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.

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.

The heir to Wellington

You will know all about him, no doubt. He was the ass who presided over the mess we made in the Crimea, and won deathless fame as the man who murdered the Light Brigade. He should have been a parson, or an Oxford don, or a waiter, for he was the kindliest, softest-voiced old stick who ever spared a fellow-creature’s feeling… And this was the man who was the heir to Wellington…

Flashman at the Charge, p.29, Pan edition, 5th printing, 1979.

Tags:
Flashman, Flashman quotes,FitzRoy Somerset, Lord Raglan.

Ten men's share

A lot has been said about the purchase of commissions - how the rich and incompetent can buy ahead of better men, how the poor and efficient are passed over - and most of it, in my experience, is rubbish. Even with purchase abolished, the rich rise faster in the Service than the poor, and they're both inefficient anyway, as a rule. I've seen ten men's share of service, through no fault of my own, and can say that most officers are bad, and the higher you go, the worse they get, myself included.

We were supposed to be rotten with incompetence in the Crimea for example, when purchase was at its height, but the bloody mess they made in South Africa recently seems to have been just as bad - and they didn't buy their commissions.



Flashman, p. 22, Pan edition, 12th printing, 1979.

Tags:
Flashman, officers.