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‘But my lord, that can’t be!’ I couldn’t help interrupting. ‘You can’t lose Ignatieff, if you know what to look for. However he’s disguised, there’s one thing he can’t hide – his eyes! One of em’s half-brown, half-blue!’
‘He can if he puts a patch over it,’ says Ellenborough. ‘India’s full of one-eyed men. In any event, we picked up his trail again – and on both occasions it led to the same place – Jhansi. He spent two months there, all told, usually out of sight, and our people were never able to lay a hand on him. What he was doing, they couldn’t discover – except that it was mischief. Now, we see what the mischief was –’ and he pointed to the chapattis. ‘Brewing insurrection, beyond a doubt. And having done his infernal work – back over the hills to Afghanistan. This summer he was in St Petersburg – but from what our politicals did learn, he’s expected back in Jhansi again. We don’t know when.’
No doubt it was the subject under discussion, but there didn’t seem to be an ounce of heat coming from the blazing fire behind me; the room felt suddenly cold, and I was aware of the rain slashing at the panes and the wind moaning in the dark outside. I was looking at Ellenborough, but in his face I could see Ignatieff’s hideous parti-coloured eye, and hear that soft icy voice hissing past the long cigarette between his teeth.
‘Plain enough, what?’ says Pam. ‘The mine’s laid, in Jhansi – an’ if it explodes … God knows what might follow. India looks tranquil enough – but how many other Jhansis, how many other Ignatieffs, are there?’ He shrugged. ‘We don’t know, but we can be certain there’s no more sensitive spot than this one. The Russians have picked Jhansi with care – we only annexed it four years ago, on the old Raja’s death, an’ we’ve still barely more than a foothold there. Thug country, it used to be, an’ still pretty wild, for all it’s one of the richest thrones in India. Worst of all, it’s ruled by a woman – the Rani, the Raja’s widow. She was old when she married him, I gather, an’ there was no legitimate heir, so we took it under our wing – an’ she didn’t like it. She rules under our tutelage these days – but she remains as implacable an enemy as we have in India. Fertile soil for Master Ignatieff to sow his plots.’
He paused, and then looked straight at me. ‘Aye – the mine’s laid in Jhansi. But precisely when an’ where they’ll try to fire it, an’ whether it’ll go off or not … this we must know – an’ prevent at all costs.’
The way he said it went through me like an icicle. I’d been sure all along that I wasn’t being lectured for fun, but now, looking at their heavy faces, I knew that unless my poltroon instinct was sadly at fault, some truly hellish proposal was about to emerge. I waited quaking for the axe to fall, while Pam stirred his false teeth with his tongue – which was a damned unnerving sight, I may tell you – and then delivered sentence.
‘Last week, the Board of Control decided to send an extraordinary agent to Jhansi. His task will be to discover what the Russians have been doing there, how serious is the unrest in the sepoy garrison, and to deal with this hostile beldam of a Rani by persuadin’ her, if possible, that loyalty to the British Raj is in her best interest.’ He struck his finger on the table. ‘An’ if an’ when this man Ignatieff returns to Jhansi again – to deal with him, too. Not a task for an ordinary political, you’ll agree.’
No, but I was realising, with mounting horror, who they did think it was a task for. But I could only sit, with my spine dissolving and my face set in an expression of attentive idiocy, while he went inexorably on.
‘The Board of Control chose you without hesitation, Flashman. I approved the choice myself. You don’t know it, but I’ve been watchin’ you since my time as Foreign Secretary. You’ve been a political – an’ a deuced successful one. I daresay you think that the work you did in Middle Asia last year has gone unrecognised, but that’s not so.’ He rumbled at me impressively, wagging his great fat head. ‘You’ve the highest name as an active officer, you’ve proved your resource – you know India – fluent in languages – includin’ Russian, which could be of the first importance, what? You know this man Ignatieff, by sight, an’ you’ve bested him before. You see, I know all about you, Flashman,’ you old fool, I wanted to shout, you don’t know anything of the bloody sort; you ain’t fit to be Prime Minister, if that’s what you think, ‘and I know of no one else so fitted to this work. How old are you? Thirty-four – young enough to go a long way yet – for your country and yourself.’ And the old buffoon tried to look sternly inspiring, with his teeth gurgling.
