George Fraser - Flashman

"In Leicestershire, my lord," I said.

"Couldn’t be better," says he. "Eh, Jones? Very good, Mr Fwashman - hope to see more of you. Haw-haw."

Now, no one in my life that I could remember had ever been so damned civil to me, except toad-eaters like Speedicut, who didn’t count. I found myself liking his lordship, and did not realise that I was seeing him at his best. In this mood, he was a charming man enough, and looked well. He was taller than I, straight as a lance, and very slender, even to his hands. Although he was barely forty, he was already bald, with a bush of hair above either ear and magnificent whiskers. His nose was beaky and his eyes blue and prominent and unwinking - they looked out on the world with that serenity which marks the nobleman whose uttermost ancestor was born a nobleman, too. It is the look that your parvenu would give half his fortune for, that unrufflable gaze of the spoiled child of fortune who knows with unshakeable certainty that he is right and that the world is exactly ordered for his satisfaction and pleasure. It is the look that makes under-lings writhe and causes revolutions. I saw it then, and it remained changeless as long as I knew him, even through the roll-call beneath Causeway Heights when the grim silence as the names were shouted out testified to the loss of five hundred of his command. "It was no fault of mine," he said then, and he didn’t just believe it; he knew it.

I was to see him in a different mood before the day was out, but fortunately I was not the object of his wrath; quite the reverse, in fact.

I was shown about the camp by the officer of the day, a fair young captain, named Reynolds [3] Captain John Reynolds, a particular butt of Cardigan’s, was the centre of the notorious Black Bottle affair, in which his resignation was demanded because he was believed to have ordered a bottle of porter in the mess on guest night. , with a brick-red face from service in India. Professionally, he was a good soldier, but quiet and no blood at all. I was fairly offhand with him, and no doubt insolent, but he took it without comment, confining himself to telling me what was what, finding me a servant, and ending at the stables where my mare - whom I had christened Judy, by the way - and charger were being housed.

The grooms had Judy trimmed up with her best leather-work - and it was the best that the smartest saddler in London could show - and Reynolds was admiring her, when who should ride up but my lord in the devil of a temper. He reined in beside us, and pointed with a hand that shook with fury to a troop that had just come in under their sergeant, to the stable yard.

"Captain Weynolds!" he bawled, and his face was scarlet. "Is this your twoop?" Reynolds said it was.

"And do you see their sheepskins?" bawled Cardigan. These were the saddle sheepskins. "Do you see them, sir? What colour are they, I should like to know? Will you tell me, sir?"

"White, my lord."

"White, you say? Are you a fool, sir? Are you colour-blind? They are not white, they are yellow - with inattention and slovenliness and neglect! They are filthy, I tell you."

Reynolds stood silent, and Cardigan raged on. "This was no doubt very well in India, where you learned what you probably call your duty. I will not have it here, do you understand, sir?" His eye rolled round the stable and rested on Judy. "Whose horse is this?" he demanded.

I told him, and he turned in triumph on Reynolds.

"You see, sir, an officer new joined, and he can show you and your other precious fellows from India their duty. Mr Fwashman’s sheepskin is white, sir, as yours should be - would be, if you knew anything of discipline and good order. But you don’t, sir, I tell you."

"Mr Flashman’s sheepskin is new, sir," said Reynolds, which was true enough. "They discolour with age."

"So you make excuses now!" snapped Cardigan. "Haw-haw! I tell you, sir, if you knew your duty they would be cleaned, or if they are too old, wenewed. But you know nothing of this, of course. Your slovenly Indian ways are good enough, I suppose. Well, they will not do, let me tell you! These skins will be cwean tomorrow, d’you hear, sir? Cwean, or I’ll hold you wesponsible. Captain Weynolds!"

And with that he rode off, head in the air, and I heard his "Haw-haw" as he greeted someone outside the stable yard.

I felt quite pleased to have been singled out for what was, in effect, praise, and I fancy I said something of this to Reynolds. He looked me up and down as though seeing me for the first time, and said, in that odd, Welsh-sounding voice that comes with long service in India:

"Ye-es, I can see you will do very well, Mr Flashman. Lord Haw Haw may not like us Indian officers, but he likes plungers, and I’ve no doubt you’ll plunger very prettily."

I asked him what he meant by plunging.

"Oh," says he, "a plunger is a fellow who makes a great turnout, don’t you know, and leaves cards at the best houses, and is sought by the mamas, and strolls in the Park very languid, and is just a hell of a swell generally. Sometimes they even condescend to soldier a little - when it doesn’t interfere with their social life. Good-day, Mr Flashman."

I could see that Reynolds was jealous, and in my conceit I was well pleased. What he had said, though, was true enough: the regiment was fairly divided between Indian officers - those who had not left since returning home -and the plungers, to whom I naturally attached myself. They hailed me among them, even the noblest, and I knew how to make myself pleasant. I was not as quick with my tongue as I was to become later, but they knew me for a sporting fellow before I had been there long - good on a horse, good with the bottle (for I took some care at first), and ready for mischief. I toadied as seemed best - not openly, of course, but effectively just the same; there is a way of toadying which is better than fawning, and it consists of acting bluff and hearty and knowing to an inch how far to go. And I had money, and showed it.

The Indian officers had a bad time. Cardigan hated them. Reynolds and Forrest were his chief butts, and he was forever pestering them to leave the regiment and make way for gentlemen, as he put it. Why he was so down on those who had served in India, I was never entirely sure; some said it was because they were not of the smart set, or well connected, and this was true up to a point. He was the damnedest snob, but I think his hatred of the Indian officers ran deeper. They were, after all, real soldiers with service experience, and Cardigan had never heard a shot outside the shooting range in his twenty years' service. [4] Cardigan had, in fact, served in India, when he went out to take command of the 11th at Cawnpore in 1837, but had spent only a few weeks with the regiment.

Whatever the cause, he made their lives miserable, and there were several resignations in my first six months' service. Even for us plungers it was bad enough, for he was a devil for discipline, and not all the plungers were competent officers. I saw how the wind set, and studied harder than ever I had at Rugby, mastering my drill, which wasn’t difficult, and perfecting myself in the rules of camp life. I had got an excellent servant, named Basset, a square-headed oaf who knew everything a soldier ought to know and nothing more, and with a genius for boot-polish. I thrashed him early in our acquaintance, and he seemed to think the better of me for it, and treated me as a dog does its master. Fortunately, I cut a good figure on parade and at exercise, which was where it counted with Cardigan. Probably only the regimental sergeant major and one or two of the troop-sergeants were my equals on horseback, and his lordship congratulated me once or twice on my riding.

"Haw-haw!" he would say. "Fwashman sits well, I tell you. He will make an aide yet."