Farewell Flash Harry

     ‘Well, if you don’t mind,’ said Mr Franklin, ‘I feel I ought to get out here.’ The old gentleman, he told himself yet again, was decidedly unsafe. ‘I hope you don’t think I’m running out — ’
      ‘I do,’ said the veteran promptly. ‘And I commend you for it. First sign of exceptional character I’ve detected in you. But you’re missing a great chance, you know.’ He tapped Mr Franklin on the knee. ‘The first man I ever rode through those gates with was the Duke of Wellington, seventy-two years ago. Wouldn’t you like to be the last?’
      Mr Franklin hesitated. He was amused, and astonished, and a little touched. He looked into the mischievous, grinning old face, then shook his head.
      ‘I think you ought to ride in alone,’ he said gently, ‘And with the hood back.’
      He reached across and shook the old man’s hand, and then managed to push his way out of the car. The Guardsmen had succeeded in clearing the crowd from round the car, and a long aisle between to people ran fairly clear to the gates; police were moving in it, ushering them to keep it clear. At a word from Mr Franklin the hood was removed, and with the General leaning back comfortably in one corner the car rolled slowly forward. The crowd had begun to sing again, willing the King and Queen to come out on the balcony; as the car pulled away, Sir Harry was waving to him with his crooked grin; the crowd jostled forward into the space where the car had been, but Mr Franklin, craning, could see over their heads. With policeman half-running on either side, and Sergeant Rooney pacing ahead on his horse, the car was moving into the open gates held back by the red-coated Guardsmen; the singing was thundering up in full-throated ecstatic chorus, and he could just glimpse the great white head above the back seat and Sir Harry’s raised hand solemnly waving in time to the music:

Land . . . of . . . hope . . . and . . . glory!
Moth . . . er . . . of . . . the . . . free!
How . . . can we . . . extoll . . . thee,
Who . . . are . . . bo-orn of thee!

The car was lost to sight as it turned through the gates and made towards the Palace, even as the lights on the balcony came up again and royalty reappeared. The singing swelled to a triumphant climax; Mr Franklin could imagine the monarch glimpsing the car with its eccentric occupant as it sped across the open space before the Palace — what in God’s name was the old villain going to say when he got inside and the Palace minions discovered he was an entirely unauthorised visitor bent only on relieving himself? Mr Franklin could not guess — but he had no doubt Sir Harry would think of something. He’d had a lot of practice.


Mr American, pp.525-26, Pan Books, paperback edition 1982.


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That gnarled old man

. . . at that moment an audible snore erupted from the General’s corner of the cab. He was leaning back, his great head sunk forward on his chest, his hat tilted over his eyes, breathing stertorously; one great mottled hand lay palm down on the seat beside him; Mr Franklin could see the shiny white streak of a wound running from wrist to little finger, and there was a star-shaped scar of what might have been an old bullet-hole in the loose flesh between thumb and forefinger. He shivered; he had looked Sir Harry up in Who’s Who and read incredulously through the succinct list of campaigns and decorations — that gnarled old man sleeping there had seen Custer ride into the broken bluffs above Little Big Horn, and fought hand-to-hand with Afghan tribesman more than seventy years ago; he had ridden into the guns at Balaclava and seen the ranks form for Pickett’s charge at Gettysburg; he had known Wellington and Lincoln — and now he was snoring gently in the corner of a motor car in the busy heart of modern London, and all the glory and horror and fear and bloodshed were small, dimly-remembered things of no account, and when he woke his one concern would not be the fate of nations or armies or his own life in the hazard, but the welfare of one wilful young woman who he was trying to save from her own folly in his strange, unscrupulous way.


Mr American, pp.431-2, Pan Books, paperback edition 1982.


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Wellington's joke

I did my best, and like a fool ventured Wellington's joke when the Queen asked him what was the aroma from the ranks of the Guards, and Nosey replied: “Esprit de corps, ma’am.”


Flashman and the Tiger, p.127, Harper Collins, paperback edition 2000.


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Faces like Roman senators

They were the first Cheyenne I’d ever seen close to, and if the Brulé Sioux had been alarming, these would have put the fear of God up Wellington. On average, they were the biggest Indians I ever saw, as big as I am—great massive-shouldered brutes with long braided hair and faces like Roman senators, and even in their distress, proud as grandees.

Flashman and the Redskins, p.83, Pan Books edition, 1983.

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The highest honour

We shook hands, and he drove off. I never spoke to him again. Years later, though, I told the American general, Robert Lee, of the incident, and he said Wellington was right – I had received the highest honour any soldier could hope for. But it wasn’t the medal; for Lee’s money it was Wellington’s hand.
  Neither, I may point out, had any intrinsic value.

Flashman, p.276, Pan edition, 12th printing, 1979.

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Flown with inspiration

However, I had to say something, so I mumbled about Her Majesty’s service.
  ‘England’s service.’ said she, looking intense.
  ‘The say thing, ma’am,’ says I, flown with inspiration, and she cast her eyes down wistfully. The Duke gave what sounded like a little groan.

Flashman, p.274, Pan edition, 12th printing, 1979.

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Without thinking I said

...he opened his eyes and said did I speak the language, and would I say something in it. So without thinking I said the first words that came into my head: ‘Hamare ghali ana, achha din,’ which is what the harlots chant at passers-by, and means ‘Good day, come into our street.’ He [Prince Albert] seemed very interested, but the man beside him stiffened and stared hard at me.
  ‘What does it mean, Mr Flashman?’ says the Queen.
  ‘It is a Hindu greeting, marm,’ says the Duke, and my guts turned over as I recalled that he had served in India.

Flashman, p.272, Pan edition, 12th printing, 1979.

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The Iron Duke

…the Duke came out; he was white-haired and pretty wrinkled at this time, but that damned hooked nose would have marked him anywhere, and his eyes were like gimlets.
‘Ah, this is the young man,’ says he shaking hands. For all his years he walked with the spring of a jockey, and was very spruce in his grey coat.

Flashman, pp.264-5, Pan edition, 12th printing, 1979.

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