George Fraser - Flashman and the Tiger - And Other Extracts from the Flashman Papers

‘A fair exchange, n’est-ce pas ?’

And I have to own that it was. That sudden shedding of her clobber just when she’d been pretending that she’d have to be coaxed or ravished, is the kind of lecherous trick that wins my heart every time, and when we came to grips she behaved like the demented stoat aforesaid. Not as skilful as many, perhaps (though you must make allowances for the limited space in a sleeping berth), but a good bruising rough-rider, full of running, and as heartily selfish as royal fillies invariably are, intent on nothing but their own pleasure, which suits me admirably: there’s nothing like voracity in the fair sex, especially when she’s as strong as a bullock, which Kralta was. Not unlike that gigantic Chinese brigandess who half-killed me on the road to Nanking, but civilised, you understand, and willing to chat afterwards, in a frank, easy way which you’d not have expected from her lofty style and figurehead.

I guess I just like contrary women, and Kralta was one. Crooked as a Jesuit’s conscience, as I was to discover, but with a spirit and quality that made you feel it was almost a privilege to mount her – but then, I’ve remarked before that royal breeding tells, and no doubt I’m as impressionable as the next horny peasant. She was a born adventuress, too – aye, the very archetype of all those subtle sirens whom romantic writers love to imagine aboard the Orient Express. I’d barely disentangled myself from those muscular satin limbs, and she’d stopped gasping in what I think was Hungarian and recovered her breath, when she murmured:

‘So … must the secret wait until Vienna?’ Her long fingers stroked my stomach, careless-like. ‘Better there should be nothing between us, nem ? Then we can enjoy our journey.’ She flirted her lips across my chest. ‘Why not tell me now?’

‘So that you can call the guard and have me slung out as soon as you’ve heard it? I’ve known women who wouldn’t think twice.’

‘You think I am such a one … after …?’ Her stroking hand slid downwards. ‘Do you not trust me, when I have trusted you … Harry?’

‘Steady, girl! A little decorum, if you please … I’ll tell you, princess –’

‘Kralta …’

‘Aye, well, Kralta … I trust folk as far as I can throw ’em, which in your case,’ I fondled a voluptuous handful, ‘ain’t far, thank God. No, Vienna’ll be soon enough. I ain’t a modest man, but I’m not fool enough to think that you’d continue to play pretty just for the sake of my manly charms … d’you know?’

‘How little you know of women,’ says she. ‘Or rather, how little you know of me.’

‘I know you’re Bismarck’s mistress.’ I couldn’t resist touching this condescending madam on a raw spot – but of course it wasn’t.

‘Fat little Stefan has been gossiping, has he?’ She sounded amused. ‘What did he tell you?’

‘Oh, how the German Emperor persuaded you to gallop stout Otto into a cheerful frame of mind – which I’m bound to say you’re well equipped to do.’ I gave her bottom a hearty squeeze. ‘I’ll bet he couples like a cannibal, does he?’ Coarse stuff, you see, to put her in her place, but all it provoked was a dry chuckle.

‘Poor Blowitz! Either he is a bad reporter, or he was trying to protect my reputation.’ She eased herself up on an elbow and smiled at me bold-eyed. ‘In fact, His Majesty made no such suggestion; he merely poured out his fears to me, like the garrulous old woman that he is. It was I who suggested, delicately, since the Emperor is easily shocked, that I myself should … refresh Prince Bismarck.’

Delicacy being her forte, the brazen bitch. ‘God’s truth – d’you mean you wanted Bismarck ? Talk about a glutton for punishment! What on earth possessed you?’

She gave a little dismissive shrug. ‘Amusement? Whim? What shall I call it? I am forty years old, immensely rich in my own right, titled and privileged, married to a dull nonentity … and bored beyond belief. It follows that I seek diversion, excitement, pleasure, and above all, novelty. When a new sensation offers, I pursue it … as you have discovered.’ She teased her lips across mine. ‘That is what possessed me.’

‘I’ll be damned! You didn’t tell that to the Emperor, I’ll be bound! What did he say?’

‘Oh, men are such hypocrites! He pretended not to understand … but he did everything in his power to smooth my way to Schönhausen – secret arrangements, agents to conduct me, my husband sent off on a fool’s errand.’ She gave a well-bred sneer. ‘A professional procurer could have done no more! And so … Bismarck was, as you say, “galloped” into a good humour, the Emperor was pleased and grateful, and I,’ says she, sitting up and stretching wantonly, poonts at the high port, ‘enjoyed the supreme gratification of having the most powerful man in the world panting for me in his shirt-tail.’

See why I said it was a privilege to mount her? There ain’t many women as shameless as I am – and by gum she was proud of it. Of course I was bound to ask how the most powerful man in the world had performed, and she shrugged, laughing.

‘Oh, very active … for his age. And very Prussian, which is to say gross and greedy. An ageing bull, without refinement or subtlety.’ She was one to talk. ‘As the French philosopher said, it was an interesting experience, but not one to be repeated. Now I,’ her eyes narrowed and the ripe lower lip drooped as she reclined beside me again, her hands questing across my body, ‘am devoted to repetition, and so, I believe, are you … ah, but indeed you are! And since I did not decoy you from London only to find out silly secrets …’ she slid a strapping thigh across my hips, gasped sharply in Hungarian, and began to plunge up and down ‘… oh, let us repeat ourselves, again, and again, and again …!’

So we did, as the Orient Express thundered on towards distant Strasbourg, myself rapturously content to lend support, so to speak, while royalty revelled in the joys of good hard work. God knows how Bismarck had stood it at his time of life, and I remember thinking that if one had wanted to assassinate him, Kralta could have given him a happier despatch than the old bastard deserved. 12

Clanks and whistles and a shocking cramp in my old thigh wound awoke me as we pulled in past the Porte de Saverne to Strasbourg station, and when I tried to move, I couldn’t, because Kralta was sleeping on top of me – hence my aching limb, trapped beneath buxom royalty. That’s the drawback to railroad rattling: when you’ve walloped yourselves to a standstill there’s no room to doze off contentedly rump to rump, and you must sleep catch-as-catch-can. Fortunately she soon came awake, and I heard the rustle of her furs as she slipped out into the corridor, leaving me to knead my leg into action, sigh happily at the recollection of a rewarding night’s activity, raise the blind for a peep at the station, and groan at the discovery from the platform clock that it was only ten to five.

The place was bustling even at that ungodly hour, with some sort of reception for our passengers, and I remembered Blowitz had talked of a dawn excursion. There he was, sure enough, well to the fore with Nagelmacker and a gang of tile-tipping dignitaries; he was trying to be the life and soul as usual, but looking desperate seedy after all his sluicing and guzzling, which was a cheering sight. If I’d known then that the Strasbourg river is called the Ill, I’d have called to him to have a look at it, as suiting his condition.

That reminded me that I was in urgent need of the usual offices, and I was about to lower the blind when my eye was caught by a chap sauntering along the platform, valise in hand, a tall youthful figure, somewhat of a swell with his long sheepskin-collared coat thrown back from his shoulders, stylishly tilted hat shading his face, ebony cane, a bloom in his lapel, and a black cigarette in a long amber holder. Bit of a Continental fritillary, but there was something in the cut of his jib that seemed distantly familiar as he strolled leisurely by. Couldn’t be anyone I knew, and I put it down as a fleeting likeness to any one of a hundred subalterns in the past, lowered the blind, drew on shirt and trousers, and hobbled out to seek relief.