The old hulks

‘That’s the way we all go — the old hulks!’ The General tugged angrily at his moustache. ‘You can ruin yourself being battered and chased and shot at half your life, and fighting like hell on behalf of a lot of damned lickspittles who infest cesspits like the Athenaeum Club where they put too much damned salt in the damned consommé and try to poison people with curried turtle soup that would make a Bengali privy cleaner sick — not that I ever fought except when I couldn’t avoid it, but any man’s a bloody fool who does otherwise — and what d’you get for it at the end of the day? His voice was rising steadily, and his eyes glaring horribly. ‘I’ll tell you what you get — a set of tinware and a few meaningless titles and a pension that won’t keep your blasted dog in bones, and your niece, a lady of quality, expressing her proper contempt for a worthless travesty of a picture by some mountebank whom you wouldn’t pay to distemper a kitchen ceiling, may be hauled into a police court, subjected to the degradation of a public trial — ’


Mr American, p.391, Pan Books, paperback edition 1982.



Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, hulk.

Of dust and dogs

. . . stirring up the dust in rolling clouds, through which appeared presently the Magdala prisoners, plodding wearily to the tent-lines.
       The Europeans were in the van, and a sorry lot they were, like tramps on the look-out for a hen-roost; if you’d seen ’em at your gate you’d have set the dog on them.


Flashman on the March, p.213, Harper Collins, paperback edition 2005.


Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, dust.

Enchanted

“My friend, I was enchanted!” He sighed like a ruptured poodle.


Flashman and the Tiger, p.52, Harper Collins, paperback edition 2000.


Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, poodle.

Flashy commands

      “Sang-kol-in-sen! That lady and her child are under the protection of Her Majesty’s Government! Molest them at your peril! I speak for Lord Elgin and the British Army, so . . . back off, d’you see?” And for good measure I added: “You dirty dog, you!”


Flashman and the Dragon, p.254, Fontana Paperback edition, 1986.



Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, protection.

Quivering setter, thrashing stoat

She did him proud, too, with a strapping blonde wench – satin boots and all – and at the sight of her Willy moaned feverishly and pointed, quivering, like a setter. He was trying to clamber all over her almost before the door was closed, and of course he made a fearful mess of it, thrashing away like a stoat in a sack, and getting nowhere.

Flashman at the Charge, p.40, Pan edition, 5th printing, 1979.

Tags:
Flashman, Flashman quotes,setter, stoat.

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.

Tags:
Flashman, Flashman quotes,army, commander.

Die like Englishmen

‘Well,’ says he, ‘we can make a bloody good fight of it. We can die like Englishmen, ’stead of like dogs.
‘What difference does it make whether you die like an Englishman or like a bloody Eskimo?’ says I, and he just stared at me and then went on chafing my arms.

Flashman, p.219, Pan edition, 12th printing, 1979.

Tags:
Flashman, Flashman quotes.

Everyone's pet

That lifted my spirits a little, and I thought, aye, give a dog a good name and he’s everyone’s pet.

Flashman, p.164, Pan edition, 12th printing, 1979.

Tags:
Flashman, Flashman quotes,good name, dog.