The delight in blood

“But do you understand the joy of killing for its own sake? The delight in blood and the agony of the dying?” She shook her head. “From all I have heard, that is not in the British nature.”
      You should see a Newgate scragging, you poor ignorant aborigine, thinks I.


Flashman on the March, p.108, Harper Collins, paperback edition 2005.


Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, killing.

Nursing his blood lust

But mostly he was nursing his blood lust, I knew, anticipating the pleasure of shooting assassins — in the back no doubt. He was what Hickook called “a killing gentleman”, was our young Willem. Just like dear old dad.

Flashman and the Tiger, p.126, Harper Collins, paperback edition 2000.



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Pass the marmalade, Amelia

They [the English public] wanted blood, gallons of it, and to read of grape-shot smashing great lanes through Russian ranks, and stern and noble Britons skewering Cossacks, and Russia towns in flames – and they would be able to shake their heads over the losses of our gallant fellows, sacrificed to stern duty, and wolf down their kidneys and muffins in their warm breakfast rooms, saying: ‘Dreadful work this, but by George, England never shirked yet, whatever the price. Pass the marmalade, Amelia; I’m proud to be a Briton this day, let me tell you.’

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

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Flashman, Flashman quotes,Crimean War, blood.

Give war a chance

But there was never any hope of a peace being patched up, not with the mood abroad in England that summer. They were savage – they had seen their army and navy sail away with drums beating and fifes tooting, and ‘Rule Britannia’ playing, and the press promising swift and condign punishment for the Muscovite tyrant, and street corner orators raving about how British steel would strike oppression down, and they were like a crowd come to a prize-fight where the two pugs don’t fight, but spar and weave and never come to grips.

Flashman at the Charge, pp.51-2, Pan edition, 5th printing, 1979.

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