A few words on exclamations

      The Brulé riders were thundering by before me, shrieking their “Kye-kye-kye-yik!” and “Hoo’hay!”, and if ever you hear that from a Sioux, get the hell out of his way, because he isn’t asking you the time. The only worse noise he makes is “Hoon!” which is the equivalent of the Zulu “s’jee!” and signifies that he’s sticking steel into someone.

Flashman and the Redskins, pp.313-14, Pan Books edition, 1983.

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One invariable rule

…there were many Sioux burial platforms, mostly broken and derelict, but some quite new, and the troops thought it great fun to scatter them to bits. I remarked in Terry’s hearing that it was bad medicine—for one thing, his Ree and Crow scouts wouldn’t like it—and he ordered it stopped. If you wonder why I put in my oar, I’ll answer that I’ve soldiered far and hard enough to learn one invariable rule, superstition or not: never monkey with the local gods. It don’t pay.


Flashman and the Redskins, p.289, Pan Books edition, 1983.



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As always

And, as always, I thought what the devil, if I’m wrong, and have been misjudging her all these years, and she’s as chaste as morning dew—so much the better. If she’s not—and I’ll be bound she’s not—what’s an Indian more or less?

Flashman and the Redskins, p.249, Pan Books edition, 1983.

Tags:Flashman, Flashman quotes, Indian.

Dinner in style

The chiefs came to dinner in style, six of them all in buckskins and feathers, led by the famous Oglala, Red Cloud, a grim savage with a face you could have used to split kindling.

Flashman and the Redskins, p.235, Pan Books edition, 1983.

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The days of beads and looking-glasses

Washington reached the conclusion you’d expect: treaty or no, the Sioux would have to give way. Allison’s task was to persuade them to surrender the hills in return for compensation, and that, to him, meant fixing a price and telling ’em to take it or leave it. He didn’t doubt they would take it; after all, he was a Senator, and they were a parcel of silly savages who couldn’t read or write; he would lecture them, and they would be astonished at his eloquence, pocket the cash without argument, and go away. It didn’t seem to weigh with him that to the Sioux the Black Hills were rather like Mecca to the Muslims, or that having no comprehension of land ownership, the idea of selling them was as ludicrous as selling the wind or the sky. Nor did he suspect that, even if their religious and philosophic scruples could be overcome, their notion of price and value had developed since the days of beads and looking-glasses.

Flashman and the Redskins, p.233, Pan Books edition, 1983.

Tags:Flashman, Flashman quotes, treaty.

Some natural law

There is some natural law that ensures that whenever civilization talks to the heathen, it is through the person of the most obstinate, short-sighted, arrogant, tactless clown available. You recall McNaughten at Kabul, perhaps? Well, Allison could have been his prize pupil.

Flashman and the Redskins, p.232, Pan Books edition, 1983.

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Polished lightning

      I never saw the buckskin man move, but suddenly he was in their path and the murderous axe-heads clanged as they struck and parried and struck again faster than the eye could follow. I looked to see him cut down in seconds by those agile fighting demons, but if they were fast as cats the little chap was like quicksilver, cutting, ducking, leaping aside, darting in again as though he were on springs—I’ve seen men of their hands, but never one to cap him for speed, and he wasn’t just holding his ground, but driving them back, his hatchet everywhere at once like polished lightning, and the two of them desperately trying to fend him off.

Flashman and the Redskins, p.190, Pan Books edition, 1983.

Tags:Flashman, Flashman quotes, Kit Carson.

Flower of the 11th Hussars

Picture if you will that score of primitives with their painted faces and head-bands and ragged kilts and boots, fairly bristling with lances and hatchets, and in their midst the tall figure of the English gentlemen, flower of the 11th Hussars, with a white stripe across his face, his hair rank to his shoulders, his buckskins stinking to rival the Fleet Ditch, lance in fist and knife on hip—you’d never think he played at Lord’s or chatted with the Queen or been rebuked by Dr Arnold for dirty finger-nails (well, yes, you might) or been congratulated by my Lord Cardigan on his brilliant turnout.

