A Singularly Unpleasant Creature: Let's Read Flashman!

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Arbite: Nov 4, 2009

quote:

� into the ground beside my head. His breath was stinking against my face as he snarled:

�Lie still! Lie still! Don�t move, whatever happens!�

Up went his hatchet � and again it missed my face by a whisker, and his left hand must have been busy with the dead trooper�s innards, for a bloody mess was thrust into my face, and then he had a knife in his hand; it flashed before my eyes, there was a blinding pain on top of my skull, but I was too choked with horror, physical horror, to scream, and then he was on his feet, yelling exultantly.

�Another of them! Kye-ee! Go find your own, Lacotahs!�

I didn�t see this, blinded with pain and human offal as I was, but I heard it. I lay frozen while they snarled at each other. There was blood running into my eyes, my scalp was a fire of agony � oh, I knew what had been done to me, all right. But why hadn�t he killed me?

�Just lie still. I�m robbing your corpse,� growled a voice close to my ear, and his hands were delving into my pockets, tearing at my coat, dragging my shirt half over my bloodied face � the laundry would certainly refuse my linen after today. Who the hell was he? I wanted to shriek with pain and fear, but had just wit enough not to.

�Easy does it,� muttered the voice. �Scalping ain�t fatal; it�s just a nick. Have you any other wound? If you haven�t, and understand what I�m saying, move the little finger of your right hand the least bit � good � and don�t move another muscle � there are six of �em within twenty yards, and I�m just muttering curses to myself, but if you start thrashing about, they may be curious. Lie still � lie still ��

I lay still. By God, I lay still, with my head splitting, while he emptied my pockets and suddenly shouted:

�Get away, you Minneconju thief! This one�s mine!�

�That�s not a pony-soldier!� snarled another voice. �What�s that shining thing you�ve got?�

�Something too good for you, scabby-head!� cries my boy. �This is a white man�s clicky-thing. See � it has a little splinter that moves round. Oh, you can have it if you like � but I�ll keep his dollars!�

�It�s alive, the clicky-thing!� cries the other. �See, it does move! Hinteh! Hiya, what do I want with it? Give me the dollars, eh, Brul� � go on!�

I heard a jingle of coins, and someone shuffling away, and all around me, through the waves of pain and fear, I could hear a ceaseless chorus of groans and screams and exultant yells, and one awful bubbling high-pitched shriek of agony � some poor bastard hadn�t been killed outright. Occasional shots, wailing voices raised in chants, and all about my head flies buzzing, crawling on my head; I was matted with blood and stifling with filth, and the sun�s heat was unbearable � but I lay still.

Here's the origin of the scar from the start of the book, then.

quote:

�He�s gone,� growled my unseen preserver. �Didn�t want your watch � lie still, you fool!�

For I had jerked automatically as it dawned on me � to the Minneconju he�d spoken Siouxan, but all the words he�d addressed to me had been in English! Good English, too, with a soft, husky American accent. There it was again: �Keep lying still. I�m going to sit up on the bank above you and sing a song of triumph. For the destruction of all the pony-soldiers, d�you see? Right � there�s no one here but us chickens at present, but it won�t get dark for another four hours, I guess. Then we�ll get you away. Can you play possum that long? Move your pinky if you can � that�s the ticket. Now, take it easy.�

I was past wondering; I didn�t care. I was alive, with a friend close by, whoever he might be. For the rest, I still hadn�t taken in the horror of it. Half a regiment of US cavalry had been massacred, wiped out, in barely quarter of an hour. Custer was dead. They were all dead. Except me.

�Don�t go to sleep,� said the voice. �And don�t get delirious, or I�ll dot you a good one. Right, listen to this.�

And he began to chant in Siouxan, about how he had slain six pony-soldiers that day, including a Washechuska English soldier-chief with a watch from Bond Street which was still going and the time was ten past five. Which beggared imagination, if you like. Then he went on about what a great warrior he was, and how many times he had counted coup, and I lay there with the flies eating me alive. Ne�er mind, worse things can happen.

I must have slept, in spite of his instruction, or more likely it was a long faint, for suddenly I was cold, and an arm was round my shoulders, easing me up, and water was being dashed in my face and a cloth was sponging away the caked blood. A bowl was held to my parched mouth, and the American voice was whispering:

�Gently, now � a sip at a time. Good. Now lie still a while till I get you smartened up.�

Author's Note posted:

When the Custer part of the battle began, and how long it lasted, has never been satisfactorily settled. Reno went into action (the first shots heard by Flashman) apparently at about 3.15 p.m., and according to Sgt Martini, the last messenger from Custer on the bluffs, Custer first came under fire at about 3.20 (sooner than Flashman�s estimate). It seems the fighting on the Greasy Grass was over by about 5 p.m., if not earlier, but it is impossible to tell how much time Custer�s force took to get out on to the slope, and how long the action there lasted. Not more than an hour, certainly, and probably a good deal less. General Edgerly, who as a subaltern was in the Reno part of the fight, is said to have estimated the Custer action at fifteen minutes, or thirty at the outside; Gall, who was in the action throughout, put it at half an hour, and a Cheyenne estimated twenty minutes. So Flashman may not be far out. Differing figures have also been given for the numbers of casualties. Custer lost about 200 dead on the hill, and Gall put the Indian dead at 43, which seems rather low, although his statement suggests that many others died of wounds.

Here's Sgt. Martini, the (kayfabe other) only survivor, in 1905.

This aught to be good.

quote:

I gulped it down, ice-cold, and managed to get my gummed eyelids opened. It was dusk, with stars beginning to show, and a chill wind blowing; beside me knelt the fellow in the buffalo-helmet, a fearsome sight and no prettier when he grinned, which he did when I croaked for information who he might be.

�Let�s say a resurrectionist. Can you walk? All right, I�ll carry you a piece, but then you�ll have to sit a pony. First of all, let�s get you looking like one of the winning team.�

He dragged off my clothes, and somehow got me into a buckskin shirt and leggings. My head was aching fit to split, and wasn�t improved when he insisted on putting his buffalo-cap on it. In the dim light I saw his long hair hung to his shoulders, and his face was bright with paint; American or half-breed, he�d taken pains with his make-up.

�Now, listen close,� says he. �There are still braves and women around, collecting the dead.� Sure enough, the evening was being broken by the high-pitched keening of the death-songs; against the night sky I could see figures moving to and fro, and there were pin-points of torch-light all over the slope. �All right, we�re going downstream, to a ford farther along; that way we can skirt the village, and I�ll get you to a place where you can lie up a spell. Hoo-hay, let�s go.�

I could just stumble, with him holding me. Then there was a pony, and he was helping me up; I reeled in the seat, with his arm about me, but although my head was bursting with pain I managed to balance, just. Then we moved slowly forward through the gathering night, down a slope and under cottonwoods; I could hear the river bubbling near. But I was like a man in a dream; time meant nothing, and I was only now and then aware that I was still astride a pony, that it was splashing through water, that we were mounting a slope. Twice I was falling from my seat when he caught me and held me upright. How long we rode I can�t tell. I remember a moon in the sky, and a hand on my shoulder, and then I know I was lying down, and a deep voice was speaking in Siouxan, from very far away.

�� put the grease on his head, and if it becomes angry send for me. No one will come, but if they do, and they are of our people, tell them he is to stay here. Tell them that this is my word. Tell them the One-Who-Catches has spoken ��

Arbite fucked around with this message at 06:10 on Dec 4, 2022

# ? Nov 9, 2022 03:45

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# ? May 7, 2024 03:26

Arbite: Nov 4, 2009

quote:

When you�re past the fifty mark, you don�t mend as quickly as you used to. For one thing, you don�t want to; where once on a day you couldn�t wait to be off your sick-bed and rampaging about, you�re now content to lie still and let any handy ministering angels do their stuff. When I was a brat of a boy I went through hot hell in Afghanistan, had a fort collapse on me, and broke my thigh � and a few weeks later I was fit enough to gallop an Afghan wench with my leg in a splint and old Avitabile egging me on, and get beastly drunk afterwards. Not at fifty-three; if they�d paraded the Folies Berg�re past me a month after Little Bighorn I�d have asked for bread and milk instead, and damned little of that in case it over-excited me.

I was in a delirium for the best part of a fortnight, they tell me, and near carried off by what sounds to have been pneumonia. When I came to, I was weak as a rat, and only able to move sufficiently to gulp down small mouthfuls of blood soup, which is capital stuff for a convalescent, but hard to come by unless you have a supply of fresh buffalo meat to hand. Apparently my hosts did � or I should say host, for there was only one of him, most of the time.

He was a �breed called Joe Bright Deer, so he told me � and that was about all I could get out of him, at least where my miraculous rescue was concerned. Who the man was who�d pretended to kill me, and had genuinely scalped me (although pretty superficially) presumably to add verisimilitude for the benefit of Sioux bystanders, and had brought me here � wherever here was � he simply would not say, except that it hadn�t been him. I pestered him about the last thing I remembered, asking who the One-Who-Catches might be, and he said that the One-Who-Catches had seen me, and would come again, possibly. In the meantime I could shut up, and have some more blood soup.

This took place in a cave, which was a fairly comfortable spot as caves go, with all the gear of a Mountain Man, buffalo robes, rawhide-and-wood furniture, and a good fire going. As I mended, Joe Bright Deer let me go as far as the cave-mouth for exercise, and I could see we were in hill country, with a good deal of conifer forest; somewhere in the Big Horn Mountains, I guessed. Outside the cave he wouldn�t let me go, and since I was still fairly weak I didn�t argue. Something told me I would find out all I wanted to know, if I sat tight long enough; in the meantime Joe was ready to talk about one subject in which I was tolerably interested, and that was the massacre I had survived.

Yes, Custer was dead, and every man who�d been on that slope with him. It seemed that he had gone up the Rosebud, but instead of skirting the Indian camp to the south, as Terry had instructed, had decided to take a slap at it himself, and to blazes with waiting for Gibbon. He�d split his force, sending Reno to charge into the camp with about 120 men from the south, while Custer himself took five troops round the flank to fall on the other end of the village. Well, I knew what had come of that, none better; in the meantime, Reno had managed to withdraw and hold out on a bluff until Terry and Gibbon arrived a day later. The Sioux, meanwhile, had decamped.

Everyone has had their say on this famous fiasco, and if you want mine, it�s this. Custer was going to win an astonishing victory and refurbish his fame � very well. But having sent in Reno � a piece of arrant folly unless he was totally ignorant of the Indian strength � he then compounded his lunacy by launching his own attack even after he knew full well what that strength was. I saw that village from the bluffs, just as he did, and I�d not have attacked it with anything short of two regiments. It was just too damned big, and patently contained several thousand of the orneriest Indians in America. There are those who say Reno should have pushed harder, and others who say Custer could have charged through and met up with Reno � all my eye. He had one chance, and that was to hightail it the minute he got a good look at the village. But by then he�d put Reno in the stew, and had to go ahead. Mind you, George was such a fool of an optimist, and so obsessed with victory, that I daresay even at the ford he was still believing he had a chance. But the moment he was out on the slope he was done for, and he must have known it.

I�ll say two other things. If the 7th had had decent carbines, they might have sickened the Sioux and been able to hole up on the hill, as Reno did. And that was Custer�s fault, too. He should have tested those pieces before he went near the Powder country � tested �em until they were red-hot, and he�d have seen them jam. T�other thing � Reno deserved the clean bill he got from the court-martial. I didn�t know him, much, but Napoleon himself couldn�t have done any better. If Custer had done half as well, there�d be a few old troopers still telling stretchers about how they survived the struggle up Greasy Grass hill.

