Scout first

Coward’s instinct if you like, but if I’m still here and in good health, bar my creaky kidneys and a tendency to wind, it’s because I shy at motes, never mind beams — and I don’t walk straight in where I can scout first.

Flashman and the Mountain of Light, p.172, Fontana Paperback edition, 1991.



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Woodcraft and mountain lore

      You may ask if a month in the wilds with that great scout taught me much of woodcraft and mountain lore; I can reply with confidence that bt the time we reached Fort Laramie, I could deduce by the sight of a broken twig that someone had stepped on it, and when I saw a great pile of dung on the prarie I knew at once that a buffalo had let drive.

Flashman and the Redskins, p.198, Pan Books edition, 1983.

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Polished lightning

      I never saw the buckskin man move, but suddenly he was in their path and the murderous axe-heads clanged as they struck and parried and struck again faster than the eye could follow. I looked to see him cut down in seconds by those agile fighting demons, but if they were fast as cats the little chap was like quicksilver, cutting, ducking, leaping aside, darting in again as though he were on springs—I’ve seen men of their hands, but never one to cap him for speed, and he wasn’t just holding his ground, but driving them back, his hatchet everywhere at once like polished lightning, and the two of them desperately trying to fend him off.

Flashman and the Redskins, p.190, Pan Books edition, 1983.

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