While Dick talked over his plans with the Chosen Men, I waited my chance,
but every time I looked t have a fair opportunity to slip away, that evil
bastard Harper would pin me with his gaze and I'd turn back to the matter
in hand, though I heard not one word in twenty.
It was my own stupid lusts that ruined my best chance though. The rifles were wrapped in their blankets by the fire, and I was sat beside Dick, the two of us alone, both staring into the dying embers and brooding on our own thoughts. He stood.
"I'm off for a piss," says he, and I see the gate to escape open with gleeful eyes, then he puts a hand on my shoulder and murmurs soft and low, "Then bed, I think, Harry. What say you, me douce lad? Are you ready for bed, and for me?"
Just till he sleeps, I thought, I'll take my pleasure, and when he sleeps I'll be gone.
It was all the sweeter for the knowing it was the last I'd ever have of him, and I scarce noticed the time passing in my spiralling ecstasy as he moved on me, and I on him, in a frenzied dance of passion. Before I knew it, he was untangling my clinging arms from round his body and pulling away from my greedy kiss regretfully.
"Time to go, Harry" he says, gesturing to the dim light beginning to filter through the canvas.
The enormity of it hit me. I was off to near-certain death.
M'father always warned me to give heroes a wide birth "They'll get you killed before breakfast, six days out of seven." How I wished, despite the residual glow of a night of manifold and manifest pleasures, that I'd followed his advice more closely. I moaned pitifully, unable to stop the gut-wrenching fear escaping.
Sharpe took it for frustration, and smiled.
"It's just till tonight, me bonnie boy," he coos, "and then I'll give you the ride of your life, I promise. Now dress quickly Harry, we've work to do."
I dragged on my uniform, and joined the motley band walking silently and seriously toward the hills, a couplet from that God-rotted Hagman's favourite song whirling insistently around the Flashman noggin.
"If I should fall to rise no more, as many comrades have before. . .. If I should fall. . ." To distract myself, I whispered to Harris, "What's that village down there?" It was a question I immediately wished back in my mouth when he answered.
"They call it Torre Vidor, Mr Flashman."
Now, I didn't listen to half what m'father had to say, as I was growing, finding him a prosy, self-serving and self-glorifying old bore, but the name hit me in the face with the force of a kick from a maddened warhorse.
"Named you for the only man to carry the Flashman name ever to be lost in action, rather than die in bed m'boy. No relation, as far as I know, but we claim the bastard anyway, he adds to our consequence." The words rose up like a phoenix from the ashes of forgetfulness.
"How did he die, Papa?" God pity me, I could even hear my own childish treble lisping pathetically in my memory.
"Got himself caught up in some little side mission in the hills above Torre Vidor. As far as I know his body still lies there somewhere lost amongst the cracks and caves."
"Wath he a hewo, Papa?"
"He was dead, Harry, lost - what does it matter? There's a lesson in your name, my son - never volunteer for anything, especially if it might considered heroic "
"Yeth, Papa."
So now I knew, I thought. I was dragging my heart along in the heels of boots some Chosen Man had polished to a high gloss.
"Chin up, Harry," Sharpe whispered, seeing my despondent demeanour. "We'll be back at camp by dinner time, and who knows, maybe the pair of us'll get captaincies for our troubles."
"YOU might," says I, "I'M going to die."
"Oh, bollocks, lad, I'll not let ye die." He grinned, but even that infectious smile and his laughing sotto voce comment, "Trust Dick Sharpe to keep close watch on an arse he values so highly," failed to raise my spirits. After all, I knew. I couldn't even turn and run, the pass was too narrow for more than a single man. Sharp-eyed Perkins led the way, with Rifleman Harris; Dick and I followed with Kelly, Tongue, Hagman and close behind and Pat Harper bringing up the rear. I was thoroughly hemmed in.
I was doomed.
Then came Perkins word. The riflemen disposed themselves about, grim faced and determined God damn their eyes for the surly rogues and blackguards they were. I knew that soon Dan Hagman would start shooting, fire would be returned, and then I'd be done for - tied, stuffed and roasted to a turn.
