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.


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Some thoughts on the cessation of the slave trade

      I think he was right; by the way, and I speak from experience, having shirked responsibility too often to count. But the Balllantynes and Legerwoods didn’t, and if the slave trade has been swept off the face of the seas, it hasn’t really been the work of reformers and statesmen with lofty ideals in London and Paris and Washington, but because a long-forgotten host of fairly feckless young Britons did it for fun. And you may tell the historians I said so.


Flashman on the March, p.20, Harper Collins, paperback edition 2005.


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A cool half million

           If you’ve read my previous memoirs you’ll know me better than Speedicut did, and won’t share his misgivings about trusting me with a cool half million in silver. Old Flash may be a model of the best vices — lechery, treachery, poltroonery, deceit and dereliction of duty, all present and correct, as you know, and they’re not the half of it — but larceny ain’t his style at all.


Flashman on the March, p.15, Harper Collins, paperback edition 2005.



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Comb my memoirs

A scoundrel I may be, but I ain’t an assassin, and you will comb my memoirs in vain for mention of Flashy as First Murderer. Oh, I’ve put away more than I can count, in the line of duty, from stark necessity, and once or twice from spite — de Gautet springs to mind, and the pandy I shot at Meerut — but they deserved it. Anyway, I don’t kill chaps I don’t know.


Flashman and the Angel of the Lord, p.194, Harper Collins, 1995.

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Slave of duty

Alas, though, subalterns’ minds travel a fixed road, and he was no exception: faced with a momentous decision, my dashing escort of the Lahore Road had turned into a Slave of Duty — and Safety.


Flashman and the Mountain of Light, p.322, Fontana Paperback edition, 1991.


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No sight more inspiring

      I felt duty bound to crawl out and see them off in the morning, raw and misty as it was; there’s no sight more inspiring or heart-warming than troops marching out to battle when you ain’t going with them.

Flashman and the Redskins, p.279, Pan Books edition, 1983.

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Set it to music

Pity you couldn’t set it to music and sing it as an anthem, thinks I.

Flashman's Lady, p.147, Pan edition, 1979.

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Duty and desperate notions

‘Silence, Ryan! says I. ‘I won’t hear of it.’ [an escape attempt] This was one of these dangerous bastards, I could see, full of duty and desperate notions.

Flashman at the Charge, p.121, Pan edition, 5th printing, 1979.

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Stern stuff

These royal wenches are made of stern stuff, of course; tell ’em it’s for their country’s sake and they become all proudly dutiful and think they’re Joan of Arc.

Royal Flash, p.245, Pan edition, 8th printing, 1978.

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Give them a chance

One meets them, of course. I’ve known hundreds. Give them a chance to do what they call their duty, let them see the hope of martyrdom – they’ll fight their way on to the cross and bawl for the man with the hammer and the nails.

Flashman, p.234, Pan edition, 12th printing, 1979.

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The scene at Gandamack

There is a painting of the scene at Gandamack, which I saw a few years ago, and it was like enough the real thing as I remember it. No doubt it is very fine and stirs martial thoughts in the glory-blown asses who look at it; my only thought when I saw it was, ‘You poor bloody fools!’ and I said so , to the disgust of other viewers.

Flashman, p.206, Pan edition, 12th printing, 1979.

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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.