The partner of my fate

“But what have I to fear,” cries he, with a great idiot laugh, “when the bravest soldier of the British Army, the partner of my fate, is by my side?”
      A great deal, I could have told him, if Bismarck's bullies were after him; he'd find himself relying on the communications cord.


Flashman and the Tiger, p.41, Harper Collins, paperback edition 2000.


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Bad medicine

...the nasty young Norse God had turned into a jowly sausage-faced old buffer whose head seemed to grow straight out of his collar without benefit of neck... I tipped my tile instead, he did likewise, frowning, and a moment later he was clambering aboard and I was legging it in search of a gallon or two of brandy. Quite a turn he'd given me — but then, he always did. Bad medicine, Bismarck; bad man.


Flashman and the Tiger, p.38, Harper Collins, paperback edition 2000.


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Astonishing encounter

…what followed was perhaps the most astonishing encounter between two men that I ever saw — and I was at Appomattox, remember, and saw Bismarck and Gully face to face with the mauleys, and held a shotgun when Hickok confronted Wesley Hardin.


Flashman and the Mountain of Light, p.107, Fontana Paperback edition, 1991.



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Half the art

      If half the art of survival is running, the other half is keeping a straight face. I can’t count the number of times my fate has depended on my response to some unexpected and abominable proposal—like the night Yakub Beg suggested I join a suicidal attempt to scupper some Russian ammunition ships, or Sapten’s jolly notion about swimming naked into a Gothic castle full of Bismark’s thugs, or Brooke’s command to me to lead a charge against a headhunter’s stockade. Jesu, the times we have seen.

Flashman and the Redskins, p.43, Pan Books edition, 1983.

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We will have lived

‘How will we look back on this?’ he mused. ‘When we are old, and in our country palaces, and the bold lads of a new day are elbowing for power in the chancelleries? I wonder.’ He shook his head. ‘I think I will wear leather breeches and allow myself to be laughed at in Stettin wool market, and sell two thalers cheaper to anyone who calls me “baron”. And you, Flashman – you will sit in your club in St James and grow fat on port and your memories. But we will have lived, by God! We will have fought! We will have won! Is it not something to have moved great affairs, and shaped the course of time?’

Royal Flash, p.136, Pan edition, 8th printing, 1978.

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One word for it

I don’t think that of all the beastly things that man ever did, or all the terror he caused me, that there was anything so loathsome as that casual marking of my skin for de Gautet to cut at. There is only one word for it – it was German. and if you don’t understand what I mean, thank God for it.

Royal Flash, p.122, Pan edition, 8th printing, 1978.

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I was sober, so I toadied

If you’re morally as soft as butter, as I am, with a good streak of the toad-eater in you, there’s no doing anything with people like Bismarck. You can have all the fame that I had then , and the good looks and the inches and the swagger – and I had those, too – but you know you’re dirt to him. If you have to tangle with him, as the Americans say, you know you’ll have to get drunk first; I was sober, so I toadied.

Royal Flash, p.28, Pan edition, 8th printing, 1978.

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When Harry met Otto

I conceived an instant dislike for him. It was not only his manner and his words, but the look of him. He was big, as big as I was, slim-hipped and broad-shouldered, but he was also damned handsome. He had bright grey eyes and one of those clean-cut faces beneath fair hair that makes you think of moral norse Gods, too splendid altogether to be in the company of the beauty beside him.

Royal Flash, p.20, Pan edition, 8th printing, 1978.

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Flashman, Flashman quotes,Otto von Bismarck.