Well, there's Flashman's take on the whole affair, including the lifelong smear campaign Mrs. Custer would wage against Reno among her other passions. Also the wiki article for the battle only mentions jamming gatlings not jamming carbines. But the author has more notes on the battle as a whole at the end.

quote:

Well, I�ve told you what I know about Custer, and you may judge for yourselves. He wasn�t a bad soldier, though. Most commanders make a few mistakes, and no one hears about them. He made three in turn � sending in Reno, going in himself, and coming out the wrong way too late. As a result, he lost a pretty bloody skirmish � it wasn�t a battle, really � but it shocked America, and he�ll never live it down. For his troopers � well, if any of �em ran, they didn�t catch up with me. For the Sioux � it was their great day, for all it took thousands of them to knock over a few score. Gall gave them a victory, and Crazy Horse made siccar*, as my wife would say.

But that�s by the way. A historic catastrophe it may have been, but to me it was the penultimate link in my American story, which was now drawing to a close twenty-six years after John Charity Spring had brought me over the Middle Passage. You may think it was the strangest of all my stories � but, d�you know, as I come to its final pages it seems perfectly logical; inevitable, almost. I might have known how it would be.

I�d enjoyed Joe�s hospitality for the best part of a month, and was nearly whole again and feeling restless, and one evening as we were having a pipe at the fire, suddenly there was an Indian in the cave-mouth; I hadn�t heard him come, but there he was, a splendid figure in black fringed leggings, with paint on his chest but none on his face, eagle feathers in his braids, and a pistol on his hip. He watched us in silence for a minute, and nodded to Joe. I�d seen him before, I knew, but it took me a moment to place him.

�One-Who-Catches,� says Joe.

�No, he isn�t, either!� I exclaimed. �I know you � you�re Young Frank Standing Bear! I met you in Chicago with Spotted Tail � and then you and Young-Man-Afraid rode herd on us at Camp Robinson!� I regarded him in amazement. �Is Spotted Tail here?�

He shook his head. �The chief sits with his people at White River.�

�But � he sent you? To me?�

He said nothing, and I stared from him to Joe in bewilderment. �But � what�s all this nonsense about One-Who-Catches? If you�re him, then I�ve been hearing about you ever since I was kidnapped by Jacket and taken to the lodges of the Sioux! What d�you want with me?� Another thought struck me. �And where�s the man who brought me away from the Custer fight?�

He still said nothing, and then with one of those slow, graceful hand-motions he signalled Joe to leave the cave. He gestured me to sit, and sank down cross-legged opposite me, his hands on his knees. There wasn�t a flicker of expression on the hawk face as the dark eyes studied me carefully; he seemed to be absorbing every hair of me, very thoughtful, and I didn�t care for it a bit. Finally he says:

�I am Standing Bear, the grown-man name given me by the Hunkpapa Sioux. But as a child among the Brul�s I was called the One-Who-Catches, the Clutcher, the Grabber, because I was greedy, and took what I wished.� He said it without amusement. �The name Frank was given me by my parents, Broken-Moon-Goes-Alone and his wife the black white woman, Walking Willow.�

Uh oh

*Scottish sure.

quote:

The sonorous drone of the Sioux words, the liquid movements of his hands as he followed the names in sign-language, lulled the meaning away from me for a moment. Then it struck home, and my hand began to tremble on my knee, even before he said the next words, his dark eyes intent on me.

�You knew my mother many years ago as Clay-on-nee, a slave-girl. You know her now as Mees-ez Candee.�

�I don�t believe you!� It was wrenched out of me. �Your tongue is forked! You�re a Brul� � a full-blood Sioux if ever I saw one! You can�t tell me you�re her child! I don�t believe it!�

�You sold her among the Navajo. How should I know that, if not from her? And why should she tell it to anyone but her own son, so that he might one day avenge her on the man who traded her for two thousand dollars?� It was as flat and emotionless as Mrs Candy herself; his fingers flicked like pistons as he spelled out the sum. �When I was a child, she told me how in the year of the great Cheyenne sickness, she had been in a wagon-train of black slave-women commanded by a man Comba, who betrayed and sold her to the Navajo at Santa Fe. Last year in Chicago, when Sintay Galeska Spotted Tail took us to the house-of-makes-plays-and-songs, he spoke to you of the days when you were young men, and how you had led a caravan of black slave-girls � also in the year of the great Cheyenne sickness. Then I knew that you, the Washechuska soldier-chief, were also Comba.�

�Those black girls we watched tonight! Ees, they were as pretty as the black ones in your wagons, Wind Breaker! You remember them � the year the Cut-Arms were sick! Hunhe, what little beauties those were!�

I could see Spotted Tail�s grinning face in the cab as we came back from the theatre � and all I�d been thankful for was that Elspeth didn�t understand a word of it! This one had understood, though, and had kept the same stone face he was keeping now. But he�d passed the word to his mother in her Denver whorehouse that �Comba� was back. And she�d done the rest �

My mind whirled as I took it in. A chance in a million, that Standing Bear had been present at Chicago to hear Spotted Tail�s randy recollections of twenty-five years before � but the rest of it fitted like an old shoe. I found myself staring at him � could he be the child of a Sioux and an octoroon? Yes; Cleonie herself had hardly been black to speak of � dammit, in her Mrs Candy guise I�d thought she was Italian. And she�d married this Broken-Bollocks fellow around �53, by her own account � well, Standing Bear was certainly somewhere in his early to middle twenties � oh, Christ, and he�d been treasuring up vengeance against me all these years. And now he had me.

�Now, look here, Standing Bear,� says I. �I believe you. Your tongue is straight. But your mother is quite mistaken, you know � as I could have explained to her if she�d only let me. Good God above, I didn�t sell her � I loved her truly and dearly, and was all set to take her to Mexico, but this wicked old woman who owned her, she sold your mother behind my back!� I shook my fist and went red in the face. �That spiteful old buffalo cow! I could have murdered her! To sell that dear, lovely girl whom I worshipped and hoped to marry��

�Did the priest of Santa Fe speak with a forked tongue?� asks he quietly. �Why should he?�

�All priests speak with forked tongues,� says I earnestly. �Every damned one of �em. The snake-that-rattles speaks straighter��

�And the wicked old woman?� The dark eyes were cold as ice. �When I was a little boy, my mother left the lodges of the Sioux � and went back to Santa Fe, and saw the wicked old woman. Mees-ez Soo-zee. The wicked old woman was kind to her, and helped her �� He leaned forward a little, and the words dropped like tombstones. �The wicked old woman told my mother how you had betrayed many women, and had stolen money, and done murder, and had a bad heart.� His head shook, slowly. �Your tongue is forked. You know it. I know it. You sold my mother to the Navajo.�

Ha! He's in the poo poo now.

quote:

Oh, well, that disposed of that � worth a try, though. In the same steady voice he went on:

�When my mother learned from me last year that you had returned again from the Land of the Grandmother, she sought you out and trapped you, as one does the coyote, and had you taken on the Yellowstone by Jacket, brother of Broken-Moon-Goes-Alone, and he brought you a prisoner to the Sioux lodges for delivery to me, so that you might die by kakeshya as my mother willed. I was away on the Rosebud, having fought the Grey Fox Crook, and I came back to Little Bighorn even as Yellow Hair�s soldiers attacked. How you came to be in that battle I do not know, but I saw you there, and I saved you. I threw dust in the eyes of my brothers.� He reached forward to point at my head. �I even took your scalp � a little � to deceive them. So that in their fighting-madness they should not kill you quickly. So that I should have you.�

In the face of that awful implacable regard, the voice without emotion, I could say nothing � I could think plenty, though, and it was all dreadful. I�d been preserved from that carnage, so that I should suffer the unspeakably worse fate designed by that malignant slut Cleonie-Candy, a fate that this remorseless savage would take delight in inflicting. Better if I�d died with Custer, or blown my brains out � but wait, there was something here that made no sense �

�But � but he � you � the man who rescued me! He � he spoke English! Like an American!�

�And how the devil else should I speak it? I didn�t have the advantage of a Rugby education, you know. Harvard had to be good enough for me.�

I can�t begin to describe the effect of hearing that pleasant, half-amused, half-impatient American voice issuing from the copper-red hawk face with its feathered braids; it was like having a Chinese mandarin suddenly bursting into �Boiled Beef and Carrots�. I literally couldn�t believe my ears; from the sonorous rolling tones of the Sioux he had slipped straight into the clipped voice of a well-educated, civilised man, without a muscle altering in his face. It was still a Brul� Sioux who sat regarding me stonily � until suddenly he burst out laughing, with his head thrown back, and then came abruptly to his feet, like a great cat uncoiling itself, and stood grinning fiercely down at me, his hands on his hips. No Indian in creation ever stood like that � but he wasn�t an Indian any longer. Oh, it was still an Indian�s face and body � but the voice, the expression, the gestures, the whole style of him � was of a white man.

Well, fair is foul and the conversation still has some more turns to go. We'll twist with them... next time!

# ? Nov 11, 2022 07:14

poisonpill: Nov 8, 2009; The only way to get huge fast is to insult a passing witch and hope she curses you with Beast-strength.

some background on the Folies Berger

# ? Nov 12, 2022 02:28

sniper4625: Sep 26, 2009; Loyal to the hEnd

Twists and turns and karma coming due for our middle aged hero of the Empire. Amazing how little I remember of this one.

# ? Nov 12, 2022 05:40

Arbite: Nov 4, 2009

quote:

�That�s right � stare all you want to!� cries he. �Have a good look! By God, it would serve you right if I went through with it! If I carried out her wishes to the last burning inch! It would have served you right if I�d let them cut you up with Custer! I nearly did.� He stood nodding grimly down at me; the grin had narrowed to a tight-lipped smile. �I nearly did. But it wouldn�t have done. Would it?�

I�m not often at a loss for words, but now I sat dumb, understanding nothing, while my heart began to thump like a trip-hammer. I felt weak, and though I opened my mouth once or twice, no words came out. I could only stare at the tall painted savage with his braids and buckskins, the Burned Thigh brave with his hawk face and red skin. Then I managed to ask:

�Why didn�t you?�

He moved slowly to stand in front of me. �You know why,� says he. �You must know why.� Suddenly he sank down swiftly in a crouch before me so that his face was on a level with mine, no more than a foot away. He was grinning again, but there was an odd look in the dark eyes � mockery, and wariness, and something I couldn�t read. �You didn�t know my mother when she went to you as Mrs Candy. Why should you, after twenty-five years? But this is different. Look at my face � as I�ve looked at yours. As I looked at it in Chicago and at Camp Robinson, and here tonight. Even if I hadn�t my mother�s word for it, just looking would be enough for me. But I have her word, too � that I was born in a Navajo village of New Mexico in spring of the year 1850.�

quote:

It was as though I was hypnotised. It was nonsense, of course, but I looked anyway, and began to tremble again. For I did know the face. I understood why he had drawn my eye from the first, in Chicago, and again at Camp Robinson, and why I�d felt that strange comfort when he�d ranged up beside me on that hair-trigger day of the council with the agency Sioux. Oh, yes, I knew the face; I�d seen it most days of my life. The bold dark eyes with the slightly hooded lids, the aquiline nose when he turned in profile (I know my own side-view better than most, you see, because of the weeks I spent comparing it with Carl Gustaf�s picture in the triple mirror at Schonhausen). Even the full mouth and the heavy jaw � he was a damned good-looking young devil, though, wasn�t he, this Standing Bear? But I couldn�t take it in � I�d been too numbed by this sort of shock, lately � Mrs Candy was Cleonie � this was her son � and now I was being expected to believe �

�Oh, come along, you silly old bastard!� cries he impatiently � and I knew it was true beyond a doubt. It would have taken a son of mine, at a moment like this, to talk to his father that way. But � no, it couldn�t be true, although I knew it was. I searched for contradiction.

