A splinter of steel

. . . if you think it’s agony to run hobbling with a splinter of steel buried in your calf muscle, you’re right, but it’s wonderful what you can do when Snider slugs are buzzing about your ears.



Flashman on the March, p.267, Harper Collins, paperback edition 2005.


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Run through!

      What is it like to be run through? I'll tell you. For an instant, nothing. Then hideous, tearing agony for another instant — and then nothing again as you see the blade withdrawn and the blood welling on your shirt, for the pain is lost in shock and disbelief as your eyes meet your assailant's. It's a long moment, that, in which you realise you ain't dead, and that he's about to launch another thrust to finish you — and it's remarkable how swiftly you can move then, with a hole clean through you from front to back, about midway between your navel and your hip, and sprouting gore like a pump.


Flashman and the Tiger, p.153, Harper Collins, paperback edition 2000.


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That ain’t how people die

As I scrambled up I saw she was writhing in the dust; her scarf and helmet were gone, she was kicking and clawing at her body, and her face was twisted and working in agony, with her hair half across it. It was hideous, and I could only crouch there, gazing horrified. Oh, if it were a novel I could tell you that I ran to her, and cradled her head against me and kissed her, while she looked up at me with a serene smile and murmured something before she closed her eyes, as lovely in death as she’d been in life – but that ain’t how people die, not even the Rani of Jhansi. She arched up once more, still tearing at herself, and then she flopped over, face down, and I knew she was a goner.

Flashman in the Great Game, pp.315-6, Pan edition, 4th printing, 1979.

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Flashman on pain and Cawnpore

I’ll tell you a strange thing about pain – and Cawnpore. That ankle of mine, which I’d thought was broken, but which in fact was badly sprained, would have kept me flat on my back for days anywhere else, bleating for sympathy; in Cawnpore I was walking on it within a few hours, suffering damnably, but with no coice but to endure it. That was the sort of place it was; if you’d had both legs blown off you were rated fit for only light duties.

Flashman in the Great Game, p.195, Pan edition, 4th printing, 1979.

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Wounded several times

I’ve been wounded several times, all of them damned painful, but you may take word for it that a ball in the bum is the worst.

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

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Sticks and stones

And I went back to work on him. I confess that I thoroughly enjoyed it, as only a true coward can, for only your coward and bully really understand how terrible pain can be.

Royal Flash, p.180, Pan edition, 8th printing, 1978.

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Flashman, Flashman quotes.