Middling general

‘. . . this’ll be the last outbreak of war I’ll see, and for once I shan’t be going. Went to South Africa, you know— just as a tourist, during the Boer business. Interesting. But not this time — unless Kitchener asks me along as a guest.’ He snorted with laughter at the thought. ‘He’ll be the man they send for, you’ll see. Middling general — we could do worse. Now where the hell have those soldiers got to? Trust the Guards to lose their way.’


Mr American, p.524, Pan Books, paperback edition 1982.



Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, war.

That double line of yokels and town scruff

It was the infantry I wanted to see, though, for (and I’m a horse-soldier as says it) I know what matters. When the guns haven’t come up, and you cavalry’s checked by close country or tutti-putti*, and you’re waiting in the hot, dusky hush for the faint rumble of impi or harka** over the skyline and know they’re twenty to your one, well, that’s when you realize that it all hangs on that double line of yokels and town scruff with their fifty rounds a man and an Enfield bayonet. Kitchener himself may have placed ’em just so, with D’Israeli’s sanction, The Times blessing, and the Queen waving ’em good-bye — but now it’s their grip on the stock and their eye at the backsight, and if they break, you’re done.

Flashman and the Dragon, pp.44-45, Fontana Paperback edition, 1986.

*Roughly 'little cherubs'. A few thoughts occur as to what Flashman could mean, but if any reader has a reference to explain this more clearly, I would be grateful.

**Presumably, Flashman is referring to the Māori haka.


Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, infantry.

This Sandhurst-and-Shop crowd

I’m told it’s all changing now, and that war’s no longer a gentleman’s game (as though it ever was), and that among the ‘new professionals’ a prisoner’s a prisoner so damned well cage him up. I don’t know: we treated each other decently and weren’t one jot more incompetent than this Sandhurst-and-Shop crowd. Look at that young pup Kitchener – what that fellow needs is a woman or two.

Flashman at the Charge, p.115, Pan edition, 5th printing, 1979.

Tags:
Flashman, Flashman quotes,Herbert Kitchener, Lord Kitchener.