Farewell Flash Harry

     ‘Well, if you don’t mind,’ said Mr Franklin, ‘I feel I ought to get out here.’ The old gentleman, he told himself yet again, was decidedly unsafe. ‘I hope you don’t think I’m running out — ’
      ‘I do,’ said the veteran promptly. ‘And I commend you for it. First sign of exceptional character I’ve detected in you. But you’re missing a great chance, you know.’ He tapped Mr Franklin on the knee. ‘The first man I ever rode through those gates with was the Duke of Wellington, seventy-two years ago. Wouldn’t you like to be the last?’
      Mr Franklin hesitated. He was amused, and astonished, and a little touched. He looked into the mischievous, grinning old face, then shook his head.
      ‘I think you ought to ride in alone,’ he said gently, ‘And with the hood back.’
      He reached across and shook the old man’s hand, and then managed to push his way out of the car. The Guardsmen had succeeded in clearing the crowd from round the car, and a long aisle between to people ran fairly clear to the gates; police were moving in it, ushering them to keep it clear. At a word from Mr Franklin the hood was removed, and with the General leaning back comfortably in one corner the car rolled slowly forward. The crowd had begun to sing again, willing the King and Queen to come out on the balcony; as the car pulled away, Sir Harry was waving to him with his crooked grin; the crowd jostled forward into the space where the car had been, but Mr Franklin, craning, could see over their heads. With policeman half-running on either side, and Sergeant Rooney pacing ahead on his horse, the car was moving into the open gates held back by the red-coated Guardsmen; the singing was thundering up in full-throated ecstatic chorus, and he could just glimpse the great white head above the back seat and Sir Harry’s raised hand solemnly waving in time to the music:

Land . . . of . . . hope . . . and . . . glory!
Moth . . . er . . . of . . . the . . . free!
How . . . can we . . . extoll . . . thee,
Who . . . are . . . bo-orn of thee!

The car was lost to sight as it turned through the gates and made towards the Palace, even as the lights on the balcony came up again and royalty reappeared. The singing swelled to a triumphant climax; Mr Franklin could imagine the monarch glimpsing the car with its eccentric occupant as it sped across the open space before the Palace — what in God’s name was the old villain going to say when he got inside and the Palace minions discovered he was an entirely unauthorised visitor bent only on relieving himself? Mr Franklin could not guess — but he had no doubt Sir Harry would think of something. He’d had a lot of practice.


Mr American, pp.525-26, Pan Books, paperback edition 1982.


Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, farewell.

Royalty's going down

     Mr Franklin reintroduced himself. ‘We met at Sandringham, you may remember, General.’
     ‘To be sure we did.’ The General thumped his cane on the floor with satisfaction. ‘Hellish place — and probably no better now that Bertie’s gone. New chap looks like a muff — haven’t met him. Royalty’s going down, of course — not that they were ever up to much. Know who was on the throne when I made my entry into this vale of tears? George the Fourth — Prinny!’


Mr American, p.385, Pan Books, paperback edition 1982.



Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, royalty.

Perversely partial

. . . but she was a hearty piece of middle-aged Eve’s flesh of no remarkable allure — that she appealed to me was by the way; I’m a connoisseur of feminine beauty but no discrimination worth a dam, and anyway I’m perversely partial to royal rattle.


Flashman on the March, p.168, Harper Collins, paperback edition 2005.


Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, royal.

Encountering royalty

      You never know what to expect on encountering royalty. I’ve seen ’em stark naked except for wings of peacock feathers (Empress of China), giggling drunk in the embrace of a wrestler (Maharani of the Punjab), voluptuously wrapped in wet silk (Queen of Madagascar), wafting to and fro on a swing (Rani of Jhansi), and tramping along looking like an out-of-work charwoman (our own gracious monarch).


Flashman on the March, pp. 148-9, Harper Collins, paperback edition 2005.


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The United Service card room

. . . I was cut stone dead by someone a deal more important — the Prince of Wales, no less, shied away from me in the United Service card room, and hightailed it as fast as his ponderous guts would let him, giving me a shifty squint over his shoulder as he went. That, I confess, I found pretty raw. It’s embarrassing enough to be cut by the most vulgar man in Europe, but when he is also a Prince who is deeply in your debt you begin to wonder what royalty’s coming to.


Flashman and the Tiger, p.292, Harper Collins, paperback edition 2000.


Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, vulgar.

A notorious wastrel

When you're a queen of unblemished virtue, devoted to Duty and the high moral tone, and your son and Heir to the Throne is a notorious wastrel who counts all time lost when he ain't stuffing, swilling, sponging off rich toad-eaters and rogering anything in skirts, you're apt to be censorious . . .


Flashman and the Tiger, p.213, Harper Collins, paperback edition 2000.


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Press-ganged

. . . I knew dam’ well it would run around Horse Guards and the clubs like wildfire in the morning . . . 
     “I say — you know Chinese Gordon's gone to the Sudan! Fact — and taken Flashman with him! Met him quite by chance at the station, told Wolseley and Cambridge he must have him along, wouldn’t dream of facing the Mahdi without him, They gave him his way, of course but wondered what Flashman, who’s retired, would think of being press-ganged at a moment’s notice. D’you what Flash Harry said, cool as you please? ‘Well, the least you can do, Gordon, is pay for my blasted ticket!’”


