Truckled in my manly way

…he gave a wary start at sight of me—it’s remarkable how many people do—and then asked guardedly how I did. I truckled in my manly way, while he watched me as though he thought I was there to pinch the silver.

Flashman and the Redskins, p.229, Pan Books edition, 1983.

Tags:Flashman, Flashman quotes, wary.

Burly and surly

Grant was the same burly, surly bargee I remembered, more like a city storekeeper than the first-rate soldier he’d been and the disillusioned President he was.

Flashman and the Redskins, p.229, Pan Books edition, 1983.

Tags:Flashman, Flashman quotes, President.

Mrs Flashman

      I turned to see what had astonished him, and understood. My dear wife, who is nothing, if not patient, was waiting on a couch by the dining-room door, fanning herself idly, and innocently ignoring the admiring glances of gentlemen, passing through. She was wearing something blue from Paris, as I recall, which left her mostly bare to the waist, and to impress the colonials she had decorated her upper works with the diamond necklace presented to her by the Grand Duke Alexis, a lecherous Russian lout of our acquaintance.

Flashman and the Redskins, pp.218-19, Pan Books edition, 1983.

Tags:Flashman, Flashman quotes, wife.

Paying for policy

“Someone is going to have to pay for that policy sooner or later, I fear—probably someone in a blue coat earning $13 a month to guard his country’s frontier.”

Flashman and the Redskins, p.215, Pan Books edition, 1983.

Tags:Flashman, Flashman quotes, guard.

Competent savages and buffoons

Little Phil, grinning all over and still looking as though he’d fallen in the river and let his uniform dry on him, led me off to talk to Sherman, whom I’d know as a competent savage, and the buffoon Pope, whose career had consisted of losing battles and claiming he’d won.

Flashman and the Redskins, p.214, Pan Books edition, 1983.

Tags:Flashman, Flashman quotes, officers.

Shan't call it a heartbreak

…I shan’t call it a heartbreak, for my old pump is too calloused an article to break. But it can feel a twist…

Flashman and the Redskins, p.213, Pan Books edition, 1983.

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Fowl language

Having the brain of a backward hen…

Flashman and the Redskins, p.211, Pan Books edition, 1983.

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Decamp, squeal, or betray

      It’s a remarkable thing (and I’ve traded on it all my life) that a single redeeming quality in a black sheep wins greater esteem than all the virtues in honest men—especially if the quality is courage. I’m lucky, because while I don’t have it, I look as though I do, and worthy souls like Carson and Wootton never suspect that I’m running around with my bowels squirting, ready to decamp, squeal, or betray as occasion demands.

Flashman and the Redskins, p.206, Pan Books edition, 1983.

Tags:Flashman, Flashman quotes, courage.

Friend and enemy

If I hadn’t pleased Spotted Tail that day, by playing with the kid . . . who knows? I might have been spared a heap of trouble—or I might be dead by now. You can never tell where small boys are concerned; they may grow up to be your best friend—and your worst enemy.

Flashman and the Redskins, p.203, Pan Books edition, 1983.

Tags:Flashman, Flashman quotes, enemy.

Woodcraft and mountain lore

      You may ask if a month in the wilds with that great scout taught me much of woodcraft and mountain lore; I can reply with confidence that bt the time we reached Fort Laramie, I could deduce by the sight of a broken twig that someone had stepped on it, and when I saw a great pile of dung on the prarie I knew at once that a buffalo had let drive.

Flashman and the Redskins, p.198, Pan Books edition, 1983.

Tags:Flashman, Flashman quotes, woodcraft.

A seasoned ruffian

…his baby son, Charlie, was a seasoned ruffian of twelve months who took to me at once, as children usually do, recognising in me a nature as unscrupulous as their own.

Flashman and the Redskins, p.195, Pan Books edition, 1983.

Tags:Flashman, Flashman quotes, ruffian.

