Now, where the bloody hell was I?

Ah, yes.

May 1st, 1851.

“Harry who?” I asked, although to be honest my actual interest in my cell-mate was extremely minimal.

“Harry Flashman,” repeated the fellow, “I imagine you have heard of me, of course.” He grinned with self-satisfaction and pride, characteristics I was not entirely convinced he had any right to exhibit.

“No, I cannot say I have,” I replied nonchalantly. “Why, are you a notorious criminal, or something? No wait, I have it – are you perchance the most diseased man in the Empire?”

Flashman bristled upon hearing my words, and fixed me with a furious glare.

“I am highly celebrated and much admir’d, actually,” he said. “I am the champion of Afghanistan¹, I’ll have you know!”

“Feh!” I snorted. “You do not strike me as a military marvel. I dare say you earnt your honour by simply staying alive the longest, probably by spending most of the war hiding and trembling.”

“Ha! I do not expect you to understand, your lordship. I suppose you were too busy lounging around on your fat, ennobled behind during the war to pay it much heed.”

“Now listen here,” I snapped. “I was very ill at the time and – “

“Whatever you say, your lordship,” beamed Flashman. “Whatever you say. I was honoured by the Queen for my dashing heroics.”

“Well, I have solved countless mysteries and crimes for the police.”

“I got a medal.”

“I have a title.”

“I recovered a priceless gem².”

“I shot a Turk.”

“I bested Bismarck³.”

“I beat my man-servant.”

“I dined at the palace.”

“I HAVE A HUGE COCK!” I roared triumphantly, at which point I noticed some of the other prisoners had taken rather a keen interest in the conversation, and were eying me up as if I was a three-course meal, with all the trimmings.

“Well,” I said, straightening my tie, “if you really are such a treasured and revered member of society, then what in the bloody blue blazes are you doing here? I doubt they arrested you for being too wonderful.”

“Well, if you must know, I was arrested for having sex.”

“Correct me if I am mistaken, but I do not believe that intercourse has been outlawed yet.”

“No, but then again I was having sex in the middle of Hyde Park.”

“Ah!”

“With the police captain’s wife.”

“Oh.”

“So what’s your story, your lordship? How does a member of the aristocracy wind up in a small cell with deviants like me?”

“I accidentally bared my buttocks at the Queen,” I said sullenly, as I recalled the horror that had befallen me earlier. “She was not amused.”

“Ha! My, that is rich! She is a frumpy, miserable old sow, isn’t she? I can’t think ol’ Albert is delivering the goods in the sack, else she’d always be smiling.”

“Now listen here,” I snapped, lunging at Flashman and pinning him against the wall. “You show some ruddy respect for Her Majesty, or God help me I shall smack your miserable mouth so far in, your breath shall stink of effluence for ever more.”

“Hey! I’m just trying to lighten the mood here, you know!” Flashman protested. “It’s pretty grim in here, isn’t it?”

“Indeed,” I agreed, releasing Flashman’s collar from my grip. “I have to get out of here.”

“Well, here’s what I was thinking, your lordship. How about if I feign an injury or illness, you know, play-acting and all that. Then, you summon a guard to come and tend to me, and while he’s giving me the once over, you sneak up behind him and WALLOP! We’re home free!”

“Lord Likely?” said a guard, as I mused upon Flashman’s hair-brained scheme. “You’re free to go, milord. Inspector Spunkleford has guaranteed your release.”

“I think I shall go with this plan,” I said, pointing to the bars where Inspector Spunkleford had appeared, waving a piece of important-looking documentation at me. “You see, Flashman, it is simply a matter of who you know, and I know a lot of terribly important people, being so terribly important myself. Good luck with your stupid little scheme, though.”

“Likely, you ruddy fool!” Spunkleford wailed. “Can I not let you be for one moment, without you getting yourself into some sort of trouble? You have no idea how many strings I have had to pull to get you released. I should be a ruddy puppeteer.”

“Good man, Spunkleford! Remind me to buy you an ale one day. Wait, we’d better make that half an ale. We do not want to go crazy, now. Well, Mr. Flashpants,” I said, turning to my recent acquaintance. “I would like to say it has been a pleasant experience, but unfortunately it has been incredibly tedious and really rather awful. I would have rather passed the time having wasps inserted into the top of my penis, to be honest. Toodle-pip!”

“Flashman?” Spunkleford exclaimed, craning his neck through the open door. “Harry Flashman? The hero of Afghanistan?”

Flashman smiled. “The one and the same, sir!”

“Gosh, I’m a ruddy huge fan of yours, Mr. Flashman. You’re an inspiration to us all!” Spunkleford babbled, furiously shaking Flashman’s hand. He turned to the guard next to him, and barked some orders that made me quite certain the Inspector had taken leave of his senses. “Guard, I am also releasing Mr. Harry Flashman here. A man of his stature has no business in these squalid surroundings. Make the necessary arrangements at once. We’ll have you out of here in a trice, Mr. Flashman, sir!”