It was appalling. God knows I’ve had my crosses to bear, but this beat all. As so often in the past, I was the victim of my own glorious and entirely unearned reputation – Flashy, the hero of Jallalabad, the last man out of the Kabul retreat and the first man into the Balaclava battery, the beau sabreur of the Light Cavalry, Queen’s Medal, Thanks of Parliament, darling of the mob, with a liver as yellow as yesterday’s custard, if they’d only known it. And there was nothing, with Pam’s eye on me, and Ellenborough and Wood looking solemnly on, that I could do about it. Oh, if I’d followed my best instincts, I could have fled wailing from the room, or fallen blubbering at some convenient foot – but of course I didn’t. With sick fear mounting in my throat, I knew that I’d have to go, and that was that – back to India, with its heat and filth and flies and dangers and poxy niggers, to undertake the damnedest mission since Bismarck put me on the throne of Strackenz.
But this was infinitely worse – Bismarck’s crew had been as choice a collection of villains as ever jumped bail or slit a throat, but they were civilised by comparison with Ignatieff. The thought of dealing with that devil, as Pam so nicely put it, was enough to send me into a decline. And if that wasn’t enough, I was to sneak about some savage Indian kingdom (Thug country, for a bonus), spying on some withered old bitch of an Indian princess and trying to wheedle her to British interest against her will – and she probably the kind of hag whose idea of fun would be to chain malefactors to a rogue elephant’s foot. (Most Indian rulers are mad, you know, and capable of anything.) But there wasn’t the slightest chance to wriggle; all I could do was put on my muscular Christian expression, look Palmerston fearlessly in the eye, like Dick Champion when the headmaster gives him the job of teaching the fags not to swear, and say I’d do my best.
‘Well enough,’ says he. ‘I know you will. Who knows – perhaps the signs are false, what? Tokens of mutiny, in a place where Russia’s been stirrin’ the pot, an’ the local ruler’s chafin’ under our authority – it’s happened before, an’ it may amount to nothin’ in the end. But if the signs are true, make no mistake –’ and he gave me his steady stare ‘– it’s the gravest peril our country has faced since Bonaparte. It’s no light commission we’re placin’ in your hands, sir – but they’re the safest hands in England, I believe.’
So help me God, it’s absolutely what he said; it makes you wonder how these fellows ever get elected. I believe I made some manly sounds, and as usual my sick terror must have been manifesting itself by making me red in the face, which in a fellow of my size is often mistaken for noble resolution. It must have satisfied Pam, anyway, for suddenly he was smiling at me, and sitting back in his chair.
‘Now you know why you’re sittin’ here talkin’ to the Prime Minister, what? Been sittin’ on eggshells, haven’t you? Ne’er mind – I’m glad to have had the opportunity of instructin’ you myself – of course, you’ll be more fully informed, before you sail, of all the intelligence you’ll need – his lordship here, an’ Mangles at the Board in London, will be talkin’ to you. When d’you take leave of Her Majesty? Another week? Come, that’s too long. When does the India sloop sail, Barrington? Monday – you’d best be off to Town on Friday, then. Leave pretty little Mrs Flashman to take care of royalty, what? Stunnin’ gal, that – never see her from my window on Piccadilly but it sets me in humour – must make her acquaintance when you come home. Bring her along to Number 96 some evenin’ – dinner, an’ so forth, what?’
He sat there, beaming like Pickwick. It turned my stomach at the time, and small wonder, considering the stew he was launching me into – and yet, when I think back on Pam nowadays, that’s how I see him, painted whiskers, sloppy false teeth and all, grinning like a happy urchin. You never saw such young peepers in a tired old face. I can say it now, from the safety of my declining years: in spite of the hellish pickle he landed me in, I’d swap any politician I ever met for old Pam – damn him.
However, now that he’d put the doom on me, he couldn’t get rid of me fast enough; before I’d been properly shooed out of the room he was snapping at Barrington to find some American telegraph or other, and chivvying at Wood that they must soon be off to catch their special train at Aberdeen. It must have been about three in the morning, but he was still full of bounce, and the last I saw of him he was dictating a letter even as they helped him into his coat and muffler, with people bustling around him, and he was breaking off to peer again at the chapattis on the table and ask Ellenborough did the Hindoos eat ’em with meat, or any kind of relish.
