A bit rough (even for someone like Mark Steyn)

The camp ground was littered with spent shot and rubbish and broken gear among the pools of congealed blood – my stars, wouldn’t I just like to take one of our Ministers, or street-corner orators, or blood-lusting, breakfast-scoffing papas, over such a place as the Alma Hills – not to let him see, because he’d just tut-tut and look anguished and have a good pray and not care a damn – but to shoot him in the belly with a soft-nosed bullet and let him die screaming where he belonged. That’s all they deserve.

Flashman at the Charge, p.72, Pan edition, 5th printing, 1979.

Tags:
Flashman, Flashman quotes,Crimean War, shoot.

Courage not in doubt

‘I do not question your courage, Flashman; it is not in doubt.’
Not with me, either, I thought.

Flashman at the Charge, p.70, Pan edition, 5th printing, 1979.

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Flashy is not among them

You may have seen the fine oil paintings, I dare say – the perfect lines of guardsmen and Highlanders fronting up the hill towards the Russian batteries, with here and there a chap lying looking thoughtful with his hat on the ground beside him, and in the distance fine silvery clouds of cannon smoke, and the colours to the fore, and fellows in cocked hats waving their swords. I dare say some people saw and remember the Battle of the Alma like that , but Flashy is not among them.

Flashman at the Charge, p.63, Pan edition, 5th printing, 1979.

Tags:
Flashman, Flashman quotes,Alma, Crimean War.

A little Russian creek

Just a little Russian creek, and today in any English parish church you may see its name on stone memorials, on old tattered flags in cathedrals, in the metalwork of badges, and on nameplates of grimy black streets besides the factories. Alma.

Flashman at the Charge, p.63, Pan edition, 5th printing, 1979.

Tags:
Flashman, Flashman quotes,Crimean War, Alma.

A sight of omen

…they were a sight of omen to me, for the last time I’d seen them they’d been standing back to back in the bloodied snow of Gandamack, with the Ghazi knives whittling ’em down, and Souter with the flag wrapped around his belly. I never see those 44th facings but I think of the army of Afghanistan dying in the ice-hills, and shudder.

Flashman at the Charge, p.60, Pan edition, 5th printing, 1979.

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Flashman, Flashman quotes,Afghanistan, Gandamack.

Devil a bottle of jallop

I watched the heavy, plodding tread of the infantry, and saw the stretched look of the cavalry mounts – I thought, how far will this crowd go, on a few handfuls of pork and biscuit, no tents, devil a bottle of jallop, and the cholera, the invisible dragon, humming in the air as they marched?

Flashman at the Charge, p.60, Pan edition, 5th printing, 1979.

Tags:
Flashman, Flashman quotes,Crimean War.

Our blamy cruise

And then heigh-ho, we were off on our balmy cruise across the Black Sea, a huge fleet of sixty thousand soldiers, only half of ’em rotten with sickness, British, Frogs, Turks, a few Bashi-bazooks, not enough heavy guns to fire more than a salute or two, and old General Scarlett sitting on top of a crate of hens learning, the words of command for a manoeuvring a cavalry brigade, closing his book on his finger, shutting his boozy old eyes, and shouting, ‘Walk, march, trot. Damme, what comes next?’

Flashman at the Charge, pp.59-60, Pan edition, 5th printing, 1979.

Tags:
Flashman, Flashman quotes,General Scarlett, Crimean War.

Good advice from Billy Russell

I’ve written about it at length elsewhere – the fearful havoc of embarking, with ships full of spewing soldiers rocking at anchor for days on end, the weeping women who were ordered to stay behind (although my little pal, Fan Duberly, sneaked aboard disguised as a washerwoman), the horses fighting and smashing in their cramped stalls, the hideous stink, the cholera corpses floating in the bay, Billy Russell standing on the quay with his note-book damning Lord Lucan’s eyes – ‘I have my duty, too my lord, which is to inform my readers, and if you don’t like what you’re doing being reported, why then, don’t do it! And that’s my advice to you!’ Of course he was daft and Irish, was Billy, but so was Lucan, and they stood and cussed each other like Mississippi pilots.

Flashman at the Charge, p.59, Pan edition, 5th printing, 1979.

Tags:
Flashman, Flashman quotes,Billy Russell, Crimean War.

Too chancy

But I’ve never meddled if I could avoid it, where great affairs are concerned; it’s too chancy. Mind you, if I could have seen ahead I’d have sneaked into Raglan’s tent one night and brained the old fool, but I didn’t know, you see.

Flashman at the Charge, p.58, Pan edition, 5th printing, 1979.

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Flashman, Flashman quotes,FitzRoy Somerset, Lord Raglan.

Flashy on selecting military targets

It struck me then, and still does, that attacking Sevastopol would be rather like an enemy of England investing Penzance, and then shouting towards London: ‘There, you insolent bastard, that’ll teach you!’

Flashman at the Charge, p.52, Pan edition, 5th printing, 1979.

Tags:
Flashman, Flashman quotes,Sevastopol, Penzance.

Pass the marmalade, Amelia

They [the English public] wanted blood, gallons of it, and to read of grape-shot smashing great lanes through Russian ranks, and stern and noble Britons skewering Cossacks, and Russia towns in flames – and they would be able to shake their heads over the losses of our gallant fellows, sacrificed to stern duty, and wolf down their kidneys and muffins in their warm breakfast rooms, saying: ‘Dreadful work this, but by George, England never shirked yet, whatever the price. Pass the marmalade, Amelia; I’m proud to be a Briton this day, let me tell you.’

Flashman at the Charge, p.52, Pan edition, 5th printing, 1979.

Tags:
Flashman, Flashman quotes,Crimean War, blood.

Give war a chance

But there was never any hope of a peace being patched up, not with the mood abroad in England that summer. They were savage – they had seen their army and navy sail away with drums beating and fifes tooting, and ‘Rule Britannia’ playing, and the press promising swift and condign punishment for the Muscovite tyrant, and street corner orators raving about how British steel would strike oppression down, and they were like a crowd come to a prize-fight where the two pugs don’t fight, but spar and weave and never come to grips.

Flashman at the Charge, pp.51-2, Pan edition, 5th printing, 1979.

Tags:
Flashman, Flashman quotes,Crimean War, savage.