�You said � you said this Sioux fellow � what�s his name? You said he was your father.�

�That was Standing Bear who said that,� says he in Siouxan. �Standing Bear the Brul�, the One-Who-Catches, to whom Broken-Moon-Goes-Alone was as a father.� He broke into English again. �But I�m also Frank Grouard � or, properly speaking, Frank Flashman, son of Cleonie the slave-girl and the Englishman who sold her at Santa Fe.�

�Grue-what?� says I, for no particular reason.

�Grouard. French � it was her father�s name, so she gave it to me.� He was watching me intently, with amusement and that other glint that I couldn�t pin down. �Comes as a surprise, does it? From all I�ve heard about you � from Susie Willinck, too � I don�t see why it should. You must have more bastards than Solomon.� I don�t shock easy, but that was like a blow in the face, coming from him. �And there�s no miracle about it, you know. You and mother�� It shocked me, too, to hear him call her that, in that fashion, like a civilised son ��you were lovers in the summer and autumn of �49, and while I can�t prove my birthday, she�s sure of it. The Navajo don�t keep parish records, either, but there are respectable citizens of Santa Fe, including one notary public, who�ll testify that when she arrived there in �55, I had the appearance of a well-grown five-year-old. Well,� says he, and grinned triumphantly. �How d�ye do � Papa?�

Every absent father's nightmare.

Also, 'More bastards than Solomon,' that's a new one but it reminds me of the Solomonic dynasty that came from him and the Queen of Sheba that ruled in Ethiopia for three millenia but that's quite a neat fact nonetheless. We'll see that family much later.

quote:

It�s not easy, you know. He was right enough � I daresay I have by-blows all over the shop (India, mostly, and there�s a Count Pencherjevsky in Russia whose paternity don�t bear close scrutiny) and one of �em was sure to come home to roost in the end. It takes the wind out of your sails, though, when he turns up as a Sioux brave with a Boston accent. For I was in no doubt now, you see � somehow it was less of a shock than �Mrs Candy� had given me, or the news that he was her son; it was almost as though I�d been expecting it. You may say he could have been the child of one of Susie�s customers at Santa Fe, but I knew he wasn�t. It was not a question of Cleonie�s word, or his, or even the physical resemblance � which, in an instant, I�d recognised far more easily than Mrs Candy�s to Cleonie. I simply knew; it was there, in him, his being and bearing and manner and � style. When he was being white, that is.

He was still squatting on his heels before me, watching me with that odd calculating grin, waiting. I don�t know what I felt at all, but I know what I did.

�Well,� says I, and put out my right hand warily. �How d�ye do � son?�

I don�t know what he made of it, either. He took my hand, firm enough for a moment, but the shine in his eyes could have been anything � surprise, pleasure, emotion, amusement, anger, hatred even, but my guess is it was pure devilment. The young bastard (and I use the term with feeling) had had me on toast, sitting there solemnly playing his noble savage, keeping the old man agog, enjoying watching me squirm while he scared the hell out of me, turning the knife of fear and bewilderment in my innards, and keeping the really juicy surprise to the end. Oh, he�d had the time of his life. Good actor, too � aye, it all fitted, the skill in histrionics and dissimulation, the delight in twisting the victim�s tail, the mockery, the cool drat-you cut of his jib, the callous way he talked of things other youngsters would have been ashamed of. Oh, he was Flashy�s boy, no error � even if I hadn�t sold his mama down the river, there�d have been no touching reunion between father and son. We ain�t cut out for affection, much, our lot.

But that�s not to say we aren�t curious, and now that our formal introduction had taken place, so to speak, we compared notes, mostly his. He was itching to tell it, of course, knowing it must make my flesh creep, which was just nuts to him, being a Flashman � and the shock of that realisation, still sinking in, was enough to render me silent and attentive; if the 7th Cavalry had attacked our cave I doubt if I�d have noticed.

It was a remarkable tale, although not unique: scores of folk in the old West grew up half-civilised, half-Indian, as he had done. So far back as he could remember, he�d been Sioux of the Sioux till he was five, and when Cleonie had gone back to whoring in Santa Fe and Albuquerque, Susie Willinck had looked after him (which was a queer start, if you like), but he�d pined for the old life, and had been such a handful that they�d let him go back to Broken-Moon-Goes-Alone, who had died when Frank was about ten. Then Cleonie had put him to school, properly, at El Paso, and sent him east when he was thirteen, for by then she was well in the chips at Denver, and could afford him the best education going. He�d done uncommon well, and had gone on to Harvard, where he�d improved a talent for languages � which didn�t surprise me � and then, to Cleonie�s fury, had simply upped and gone back to the tribe, for three solid years.

All this, in the most matter-of-fact, offhand style, leaning against the table, arms folded on his painted chest, one foot elegantly over the other � a stance I recognised only too well. He�d known whose son he was, from infancy, and how his mother earned her keep, too. It was plainly all one to him; he seemed to have strangely little feeling for her, although he had gathered that it was only by a miracle that she�d kept him alive when he was born among the Navajo. And had done damned well by him since, it struck me.

�And you�ve been with the Sioux � you, an educated man � for the past three years?� I asked incredulously. I was still trying to hold them together in my mind � the Lacotah warrior who�d ridden to Little Bighorn and the young student who must have dined at the Oyster House and probably taken tea at Louisburg Square.

12 bucks for a bowl of chowder, what's the world coming to?

quote:

�Not altogether,� says he carelessly. �I tired of it � I think. It was more home than anywhere, but � I�m two people, you see� � echoing the thought in my own mind. �Anyway, I �came in� to the agency early last year � it was curiosity, mostly, I guess. That was only a few months before we met in Chicago. Being a Brul�, I drifted to Spotted Tail � I�m a full-blood Sioux to him, by the way; he doesn�t even know I speak English. I�ve found it best to keep my two selves separate � mother and you are the only ones who�ve ever seen both of me. But Spotted Tail found me useful, and it was a lark going with him to Washington.� He grinned at me. �Wasn�t it, just? Here, though � my stepmother�s a beauty, ain�t she? Well, not my stepmother, I suppose � but whatever she is. She and Spotted Tail got on pretty well, I thought.�

Heheheh, and we'll pause on that. See you... next time!

# ? Nov 14, 2022 07:57

Arbite: Nov 4, 2009

quote:

I didn�t ponder on that, but asked why, if he�d come in to an agency, he now appeared to be living among the hostiles.

He smiled like a cat that�s been in the birdcage. �Oh, that! Being on the agency was a bore, so after your commission made such a hash of the Camp Robinson treaty, I slipped across to Fort Fetterman as Frank Grouard and hired myself to Crook as a scout.d Been with him on and off ever since � I scouted for him on the Rosebud last month, you know; damnedest mess you ever saw.� He laughed, and it was positively eerie to see that cruel, handsome face between the Indian braids crease into the knowing chuckle of a white man. �But the advantage is, I can slide out to the other side whenever I choose. It was because I was with Crook that I wasn�t at Little Bighorn to receive you with due ceremony. As soon as I could get away from him, on the pretext of a long scout, I changed into Standing Bear again, and arrived in time for the fun of Greasy Grass. Lucky for you, wasn�t it?�

Now, no one in his right mind would have believed this fantastic history � unless, of course, he had himself been a German prince and a Pathan badmash and a Dahomey slaver and an Apache brave and a Madagascar Sergeant-General, among other things, during his checkered career. So I believe him, and so can you, and for once you don�t have to take my word for it, since much of what I�ve told you here about Frank Flashman, alias Grouard, alias Standing Bear, alias One-Who-Catches, alias the Grabber, is already public knowledge.

�I�ve a notion that Crook�s people are getting wary of me, though,� he went on coolly. �Not the Sioux � they know I scout for the Army, and think it a great jest. I suppose that shows which side I�m on, doesn�t it?�

That was the question which brought us back to the vital matter which had been uppermost in my mind while I listened to his remarkable recital. As he lounged forward and tossed some chips on the fire I asked:

�If that�s the case � then, what now?�

He squatted easily, blowing on the embers, and glanced up at me with his insolent smile.

�I�m not going to do you in, Papa, if that�s what you mean.�

�Ah. Well, I�m pleased to hear it. But I thought that was � the object of all this.�

Yeah, we want blood!

quote:

�Mother�s notion, not mine,� says he. �When I told her in Denver last year that I�d seen you in Chicago, she �� He paused. �I wondered if she�d gone a little mad. I�d always known that it was one of her fondest dreams that some day I�d be the one to pay you out for what you had done to her � sometimes I used to think it was the only use she had for me. Anyway, when I went to see her, she was like a crazy woman. She was always hard � cruel, even, but I�d never seen so much hate and spite in anyone � and I�ve lived half my life among the Sioux.� He looked up at me curiously. �What was she like � when you first knew her?�

�Beautiful. Angelic, almost � to look at. Oh, but charming, bewitching, clever � quite calculating. Immensely vain.�

He nodded cheerfully. �You�re a yard-wide son-of-a-bitch, aren�t you, Papa? Did you love her � at all?�

�No. I liked her, though.�

�But you liked two thousand dollars better. Well,� says this dutiful child, �I don�t know that I liked her even that much. Certainly not enough, when I was little, to hate you the way she wanted me to. Why should I? You�d done nothing to me � hell, I didn�t even know you! And Susie Willinck liked you.�

�Good God!�

Good grief.

quote:

�Oh, sure. Susie used to laugh about you, and make you sound a jolly person. �Proper young scamp, your old man was,� she used to say, and tell me I was another, a chip off the old block.� He laughed, shaking his head. �I really liked Susie.�

�So did I. Ah � how is she, d�you know?�

�She died four years back. She�d gotten married�� He stood up from the fire with his tongue in his cheek, ��again.�

�I�m sorry � that she�s dead, I mean.� I was, too. I thought of that handsome happy face, the wanton lip and gaudy dresses, and � aye, well. Dear old Susie.

�Anyway, when I saw mother in Denver, it never even crossed her mind that I might not share her feelings about you. Later, when she�d laid her plans, and sent word � and two thousand dollars, you�ll be interested to know � to Jacket and his people, she also sent word to me. I was to be the instrument of vengeance, if you please, and reveal my identity in your last painful moments.� He shook his head in cynical wonder. �Honour bright, that�s what she wanted. She�s a Creole, all right � very passionate and dramatic, and a shade meaner than a sick grizzly.� He shrugged. �Well, then I knew she was crazy, and I wanted none of it. One reason I joined up with Crook was to be out of the way. Not that I bore you any good will,� he added pleasantly, �and I won�t say I�d have shed many tears if I�d arrived on Greasy Grass an hour later � but as it is ��

I was beginning to like this lad. �What�ll your mother say?� I wondered.

�She won�t know. She�ll think you died in the fight. Not quite as fancy as she�d have liked, but I guess she�ll be satisfied. How come you got into the battle, anyway � didn�t Jacket have you hog-tied?�

I told him about Walking Blanket Woman, and he raised an eyebrow and looked at me for the first time with what might have been some respect, but probably wasn�t. Yes, decidedly he had style, and watching him in the firelight it sent a tremor through me yet again to think that this splendid brave, with his paint and feathers so at odds with his nil admirari airs and crooked smile, was � who he was.

