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

‘Jeanne d’Arc is yet to reappear, perhaps. But you are not serious, my boy. You doubt my reason. Oh, yes, you do! But I tell you, everything moves by a fixed law, and those of us who would master our destinies –’ he tapped a fat finger on my knee ‘– we learn to divine the intentions of the Supreme Will which directs us.’

‘Ye don’t say. One jump ahead of the Almighty. Who are you reincarnating, by the way – Baron Munchausen?’

He sat back chortling, twirling his moustache. ‘Oh, ’Arree, ’Arree, you are incorrigible ! Well, I shall submit no more to your scepticism méprisant , your dérision Anglaise . You laugh, when I tell you that in our moment of first meeting, I knew that our fates were bound together. “Regard this man,” I thought. “He is part of your destiny.” It is so, we are bound, I, Blowitz, in whom Tacitus lives again, and you … ah, but of whom shall I say you are a reflection? Murat, perhaps? Your own Prince Rupert? Some great beau sabreur , surely?’ He twinkled at me. ‘Or would it please you if I named the Chevalier de Seignalt?’

‘Who’s he when he’s at home?’

‘In Italy they called him Casanova. Aha, that marches! You see yourself in the part! Well, well, laugh as you please, we are destined, you and I. You’ll see, mon ami . Oh, you’ll see!’

He had me weighed up, no error, and knew that on my infrequent visits to Paris, which is a greasy sort of sink not much better than Port Moresby, the chief reason I sought him out was because he was my passport to society salons and the company of the female gamebirds with whom the city abounds – and I don’t mean your poxed-up opera tarts and cancan girls but the quality traffic of the smart hôtels and embassy parties, whose languid ennui conceals more carnal knowledge than you’d find in Babylon. My advice to young chaps is to never mind the Moulin Rouge and Pigalle, but make for some diplomatic mêlée on the Rue de Lisbonne, catch the eye of a well-fleshed countess, and ere the night’s out you’ll have learned something you won’t want to tell your grandchildren.

In spite of looking like a plum duff on legs, Blowitz had an extraordinary gift of attracting the best of ’em like flies to a jampot. No doubt they thought him a harmless buffoon, and he made them laugh, and flattered them something monstrous – and, to be sure, he had the stalwart Flashy in tow, which was no disadvantage, though I say it myself. I suppose you could say he pimped for me, in a way – but don’t imagine for a moment that I despised him, or failed to detect the hard core inside the jolly little flâneur . I always respect a man who’s good at his work, and I bore in mind the story (which I heard from more than one good source) that Blowitz had made his start in France by paying court to his employer’s wife, and the pair of them had heaved the unfortunate cuckold into Marseilles harbour from a pleasure-boat, left him to drown, and trotted off to the altar. Yes, I could credit that. Another story, undoubtedly true, was that when The Times , in his early days on the paper, were thinking of sacking him, he invited the manager to dinner – and there at the table was every Great Power ambassador in Paris. That convinced The Times , as well it might.

So there you have M. Henri Stefan Oppert-Blowitz, 1and if I’ve told you a deal about him and his crackpot notions of our ‘shared destiny’, it’s because they were at the root of the whole crazy business, and dam’ near cost me my life, as well as preventing a great European war – which will happen eventually, mark my words, if this squirt of a Kaiser ain’t put firmly in his place. If I were Asquith I’d have the little swine took off sudden; plenty of chaps would do it for ten thou’ and a snug billet in the Colonies afterwards. But that’s common sense, not politics, you see.

That by the way. It was at the back end of ’77 that the unlikely pair of Blowitz and Sam Grant, late President of the United States, put me on the road to disaster, and (as is so often the case) in the most innocent-seeming way.

Like all retired Yankee bigwigs, Sam was visiting the mother country as the first stage of a grand tour, which meant, he being who he was, that instead of being allowed to goggle at Westminster and Windermere in peace, he must endure adulation on every hand, receiving presentations and the freedom of cities, having fat aldermen and provosts pump his fin, which he hated of all things, listening to endless boring addresses, and having to speechify in turn (which was purgatory to a man who spoke mostly in grunts), with crowds huzzaing wherever he went, the nobility lionising him in their lordly way, and being beset by admiring females from Liverpool laundresses to the Great White Mother herself.

Hard sledding for the sour little bargee, and by the time I met him, at a banquet at Windsor to which I’d been bidden as his old comrade of the war between the states, I could see he’d had his bellyful. Our last encounter had been two years earlier, when he’d sent me to talk to the Sioux and lost me my scalp at Greasy Grass, fn1and his temper hadn’t improved in the meantime.

‘It won’t do, Flashman!’ barks he, chewing his beard and looking as though he’d just heard that Lee had taken New York. ‘I’ve had as much ceremony and attention as I can stand. D’you know they’re treating me as royalty ? It’s true, I tell you! Lord Beaconsfield has ordained it – well, I’m much obliged to him, I’m sure, but I can’t take it! If I have to lay another cornerstone or listen to another artisans’ address or have my hand tortured by some worthy burgess bent on wrestling me to the ground …’ He left off snarling to look round furtive-like in case any of the Quality were in earshot. ‘At least your gracious Queen doesn’t shake hands as though she purposed to break my arm,’ he added grudgingly. ‘Not like the rest of ’em.’

‘Price of fame, Mr President.’

‘Price of your aunt’s harmonium!’ snaps he. ‘And it’ll be worse in Europe, I’ll be bound! Dammit, they embrace you, don’t they?’ He glared at me, as though daring me to try. ‘Here, though – d’you speak French? I know you speak Siouxan, and I seem to recollect Lady Flashman extolling your linguistic accomplishments. Well, sir – do you or don’t you?’

I admitted that I did, and he growled his satisfaction.

‘Then you can do me a signal favour … if you will. They tell me I must meet Marshal Macmahon in Paris, and he hasn’t a word of English – and my French you could write on the back of a postal stamp! Well, then,’ says he, thrusting his beard at me, ‘will you stand up with me at the Invalids or the Tooleries or wherever the blazes it is, and play interpreter?’ He hesitated, eyeing me hard while I digested this remarkable proposal, and cleared his throat before adding: ‘I’d value it, Flashman … having a friendly face at my elbow ’stead of some damned diplomatic in knee-britches.’

Ulysses S. Grant never called for help in his life, but just then I seemed to catch a glimpse, within the masterful commander and veteran statesman, of the thin-skinned Scotch yokel from the Ohio tanyard uneasily adrift in an old so-superior world which he’d have liked to despise but couldn’t help feeling in awe of. No doubt Windsor and Buck House had been ordeal enough, and now the prospect of standing tongue-tied before the French President and a parcel of courtly supercilious Frogs had unmanned him to the point where he was prepared to regard me as a friendly face. Of course I agreed straight off, in my best toady-manly style; I’d never have dared say no to Grant at any time, and I wouldn’t have missed watching him and Macmahon in a state of mutual bewilderment for all the tea in China.