The only good reason for fighting

     A sudden, odd thought struck Mr Franklin, and it seemed doubly odd that it had only just occurred to him.
     ‘D’you think England will win this war?’
     ‘Ask them,’ said the General, and jerked his thumb at the window, grinning. Then he considered, the eyes narrowing in the flushed, ancient face. ‘Probably— yes, on balance, we ought to win. Germany can lick Russia, but not Britain and France together. But they’ll take a lot of beating, if it’s a fight to the finish. Yes, I’d say we were odds on to win — not that it matters all that much.’
     Mr Franklin stared at him in astonishment. ‘You can’t mean that — it doesn’t make sense!’
     Sir Harry turned to look at him, then glanced out the window again.
     ‘It isn’t important whether you win or lose,’ he said, ‘so long as you survive. So long as your people survive. And that’s the only good reason for fighting that anyone ever invented. The survival of your people and race and kind. That’s the only victory that matters.’


Mr American, p.525, Pan Books, paperback edition 1982.


Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, war.

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.

Jingo and ginger

He’d given his troops jingo and ginger, and now he was striding off to his tent with a face like a wet week, leaving ’em stunned and silent with the fight knocked clean out of them.


Flashman on the March, p.219, Harper Collins, paperback edition 2005.


Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, ginger.

Full of bile

. . . or so I gathered from Burton who was full of bile against the chaps who discovered it. God knows why: he’d ha’ fought with his own shadow, that one.


Flashman on the March, p.131, Harper Collins, paperback edition 2005.


Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, bile.

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.


Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, wits.

Sincerely mourned

…I doubt if any man in the history of the United States was more deeply or sincerely mourned — and I ain’t forgetting friend Abraham, either. He was even more detested in Dixie than J.B., and he was just a politician, while J.B. was a fighting man and a rebel, a combination which no American could resist.


Flashman and the Angel of the Lord, p.348, Harper Collins, 1995.


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Remembrance of things past

Any soldier will tell you that, in the heat of a fight, sights and sounds imprint themselves on your memory and stay vivid for fifty years . . . but you lose all sense of time.



Flashman and the Mountain of Light, p.337, Fontana Paperback edition, 1991.



Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, soldier.

Hell and back

“You don’t know the Sikhs, sir, I do. They’ll fight their way to hell and back . . . for that little boy. And for their salt.”


Flashman and the Mountain of Light, p.212, Fontana Paperback edition, 1991.



Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, sikhs.

Polished lightning

      I never saw the buckskin man move, but suddenly he was in their path and the murderous axe-heads clanged as they struck and parried and struck again faster than the eye could follow. I looked to see him cut down in seconds by those agile fighting demons, but if they were fast as cats the little chap was like quicksilver, cutting, ducking, leaping aside, darting in again as though he were on springs—I’ve seen men of their hands, but never one to cap him for speed, and he wasn’t just holding his ground, but driving them back, his hatchet everywhere at once like polished lightning, and the two of them desperately trying to fend him off.

Flashman and the Redskins, p.190, Pan Books edition, 1983.

Tags:Flashman, Flashman quotes, Kit Carson.

Knew how to fight

      They [the Apache] knew how to fight, too, after their fashion, far better than the Plains Tribes; given numbers, they might be holding out in Arizona yet, for bar the Pathans they were the best guerrillas ever I saw.

Flashman and the Redskins, p.177, Pan Books edition, 1983.

Tags:Flashman, Flashman quotes, guerrilla.

Reservation or the grave

      The Indian’s tragedy was that being a spoiled and arrogant savage who wouldn’t lie down, and a brave and expert fighter who happened to be quite useless at war, he could only be suppressed with a brutality that often matched his own. It was the reservation or the grave, there was no other way.

Flashman and the Redskins, p.171, Pan Books edition, 1983.

Tags:Flashman, Flashman quotes, tragedy.

Built like a champion middleweight

      Now, you know what I think of mortal combat. I’ve run from more than I can count, and never lived to regret it, and this lean ten stone of quivering fighting fury, obviously as nimble as a weasel and built like a champion middleweight, was the last man I wanted to try conclusions with—well, I’d been ill.