�You got me out, though,� says I. �Why � Frank?�

He considered me with what I can describe only as impudent gravity. �Well, it seemed a sensible thing to do, on the spur of the moment. I had joined in, like a good little Sioux, hunting Long Knives � and suddenly there you were. Now that was a miracle, if you like, spotting you in all that � it was when we closed on the ridge, and that sergeant broke out, and you rode down the hill, so I followed on � you can ride some, though, can�t you? I thought you were going to win clear, but I kept up, and when you went down �� He shrugged, and seeing me intent on him, grinned in pure mockery. �Well, now � what would you have done � if it had been your own dear Papa?�

I would get no change out of this one. So I must just play him at his own game � my own game. It took me a moment, so as not to choke or waver, but I managed it.

�Ah, well, now,� says I, looking doubtful. �That�s another matter, you see. You didn�t know my guv�nor � your grandfather. You might have thought twice about him, you know.� I nodded amiably, like the proud father I was. �Anyway � thank�ee, my boy.�

�Filial duty, Papa,� says he. �I wonder if Joe Bright Deer has anything for supper?�

It isn�t every day you find a son, and if you ask me what I thought about it, I can�t rightly tell you. It was just damned odd, that�s all. I�d found myself stunned and disbelieving and convinced beyond doubt, all in a few moments, and after that, well, there he was � a walking contradiction, to be sure, but real for all that. I�d been shocked, almost repelled, by him, once or twice; I�d liked him, once or twice, and admired him, but mostly I�d just wondered at him. It was so strange to meet and talk to � me, if you follow. He acted like me, he thought like me, and take the paint and braids off him, and by God he looked like me: even the red skin was just weather, and I�ve been darker myself out east. If there was a difference, it was that I suspected (after Greasy Grass) he was brave, poor lad. I think he probably was; got that from Cleonie�s side, no doubt. As to his deep nature, though, I can�t tell; I doubt if he was as big a blackguard as I am, but then he was only half my age. And being so like me, he undoubtedly had the gift of concealing his character.

Off-putting yet moving sections are ever a highlight of this series.

Let's see where there travels take them... next time.

# ? Nov 23, 2022 01:54

Arbite: Nov 4, 2009

quote:

We set out from the cave two days later, the two of us. As Frank put it, having come this far he might as well see me to one of the Black Hills settlements, whence I could travel east; from the cave in the Big Horn foothills it was close on a week�s ride. Crook was chasing hostiles somewhere, and Frank figured they�d be rounded up before winter, unless they made for the British border, which seemed likely. The Custer fiasco had evidently scared the Indians more than the Army, for they knew what the harvest would be, and the whisper was that only Crazy Horse was likely to fight it out. In the meantime, we went warily, Frank in his paint and me in buckskin, so that we�d be ready for either side.

It was a strange trip, that, across the High Plains; it has a sense of dreaming, as I look back on it. Considering our histories, our somewhat irregular kinship, how we�d met, and the initial difficulties of getting acquainted � which we�d managed pretty well, I thought, in our fashion � it was astonishing how easy we dealt. We were still taking stock, the first day or so at the cave � I�d catch him glancing sidelong as though to say, this big file with the whiskers, that�s the guv�nor, God help us, and I�d think, well, I�ll be damned, that�s young Flashy. I probably found it odder than he did, since he�d known about my existence, at least, for more than twenty years. Yet sometimes it seemed as though we�d known each other all the time � and when we rode out it was a growing wonder and delight to see him, such a tall brave, so sure and easy, straight as a lance, and rode like a Cossack. I didn�t look better myself at his age, by George I didn�t.

We talked all the time, from sun-up till the fire burned low and the white wolves howled, and the days flew past. I can�t think of all we said, but I know one of his first questions was whether he had any step-brothers or sisters, and I told him about my son Harry, the curate (now a bishop, and a praying one at that, heaven help the Church), and my daughter Jo, who was then eighteen and my alternate joy and despair � joy because she was as beautiful as a Flashy-Elspeth child could be, and despair for the same reason, young men being what they are. And one of my first questions was about his alter ego, Frank Grouard, and what did he purport to be, to Crook and other white folk.

�Back east I was French-American,� says he, �but there were some Boston mamas who didn�t care for that. So nowadays, when I cut my hair and put on a coat, I�m a Kanaka, son of a white father and Polynesian mother, born in the South Seas and brought to the States by Mormons, which is very respectable, and no one knows what a Kanaka is, anyway.�

Pacific islander who did labour away from home, either willingly or not. Racist term in Australia, of all places.

quote:

�They�ll never swallow that,� says I, �and the Boston mamas won�t fancy Polynesian a bit, you know.�

�They�ll swallow it easier than if I tell �em I�m half English soldier, half Haitian-French freed slave,� says he smartly. �As to Boston, it�s what the daughters fancy that matters, not the mamas.� I warmed to the lad more and more.

He, in turn, betrayed a flattering interest in me. Once he�d discovered that Flashy was the Saxon in the woodpile, he�d read up about me what little he could, and now asked many questions; I dare say he learned more about me in a week than anyone else has in a lifetime; I recall he was curious to know how I�d come by the nom de guerre of Beauchamp Millward Comber, so I told him � most of it. But I remember far better what he told me: about his childhood among the Sioux, about Broken-Moon-Goes-Alone, who seemed a decent, dull sort; about his days at Harvard; about what it had been like to be an Indian among white boys and men, and a white man among Indians (of which I knew something myself); about books he�d read, and music he liked, and plays he�d seen, all that kind of thing. But always he returned to the West, and talk of the tribes and hunters and the hills and the great plains, and I noted a strange thing. We spoke English all the time, in the same bantering, half-serious way that comes natural to me, and obviously came as easily to him, with wry comments and understatements � but when he talked about the West, it was in pretty plain English, with a phrase of Sioux here and there, and sometimes lapsing into the language altogether. I knew there was something there I couldn�t touch, for it goes beyond blood, to country and the place where you were little. And when he talked of them there was something growing in my mind, but I didn�t like to speak of it, for fear.

Until the last evening, when we�d ridden south and east all day towards the dark outline which is the Black Hills of Dacotah, the slopes of dark conifer which were so still and mysterious in those days. We rode into a long reach of prairie with tongues of woodland on either hand, in the summer gloaming, and Frank was whistling Garryowen, which might be odd in a Brul� warrior, but not in the American son of an English soldier. I was just casting about for a snug corner to camp when he reins up, and says:

�Well, d�you know, I think I should turn around here.�

Oh no!

quote:

�What�s that? Why, we�re just going to camp! And what about Deadwood tomorrow? Good Lord, you can�t just pop off now � it�s far too late, for one thing, and we�ve had no supper.�

�Well, I shan�t be coming into Deadwood, anyway,� says he. �I doubt if they�re welcoming Sioux just now.�

�Nonsense! Put your braids under your hat, if you like � or better still, cut �em off � and who�ll know the difference? A suit of buckskins��

�No, I�d best be going now.�

�But, dammit all, we haven�t had any time to � well, to say goodbye, and so forth. And there are things I want to ask you, Frank, you know. Rather important things��

�I know,� says he. �Better not, really.�

�You don�t know what they are, yet! Now, see here, let�s light a fire, and have some grub, and a smoke, and talk things over �� And I stopped, because in the dusk I could see he was shaking his head with the two eagle feathers, and when I reined closer I saw that half-smile with the look that I hadn�t been able to fathom that first night in the cave.

�We�d better say goodbye now, Papa,� says he.

I took hold of his rein. �Now, hold on, Frank,� says I, and ordered my thoughts. �It�s like this. I don�t think we should say goodbye at all, d�you know what I mean? I think � look, I want you to come back with me.� There, it was out now. �Back east, and then perhaps back to England. I � well, here�s the way of it � there are things I can do for you, Frank; things that no one out here can do, if you understand me. Now, for example, if you wanted, I could get you into the Army. The British Army � or the American, if you�d rather. I know people, you see � like the President, and the Queen, you know. Well, you could make a simply splendid career as a soldier��

�Fighting the Sioux for Uncle Sam?� says he lightly. �Or a half-caste officer in one of your exclusive cavalry regiments?�

�Half-caste be damned! You look no more like a half-caste than I do � and even if you did, it makes no odds. But it wouldn�t have to be the Army, if you didn�t care for it. Why, you could go to Oxford � or back to Harvard, perhaps � work at the languages, go into the diplomatic! Or anything you fancy � it would be nuts to a chap like you! I�ve got some standing, you see � and money.� Elspeth�s, but what the devil. �I want to help you � to get on, you know.�

He touched his pony�s mane. �Why? D�you think you owe it to me?�

�Yes, but that�s not why! You saved my life, and I can�t pay that back, but it ain�t for that��

�Is it because of what you did to my mother?�

�Good God, no!

Huhuhuh, and with this desperate pleading we'll pause for now. Let's finish the main text of the novel... next time!

# ? Nov 30, 2022 10:32

withak: Jan 15, 2003; Fun Shoe

@ "Saxon in the woodpile"

# ? Nov 30, 2022 16:37

tokenbrownguy: Apr 1, 2010

Yeah that stood out. What�s it mean?

# ? Nov 30, 2022 19:30

Darth Walrus: Feb 13, 2012

tokenbrownguy posted:

Yeah that stood out. What�s it mean?

'(Highly unpleasant racial slur for black people) in the woodpile' is an archaic American-originating turn of phrase that has similar connotations to 'fly in the ointment', assuming that you're the sort of person who might object to finding an escaped slave in your firewood storage area.

# ? Nov 30, 2022 19:42

Remulak: Jun 8, 2001; I can't count to four.; Yams Fan

I�ve heard it used only when discussing hidden racially-inconvenient ancestors.

# ? Dec 3, 2022 03:03

Arbite: Nov 4, 2009

quote:

"Look, my lad, I�ll tell you something about me, which you may well have gathered already. I don�t know what conscience means � or rather, I do, but I haven�t got one, and I don�t give a drat! Your mother � I played her a damned shabby trick, and we both know it. She tried to play me an even shabbier one in return � and it�s only the grace of God and you that she didn�t succeed. But it�s nothing to do with any of that. You�re my son.� I found I was grinning hugely, with a great lump in my throat. �Such a son. And � there you are.�

The light was fading fast, but I heard him chuckle. �Serve you right if I took you up on it. But it wouldn�t do.�

�In God�s name, why not? If you didn�t like it, you could chuck it, couldn�t you? Look, my boy, you simply have to say what you�d like to do best � and we�ll do it. Or rather, you will, and I�ll help any way a father can � I mean, I know what strings to pull, and corners to cut, and palms to grease � and backs to stab��

�D�you mean it? What I�d like to do best?�

�Absolutely! Anything at all.�

�Well, Papa,� says he, �the thing I�d like best is to ride back over the ridge there.�

I sat for quite a little while after he�d said that, and then I said: �I see.�

Aww.

quote:

�No, you don�t, either,� says he dryly. �It�s nothing to do with my mother � or with you. I said I didn�t care for her much � don�t care for anyone, specially. Except old Susie, bless her black heart. She was the nearest thing to a mother I�ve had. And God knows why, but I�ve no remarkable objection to my father.� He laughed at me. �D�you know, after Greasy Grass, when I went down and the Sioux were breaking camp, I was wishing I could lay claim to you publicly. There were only two warriors they were talking about � apart from themselves, naturally: the soldier with the three stripes, and the rider with the long knife on the sorrel horse. What d�you think of that, now?�

God, the irony of it. And if I�d said I was screaming scared, neither he nor the Sioux would have listened for a second. The same old deception, the same old false appearance � but I was glad he believed it.

