…I wasn’t cut out for life on the ocean wave. I can’t deny it; if Captain Marryat had had to write about me he’d have burned his pen, signed on a Cardiff tramp, and been buried at sea. For one thing, in my first few days aboard I did not thrash the ship’s bully, make friends with the nigger* cook, or learn how to gammon a bow sprit from a leathery old salt who called me a likely lad. No, I spent those days in my bunk, feeling damned ill, and only crawling on deck occasionally to take the air and quickly scurry below to my berth. I was sea-green and corruptible Flashy in those days.
Flash For Freedom!, p.47, Pan edition, 8th printing, 1980.
*Flashman's use of racial epitahs is a continuing problem for more enlightened, contemporary readers. The inclusion of these passages should not be taken as tacit support for his misanthropic, 19th century view of race relations.
Flashman
Flashman quotes
Frederick Marryat
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