Struck me dumb

      The suddenness of it struck me dumb. I’d been slapped in the face before with commissions there was no avoiding, but always there had been a breathing space, of hours at least, in which to digest the thing, gather my scattered wits, fight down my dinner and wonder how to best shirk my duty. But here, after the barest instruction, this cool old bastard was launching me to damnation with barely time to change my shirt . . .


Flashman on the March, pp.61-2, Harper Collins, paperback edition 2005.


Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, wits.

The likely Mr Nugent-Hare

… when he dismounted, it was like a seal sliding off a rock. Gentleman-ranker, thinks I, bog-Irish gentry, village school, seen inside Dublin Castle, no doubt, but no rhino for a commission. a very easy, likely lad, with a lazy smile and a long nose.

Flashman and the Redskins, p.66, Pan Books edition, 1983.

Tags:Flashman, Flashman quotes, seal.

Ten men's share

A lot has been said about the purchase of commissions - how the rich and incompetent can buy ahead of better men, how the poor and efficient are passed over - and most of it, in my experience, is rubbish. Even with purchase abolished, the rich rise faster in the Service than the poor, and they're both inefficient anyway, as a rule. I've seen ten men's share of service, through no fault of my own, and can say that most officers are bad, and the higher you go, the worse they get, myself included.

We were supposed to be rotten with incompetence in the Crimea for example, when purchase was at its height, but the bloody mess they made in South Africa recently seems to have been just as bad - and they didn't buy their commissions.



Flashman, p. 22, Pan edition, 12th printing, 1979.

Tags:
Flashman, officers.