�So it�s nothing personal, you see,� says he, and turned his face to the Western sky, where the flame and gold and pale blue were fading as the day died. �It�s just that over there is where I live.�

�But Frank,� says I, earnest and a shade hoarse. �Frank, boy, what�s over there? Crook won�t need scouts much longer, and you ain�t going to rot on an agency, and there�s nothing yonder you can do as Frank Grouard that you can�t do far better and bigger � and richer � out in the wide world! Truly, you don�t belong here, even if you think you do. You�re half me and half your mother, and we ain�t Westerners��

�But I am,� says he. �I�m not English or French or black. Or American. I�m Sioux.�

Quite the declaration at that time and place.

quote:

I can see that stark profile now, the raised head with the feathers behind it, outlined dark against the evening light, and remember how my heart sank, and the emptiness within me as I made my last throw.

�You�re nothing of the damned sort! There ain�t a drop of Indian in you, whatever you feel � because of how you grew up. That�s natural � but it�ll pass, you know. And if you was Sioux to the backbone, don�t you see? � the life you�ve talked about so much, this past week � well, in a few years it will have gone.� I was leaning forward in my saddle, positively pleading at the dark figure. �Believe me, boy, I saw this country when hardly an axe or a wheel had been laid on it. I rode with Carson from Taos to Laramie, and we never saw a house or a wagon or crossed a road or a rail the whole damned way! That was the year you were born � just yesterday! How long d�you think it�ll take before it�s all gone � vanished? Greasy Grass was the last kick of a dying buffalo � the Black Hills have gone, the Powder will follow, there�ll be no more free plains any more, no game, no spring hunt, no ��

My voice trailed away, and I shivered in the cool night wind. He took up his reins.

�I know.� His head was turned towards me, and I saw the crooked grin in the shadow. �I was at Greasy Grass, too, you know. And I�m glad � for your sake. But not just for your sake. Not by a damned sight.�

Before I knew it he�d wheeled his pony and was off up the darkening slope, the hooves hollow in the turf.

�Frank!� I roared.

He checked at the crest and looked back. I felt such a desolation, then, but I couldn�t move after him, or say what I wanted to say, with all the sudden pain and regret for lost years, and what had come of them. I called up to him.

�I�m sorry, son, about it all.�

�Well, I�m not!� he called back, and laughed, and suddenly lifted his arms wide, either side. �Look, Papa!� He laughed again, and then he had ridden over the skyline and was gone.

And off he rides to more grand adventures.

quote:

I sat and looked at the empty ridge for a while, and then rode on, feeling pretty blue. I�d only known him a week, and he was a Sioux Indian to all intents, and when you thought of all the bother there had been about him, with every Deadly Sin, I suppose, for his godparents � but if you could have seen him! By jove, he looked well.

Still, it was quite a relief. Paternal piety�s all very well, but it would have been a damned nuisance if he�d taken me up. I�d meant what I�d said, mind you, about starting him right and seeing him get on, but now he was gone and I could look at the thing cold, it was just as well. He�d probably have been a tricky, troublesome beggar, and Elspeth would have asked the most awkward questions, and once he�d cut his braids and put on a decent suit, the likeness would have been there for all the world � quite. I came all over of a sweat at the thought. Yes, undoubtedly it was just as well. Yet sometimes I hear that laugh still, and see that splendid figure on the ridge, arms raised, and I can feel such a pang for that son.

But life ain�t a bed of roses, and you must just pluck the thorns out of your rump and get on.

I was in cheery fettle next day as I rode over the last winding miles of hill trail into Deadwood town. It was a regular antheap all the way in, with the miners crawling over the tree-clad slopes, and the ceaseless thump of picks and scrape of shovels and ring of axes, and ramshackle huts and shanties and sluice-boxes everywhere, with dirty bearded fellows in slouch hats and galluses cussing and burrowing, and claim signs all along � Sweetheart Mine, Crossbone Diggings, Damyereyes Gulch, and the like.

The town itself was bedlam; it was only four months old then, and wasn�t much but a single street of log and frame buildings running the whole winding length of that narrow ravine, which can�t have been more than a couple of furlongs wide from one steep forest slope to the other. But they�d lost no time: already they had a mayor and corporation, and a Grand Central Hotel, and a bath-house and stores and theatres and saloons and gaming-houses and dance-halls with clerks and barbers and harlots and shopmen and traders and drink enough to float a ship, and everyone beavering away like billy-o and doing a roaring trade. �Boom!� they called it, and just to see it sent your spirits sky-high, it was so busy and jolly and full of fun, for everyone was riding high and spending free and about to make a fortune.

As I rode through the dust of the bustling street, the music was tinkling in the honky-tonks, the stores and saloons were full, the roughs and tarts chaffed at the swing-doors, and the sober citizens hurried by rosy with prosperity and optimism. They say you couldn�t get a seat in the church of a Sunday, either, and �Greenland�s Icy Mountains� and �Oh, Susanna!� were sung with toleration and good will next door to each other, and now and then somebody got shot, but in the main everyone was happy.

One last masterful landscape right at the end. Ah, I can just hear it.

quote:

There wasn�t a dollar in sight, though � just gold-dust. It changed hands in little pokes; even at the bars they were paying for drinks with pinches, and there wasn�t a counter or barrel-head in town without its scales and weights. Dust bought everything, and I had none, or a dollar either; I strode into the hotel and slapped down the gold hunter which the Minneconju had turned his nose up at, and the burly Teuton behind the desk looked at it, and me in my beard and buckskins, and sniffed suspiciously.

�Vare you git dat, den?�

Taking me for a road agent, you see, so I pointed out the inscription and assured him in my best Pall Mall drawl that I was the party referred to. He mumped a bit, but grudgingly allowed me thirty dollars on it, and I signed the register and ten minutes later was sound asleep in a hot tub, and all the grime and aches oozed away from me, and with them the turbulent memories of the Far West and Mrs Candy�s patched eye, and Jacket and his braves, and the stinking stuffiness of the tipi, and Walking Blanket Woman with her knife at my cords, and the horrible bloody riot on that yellow hillside � copper bodies bounding up the slope � screams and shots and flash of steel � the rattler in the grass � Custer tossing me the Bulldog � ��allo, then, Colonel. Long way from �Orse Guards� � the sorrel bounding beneath me � that painted face under the buffalo-cap � �Lie still, whatever happens!� � the grave and handsome face splitting into its crooked grin � �How d�ye do � Papa?� � his hand in mine � Frank � Frank �

I woke up in the cold water, shivering, while someone pounded on the door and shouted was I going to stay in there the whole damned night?

A good steak put me to rights, and I was sitting bone-tired and content in their noisy dining-parlour, debating whether to buy a brandy at their crazy prices, and thinking happily that I�d be back in Philadelphia with Elspeth before the week was out, when someone swung my gold hunter on its chain before my eyes, and I stared up at a man I hadn�t seen in ten years. Tall chap in a broadcloth coat and fancy weskit, long hair and even longer moustaches carefully combed, smiling down at me while he swung the watch; he burst out laughing as I jumped up and pumped his hand, and then we roared and exclaimed and slapped each other on the back and called for drink, and then we sat down and grinned at each other across the table.

�Well, Harry, my boy!� cries he. �And what the eternal hell are you doing here! I thought you were dead or in England or in jail!�

�Well, James,� says I, �you weren�t far wrong on the first two counts, but I ain�t been in jail lately.�

�I�ll be damned!� he beamed, and pushed over the watch. �I just saw our good mine host fretting over this at the counter, wondering if it was brass after all, and when I took a squint � why, there it was �Sir Harry Flashman� as ever was!� He slapped the table. �Old fellow, you look just fine!�

�So do you, and see how you like it! Here, though � he gave me thirty dollars on this watch, you know.�

�Thirty? Why, the goddam German vulture pried fifty out of me! Say, I�ll just have his fat hide for that��

�Sit down, James,� says I. �I�ll send you a hundred for it when I get back east.�

�You�re going east? Why, you�ve just arrived! And where the hell have you been, and how are you, and what�s your news, and drat your eyes, and so�s your old man, and have a drink!� So we drank, and he swore again, laughing, and said I was a sight for sore eyes, and what the blazes brought me to Deadwood?

�It�s a long, long story,� says I, and he cried, well, we had all night, hadn�t we, and shouted to the waiter for a full bottle, and keep �em coming. �No, by thunder, we�ll have champagne!� cries he. �If I�m drinking with a baronet, I want the best!�

�I�m not a baronet, I�m a knight.�

�That�s right, I forgot. A knight of the water closet � all right, the goddam bath!� roars he. �A long, dark, dirty knight! Now then � fire away!�

So I talked, and we drank, and I talked, and we drank, and I talked � because for some reason I was perfectly ready to tell the whole thing, from the beginning, when I�d knocked Bryant downstairs at Cleeve, to the moment when I rode into Deadwood. Deuced indiscreet, probably, but I was careless with content, and he was an old friend and a good egg, and I felt the better for the telling. He whistled and guffawed and exclaimed here and there, but mostly he just sat quiet, with those strangely melancholy eyes watching me, and the waiters kept it coming into the small hours, and steered other patrons clear of us, and roused the cook to bring us ham and eggs at four in the morning � nothing too good, you see, for Wild Bill Hickok and his guest.

When I�d done, he sat and stared and shook his head. �Flashy,� says he, �I heard a few, but that beats all. I�d say you were the goddamnedst liar, but � here, let�s see your head.� He peered at the newly-healed wound on my scalp, and swore again. �Holy smoke, that�s an Arapaho haircut, sure enough! Your own boy? By drat, that�s thorough! That�s � hell, I don�t know what! And you were with Custer � no fooling? � in that massacre?�

�Don�t spread it about,� I begged. �I want to go home, nice and easy, and no questions, and have a good long rest. So forget it � and what are you doing, anyhow? Last I heard, you were in the theatre, with Cody.�

So he told me what he�d been up to � on the stage, and here and there, a little peace-officering, a little gambling, drifting a good deal. But now he was married, with a wife back east, and he was in Deadwood to make a pile so that they could settle down. Mining or gambling, I asked, and he grinned ruefully and pulled back his coat, and I saw the two long repeaters reversed in the silk sash at his waist.

�If the cards don�t start running smarter � and unless I can rustle up enough energy to try the diggings � I�ll most likely have to put on a badge again.�

Well, that was money for nothing, to him. He was the finest and fastest shot with a revolver I�ve ever seen (though I�d have paid money to see him from a safe distance against Jack Sebastian Moran). He wouldn�t have to do a stroke as marshal; his name was enough. But he didn�t look too content at the prospect; studying him, I saw he�d put on a touch of puffy weight over the years, and wondered if booze and loafing were closing in. He confessed that his eyes weren�t what they had been, and he was ready to call it a day if he could take a small pile east from Deadwood.

�I�ll give it a few more weeks,� says he, �and make tracks before fall. Hey, Tom, what�s the date?� The waiter said it was August first if we were still in last night, but August second if we reckoned it was this morning. By jove, another couple of months and Elspeth would notice there was someone missing; I asked the waiter when the stage left for Cheyenne.

