come back, she was sitting prettying herself before her glass, wearing a bed-gown that would have made me a small handkerchief. I came straight up behind her, took her big breasts out in either hand, stopped her gasp with my mouth, and pushed her on to the bed. She was as eager as I was, and we bounced about in rare style, first one on top and then the other. Which reminds me of something which has stayed in my head, as these things will: when it was over, she was sitting astride me, naked and splendid, tossing the hair out of her eyes – suddenly she laughed, loud and clearly, the way one does at a good joke. I believed then she was laughing with pleasure, and thought myself a hell of a fellow, but I feel sure now she was laughing at me. I was seventeen, you remember, and doubtless she found it amusing to know how pleased with myself I was.

      Later we played cards, for form’s sake, and she won, and then I had to sneak off because my father came home early. Next day I tried her again, but this time, to my surprise, she slapped my hands and said: “No, no, my boy; once for fun, but not twice. I’ve a position to keep up here.” Meaning my father, and the chance of servants gossiping, I supposed.

      I was annoyed at this, and got ugly, but she laughed at me again. I lost my temper, and tried to blackmail her by threatening to let my father find out about the night before, but she just curled her lip.

      “You wouldn’t dare,” she said. “And if you did, I wouldn’t care.”

      “Wouldn’t you?” I said. “If he threw you out, you slut?”

      “My, the brave little man,” she mocked me. “I misjudged you. At first sight I thought you were just another noisy brute like your father, but I see you’ve a strong streak of the cur in you as well. Let me tell you, he’s twice the man you are – in bed or out of it.”

      “I was good enough for you, you bitch,” I said.

      “Once,” she said, and dropped me a mock curtsey. “That was enough. Now get out, and stick to servant girls after this.”

      I went in a black rage, slamming the door, and spent the next hour striding about the Park, planning what I would do to her if I ever had the chance. After a while my anger passed, and I just put Miss Judy away in a corner of my mind, as one to be paid off when the chance came.

      Oddly enough, the affair worked to my advantage. Whether some wind of what had happened on the first night got to my father’s ears, or whether he just caught something in the air, I don’t know, but I suspect it was the second; he was shrewd, and had my own gift of sniffing the wind. Whatever it was, his manner towards me changed abruptly; from harking back to my expulsion and treating me fairly offhand, he suddenly seemed sulky at me, and I caught him giving me odd looks, which he would hurriedly shift away, as though he were embarrassed.

      Anyway, within four days of my coming home, he suddenly announced that he had been thinking about my notion of the army, and had decided to buy me a pair of colours. I was to go over to the Horse Guards to see my Uncle Bindley, my mother’s brother, who would arrange matters. Obviously, my father wanted me out of the house, and quickly, so I pinned him then and there, while the iron was hot, on the matter of an allowance. I asked for £500 a year to add to my pay, and to my astonishment he agreed without discussion. I cursed myself for not asking £750 but £500 was twice what I’d expected, and far more than enough, so I was pretty pleased, and set off for Horse Guards in a good humour.

      A lot has been said about the purchase of commissions – how the rich and incompetent can buy ahead of better men, how the poor and efficient are passed over – and most of it, in my experience, is rubbish. Even with purchase abolished, the rich rise faster in the Service than the poor, and they’re both inefficient anyway, as a rule. I’ve seen ten men’s share of service, through no fault of my own, and can say that most officers are bad, and the higher you go, the worse they get, myself included. We were supposed to be rotten with incompetence in the Crimea, for example, when purchase was at its height, but the bloody mess they made in South Africa recently seems to have been just as bad – and they didn’t buy their commissions.

      However, at this time I’d no thought beyond being a humble cornet, and living high in a crack regiment, which was one of the reasons I had fixed on the 11th Dragoons. Also, that they were close to town.

      I said nothing of this to Uncle Bindley, but acted very keen, as though I was on fire to win my spurs against the Mahrattas or the Sikhs. He sniffed, and looked down his nose, which was very high and thin, and said he had never suspected martial ardour in me.

      “However, a fine leg in pantaloons and a penchant for folly seem to be all that is required today,” he went on. “And you can ride, as I collect?”

      “Anything on legs, uncle,” says I.

      “That is of little consequence, anyway. What concerns me is that you cannot, by report, hold your liquor. You’ll agree that being dragged from a Rugby pothouse, reeling, I believe, is no recommendation to an officers’ mess?”

      I hastened to tell him that the report was exaggerated.

      “I doubt it,” he said. “The point is, were you silent in your drunken state, or did you rave? A noisy drunkard is intolerable; a passive one may do at a pinch. At least, if he has money; money will excuse virtually any conduct in the army nowadays, it seems.”

      This was a favourite sneer of his; I may say that my mother’s family, while quality, were not over-rich. However, I took it all meekly.

      “Yes,” he went on, “I’ve no doubt that with your allowance you will be able either to kill or ruin yourself in a short space of time. At that, you will be no worse than half the subalterns in the service, if no better. Ah, but wait. It was the 11th Light Dragoons, wasn’t it?”

      “Oh, yes, uncle.”

      “And you are determined on that regiment?”

      “Why, yes,” I said, wondering a little.

      “Then you may have a little diversion before you go the way of all flesh,” said he, with a knowing smile. “Have you, by any chance, heard of the Earl of Cardigan?”

      I said I had not, which shows how little I had taken notice of military affairs.

      “Extraordinary. He commands the 11th, you know. He succeeded to the title only a year or so ago, while he was in India with the regiment. A remarkable man. I understand he makes no secret of his intention to turn the 11th into the finest cavalry regiment in the army.”

      “He