Flashman and the Angel of the Lord. George Fraser MacDonald

I’d known there was something horribly amiss when he’d arrived unexpected, but then Miranda had quieted him, and he’d been civil (for him), and only now was it plain that I’d been trapped, most artfully and damnably, by this murderous pirate and his slut of a daughter – but why? It made no sense; he had no quarrel with me – he’d said so, in those very words.

      ‘What d’ye mean? What d’ye want of me? I’ve done nothing, you heard her –’

      ‘Nothing, you say? Oh, you’ve done nothing today, I know that – or you’d not be alive this moment! But think back ten years, Flashman, to the night when you and your conniving whore Willinck crimped me out of Orleans –’

      ‘I’d no hand in that, I swear! And you told me –’

      ‘– that I bore no grudge?’ His laugh was a jeering snarl. ‘More fool you for believing me – but your wit’s all in your loins and belly, isn’t it? You can’t conceive what it meant for a man of my breeding – my eminence, damn your eyes! – a scholar, a philosopher, honoured and respected, a man of refinement, a master and commander even in the degraded depths of a slave-ship – a man born to have rule – aye, better to reign in hell than serve in heaven!’ roars he, spraying me with his incoherent rage, so consumed by it that for once Latin quotation failed him. ‘To be hounded before the mast by scum who wouldn’t have pulley-hauled on my ship, herded with filthy packet rats, fed on slop and glad to get it, threatened with the cat, by Jesus – aye, stare, rot you! I, John Charity Spring, Fellow of Oriel … damn them all to hell, thieves, trimmers and academic vermin …’ His voice sank to a hoarse whisper, for he was back on the Oxford tack again, contemplating his ruined career, his berserk fit over, thank God, for I’d never seen him worse. He took a huge breath, filled his glass, and brooded at me.

      ‘I cleaned the heads on that ship, Flashman – all the way to the Cape.’ His tone was almost normal now. ‘Thanks to you. And d’ye think a day has passed in ten years when I haven’t remembered what I owe you? And now … here you are, at last. We may agree with Horace, I think – Raro antecedentem scelestum deseruit pede poena claudo. I see from your vacant gape that you’re no better acquainted with his works than you were on the College, damn your ignorance! – so I’ll tell you it means that Justice, though moving slowly, seldom fails to overhaul the fleeing villain.’ He shoved the bottle at me. ‘Have some more brandy, why don’t you? Your flight’s over, bucko!’

      This was desperate – but terrified as I was, I could see something that he had overlooked, and it spurred me now to unwonted defiance, though I came to my feet and backed away before I voiced it.

      ‘Keep your bloody brandy – and your threats, ’cos they don’t scare me, Spring! I don’t know what your game is, but you’d best take care – because you’ve forgotten something! I’m not a friendless nobody nowadays – and I ain’t some poor French pimp, neither! You think you draw water? Well, you ain’t the only one!’ A heaven-sent thought struck me. ‘Your governor, Grey, has charged me – Sir Harry Flashman, V.C., K.B., and be damned to you! – with a personal message to Lord Palmerston, d’ye hear? So you can come off your blasted quarter-deck, because you daren’t touch me!’ I cast a quick glance at the companion, ready to run like hell.

      The pale hypnotic eyes never blinked, but his mouth twisted in a grin. ‘My, what a dunghill rooster we’ve grown, to be sure! Vox et præterea nihil!^fn5 But you’ve forgotten something, too. No one saw you come aboard here. It was a hired rig that brought you to my house – and my servants are safe folk. So if the distinguished Flashman, with all his trumpery titles, were to disappear … why, he sailed on the mail for home! And if, by chance, word came months from now that you never boarded the mail … a mystery! And who more baffled than your old shipmate, John Charity Spring? What, silent, are we? Stricken speechless?’

