Many friends

“Yes, my bucko, I’m warm — and I draw enough water in this colony, as you’ll find if you cross me. Felicitas habet multos amicos,* you know!”


*Happiness has many friends.


Flashman and the Angel of the Lord, pp.41-2, Harper Collins, 1995.



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Salaam friend or foe

“Salaam, Shadman Khan!” and he shouted with delight and yelled in English: “Stand fast, foortee-foorth! — and in an instant I was looking down on the bloody snow over Gandamack, with the remnants of the 44th being cut down by tribesman swarming over their position . . . and I wondered which side he’d been on then. (I’ve since remembered there was a Shadman Khan among those ruffians who held me in Gul Shah’s dungeon, and yet another among the band who saved me from the Thugs at Jhansi in ’57 and stole out horses on the way to Cawnpore. I wonder if they were the same man. It has no bearing on my present tale, anyway; it was just an incident at the Bright Gate. But I think it was the same man; everybody changed sides in the old days.)


Flashman and the Mountain of Light, p.119, Fontana Paperback edition, 1991.


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Favours and enemies

…gratitude’s a funny thing; do a favour, and often as not you’ve made an enemy, or at best a grudging friend. Folk hate to feel obliged.

Flashman and the Dragon, p.257, Fontana Paperback edition, 1986.


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Friend and enemy

If I hadn’t pleased Spotted Tail that day, by playing with the kid . . . who knows? I might have been spared a heap of trouble—or I might be dead by now. You can never tell where small boys are concerned; they may grow up to be your best friend—and your worst enemy.

Flashman and the Redskins, p.203, Pan Books edition, 1983.

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Inclined to be amiable

…the Yawner himself was more friendly now that he’d saved my life—have you noticed, the man who does a good turn is often more inclined to be amiable than the chap who received it?

Flashman and the Redskins, p.162, Pan Books edition, 1983.

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And that lot

‘…Flashman’s brutality had disgusted most even of his own intimate friends …’ No, by God, there was one downright, shameful lie – the kind of friends I had at Rugby you couldn’t have disgusted, not Speedicut and Rattle and that lot…

Flashman in the Great Game, p.335, Pan edition, 4th printing, 1979.

All things considered

He was an evil, vicious, cruel rascal. We got on very well, really, I suppose, all things considered.

Royal Flash, p.96, Pan edition, 8th printing, 1978.

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Flashy got beastly drunk

I learned in later years that the only safe place to get drunk is among friends in your own home, but that evening I made a thorough pig of myself, and the long and short of it was that ‘Flashy got beastly drunk’, to quote my old friend Tom Hughes.

Royal Flash, p.85, Pan edition, 8th printing, 1978.

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A first rate fellow

This I will say for the Afghan – he is a treacherous, evil brute when he wants to be, but while he is your friend he is a first rate fellow. The point is, you must judge to the second when he is going to cease to be friendly… Looking back, though, I can say I probably got on better with the Afghans than most Britons do. I imagine Tom Hughes would have said that in many respects of character I resembled them, and I wouldn’t deny it.

Flashman, p.99, Pan edition, 12th printing, 1979.

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