So I shuffled close, just as a heavily-veiled lady got out, without paying the cab, which rattled off at once. That proved it, and as she crossed the pavement and passed into the entry I was abreast, glancing in. She pulled off her veil, and shook her hair, just as I passed, and for a split second I saw her face before she hurried on. And I staggered, as though from a blow, clutching the railings and sinking to the pavement. For there was no mistaking; it was my own grand-daughter, little Selina.
I’ve been hit hard in my time, but that nearly carried me off. My own grand-daughter—going up to that pot-bellied satyr! I sprawled there against the railings, dumfounded. Selina, the wide-eyed, tender innocent—mistress to the revolting Bertie! No, no, it couldn’t be … why, only that morning she’d been pleading with me to save her from the embraces of Moran; she’d seemed almost out of her wits—by George, though, well she might be, if she was the Prince of Wales’s secret pet! She couldn’t afford to compromise herself with half-pay adventurers like Tiger Jack, not if she was to keep in favour with her royal lover. And she couldn’t be mixed up in scandals over her fiancé’s pilfering regimental funds, neither. She had had to get Moran silenced (with my money, she hoped) if she was to stay topsides with Bertie. No wonder she’d wailed on my bosom, the designing, wicked little hussy. And I’d been in a lather about her honour—her honour! My own grand-daughter.
That, of course, was the point. She was my grand-daughter, and what’s bred in the bone … oh, but she’d hocussed me properly, playing shrinking Purity, and I’d been ready to shell out half my fortune—and I’d come within an ace of committing murder for her. That was the far outside of enough—I stared up at that lighted window, bursting with outrage—and then for all my fury I found I was grinning, and then laughing, as I clung to the railings. Say what you like; consider that sweet, innocent, butter-melting beauty and the mind behind it—oh, she was Flashy’s little grandchild, all right, every inch of her.
"Wot’s all the row, then?" says a voice, and there was a burly, bearded copper shining his bull’s-eye on me. "Yore tight," says he.
"No, guv’nor, not a bit," I wheezed. "Just resting."
"Don’t gimme none o' your sauce," says he. "This ’ere’s a respectable neighbour’ood—the likes o' you can do yer boozin' some place else, you follow? Nah then, ’op it."
"Yuss, guv’nor," says I. "Just goin', honnist."
"Orta know better, a man yore age. Look at yerself—proper disgrace, you are. Don’t you old rummies never learn?"
"No," says I. "We never do." And I set off, under his disapproving eye, across Berkeley Square.
Notes
[1]. Paul Kruger (1825-1904), later President of the South African Republic, claimed that if Lord Chelmsford had taken his advice on Zulu fighting, Isandhlwana need not have been lost. "Oom Paul" spoke from experience; he had himself been caught by the speed of a Zulu attack, and survived only after hand-to-hand fighting inside his laager (square of wagons). (See J. Martineau’s Life of Sir Bartle Frere, 1893.) In fairness to Chelmsford, the failure to laager was Colonel Durnford’s; Rider Haggard, who knew Durnford well, advances an interesting theory on his tactics in The Tale of Isandhlwana, but agrees with Kruger that laagering would have saved the day.
[2]. In connection with Flashman’s defence of the wagon with his revolvers, it is interesting to note that one of the Zulu warriors, a son of Chief Sirayo, later described how he had seen one of the British force, "a very tall man", keeping up a spirited revolver fire from an empty wagon. "We all said what a very brave man he was … he kept his ground for a very long time." This admittedly does not sound like Flashman, and Mackinnon and Shadbolt, in The South African Campaign of 1879-80, are probably correct when they identify the hero as Captain Younghusband of the 24th Regiment.
