When I returned, the little maid had set out a tray of coffee, hot milk, and petit pain, and was plumping the pillows and smoothing the sheets of the berth. Kralta was in the chair, her robe about her, perfectly groomed and bidding me an impersonal good day as though she’d never thrashed about in ecstatic frenzy in her life.
"Early as it is, I thought a petit déjeuner would not be amiss," says she. "Manon has made up a berth for you in the next cabin, so that you may sleep until a more tolerable hour, as I shall." The maid poured coffee for me and milk for her mistress, and waited on us while we ate and drank in silence—Kralta poised and dignified as befitting royalty en déshabillé, Flashy half-conscious as usual when rousted out at 5 a.m. I was glad of the coffee, and finished the pot; worn as I was with lack of sleep and Kralta’s attentions, I knew it would take more than a pint of Turkish to keep me awake.
When we’d finished, Manon removed the tray, and I was preparing to take my weary leave when Kralta stopped me with a hand on my sleeve. She said nothing, but put her hands up to my cheeks, appraising me in that shall-I-buy-the-brute-or-not style—and then she was kissing me with startling passion, mouth wide, lips working hungrily, tongue halfway to breakfast. Tuckered or not, I was game if she was, and I was delving under the fur for her fleshpots when she pulled gently away, pecked me on the cheek, murmured "Later … we have Vienna," and before I knew it I was in the corridor and her lock was clicking home.
I was too tired to mind. The lower berth in the next cabin was turned down and looked so inviting that I dragged off my duds any old how and crawled in gratefully, reflecting that the Orient Express was an Al train, and Kralta, the teasing horse-faced bag-gage with her splendid assets, was just the freight for it … and Vienna lay ahead. Even as my head touched the pillow the train gave a clank and shudder, and then we were gliding away again, and I was preparing for sleep by saying my prayers like a good boy, their purport being the pious hope that I hadn’t forgotten any of the positions Fetnab had taught me on the Grand Trunk, and which I’d rehearsed with Mrs What’s-her-name in the ruined temple by Meerut, and would certainly demonstrate to Kralta as soon as we found a bed with a decentish bit of romping room in it…
I expected to sleep soundly, but didn’t, for I was troubled by a most vivid dream, one of those odd ones in which you’re sure you’re awake because the surroundings of the dream are those in which you went to sleep. There I was in my berth on the Orient Express, stark beneath the coverlet, with sunlit autumn countryside going past the window, and near at hand two people were talking, Kralta and an Englishman, and I knew he was a public school man because although they spoke in German he used occasional slang, and there was no mistaking his nil admirari drawl. I couldn’t see them, and it was the strangest conversation, in which they chaffed each other with a vulgar freedom which wasn’t like Kralta at all, somehow. She said of course she’d made love to me, twice, and the man laughed and said she was a slut, and she said lightly, no such thing, she was a female rake, and he was just jealous. He said if he were jealous of all her lovers he’d have blown his brains out long ago, and they both seemed amused.
Then their voices were much closer, and Kralta said: "I wonder how he’ll take it?", and the man said: "He’ll have no choice." Then she said: "He may be dangerous," and the man said the queerest thing: that any man whose name could make Bismarck grit his teeth was liable to be dangerous. The dream ended there, and I must have slept on, for when I woke, sure enough I was still in the berth, but somehow I knew that time had gone by … but why was there no feeling in my legs, and who was the chap in the armchair, smoking a black gasper in an amber holder, and rising and smiling as I strove to sit up but couldn’t'? Of course! He was the young boulevardier I’d seen on Strasbourg station … hut what the hell was he doing here, and what was the matter with my legs'?
"Back to life!" cries he. "There now, don’t stir. Be aisy, as the Irishman said, an' if yez can’t be aisy, be as aisy as ye can. Here, take a pull at this." The sharp taste of spa water cleared my parched throat, if not my wits. "Better, eh? Now, now, gently does it! Who am I, and where’s the delightful Kralta, and what’s to do, and how’s your pater, and so forth?" He chuckled. "All in good time, old fellow. I fancy you’ll need somethin' stronger than spa when I tell you. Ne’er mind, all’s well, and when you’re up to par we’ll have a bite of luncheon with her highness—I say, though, you’ve made a hit there! Bit of a wild beast, ain’t she? Too strong for my taste, but one has to do the polite with royalty, what?" says this madman cheerfully. "Care for a smoke?"
I tried again to heave up, flailing my arms feebly, without success—and now my dream came back to me, half-understood, and I knew from the numbness of my limbs that this was no ordinary waking … Kralta, the bitch, must have doctored my coffee, and it had been no dream but reality, and this was the bastard she’d been talking to … about me. And Bismarck …
"Lie still, damn you!" cries the young spark, grinning with a restraining hand on my shoulder. "You must, you know! For one thing, your legs won’t answer yet awhile, and even if they did, you’re ballock-naked and it’s dam' parky out and we’re doin' forty miles an hour. And if you tried to leave the train," he added soothingly, "I’d be bound to do somethin' desperate. See?"
I hadn’t seen his hand move, but now it held a small under-and-over pistol, levelled at me. Then it was gone, and he was lighting a cigarette.
"So just be patient, there’s a good chap, and you’ll know all about it presently. Sure you won’t smoke? There’s no cause for alarm, ’pon honour. You’re among friends … well, companions, anyway … and I’m goin' to be your tee jay and see you right, what?"
D’you know, in all my fright and bewilderment, it was that piece of schoolboy slang that struck home, so in keeping with his style and speech, and yet so at odds with his looks. He couldn’t be public school, surely … not with those classic features that belong east of Vienna and would be as out of place in England as a Chinaman’s. No, not with that perfect straight nose, chiselled lips, and slightly slanted blue eyes—if this chap wasn’t a Mittel European, I’d never seen one.
"Tee jay?" I croaked, and he laughed.
"Aye … guide, philosopher, and friend—showin' the new bugs the ropes. What did you call ’em at Rugby? I’m a Wykehamist, you know—and that was your doin', believe it or not! ’Deed it was!"
He blew a cloud, grinning at my stupefaction, and the feeling that I’d seen him before hit me harder than ever—the half jeering smile, the whole devil-may-care carriage of him. But where? When?
"Oh, yes, you impressed the guv’nor no end!" cries he. " `It’s an English school for you, my son,' he told me. `Hellish places, by all accounts, rations a Siberian moujik wouldn’t touch, and less civilised behaviour than you’d meet in the Congo, but I’m told there’s no education like it—a lifetime’s trainin' in knavery packed into six years. No wonder they rule half the world. Why, if I’d been to Eton or Harrow I’d have had Flashman on toast!' That’s what the guv’nor said!"
This was incredible. "The … the guv’nor?"
"As ever was! You and he were sparrin'-partners … oh, ever so long ago, before my time, ages! He wouldn’t tell about it, but he thought you no end of a fellow. ’If ever you run into Flashman … well, try not to, but if you do, keep him covered, for he’s forgotten more dodges than you’ll ever know,' he told me once. ’His great trick is shammin' fear—don’t you believe it, my boy, for that’s when he’s about to turn tiger.' I remember he fingered the scar on his brow as he said it. I say, did you give him that?" His eyes were alight with admiration, damned if they weren’t. "You’ll have to tell me about that, you know!"