Flashman And The Dragon fp-8

  Flashman And The Dragon

  ( Flashman Papers - 8 )

  George Macdonald Fraser

  Flashman at his worst. But for his fans, that means he's at his best in this, his most reckless, erotic adventure yet. Flashy yearns to unclothe the wife of a man of the cloth, smuggles opium to Hong Kong, grovels to a warlord, hooks up with a lady pirate from the Amazon and offers himself as a sex toy to the world's most stunning -- and evil -- woman.

  As usual, Flashy rises to each occasion, no matter how low he must go.

  "Extremely funny, but meticulously authentic. Between guffaws, you learn from it." (The Washington Post)

  FLASHMAN AND THE DRAGON

  by George MacDonald Fraser

  EXPLANATORY NOTE

  It is now twenty years since the Flashman Papers, the memoirs of the notorious Rugby School bully who became a Victorian hero, were found in a Leicestershire saleroom. Of the dozen or so packets of manuscript, seven have so far been published in hook form; they have covered four military campaigns (the First Afghan War, Crimea, Indian Mutiny, and Sioux War of 1879), and five episodes of less formal and generally reluctant active service—pirate-hunting with Brooke of Sarawak; as military adviser to Queen Ranavalona of Madagascar; as conspirator with Bismarck in the Schleswig-Holstein affair; in the African slave trade and Underground Railroad; and on the American frontier during the Gold Rush. This eighth volume sees him returning to military service in the Taiping Rebellion and Pekin Expedition of 1860.

  Not the least interesting feature of Flashman's recollections, to students of history, is the light they cast on the early years of many famous Victorians, who are seen through the unsparing eyes of one who, while a self-confessed coward, libertine, and scoundrel, was nevertheless a scrupulous re-porter. Thus, we have seen him fleeing the murderous wrath of the young politician Bismarck, viewing Congressman Lincoln with wary respect, teaching the infant Crazy Horse how to wink, admiring Lola Montez the aspiring novelty dancer, and toadying to the young Queen Victoria herself. In China he encounters two of the great mercenary captains, a future empress, the founding fathers of the modern British Army and Navy, and those strange, forgotten peasants who changed the face of a great empire. It may be that he provides some new historical insights, while again demonstrating the lengths to which perfidy, impudence, immorality, and poltroonery may be stretched in the enforced pursuit of fame, riches, and above all, survival.

  In accordance with the wishes of Mr Paget Morrison, owner of the Flashman manuscripts, I have confined my editing to correcting the old soldier's spelling, checking the accuracy of the narrative (which is exact where matters of verifiable historical fact are concerned) and inserting the usual foot-notes, appendices, and glossary.

  G.M.F.

  FLASHMAN AND THE DRAGON

  Old Professor Flashy's first law of economics is that the time to beware of a pretty woman is not when you're flush of cash (well, you know what she's after, and what's a bankroll more or less?), but when you're short of the scratch, and she offers to set you right. Because that ain't natural, and God knows what she's up to. I learned this when I was fourteen, and one Lady Geraldine, a high-spirited Hebe ten years my senior, lured me out in a punt with the promise of a crown if I minded her clothes while she went bathing. In all innocence, I accepted—and I haven't seen that five bob yet, because the randy baggage had to shell out all her loose change to buy the silence of the grinning water-bailiff who caught us unawares in the reeds, where she was teaching me natural history after her swim. I had the presence of mind even at that tender age to clap my breeches over my face and so avoid recognition as I fled, but you take the point—I had been misled, in my youthful simplicity, by a designing female who played on my natural cupidity.

  Ever since, when they've dangled rich rewards before me, I've taken fright. If the case of Mrs Phoebe Carpenter was an exception—well, she was a clergyman's wife, and you don't expect double-dealing from a wide-eyed simperer who sings come-to-Jesus in the choir. I don't know why I bothered with her … yes, I do, though; shaped like an Indian nautch-dancer under her muslin, blue-eyed, golden-haired, and with that pouting lower lip that's as good as a beckoning finger to chaps like me—she reminded me rather of my darling wife, whom I hadn't seen in more than three years and was getting uncommon hungry for. So, reading the invitation in Mrs Carpenter's demure smile, and having ten days to loaf in Hong Kong before my ship sailed for Home', I decided to have a cast at her; it was a dead-and-alive hole in '60, I can tell you, and how else should a weary soldier pass his time?