It as then I decided I might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb. After all, m'father had said "lost". A punctilious man like the Pater would have said "killed" had he been definite sure. And, after all, he didn't know what I knew - that the foolish Harry was the same whining, snivelling, whore-mongering cad he'd so carefully raised.
I reckoned I stood one chance - albeit a small one. I could treat these Froggies to a Flashman charge, trust to whichever power protects the vile and villainous and hope that they would react as many had done before; from the footy fields of Rugby, to the battlefields of Afghanistan.
I squeezed Dick's firm thigh, gave him a sweet, boyish smile, and launched myself down towards the camp with a banshee wail.
The Flashman charge (since it involves ADVANCING and therefore goes against every finely tuned instinct in the Flashman psyche, which demands that one put as much distance as possible between one's skin and those that want to damage it in the shortest possible time) is the desperation move of last resort. It is only every attempted from higher ground and consists of running hell-for-leather toward the enemy with the left arm stuck rigidly out from the body at right-angles, the right arm swinging in huge figure of eight motions (usually holding a sword, cutlass or sabre, although Arnold frowned on that in Games) and bellowing at the top of one's lungs. If you take into account that we tend to be a strapping family (not a man among us fails to top six-foot-one, and a good few Flashman ladies are veritable Amazons) it presents a daunting sight. The reach of the two arms is sufficient to keep even the most foolhardy at a fairly safe distance, the speed of the run has developed (through countless hasty retreats) to the stage that I am able to present a target that moves too swiftly for even the sharpest marksman to get a solid aim and the bellow. . . is a primal scream of sheer bloody terror.
The Frogs, deserters every one, proved themselves to be the bunch of rascally cowards I hoped they might and dived predictably for cover. A channel opened up through the middle of them and your humble narrator slipped between them like a hot knife through butter. The idea and intention was, of course, to keep running on running out the other side, this time in my preferred direction - AWAY from danger.
And it would have worked perfectly too, if the path hadn't made a sharp turn barely yards beyond the huddle of blackguards, the ground falling sharply away in a chasm. Unable to correct my course, I struggled to stop, teetered on the brink of the precipice and pitched over. Panic robbed me of my senses and plunged me into blackness.
I awoke, sitting bolt upright in my bed at home, still screaming bloody murder.
"Harry! Oh Harry!" I was enveloped in a cloud of billowy lace and bosoms, as my helpmeet, my darling Elspeth, clasped me to her breast and rained kisses on my head, exclaiming "Oh, my darling, you've come back to me"
"Wha. . .?" I fear I was lacking my usual eloquence at that juncture.
"You've been lying like one dead these three days past, my love," she explained, "ever since those . . . those VILLAINS set upon you. I thought I'd lost you. The Doctor feared you would never recover."
I grunted. "What do sawbones know, damn their eyes? I ain't so easy to mislay, my love."
The little angel fluffed and fluttered around me, until, sorely beset, I sent her off to fetch me a restorative glass of brandy and puggle.
While she was away, I tried to get my mind into some kind of order. What had happened these three days gone? Had I been experiencing some kind of delirium, some dream? Given the erotic nature, it was highly probable, but yet. . . I decided to set myself to discover.
"My dearest," says I (she likes these little affectations, bless her). "would you send round to m'father's house, with my compliments, and ask if I can borrow the Sharpe Memoirs?"
Eager to do my every wish - an eagerness that I would, naturally take full advantage of later - she did so.
The leather bound volume she brought back was a weighty tome, and, I guessed, was the work of some pen other than Dick Sharpe's. Few military men care to scribble, after all, though almost all of them love to boast. I was about to turn to the index to look up Torre Vidor, when the dedication caught my eye, and answered my questions.
"For Pat Harper," it read, in gothick script, "the truest of friends. For the Chosen Men, brave souls every one; and for Harry Flashman, a courageous and bonnie lad, too soon lost, but never forgotten."
Well damn me if I didn't get a little misty-eyed at the thought that my lusty rifleman held the memory of those three blissful Spanish nights so dear. So now I return the favour.