We rogues know

Between ourselves, I didn’t care for him all that much; for one thing, he had greatness, in his way, and I don’t cotton to that; for another, although he was always amiable and considerate, I guess he was leery of me. He knew a rogue when he saw one—and we rogues know when we’ve been seen.

Flashman and the Redskins, p.195, Pan Books edition, 1983.

Tags:Flashman, Flashman quotes, rogue.

Polished lightning

      I never saw the buckskin man move, but suddenly he was in their path and the murderous axe-heads clanged as they struck and parried and struck again faster than the eye could follow. I looked to see him cut down in seconds by those agile fighting demons, but if they were fast as cats the little chap was like quicksilver, cutting, ducking, leaping aside, darting in again as though he were on springs—I’ve seen men of their hands, but never one to cap him for speed, and he wasn’t just holding his ground, but driving them back, his hatchet everywhere at once like polished lightning, and the two of them desperately trying to fend him off.

Flashman and the Redskins, p.190, Pan Books edition, 1983.

Tags:Flashman, Flashman quotes, Kit Carson.

Flower of the 11th Hussars

Picture if you will that score of primitives with their painted faces and head-bands and ragged kilts and boots, fairly bristling with lances and hatchets, and in their midst the tall figure of the English gentlemen, flower of the 11th Hussars, with a white stripe across his face, his hair rank to his shoulders, his buckskins stinking to rival the Fleet Ditch, lance in fist and knife on hip—you’d never think he played at Lord’s or chatted with the Queen or been rebuked by Dr Arnold for dirty finger-nails (well, yes, you might) or been congratulated by my Lord Cardigan on his brilliant turnout.

Flashman and the Redskins, pp.181-2, Pan Books edition, 1983.

Tags:Flashman, Flashman quotes, gentleman.

Knew how to fight

      They [the Apache] knew how to fight, too, after their fashion, far better than the Plains Tribes; given numbers, they might be holding out in Arizona yet, for bar the Pathans they were the best guerrillas ever I saw.

Flashman and the Redskins, p.177, Pan Books edition, 1983.

Tags:Flashman, Flashman quotes, guerrilla.

Virtue and downfall

…if they have one virtue—in most folk’s eyes, anyway—it is courage; you never saw a scared Apache yet. It’s been their downfall; unlike other tribes, they never knew when to quit against the pony soldiers; my old pal the Yawner fought on until there was only a tattered remnant of his band left to be herded on to the reservation…

Flashman and the Redskins, p.177, Pan Books edition, 1983.

Tags:Flashman, Flashman quotes, Apache.

If you want to call me that, smile

      “Besides, I like your fanciful Indian names—what’s mine, by the way, apart from white-eye?”
      “Don’t you know? Why, ever since you rode with your lance at the pegs, everyone calls you by a fine name: White-Rider-Goes-So-Fast-He-Destroys-the-Wind-with-His-Speed.”
      It sounded not bad, if a bit of a mouthful. “They can’t call me all that every time,” says I.
      “Of course not, foolish one—they shorten it. He-Who-Breaks-the-Wind, or just Wind Breaker.”

Flashman and the Redskins, p.176, Pan Books edition, 1983.

Tags:Flashman, Flashman quotes, name.

Concentrates the mind

…having Mangas Colorado looming over you, looking like something off the gutters of Notre Dame, concentrates the mind wonderfully…

Flashman and the Redskins, p.172, Pan Books edition, 1983.

Tags:Flashman, Flashman quotes, concentrate.

How I remember him

…he shrugged and we found ourselves grinning at each other across the flower-bed—odd, that’s how I remember him, not as the old man I saw last year, but as the ugly, bow-legged young brave, all Apache from boots to headband, so serious as he arranged the blooms just so, cleaning the earth from his knife and looking sour and pleased among his flowers. A strange memory in light of history—but then he’s still the Yawner to me, for all the world learned to call him Geronimo.

Flashman and the Redskins, p.171, Pan Books edition, 1983.

Tags:Flashman, Flashman quotes, Geronimo.