  So I attended morning and evening service, hollering hosannas and nodding stern approval while her drone of a husband sermonised about temptation and the snares that Satan spreads (about which he didn't know the first dam' thing), and gallantly helping her to gather up the hymn-books afterwards. I dined with them, traded a text or two with the Reverend, joined them in evening prayers, squired her along the Queen's Road—she was all for it, of course, but what was middling rum was that he was, too; it ain't every middle-aged vicar who cares to see his young bride escorted by a dashing Lancer with Balaclava whiskers. I put it down to natural toad-eating on his part, for I was the lion of the hour in those days, with my new knighthood and V.C., and all my Mutiny heroics to add to the fame I had undeservedly won in Crimea and Afghanistan. If you've read my earlier memoirs you'll know all about it—and how by shirking, running, diving into cover, and shielding my quaking carcase behind better men, I had emerged after four campaigns with tremendous credit, a tidy sum in loot, and a chestful of tinware. I was a colonel of six years' seniority at 37, big, bluff, handsome Flash Harry, quite a favourite with Queen and Con-sort, well spoken of by Palmerston and my chiefs, married to the beauteous and wealthy daughter of a peer (and a dead peer, at that)—and only I knew (though I'd a feeling that wily old Colin Campbell suspected) that my fame was all a fraud and a sham.

  There had been a time when I was sure it couldn't last, and they were bound to find me out for the poltroon and scoundrel I was—but I'd been devilish lucky, and, d'ye know, there's nothing sticks like a good name, provided you know how to carry your credit with a modest grin and a glad eye. Once let 'em call you a hero, and they'll never leave off worshipping—which is absolute nuts when the worshipper cuts a figure like the adoring Mrs Carpenter's. After three days of my society I reckoned she was ready to melt; all that was needed was a stroll in the garden after dark, a few well-chosen quotations from the Song of Solomon, and she'd play like one of those abandoned Old Testament queens her husband was forever reviling from the pulpit.

  As a final rehearsal I took her out to picnic at the Poke Fullam bungalow, which was the favoured resort in Hong Kong at that time; we found a secluded spot, spread a rug, disposed of the cold prawns and a bottle of Hock, and settled down to exchange my murmured gallantries for her sighs and coy glances—I didn't intend to board her that afternoon, you understand; too public, and she wasn't even part-drunk. As it happened, I'd have been wasting my time, for the innocent Mrs Carpenter had been working to a fixed end just as purposefully as I. And such an end; when I think back on it, words fail me.

  She led up to it by talking of her husband's ambition to build a church and hall over at Kowloong; even in those days it was the fashionable place, so he would be quite top dog among the local gospel-wallopers. The difficulty, says she sighing, was money—although even that would not have been insurmountable had it not been for the impending war.

  "When Sir Hope Grant begins his campaign, you see, it is certain that there will be a cessation of all China trade, even with Canton," says she. "And when that happens—why, there will be an end to all Josiah's hopes. And mine." And she choked h
ack what sounded like a little sob.

  I'd been paying no heed, content to stroke her hand, brotherly-like, while she prattled, but hearing her gulp I perked up. Get 'em weeping, and you're halfway to climbing all over them. I feigned concern, and squeezed her hand, begging her to explain what Grant's campaign could have to do with dear Josiah's church-building. I knew, as all the world did, that Grant was due in Hong Kong shortly with a fleet and army whose purpose would be to go up-country and force our latest treaty down the Chinese Emperor's throat, but it wasn't liable to be much of a war: show the flag to the Chinks, kick a few yellow backsides, and home again with hardly a shot fired—the kind of campaign that would have suited me, if I'd been looking for one, which I wasn't. I could thank God I'd be homeward bound before Grant arrived, for he knew me from India and would certainly dragoon me into service if I were silly enough to be on hand. You don't pass up the chance of employing the gallant Flashy. And he don't pass up the chance of making himself scarce.