‘Blasted buns,’ says he. ‘Might do with jam, d’you think, what? No … better not … crumble an’ get under my confounded teeth, probably …’ He glanced up and caught sight of me bowing my farewell from the doorway. ‘Good night to you, Flashman,’ he sings out, ‘an’ good huntin’. You look out sharp for yourself, mind.’
So that was how I got my marching orders – in a snap of the fingers almost. Two hours earlier I’d been rogering happily away, with not a care in the world, and now I was bound for India on the most dangerous lunatic mission I’d ever heard of – by God, I cursed the day I’d written that report to Dalhousie, glorifying myself into the soup. And fine soup it promised to be – rumours of mutiny, mad old Indian princesses, Thugs, and Ignatieff and his jackals lurking in the undergrowth.
You can imagine I didn’t get much rest in what was left of the night. Elspeth was fast asleep, looking glorious with the candlelight on her blonde hair tumbled over the pillow, and her rosebud lips half open, snoring like the town band. I was too fretful to rouse her in her favourite way, so I just shook her awake, and I must say she bore the news of our impending parting with remarkable composure. At least, she wept inconsolably for five minutes at the thought of being bereft while her Hector (that’s me) was Braving the Dangers of India, fondled my whiskers and said she and little Havvy would be quite desolate, whimpered sadly while she teased me, in an absent-minded way, into mounting her, and then remembered she had left her best silk gloves behind at the evening’s party and that she had a spot on her left shoulder which no amount of cream would send away. It’s nice to know you’re going to be missed.
I had three days still left at Balmoral, and the first of them was spent closeted with Ellenborough and a sharp little creature from the Board of Control, who lectured me in maddening detail about my mission to Jhansi, and conditions in India – I won’t weary you with it here, for you’ll learn about Jhansi and its attendant horrors and delights in due course. Sufficient to say it did nothing but deepen my misgivings – and then, on the Wednesday morning, something happened which drove everything else clean out of my mind It was such a shock, such an unbelievable coincidence in view of what had gone before (or so it seemed at the time) that I can still think back to it with disbelief – aye, and start sweating at the thought.
I’d had a thoroughly drunken night at Abergeldie, to take my mind off the future, and when I woke cloth-headed and surly on the Wednesday morning, Elspeth suggested that instead of breakfast I’d be better going for a canter. I damned her advice and sent for a horse, left her weeping sulkily into her boiled egg, and ten minutes later was galloping the fumes away along the Balmoral road. I reached the castle, and trotted up as far as the carriage entrance; beyond it, on the far side of the gravel sweep, one of the big castle coaches that brought quality visitors from Aberdeen station was drawn up, and flunkeys were handing down the arrivals and bowing them towards the steps leading to the side door.
Some more poor fools of consequence about to savour the royal hospitality, thinks I, and was just about to turn my horse away when I happened to glance again at the group of gentlemen in travelling capes who were mounting the steps. One of them turned to say something to the flunkeys – and I nearly fell from the saddle, and only saved myself by clutching the mane with both hands. I believe I nearly fainted – for it was something infinitely worse than a ghost; it was real, even if it was utterly impossible. The man on the steps, spruce in the rig of an English country gentleman, and now turning away into the castle, was the man I’d last seen beside the line of carrion gallows at Fort Raim – the man Palmerston was sending me to India to defeat and kill: Count Nicholas Pavlovitch Ignatieff.
‘You’re sure?’ croaked Ellenborough. ‘No, no, Flashman – it can’t be! Count Ignatieff – whom we were discussing two nights since – here? Impossible!’
‘My lord,’ says I, ‘I’ve good cause to know him better than most, and I tell you he’s in the castle now, gotch-eye and all. Cool as damn-your-eyes, in a tweed cape and deer-stalker hat, so help me! He was there, at the door, not ten minutes ago!’
He plumped down on a chair, mopping at the shaving-soap on his cheeks – I’d practically had to manhandle his valet to be admitted, and I’d left a trail of startled minions on the back-stairs in my haste to get to his room. I was still panting from exertion, to say nothing of shock.
‘I want an explanation of this, my lord,’ says I, ‘for I’ll not believe it’s chance.’
‘What d’ye mean?’ says he, goggling.