Flashman sauntered across, and placed a hand on my shoulder.

“It appears that I must be terribly important as well,” he said smugly. “Toodle-pip.“

I felt myself grimace, and prayed to the Good Lord for another war to break out immediately, to further thin out the ranks of such vapid Neanderthals as Mr. Harry Flashman.

- Lord Likely.

> Subscribe in a reader

To be quite honest, the year eighteen fifty-seven has so far been rather disappointing. I’m aware that the year is still very much in its infancy, but infant or not, this year must try damned harder or it shall feel my boot in its backside.

Why, I have only gotten drunk once so far (although, admittedly, it did last for four whole days), and I’ve only had intercourse twice; once whilst deeply intoxicated, with a women so reprehensible and offensively unattractive that I prefer to just pretend the wretched union never took place at all. And to top it all, there has not even been the merest hint of a possibility of an adventure thus far. Awful.

I am so bored out of my exquisitely-sculpted skull that even thrashing my man-servant Botter only served to allay my tedium for a few, fleeting moments, before I became overcome with a terrible sense of ennui and gave up on the beating, despite Botter clearly deserving it.

However, later on in the day, whilst searching for some pornography to listlessly masturbate over, I chanced upon a collection of photographic plates taken on one of my earlier adventures, an adventure I had quite forgotten until that moment. It is not an adventure I believe I have documented in these fine journals either, so in the absence of any present action, I shall now take this opportunity to recall this previous romp.

Allow me to set the scene. It was the first of May, eighteen fifty-one, and the Great Exhibition had just been opened by Her Majesty, Queen Victoria.

Ah! What an exhibition it was, thousands upon thousands of exhibits housed in the beautiful and opulent surroundings of the Crystal Palace, an incredible construct of glass and steel which amply reflected the glory of Great Britain and her Empire. It was an awe-inspiring sight, of that there was no doubt. My awe had never been so inspired.

I had been celebrating the arrival of the exhibition since early that morning, by drinking glass after glass and bottle after bottle of champagne. I believe I wound up making a toast to the grandiose display on no less than three-hundred separate occasions.

By the middle of the afternoon, I was more than a little tipsy, and had decided that it would be a jolly old wheeze to go and press my buttocks against one of the many glass panes of the Crystal Palace. Despite Botter’s avid protestations, I dropped my trousers and pressed my naked arse to the glass, whilst loudly proclaiming that my behind was the greatest exhibition of them all.

Instead of my antics attracting gales of laughter and applause, as I had imagined in my drunken mind, a deathly silence descended upon those in the vicinity, as if they had all been stricken mute simultaneously.

“What’s the ruddy matter?” I asked. “Have you not seen a bottom before?”

“Many a time,” came a reply. “But not pressed up against a palace, I must say.” I looked up to get a look at the speaker, and found myself gazing up into the eyes of the Queen herself.

“Her Majesty is not amused,” added one of the Queen’s personal assistants, a tall, thin man with an unkind face, and an even less kind tone of voice.

“I don’t suppose she is at all aroused instead?” I ventured.

She was not, and I was marched off to a nearby police-station by the stern-faced buffoon, and a couple of equally unamused and unaroused police officers.

I do not know what it is about finding oneself in a gaol cell, but it has the most unusual effect of sobering one up in a trice. I do not know if it is the foul stench of stale urine, or the fear of having one’s anus roughly penetrated by a violent criminal, but whatever the cause I found myself alarmingly clear-headed and determined to be freed from my captivity.

“EXCUSE ME!” I bellowed. “You cannot keep me caged up like this! I am far too attractive to be kept alongside other men! My sphincter will be shredded to pieces before dinner-time, you mark my words!”

“Yeah?” Sneered a guard outside the cell. “Well, jus’ make sure you keep your ‘ollering down to a minimum whilst yer bein’ buggered. Some of these folk will be tryin’ to sleep, y’know.”

“You incredulous little toss-bag!” I screeched. “Do you not know who I am? I am Lord Likely, and as a member of the British aristocracy I demand your utmost respect, and all the preferential treatment I deserve!”

“Well,” mused the awful little blighter. “I suppose I could get you some oil to make your buggerin’ a little less painful. I’d ‘ate fer anythin’ terrible to befall your exalted arse-hole!”

I tried to throttle the insolent shit through the bars of the cell, but the swine dodged my flailing limbs, and strolled off, cackling loudly to himself.

“Well well well,” came a voice from the shadows of my cell. “Look at this rum old cove, all high-and-mighty and full of himself! You should watch yourself, my lord, or else you’ll be passed around this place like a cheap cigarette!”