  "But even a little war will put an end to traffic with the Chinese merchants," she lamented. "Oh, it is so hard, when Josiah and his friends have invested so wisely! To be robbed of the deserved profit that would have fulfilled his dream! It is too bad!" And she looked at me with trembling mouth and great blue eyes -

  Gad, she was like Elspeth, even to the imbecile parting of those crimson lips, and the quivering of her top hamper. Feeling slightly fogged, I asked, what investment had dear Josiah made?

  "Why, opium, of course! He was so clever, laying out Papa's legacy in two thousand chests of the very choicest Patna," says this fair flower of the vicarage. "And it would have fetched ever so much money at Canton—more than enough to build our dear little church! But if war comes, and he cannot sell his cargo …" She sniffed and looked woebegone.

  "D'you mean to tell me," says I, astonished, "that Josiah is smuggling poppy?" I know the Church is game for anything, as a rule, and Hong Kong only existed for the opium trade; most everyone was in it. But it don't go with dog-collars and Sunday schools, exactly.

  "Gracious, no! Dear Sir Harry, how could you suppose such a thing? Why, it is not smuggling at all nowadays!" She was all lovely earnestness as she explained—and so help me, these were her very words: "Josiah says that the fifth supplementary clause of the new treaty removes all restrictions on the trade in opium, cash, pulse, grain, saltpetre … oh, I forget all the things, but one of them is spelter, whatever that may be; it sounds very horrid. It is true," she admitted gravely, "that the treaty is not yet ratified, but Sir Hope Grant will see to that, and Josiah says there can be no illegality in profiting by anticipation." So there.

  Josiah'll end up in Lambeth Palace or Dartmoor, at this rate, thinks I. Imagine—a clergyman peddling the black smoke. Purely out of curiosity, I asked didn't he have moral qualms? She twitched her tits in impatience.

  "Oh, Josiah says that is Nonconformist missionary talk, and that it is well-known the natives of China use opium as a sedative, rather than as a narcotic, and that it does not one-tenth of the harm that strong waters cause among our poorer classes at home. Gin, and such things." Then she sighed again, and they quivered in dejection. "But it is all by the way now. If he cannot sell the cargo … and he could have built our church and to spare, too!"

  With enough over to start a couple of brothels, no doubt, the way Josiah did business. "Hold on," says I. "Why can't he sell it—where is it, by the way?"

  "At Macao. Josiah is gone over today to see it put aboard the last crabs and scrambling dragons." Not two years out of the schoolroom, sink me, and she was talking like a taipan. *(* Fast crabs and scrambling dragons were opium-running craft.)

  "Well, there you are—he can send it up Pearl River to the Canton factories tomorrow, and sell it to the Hongs."

  "Oh, if it were so simple! But you see, Sir Harry, with all the war talk there is word that the Chinese merchants have been forbidden to buy from our people … and … and Josiah and his friends have no influence to persuade them."

  "Then get Dent or Jardine to run it in—they'll persuade anybody—and get a better price than Josiah could, I dare say."

  "And take all our profit in commission! They are the greediest persons, you know," says this tender child. "Besides, the price is settled. Josiah vows to take no less than eight pounds a chest."

  "Jesus—I mean, dear me!" says I. "Two thousand chests—why, that's near a ton, isn't it? Sixteen thousand quid!" I was no expert, but you couldn't be in Hong Kong five minutes without knowing the going figures. "Phew! Well, my dear, he'd better get it to Canton somehow before the war starts—stay, though: can't he put it in bond until things are more settled?"

  "It is prepared chandoo, not raw cake," says the Opium Queen pathetically. "Unless it goes directly, it must spoil. Oh, is it not wretchedly unlucky? Those who could run it will do so only on extortionate terms; those who would, for a fair consideration, are not people who could deal with the Chinese officials and merchants. Josiah has a skipper, a Mr Ward, but he cannot speak Chinese, even!"

  And it was then, with another superb sigh, that she turned those great misty eyes on me in undoubted appeal, and said in a little voice: "It would be so easy … for the right person, you see." She looked away, downcast. "Josiah says he would pay him ten per cent."