‘Two nights ago we talked of precious little else but this Russian monster – how he’d been spying the length and breadth of India, in the very place to which I’m being sent. And now he turns up – the very man? Is that coincidence?’ I was in such a taking I didn’t stand on ceremony. ‘How comes he in the country, even? Will you tell me Lord Palmerston didn’t know?’
‘My God, Flashman!’ His big mottled face looked shocked. ‘What d’you mean by that?’
‘I mean, my lord,’ says I, trying to hold myself in, ‘that there’s precious little that happens anywhere, let alone in England, that Lord Palmerston doesn’t know about – is it possible that he’s unaware that the most dangerous agent in Russia – and one of their leading nobles, to boot – is promenading about as large as life? And never a word the other night, when—’
‘Wait! Wait!’ cries he, wattling. ‘That’s a monstrous suggestion! Contain yourself, sir! Are you positive it’s Ignatieff?’
I was ready to burst, but I didn’t. ‘I’m positive.’
‘Stay here,’ says he, and bustled out, and for ten minutes I chewed my nails until he came back, shutting the door behind him carefully. He had got his normal beetroot colour back, but he looked damned rattled.
‘It’s true,’ says he. ‘Count Ignatieff is here with Lord Aberdeen’s party – as a guest of the Queen. It seems – you know we have Granville in Petersburg just now, for the new Tsar’s coronation? Well, a party of Russian noblemen – the first since the war – have just arrived in Leith yesterday, bringing messages of good will, or God knows what, from the new monarch to the Queen. Someone had written to Aberdeen – I don’t know it all yet – and he brought them with him on his way north – with this fellow among ’em. It’s extraordinary! The damnedest chance!’
‘Chance, my lord?’ says I. ‘I’ll need some convincing of that!’
‘Good God, what else? I’ll allow it’s long odds, but I’m certain if Lord Palmerston had had the least inkling …’ He trailed off, and you could see the sudden doubt of his own precious Prime Minister written on his jowly face. ‘Oh, but the notion’s preposterous … what purpose could it serve not to tell us? No – he would certainly have told me – and you, I’m sure.’
Well, I wasn’t sure – from what I’d heard of Pam’s sense of humour I’d have put nothing past him. And yet it would have been folly, surely, with me on the point of setting off for India, ostensibly to undo Ignatieff’s work, to have let him come face to face with me. And then, the wildest thought – was it possible Ignatieff knew about my mission?
‘Never!’ trumpets Ellenborough. ‘No, that couldn’t be! The decision to send you out was taken a bare two weeks since – it would be to credit the Russian intelligence system with super-human powers – and if he did, what could he accomplish here? – dammit, in the Queen’s own home! This isn’t Middle Asia – it’s a civilised country—’
‘My lord, that’s not a civilised man,’ says I. ‘But what’s to be done? I can’t meet him!’
‘Let me think,’ says he, and strode about, heaving his stomach around. Then he stopped, heavy with decision.
‘I think you must,’ says he. ‘If he has seen you – or finds out that you were here and left before your time … wait, though, it might be put down to tact on your part … still, no!’ He snapped his fingers at me. ‘No, you must stay. Better to behave as though there was nothing untoward – leave no room to excite suspicion – after all, former enemies meet in time of peace, don’t they? And we’ll watch him – by George, we will! Perhaps we’ll learn something ourselves! Hah-ha!’
And this was the port-sodden clown who had once governed India. I’d never heard such an idiot suggestion – but could I shift him? I pleaded, in the name of common sense, that I should leave at once, but he wouldn’t have it – I do believe that at the back of his mind was the suspicion that Pam had known Ignatieff was coming, and Ellenborough was scared to tinker with the Chief’s machinations, whatever they were.
‘You’ll stay,’ he commanded, ‘and that’s flat. What the devil – it’s just a freak of fate – and if it’s not, there’s nothing this Russian rascal can do. I tell you what, though – I’m not going to miss his first sight of you, what? The man he threatened with torture and worse – disgusting brute! Aye, and the man who bested him in the end. Ha-ha!’ And he clapped me on the shoulder. ‘Aye – hope nothing happens to embarrass the Queen, though. You’ll mind out for that, Flashman, won’t you – it wouldn’t do – any unpleasantness, hey?’
