A Sikh with his bayonet fixed

. . . and then the Sikhs were charging them with the bayonet against Ab spears and swords, smashing into their ranks like a steel fist, outnumbered but forcing the robed tribesman back, and standing by Theodore on Fala I had to clamp my jaws tight to stop myself yelling, for I remembered their fathers and uncles at Sobraon, you see, and within I was crying: “Khasla-ji! Sat-sree-akal!” There’s no hand-to-hand fighter in the world better than a Sikh with his bayonet fixed . . .


Flashman on the March, p.239, Harper Collins, paperback edition 2005.


Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, bayonet.

They don't like it up 'em

     That did the trick: Bertie started as though I'd put a bayonet into his leg . . .


Flashman and the Tiger, p.244, Harper Collins, paperback edition 2000.


Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, bayonet.

Beaten by bayonets

Good bayonet fighters will beat swordsmen and spearmen every time…



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



Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, bayonet.

In which Lt. Flashman reviews the tactics of Sir Hugh Gough

I caught my breath in horror, for it was Ferozeshah all over again, with that raving old spud-walloper risking everything on the sabre and the bayonet, hand to hand — but then the Sikhs were groggy from Moodkee, in positions hastily dug and manned, while now the were entrenched in a miniature Torres Vedras, with ditch-and-dyke works twenty feet high, enfiladed by murderous camel-swivels and packed with tulwar-swinging lunatics fairly itching to die for the Guru. You can’t do it, Paddy, thinks I, it won’t answer this time, you’ll break your great thick Irish head against this fortress of shot and steel, and have your army torn to ribbons, and lose the war, and never see Tipperary again, you benighted old bog-trotter, you —


Flashman and the Mountain of Light, p.331, Fontana Paperback edition, 1991.



Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, tactics.