The delight in blood

“But do you understand the joy of killing for its own sake? The delight in blood and the agony of the dying?” She shook her head. “From all I have heard, that is not in the British nature.”
      You should see a Newgate scragging, you poor ignorant aborigine, thinks I.


Flashman on the March, p.108, Harper Collins, paperback edition 2005.


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Bred in the bone

      That, of course, was the point. She was my grand-daughter, and what’s bred in the bone . . . oh, but she’d hocussed me properly, playing shrinking Purity, and I’d been ready to shell out half my fortune — and I’d come within an ace of committing murder for her.



Flashman and the Tiger, pp.310-11, Harper Collins, paperback edition 2000.


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Towards an honoured grave

But there I was, I say, at a time when I ought to have had nothing to do but drink my way gently towards an honoured grave, spend my wife’s fortune, gorge at the best places, leer at the young women, and generally enjoy a dissolute old age — and suddenly I had to kill Tiger Jack. Nothing else for it.


Flashman and the Tiger, p.274, Harper Collins, paperback edition 2000.


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Second thoughts

You think twice about committing murder when you’re over seventy.



Flashman and the Tiger, p.273, Harper Collins, paperback edition 2000.


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Bloody murder

...I tried to take stock of what was, you'll allow, an unusual situation. Here I was, in the summer residence of the Emperor of Austria, loaded for bear, waiting for bloody murder to break out in his policies...


Flashman and the Tiger, p.130, Harper Collins, paperback edition 2000.


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One crazy farmer

I thought he was talking through his hat — one crazy farmer being topped for murder and treason didn’t strike me as a reasonable casus belli. Which shows how much I knew.


Flashman and the Angel of the Lord, pp.342-3, Harper Collins, 1995.



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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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Solemn as priests

…Dinanath, old Bhai Ram Singh, and Azizudeen were present, solemn as priests. It was eerie, knowing that they were all well aware that their Wazir had tried to murder me a few hours earlier, and that I’d rioted with their Maharani in this very chamber. There wasn’t so much as a flicker on the handsome, bearded faces; damn good form, the Sikhs.


Flashman and the Mountain of Light, p.115, Fontana Paperback edition, 1991.


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A quiet morning for Flashman

…I was lounging in the camp’s little market, improving my Persian by learning the ninety-nine names of God (only the Bactrian camel knows the hundredth, which is why they look so deuced superior) from an Astrabad caravan-guard-turned-murderer…

Flashman at the Charge, p.251, Pan edition, 5th printing, 1979.

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Killing gents

In a novel, of course, or a play, murders are committed so; the villain leers and gloats, and the victim pleads. In my practical experience, however, killing gentlemen like de Gautet are far too practiced for such nonsense; they shoot suddenly and cleanly and the job’s done.

Royal Flash, p.177, Pan edition, 8th printing, 1978.

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Can't have missed by much

‘The Afghans murder our people, try to make off with our wives, order us out of the country, and what does our commander do? Shoots himself in the arse – doubtless in an attempt to blow his brains out. He can’t have missed by much.’

Flashman, p.167, Pan edition, 12th printing, 1979.

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