I minded out, all right. Strangely enough, by the time I came back to the castle with Elspeth that afternoon, my qualms about coming face to face again with that Russian wolf had somewhat subsided; I’d reminded myself that we weren’t meeting on his ground any more, but on mine, and that the kind of power he’d once had over me was a thing quite past. Still, I won’t pretend I was feeling at ease, and I’d drummed it into Elspeth’s head that not a hint must be let slip about my ensuing departure for India, or Pam’s visit. She took it in wide-eyed and assured me she would not dream of saying a word, but I realised with exasperation that you couldn’t trust any warning to take root in that beautiful empty head: as we approached the drawing-room doors she was prattling away about what wedding present she should suggest to the Queen for Mary Seymour, and I, preoccupied, said offhand, why not a lusty young coachman, and immediately regretted it – you couldn’t be sure she wouldn’t pass it on – and then the doors opened, we were announced, and the heads in the room were all turning towards us.
There was the Queen, in the middle of the sofa, with a lady and gentleman behind; Albert, propping up the mantelpiece, and lecturing to old Aberdeen, who appeared to be asleep on his feet, half a dozen assorted courtiers – and Ellenborough staring across the room. As we made our bows, and the Queen says: ‘Ah Mrs Flashman, you are come just in time to help with the service of tea,’ I was following Ellenborough’s glance, and there was Ignatieff, with another Russian-looking grandee and a couple of our own gentry. He was staring at me, and by God, he never so much as blinked or twitched a muscle; I made my little bow towards Albert, and as I turned to face Ignatieff again I felt, God knows why, a sudden rush of to-hell-with-it take hold of me.
‘My – dear – Count!’ says I, astonished, and everyone stopped talking; the Queen looked pop-eyed, and even Albert left off prosing to the noble corpse beside him.
‘Surely it’s Count Ignatieff?’ cries I, and then broke off in apology. ‘Your pardon, ma’am,’ says I to Vicky. ‘I was quite startled – I had no notion Count Ignatieff was here! Forgive me,’ but of course by this time she was all curiosity, and I had to explain that Count Ignatieff was an old comrade-in-arms, so to speak, what? And beam in his direction, while she smiled uncertainly, but not displeased, and Ellenborough played up well, and told Albert that he’d heard me speak of being Ignatieff’s prisoner during the late war, but had had no idea this was the same gentleman, and Albert looked disconcerted, and said that was most remarkable.
‘Indeed, highness, I had that honour,’ says Ignatieff, clicking his heels, and the sound of that chilly voice made my spine tingle. But there was nothing he could do but take the hand I stretched out to him.
‘This is splendid, old fellow!’ says I, gripping him as though he were my long-lost brother. ‘Wherever have you been keeping yourself?’ One or two of them smiled, to see bluff Flash Harry so delighted at meeting an old enemy – just what they’d have expected, of course. And when the Queen had been made quite au fait with the situation, she said it was exactly like Fitzjames and Roderick Dhu.
So after that it was quite jolly, and Albert made a group with Ignatieff and Ellenborough and me, and questioned me about our acquaintance, and I made light of my captivity and escape, and said what a charming jailer Ignatieff had been, and the brute just stood impassive, with his tawny head bowed over his cup, and looking me over with that amazing half-blue, half-brown eye. He was still the same handsome, broken-nosed young iceberg I remembered – if I’d closed my eyes I could have heard the lash whistling and cracking in Arabat courtyard, with the Cossacks’ grip on my arms.
Albert, of course, was much struck by the coincidence of our meeting again, and preached a short sermon about the brotherhood of men-at-arms, to which Ignatieff smiled politely and I cried ‘Hear, hear!’ It was difficult to guess, but I judged my Muscovite monster wasn’t enjoying this too much; he must have been wondering why I pretended to be so glad to see him. But I was all affability; I even presented him to Elspeth, and he bowed and kissed her hand; she was very demure and cool, so I knew she fancied him, the little trollop.
The truth is, my natural insolence was just asserting itself, as it always does when I feel it’s safe; when a moment came when Ignatieff and I were left alone together, I thought I’d stick a pin in him, just for sport, so I asked, quietly:
‘Brought your knout with you, Count?’
He looked at me a moment before replying. ‘It is in Russia,’ says he. ‘Waiting. So, I have no doubt, is Count Pencherjevsky’s daughter.’
‘Oh, yes,’ says I. ‘Little Valla. Is she well, d’you know?’
‘I have no idea. But if she is, it is no fault of yours.’ He glanced away, towards Elspeth and the others. ‘Is it?’