Flashman and the Tiger, pp.197-8, Harper Collins, paperback edition 2000.


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Talked cricket

So we talked cricket, while waiting for the attempted murder of the Austrian Emperor.



Flashman and the Tiger, p.128, Harper Collins, paperback edition 2000.


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Surveying the distance

She was in profile, surveying the distance with a chilling contempt which sat perfectly on a rather horsey face with a curved high-bridged nose. Minor Mittel European royalty to the life, with the same stench-in-the-nostrils look...


Flashman and the Tiger, p.50, Harper Collins, paperback edition 2000.



Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, nostrils.

Prince of Bulgaria

There had even been a move at one stage (this is gospel, though you mayn't credit it) to invite my old comrade William Tecumseh Sherman, the Yankee general, to become Prince of Bulgaria, but nothing came of it. Pity; he was the kind of savage who'd have suited the Bulgars like nuts in May.

Flashman and the Tiger, p.43, Harper Collins, paperback edition 2000.


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Frederick the Great

      “Who was Frederick the Great?”
      “A German king, John. Bit of a tick, I believe; used scent and played the flute.”



Flashman and the Angel of the Lord, p.15, Harper Collins, 1995.


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Unbridled appetite

     Perhaps, on consideration, I’m wrong to call her a monster — unless it’s monsterous to indulge an unbridled appetite without regard for anyone or anything. Yes, I think that’s right: I do, and I’m a monster.

Flashman and the Dragon, p.238, Fontana Paperback edition, 1986.



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Gurgling consumption

…which seemed to please his highness, for he ordered up chocolate and we stood about sipping it from silver bowls, two-handed. (The Malagassies have no idea of quantity; there must have been a gallon of the sickly muck in each bowl, and the gurgling of the royal consumption was something to hear.)

Flashman's Lady, p.244, Pan edition, 1979.

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Entertaining the troops, and her majesty

This [flogging a colonel] shocked the officers, entertained the troops and delighted her majesty, if the glitter in her eyes was anything to go by . . . as soon as the lashing started I noticed her hand clenching at every stroke, and when the poor devil began to squeal, she grunted with satisfaction. It’s a great gift, knowing the way to a woman’s heart.

Flashman's Lady, pp.235-6, Pan edition, 1979.

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Clearly, not a leg man

There was strength in every line of her, too, for all her femininity – by George, I couldn’t remember when I’d seen bouncers like those, thrusting like pumpkins against the muslin of her blouse, which was open to the jeweled clasp at her breastbone – if it hadn’t been for a couple of discreetly embroidered flowers on either side, there would have been nothing at all to hide. I could only stand speechless before such queenly beauty, wondering what it would be like to tear the muslin aside, thrust your whikers in between ’em, and go brrrrr!

Flashman in the Great Game, p.79, Pan edition, 4th printing, 1979.

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Flashman, Flashman quotes,breasts, whiskers.

Princes or prime ministers

I should have known that it’s never safe to get within range of princes or prime ministers.

Flashman in the Great Game, p.28, Pan edition, 4th printing, 1979.

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Flashman, Flashman quotes,princes, prime ministers.

Her Britannic Majesty

…but her first glimpse of our royal hosts reduced her awe a trifle, I think. We took a stroll the first afternoon, in the direction of Balmoral, and on the road encounted what seemed to be a family of tinkers led by a small washerwoman and an usher who had evidently pinched his headmaster’s clothes.

Flashman in the Great Game, p.20, Pan edition, 4th printing, 1979.

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Flashman, Flashman quotes,Queen Victoria, Prince Albert.

Endless pictures of German royalty

They don’t often invite me to Balmoral nowadays, which is a blessing; those damned tartan carpets always put me off my food, to say nothing of the endless pictures of German royalty and that unspeakable statue of the Prince Consort standing knock-kneed in a kilt.

Flashman in the Great Game, p.11, Pan edition, 4th printing, 1979.

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Flashman, Flashman quotes,kilt, Prince Albert.

Harmless enough folk

I’ve been about courts a great deal in my misspent career, and by and large I bar royalty pretty strong. They may be harmless enough folk in themselves, but they attract a desperate gang of placeman and hangers-on, and in my experience, the closer you get to the throne, the nearer you may finish up to the firing-line.

Flashman at the Charge, p.35, Pan edition, 5th printing, 1979.

Tags:
Flashman, Flashman quotes,royalty, throne.

Heel Fido!

Mark you, I’d no time to waste marveling over the fatuousness of this kind of mismanagement; it was nothing new in our army, anyway, and still isn’t, from what I can see. Ask any commander to choose between toiling over the ammunition returns for a division fighting for its life, and taking the King’s dog for a walk, and he’ll be out there in a trice, bawling ‘Heel Fido!’

Flashman at the Charge, p.29, Pan edition, 5th printing, 1979.

Tags:
Flashman, Flashman quotes,army, commander.