Aldershot on a pension

“Theodore’ll have to die, somehow; can’t execute him, but can’t have him hanging around Aldershot on a pension, either. Public wouldn’t stand for it. He’ll just have to be done in on the quiet, accidental-looking.”
      “What hypocrites you are!”
      “No such thing. It’s just the civilised way of doing it, that’s all.”


Flashman on the March, pp.211-12, Harper Collins, paperback edition 2005.



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Handsome, cruel, and bloodthirsty

      To begin with, you must understand that the Abyssinians are like no other Africans, being some kind of Semitic folk who came from Arabia in the far-off time, handsome, cruel, and bloodthirsty, but civilised beyond any in the continent bar the Egyptians . . .


Flashman on the March, p.22, Harper Collins, paperback edition 2005.


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Flashman on toast

“ ‘It’s an English school for you, my son,’ he told me. ‘Hellish places, by all accounts, rations a Siberian moujik wouldn’t touch, and less civilised behaviour than you’d meet in the Congo, but I’m told there’s no education like it − a lifetime’s trainin’ in knavery packed into six years. No wonder they rule half the world. Why, if I’d been to Eton or Harrow, I’d have had Flashman on toast!’ ”


Flashman and the Tiger, p.77, Harper Collins, paperback edition 2000.


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Drains and bottled beer

      You see, it’s the great illusion of our civilization that when the poor heathen saw our steamships and elections and drains and bottled beer, he’d realise what a benighted ass he’d been and come into the fold. But he don’t. Oh, he’ll take what he fancies, and can use (cheap booze and rifles), but not on that account will he think we’re better. He knows different.

Flashman and the Redskins, p.170, Pan Books edition, 1983.

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Men in fear and rage

“What bleating breast-beaters like you can’t comprehend,” I went on at the top of my voice, while the toadies pawed at me and yapped for the porters, “is that when selfish frightened men—in other words, any men, red or white, civilized or savage—come face to face in the middle of a wilderness that both of ‘em want, the Lord alone knows why, then war breaks out, and the weaker go under. Policies don’t matter a spent piss—it’s the men in fear and rage and uncertainty watching the woods and skyline, d’you see, you purblind bookworm, you! And you burble about enlightenment, by God— ”

Flashman and the Redskins, p.20, Pan Books edition, 1983.

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Leading the troops

I advanced with them, of course, pausing only to encourage those in the rear with manly cries, until I reckoned there were about a score in front of me; then I lit out in pursuit of the vanguard, not leading from behind, exactly – more from the middle, really, which is the safest place to be unless you’re up against civilized artillery.

Flashman's Lady, pp.169-70, Pan edition, 1979.

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A tropical Paris

Indeed, it was sometimes not unlike a kind of tropical Paris, but without those bloody Frogs. New Orleans, of course, is where they civilized the French.

Flash For Freedom!, p.136, Pan edition, 8th printing, 1980.

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Flashman, Flashman quotes,New Orleans.