‘She never complained to me,’ says I, grinning at him. ‘On that tack – if I’m well, it’s no fault of yours, either.’
‘That is true,’ says he, and the eye was like a sword-point. ‘However, may I suggest that the less we say about our previous acquaintance, the better? I gather from your … charade, a little while ago – designed, no doubt, to impress your Queen – that you are understandably reluctant that the truth of your behaviour there should be made public.’
‘Oh, come now,’ says I. ‘’Twasn’t a patch on yours, old boy. What would the Court of Balmoral think if they knew that the charming Russian nobleman with the funny eye was a murderous animal who flogs innocent men to death and tortures prisoners of war? Thought about that?’
‘If you think you were tortured, Colonel Flashman,’ says he, poker-faced, ‘then I congratulate you on your ignorance.’ He put down his cup. ‘I find this conversation tedious. If you will excuse me,’ and he turned away.
‘Oh, sorry if you’re bored,’ says I. ‘I was forgetting – you probably haven’t cut a throat or burned a peasant in a week.’
It was downright stupid of me, no doubt – two hours earlier I’d been quaking at the thought of meeting him again, and here I was sassing him to my heart’s content. But I can never resist a jibe and a gloat when the enemy’s hands are tied, as Thomas Hughes would tell you. Ignatieff didn’t seem nearly as fearsome here, among the teacups, with chaps toadying the royals, and cress sandwiches being handed round, and Ellenborough flirting ponderously with Elspeth while the Queen complained to old Aberdeen that it was the press which had killed Lord Hardinge, in her Uncle Leopold’s opinion. No, not fearsome at all – without his chains and gallows and dungeons and power of life and death, and never so much as a Cossack thug to bless himself with. I should have remembered that men like Nicholas Ignatieff are dangerous anywhere – usually when you least expect it.
And I was far from expecting anything the next day, the last full one I was to spend at Balmoral. It was a miserable, freezing morning, I remember, with flurries of sleet among the rain, and low clouds rolling down off Lochnagar; the kind of day when you put your nose out once and then settle down to punch and billiards with the boys, and build the fire up high. But not Prince Albert; there were roe deer reported in great numbers at Balloch Buie, and nothing would do but we must be drummed out, cursing, for a stalk.
I’d have slid back to Abergeldie if I could, but he nailed me in the hall with Ellenborough. ‘Why, Colonel Flash-mann, where are your gaiters? Haff you nott called for your loader yet? Come, gentlemen, in this weather we haff only a few hours – let us be off!’
And he strutted about in his ridiculous Alpine hat and tartan cloak, while the loaders were called and the brakes made ready, and the ghillies loafed about grinning on the terrace with the guns and pouches – they knew I loathed it, and that Ellenborough couldn’t carry his guts more than ten yards without a rest, and the brutes enjoyed our discomfiture. There were four or five other guns in the party, and presently we drove off into the rain, huddling under the tarpaulin covers as we jolted away from the castle on the unmade road.
The country round Balmoral is primitive at the best of times; on a dank autumn day it’s like an illustration from Bunyan’s Holy War, especially near our destination, which was an eerie, dreary forest of firs among the mountains, with great patches of bog, and gullies full of broken rocks, and heather waist-deep on the valley sides. The road petered out there, and we clambered out of the brakes and stood in the pouring wet while Albert, full of energy and blood-lust, planned the campaign. We were to spread out singly, with our loaders, and drive ahead up to the high ground, because the mist was hanging fairly thick by this time, and if we kept together we might miss the stags altogether.
We were just about to start on our squelching climb, when another brake came rolling up the road, and who should pile out but the Russian visitors, with one of the local bigwigs, all dressed for the hill. Albert of course was delighted.
‘Come, gentlemen,’ cries he, ‘this is capital! What? There are no bearss in our Scottish mountains, but we can show you fine sport among the deer. General Menshikof, will you accompany me? Count Ignatieff – ah, where iss Flash-mann?’ I was having a quick swig from Ellenborough’s flask, and as the Prince turned towards me, and I saw Ignatieff at his elbow, very trim in tweeds and top boots, with a fur cap on his head and a heavy piece under his arm, I suddenly felt as though I’d been kicked in the stomach. In that second I had a vision of those lonely, gully-crossed crags above us, with their great reaches of forest in which you could get lost for days, and mist blotting out sight and sound of all companions – and myself, alone, with Ignatieff down-wind of me, armed, and with that split eye of his raking the trees and heather for a sight of me. It hadn’t even occurred to me that he might be in the shooting party, but here he came, strolling across, and behind him a great burly unmistakable moujik, in smock and boots, carrying his pouches.
