A man apart

…in my time Grant was a man apart. He wasn’t much of a general; it was notorious he’d never read a line outside the Bible; he was so inarticulate he could barely utter any order but “Charge!”; his notions of discipline were to flog anything that moved; the only genius he possessed was for his bull fiddle; he could barely read a map, and the only spark of originality he’d ever shown was to get himself six months in close tack for calling his colonel a drunkard. But none of this mattered in the least, because your see, Hope Grant was the best fighting man in the world.

Flashman and the Dragon, p.46, Fontana Paperback edition, 1986.

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Brave in buckskin

I raised an eyebrow myself when the boy general arrived a few days later, all brave in fringed buckskin and red scarf over his uniform, but with a face like a two-day corpse.

Flashman and the Redskins, p.288, Pan Books edition, 1983.

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Grin and agree

Speaking from a safe distance, I can say it was a sound scheme. Hearing it proposed for the first time I thought it was fit to loosen the bowels of a bronze statue – but the hellish thing is, whatever a general suggests, you can do nothing but grin and agree.

Flashman in the Great Game, pp.277-8, Pan edition, 4th printing, 1979.

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The width of a sabre blade

I’ll tell you something else, which military historians never realize: they call the Crimea a disaster, which it was, and a hideous botch-up by our staff and supply, which is also true, but what they don’t know is that with all these things in the balance against you, the difference between hellish catastrophe and brilliant success is sometimes no greater than the width of a sabre blade, but when all is over no one thinks of that. Win gloriously - and the clever dicks forget all about the rickety ambulances that never came, and the rations that were rotten, and the boots that didn’t fit, and the generals who’d have been better employed hawking bedpans round the doors. Lose – and these are the only things they talk about.

Flashman at the Charge, pp.41-2, Pan edition, 5th printing, 1979.

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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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