What you're cheering for

‘I only wish,’ the General added. ‘that when it happens I could take all the asses who’ll be waving flags and cheering and crowding the recruitment office — take ’em all by one collective arm, and say: “Now then, Jack, you know what you’re cheering for? You’re cheering at the prospect of having a soft-nosed bullet fired into your pelvis, shattering the bone and spreading it in splinters all through your intestines, and dying in agony two days later — or, if you’re really unlucky, surviving for a lifetime of pain, unable to walk, a burden to everyone, and a dam’ nuisance to the country that will pay you a pension you can’t live off. That, Jack,” I’d tell ’em, “is what you’re cheering for.” I’d probably be locked up.’


Mr American, p.520, Pan Books, paperback edition 1982.


Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, cheering.

General Flashman and the Great War, Part 2

*‘Anyway, imagine yourself a Belgian — in Liege, say. Along come the Prussians, and invade you. What about it? — a few cars commandeered, a shop or two looted, half a dozen girls knocked up, a provost marshal installed, and the storm’s passed. Fierce fighting with the Frogs, who squeal like hell because Britain refuses to help, the Germans reach Paris, peace concluded, and that’s that. And there you are, getting on with your garden in Liege. But — ‘ the General waved his bony finger. ‘Suppose Britain helps — sends forces to aid little Belgium — and the Frogs — against the Teuton horde? what then? Belgian resistance is stiffened, the Frogs manage to stop the invaders, a hell of a war is waged all over Belgium and north-east France, and after God knows how much slaughter and destruction the the Germans are beat — or not, as the case may be. How’s Liege doing? I’ll tell you — it’s a bloody shambles. You’re lying mangled in your cabbage patch, your wife’s had her legs blown off, your daughters have been raped, and your house is a mass of rubble. You’re a lot better off for British intervention, ain’t you?’ He sat back grinning sardonically.


* Should be read in conjunction with General Flashman and the Great War, Part 1 [Speedicut]

Mr American, pp.518-19, Pan Books, paperback edition 1982.


Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, invasion.

Runs in the family

     Cassel shook his head. ‘It’s hard to believe, perhaps, that he knew a man who fought in the last revolution in these islands. His own Grandfather served against the Jacobites at Culloden. I say served — in fact, according to Flashman, his grandfather ran screaming from the field at the first shot, and didn’t stop running till he reached Inverness.’



Mr American, p.198, Pan Books, paperback edition 1982.


Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, Culloden.

’twasn’t really a war

. . . which, as Speedy observed , made you realise how downright foolish war can be.
      But then, ’twasn’t really a war, nor Arogee a proper battle. Like Little Big Horn , it was more a nasty skirmish, and like Big Horn it had an importance far beyond its size.


Flashman on the March, p.242, Harper Collins, paperback edition 2005.



Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, war.

I can’t abide leeks

As an unworthy holder of that Cross myself, I’ll say they earned them, and as much glory as you like, for there never was a stand like it in all the history of war. For they didn’t only stand against impossible odds, you see — they stood and won, the garrulous little buggers, and not just ’cos they had Martinis against spears and clubs and a few muskets; they beat ’em hand to hand too, steel against steel at the barricades, and John Zulu gave them best. Well, you know what I think of heroism, and I can’t abide leeks, but I wear a daffodil as my buttonhole on Davey’s Day, for Rorke’s Drift.


Flashman and the Tiger, p.288, Harper Collins, paperback edition 2000.


Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, Welsh.

Mealie-bag ramparts

      That, briefly, is how I came to join the garrison at Rorke’s Drift — and all the world knows what happened there. A hundred Warwickshire Welshmen and a handful of invalids stopped four thousand Udloko and Tulwana Zulus in bloody shambles at the mealie-bag ramparts, hammer and tongs and no quarter through that ghastly night with the burning hospital turning the wreckage of the little outpost into a fair semblance of Hell, and Flashy seeking in vain for a quiet corner — which I thought I’d found, once, on the thatch of the commissariat store, and damned if they didn’t set fire to that, too. Eleven Victoria Crosses they won, Chard with his beard scorched, Bromhead stone-deaf, and those ragged Taffies half-dead on their feet, but not too done to fight — oh, and talk.


Flashman and the Tiger, pp.287-8, Harper Collins, paperback edition 2000.

 
Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, Welsh.

Time for a little something

       I suppose Cardigan’s “Walk—march—trot!” at Balaclava is the most memorable battlefield command I’ve ever heard, but J.B.'s order for breakfast at Harper’s Ferry runs it close.