Ellenborough stiffened and shot a glance at me. For myself, I was wondering frantically if I could plead indisposition at the last minute. I opened my mouth to say something, and then Albert was summoning Ellenborough to take the left flank, and Ignatieff was standing watching me coolly, with the rain beating down between us.
‘I have my own loader,’ says he, indicating the moujik. ‘He is used to heavy game – bears, as his royal highness says, and wolves. However, he has experience of lesser animals, and vermin, even.’
‘I … I …’ It had all happened so quickly that I couldn’t think of what to say, or do. Albert was despatching the others to their various starting-points; the first of them were already moving off into the mist. As I stood, dithering, Ignatieff stepped closer, glanced at my own ghillie, who was a few yards away, and said quietly in French:
‘I did not know you were going to India, Colonel. My congratulations on your … appointment? A regimental command, perhaps?’
‘Eh? What d’you mean?’ I started in astonishment.
‘Surely nothing less,’ says he, ‘for such a distinguished campaigner as yourself.’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ I croaked.
‘Have I been misinformed? Or have I misunderstood your charming wife? When I had the happiness to pay my respects to her this morning, I understood her to say – but there, I may have been mistaken. When one encounters a lady of such exceptional beauty, I fear one tends to look rather than to listen.’ He smiled – something I’d never seen him do before: it reminded me of a frozen river breaking up. ‘But I think his royal highness is calling you, Colonel.’
‘Flash-mann!’ I tore myself away from the hypnotic stare of that split eye; there was Albert waving at me impatiently. ‘Will you take the lead on the right flank? Come, sir, we are losing time – it will be dark before we can come up to the beasts!’
If I’d had any sense I’d have bolted, or gone into a swoon, or claimed a sprained ankle – but I didn’t have time to think. The royal nincompoop was gesticulating at me to be off, my loader was already ploughing into the trees just ahead, one or two of the others had turned to look, and Ignatieff was smiling coldly at my evident confusion. I hesitated, and then started after the loader; as I entered the trees, I took one quick glance back; Ignatieff was standing beside the brake, lighting a cigarette, waiting for Albert to set him on his way. I gulped, and plunged into the trees.
The ghillie was waiting for me under the branches; he was one of your grinning, freckled, red-haired Highlanders, called MacLehose, or something equally unpronounceable. I’d had him before, and he was a damned good shikari – they all are, of course. Well, I was going to stick to him like glue this trip, I told myself, and the farther we got away from our Russian sportsmen in quick time, the better. As I strode through the fir wood, ducking to avoid the whippy branches, I heard Albert’s voice faintly behind us, and pressed on even harder.
At the far side of the wood I paused, staring up at the hillside ahead of us. What the devil was I getting in such a stew for? – my heart racing like a trip-hammer, and the sweat running down me, in spite of the chill. This wasn’t Russia; it was a civilised shooting-party in Scotland. Ignatieff wouldn’t dare to try any devilment here – it had just been the surprise of his sudden appearance at the last minute that had unmanned me … wouldn’t he, though? By God, he’d try anything, that one – and he knew about my going to India, thanks to that blathering idiot I’d married in an evil hour. Shooters had been hit before, up on the crags, in bad light … it could be made to look like an accident … mistaken for a stag … heavy mist … tragic error … never forgive himself …
‘Come on!’ I yammered, and stumbled over the rocks for a gully that opened to our left – there was another one straight ahead, but I wasn’t having that. The ghillie protested that if we went left we might run into the nearest shooters; that was all right with me, and I ignored him and clambered over the rubble at the gully foot, plunging up to the knee in a boggy patch and almost dropping my gun. I stole a glance back, but there was no sign of anyone emerging from the wood; I sprang into the gully and scrambled upwards.
It was a gruelling climb, through the huge heather-bushes that flanked the stream, and then it was bracken, six feet high, with a beaten rabbit-path that I went up at a run. At the top the gully opened out into another great mass of firs, and not until we were well underneath them did I pause, heaving like a bellows, and the ghillie padded up beside me, not even breathing hard, and grinning surprise on his face.