This one's for you Dick. God love you, wherever you are.
It was my own stupid lusts that ruined my best chance though. The rifles were wrapped in their blankets by the fire, and I was sat beside Dick, the two of us alone, both staring into the dying embers and brooding on our own thoughts. He stood.
"I'm off for a piss," says he, and I see the gate to escape open with gleeful eyes, then he puts a hand on my shoulder and murmurs soft and low, "Then bed, I think, Harry. What say you, me douce lad? Are you ready for bed, and for me?"
Just till he sleeps, I thought, I'll take my pleasure, and when he sleeps I'll be gone.
It was all the sweeter for the knowing it was the last I'd ever have of him, and I scarce noticed the time passing in my spiralling ecstasy as he moved on me, and I on him, in a frenzied dance of passion. Before I knew it, he was untangling my clinging arms from round his body and pulling away from my greedy kiss regretfully.
"Time to go, Harry" he says, gesturing to the dim light beginning to filter through the canvas.
The enormity of it hit me. I was off to near-certain death.
M'father always warned me to give heroes a wide birth "They'll get you killed before breakfast, six days out of seven." How I wished, despite the residual glow of a night of manifold and manifest pleasures, that I'd followed his advice more closely. I moaned pitifully, unable to stop the gut-wrenching fear escaping.
Sharpe took it for frustration, and smiled.
"It's just till tonight, me bonnie boy," he coos, "and then I'll give you the ride of your life, I promise. Now dress quickly Harry, we've work to do."
I dragged on my uniform, and joined the motley band walking silently and seriously toward the hills, a couplet from that God-rotted Hagman's favourite song whirling insistently around the Flashman noggin.
"If I should fall to rise no more, as many comrades have before. . .. If I should fall. . ." To distract myself, I whispered to Harris, "What's that village down there?" It was a question I immediately wished back in my mouth when he answered.
"They call it Torre Vidor, Mr Flashman."
Now, I didn't listen to half what m'father had to say, as I was growing, finding him a prosy, self-serving and self-glorifying old bore, but the name hit me in the face with the force of a kick from a maddened warhorse.
"Named you for the only man to carry the Flashman name ever to be lost in action, rather than die in bed m'boy. No relation, as far as I know, but we claim the bastard anyway, he adds to our consequence." The words rose up like a phoenix from the ashes of forgetfulness.
"How did he die, Papa?" God pity me, I could even hear my own childish treble lisping pathetically in my memory.
"Got himself caught up in some little side mission in the hills above Torre Vidor. As far as I know his body still lies there somewhere lost amongst the cracks and caves."
"Wath he a hewo, Papa?"
"He was dead, Harry, lost - what does it matter? There's a lesson in your name, my son - never volunteer for anything, especially if it might considered heroic "
"Yeth, Papa."
So now I knew, I thought. I was dragging my heart along in the heels of boots some Chosen Man had polished to a high gloss.
"Chin up, Harry," Sharpe whispered, seeing my despondent demeanour. "We'll be back at camp by dinner time, and who knows, maybe the pair of us'll get captaincies for our troubles."
"YOU might," says I, "I'M going to die."
"Oh, bollocks, lad, I'll not let ye die." He grinned, but even that infectious smile and his laughing sotto voce comment, "Trust Dick Sharpe to keep close watch on an arse he values so highly," failed to raise my spirits. After all, I knew. I couldn't even turn and run, the pass was too narrow for more than a single man. Sharp-eyed Perkins led the way, with Rifleman Harris; Dick and I followed with Kelly, Tongue, Hagman and close behind and Pat Harper bringing up the rear. I was thoroughly hemmed in.
I was doomed.
Then came Perkins word. The riflemen disposed themselves about, grim faced and determined God damn their eyes for the surly rogues and blackguards they were. I knew that soon Dan Hagman would start shooting, fire would be returned, and then I'd be done for - tied, stuffed and roasted to a turn.