Flashman and the Angel of the Lord, p.283, Harper Collins, 1995.


Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, breakfast.

Flashman on game theory

     There’s a moment in any trial between two persons, whether it’s a game or an argument or a battle of wits or a duel to the death, when Party A thinks he’s got Party B cold. And that, believe it or not, is the moment when A is most vulnerable, if only B has the sense to see it.


Flashman and the Angel of the Lord, p.131, Harper Collins, 1995.


Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, game.

Warm feeling of survival

As I trotted through the lines I could feel that air of contented elation that comes at the end of a campaign: the men are tired, and would like to sleep for a year, but they don’t want to miss the warm feeling of survival and comradeship, so they lie blinking in the sun, or rouse themselves to skylark and play leapfrog.


Flashman and the Mountain of Light, pp.348-9, Fontana Paperback edition, 1991.




Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, elation.

Remembrance of things past

Any soldier will tell you that, in the heat of a fight, sights and sounds imprint themselves on your memory and stay vivid for fifty years . . . but you lose all sense of time.



Flashman and the Mountain of Light, p.337, Fontana Paperback edition, 1991.



Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, soldier.

A clash of armies

       The best way to view a clash of armies is from a hot-air balloon, for not only can you see what’s doing, you’re safely out of the line of fire. I’ve done it once in Paraguay, and there’s nothing to beat it, provided some jealous swine of a husband doesn’t take a cleaver to the cable.


Flashman and the Mountain of Light, p.326, Fontana Paperback edition, 1991.



Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, balloon.

God-given gift of catastrophe

      It ain’t the kind of problem you meet everyday. I doubt if it’s ever been posed at Staff College . . . “Now then, Mr Flashman, you command an army fifty thousand strong, with heavy guns, well supplied, their lines of communication protected by an excellent river. Against you is a force of only ten thousand, with light guns, exhausted after a week’s forced marching, short of food and fodder and damned near dying of thirst. Now then, sir, answer directly, no hedging — how do you lose, hey? Come, come, you’ve just given excellent reasons for not taking a town that’s lying at your mercy! This should be child’s play to a man with your God-given gift of catastrophe! Well, sir?


Flashman and the Mountain of Light, p.220, Fontana Paperback edition, 1991.



Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, tactics.

It's his rock

That’s worth bearing in mind when you hear some smart alec holding forth about our imperial wars being one-sided massacres of poor club-waving heathen mown down by Gatlings. Oh, it happened, at Ulundi and Washita and Omdurman — but more often than not the Snider and Martini and Brown Bess were facing odds of ten to one against in country where shrapnel and rapid fire doesn’t count for much; your savage with his blowpipe or bow or jezzail* behind a rock has a deuce of an advantage: it’s his rock, you see.


*Afghan musket


Flashman and the Mountain of Light, p.58, Fontana Paperback edition, 1991.


Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, rock.

No sight more inspiring

      I felt duty bound to crawl out and see them off in the morning, raw and misty as it was; there’s no sight more inspiring or heart-warming than troops marching out to battle when you ain’t going with them.

Flashman and the Redskins, p.279, Pan Books edition, 1983.

Tags:Flashman, Flashman quotes, inspiring.

Sky-blue wolves

‘Bhisti-sawad!* The sky-blue wolves are in the fold!’

*Heavenly!

Flashman at the Charge, p.225, Pan edition, 5th printing, 1979.

Tags:
Flashman, Flashman quotes.

Flashy is not among them

You may have seen the fine oil paintings, I dare say – the perfect lines of guardsmen and Highlanders fronting up the hill towards the Russian batteries, with here and there a chap lying looking thoughtful with his hat on the ground beside him, and in the distance fine silvery clouds of cannon smoke, and the colours to the fore, and fellows in cocked hats waving their swords. I dare say some people saw and remember the Battle of the Alma like that , but Flashy is not among them.

Flashman at the Charge, p.63, Pan edition, 5th printing, 1979.

Tags:
Flashman, Flashman quotes,Alma, Crimean War.

Subtle naval tactics

Now, in my experience there is only one way to fight a ship, and that is to get below, on the side opposite to the enemy and find a snug spot behind a stout bulkhead.

Flash For Freedom!, p.110, Pan edition, 8th printing, 1980.

Tags:
Flashman, Flashman quotes.

Ideal time to be a hero

The ideal time to be a hero is when the battle is over and the other fellows are dead, God rest ’em, and you take the credit.

Royal Flash, p.12, Pan edition, 8th printing, 1978.

Tags:
Flashman, Flashman quotes,hero.