"But — but … you mean, you expected this?"
"No-o — not exactly, anyway. But I've been pretty much on hand since the Russian brotherhood arrived, you know. We don't believe in taking chances, eh? Not with customers like Master Ignatieff — enterprising chap, that. So when I heard he'd decided to join the shoot today, I thought I'd look along — just as well I did, I think," says this astonishing fellow. "Now, if you've got your wind back, I suggest we make our way down. Never mind our little wounded bird yonder — if he don't bleed to death he'll find his way back to his master. Pity he shot himself by accident, ain't it? That'll be their story, I dare say — and we won't contradict it — here, what are you about, sir?"
I was lunging for my fallen gun, full of murderous rage now that the danger was past. "I'm going to blow that bloody peasant's head off!" I roared, fumbling with the lock. "I'll teach —"
"Hold on!" cries he, catching my arm, and he was positively grinning. "Capital idea, I agree — but we mustn't, you see. One bullet in him can be explained away by his own clumsiness — but not two, eh? We mustn't have any scandal, colonel — not involving her majesty's guests. Come along now — let's be moving down, so that Count Ignatieff, who I've no doubt is watching us this minute, can come to his stricken servant's assistance. After you, sir."
He was right, of course; the irony of it was that although Ignatieff and his brute had tried to murder me, we daren't say so, for diplomacy's sake. God knows what international complications there might have been. This didn't sink in with me at once — but his reminder that Ignatieff was still prowling about was enough to lend me wings down the hill. Not that even he'd have tried another shot, with Hutton about, but I wasn't taking chances.
I'll say this for the secret service — which is what Hutton was, of course — they're damned efficient. He had a gig waiting on the road, one of his assistants was dispatched to the help of my ghillie, and within a half-hour I was back in Balmoral through the servants' entrance, being cleaned up and instructed by Hutton to put it about that I'd abandoned the shoot with a strained muscle.
"I'll inform my chiefs in London that Colonel Flashman had a fortunate escape from an unexpected danger, arising from a chance encounter with an old Russian friend," says he, "and that he is now fit and well to proceed on the important task ahead of him. And that, in the meantime, I'm keeping an eye on him. No, sir, I'm sorry — I can't answer any of your questions, and I wouldn't if I could."
Which left me in a fine state of consternation and bewilderment, wondering what to make of it all. My immediate thought was that Palmerston had somehow arranged the whole thing, in the hope that I'd kill Ignatieff, but even in my excited condition that didn't make sense. A likelier explanation was that Ignatieff, coming innocently to Balmoral and finding me on the premises, had decided to take advantage of the chance to murder me, in revenge for the way I'd sold him the previous year. That, knowing the man and his ice-cold recklessness, was perfectly sound reasoning — but there was also the horrid possibility that he had found out about the job Palmerston had given me (God alone knew how — but he'd at least discovered from the idiot Elspeth that I was going to India) and had been out to dispose of me in the way of business.
"A preposterous notion," was Ellenborough's answer when I voiced my fears to him that night. "He could not know — why, the Board decision was highly secret, and imparted only to the Prime Minister's most intimate circle. No, this is merely another example of the naked savagery of the Russian bear!" He was full of port, and wattling furiously. "And virtually in her majesty's presence, too! Damnable! But, of course, we can say nothing, Flashman. It only remains," says he, booming sternly, "for you to mete out conclusive justice to this villain, if you chance to encounter him in India. In the meantime, I'll see that the Lord Chamberlain excludes him from any diplomatic invitations which may be extended to St Petersburg in future. By gad, I will!"
I ventured the cautious suggestion that it might be better, after what had happened, to send someone else to Jhansi — just in case Ignatieff had tumbled to me — but Ellenborough wasn't even listening. He was just full of indignation at Ignatieff's murderous impudence — not on my account, you'll note, but because it might have led to a scandal involving the Queen. (Admittedly, you can't have it getting about that her guests have been trying to slaughter each other; the poor woman probably had enough trouble getting people to visit, with Albert about the place.)
So, of course, we kept mum, and as Hutton had fore-seen, it was put about and accepted that Ignatieff's loader had had an accident with a gun, and everyone wagged their heads in sympathy, and the Queen sent the poor unfortunate fellow some shortbread and a tot of whisky. Ignatieff even had the crust to thank her after dinner, and I could feel Ellenborough at my elbow fairly bubbling with suppressed outrage. And to cap it all, the brute had the effrontery to challenge me to a game of billiards — and beat me hollow, too, in the presence of Albert and half a dozen others: I had to be certain there was a good crowd on hand, for God knows what he'd have tried if we'd gone to the pool-room alone. I'll say it for Nicholas Ignatieff — he was a bear-cat for nerve. He'd have been ready to brain me and claim afterwards that it was a mis-cue.
So now — having heard the prelude to my Indian Mutiny adventure, you will understand why I don't care much for Balmoral. And if what happened there that September was trivial by comparison with what followed — well, I couldn't foresee that. Indeed, as I soothed my bruised nerves with brandy fomentations that night, I reflected that there were worse places than India; there was Aberdeenshire, with Ignatieff loose in the bracken, hoping to hang my head on his gunroom wall. I hadn't been able to avoid him here, but if we met again on the coral strand, it wasn't going to be my fault.
I've never been stag-shooting from that day to this, either. Ellenborough was right: the company's too damned mixed.
I remember young Fred Roberts (who's a Field-Marshal now, which shows you what pull these Addiscombe wallahs have got) once saying that everyone hated India for a month and then loved it forever. I wouldn't altogether agree, but I'll allow that it had its attractions in the old days; you lived like a lord without having to work, waited on hand and foot, made money if you set your mind to it, and hardly exerted yourself at all except to hunt the beasts, thrash the men, and bull the women. You had to look sharp to avoid active service, of course, of which there was a lot about; I never fell very lucky that way. But even so, it wasn't a half-bad station, most of the time.
Personally, I put that down to the fact that in my young days India was a middle-class place for the British, where society people didn't serve if they could help it. (Cardigan, for example, took one look and fled.) It's different now, of course; since it became a safe place many of our best and most highly-connected people have let the light of their countenances shine on India, with the results you might expect — prices have gone up, service has gone down, and the women have got clap. So they tell me.
Mind you, I could see things were changing even in '56, when I landed at Bombay. My first voyage to India, sixteen years before, had lasted four months on a creaking East Indiaman; this time, in natty little government steam sloops, it had taken just about half that time, even with a vile journey by camel across the Suez isthmus in between. And even from Bombay you could get the smell of civilisation; they'd started the telegraph, and were pushing ahead with the first railways, there were more white faces and businesses to be seen, and people weren't talking, as they'd used to, of India as though it were a wild jungle with John Company strongholds here and there. In my early days, a journey from Calcutta to Peshawar had seemed half round the world, but no longer. It was as though the Company was at last seeing India as one vast country — and realising that now the wars with the Sikhs and Maharattas and Afghans were things of the past, it was an empire that had to be ruled and run, quite apart from fighting and showing a nice profit in Leadenhall Street.