Flashman and the Redskins, pp.181-2, Pan Books edition, 1983.

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Knew how to fight

      They [the Apache] knew how to fight, too, after their fashion, far better than the Plains Tribes; given numbers, they might be holding out in Arizona yet, for bar the Pathans they were the best guerrillas ever I saw.

Flashman and the Redskins, p.177, Pan Books edition, 1983.

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Virtue and downfall

…if they have one virtue—in most folk’s eyes, anyway—it is courage; you never saw a scared Apache yet. It’s been their downfall; unlike other tribes, they never knew when to quit against the pony soldiers; my old pal the Yawner fought on until there was only a tattered remnant of his band left to be herded on to the reservation…

Flashman and the Redskins, p.177, Pan Books edition, 1983.

Tags:Flashman, Flashman quotes, Apache.

If you want to call me that, smile

      “Besides, I like your fanciful Indian names—what’s mine, by the way, apart from white-eye?”
      “Don’t you know? Why, ever since you rode with your lance at the pegs, everyone calls you by a fine name: White-Rider-Goes-So-Fast-He-Destroys-the-Wind-with-His-Speed.”
      It sounded not bad, if a bit of a mouthful. “They can’t call me all that every time,” says I.
      “Of course not, foolish one—they shorten it. He-Who-Breaks-the-Wind, or just Wind Breaker.”

Flashman and the Redskins, p.176, Pan Books edition, 1983.

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How I remember him

…he shrugged and we found ourselves grinning at each other across the flower-bed—odd, that’s how I remember him, not as the old man I saw last year, but as the ugly, bow-legged young brave, all Apache from boots to headband, so serious as he arranged the blooms just so, cleaning the earth from his knife and looking sour and pleased among his flowers. A strange memory in light of history—but then he’s still the Yawner to me, for all the world learned to call him Geronimo.

Flashman and the Redskins, p.171, Pan Books edition, 1983.

Tags:Flashman, Flashman quotes, Geronimo.

Damned crowded place

My little anthropologist would say it was all the white man’s fault for intruding; no doubt, but by that logic Ur of the Chaldees would be a damned crowded place by now.

Flashman and the Redskins, p.171, Pan Books edition, 1983.

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Reservation or the grave

      The Indian’s tragedy was that being a spoiled and arrogant savage who wouldn’t lie down, and a brave and expert fighter who happened to be quite useless at war, he could only be suppressed with a brutality that often matched his own. It was the reservation or the grave, there was no other way.

Flashman and the Redskins, p.171, Pan Books edition, 1983.

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Not the best position

      You begin to understand, perhaps, the impossibility of red man and white man ever understanding each other—not that it would have made a damned bit of difference if they had, or altered the Yankees’ Indian policy, except perhaps in the direction of wiping up such intractable bastards even faster that they did. They knew they were going to have to dispossess the redskins, but being good Christian humbugs they kept trying to bully and cajole them into accepting the theft gracefully—which ain’t quite the best position from which to make treaties with unreliable savages who are accustomed to rob rather than be robbed, and who don’t understand what government and authority mean, anyway.

Flashman and the Redskins, p.170, Pan Books edition, 1983.

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A different mystery on the bestial floor

This twisted morality is almost impossible for white folk to understand; they look for excuses, and say the poor savage don’t know right from wrong. Jack Cremony had the best answer to that: if you think an Apache can’t tell right from wrong—wrong him and see what happens.

Flashman and the Redskins, p.169, 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.

Tags:Flashman, Flashman quotes, law.

Inclined to be amiable

…the Yawner himself was more friendly now that he’d saved my life—have you noticed, the man who does a good turn is often more inclined to be amiable than the chap who received it?

Flashman and the Redskins, p.162, Pan Books edition, 1983.

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Take courage for granted

The Apaches, you see, being matchless warriors, tend to take courage for granted, especially in big, burly fellows who look as much like a Tartar as I do…

Flashman and the Redskins, p.158, Pan Books edition, 1983.

Tags:Flashman, Flashman quotes, courage.