Cruel waste

Damnable altogether, cruel waste of good womanhood, but what would you do? Better one should go than two, and greater love hath no man than this, that he lay down someone else’s life for his own.



Flashman on the March, p.141, 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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Little by little

A land of mystery and terror and cruelty, and the loveliest women in all Africa . . . a smiling golden nymph in her little leather tunic, teasing me as she sat by a woodland stream plaiting her braids . . . a gaudy barbarian queen lounging on cushions surrounded by her tame lions . . . a tawny young beauty remarking to my captors: “If we feed him into the fire, little by little, he will speak . . .”
       Aye, it’s and interesting country, Abyssinia.


Flashman on the March, p.14, Harper Collins, paperback edition 2005.


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Hardly a parfit gentil knight

I guess I’m like Alick Gardner: I can’t abide wanton cruelty to good-looking women. Not by other folk, anyway.


Flashman and the Mountain of Light, p.132, Fontana Paperback edition, 1991.



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A fine psychologist

He was a fine psychologist—you’ll note he had weighed me for a fugitive and a scoundrel on short acquaintance—an astute politician, and a bloody, cruel, treacherous barbarian who’d have been a disgrace to the Stone Age. If that seems contradictory—well, Indians are contrary critters, and Apaches more than most.

Flashman and the Redskins, p.169, Pan Books edition, 1983.

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The nature of evil

. . . I’ve heard some say she was just plain mad and didn’t know what she was doing. That’s an old excuse which ordinary folk take refuge in because they don’t care to believe there are people who enjoy inflicting pain. ‘He’s mad,’ they’ll say – but they only say it because they see a little of themselves in the tyrant, too, and want to shudder away from it quickly, like well-bred little Christians. Mad? Aye, Ranavalona was mad as a hatter, in many ways – but not where cruelty was concerned. She knew quite what she was doing, and studied to do it better, and was deeply gratified by it, and that’s the professional opinion of kindly old Dr Flashy, who’s a time-served bully himself.

Flashman's Lady, p.239, Pan edition, 1979.

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Brave, cheery and deadly

      ‘Sea Dyaks,’ says Stuart. ‘The bravest, cheeriest folk you’ll ever see – fight like tigers, cruel as the grave, but loyal as Swiss.’

Flashman's Lady, p.130, Pan edition, 1979.

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Kindling cruelty

There’s nothing like a spirit of righteous retribution for kindling cruelty in a decent, kindly, God-fearing man – I, who am not one, and have never needed any virtuous excuse for my bestial indulgences, can tell you that.

Flashman in the Great Game, p.185, Pan edition, 4th printing, 1979.

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Stay, cruel despot!

Now, I don’t recite all these barbarities to shock or excite your pity, or to pose as one of those holy hypocrites who pretend to be in a great sweat about man’s inhumanity to man. I’ve seen too much of it, and know it happens whenever strong folk have absolute power over spiritless creatures. I merely tell you what I truly saw – as for my own view, well I’m all for keeping the peasants in order, and if hammering ’em does good, and makes life better for the rest of us, you won’t find me leaping between the tyrant and his victim crying ‘Stay, cruel despot!’…

Flashman at the Charge, p.146, Pan edition, 5th printing, 1979.

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Absence of cruelty

Poor little simple black girl, I was thinking, to mistake absence of cruelty for kindness; just wait till it serves my interest to do you a dirty turn, and you’ll form a different opinion of me.

Flash For Freedom!, p.219, Pan edition, 8th printing, 1980.

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Delight in cruelty

Oh, the holy satisfaction of the godly – when it comes to delight in cruelty I’m just a child compared to them.

Flash For Freedom!, p.120, Pan edition, 8th printing, 1980.

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A miserable anthem

     It’s not that I’m an abolitionist by any means, but by the end of the day I’d had my bellyful of slaving. The reek of those musky bodies was abominable; the heat and stench grew by the hour, until you’d have wondered that anything could survive down there. They howled and blubbered, and we were fagged out with grabbing brown limbs and tugging and shoving and nudging them up with our feet to get the brutes to lie close. They fouled themselves where they lay, and before the job was half done the filth was indescribable….
     I looked down at it just before the hatch gratings went on, it was an indescribable sight. Row upon row of black bodies, packed like cigars in a box, naked and gleaming, the dark mass striped with glittering dots of light where the eyes rolled in sooty faces. The crying and moaning and whimpering blended into a miserable anthem that I’ll never forget, with the clanking of chains and the rustle of hundreds of incessantly stirring bodies, and the horrible smell of musk and foulness and burned flesh.

Flash For Freedom!, p.89, Pan edition, 8th printing, 1980.

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All things considered

He was an evil, vicious, cruel rascal. We got on very well, really, I suppose, all things considered.

Royal Flash, p.96, Pan edition, 8th printing, 1978.

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