You will wonder, if you’ve read my earlier memoirs (which I suppose are as fine a record of knavery, cowardice and fleeing for cover as you’ll find outside the covers of Hansard), what fearful run of ill fortune got me to Balaclava at all. So I had better get things in their proper order, like a good memorialist, and before describing the events of that lunatic engagement, tell you of the confoundedly unlucky chain of trivial events that took me there. It should convince you of the necessity of staying out of pool-rooms and shunning the society of royalty.
It was early in ’54, and I had been at home some time, sniffing about, taking things very easy, and considering how I might lie low and enjoy a quiet life in England while my military colleagues braved shot and shell in Russia on behalf of the innocent defenceless Turk – not that there’s any such thing, in my experience, which is limited to my encounter with a big fat Constantinople houri who tried to stab me in bed for my money-belt, and then had the effrontery to call the police when I thrashed her. I’ve never had a high opinion of Turks, and when I saw the war-clouds gathering on my return to England that year, the last thing I was prepared to do was offer my services against the Russian tyrant.
One of the difficulties of being a popular hero, though, is that it’s difficult to wriggle out of sight when the bugle blows. I hadn’t taken the field on England’s behalf for about eight years, but neither had anyone else, much, and when the press starts to beat the drum and the public are clamouring for the foreigners’ blood to be spilled – by someone other than themselves – they have a habit of looking round for their old champions. The laurels I had won so undeservedly in the Afghan business were still bright enough to catch attention, I decided, and it would be damned embarrassing if people in Town started saying: “Hollo, here’s old Flash, just the chap to set upon Tsar Nicholas. Going back to the Cherrypickers, Flashy, are you? By Jove, pity the poor Rooskis when the Hero of Gandamack sets about ’em, eh, what?” As one of the former bright particular stars of the cavalry, who had covered himself with glory from Kabul to the Khyber, and been about the only man to charge in the right direction at Chillianwallah (a mistake, mind you), I wouldn’t be able to say, “No, thank’ee, I think I’ll sit out this time.” Not and keep any credit, anyway. And credit’s the thing, if you’re as big a coward as I am, and want to enjoy life with an easy mind.
So I looked about for a way out, and found a deuced clever one – I rejoined the Army. That is to say, I went round to the Horse Guards, where my Uncle Bindley was still holding on in pursuit of his pension, and took up my colours again, which isn’t difficult when you know the right people. But the smart thing was, I didn’t ask for a cavalry posting, or a staff mount, or anything risky of that nature; instead I applied for the Board of Ordnance, for which I knew I was better qualified than most of its members, inasmuch as I knew which end of a gun the ball came out of. Let me once be installed there, in a comfortable office off Horse Guards, which I might well visit as often as once a fortnight, and Mars could go whistle for me.
And if anyone said, “What, Flash, you old blood-drinker, ain’t you off to Turkey to carve up the Cossacks?”, I’d look solemn and talk about the importance of administration and supply, and the need for having at home headquarters some experienced field men – the cleverer ones, of course – who would see what was required for the front. With my record for gallantry (totally false though it was) no one could doubt my sincerity.
Bindley naturally asked me what the deuce I knew about fire-arms, being a cavalryman, and I pointed out that that mattered a good deal less than the fact that I was related, on my mother’s side, to Lord Paget, of the God’s Anointed Pagets, who happened to be a member of the small arms select committee. He’d be ready enough, I thought, to give a billet as personal secretary, confidential civilian aide, and general tale-bearer, to a well-seasoned campaigner who was also a kinsman.
“Well-seasoned Haymarket Hussar,” sniffs Bindley, who was from the common or Flashman side of our family, and hated being reminded of my highly-placed relatives. “I fancy rather more than that will be required.”
“India and Afghanistan ain’t in the Haymarket, uncle,” says I, looking humble-offended, “and if it comes to fire-arms, well, I’ve handled enough of ’em, Brown Bess, Dreyse needles, Colts, Lancasters, Brunswicks, and so forth” – I’d handled them with considerable reluctance, but he didn’t know that.
“H’m,” says he, pretty sour. “This is a curiously humble ambition for one who was once the pride of the plungers. However, since you can hardly be less useful to the ordnance board than you would be if you returned to the wastrel existence you led in the 11th – before they removed you – I shall speak to his lordship.”
I could see he was puzzled, and he sniffed some more about the mighty being fallen, but he didn’t begin to guess at my real motive. For one thing, the war was still some time off, and the official talk was that it would probably be avoided, but I was taking no risks of being caught unprepared. When there’s been a bad harvest, and workers are striking, and young chaps have developed a craze for growing moustaches and whiskers, just watch out.1 The country was full of discontent and mischief, largely because England hadn’t had a real war for forty years, and only a few of us knew what fighting was like. The rest were full of rage and stupidity, and all because some Papists and Turkish niggers had quarrelled about the nailing of a star to a door in Palestine. Mind you, nothing surprises me.
When I got home and announced my intention of joining the Board of Ordnance, my darling wife Elspeth was mortified beyond belief.
“Why, oh why, Harry, could you not have sought an appointment in the Hussars, or some other fashionable regiment? You looked so beautiful and dashing in those wonderful pink pantaloons! Sometimes I think they were what won my heart in the first place, the day you came to father’s house. I suppose that in the Ordnance they wear some horrid drab overalls, and how can you take me riding in the Row dressed like … like a common commissary person, or something?”
“Shan’t wear uniform,” says I. “Just civilian toggings, my dear. And you’ll own my tailor’s a good one, since you chose him yourself.”
“That will be quite as bad,” says she, “with all the other husbands in their fine uniforms – and you looked so well and dashing. Could you not be a Hussar again, my love – just for me?”
When Elspeth pouted those red lips, and heaved her remarkable bosom in a sigh, my thoughts always galloped bedwards, and she knew it. But I couldn’t be weakened that way, as I explained.
“Can’t be done. Cardigan won’t have me back in the 11th, you may be sure; why, he kicked me out in ’40.”
“Because I was a … a tradesman’s daughter, he said. I know.” For a moment I thought she would weep. “Well, I am not so now. Father …”
“… bought a peerage just in time before he died, so you are a baron’s daughter. Yes, my love, but that won’t serve for Jim the Bear. I doubt if he fancies bought nobility much above no rank at all.”
“Oh, how horridly you put it. Anyway, I am sure that is not so, because he danced twice with me last season, while you were away, at Lady Brown’s assembly – yes, and at the cavalry ball. I distinctly remember, because I wore my gold ruffled dress and my hair à l’impératrice, and he said I looked like an Empress indeed. Was that not gallant? And he bows to me in the Park, and we have spoken several