[3]. This was not the only incident of its kind at Isandhlwana. The editor is indebted to Colonel John Awdry of Fovant for drawing his attention to the experience of General (formerly Lieutenant) Smith-Dorrien, one of the survivors of the battle. During the rout Smith-Dorrien came on a man who had been kicked by his horse and could not mount; Smith-Dorrien helped him into the saddle and gave him a knife, and the rider, having promised to catch a horse for Smith-Dorrien, promptly fled from the battlefield. If Flashman’s account of his own evasion were not so precise, one would be tempted to identify him with Smith-Dorrien’s fugitive. (See The Man Who Disobeyed, by A. J. Smithers.)
[4]. The battle of Isandhlwana (the place of the Little House or Little Hand) was fought on January 22, 1879, when 1600 British and native troops of Lord Chelmsford’s force invading Zululand were overwhelmed by 20,000 warriors of the impis of King Cetewayo (Ketshwayo). What Flashman was doing there is a mystery. Earlier in the present volume he refers to a visit paid to South Africa in connection with a mine (whether gold or diamond he does not say) belonging to a relative of Lady Flashman’s, and there is evidence elsewhere that later he took part in an expedition through unexplored territory in the interior, but how he came to be involved in Chelmsford’s operations is still unexplained. Usually in his memoirs he is careful to give full military and political background to his activities, but in this case he treats Isandhlwana, and the equally famous defence of Rorke’s Drift, as mere incidents in his story, and clarification must wait on further study of the Flashman Papers, or possibly of Dawns and Departures of a Soldier’s Life, should the missing volumes of that work come to light. There, it may be, will be found some account of the preliminaries to the Zulu War—the border friction between the Transvaal Dutch and Cetewayo’s people, Britain’s annexation of the Transvaal and failure to settle the border question, the decision to send in Chelmsford’s three columns, the establishment of the base at Isandhlwana, and Chelmsford’s departure thence with part of his force in the hope of gaining a quick victory over the Zulu army, while Major Pulleine was left to defend the Isandhlwana camp, only to be wiped out by a Zulu attack which was entirely unexpected.
Why Flashman treats this notable imperial disaster, and its sequel at Rorke’s Drift, so cursorily is plain enough. His chief concern in this extract (which came to light more than twenty years ago as a separate fragment in that packet of his Papers dealing with the Indian Mutiny) is to tell the story of his dealings with the notorious Colonel John Sebastian ("Tiger Jack") Moran, and he does not hesitate to pass by great events with little more than a glance. Thus his description of the Isandhlwana fighting is sketchy and highly personal. Reading it, one might suppose that hardly any time elapsed between the first appearance of the Zulus and their final assault on the camp, but in fact there was much intervening activity. Following Lord Chelmsford’s departure at dawn, various detachments had been sent out from Pulleine’s camp under the Isandhlwana hill as advance pickets and to deal with small groups of Zulus who had appeared; the largest of these detachments, Colonel Durnford’s, encountered a powerful impi and was forced to beat a fighting retreat towards the camp, where Pulleine was already under attack. How Flashman came to be within earshot of Pulleine and have a view of Durnford, whose retreat had begun some miles away, one can only guess; no doubt he moved at his customary high speed, and it is likely that in his recollection of his panic-stricken confusion he has unwittingly "telescoped" events and time. His description of the battle’s climax accords with other accounts, but he does not mention that the Zulu advance was held up and badly mauled at various points before the final overrunning of the British position. The encircling "chest and horns" tactic was entirely successful, and those of Pulleine’s force who escaped the main action were hunted down the ravine to Fugitives' Drift on the Buffalo River. (See Rider Haggard’s account written for Andrew Lang; Colenso and Durnford, History of the Zulu War, 1881; Sir Reginald Coupland, Zulu Battle-Piece, 1948; Donald L. Morris, The Washing of the Spears, 1965; C. T. Binns' The Last Zulu King; Mackinnon and Shadbolt; and the personal narrative of C. L. Norris-Newman, the only journalist to travel with Chelmsford’s force, In Zululand with the British, 1880. An interesting memoir of Zululand during the war is the journal of Cornelius Vjin, a trader who was in Zulu hands for much of the time, Cetshwayo’s Dutchman, 1880.)