…I wasn’t cut out for life on the ocean wave. I can’t deny it; if Captain Marryat had had to write about me he’d have burned his pen, signed on a Cardiff tramp, and been buried at sea. For one thing, in my first few days aboard I did not thrash the ship’s bully, make friends with the nigger* cook, or learn how to gammon a bow sprit from a leathery old salt who called me a likely lad. No, I spent those days in my bunk, feeling damned ill, and only crawling on deck occasionally to take the air and quickly scurry below to my berth. I was sea-green and corruptible Flashy in those days.
Flash For Freedom!, p.47, Pan edition, 8th printing, 1980.
*Flashman's use of racial epitahs is a continuing problem for more enlightened, contemporary readers. The inclusion of these passages should not be taken as tacit support for his misanthropic, 19th century view of race relations.
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