In the end it got too much, and the night before I left I went to her room again, having made sure the guv’nor was out. She was reading, and looking damned desirable in a pale green negligée; I was a little drunk, and the sight of her white shoulders and red mouth sent the old tingle down my spine again.
‘What do you want?’ she said, very icy, but I was expecting that, and had my speech ready.
‘I’ve come to beg pardon,’ I said, looking a bit hangdog. ‘Tomorrow I go away, and before I went I had to apologise for the way I spoke to you. I’m sorry, Judy; I truly am; I acted like a cad … and a ruffian, and, well … I want to make what amends I can. That’s all.’
She put down her book and turned on her stool to face me, still looking mighty cold, but saying nothing. I shuffled like a sheepish schoolboy – I could see my reflection in the mirror behind her, and judge how the performance was going – and said again that I was sorry.
‘Very well, then,’ she said at last. ‘You’re sorry. You have cause to be.’
I kept quiet, not looking at her.
‘Well, then,’ she said, after a pause. ‘Good night.’
‘Please, Judy,’ I said, looking distraught. ‘You make it very hard. If I behaved like a boor –’
‘You did.’
‘– it was because I was angry and hurt and didn’t understand why … why you wouldn’t let me …’ I let it trail off and then burst out that I had never known a woman like her before, and that I had fallen in love with her, and only came to ask her pardon because I couldn’t bear the thought of her detesting me, and a good deal more in the same strain – simple enough rubbish, you may think, but I was still learning. At that, the mirror told me I was doing well. I finished by drawing myself up straight, and looking solemn, and saying:
‘And that is why I had to see you again … to tell you. And to ask your pardon.’
I gave her a little bow, and turned to the door, rehearsing how I would stop and look back if she didn’t stop me. But she took me at face value, for as I put my hand to the latch she said:
‘Harry.’ I turned round, and she was smiling a little, and looking sad. Then she smiled properly, and shook her head and said:
‘Very well, Harry, if you want my pardon, for what it’s worth you have it. We’ll say no …’
‘Judy!’ I came striding back, smiling like soul’s awakening. ‘Oh, Judy, thank you!’ And I held out my hand, frank and manly.
She got up and took it, smiling still, but there was none of the old wanton glint about her eye. She was being stately and forgiving, like an aunt to a naughty nephew. The nephew, had she known it, was intent on incest.
‘Judy,’ I said, still holding her hand, ‘we’re parting friends?’
‘If you like,’ she said, trying to take it away. ‘Goodbye, Harry, and good luck.’
I stepped closer and kissed her hand, and she didn’t seem to mind. I decided, like the fool I was, that the game was won.
‘Judy,’ I said again, ‘you’re adorable. I love you, Judy. If only you knew, you’re all I want in a woman. Oh, Judy, you’re the most beautiful thing, all bum, belly and bust, I love you.’
And I grabbed her to me, and she pulled free and got away from me.
‘No!’ she said, in a voice like steel.
‘Why the hell not?’ I shouted.
‘Go away!’ she said, pale and with eyes like daggers. ‘Good night!’
‘Good night be damned,’ says I. ‘I thought you said we were parting friends? This ain’t very friendly, is it?’
She stood glaring at me. Her bosom was what the lady novelists call agitated, but if they had seen Judy agitated in a negligée they would think of some other way of describing feminine distress.
‘I was a fool to listen to you for a moment,’ she says. ‘Leave this room at once!’
‘All in good time,’ says I, and with a quick dart I caught her round the waist. She struck at me, but I ducked it, and we fell on the bed together. I had hold of the softness of her, and it maddened me. I caught her wrist as she struck at me again, like a tigress, and got my mouth on hers, and she bit me on the lip for all she was worth.
I yelped and broke away, holding my mouth, and she, raging and panting, grabbed up some china dish and let fly at me. It missed by a long chalk, but it helped my temper over the edge completely. I lost control of myself altogether.
‘You bitch!’ I shouted, and hit her across the face as hard as I could. She staggered, and I hit her again, and she went clean over the bed and on to the floor on the other side. I looked round for something to go after her with, a cane or a whip, for I was in a frenzy and would have cut her to bits if I could. But there wasn’t one handy, and by the time I had got round the bed to her it had flashed across my mind that the house was full of servants and my full reckoning with Miss Judy had better be postponed to another time.
I stood over her, glaring and swearing, and she pulled herself up by a chair, holding her face. But she was game enough.
‘You coward!’ was all she would say. ‘You coward!’
‘It’s not cowardly to punish an insolent whore!’ says I. ‘D’you want some more?’
She was crying – not sobbing, but with tears on her cheeks. She went over to her chair by the mirror, pretty unsteady, and sat down and looked at herself. I cursed her again, calling her the choicest names I could think of, but she worked at her cheek, which was red and bruised, with a hare’s foot, and paid no heed. She did not speak at all.
‘Well, be damned to you!’ says I, at length, and with that I slammed out of the room. I was shaking with rage, and the pain in my lip, which was bleeding badly, reminded me that she had paid for my blows in advance. But she had got something in return, at all events; she would not forget Harry Flashman in a hurry.
The 11th Light Dragoons at this time were newly back from India, where they had been serving since before I was born. They were a fighting regiment, and – I say it without regimental pride, for I never had any, but as a plain matter of fact – probably the finest mounted troops in England, if not in the world. Yet they had been losing officers, since coming home, hand over fist. The reason was James Brudenell, Earl of Cardigan.
You have heard all about him, no doubt. The regimental scandals, the Charge of the Light Brigade, the vanity, stupidity, and extravagance of the man – these things are history. Like most history they have a fair basis of fact. But I knew him, probably as few other officers knew him, and in turn I found him amusing, frightening, vindictive, charming, and downright dangerous. He was God’s own original fool, there’s no doubt of that – although he was not to blame for the fiasco at Balaclava; that was Raglan and Airey between them. And he was arrogant as no other man I’ve ever met, and as sure of his own unshakeable rightness as any man could be – even when his wrong-headedness was there for all to see. That was his great point, the key to his character: he could never be wrong.
They say that at least he was brave. He was not. He was just stupid, too stupid ever to be afraid. Fear is an emotion, and his emotions were all between his knees and his breastbone; they never touched his reason, and he had little enough of that.
For all that, he could never be called a bad soldier. Some human faults are military virtues, like stupidity, and arrogance, and narrow-mindedness. Cardigan blended all three with a passion for detail and accuracy; he was a perfectionist, and the manual of cavalry drill was his Bible. Whatever rested between the covers of that book he could perform, or cause to be performed,