"Flashman in the Great Game" by George McDonald Fraser

Above: "Flashman in the Great Game." George MacDonald Fraser. 336 pages.

If you want to know more about the Indian Mutiny through the eyes of a self-dealing, cowardly, rake, national hero... read this book. I enjoyed it thoroughly. Once you get used to the period language, the book is a page turner.

I completed reading the above book today.

The fifth in a series of Flashman novels. In the book series, somehow, Flashman a British Army colonel, finds himself with George Armstrong Custer at The Battle of the Little Big Horn, with Abraham Lincoln at the Gettysburg Address, and leading the Charge of the Light Brigade in the Crimean War. In this book, Flashman gets caught up in the Indian Mutiny between 1856 and 1858. A friend, who heads a book club to which I belong, teed Flashman up. Heretofore, I'm ashamed to say that I had never heard of it.

The book:

Balmoral. 1856. Colonel Harry Paget Flashman is at Balmoral as a guest of Queen Victoria. There he is recruited by British Prime Minister Lord Palmerston to go to Jhansi, India to investigate rumors of an upcoming rebellion amongst the sepoys, Indian soldiers of the British East India Company. Before departure, he escapes an assassination attempt by his old nemesis, Russian spy Nicholas Ignatieff, another guest of Queen Victoria.

Jansi. Flashman checks in with the British garrison in Jhansi and then seeks out the local ruler, the Maharani of Jhansi. He listens to the Maharani's grievances against the English and then seduces her... or is it the other way around? Later, Flashman is garroted by Thugees set upon him by his Balmoral Russian nemesis, Ignatieff. What's Ignatieff doing in India? Flashman survives as the thugs are chased away by the fortuitous appearance of (deus ex machina?) an old Pashtun compatriot from his Afghanistan days, Ilderim. Flashman disguises himself as a Pashtun soldier, assumes the name of Mukarram Khan, and with his old friend Ilderim takes refuge in the native cavalry at Meerut, where the Sepoy Mutiny begins.

The Indian Mutiny origins derive from a perception, vigorously denied by the British, that the British officers were supplying the sepoys with cartridges laced with pig fat, anathema to Muslim soldiers, and beef fat, eschewed by Hindu soldiers, for newly issued Enfield rifles. When asked to tear open the cartridges with their teeth, as was required by procedure, the sepoys refused. The supposition of the soldiers was that the British wanted to undermine their religious beliefs by making them consume substances banned by their religions. Sepoy violence against their British East India Company overlords ensued and spread. Descriptions of the violence throughout the book are chilling and graphic, shall we say.

When Meerut erupts in sepoy violence against the British, Flashman and Ilderim repair to Cawnpore, site of a large British garrison. Cawnpore is now, also, under siege by the local sepoy mutineers. Flashman and Ilderim hunker down while under siege and help fight against the ever-assaulting mutineers. After several weeks, the local ruler, Nana Sahib, offers the beleaguered English, including four hundred women and children, a safe passage out of the city. Reluctantly, seeing no upside in staying, as they are nearly out of supplies and ammo, the English accept the offer. Boats on the Ganges are prepared to enable the refugees to float down to Lucknow, where there is a large British residency. The refugees are betrayed and mercilessly slaughtered by Nana Sahib's mutineers. The massacre is a real historical event. The Cawnpore Massacre of the Indian Mutiny. Flashman, (Ilderim is killed in the melee) is one of five survivors of the Cawnpore Massacre, but not before being nearly killed himself by a crocodile.

Flashman and four other Cawnpore survivors recuperate from their harrowing Cawnpore escape at the palace of a minor Maharaja who is still on good terms with the Brits.

After a couple of months, Flashman, disguised as Mukarram Khan, decides to proceed to Lucknow. There Flashman sees that the British Residency, which houses one thousand British and friendly Indians, like Cawnpore, is under siege. Flashman doesn't stay Here the reader wonders if Flashman is a calculating coward and not a real hero.

Still in his Pashtun disguise Flashman returns to Jansi to seek possible safe haven with the Maharani, Lakshmibai. At Jansi he finds that the Brits, now with the upper hand, are getting ready to attack mutineers in the city. The British Commander, Rose, however, has orders to preserve the life of Lakshmibai. Flashman is sent by Rose, in disguise as Mukarram Khan, to find the Maharani and offer her a plan to reach safe haven. The plan is disrupted by none other than Russian spy Ignatieff (where the heck did he come from?) who, intercepts Flashman on his way to see the Maharani, and right in the Maharani's palace tortures Flashman to near death on a torture rack. The torture scene is foiled when the Maharani, heretofore deceived by Ignatieff, is alerted to Ignatieff perfidy and stops the proceedings. Notwithstanding Flashman's rescue, the Maharani, tilting towards support for the Mutiny, imprisons Flashman. Her army of ten thousand mutineers prepares to ward off the British attack of Jhansi,