It as then I decided I might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb. After all, m'father had said "lost". A punctilious man like the Pater would have said "killed" had he been definite sure. And, after all, he didn't know what I knew - that the foolish Harry was the same whining, snivelling, whore-mongering cad he'd so carefully raised.
I reckoned I stood one chance - albeit a small one. I could treat these Froggies to a Flashman charge, trust to whichever power protects the vile and villainous and hope that they would react as many had done before; from the footy fields of Rugby, to the battlefields of Afghanistan.
I squeezed Dick's firm thigh, gave him a sweet, boyish smile, and launched myself down towards the camp with a banshee wail.
The Flashman charge (since it involves ADVANCING and therefore goes against every finely tuned instinct in the Flashman psyche, which demands that one put as much distance as possible between one's skin and those that want to damage it in the shortest possible time) is the desperation move of last resort. It is only every attempted from higher ground and consists of running hell-for-leather toward the enemy with the left arm stuck rigidly out from the body at right-angles, the right arm swinging in huge figure of eight motions (usually holding a sword, cutlass or sabre, although Arnold frowned on that in Games) and bellowing at the top of one's lungs. If you take into account that we tend to be a strapping family (not a man among us fails to top six-foot-one, and a good few Flashman ladies are veritable Amazons) it presents a daunting sight. The reach of the two arms is sufficient to keep even the most foolhardy at a fairly safe distance, the speed of the run has developed (through countless hasty retreats) to the stage that I am able to present a target that moves too swiftly for even the sharpest marksman to get a solid aim and the bellow. . . is a primal scream of sheer bloody terror.
The Frogs, deserters every one, proved themselves to be the bunch of rascally cowards I hoped they might and dived predictably for cover. A channel opened up through the middle of them and your humble narrator slipped between them like a hot knife through butter. The idea and intention was, of course, to keep running on running out the other side, this time in my preferred direction - AWAY from danger.
And it would have worked perfectly too, if the path hadn't made a sharp turn barely yards beyond the huddle of blackguards, the ground falling sharply away in a chasm. Unable to correct my course, I struggled to stop, teetered on the brink of the precipice and pitched over. Panic robbed me of my senses and plunged me into blackness.
I awoke, sitting bolt upright in my bed at home, still screaming bloody murder.
"Harry! Oh Harry!" I was enveloped in a cloud of billowy lace and bosoms, as my helpmeet, my darling Elspeth, clasped me to her breast and rained kisses on my head, exclaiming "Oh, my darling, you've come back to me"
"Wha. . .?" I fear I was lacking my usual eloquence at that juncture.
"You've been lying like one dead these three days past, my love," she explained, "ever since those . . . those VILLAINS set upon you. I thought I'd lost you. The Doctor feared you would never recover."
I grunted. "What do sawbones know, damn their eyes? I ain't so easy to mislay, my love."
The little angel fluffed and fluttered around me, until, sorely beset, I sent her off to fetch me a restorative glass of brandy and puggle.
While she was away, I tried to get my mind into some kind of order. What had happened these three days gone? Had I been experiencing some kind of delirium, some dream? Given the erotic nature, it was highly probable, but yet. . . I decided to set myself to discover.
"My dearest," says I (she likes these little affectations, bless her). "would you send round to m'father's house, with my compliments, and ask if I can borrow the Sharpe Memoirs?"
Eager to do my every wish - an eagerness that I would, naturally take full advantage of later - she did so.
The leather bound volume she brought back was a weighty tome, and, I guessed, was the work of some pen other than Dick Sharpe's. Few military men care to scribble, after all, though almost all of them love to boast. I was about to turn to the index to look up Torre Vidor, when the dedication caught my eye, and answered my questions.
"For Pat Harper," it read, in gothick script, "the truest of friends. For the Chosen Men, brave souls every one; and for Harry Flashman, a courageous and bonnie lad, too soon lost, but never forgotten."
Well damn me if I didn't get a little misty-eyed at the thought that my lusty rifleman held the memory of those three blissful Spanish nights so dear. So now I return the favour.
This one's for you Dick. God love you, wherever you are.