“Who the devil said that?” I cried out. “Stop skulking in the shadows, man, and show yourself!”

The speaker gave a heavy sigh, and then slowly rose up and stepped forward out of the darkness.

He was certainly a very handsome fellow, standing some six-foot tall, with dark brown eyes, black hair and a rather impressive black handlebar moustache adorning his face. He was dressed in smart clothes, although they were rather hap-hazard and skew-whiff, as if he had dressed in a frantic hurry or something. I dare say I was warming to the chap, until he smirked at me and began to speak.

“Harry Flashman,” he said, giving a wry smile and raising an eyebrow. “An’ don’t worry, you old blowhard, I ain’t going anywhere near your backside.”

- Lord Likely.

> Subscribe in a reader

My eyes snapped open, and I sat bolt upright, sweat pouring off of my brow.

“Where in the name of cockery am I?” I yelled, leaping to my feet, letting a filthy cotton bed-sheet fall to the ground as I did. I attempted to survey my strange surroundings, but the room appeared to be spinning quite rapidly around me. I waited until the room had the damned decency to stop revolving, and then I dashed to a set of steel bars ahead of me, and began hollering for attention.

“Room service!” I snapped. “Room service! Hello? Excuse me? ROOM SERVICE?”

I felt an arm pull me gently away from the bars. It was Botter, my man-servant. I almost clouted him, but he raised his hands and stopped me.

“My lord,” he said softly, “you’re in prison. Don’t you remember? Don’t you remember a thing?”

I racked my brains in an attempt to pluck any random memories that might hold some clue as to how I wound up incarcerated in such a manner. I drew a blank.

“I remember…leaving England,” I replied slowly.

“Is that all?” Botter asked, somewhat incredulously. “That was almost a month ago, milord.”

“Shit.” I said, blankly. “I think I left a gas-light on in the mansion.”

“We are in America, now, milord. We arrived yesterday, you see, but you were rather drunk and so we – “

“Drunk! Ah, that would explain it, then!” I exclaimed, somewhat relieved. “For a moment there I thought I was going senile. My great uncle, Hercules Likely, went quite mad at my age, you know. Have I ever told you about the time he single-handedly tried to invade Paris, with nothing but a bread stick?”

“No, milord.”

“Excellent. It is a terrible tale, and puts the Likely name in rather a bad light. Make sure I never tell it to anyone.”

Our conversation was interrupted by a jangling of keys, and we turned to face a police-man slowly opening the door to the cell. He motioned towards us.

“You two. C’mere.” He said, rather curtly, I felt.

“I beg your pardon?” I snapped. “Are you referring to us, or have two mongrel dogs strayed in here?”

“Yeah, you two. C’mere,” the man repeated.

“My good man, I am Lord Likely. You shall refer to me as ‘your lordship’, or ‘my lord’, or not at all.” I replied, stiffly. I picked my hat up off the floor where it lay, dusted it off and put it back upon my head. Then I strode past the police-man, trying to exude an air of dignity, but noticed – rather too late – that the front of my shirt was plastered with caked-on vomit. I grimaced.

“I’m Captain Dick Jerker, of the New York Police Department. Now, here’s the deal. Your man here,” he said, motioning to Botter, giving him rather too much credit, “has saved your ass.”

“I don’t own a donkey, do I?” I asked Botter, quietly.

“Mr. Botter gave us the name of an Inspector Albert Spunkleford, of Scotland Yard, who he said would vouch for the both of you and confirm your identities. We took the liberty of acting upon this information, and surely enough, this Spunkleford guy backed your story.”

“Jolly good. Then you should know who the Hell I am, and let us be on our way, lest I clobber you.”

“Listen, Lickley,” Jerker continued. “Your hifalutin title might impress folks back in England, but it doesn’t mean a shit to us, okay? If I had my way, I’d shut your ass away for years for assaulting my men and being drunk in charge of a pirate ship. But someone has stepped forward to take you into their care, and assures me you won’t be causing my ass any more problems in my city.”

“Oh! And who might this ‘someone’ be?” I asked. “And why are you so obsessed with asses? Are you rather partial to a bit of bestiality, or something?”

Captain Jerker’s face tensed up with rage, but he was stopped from throwing a punch by a voice cutting through the air, coming from the end of the corridor.

“I’ll take over from here, Officer,” the voice said. I turned to face the speaker, but his face was obscured by shadows. However, as he stepped forward, and his waxed black hair, chiselled jawline, proud features and sparkling eyes came into view, I had no doubts as to who my saviour was.

“Ludlow!” I cheered, rushing over and shaking my brother’s hand vigourously.

“Hello, old boy!” Ludlow beamed. “You know, when I heard a drunken lunatic had steered a pirate ship right into the docks of New York City, I knew it had to be you! How the devil are you?”