Just prior to the English attack on Jhansi, Lakshmibai has Flashman released. She has her own escape plan. Flashman is chained to a horse and rides with Lakshmibai and a couple dozen of her soldiers, over one hundred miles, to Gwalior, hoping to find a safe mutineer stronghold. Flashman retains hope that he can still deliver Lakshmibai alive into British hands. On arrival in Gwalior, Flashman is near death, due to the grueling horseback ride. He is once again imprisoned by the Maharani. Flashman is released just in time to witness the battlefield death of Lakshmibai (she's a respected soldier in her own right), but his appearance after two months in prison leads to his misidentification as a mutineer. After being knocked out during the British attack on the Maharani's camp he awakens to find himself taken for a mutineer prisoner gagged and tied, along with six other mutineers to the muzzles of cannons, about to be executed with a cannon ball to the midsection. Quick thinking at the last-minute enables Flashman to make recognizable gestures to the attending British soldiers to stop the execution. In an unusual act of compassion, Flashman also insists that the other mutineers not be executed. He is reunited with old soldier friend Hugh Rose and delivered from the entire mutiny ordeal.

So, let's review Flashman's near death experiences during the Indian Mutiny.

1. Escapes assassination engineered by Ignatieff in Balmoral
2. Rescued by old friend Ilderim from certain death at the hands of Ignatieff's Thugees in Jhansi.
3. One of five survivors of the Massacre of Cawnpore who is almost killed by a crocodile.
4. Put on torture rack by Ignatieff back in Jhansi, only to be rescued from certain death at the last minute by the Maharani.
5. Horseback ride while chained up, from Jhansi to Gwalior, one hundred miles, resulting in near death.
6. Last minute rescue from being blown to bits by a cannon ball due to gesture legerdemain.

Wow! The above list seems to put Flashman in the hero category. But Flashman's oft self-serving manner throughout the novel (and the entire Flashman series, so I'm told) paint him as a coward and a cad. It wasn't as though Flashman leapt into heroic actions, was it? But there may be some exceptions to Flashman's self-absorption in this narrative. His attempt to sneak into Jhansi to convince the Maharani to surrender was an act of bravery. He stayed in Cawnpore and fought bravely during the siege. Perhaps some of his feats of bravery were unintentional, but he did show initiative to complete his mission.

During the narrative, a fellow soldier, who has known Flashman since school days, who sees only Flashman's bad side, gives Flashman a copy of a newly published book, "Tom Brown's School Days," which marks Flashman in his youth as a bully and a self-serving schemer. Flashman, initially worrying about his reputation due to the book, eventually sloughs it off.

I really enjoyed reading this book. Why?

It proved to be a good primer on the historicity of The Mutiny. All of the historical events, and most of the people, in the book were real, including the Maharani. Flashman's role (and Ilderim's) of course was fictional, but Flashman's journey itself wove through real events. In 2019 TIMDT and Mwah (sic) spent almost a day at the Lucknow Residency, where a one-year long siege during the Indian Mutiny took place. My review of the book "Siege of Krishnapur," by J. G. Farrell, which I read anticipatory to the Lucknow visit, can be seen here. "The Seige of Krishnapur" by J. G. Farrell | Stephen DeWitt Taylor The book is a fictional account of the Siege of Lucknow.

Then there is the period authentic, arcane writing style. George MacDonald Fraser employs the terminology of the period: "wheel the horse to the left;' "what the deuce is that?"

War descriptions. War is hell, and this book doesn't shy from describing the real deal. For example,

Flashman: "We were coming in from the east, and since the pandy [mutineer] army was all concentrated close to Wheeler's stronghold and in the city itself, we got within two or three miles before Rowbotham said we must go into a wood and wait for dark. Before then, by the way, we'd pounced on an outlying pandy picket in a grove and killed two of them, taking three more prisoner: they were strung up on the spot. Two more stragglers were caught farther on, and since there wasn't a tree handy Rowbotham and the Sikh rissaldar cut their heads off. The Sikh settled his man with one swipe."

The main character, Flashman, is complex and multidimensional. The self-dealing Flashman is at once a coward, a misogynist, a hero, and an unapologetic rake. Stepping up, at the Maharani's palace, to honor the command of Pam (Lord Palmerston), which was to get to know the admittedly voluptuous, twenty-nine-year-old Maharani's views of the British, Flashman is thinking about something else:

You may think me a presumptuous ambassador on short notice, especially where the object of my carnal ambitions was royal, clever, dangerously powerful, and a high-caste Hindoo lady of reputed purity to boot. But that means nothing when a woman fancies a buck like me; besides, I knew about these high-born Indian wenches - randy as ferrets, the lot of them, and with all the opportunity to gratify it too."

Flashman reminds of some of the modern character thriller novels, e.g. Lee Child's Reacher and Daniel Silva's Gabriel Allon. Flashman's character is more complex. Flashman is more of a self-contradiction than Reacher or Allon, each of whom is more virtuously purposeful and goal focused.

If you want to know more about the Indian Mutiny through the eyes of a self-dealing, cowardly, rake, national hero... read this book. I enjoyed it thoroughly. Once you get used to the period language, the book is a page turner.