A/N: This was an idea that just came to me one night and I had to get it out of my head before going to work on my other stuff. I don't have the time to do historical research like Fraser does and I doubt I can write the Tenth Doctor and Martha in character that well, and this work is unedited. But if anyone else wants to run with the idea, let me know. Or, if you want me to keep on with the story, if I get enough support for that, I'll do my level best to accomodate my audience and find an editor that knows both works. At the very least, I hope you enjoy this little idea. Fair warning for idealogically sensitive content, Flashman is a product of his time and uses ethnic slurs and has a poor opinion of just about everybody, including his fellow Englishmen. If you prefer not to read that sort of thing, this work is not for you.
If you've read any of my previous works, you will no doubt have noted my insistence that I am telling the absolute truth of my actions and what I saw in my supposedly illustrious career. Well, prepare yourself for a rude shock, for in this account only is that rule not to be entirely trusted. Not because I'm going to start lying, of course, but because when all is said and done the thing sounds so deuced impossible I'm not sure even I believe it. Maybe I just spent a few days in an opium den listening to the dragons sing, as the Chinks say and dreamed it all, maybe I caught some damn fever on the trip back from China and raved in delirium in a ship's hammock for a while. Half the reason I'm putting it down here is just for the sake of completeness – if I'm going to give an account of my complete sham of a life, I may as well do it properly – and the other half is because if it is true, and somebody actually reads this, well, maybe it'll be somebody that ought to know about such things.
Unlike many of the previous perilous adventures of my life, I know exactly how this one got started and how I blundered into it, rather literally as it happens. This was just at the end of October 1860, the exact date eludes me, perhaps because of the damned hussy that had responded to my perfectly understandable blackmail attempt – trick me into gun-running for the Taipings, would she? – by spiking my drink with something that laid me on my back in under a minute. When next I woke up, it was in a back alley in Shanghai feeling as though my head had been used for a war drum. Staggering to my feet with a few choice curses, I went through my pockets to see what she'd lifted before having me thrown into this rubbish heap. The one thing you could say for Chinese rubbish heaps was that they generally smelled strongly of tea leaves and fruit not entirely gone rotten, so when you made the close acquaintance of one, as I did, it might be a mild improvement in odor depending on the person. Deuced slimy, though.
It turned out they hadn't actually gone through me well enough to get anything besides the few coins in my pocket before tossing me out, which was a great relief – that black jade chess set tucked away in a hidden pocket would see me set for some time when I got out of this infernal country. Likely she'd bethought herself that the sooner she saw the back of Flashy, the sooner she and her damnable husband could relocate their little operation and lay low as long as I ran about the streets roaring about their little scheme. I wasn't such a fool as that, though, I had a ship to catch. I determined to leave a notice with the local magistrate, though, before I went, as a slightly more reliable equivalent to prayer. I'd leave her name out of it though, I'd no desire to see her head in a basket the next time I went strolling through the city. Call me sentimental, but I deplore a waste of that kind of beauty.
Where I went wrong was – after stopping by a launderer's establishment to have the aroma of rotten fruit and ginseng removed from my clothes – taking notice of the odd woman running down the street after an even odder man. It was the hair that took my notice, really, she had a fine coffee-coloured complexion and brown hair, as you might have seen on any woman in India, but it was tied up loose at the back of her head, like a Chink topknot that had come undone. That caught my attention, the rest of her held it, not as fine a figure as some, but better than most, and wearing some kind of red leather jacket and men's trousers. Like as not as she was a horsewoman of some sort. If she refrained from stuffing me full of hashish like Ko Dali's daughter, thinks I, mayhap she's partial to more than one kind of riding. God knows I was sick and tired of Chinese women and their mutilated feet. The man I only paid a glance to, a dark-haired chap, white man, wearing some idiotic striped jacket and trousers under a long brown coat and with a strip of red cloth hanging from his neck like the bastard child of a scarf and bandanna.
"Halloa, ma'am," I said, putting on a charming air as best I could, "Sir. Might I be of help? Seems as though you're looking for someplace in particular."
Then the man absolutely skidded to a halt, looked at me, and smiled so widely at me I half wondered if he'd escaped from a madhouse and the woman was one of the staff trying to collar him before he started biting people or proclaiming he was Napoleon.
"We'd very much appreciate that!" he says, and he was English all right, from the north if I'm any judge. "I was aiming for the Yu Gardens, but I think I may have overshot a bit, so tell me, how far off am I?"
