The coolest fish

      If you’ve read Tom Brown you may remember a worthy called Crab Jones, of whom Hughes said that he was the coolest fish in Rugby, and if he were tumbled into the moon this minute he’d pick himself up without taking his hands out of his pockets. Bob Napier always reminded me of Crab, in the Sikh War, the Mutiny, China, and along the frontier: the same sure, unhurried style, the quiet voice, the methodical calm that drove his more excitable subordinates wild. He was also the best engineer in the army, and the most successful commander of troop I ever knew.

Flashman on the March, p.49, Harper Collins, paperback edition 2005.



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Free and easy style

. . . my bootneck sergeant scowled disapproval; he wasn’t use to the free and easy style of these Navy youngsters who couldn’t help bring their fifth-form ways to sea, and treated their men more like a football of which they were the captain, than a crew. It was natural enough: the cornet or ensign in the Army, when he joined his regiment for the first time, entered a world of rigid formality and discipline, but here was this lad just out of his ’teens with a little floating kingdom all his own, sent to fight slavers and pirates, chase smugglers, shepherd pilgrims, and escort the precious bullion on which a whole British army would depend — and not a senior to turn to for advice or guidance, but only his own sense and judgment.


Flashman on the March, p.17, Harper Collins, paperback edition 2005.



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Uneasliy adrift

      Ulysses S. Grant never called for help in his life, but just then I seemed to catch a glimpse within the masterful commander and veteran statesman, of the thin-skinned Scotch yokel from Ohio tanyard uneasily adrift in an old so-superior world which he’d have liked to despise but couldn’t help feeling in awe of.


Flashman and the Tiger, p.19, Harper Collins, paperback edition 2000.


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Too often to doubt

I’d never seen a pukka battle, or the way a seasoned commander (even one as daft as Paddy Gough) can manage an army, or the effect of centuries of training and discipline, or that other phenomenon which I still don’t understand but which I’ve watched too often to doubt: the British peasant looking death in the face, and hitching his belt, and waiting.


Flashman and the Mountain of Light, p.210, Fontana Paperback edition, 1991.



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More horse soldiering than most

He knew he was a good soldier—and he was you know, when he was in his right mind. I’ve seen more horse soldiering than most, and if my life depended on how a mounted brigade was handled, I’d as soon see George Custer in command as anyone I know. His critics, who never saw him at Gettysburg and Yellow Tavern, base their case on one piece of arrant folly and bad luck, when he let his ambition get the better of him.

Flashman and the Redskins, p.255, Pan Books edition, 1983.

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Our blamy cruise

And then heigh-ho, we were off on our balmy cruise across the Black Sea, a huge fleet of sixty thousand soldiers, only half of ’em rotten with sickness, British, Frogs, Turks, a few Bashi-bazooks, not enough heavy guns to fire more than a salute or two, and old General Scarlett sitting on top of a crate of hens learning, the words of command for a manoeuvring a cavalry brigade, closing his book on his finger, shutting his boozy old eyes, and shouting, ‘Walk, march, trot. Damme, what comes next?’

Flashman at the Charge, pp.59-60, Pan edition, 5th printing, 1979.

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Flashman, Flashman quotes,General Scarlett, Crimean War.

Too chancy

But I’ve never meddled if I could avoid it, where great affairs are concerned; it’s too chancy. Mind you, if I could have seen ahead I’d have sneaked into Raglan’s tent one night and brained the old fool, but I didn’t know, you see.

Flashman at the Charge, p.58, Pan edition, 5th printing, 1979.

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Heel Fido!

Mark you, I’d no time to waste marveling over the fatuousness of this kind of mismanagement; it was nothing new in our army, anyway, and still isn’t, from what I can see. Ask any commander to choose between toiling over the ammunition returns for a division fighting for its life, and taking the King’s dog for a walk, and he’ll be out there in a trice, bawling ‘Heel Fido!’

Flashman at the Charge, p.29, Pan edition, 5th printing, 1979.

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Flashman, Flashman quotes,army, commander.

Doing his duty

If you had taken the greatest military geniuses of the ages, placed them in command of our army, and asked them to ruin it utterly as speedily as possible, they could not – I mean it seriously – have done it as surely and swiftly as he [Elphinstone] did. And he believed he was doing his duty.
The meanest sweeper in our train would have been a fitter commander.

Flashman, p.176, Pan edition, 12th printing, 1979.

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Flashman, Flashman quotes,William Elphinstone, Elphy Bey.