As with previous Papers, I have merely corrected his spelling, which in this instance meant introducing consistency into his bizarre renderings of Abyssinian names.
G.M.F.
‘Half a million in silver, did you say?’
‘In Maria Theresa dollars. Worth a hundred thou’ in quids.’ He held up a gleaming coin, broad as a crown, with the old girl double-chinned on one side and the Austrian arms on t’other. ‘Dam’ disinheritin’ old bitch, what? Mind, they say she was a plum in her youth, blonde and buxom, just your sort, Flashy—’
‘Ne’er mind my sort. The cash must reach this place in Africa within four weeks? And the chap who was to have escorted it is laid up in Venice with yellow jack?’
‘Or the clap, or the sailor’s itch, or heaven knows what.’ He spun the coin, grinning foxy-like. ‘You’ve changed your mind, haven’t you? You’re game to do it yourself! Good old Flash!’
‘Don’t rush your fences, Speed, my boy. When’s it due to be shipped out?’
‘Wednesday. Lloyd packet to Alexandria. But with Sturgess comin’ all over yellow in Venice, that won’t do, and there ain’t another Alex boat for a fortnight – far too late, and the Embassy’ll run my guts up the flagpole, as though ’twas my fault, confound ’em—’
‘Aye, it’s hell in the diplomatic. Well, tell you what, Speed – I’ll ride guard on your dollars to Alex for you, but I ain’t waiting till Wednesday. I want to be clear of this blasted town by dawn tomorrow, so you’d best drum up a steam-launch and crew, and get your precious treasure aboard tonight – where is it just now?’
‘At the station, the Strada Ferrata – but dammit, Flash, a private charter’ll cost the moon—’
‘You’ve got Embassy dibs, haven’t you? Then use ’em! The station ain’t spitting distance from the Klutsch mole, and if you get a move on you can have the gelt loaded by midnight. Heavens, man, steam craft and spaghetti sailors are ten a penny in Trieste! If you’re in such a sweat to get the dollars to Africa—’
‘You may believe it! Let me see … quick run to Alex, then train to Cairo and on to Suez – no camel caravans across the desert these days, but you’ll need to hire nigger porters—’
‘For which you’ll furnish me cash!’
He waved a hand. ‘Sturgess would’ve had to hire ’em, anyway. At Suez one of our Navy sloops’ll take you down the Red Sea – there are shoals of ’em, chasin’ the slavers, and I’ll give you an Embassy order. They’ll have you at Zoola – that’s the port for Abyssinia – by the middle of February, and it can’t take above a week to get the silver up-country to this place called Attegrat. That’s where General Napier will be.’
‘Napier? Not Bob the Bughunter? What the blazes is he doing in Abyssinia? We haven’t got a station there.’
‘We have by now, you may be sure!’ He was laughing in disbelief. ‘D’you mean to tell me you haven’t heard? Why, he’s invadin’ the place! With an army from India! The silver is to help fund his campaign, don’t you see? Good God, Flashy, where have you been? Oh, I was forgettin’ – Mexico. Dash it, don’t they have newspapers there?’
‘Hold up, can’t you? Why is he invading?’
‘To rescue the captives – our consul, envoys, missionaries! They’re held prisoner by this mad cannibal king, and he’s chainin’ ’em, and floggin’ ’em, and kickin’ up no end of a row! Theodore, his name is – and you mean to say you’ve not heard of him? I’ll be damned – why, there’s been uproar in Parliament, our gracious Queen writin’ letters, a penny or more on the income tax – it’s true! Now d’you see why this silver must reach Napier double quick – if it don’t, he’ll be adrift in the middle of nowhere with not a penny to his name, and your old chum Speedicut will be a human sacrifice at the openin’ of the new Foreign Office!’
‘But why should Napier need Austrian silver? Hasn’t he got any sterling?’
‘Abyssinian niggers won’t touch it, or anythin’ except Maria Theresas. Purest silver,1 you see, and Napier must have it for food and forage when he marches up-country to fight his war.’
‘So it’s a war-chest? You never said a dam’ word about war last night.’
‘You never gave me a chance, did you? Soon as I told you I was in Dickie’s meadow,2 with this damned fortune to be shipped and Sturgess in dock, what sympathy did dear old friend Flashy offer? The horse’s laugh, and wished me joy! All for England, home, and the beauteous Elspeth, you were … and now,’ says he, with that old leery Speedicut look, ‘all of a sudden, you’re in the dooce of a hurry to oblige … What’s up, Flash?’
‘Not a dam’ thing. I’m sick of Trieste and want away, that’s all!’
‘And can’t wait a day? You and Hookey Walker!’
‘Now, see here, Speed, d’ye want me to shift your blasted bullion, or don’t you? Well, I go tonight or not at all, and since this cash is so all-fired important to Napier, your Embassy funds can stand the row for my passage home, too, when the thing’s done! Well, what d’ye say?’
‘That something is up, no error!’ His eyes widened. ‘I say, the Austrian traps ain’t after you, are they – ’cos if they were I daren’t assist your flight, silver or no silver! Dash it, I’m a diplomat—’
‘Of course ’tain’t the traps! What sort of fellow d’ye think I am? Good God, ha’nt we been chums since boyhood?’
‘Yes, and it’s ’cos I know what kind of chum you can be that I repeat “What’s up, Flash?”’ He filled my glass and pushed it across. ‘Come up, old boy! This is old Speed, remember, and you can’t humbug him.’
Well, true enough, I couldn’t, and since you, dear reader, may be sharing his curiosity, I’ll tell you what I told him that night in the Hôtel Victoria – not the smartest pub in Trieste, but as a patriotic little minion of our Vienna Embassy, Speedicut was bound to put up there – and it should explain the somewhat cryptic exchanges with which I’ve begun this chapter of my memoirs. If they’ve seemed a mite bewildering you’ll see presently that they were the simplest way of setting out the preliminaries to my tale of the strangest campaign in the whole history of British arms – and that takes in some damned odd affairs, a few of which I’ve borne a reluctant hand in myself. But Abyssinia took the cake, currants and all. Never anything like it, and never will be again.
For me, the business began in the summer of ’67, on the day when that almighty idiot, the Emperor Maximilian of Mexico, strode out before a Juarista firing squad, unbuttoned his shirt cool as a trout, and cried ‘Viva Mejico! Viva la independencia! Shoot, soldiers, through the heart!’ Which they did, with surprising accuracy for a platoon of dagoes, thereby depriving Mexico of its crowned head and Flashy of his employer and protector. I was an anxious spectator skulking in cover on a rooftop nearby, and when I saw Max take a header into the dust I knew that the time had come for me to slip my cable.
You see, I’d been his fairly loyal aide-de-camp in his recent futile struggle against Juarez’s republicans – not a post I’d taken from choice, but I’d been a deserter from the French Foreign Legion at the time.3 They were polluting Mexico with their presence in those days, supporting Max on behalf