      He pushed back his chair and reached a flask from the buffet. ‘You’d better try some schnapps, I think. There … don’t bite the glass, you fool! Drink it! Christ, what a craven thing you are! Sit down, man, before you fall – vitiant artus ægræ contagia mentis,^fn6 as Ovid would say if he could see you. And rest easy – I’m not going to harm a hair of your precious head!’

      That was no comfort at all, from him; I knew that diseased mind too well – he meant me some hideous mischief, but I could only wait shuddering until he told me what it was, which he was preparing to do with sadistic relish, brimming my glass and resuming his seat before he spoke.

      ‘When I heard you’d landed, it was a prayer answered. But I couldn’t see how to come at you, until Miranda showed the way – oh, she has all my confidence, the only creature on earth in whom I put trust. “Let me beckon him,” says she – and didn’t she just, on that first night at Government House! It was gall to my soul to see it – my girl … and you, you dirty satyr! A dozen times I would ha’ cried it off, for fear of what harm might come to her, but she laughed away my doubts. “Trust me, Papa!” My girl! D’ye wonder I worship the earth she treads on? Would you believe,’ he leaned forward, gloating, ‘’twas she advised I should warn you off! “He’ll come all the faster, to spite you … if he thinks it safe,” says she. She knew you, d’ye hear – oh, yes, Flashman, she knows all my story, from Oxford to the Middle Passage – and she’s as bent on settling her father’s scores as he is himself! We have no secrets, you see, my girl and I.’

      I could think of one. Oh, she’d tricked me into his clutches, right enough – but she’d humbugged him, too, whoring away like a demented succubus while he was biting his nails over her supposed virtue. And the doting old lunatic believed her. God knew how many she’d been in the bushes with, his stainless virgin … if only I’d dared to tell him! Suddenly I felt sick, and not only with fear; something was wrong with my innards …

      ‘And you came to the bait, like the lustful swine you are,’ says Spring. ‘And it’s time to cast our accounts and pay, eh, Flashman?’

      You know me. With any other of the monsters I’d known, I’d have pleaded and whined and tried to buy off – but he was mad, and my mind seemed to be growing numb. Another wave of nausea came over me, my head swam, and I took a stiff gulp of schnapps to steady myself.

      ‘Belay that!’ growls Spring, and snatched the glass from me. ‘I don’t want you dead to the world before I’ve done.’ He seized my wrist. ‘Sit still, damn you … ha! pulse sluggish. Very good.’ He dropped my hand and sat back, and as the sick fit shook me again, I saw that he was smiling.

      ‘Now you know what a crimped sailorman feels like,’ says he. ‘Yes, the schnapps is loaded – just like the mixture that fat tart slipped to me in Orleans. I believe in eye for eye, you see – no more, no less. You shipped me out, drugged and helpless, and now you’re going the same way – you can live on skilly and hard-tack, you can try your V.C. and K.B. on a bucko mate, you can have your arse kicked from here to Baltimore, and see how you like it, damn your blood!’ His voice was rising again, but he checked himself and leaned forward to thumb up my eyelid – and I couldn’t raise a hand to stop him.

      ‘That’s right,’ says he. ‘Baltimore, with a skipper of my acquaintance. If I were a vindictive man, it would ha’ been Orleans, but I’m giving you an even chance, d’ye see? Baltimore’s about right, I reckon. You’ve been there before – so you know what’s waiting for you, eh?’

      He stood up, and I tried to follow, but my legs wouldn’t answer. I heaved – and couldn’t move a muscle, but the horror of it was that I could see and hear and feel the sweat pouring over my skin. God knows what poison he’d fed me, but it had gripped me all in an instant; I tried to speak, but only a croak came out. Spring laughed aloud, and stooped to me, the demonic pale eyes gleaming, and began to shout at me.

      ‘Hear this, damn you! You’ll go ashore, derelict and penniless – as I did! And word will go ahead of you, to the police, and the federal people, not only in Baltimore, but in Washington and Orleans! You’ll find they have fine long memories, Flashman – they’ll remember Beauchamp Millward Comber! The U.S. Navy have their file on him,