�You�re not going out today?� grumbles Hickok. �Hell�s bells, we haven�t but had a drink yet! What�s your hurry?� He wagged a finger. �You�ve been racketing around too much, that�s your trouble; you�re plumb excited and can�t settle. Now, what you need is a good sleep, and a mighty breakfast in the evening, and then get tighter�n Dick�s hat-band, and there�s the crackiest couple of little gals at the Bella Union, and we�ll peel the roof off of this town��

�And your father a clergyman, too,� says I. �I�m sorry, James, but I�m all set. Look, why not come down to Cheyenne with me, and we�ll ring the firebells before I catch the train east?�

But he wouldn�t have it, the lazy devil, and we strolled out on to the porch of the hotel to look at the stars and see that the drunks were lying straight in the gutters. It was just coming to dawn, and I was dead beat.

�Too late to go to bed now,� says Hickok.

I snatched a few hours� sleep, though, and piled down to the stage office just in time to catch the southbound. There was the usual crowd of roustabouts and loafers and boys to see the little coach pull out, piled high with boxes and bundles. There were only three other inside passengers, an elderly couple and a sleek little whisky drummer in check pants and mutton-chops; they were already in their places, and the driver was bawling: �All aboard! All aboard for Custer City, Camp Robinson, Laramie, an� Chey-enne!� as I ran down the side street, with the kids whooping encouragement, and scrambled in. We set off north, and the little drummer explained that we would circle the block and then head south out of town.

�Goods to pick up at Finnegan�s and Number Ten,� he explained; we took on a case of his samples at Finnegan�s, and rolled down the broad main street, which was busy with wagons and riders, to the Number Ten Saloon. Hickok had said it was a haunt of his; sure enough, he was taking a breather on the boardwalk as we pulled up; he had his coat off and his two guns in full view.

�Still time to come along, James!� I cried from the window, but he shook his head as he came across to shake hands.

�I�ve got Skipper Massey inside there,� says he, �and I�m going to bluff, raise and call him from Hell to Houston � I beg your pardon, ma�am. Forgive my thoughtless speech,� he added, raising his hat to the old lady. Very particular that way, was J. B. Hickok.

He was. He really, really was.

Author's Note posted:

James Butler (�Wild Bill�) Hickok (1837�76), peace-officer and gunfighter, had deteriorated from the days when Mrs Custer observed: �Physically, he was a delight to look upon.� A former Union soldier, frontier scout, and Indian fighter, he achieved celebrity between 1868 and 1871, as marshal of Hays City and Abilene (Flashman served as his deputy at some time during this period, but so far no record of this curious partnership has been found in The Flashman Papers). The first, and reputedly the best, of the notorious Western gunfighters, Hickok is believed to have killed 17 opponents, apart from Indian and Confederate enemies. A tall, handsome figure who is said to have modelled his expression (but not his clothing) on the late Prince Albert, Hickok was a pleasant, modest and well-spoken man, if Mrs Custer and Sir Henry Stanley, the explorer, are to be believed.

And then.

quote:

Much good it did her, for now the driver discovered a lynch-pin sprung, and his language poisoned the air. A boy was sent scurrying for a replacement and a hammer, and Hickok winked at me and called, �Don�t take any wooden nickels, Flashy,� as he sauntered back into the Number Ten. The driver thrust a crimson face in at the window, saying just ten minutes, folks, and we�ll be on our way, and we sat patiently in the Deadwood stage watching the world go by.

�Beg pardon, sir,� says the whisky drummer, leaning forward. �Did I detect a British accent?�

I said coolly that I believed it was.

�Well, that�s delightful, sir!� He raised his tile and extended a paw. �Charmed to make your acquaintance, indeed! My name is Hoskins, sir, at your service �� He rummaged and thrust a card at me. �Traveller in fine wines, cordials, leecures, and high-class spirits.� He beamed, and I thought, oh God, please let him get off at Custer City; it was hot, and I was dog-tired, and wanted peace.

�May I say welcome, sir, to the Great American West? Ah, you�ve been here before. Well, I trust your present trip is as enjoyable as the previous one.�

(The seventh packet of the Flashman Papers ends here, without further comment or elaboration from its author, on August 2, 1876, the day on which Wild Bill Hickok was shot dead in the Number Ten Saloon, Deadwood.)

And with that double shot of ill-fortune we've finished the novel! Quite the ride from the courthouse steps to here, wasn't it? I'll be back with the two appendices and my final thoughts... next time!

# ? Dec 4, 2022 06:11

poisonpill: Nov 8, 2009; The only way to get huge fast is to insult a passing witch and hope she curses you with Beast-strength.

This might be the most obviously sentimental that we�ve seen the Flashman books get so far. It�s also the first time I can think of that we�ve had Flashman himself be such an unreliable narrator.

What a strange, effective conceit this whole series is.

# ? Dec 4, 2022 06:39

Xander77: Apr 6, 2009; Fuck it then. For another pit sandwich and some 'tater salad, I'll post a few more.

Arbite posted:

Aww.

Quite the declaration at that time and place.

And off he rides to more grand adventures.

Weird place to not cut.

In other news - I think it would make sense to got back to summarizing portions of the text, rather than reproducing every single bit of it even if you don't have much to say.

# ? Dec 4, 2022 15:31

Remulak: Jun 8, 2001; I can't count to four.; Yams Fan

Xander77 posted:

In other news - I think it would make sense to got back to summarizing portions of the text, rather than reproducing every single bit of it even if you don't have much to say.

Oh no, an annotated Flashman rings all my bells.

# ? Dec 4, 2022 21:14

Genghis Cohen: Jun 29, 2013

Remulak posted:

Oh no, an annotated Flashman rings all my bells.

Hear, hear.

I think this is a great way to go on savouring a trove of fiction which is after all limited in supply. Much like the old American West, there will be no more of it, so let us take it in while we can.

# ? Dec 4, 2022 21:46

Arbite: Nov 4, 2009

quote:

The Mysterious Lives of Frank Grouard (1850�1905)
The most remarkable thing about Flashman�s claim to be the father of Frank Grouard Standing Bear, the famous scout and mysterious figure of the American West, is how well it fits the known facts. That he should have had a son by Cleonie, and that son should have grown up among Indians, is in no way surprising, given the circumstances of Flashman�s relations with Cleonie. Their child was not unique in this way; half-breed children raised as tribesmen were common enough (Custer himself is supposed to have had a son by a Cheyenne woman, although in the light of Custer�s character this may be thought unlikely). Nor was it unknown for a man to be able to pass equally well as Indian or white; apart from Flashman himself, there are plenty of witnesses to testify that Frank Grouard did it, with a success that still baffles historians as much as it did his contemporaries. Or one might cite the case of James Beckworth, the mulatto who became an Indian chief, returned to the white side of the frontier, and then took to the wilds again.

However, to Grouard. There is no doubt that he scouted for Crook in the 1876 campaign, and was regarded as the best frontiersman with the American Army. But who exactly he was, or where he came from, was less certain, and the subject of much controversy. Some thought he was white, others that he was Indian; another theory was that he was half-Indian, half-Negro (which is interesting); yet another that he was the son of a French Creole (more interesting still). Grouard himself, after having refused many offers from journalists for his life-story, and having lost all his records in a fire at his home, finally dictated his story entirely from memory in 1891, to a newspaperman named de Barthe. It was a most curious tale.

Grouard said he was born at Paumotu, in the Friendly Islands, in 1850, the son of an American Mormon missionary and a Polynesian woman, that he was brought to the US when he was two, lived with a family named Pratt in Utah, and ran away at 15. He became a teamster and mail-carrier, and was captured by Sioux in 1869. He was so dark that the Indians took him for one of themselves, and spared him; the name of Standing Bear was given him by Sitting Bull personally, because Grouard had been wearing a bearskin coat when captured. He was with the Sioux for six years, was a special favourite of Sitting Bull�s, and knew Crazy Horse well. He became, naturally, fluent in Siouxan.

In the spring of 1875, Grouard decided to leave the Sioux. He came in to the Red Cloud Agency and (his own words) �stayed until the commissioners came to make the Black Hills treaty�. He does not say that he went to Washington with Spotted Tail, but there is no reason why he should not have done so. After the failure of the treaty, he was sent as an ambassador on behalf of the whites to Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse, who rejected peace offers (and there are those who say they did this at Grouard�s suggestion, and that his loyalties lay with the Sioux). In any event, Grouard says that he returned to the Red Cloud Agency, decided to become white, and enlisted with Crook. This he certainly did, and scouted for him in the March campaign on the Powder, and later on the Rosebud; it is worth noting that one of his fellow-scouts at this time became suspicious, and told Crook he suspected Grouard of plotting to lead the command to destruction.

So much for Grouard�s own story thus far. His movements as a scout for Crook are sometimes well-documented, at other times not so. After the Rosebud battle (June 17) he appears to have been in and out of Crook�s camp; he was certainly not with Crook on June 25 (the day of Little Bighorn) or for two days thereafter. When he did return to Crook it was with the news of Custer�s disaster. For the next few weeks Grouard�s movements are accounted for, but towards the end of July he fades away again.

Now, all this fits exactly with Flashman � but there is more. According to de Barthe, Grouard�s biographer, a story was current that Grouard had joined in the attack on Custer�s force at Little Bighorn, but not with the intention of defeating Custer; on the contrary, Grouard had supposedly been trying to lure the Sioux to destruction against what he hoped was a superior American force, but the plan miscarried and the Sioux won.

At this point the imagination begins to reel slightly � but it is interesting that a rumour was going about that Frank Grouard, scout to Crook, had fought with the Indians at Little Bighorn.

On balance, Flashman�s story of Grouard�s early life is more plausible than the one Grouard told himself to de Barthe, and all the mystery and confusion surrounding Grouard in the �76 campaign go to support Flashman rather than not. After �76, Grouard scouted in government service, and Bourke and Finerty, reliable sources, agree with Crook that as a woodsman he stood alone. But no one was ever sure what to believe about him; the Dictionary of American Biography notes of his life-story that it is �fact � liberally intermixed with highly-wrought fiction�.

Flashman students may be interested to know what Grouard looked like, in the light of Flashman�s description. He was six feet tall, swarthily handsome, weighed about sixteen stone, had a large head with black hair, large expressive eyes, prominent cheekbones, a kindly humorous mouth, firm chin, and large nose (See J. de Barthe, Life and Adventures of Frank Grouard, ed. Edgar I. Stewart, 1958; Finerty; Bourke; J. P. Beckworth, My Life and Adventures, 1856; Dictionary of American Biography).

quote:

The Battle of the Little Bighorn
Perhaps the reason why so much has been written about this famous action is that no one is sure what happened; there is nothing like ignorance for fuelling argument. Because until now there has been no account from a white survivor of the Custer part of the fight, the speculators have had a free rein, and what one eminent writer has called the Great American Faker and the Great American Liar have flourished. This is the more extraordinary when one considers that Little Bighorn was not (except to the participants and their families) an important battle; it settled nothing, it changed nothing, it was, as Flashman says, not really a battle at all, but a big skirmish.

And yet, Little Bighorn has an aura of its own. It is impossible to stand on the Monument hill, looking down towards the pretty river among the trees, or walk across the ridges and gullies of Greasy Grass slope, with the little white markers scattered here and there, showing where the men of the 7th Cavalry died, or look up from the foot of the hill at the silently eloquent cluster of stones where the last stand was made, or the distant ridge where Butler�s marker stands solitary � it is impossible to look at all this, and listen to the river and grass blowing, without being deeply moved. Few battlefields are more haunted; perhaps this is because one can stand on it and (this is rare on old battlefields) see what happened, if not how. However they came, on whatever course, is unimportant; any soldier or civilian can envisage the retreat from the river and coulee to the ridge and hill, for here there are no complex manoeuvres or great distances to confuse the visitor � just a picture of two hundred men in blue shirts and a few in buckskin fighting their way across a sloping field, pursued and outflanked by overwhelming numbers of an enemy determined to fight them in their own way, man to man and hand to hand. Purists and propagandists alike dispute over terms needlessly; in the English language, it was indeed a massacre.

