Nowhere to hide

      I’d never have done for the Navy. You may fool soldiers by holding aloof and looking martial, but Jack would have seen through me before we’d crossed the bar. That’s the hellish thing about life aboard ship — there’s nowhere to hide either your carcase or your nature.


Flashman on the March, p.17, Harper Collins, paperback edition 2005.


Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, navy.

Rolling in the deep

Very discreet, mind; a ship’s a small place, and chaste young ladies tend to be excitable the first few times and need to be hushed. Elspeth and my second wife, Duchess Irma, were like ecstatic banshees, I remember.


Flashman on the March, p.8, Harper Collins, paperback edition 2005.


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Happy hour

      “Old shipmates, sir!” barks he, glaring as though I were a focsle rat. “Reunited after many years, eh, Flashman? Aye, gratis superveniet quae sperabitur hora!”*


*The happy hour will come, the more gratifying for being unexpected.



Flashman and the Angel of the Lord, pp.38-9, Harper Collins, 1995.



Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, shipmates.