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More reviews by Tim O'Connell
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Flashman on the March by George McDonald Fraser
Since their fortuitous "discovery" in a tea chest at a Midlands saleroom in1966, packets of "the Flashman Papers" have been appearing regularly and edifying readers with the scandalous reminiscences of that arch Victorian cad, Sir Harry Flashman, V.C. From Balaclava to Rorke's Drift to Little Big Horn, the cowardly bully of Tom Brown's Schooldays had an uncanny knack for being in the right place at exactly the wrong time.
FLASHMAN ON THE MARCH is the 12th installment, and finds a nervous Flashy in Trieste, on the run from the French Foreign Legion and an irate Austrian admiral whose great-niece had enjoyed "a few exercises they don't usually teach in young ladies' seminaries." Seeking an avenue of escape, our reluctant anti-hero is soon en route to the horn of Africa, escorting the half million Maria Theresa silver dollars needed to finance one of the strangest campaigns in British imperial history.
The little-remembered Abyssinian War of 1868 was a great cause celebre of the time. Sparked when the demented King Theodore ("a monster to rank with the worst in history") seized and imprisoned a tiny group of Britons, a twelve-thousand strong expeditionary force was despatched from India to rescue them. Embarking from the coast of the Red Sea, General Sir Robert Napier's army trekked 400 miles into the interior of "one of the least known and dangerous countries on earth, and in the face of apparently insuperable hazards, and predictions of certain failure, marched and fought their way across a trackless wilderness of rocky chasm and jagged mountain to their goal."
Precisely the kind of folly any sensible poltroon would give a very wide berth. But no connoisseur of the Flashman tales will be surprised when his flair for languages and a thoroughly undeserved reputation for derring-do thrust a horrified Sir Harry deep into enemy territory, disguised as a Hindustani horse-trader and on a secret mission to secure the support of a treacherous African queen.
Screenwriter and novelist George MacDonald Fraser is one of the great craftsmen of historical fiction, and Flashman one of the genre's most delightful characters. FLASHMAN ON THE MARCH boasts all of the qualities for which the series is deservedly famous, and marks a welcome return to form after a couple of ordinary outings. Unforgettable and deftly drawn characters both real and imagined, meticulous historical research, vivid period dialogue and a cracking pace combine to create the impression that both Flashman and the reader are really there.
Then of course there's the scathingly funny narration of a very politically incorrect Victorian bounder. Queen Masteeat turns out to be exactly the kind of alluring, randy and potentially lethal female with whom the fornicating Flashman is often saddled, so to speak. With a blend of shock and pleasant surprise, he watches his first Abyssinian diplomatic banquet descend into orgy:
- Young Cavalry and his bint had evidently had their fill of meat and drink, and were starting to satisfy another appetite, pawing and fondling with increasing passion, and slipping off their stools onto a mattress which some obliging menial must have laid behind their places. Gad's me life, thinks I, not before the savoury, surely...
Another amorous escapade founders on the rocks of the Silver Smoke, the great falls of the Blue Nile, in a bold act of self-preservation reminscent of a naked Valla hurled from the sled into the paths of pursuing Cossacks. "For an instant even I was appalled -- but only for an instant," remarked Flashman at the Charge.
MacDonald Fraser is a notably fine military historian, and his description of the climactic battle for the mountain fortress of Magdala is thrilling. And his footnotes remain an informative joy, where as "editor" of the Papers he fleshes out Flashman's historical account and occasionally "corrects" it.
Not so the foreword, in which the irascible author makes veiled comparisons best left to the reader and sounds a rather jarring note:
- For Flashman's story is about a British army sent out in a good and honest cause by a government who knew what honour meant... It served no politicians' vanity or interest. It went without messianic rhetoric. There were no false excuses, no deceits, no cover-ups or lies...
Whether and how many more "packets"of the Flashman saga will be published is uncertain, but the 80-year old author makes enough references to Flashman's experiences in the American Civil War to kindle hopes that this long-awaited chapter may soon appear. Until then the circumstances under which he contrived to serve as both a major in the Union Army and a staff colonel in the Confederate can only be guessed at.
FLASHMAN ON THE MARCH recounts an obscure but fascinating episode in British imperial history, retaining the tried and tested formula of this popular series but losing none of its freshness. A familiar and dishonorable friend, Flashy is back and on the march, in all his self-interested glory: one of his best outings in years.
Tim O'Connell
31/08/2005
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Tim O'Connell is a China trader turned writer and historian who has lived in Hong Kong and Beijing since 1981. |
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