What you're cheering for

‘I only wish,’ the General added. ‘that when it happens I could take all the asses who’ll be waving flags and cheering and crowding the recruitment office — take ’em all by one collective arm, and say: “Now then, Jack, you know what you’re cheering for? You’re cheering at the prospect of having a soft-nosed bullet fired into your pelvis, shattering the bone and spreading it in splinters all through your intestines, and dying in agony two days later — or, if you’re really unlucky, surviving for a lifetime of pain, unable to walk, a burden to everyone, and a dam’ nuisance to the country that will pay you a pension you can’t live off. That, Jack,” I’d tell ’em, “is what you’re cheering for.” I’d probably be locked up.’


Mr American, p.520, Pan Books, paperback edition 1982.


Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, cheering.

Death, destruction and national catastrophe

Of course, this was supposedly in the national character; it was proverbial that the Englishman displayed emotion only when faced by some truly earth-shaking crisis, like a cricket match, or the ill-treatment of an animal, or a rise in the price of beer; for such trivia as death, destruction and national catastrophe he was supposed to reserve an indifference that bordered on insanity.


Mr American, pp.510-11, Pan Books, paperback edition 1982.


Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, emotion.

Before the light fades

You can always tell when something is coming to an end. You know, by the way events are shaping, that it can’t last much longer, but you think there are still a few days or weeks to go . . . and that’s the moment when it finishes with a sudden bang that you didn’t expect. Come to think of it, that’s probably true of life, or so it strikes me at the age of ninety — but I don’t expect it to happen before tea. Yet one of these days the muffins will grow cold and the tea-cakes congeal as they summon the lads from belowstairs to cart the old cadaver up to the best bedroom. And if I’ve a moment before the light fades, I’ll be able to cry, “Sold, Starnberg and Ignatieff and Iron Eyes and Gul Shah and Charity Spring and all the rest of you bastards who tried to do for old Flashy, ’cos he’s going out on his own, and be damned to you!”


Flashman on the March, p.257, Harper Collins, paperback edition 2005.


Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, end.

Intimations of fatalities

      There are days when you get up and smell death in the air, and that Good Friday was one of them.



Flashman on the March, p.233, Harper Collins, paperback edition 2005.


Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, death.

Their terrible bass chorus

. . . Death sweeping towards us at that fearful thunderous jog-trot that made the earth tremble beneath our very feet, while the spears crashed on the ox-hide shields, and the dust rolled up in a bank before them as they chanted out their terrible bass chorus: “Uzitulele, kagali ’muntu!” — which, you’ll be enchanted to know, means roughly: “He is silent, he doesn’t start the attack.”


Flashman and the Tiger, p.275, Harper Collins, paperback edition 2000.


Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, chorus.

Not so quiet Americans

      “Unofficial death warrants have a habit of recoiling,” says he coolly. “My countrymen have one great failing — they talk too much.”


Flashman and the Angel of the Lord, p.335, Harper Collins, 1995.

 
Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, talk.

Flashman on game theory

     There’s a moment in any trial between two persons, whether it’s a game or an argument or a battle of wits or a duel to the death, when Party A thinks he’s got Party B cold. And that, believe it or not, is the moment when A is most vulnerable, if only B has the sense to see it.


Flashman and the Angel of the Lord, p.131, Harper Collins, 1995.


Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, game.

An appropriate inscription

…when she died in her sixty-sixth year, her tombstones was given the appropriate inscription: “Under this stone lies all that could die of Lady Sale”.*


*Please note, this is not taken from the Flashman Papers 1845-46 but quoted from the editor's footnotes (No. 9).



Flashman and the Mountain of Light, p.377, Fontana Paperback edition, 1991.



Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, die.

Vale Fighting Bob

…they were burying the dead in scores, and I’d chanced to glance aside through an open tent-fly, and there, wrapped in a cloak, was the body of old Bob Sale. It quite undid me. He’d been such a hearty, kind old soul — I could see him mopping the noble tears from his red cheeks at my bedside in Jallalabad, or grinning from his table-head at Florentina’s wilder flights, or thumping his knee: “There’ll be no retreat from Lahore, what?” Now they were blowing retreat over him, old Fighting Bob; the grapeshot had got him when they stormed the jungle — the Quartermaster-General charging with the infantry! Well, thank God I wouldn’t have to break the news to her.