‘Crackey good gracious,’ says he, ‘you’re eager to be at the peasties the day. What’s the great running, whatever?’
‘Is this piece loaded?’ says I, and held it out.
‘What for would it be?’ says the clown. ‘We’ll no’ be near a deer for half an hour yet. There’s no occasion.’
‘Load the dam’ thing,’ says I.
‘And have you plowing your pluidy head off, the haste you’re in? She’ll look well then, right enuff.’
‘Damn you, do as you’re told!’ says I, so he shrugged and spat and looked his disgust as he put in the charge.
‘Mind, there’s two great pullets in there now,’ says he as he handed it back. ‘If you’ve as much sense as a whaup’s neb you’ll keep the caps in your pooch until we sight the deer.’ They’ve no respect, those people.
I snatched it from him and made off through the wood, and for ten minutes we pushed on, always upwards, through another long gully, and along a rocky ledge over a deep stream, where the mist hung in swirls among the rowan trees, and the foam drifted slowly by on the brown pools. It was as dark as dusk, although it was still early afternoon; there was no sound of another living soul, and nothing moving on the low cliffs above us.
By this time I was asking myself again if I hadn’t been over-anxious – and at the same time wondering if it wouldn’t be safest to lie up here till dark, and buy the ghillie’s silence with a sovereign, or keep moving to our left to reach the other guns. And then he gave a sudden exclamation and stopped, frowning, and putting a hand on his belly. He gave a little barking cough, and his ruddy face was pale as he turned to me.
‘Oh!’ says he. ‘What’s this? All of a sudden, my pudden’s is pad.’
‘What is it?’ says I, impatiently, and he sat down on a rock, holding himself and making strained noises.
‘I – I don’t know. It’s my belly – there’s some mischief in herself – owf!’
‘Are you ill?’
‘Oh, goad – I don’t know.’ His face was green. ‘What do these foreign puggers tak’ to drink? It’s – it must be the spirits yon great hairy fella gave me before we cam’ up – oh, mither, isn’t it hellish? Oh, stop you, till I vomit!’
But he couldn’t, try as he would, but leaned against the rock, in obvious pain, rubbing at himself and groaning. And I watched him, in horror, for there was no doubt what had happened – Ignatieff’s man had drugged or poisoned him, so that I’d be alone on the hill. The sheer ruthlessness of it, the hellish calculation, had me trembling to my boots – they would come on me alone, and – but wait, whatever he’d been given, it couldn’t be fatal: two corpses on one shoot would be too much to explain away, and one of them poisoned, at that. No, it must just be a drug, to render him helpless, and of course I would turn back down the hill to get help, and they’d be there …
‘Stay where you are – I’ll get help,’ says I, and lit out along the ledge, but not in the direction we’d come; it was up and over the hills for Flashy, and my groaning ghillie could be taken care of when time served. I scudded round the corner of rock at the ledge’s end, and through a forest of bracken, out into a clear space, and then into another fir wood, where I paused to get my bearings. If I bore off left – but which way was left? We’d taken so many turnings, among the confounded bogs and gullies, I couldn’t be sure, and there was no sun to help. Suppose I went the wrong way, and ran into them? God knows, in this maze of hills and heather it would be easy enough. Should I go back to the stricken ghillie, and wait with him? I’d be safer, in his company – but they might be up with him by now, lurking on the gully-side, waiting. I stood clutching my gun, sweating.
It was silent as death under the fir-trees, close as a tomb, and dim. I could see out one side, where there was bracken – that would be the place to lie up, so I stole forward on tiptoe, making no noise on the carpet of mould and needles. Near the wood’s edge I waited, listening: no sound, except my own breathing. I turned to enter the bracken – and stood frozen, biting back a yelp of fear. Behind me, on the far side of the wood, a twig had snapped.
For an instant I was paralysed, and then I was across the open space of turf and burrowing into the bracken for dear life. I went a few yards, and then writhed round to look back; through the stems and fronds I could see the trees I’d just left, gloomy and silent. But I was deep in cover; if I lay still, not to shake the bracken above me, no one could hope to spot me unless he trod on me. I burrowed down in the sodden grass, panting, and waited, with my ears straining.
