“Give way!” I roared. “My jump, damn your eyes!”

By God, he paid not the slightest heed, but came boring in, neck and neck with me for the fence. We were almost knee to knee as we rushed down on it.

“Get out, blast you!” I yelled again, but he was just staring ahead teeth clenched and whip going, and I knew in an instant that it was a case of pull up or have the most unholy smash as two horses tried to take a jump where there was only space for one.

As it was, I came within an ace of a hellish tumble; I reined back and at the same time tried to swerve from the gap; the hunter checked and swung away and we scraped along the face of the hedge with no more damage than a few scratches, while Master Bismarck cleared the rails with ease.

By the time I had trotted back, cursing most foully, the rest of the chase was thundering up: Bismarck was waiting at the lychgate looking cool and smug when we arrived.

“Don’t you know to give way to the leader?” says I, boiling angry. “We might have broken our necks, thanks to you!”

“Come, come, Captain Flashman,” says he, “it would have been thanks to you if we had, for you would have been foolishly challenging the stronger rider.”

“What?” says I. “And who the devil says you are the stronger rider?”

“I won, did I not?” says he.

It was on the tip of my tongue to say that he had ridden foul, but the way the other chaps were hallooing, and telling him what a damned fine race he had ridden, I thought better of it. He had gone up in their estimation; he was a damned good-plucked ’un, they shouted, and they clapped him on the back. So I contented myself with suggesting that he learn the rules of horsemanship before he rode in England again, at which the others laughed and cried:

“That’s right, Flash, damn his eyes for him!” and made a joke out of bluff Flashy’s bad temper. They hadn’t been close enough to see exactly what had happened, and none of them would have imagined for a minute that neck-or-nothing Flashman would give way in the breach; but Bismarck knew, and it showed in his eyes and the cold smile he gave me.

But I had my own back on him before the week was out, and if my initial rudeness in London was the first spark in the mischief between us, what was now to come really started the fire.

It was on the last day, after we had been to see the fight between Nick Ward the Champion, and the local pug. It was a good afternoon’s sport, with the pug getting his nose broken and half his teeth knocked out; Bismarck was greatly interested, and seemed to enjoy watching the loser being battered as much as I did myself.