  Lady Geraldine had been rather more subtle … but she hadn't been offering sixteen hundred quid. Handsome pocket money, if you like—and easier to earn than falling off a log, for whatever the Pekin government said, the Hong merchants would cut Confucius's throat to buy a ton of chandoo, whoever offered it. And she was right—all that was needed was someone with bold front and bearing who could brush aside inconvenient officials on the run up-river, stick out his jaw at any Chink jack-in-the-office who threatened confiscation, and see that Josiah's ignorant skipper found his way safe to Jackass Point. Nothing in that.

  Mind you, she had a hard bark, asking a British Army colonel to nursemaid her shipload of puggle—yet why not? Here was I, friendly disposed, officer and gentleman, knew the ropes, spoke the lingo (well, I could understand a Mandarin, and make myself enough understood in turn; with the coolies I had to use pigeon and my boots), and just the chap to stare down any yellow office-wallahs. A week till my ship sailed, ample time … sixteen hundred … Mrs Carpenter swooning with gratitude …h'm…

  You must remember that these thoughts ran through my mind with those innocent-wanton eyes fixed on mine, and that excellent bosom heaving between us. And if you think she was a froward piece, or that I should have smelled a battalion of rats … well, it was a plausible tale, and not even a scent of risk. With our garrison at Canton, the Pearl was as safe as the Avon, and there was no stigma—well, not to signify. It was "trade", not "opium", that would have raised an eyebrow at Horse Guards. And sixteen hundred … for a jolly sail on the river?

  "We … I … should be so grateful," she murmured, and gave me a quick slantendicular.

  "You little goose!" says I indulgently, "if you want me to do it … why not say so?" I gave her my sad Flashy smile. "Don't you know I'd do anything for you?" And with a light laugh I kissed her masterfully, munching away, and I dare say we might have done the business there and then if a gaggle of brats with a governess hadn't hove in view, causing us to break clean and remark on the splendid view, such a perfect day for picnicking.

  We settled the details in the tonga back to town, myself making light of it and pinching her palm, she all flushed confusion and breathless gratitude. How could she and dear Josiah ever thank me? Well, Josiah could stump up the rhino on my return, and she would certainly do the rest, if I could judge by the light in her eye and the way she shivered when I squeezed her knee. They're all alike, you know.

  Aye. I should have remembered Lady Geraldine.

  I don't know who ran the first chest of opium into China, but he was a great man in his way. It was as though some imaginary trader had put into the Forth with a cargo of Glenlivet to discover that the Scots had never heard of whisky. There w
as a natural appetite, as you may say. And while the Chinks had been puffing themselves half-witted long before the first foreign trader put his nose into the Pearl River, there's no doubt that our own John Company had developed their taste for the drug, back in the earlies, and before long they couldn't get enough of it.

  This didn't suit the ruling Manchoos, for while they were as partial to a pipe as the next heathen, they saw that it was ruining the commonalty, and who would hew the wood and draw the water then? These Manchoos, you see, were fierce warriors who had swept in from the north centuries earlier, and dealt with China much as our English forebears did with Ireland (not that we ever forced the Paddies to wear pigtails as a badge of serfdom). They established a Manchoo ruling class, took all the plum posts, ran the country with a sloth, inefficiency, and waste that would have shocked a Bengali babu, treated the conquered Chinese like dirt—and sat back in complacent luxury, growing their finger-nails long, cultivating the more rarefied arts, galloping their concubines, developing a taste for putrefied food, preaching pure philosophy and practising abominable cruelties, exalting the trivial and neglecting the essential, having another romp at the concubines, and generally priding themselves on being lords of creation. Which, since they hardly admitted the existence of the world outside China, is what they were.

  So you can see they resented white interlopers who bade fair to undermine their Empire with poppy drug, and did their damnedest to stop the trade, but couldn't. To their chagrin they discovered that their God-given superiority, their highly-refined taste in eggshell pottery, and their limitless lines of ancestors, availed nothing against any Dundee pirate with a pistol on his hip and a six-pounder in his bows who was determined to run his opium in. Which made the Manchoo Mandarins wild with outraged pride, and more high-handed towards foreigners than ever, with the result that war broke out in 1840. Being Chinese and useless, they lost, and had to cede Hong Kong to us and open up Treaty Ports to European trade. And the poppy-running went on as before, only more so.