Flashman. George Fraser MacDonald

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 sounds like the very man for me,’ I said, all eagerness.

      ‘Indeed, indeed. Well, we mustn’t deny him the service of so ardent a subaltern, must we? Certainly the matter of your colours must be pushed through without delay. I commend your choice, my boy. I’m sure you will find service under Lord Cardigan – ah – both stimulating and interesting. Yes, as I think of it, the combination of his lordship and yourself will be rewarding for you both.’

      I was too busy fawning on the old fool to pay much heed to what he was saying, otherwise I should have realised that anything that pleased him would probably be bad for me. He prided himself on being above my family, whom he considered boors, with some reason, and had never shown much but distaste for me personally. Helping me to my colours was different, of course; he owed that as a duty to a blood relation, but he paid it without enthusiasm. Still, I had to be civil as butter to him, and pretend respect.

      It paid me, for I got my colours in the 11th with surprising speed. I put it down entirely to influence, for I was not to know then that over the past few months there had been a steady departure of officers from the regiment, sold out, transferred, and posted – and all because of Lord Cardigan, whom my uncle had spoken of. If I had been a little older, and moved in the right circles, I should have heard all about him, but in the few weeks of waiting for my commission my father sent me up to Leicestershire, and the little time I had in town I spent either by myself or in the company of such of my relatives as could catch me. My mother had had sisters, and although they disliked me heartily they felt it was their duty to look after the poor motherless boy. So they said; in fact they suspected that if I were left to myself I would take to low company, and they were right.

      However, I was to find out about Lord Cardigan soon enough.

      In the last few days of buying my uniforms, assembling the huge paraphernalia that an officer needed in those days – far more than now – choosing a couple of horses, and arranging for my allowance, I still found time on my hands, and Mistress Judy in my thoughts. My tumble with her had only