Flashman�s account, in fact, is not one for the controversialists. Apart from his eyewitness detail, he does not help much to clear up the questions (most of them fairly trivial) which have raised such heat and fury over the past century. The Great Reno Debate is not affected in any matter of fact; only in his opinion does he touch on it, and supports the majority view.

What did happen, then, at Little Bighorn? So far as one can see, after studying as much of the evidence as one can reasonably digest, Custer split his command into three as he approached the (roughly) southern end of the valley where the Indian camp lay; he sent Benteen to the left, went himself among the right flank of the valley, and ordered Reno to charge into the valley itself; the idea was that while Reno was attacking (and possibly sweeping through) the camp from end to end, Custer would fall on it at a convenient point from the right flank, or possibly rear. A reasonable plan, in view of Custer�s previous experience; reasonable, that is, on the assumption that he did not know the Indian strength.

Reno did not get far; he was checked, and eventually, with Benteen who had come up, established a position on the bluffs where they held out until the Indians withdrew. Custer, meanwhile, had seen the camp from above the valley, and determined to attack it. Here we enter the realm of uncertainty; looking from the bluffs today, and knowing how big the camp was, it strikes one that Custer was ambitious; his scout Boyer certainly thought so: �If we go in there, we won�t come out�, and a pretty little quarrel ensued before Custer followed his own judgement and went down towards the ford. How far he got, we do not know; the precise movements of his five troops, we do not know. These things do not really matter; we know where they ended up. In the event, Custer obviously mismanaged his last action; how far it was his fault � for not having got better information of the Indian strength, for failing to assess it properly when the village was in sight, for exceeding the spirit if not the letter of Terry�s orders � these are things we cannot fairly judge, without knowing what was in Custer�s mind. And that we can only guess at. It looks as though he was unjustifiably reckless in deciding to go in with his five troops; with hindsight we know he was. But how it looked to him from the bluffs? He was there, and we were not.

Looked at from the Indian side, it was a competently, even brilliantly handled action. For a people unused to war or battle in the conventional sense, the Sioux and Cheyenne fought Greasy Grass in a manner which would have been approved by any sound military theorist. They turned back the initial attack, held it, saw the danger on their own flank, and enveloped this in turn. Reviewing it from their side (and this is personal opinion) it seems to me that Flashman is right to give the main credit to Gall, although Crazy Horse�s circular movement was an inspired use of cavalry. Gall as the anvil and Crazy Horse as the hammer is a fair simile � but it was an extremely mobile anvil.

One other point it seems fair to make. Reno came under heavy and unjustified criticism, initially from Custer�s hero-worshipping biographer Whittaker, later from others. He was subsequently cleared officially. And barely a week after the battle, four-fifths of the surviving rank and file of the 7th Cavalry petitioned Congress asking that Reno be promoted to fill the dead Custer�s place. After that, what do critics matter?

The number of books and articles on Little Bighorn is literally uncountable. Those against which I have checked Flashman�s story, not only of the battle, but of related subjects, number close on a hundred, so I am listing here those which readers may find of particular interest. Foremost must be a work which, though outstanding, is curiously hard to come by: Fred Dustin�s The Custer Tragedy (1939); it and those two splendid works by Colonel W. A. Graham, The Custer Myth (1943) and The Story of the Little Bighorn (1926), are the three books which no one interested in the battle can do without. The research of these two authors has been prodigious; Colonel Graham�s collection of letters, memoirs, and interviews, and Dustin�s great bibliography, have been immensely helpful. Here, for example, one finds Gall�s account of the battle, given to General Godfrey in curiously touching circumstances, as the two old enemies walked over the battlefield ten years later; here, too, Mrs Spotted Horn Bull�s story, and Two Moon�s, and Benteen�s lively reminiscences, and Wooden Leg�s story, and the Crow scouts�, and the arguments of survivors and critics. Also: Whittaker, Custer�s Life; E. S. Godfrey, General G. A. Custer and the Battle of the Little Bighorn, 1921; Bourke, On the Border with Crook; Miller, Custer�s Fall; Vestal, Sitting Bull, 1972; E. I. Stewart, Custer�s Luck, 1955; Miles, Personal Recollections; Dunn, Massacres; Finerty, Warpath and Bivouac; Hanson, Missouri; De Land�s Sioux Wars; Custer�s My Life, and Mrs Custer�s Boots and Saddles and Following the Guidon; P. R. Trobriand, Army Life in Dakota, 1941; O. G. Libby, Arikara Narrative of the Campaign of June 1876, 1920; P. Lowe, Five Years a Dragoon, 1926; A. F. Mulford, Fighting Indians in the US 7th Cavalry, 1879; Mrs O. B. Boyd, Cavalry Life in Tent and Field. But there are many others, and among them I should mention the late William Jones of Regina, Saskatchewan, former scout for the Northwest (later Royal Canadian) Mounted Police, who served in the Indian wars, and whom I interviewed almost forty years ago. And for those who want to know something of Little Bighorn that cannot be got from books, let them travel up the Yellowstone valley, past the Powder and Tongue to the mouth of Rosebud Creek, and then take the Lame Deer road, past the great modern mining works which Custer and Crazy Horse never dreamed of, and follow the Rosebud to Custer�s camp-site, and so to the bluffs and the river, and walk across the Greasy Grass.

So ends the second of Flashman's three great (recorded) American adventures. Well, second & fourth, really, but Fraser does an excellent job with bridging the two very different time periods. That's hardly the only excellence within, as characters new and old (and aged) are here to give Flashy all the grief he deserves and acclaim he does not as we read along reveling in it. Just going off the text it can be difficult to suss out exactly where Fraser's and Flashman's opinions meet and diverge on people and topics, but as you have seen and I have repeadly pointed out, the man was madly, abjectly, hopelessly in love with the landcapes of the American West. We can only hope to find a place to adore so much in our travels. This book certainly does not inspire as much of a feeling of full understanding of the westward lurching annexations that occured throughout the west as Flashman and the Great Game did with the mutiny, and it's good of Fraser to include a thorough list of sources and other recommendations throughout the book. As for the people & peoples, Flash remains as clearsighted and opportunistic as ever.

I did love the hilarious on reread joke of the Brul� knife scar he used to score points on that fellow in Traveller's was administered to save his life by his own son and on that final chuckle I bid farewell to this fine novel and indeed to the leading role in this thread.

Beefeater asked a year-and-a-half ago to be tagged back in when we reached Flashman and the Dragon, so let's all raise a black banner and bid him victory or death when Flashman lands himself in the middle of the Taiping Rebellion!

# ? Dec 16, 2022 15:27

Genghis Cohen: Jun 29, 2013

Well done! I have to say I consider Redskins and Dragon to be 2 of the very strongest entries in the series. Looking forward to the next instalments.

# ? Dec 17, 2022 18:07

sniper4625: Sep 26, 2009; Loyal to the hEnd

Thank you for all your work!

# ? Dec 17, 2022 18:39

Xander77: Apr 6, 2009; Fuck it then. For another pit sandwich and some 'tater salad, I'll post a few more.

sniper4625 posted:

Thank you for all your work!

# ? Dec 17, 2022 21:57

mllaneza: Apr 28, 2007; Veteran, Bermuda Triangle Expeditionary Force, 1993-1952

Arbite posted:

on that final chuckle I bid farewell to this fine novel and indeed to the leading role in this thread.

Bravo ! Well done.

# ? Dec 17, 2022 22:07

poisonpill: Nov 8, 2009; The only way to get huge fast is to insult a passing witch and hope she curses you with Beast-strength.

Nice work.

# ? Jan 8, 2023 00:37

sniper4625: Sep 26, 2009; Loyal to the hEnd

Beefeater, have you picked up the torch?

# ? Jan 8, 2023 00:45

MinistryofLard: Mar 22, 2013; Goblin babies did nothing wrong.

I read a few of the Flashman books as a teenager and really enjoyed them, but having not grown up with Empire literature I kind of missed the satire and just how deep the historical context was.

Looking at them now with a deeper knowledge of history it's great how well Flashy fits into the context. I guess that's the root of the satire. Flashman is a greedy, cowardly rapist and bully - and is completely indistinguishable from his peers in outcome or outward appearance. What does that say about them?

Also just to contribute, because I learn a lot of little details about the 19th century from the reread of the books in this thread - at the end of the books, Flashman senior is broke due to investing in railroad shares - he has gone broke in the collapse of Railway Mania, which was one of great speculative bubbles of the 19th century and one of the causes of the Revolutions of 1848.

MinistryofLard fucked around with this message at 13:32 on Jan 8, 2023

# ? Jan 8, 2023 13:24

FMguru: Sep 10, 2003; peed on;
sexually

The key thing about Flashman is that his actual person (coward, liar, rapist, adulterer, bully, etc.) is completely at odds with his public persona (brave, bluff, heroic) - and the suggestion is that real popular historical heroes are probably much more like Flashman and his feet of clay than their public image would have you believe.

If you read Fraser's Mr American, he inverts this - the main character is a smart, strong, kind, straight-arrow type, and a lot is drawn from the contrast between himself and the decadence of the Edwardian Britain he settles in.

# ? Jan 8, 2023 17:58

Genghis Cohen: Jun 29, 2013

FMguru posted:

The key thing about Flashman is that his actual person (coward, liar, rapist, adulterer, bully, etc.) is completely at odds with his public persona (brave, bluff, heroic) - and the suggestion is that real popular historical heroes are probably much more like Flashman and his feet of clay than their public image would have you believe.

If you read Fraser's Mr American, he inverts this - the main character is a smart, strong, kind, straight-arrow type, and a lot is drawn from the contrast between himself and the decadence of the Edwardian Britain he settles in.

It's also notable that Flashman as a very ancient man has a significant but not plot-pivotal role in the later part of the book, a sort of extended cameo. It's very interesting how the other figures of the military/political/social upper echelons, e.g. Winston Churchill, are portrayed as seeing this old buffer with all the improbable stories which do actually seem to have some basis in fact.

# ? Jan 9, 2023 09:06

Beefeater1980: Sep 12, 2008; My God, it's full of Horatios!

Alright, let�s have at it: Flashman and the Dragon coming up this weekend.

To start off, have a gander at this lady:

Although this being Flashman, you�re probably better off thinking of her like this:

# ? Mar 4, 2023 03:45

Beefeater1980: Sep 12, 2008; My God, it's full of Horatios!

We start with some timeless wisdom from the man himself:

Flashman and the Dragon posted:

Old Professor Flashy�s first law of economics is that the time to beware of a pretty woman is not when you�re flush of cash (well, you know what she�s after, and what�s a bankroll more or less?), but when you�re short of the scratch, and she offers to set you right. Because that ain�t natural, and God knows what she�s up to.

The year is 1860, and Flashman is loafing around in
Hong Kong, waiting for a boat back to England. Fraser is clearly aware this contradicts his established timeline and, like the good author he is, doesn�t give a poo poo: he just mentions it in a footnote.

