An enemy caught

From above it looked like the discharge from an overturned ant-hill spilling across the plain towards an enemy caught unprepared by the sheer speed of the attack.
       That was when Bob Napier earned his peerage.



Flashman on the March, p.238, Harper Collins, paperback edition 2005.


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Their terrible bass chorus

. . . Death sweeping towards us at that fearful thunderous jog-trot that made the earth tremble beneath our very feet, while the spears crashed on the ox-hide shields, and the dust rolled up in a bank before them as they chanted out their terrible bass chorus: “Uzitulele, kagali ’muntu!” — which, you’ll be enchanted to know, means roughly: “He is silent, he doesn’t start the attack.”


Flashman and the Tiger, p.275, Harper Collins, paperback edition 2000.


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A killing rage

      They fought like madmen — and perhaps that was their undoing, for whenever the attack was beaten back they leaped down into the trenches to mutilate our wounded. Well, you don’t do that to Atkins, Sepoy and Ghurka if you know what’s good for you; our people stormed back at ’em in a killing rage, and when the scaling-ladders wouldn’t reach they climbed on each other’s shoulders and on the piled dead, and fairly pitchforked the Sikhs our of their first line of entrenchments, almost without firing a shot.


Flashman and the Mountain of Light, p.338, Fontana Paperback edition, 1991.



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Flashy on selecting military targets

It struck me then, and still does, that attacking Sevastopol would be rather like an enemy of England investing Penzance, and then shouting towards London: ‘There, you insolent bastard, that’ll teach you!’

Flashman at the Charge, p.52, Pan edition, 5th printing, 1979.

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Big place, ain’t it?

…I was as close to the conduct of the [Crimean] war in the summer of ’54 as anyone, and I can tell you truthfully that the official view of the thing was:
   ‘Well, here we are, the French and ourselves, at war with Russia, in order to protect Turkey. Ve-ry good. What shall we do, then? Better attack Russia, eh? H’m, yes. (Pause). Big place, ain’t it?

Flashman at the Charge, p.51, Pan edition, 5th printing, 1979.

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Flashman, Flashman quotes,Crimean War, Russia.