Flashman and the Mountain of Light, p.239, Fontana Paperback edition, 1991.



Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, retreat.

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.



Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, death.

Much beastliness

Like much beastliness in the world, suttee is inspired by religion, which means there’s no sense or reason to it…


Flashman and the Mountain of Light, p.130, Fontana Paperback edition, 1991.


Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, suttee.

Tally the destruction

No one can ever count the dead, or tally the destruction, or imagine the enormity of its blood-stained horror. This was the Taiping – the Kingdom of Heavenly Peace.


Flashman and the Dragon, p.84, Fontana Paperback edition, 1986.



Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, Taiping.

Dry eternity

“There’s no drinking after death.”

Flashman's Lady, p.179, Pan edition, 1979.

Tags:Flashman, Flashman quotes, death.

His exterior suggested

Internally, as the quack said, he might be in A1 trim, but his exterior suggested James I dying.

Flashman's Lady, p.56, Pan edition, 1979.

Tags:Flashman, Flashman quotes, dying.

That ain’t how people die

As I scrambled up I saw she was writhing in the dust; her scarf and helmet were gone, she was kicking and clawing at her body, and her face was twisted and working in agony, with her hair half across it. It was hideous, and I could only crouch there, gazing horrified. Oh, if it were a novel I could tell you that I ran to her, and cradled her head against me and kissed her, while she looked up at me with a serene smile and murmured something before she closed her eyes, as lovely in death as she’d been in life – but that ain’t how people die, not even the Rani of Jhansi. She arched up once more, still tearing at herself, and then she flopped over, face down, and I knew she was a goner.

Flashman in the Great Game, pp.315-6, Pan edition, 4th printing, 1979.

Tags:
Flashman, Flashman quotes, die.

The death of Scud East

     East gave a little ghost of a smile, and his hand tightened and then went loose in mine – and I found I was blubbering and gasping, and thinking about Rugby, and hot murphies at Sally’s shop, and a small fag limping along pathetically after the players at Big Side – because he couldn’t play himself, you see, being lame. I’d hated the little bastard, too, man and boy, for his smug manly piety – but you don’t see a child you’ve known all your life die every day. Maybe that was why I wept, maybe it was the shock and horror of what had being happening. I don’t know. Whatever it was, I’m sure I felt it all the more sincerely for knowing that I was still alive myself, and no bones broken so far.

Flashman in the Great Game, p.233, Pan edition, 4th printing, 1979.

It beats me

Comber wasn’t buried the next day, because one of the slaves died during the night, and when the watch found him at dawn they naturally heaved the body overside to the sharks. For some reason this sent Spring into a passion; he wasn’t having a white man buried at sea the same day as a black had been slung over, which seemed to be stretching it a bit, but lots of the older hands agreed with him. It beats me; when I go they can plant me with the whole population of Timbuctoo…

Flash For Freedom!, p.104, Pan edition, 8th printing, 1980.

Tags:
Flashman, Flashman quotes.

Flashy and the Angel of Death

…he just lay there, coughing weakly, and breathing in little moaning gasps… after a moment he began to mumble; I leaned close, but it was a moment before I could make out what he was saying – in fact, he was singing, in a little whisper at the back of his throat; it was a sad little song, The Lass so good and true, that they call Danny Boy nowadays. I knew at once, without telling, that it was the song his mother had used to sing him to sleep, for he began to smile a little, his eyes closed. I could have kicked the brute…

Flash For Freedom!, p.101, Pan edition, 8th printing, 1980.

Tags:
Flashman, Flashman quotes,deathbed.

Joining the choir invisible

…as soon as I clapped eyes on him I could see it was the Union Jack for this one, no error.

Flash For Freedom!, p.97, Pan edition, 8th printing, 1980.

Tags:
Flashman, Flashman quotes,death.

Nothing so cheering

With the danger safely past, I was soon in good fettle again. As I’ve said before, there’s nothing so cheering as surviving a peril in which companions have perished, and our losses had been heavy.

Flash For Freedom!, p.85, Pan edition, 8th printing, 1980.

Tags:
Flashman, Flashman quotes.