1860-era Hong Kong looks a bit like this:

That�s the view from the mid-levels of Victoria Peak, across what�s now Central, Admiralty and Causeway Bay. The spit of land in the distance is North Point, which today hosts a pretty nice hotel bar with 280 degree views of the harbour. The church spire on the left is St John�s Cathedral, which is incidentally the only land in Hong Kong that is owned freehold; everything else is technically leased from the government.

Flashy however is interested in a different view: that of Mrs Phoebe Carpenter, a priest�s wife no less.

Flashman posted:

I don�t know why I bothered with her�yes, I do, though; shaped like an Indian nautch-dancer under her muslin, blue-eyed, golden-haired, and with that pouting lower lip that�s as good as a beckoning finger to chaps like me � she reminded me rather of my darling wife, whom I hadn�t seen in more than three years and was getting uncommon hungry for.

So he duly shows up to daily prayers and escorts Mrs C around town. Aged 37, Flashman is still big, bluff and charming, a state in no way diminished by him also having won a VC, but with a few years on him, he has learned to be philosophical about things.

Flashman posted:

There had been a time when I was sure it couldn�t last, and they were bound to find me out for the poltroon and scoundrel I was � but I�d been devilish lucky, and, d�ye know, there�s nothing sticks like a good name, provided you know how to carry your credit with a modest grin and a glad eye.

Let�s see how it works out for him!

Beefeater1980 fucked around with this message at 14:59 on Mar 15, 2023

# ? Mar 4, 2023 04:23

Hunterhr: Jan 4, 2007; And The Beast, Satan said unto the LORD, "You Fucking Suck" and juked him out of his goddamn shoes

Aww yes we're back

# ? Mar 4, 2023 05:26

sniper4625: Sep 26, 2009; Loyal to the hEnd

Hell yeah, we're back!

# ? Mar 4, 2023 05:36

Beefeater1980: Sep 12, 2008; My God, it's full of Horatios!

War is coming, as it transpires, and the pretty Mrs Carpenter is worried what this may mean for her husband�s ambitions to build a new church hall in Kowloon (the bit of the mainland just across the harbour from HK island).

Flashman posted:

�When Sir Hope Grant begins his campaign, you see, it is certain that there will be a cessation of all China trade, even with Canton,� says she. �And when that happens � why, there will be an end to all Josiah�s hopes. And mine.�

Flashy isn�t particularly interested in this campaign; he�ll be on his way back to England. But we are! More on this in the next update. For now though, he makes soothing noises while he�s planning on getting his end away. Only to be a bit surprised when his delightful companion explains just why it is that war would be such a bad thing for herself and her husband.

Flashman posted:

�But even a little war will put an end to traffic with the Chinese merchants,� she lamented. �Oh, it is so hard, when Josiah and his friends have invested so wisely! To be robbed of the deserved profit that would have fulfilled his dream! It is too bad!� And she looked at me with trembling mouth and great blue eyes � Gad, she was like Elspeth, even to the imbecile parting of those crimson lips, and the quivering of her top hamper. Feeling slightly fogged, I asked, what investment had dear Josiah made?

�Why, opium, of course! He was so clever, laying out Papa�s legacy in two thousand chests of the very choicest Patna,� says this fair flower of the vicarage. �And it would have fetched ever so much money at Canton � more than enough to build our dear little church! But if war comes, and he cannot sell his cargo�� She sniffed and looked woebegone.

Well, poo poo.

# ? Mar 4, 2023 06:01

FMguru: Sep 10, 2003; peed on;
sexually

Beefeater1980 posted:

The year is 1860, and Flashman is loafing around in Hong Kong, waiting for a boat back to England. Fraser is clearly aware this contradicts his established timeline and, like the good author he is, doesn�t give a poo poo: he just mentions it in a footnote.

Fraser got around to fleshing out that footnote (about Flashman spending the time just before in the United States, working with the Underground Railroad) in a later book (Flashman and the Angel of the Lord, about the intrigues leading up to the October 1859 raid on Harper's Ferry). Flashman is on the east coast of the US through late 1859, and this book starts with him in Hong Kong in early March 1860, so there isn't much of a gap in time in the official continuity. I don't think we ever got an explanation as to how he got from Baltimore to Hong Kong in three months, or why.

There used to be a couple of comprehensive Flashman timelines out there on The Web (which tried to account for all the missing times and obliquely referenced adventures, like in Paraguay and Mexico and Australia) but I can't seem to find them.

Dragon might be my favorite of all the Flashman novels. Extremely evocative of a world and setting (Qing dynasty China) that I knew absolutely nothing about before picking up the book. Plus, you get to learn about one of history's most amazing (yet almost entirely unmentioned) grand atrocities and meet one of history's weirdest characters. I'm very much looking forward to this!

# ? Mar 4, 2023 06:07

Beefeater1980: Sep 12, 2008; My God, it's full of Horatios!

Think of an international drug smuggler in 2023 and it�s a fair bet your mental image is something like this dude:

In the 18th-19th centuries though, you should be thinking more like this:

These dapper gentlemen are William Jardine and James Matheson. Large parts of central HK are named for them, and the building where I work is named after the company they founded, a company in such profound denial of its origins that it published a history book on its 150 year anniversary in 1982 that somehow completely failed to mention that its biggest vertical for the first 100 of those years was smuggling opium into China.

Here�s a picture of how things were in 1846:

And Jardine House now, known colloquially as the House of Ten Thousand Arseholes for its unique porthole style windows and tenant base of bankers and lawyers.

(It�s quite a nice office building though so thanks I guess?)

But did I say smuggling? Well, I misspoke - as did Flashy. Fortunately Mrs Carpenter is on hand to put him right:

Flashman posted:

�D�you mean to tell me,� says I, astonished, �that Josiah is smuggling poppy?� I know the Church is game for anything, as a rule, and Hong Kong only existed for the opium trade; most everyone was in it. But it don�t go with dog-collars and Sunday schools, exactly.

�Gracious, no! Dear Sir Harry, how could you suppose such a thing? Why, it is not smuggling at all nowadays!� She was all lovely earnestness as she explained � and so help me, these were her very words:

�Josiah says that the fifth supplementary clause of the new treaty removes all restrictions on the trade in opium, cash, pulse, grain, saltpetre�oh, I forget all the things, but one of them is spelter, whatever that may be; it sounds very horrid. It is true,� she admitted gravely, �that the treaty is not yet ratified, but Sir Hope Grant will see to that, and Josiah says there can be no illegality in profiting by anticipation.� So there. Josiah�ll end up in Lambeth Palace or Dartmoor, at this rate, thinks I.

Parliament or Prison.

Still, Opium is only the second-most morally compromised cargo he has transported so I guess that�s technically progress. But what�s going on here? Let�s learn about The Second Opium War!

# ? Mar 4, 2023 06:47

Beefeater1980: Sep 12, 2008; My God, it's full of Horatios!

In a nutshell, China for most of its history had a pretty good thing going: it bought little from the rest of the world and exported finished goods, in particular silk and porcelain, which were paid for exclusively in silver. This actually provoked a financial crisis in 15th-century Europe, which is pretty fascinating in itself, called the Great Bullion Famine. Notably, China prohibited foreign traders from selling things legitimately into the country, which meant that the trade infrastructure was in place for illegal trade and oh boy was it a big one.

Pictured: opium den in Singapore, 1941. Any similarity to a Baltimore crackhouse is purely coincidental, I�m sure.

As early as the 17th century, British traders realised that while China was a rich country and didn�t want to import manufactured goods, there was a huge demand for narcotics, in particular opioids. Comparisons to Fentanyl are reasonable. Once Britain took over Bengal in the 18th century, the supply side ramped up massively, prices tumbled and the trade went from 5,000 chests/year to the rich and influential to 30,000 chests of the stuff to the mass market. Successive attempts by Emperors in Beijing to win the War on Drugs went about as well as those usually go, and the only actually successful enforcement action (by local hero Lin Zexu, the Governor-General of Guangdong), a drug seizure, kicked off a war with the British which China lost decisively. The Emperor ~~took full responsibility and worked cleverly with Lin to curtail widespread drug use~~ no of course he didn�t, he blamed everything on Lin and exiled him to Xinjiang. That was in 1840.

In 1856 the new Imperial Commissioner of Guangdong, Ye Mingchen, this gnarly motherfucker:

seized a sketchy drug ship called the Arrow that was flying British colours and kicked off Opium War II, Victorian Boogaloo. This time France got involved too on the British side. It did not go well for China.

Interestingly, Ye was not well liked at the time for vacillating in his policy (per Wikipedia �he would not fight; he would not make peace; he would not take steps for defense; he would not die; he would not surrender; and he would not flee." (不戰、不和、不守、不死、不降、不走), although recent historians tend to play up his patriotism and strong anti-drug stance. British records at the time mostly made fun of him for being extremely fat, which tracks with the real empire builders being a bunch of dipshit jocks like Flashman.

This is all kind of happening at the same time as far as the story is concerned, although the mention of Sir Hope Grant and his �supplementary treaty�suggests it is after the treaty of Tianjin was signed in 1858 but before it was ratified in 1860.

(By the way the book usually uses Wade-Giles transliteration of Chinese names; I�m using pinyin because W-G is a war crime committed by academics against God and reason).

Beefeater1980 fucked around with this message at 07:16 on Mar 4, 2023

# ? Mar 4, 2023 06:58

Xander77: Apr 6, 2009; Fuck it then. For another pit sandwich and some 'tater salad, I'll post a few more.

By the way, a genuinely excellent bit of background reading for this book:
https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3585027&userid=127245&perpage=40&pagenumber=8#post454915546

Sadly unfinished, but at least you won't get any spoilers.

# ? Mar 5, 2023 00:29

Beefeater1980: Sep 12, 2008; My God, it's full of Horatios!

Xander77 posted:

By the way, a genuinely excellent bit of background reading for this book:
https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3585027&userid=127245&perpage=40&pagenumber=8#post454915546

Sadly unfinished, but at least you won't get any spoilers.

Oh hell yes, this is great.

# ? Mar 5, 2023 01:15

Norwegian Rudo: May 9, 2013

FMguru posted:

Dragon might be my favorite of all the Flashman novels. Extremely evocative of a world and setting (Qing dynasty China) that I knew absolutely nothing about before picking up the book. Plus, you get to learn about one of history's most amazing (yet almost entirely unmentioned) grand atrocities and meet one of history's weirdest characters. I'm very much looking forward to this!

Seconded, although Flashman's Lady might be my favourite, this is right up there, for the reasons you mention.

I'm very much looking forward to the reactions to some of the real world history in this one.

Norwegian Rudo fucked around with this message at 11:42 on Mar 6, 2023

# ? Mar 6, 2023 11:40

Genghis Cohen: Jun 29, 2013

So glad this is back! I quite agree, Dragon is one of the very strongest books in the series.

# ? Mar 6, 2023 22:17

Norwegian Rudo: May 9, 2013

Beefeater1980 posted:

Parliament or Prison.

Lambeth Palace is the residence of the head of the Church of England, so he's suggesting Josiah will either be Archbishop of Canterbury or in prison.

# ? Mar 8, 2023 11:28

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# ? May 7, 2024 03:26

feedmegin: Jul 30, 2008

Norwegian Rudo posted:

Lambeth Palace is the residence of the head of the Church of England, so he's suggesting Josiah will either be Archbishop of Canterbury or in prison.

Also Parliament though, the Lords specifically, ex officio.

# ? Mar 12, 2023 01:16

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > The Book Barn > A Singularly Unpleasant Creature: Let's Read Flashman!

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