A Sikh with his bayonet fixed

. . . and then the Sikhs were charging them with the bayonet against Ab spears and swords, smashing into their ranks like a steel fist, outnumbered but forcing the robed tribesman back, and standing by Theodore on Fala I had to clamp my jaws tight to stop myself yelling, for I remembered their fathers and uncles at Sobraon, you see, and within I was crying: “Khasla-ji! Sat-sree-akal!” There’s no hand-to-hand fighter in the world better than a Sikh with his bayonet fixed . . .


Flashman on the March, p.239, Harper Collins, paperback edition 2005.


Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, bayonet.

The famous "fighting coat"

      All India knew that white coat of Gough’s, the famous “fighting coat” that the crazy old son-of-a-bitch had been flaunting at his foes for fifty years, from South Africa and the Peninsula to the Northwest Frontier. Now he was using it to draw fire from his army to himself (and the two unlucky gallopers whom the selfish old swine had dragged along). It was the maddest-brain trick you ever saw — and, damnation, it worked! I can see him still, holding the tails out and showing his teeth, his white hair streaming in the wind, and the earth exploding round him, for the Sikh gunners took the bait and hammered us with everything they had.






Flashman and the Mountain of Light, p.264, Fontana Paperback edition, 1991.


Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, coat.

Hell and back

“You don’t know the Sikhs, sir, I do. They’ll fight their way to hell and back . . . for that little boy. And for their salt.”


Flashman and the Mountain of Light, p.212, Fontana Paperback edition, 1991.



Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, sikhs.

Solemn as priests

…Dinanath, old Bhai Ram Singh, and Azizudeen were present, solemn as priests. It was eerie, knowing that they were all well aware that their Wazir had tried to murder me a few hours earlier, and that I’d rioted with their Maharani in this very chamber. There wasn’t so much as a flicker on the handsome, bearded faces; damn good form, the Sikhs.


Flashman and the Mountain of Light, p.115, Fontana Paperback edition, 1991.


Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, flicker.

Gordana Khan

…this incredible tartan Nemesis with his Khyber knife and Yankee twang, eyeing me bleakly as I punished his malt?


Flashman and the Mountain of Light, p.105, Fontana Paperback edition, 1991.



Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, Nemesis.

Damned good form

We tiffened with some of their senior men, all courteous to a fault, and not a word about the likelihood our armies would be at each other’s throats by Christmas — the Sikhs are damned good form, you know.


Flashman and the Mountain of Light, p.59, Fontana Paperback edition, 1991.



Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, Sikh.

Aldershot in turbans

As far as you could see, among the endless lines of tents and waving standards, the broad maidan* was alive with foot battalions at drill, horse regiments at field exercise, and guns at practice — they were all uniformed and in perfect order, that was the shocking thing. Black, brown, and yellow armies in those days, you see, might be as brave as any, but they didn’t have centuries of drill and tactical movement drummed into ’em, not even Zulus, or Ranavalona’s Hova guardsmen. That was the thing about the Khalsa: it was Aldershot in turbans. It was an army.

*Plain


Flashman and the Mountain of Light, p.58, Fontana Paperback edition, 1991.


Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, Khalsa.

Curmudgeonly grunts

…the curmudgeon only grunted: “The Sikh speaks, the cobra spits — who grows fat on the difference?”


Flashman and the Mountain of Light, p.56, Fontana Paperback edition, 1991.


Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, cobra.