Flashman in the Great Game. George Fraser MacDonald

There was one near-facer for me, and that was when Miss Nightingale (a cool piece, that) asked me calm as you like what regimental officers could do to prevent their men from contracting certain indelicate social infections from – hem-hem – female camp-followers of a certain sort; I near as dammit put my teacup in the Queen’s lap, but recovered to say that I’d never heard of any such thing, not in the Light Cavalry, anyway – French troops another matter, of course. Would you believe it, I actually made her blush, but I doubt if the Queen even knew what we were talking about. For the rest, I thought La Nightingale a waste of good womanhood; handsome face, well set up and titted out, but with that cold don’t-lay-a-lecherous-limb-on-me-my-lad look in her eye – the kind, in short, that can be all right if you’re prepared to spend time and trouble making ’em cry ‘Roger!’, but I seldom have the patience. Anywhere else I might have taken a squeeze at her, just by way of research, but a queen’s drawing-room cramps your style. (Perhaps it’s a pity I didn’t; being locked up for indecent assault on a national heroine couldn’t have been worse than the ordeal that was to begin a few hours later.)

      Elspeth and I spent the following evening at a birthday party at one of the big houses in the neighbourhood; it was a cheery affair, and we didn’t leave till close on midnight to drive back to Abergeldie. It was a close, thundery night, with big rain-drops starting to fall, but we didn’t mind; I had taken enough drink on board to be monstrously horny, and if the drive had been longer and Elspeth’s crinoline less of a hindrance I’d have had at her on the carriage-seat. She got out at the lodge giggling and squeaking, and I chased her through the front door – and there was the messenger of doom, waiting in the hall. A tall chap, almost a swell, but with a jaw too long and an eye too sharp; very respectable, with a hard hat under his arm and a billy in his hip-pocket, I’ll wager. I know a genteel strong man from a government office when I see one.

      He asked could he speak to me, so I took my arm from Elspeth’s waist, patted her towards the stairs with a whispered promise that I’d be up directly to sound the charge, and told him to state his business. He did that smart enough.

      ‘I am from the Treasury, Colonel Flashman,’ says he. ‘My name is Hutton. Lord Palmerston wishes to speak with you.’

      It took me flat aback, slightly foxed that I was. My first thought was that he must want me to go back to London, but then he said: ‘His lordship is at Balmoral, sir. If you will be good enough to come with me – I have a coach.’

      ‘But, but … you said Lord Palmerston? The Prime … what the deuce? Palmerston wants me?’

      ‘At once, sir, if you please. The matter is urgent.’

      Well, I couldn’t make anything of it. I never doubted it was genuine – as I’ve said, the man in front of me had authority written all over him. But it’s a fair start when you come rolling innocently home and are told that the first statesman of Europe is round the corner and wants you at the double – and now the fellow was positively ushering me towards the door.

      ‘Hold on,’ says I. ‘Give me a moment to change my shoes’ – what I wanted was a moment to put my head in the wash-bowl and think, and despite his insistence I snapped at him to wait, and hurried upstairs.

      What the devil was Pam doing here – and what could he want with me? I’d only met him once, for a moment, before I went to the Crimea; I’d leered at him ingratiatingly at parties, too, but never spoken. And now he wanted me urgently – me, a mere colonel on half pay. I’d nothing on my conscience, either – leastways, not to interest him. I couldn’t see it, but there was nothing but to obey, so I went to my dressing-room, fretting, donned my hat and topcoat against the worsening weather, and remembered that Elspeth, poor child, must even now be waiting for her cross-buttocking lesson. Well, it was hard lines on her, but duty called, so I just popped my head round her door to call a chaste farewell – and there she was, dammit, reclining languorously on the coverlet like one of those randy classical goddesses, wearing nothing but the big ostrich-plume fan I’d brought her from Egypt, and her sniggering maid turning the lamp down low. Elspeth clothed could stop a monk in his tracks; naked and pouting expectantly over a handful of red feathers, she’d have made the Grand Inquisitor burn his books. I hesitated between love and duty for a full second, and then ‘The hell with Palmerston, let him wait!’ cries I, and was plunging for the bed before the abigail was fairly out of the room. Never miss the chance, as the Duke used to say.

      ‘Lord Palmerston? Oooo-ah! Harry – what do you mean?’

      ‘Ne’er mind!’ cries I, taking hold and bouncing away.

      ‘But Harry – such impatience, my love! And, dearest – you’re wearing your hat!’

      ‘The next one’s going to be a boy, dammit!’ And for a few glorious stolen moments I forgot Palmerston and minions in the hall, and marvelled at the way that superb idiot woman of mine could keep up a stream of questions while performing like a harem houri – we were locked in an astonishing embrace on her dressing-table stool, I recall, when there was a knock on the door, and the maid’s giggling voice piped through to say the gentleman downstairs was getting impatient, and would I be long.

      ‘Tell him I’m just packing my baggage,’ says I. ‘I’ll be down directly,’ and presently, keeping my mouth on hers to stem her babble of questions, I carried my darling tenderly back to the bed. Always leave things as you would wish to find them.

      ‘I cannot stay longer, my love,’ I told her. ‘The Prime Minister is waiting.’ And with bewildered entreaties pursuing me I skipped out, trousers in hand, made a hasty toilet on the landing, panted briefly against the wall, and then stepped briskly down. It’s a great satisfaction, looking back, that I kept the government waiting in such a good cause, and I set it down here as a deserved tribute to the woman who was the only real love of my life and as the last pleasant memory I was to have for a long time ahead.

      It’s true enough, too, as Ko Dali’s daughter taught me, that there’s nothing like a good rattle for perking up an edgy chap like me. It had shaken me for a moment, and it still looked rum, that Palmerston should want to see me, but as we bowled through the driving rain to Balmoral I was telling myself that there was probably nothing in it after all; considering the good odour I stood in just then, hob-nobbing with royalty and being admired for my Russian heroics, it was far more likely to be fair news than foul. And it wasn’t like being bidden to the presence of one of your true ogres, like the old Duke or Bismarck or Dr Wrath-of-God Arnold (I’ve knocked tremulously on some fearsome doors in my time, I can tell you).

      No, Pam might be an impatient old tyrant when it came to bullying foreigners and sending warships to deal with the dagoes, but everyone knew he was a decent, kindly old sport at bottom, who put folk at their ease and told a good story. Why, it was notorious that the reason he wouldn’t live at Downing Street, but on Piccadilly, was that he liked to ogle the good-lookers from his window, and wave to the cads and crossing-sweepers, who loved him because he talked plain English, and would stump up a handsome subscription for an old beaten prize-pug like Tom Sayers. That was Pam – and if anyone ever tells you that he was a politically unprincipled old scoundrel, who carried things with a high and reckless hand, I can only say that it didn’t seem to work a whit worse than the policies of more high-minded statesmen. The only difference I ever saw between them and Pam was that he did his dirty work bare-faced (when he wasn’t being deeper than damnation) and grinned about it.

      So I was feeling pretty easy as we covered the three miles to Balmoral – and even pleasantly excited – which shows you how damned soft and optimistic I must have grown; I should have known that it’s never safe to get within range of princes or prime ministers. When we got to the castle I followed Hutton smartly through a side door, up some back-stairs, and along to heavy double doors where a burly civilian was standing guard; I gave my whiskers a martial twitch as he opened the door, and stepped briskly in.

      You know how it can be when you enter a strange room – everything can look as safe and merry as ninepence, and yet there’s something in the air that touches you like an electric shock. It was here now, a sort of bristling excitement that put my nerves on edge in an instant. And yet there was nothing out of the ordinary to see