That took me aback, I can tell you, and only reinforced the madhouse possibility.
"You must have just got here," I said, "else you'd have heard. One of the local gangs is camping out in the place and making a right mess of things. Little Swords or some such name."
The man's face fell.
"Oh, dear, I thought something was off. What year is this?"
I turned to the woman, who seemed to be taking all of this rather well, even grinning at his foolishness. Perhaps they'd escaped together. I had better make sure what was what before making any further advances.
"Beg your pardon, ma'am, but is your friend here drunk?"
She just laughed and shook her head.
"It seems that way sometimes, but no, and he isn't mad either. Could you answer the question, please?"
This was getting too strange for my liking altogether, and I resolved that even a moderately attractive woman wasn't worth chancing the clutches of a lunatic and to get elsewhere as soon as decently possible.
"1860," I said, "close on 1861," and turned to leave. In the next moment, I heard a shout of alarm and a strong hand shoved me downwards. Something whizzed overhead and off to my left a great ball of fire burst against a storefront with a sound like a thunderclap. In an instant the street was in chaos as everybody started screaming and running and I scrambled to my feet just in time to dive against the side of the building and avoid getting trampled under the rush. The madman tugged at my arm. He was holding a small metal stick in the other hand, which seemed to be buzzing.
"Run!" he said to me, and started hauling me along, nearly tearing my arm off as he and the woman made tracks. He was definitely stronger than he looked, but I hardly needed any encouragement to get clear of this mess and yelled at him to let go so I could run faster. Damned if he paid me any heed though. By the time I managed to get him to turn loose, we were a goodly distance away from the column of smoke rising over the city.
"What the devil was that?" I demanded, "One of those damn fireworks? Did somebody plant a rocket battery on the rooftops when I wasn't looking?" Even Fred Ward, little insane soldier that he'd been, wouldn't have been that stupid, at least I thought not, but I didn't know what to make of it.
"Incendiary grenade," the madman said to me, looking mightily angry at the affair. "Not the most efficient way of killing a man, but certainly one of the most painful. They must really hate you. Why is that, do you think?"
My mind reeled at the idea. I hadn't any enemies in China besides the Taipings and they damn well weren't in Shanghai! Even if they were, I should think they'd be more sensible than to risk burning the whole place down just to take out one man. Granted, the list of people who might have thought it worthwhile was distressingly long and it though it was quite a stretch to figure one of them might have come across me by chance, it was the only thing I could think of.
"How the hell should I know, you idiot?" I snarled at him, my face red with fear, a peculiarity for which I have always been grateful, as it makes people think I'm angry when in fact I might be perilously close to soiling myself. "Be off back to your asylum, will you?" I made to leave, but the man danced around in front of me, pleading for me to wait, they might take another shot at me and he could help, absolutely he could. Well, he was right about that, if my would-be assassin had friends, they might well be tailing me this very minute, which to my mind made it all the more important to start running again, but then the woman spoke up again and I halted.
"Please," she said, "I know how this must look, but if this is as bad as he thinks it is, you're in terrible danger and you need our help. That weapon, it shouldn't be here! Think! Have you ever seen someone assassinated by a grenade from that distance?"
She had me there, and a fine thing it was, too. That thing, whatever it was, had come at me like a bullet, at an angle, and no one could throw like that. Some new American invention? They were always inventing the damndest things over there.
"Well," I said, turning to face her with another charming smile, "your friend is lucky to have you with him, ain't he?" To my disappointment, I didn't see the telltale gleam in her eye that identified a woman of a similar mind as myself. But she did smile and look away and I knew I'd made a start. Cavalry whiskers, gets'em every time, and I'd need her on my side if I wanted to get through this.
"Believe me, you have no idea," the man agreed, gesturing for me to follow him, and I fell into step alongside the pair of them as we walked through the streets.
"So," he said, "Never did get your name. Terribly rude of me, neglecting introductions. Things work so much better when people have names, I think."
"Harry Flashman," I said, for once not bothering with a false name just to get a reaction out of him. If he was anybody at all in England, he'd have heard of me and my undeserved heroic reputation. It seemed he did, for he let out a great laugh.
"Sir Harry Flashman! Well, this is a treat, isn't it? Marvelous stuff you've gotten up to, I must say. That explains quite a bit, though it still doesn't tell us who was shooting at you just now. This is Martha," He gestured to the woman, who gave me a pleasant halloa and a nod. "And," he went on, a knowing gleam in his eye that made my white liver quiver a bit, "I'm the Doctor."