Flashman and the Redskins, p.157, Pan Books edition, 1983.

Tags:Flashman, Flashman quotes, combat.

Not so fancy footwork

He advanced a pace, squinting up where I was pointing – and the next instant his courting tackle was half-way up inside his torso, impelled by my right boot, he was flying across the cabin, screaming, and Flashy was out and racing…

Flashman's Lady, p.200, Pan edition, 1979.

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You can't fight fate

…but you can’t fight fate, especially when he’s called Palmerston.

Flashman in the Great Game, p.14, Pan edition, 4th printing, 1979.

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A nice dark corner

Old dungeon-fighters like myself – and I’ve had a wealth of experience, from the vaults of Jotunberg, where I was sabre to sabre with Starnberg, to that Afghan prison where I let dear old Hudson take the strain – know that the thing to do on these occasions is find a nice dark corner and crawl into it.

Flashman at the Charge, p.227, Pan edition, 5th printing, 1979.

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Just nuts to them

… the Cossacks were free, independent tribesmen; they had land, and paid little tax, had their own tribal laws, drank themselves stupid, and served the Tsar from childhood till they were fifty because they loved to ride and fight and loot – and they liked nothing better than to use their nagaikas on the serfs, which was just nuts to them.

Flashman at the Charge, p.147, Pan edition, 5th printing, 1979.

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Flashman, Flashman quotes,Cossacks.

Likely big fellow he is

    They clattered down the steps, Buck swearing at the others, and as the door closed and the exclamations started flying, Lincoln turned and looked at me. His forehead just a little damp.
   ‘The ancients, in their wisdom, made a great study of rhetoric,’ says he. ‘But I wonder did they ever envisage Buck Robinson? Yes, they probably did.’ He pursed his lips. ‘He’s a big fellow, though – likely big fellow he is. I – I think I’d rather see Cicero square up to him behind the barn than me. Yes, I rather think I would.’

Flash For Freedom!, p.240, Pan edition, 8th printing, 1980.

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Flashman, Flashman quotes,Abraham Lincoln, Cicero.

A great orator

   ‘And I’m warning you, Buck!’ Lincoln’s voice was suddenly sharp. ‘Oh, I know you, I reckon. You’re a real hard-barked Kentucky boy, own brother to the small-pox, weaned on snake juice and grizzly hide, aren’t you? You’ve killed more niggers than the dysentery, and your grandmother can lick any white man in Tennessee. You talk big, step high, and do what you please, and if any “legal beanpole” in a store suit gets in your way you’ll cut him right down to size, won’t you just? He’s not a practical man, is he? But you are, Buck – when you’ve got your gang at your back! Yes, sir, you’re a practical man, all right’
    Buck was mouthing at him, red-faced and furious, but Lincoln went on in the same hard voice.
   ‘So am I, Buck. And more – for the benefit of any shirt-tail chewbacon with a big mouth, I’m a who’s-yar boy from Indiana myself, and I’ve put down better men than you just by spittingteeth at them. If you doubt it, come ahead! You want these people – you’re going to take them?’ He gestured towards Cassy. ‘All right, Buck – you try it. Just – try it.
    The rest of the world decided that Abraham Lincoln was a great orator after his speech at Gettysburg. I realized it much earlier, when I heard him laying it over that gun-carrying bearded ruffian who was breathing brimstone at him.

Flash For Freedom!, p.239, Pan edition, 8th printing, 1980.

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Flashman, Flashman quotes,Abraham Lincoln, hoosier boy.

Subtle naval tactics

Now, in my experience there is only one way to fight a ship, and that is to get below, on the side opposite to the enemy and find a snug spot behind a stout bulkhead.

Flash For Freedom!, p.110, Pan edition, 8th printing, 1980.

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Flashman, Flashman quotes.

Get 'em excited

She shot me an adoring look over her shoulder, and I glanced down at her quivering bosoms and thought to myself, you’ll be in rare trim for another kind of game later. Get’em excited – a fight is best, with the claret flowing, but any kind of sport will do, if there’s a hint of savagery in it – and they’ll couple like monkeys.

Flash For Freedom!, p.33, Pan edition, 8th printing, 1980.

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Flashman, Flashman quotes.