I opened it at random, idly turning the pages … and then my eye lit on a paragraph, and it was as though a bucket of icy water had been dashed over me as I read the words:
"But that blackguard Flashman, who never speaks to one without a kick or an oath —"
"The cowardly brute," broke in East, "how I hate him! And he knows it, too; he knows that you and I think him a coward."
I stared at the page dumbfounded. Flashman? East? What the blind blue blazes was this? I turned the book over to look at the title: "Tom Brown's School Days", it said, "by an Old Boy". Who the hell was Tom Brown? I whipped quickly through the pages — rubbish about some yokels at a village fair, as Elspeth had said … Farmer Ives, Benjy … what the deuce? Tom trying his skill at drop-kicks … "Rugby and Football" … hollo, here we were again, though, and the hairs rose on my neck as I read:
"Gone to ground, eh?" roared Flashman. "Push them out then, boys; look under the beds … Who-o-o-p!" he roared, pulling away at the leg of a small boy … "Young howling brute. Hold your tongue, sir, or I'll kill you!"
By God, it was me! I mean, it wasn't only my style, to a "t", I even remembered doing it — years ago, at Rugby, when we flushed the fags out and tossed them in blankets for a lark … Yes, here it was —"Once, twice, thrice, and away" … "What a cursed bully you are. Flashy!" I sped through the passage, in which the horrible ogre Flashman, swearing foully, suggested they be tossed two at a time, so that they'd struggle and fall out and get hurt — it's true enough, that's the way to get the mealy little bastards pitched out on to the floor.
But who on earth could have written this? Who had dared — I tore the pages over, scanning each one for the dread name, and by God wasn't it there, though, in plenty? My eyes goggled as I read:
"Flashman, with an oath and a kick, released his prey …" "… the tyranny of Flashman …" "… Flashman was on the look-out, and sent an empty pickle jar whizzing after them, which narrowly missed Tom's head. ‘He wouldn't mind killing one, if he wasn't caught,’ said East …" "… ‘Was Flashman here then?’ — ‘Yes, and a dirty little snivelling sneaking fellow he was, too … used to toady the bullies by offering to fag for them, and peaching against the rest of us …’"
I was red and roaring with rage by this time, barely able to see the pages. By God, here was infamy! Page after foul page, traducing me in the most odious terms * for there wasn't a doubt I was the villain referred to; the whole thing stank of Rugby in my time, and there was the Doctor, and East, and Brooke, and Crab Jones * and me, absolutely by name, for all the world to read about and detest! There was even a description of me as big and strong for my age — and I "played well at all games where pluck wasn't much wanted" if you please, and had "a bluff, offhand manner, which passed for heartiness, and considerable powers of being pleasant". Well, that settled it — and my reputation, too, for not a page went by but I was twisting arms, or thrashing weaklings, or swearing, or funking, or getting pissy drunk, or roasting small boys over fires — oh, aye, that brought back Master Brown to memory sharp enough. He was the mealy, freckled little villain who tried to steal my sweepstake ticket, damn him — a pious, crawling little toad-eater who prayed like clockwork and was forever sucking up to Arnold and Brooke —"yes, sir, please, sir, I'm a bloody Christian, sir," along with his pal East … and now East was dead, in the boat by Cawnpore.
Someone was alive, though — alive and libelling me most damnably. Not that it wasn't true, every vile word of it — oh, it was all too true, that was the trouble, but the devil with that, it was a foul, malicious blot on my good name … dear Christ, here was more!
"… Flashman's brutality had disgusted most even of his intimate friends …" No, by God, there was one downright, shameful lie — the kind of friends I had at Rugby you couldn't have disgusted, not Speedicut and Rattle and that lot … What next? "Coward as he was, Flashman couldn't swallow such an insult …" and then followed a description of a fight, in which I ("in poor condition from his monstrous habit of stuffing") was soundly thrashed by a couple of fags and skulked off whining: "You shall pay for this …"
I believe I foamed at the mouth at this point, and yet again at the description of my drunken expulsion from Rugby, but what was even worse was the scene in which the unctuous little swabs, Brown and East, were described as praying for "poor Flashman". I hurled the book across the carriage, and set about thrashing my bearer, and only when I'd driven him howling on to the carriage-roof did I settle down and realise the full bitterness of what this vindictive biographer had done.
He'd ruined me — half England must have read the beastly thing by now. Oh, it was plain enough why Cardigan had sent it to me, the spiteful swine. How could I ever hold up my head again, after this poisonous attack? — my God, just in my moment of supreme glory, too! What would my Cross and my Knighthood be worth now, with this venom spewed on me by "an Old Boy"?, whoever the brute was … probably some greasy little sneak whom I'd disciplined for his own good, or knocked about in boyish fun … well, by heaven he'd pay for it! I'd sue the wicked, scribbling son-of-a-bitch through every court in England.
APPENDIX I: The Indian Mutiny
As far as it goes, and leaving aside those more personal experiences and observations which there is no confirming or denying, Flashman's account of his service in the Mutiny seems both generally accurate and fair. His descriptions of Meerut, before and during the outbreak, of Cawnpore and Lucknow and Jhansi and Gwalior, are consistent with other eye-witness accounts; at worst, he differs no more from them than they do from each other. As to causes and attitudes, he seems to give a sound reflection of what was being said and thought in India at the time.
It is still difficult to discuss certain aspects of the Mutiny without emotion creeping in; it was an atrociously bloody business, and it is not easy to appreciate entirely the immense intensity of feeling on both sides. How to explain the conduct of Nana Sahib at Cawnpore, on the one hand, or on the other, the attitude of the Christian and personally kindly John Nicholson, who wanted legislation passed for the flaying, impaling, and burning of mutineers? Flashman's observations are not without interest, but it is really superfluous to comment on them; there should not he, for intelligent people, any question of trying to cast up the atrocious accounts, or attempting to discover a greater weight of "blame" on one side or the other. Fashions in these things change, as Flashman remarks, and one should beware of fashionable judgements. Sufficient to say that fear, shock, ignorance, and racial and religious intolerance, on both sides, combined to produce a hatred akin to madness in some individuals and groups — British, Hindoo and Muslim — but by no means among all.