Addressing heaven on my behalf

I don’t know what it is about me but holy fellows like Nicholson were forever addressing heaven on my behalf – even those who didn’t know me well enough to sense that there was a lot of hard graft to be done if Flashy was ever to smell salvation.

Flashman in the Great Game, p.64, Pan edition, 4th printing, 1979.

Tags:
Flashman, Flashman quotes,John Nicholson, salvation.

A distasteful talk with Flashman

‘They [officers] don’t know their men, and treat ’em like children or animals, and think of nothing, but drinking and hunting, and – and…’ he reddened to the roots of his enormous beard and looked aside. ‘Some of them consort with… with the worst type of native women.’ He cleared his throat and patted my arm. ‘There, I’m sorry, old fellow; I know it's distasteful to talk of such things, but it’s true, alas.’
     I shook my head and said it was heart-breaking.

Flashman in the Great Game, p.64, Pan edition, 4th printing, 1979.

Tags:
Flashman, Flashman quotes,John Nicholson, East India Company.

A downier bird

There wasn’t a downier bird in all India than Nicholson, or one who knew the country better, and you could have trusted him with anything, money even.

Flashman in the Great Game, p.61, Pan edition, 4th printing, 1979.

Tags:
Flashman, Flashman quotes,John Nicholson, trust.

Full of zeal and athirst for glory

…he was one of your play-up-and-fear-God paladins, full of zeal and athirst for glory, was John, and said his prayers and didn’t drink and thought women were either nuns or mothers.

Flashman in the Great Game, p.61, Pan edition, 4th printing, 1979.

Tags:
Flashman, Flashman quotes,John Nicholson, paladin.

Enterprising lads

I’ve seen a deal of war, and agree with Sherman that it’s hell, but the Mutiny was the Seventh Circle under the pit. Of course it had its compensations: for one, I came through it, pretty whole, which is more than Havelock and Harry East and Johnny Nicholson did, enterprising lads that they were. (What’s the use of a campaign if you don’t survive it?)…

Flashman in the Great Game, p.13, Pan edition, 4th printing, 1979.

Tags:
Flashman, Flashman quotes,campaign, war.