Alice's tea party

. . . I, on the subject of bizarre conversation, had never thought to meet a crazier discourser than Hung-Hsiu-Chuan, leader of the Taiping Rebellion who was hopelessly mad, or Mangas Colorado, chief of the Mimbreno Apache, who was hopelessly drunk. I discovered in that hut under Selassie that I’d been quite wrong; King Theodore was both hopelessly mad and drunk, and could give either of them a head start and a beating in the race to Alice’s tea party.


Flashman on the March, pp.202-03, Harper Collins, paperback edition 2005.



Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, conversation.

Wings to my wits

      There’s no doubt about it, I’m good at dealing with barmy savages. They scare the bile out of me, and perhaps terror lends wings to my wits, for when i think of the monsters I’ve conversed with and come away with a whole skin, more or less . . . Mangas Colorado, Ranavalona, General Sang-kol-in-sin, Crazy Horse, Dr. Arnold, God knows who else . . . well, it took more than luck, I can tell you. You must know when to grovel and scream for mercy, but also when to take ’em aback with impudence or argument or pure bamboozle.


Flashman on the March, pp.189-90, Harper Collins, paperback edition 2005.



Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, terror.

Closer to seven feet than six

      Bar Mangas Colorado, he was the biggest man I’d ever seen in my life, closer to seven feet than six and built like an overgrown gorilla. his enormous body was wrapped in a robe made of lions’ manes which covered him from the white scarf round his neck to his massive half-boots, he wore a black beard to his chest, horn-rimmed spectacles, and a smoking-cap, and carried a throwing spear in one hand and a straw umbrella in the other. To complete this bespoke costume he had a sabre on his hip, a revolver in his belt, and a round native shield slung on his back. When he grinned with a fierce glitter of teeth in the beard, he looked like a Ghazi on hasheesh — and then he spoke, brisk and high-pitched, his huge hand gently enfolding mine, and he might have been a vicar welcoming me to the sale of work.
      “Charles Speedy, Sir Harry, used to be adjutant of the Tenth Punjabis, saw you once on the Grand Trunk, near Fatehpur, oh, ever so long ago, but you didn’t see me.”
      Then you must have been lying down in cover and wearing mufti, thinks I.


Flashman on the March, p.31, Harper Collins, paperback edition 2005.


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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.

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A fine psychologist

He was a fine psychologist—you’ll note he had weighed me for a fugitive and a scoundrel on short acquaintance—an astute politician, and a bloody, cruel, treacherous barbarian who’d have been a disgrace to the Stone Age. If that seems contradictory—well, Indians are contrary critters, and Apaches more than most.

Flashman and the Redskins, p.169, Pan Books edition, 1983.

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An Apache ponders

Why should the Americanos try to force their law on us? . . . It is because their spirit tells them to spread their law to all people, and they believe their spirit is better than ours.

Flashman and the Redskins, p.167, Pan Books edition, 1983.

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