“I’d be rather better if I was in a considerably classier environment, with fresh clothes and a glass of whisky in my hand!” I replied.

“Ha!” Ludlow cheered, clapping his hands together. “Same old Lordy. Well, let’s get you over to my house and see if we can’t sort you out, eh?

“Marvelous!” I exclaimed. “I don’t suppose you would happen to have a kennel for my man-servant too, would you?”

Ludlow and I roared, and slapped each other’s backs heartily. As we laughed, Jerker coughed and waved some papers in Ludlow’s direction.

“Now, sir, you just have to sign these papers and then…” he began.

“I don’t have to do anything, Jerk-Off!” Ludlow shouted, then he burst into uproarious laughter once more. I joined in, although I did not fully understand the bizarre American colloquialisms being bandied about by my brother.

“Quite. So… stick that up your donkey’s arse!” I adjoined, jabbing at Jerker’s chest with my finger. “You cock-face.”

Ludlow let forth with another gale of laughter, and delivered another slap upon my back. I smiled, and responded in kind, albeit a little bit harder, for Ludlow had slightly creased my coat with his back-slapping. Jerker, meanwhile, growled at me, causing me to recoil slightly.

“Oh, don’t mind him,” Ludlow said, reassuringly. “I am quite pally with the Mayor of New York, doncha know? I sometimes lease him my summer-house, and on the odd occasion, my wife. Anyway, I shall go and get the carriage ready for you, Lordy. I will see you out front!” Ludlow disappeared through a pair of double-doors, leaving me alone with Jerker.

“Your little brother can’t watch you twenty-four-seven, y’know.” The police-man snarled. “And when you put a foot wrong, I’ll be there to put my foot up your ass. I’m warning you, Likely, your ass is mine. MINE.”

I smiled, and tipped my hat politely.

“You shall have to buy me dinner first,” I said, then departed, with Botter following on.

I had only been in America for less than a day, now, but already I had made one mortal enemy. And, sadly, he was not to be the only one.

- Lord Likely.

> Subscribe in a reader

From the report of Captain Dick Jerker, of the New York City Police Department:

I ordered my men to continue firing upon the pirate ship ‘The Hairy Clam‘ that was advancing onto US shores, until I saw the vessel rocked with explosions and saw it sink beneath the waves, no doubt taking it’s criminal pirate crew with it.

As we celebrated a job well done, I suddenly noticed two figures appearing from the smoking wreckage, astride two large wooden barrels. One was a tall man, sporting a top hat and who seemed to be contentedly sipping on a glass of alcohol, stopping every so often to refill his glass from a tap on the barrel he was sat upon. The other, smaller man, meanwhile, was frantically paddling trying to keep himself afloat. Naturally, we were rather taken aback by this sight, and I ordered my men to stand down as the two men approached dry land, as I was eager to question them.

Once they came into shallow waters, I sent two men to escort them up to me. I introduced myself, and asked what business they had on United States waters. The taller man declared that he was in fact an aristocrat from England, and called himself ‘Lord Likely‘. While he did indeed sport a top hat and a striking moustache, his clothes were so tattered and he was so clearly drunk that I doubted the legitimacy of his claims, and accused him of being nothing more than villainous, pirate scum, here to steal from our fine city. At this, Mr. Likely became furiously angry, yelling at me and screaming, “don’t you know who I am?!” before attempting to take a swing at me, but only succeeding in falling flat on his face. His associate, a Mr. Botter, rolled his eyes and remained silent.

We searched both men, and removed a fencing sword, a pistol, a hip-flask of whiskey and a bottle of perfume from Mr. Likely. It was thought he was concealing another weapon in his trousers, but it transpired that it was not a weapon, but his fully erect penis instead. I then arrested the pair on suspicion of piracy, and also charged the so-called lord with attacking a police officer. I ordered they be handcuffed and taken to the nearest jail, but as they were loaded up into the police wagon, Likely was violently sick upon two of my men, so I added ‘vomiting upon the police in the course of their duty’ to his list of charges. Mr. Likely mumbled something about ‘removing my testicles with a rusty blade’, then passed out.

The two men were dispatched to the county jail, where they are currently being kept in a cell awaiting further action. Mr. Botter has been highly co-operative with our inquiries, while Mr. Likely has done nothing but complain, and has continually made outrageous demands, such as silk sheets for his bed, a freshly-pressed suit, meals of swan-meat and caviar, and the finest wines we have to offer. He also asked that the cell be re-designed with gold trimmings, a chandelier and classical artwork. Unable to meet his ludicrous demands, we gave him a few scraps of beef and a cotton bed-sheet, which incensed him further.

Proceedings against the pair will resume tomorrow morning, when Mr. Likely has had ample time to compose himself and sober up.

Report filed by Cpt. Dick Jerker, July 2nd 1856, 19.36pm.

> Subscribe in a reader