A distasteful talk with Flashman

‘They [officers] don’t know their men, and treat ’em like children or animals, and think of nothing, but drinking and hunting, and – and…’ he reddened to the roots of his enormous beard and looked aside. ‘Some of them consort with… with the worst type of native women.’ He cleared his throat and patted my arm. ‘There, I’m sorry, old fellow; I know it's distasteful to talk of such things, but it’s true, alas.’
     I shook my head and said it was heart-breaking.

Flashman in the Great Game, p.64, Pan edition, 4th printing, 1979.

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Flashman, Flashman quotes,John Nicholson, East India Company.

Devil a bottle of jallop

I watched the heavy, plodding tread of the infantry, and saw the stretched look of the cavalry mounts – I thought, how far will this crowd go, on a few handfuls of pork and biscuit, no tents, devil a bottle of jallop, and the cholera, the invisible dragon, humming in the air as they marched?

Flashman at the Charge, p.60, Pan edition, 5th printing, 1979.

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Flashman, Flashman quotes,Crimean War.

Modern generals

I didn’t think much of Hudson’s questions about Gandamack and Elphy at the time; if I had done I would have been as much amused as angry, for it was like a foreing language to me then. But I understand it now, although half our modern generals don’t. They think their men are a different species still – fortunately a lot of ‘em are, but not in the way the generals think.

Flashman, pp.211 - 12, Pan edition, 12th printing, 1979.

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Flashman, Flashman quotes.

Shivering with horror

...I was there, you see, shivering with horror as I watched, unlike the good Londoners, who let the roughnecks and jailbirds keep their empire for them; they are good enough for getting cut up at the Gandamacks which fools like Elphy and McNaghten bring’em to, and no great loss to anybody.

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

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Flashman, Flashman quotes.

Not your ordinary trooper

…he was well spoken enough, and, although he knew his place, was not at all your ordinary trooper, half-yokel, half-guttersnipe.

Flashman, p.202, Pan edition, 12th printing, 1979.

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Flashman, Flashman quotes.

Considering Sergeant Hudson

So I agreed, and found myself considering this Sergeant Hudson for the first time, for beyond noting that he was a steady man I had given him not much notice before. After all, why should one notice one’s men very much?

Flashman, p.202, Pan edition, 12th printing, 1979.

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Flashman, Flashman quotes.