A bullet did that

      “Are you sick, farangi? Why do you look away? Does the sight of blood distress you?” I looked up to find the bodyguard leaning on his spear; Portly was off on a frolic of his own, seemingly. “Nay, surely not; you have seen your own blood run from a wound.” He pointed to the star-shaped scar on my hand. “A bullet did that.”
      “A clean wound is one thing soldier,” says I, and nodded towards the Ladies’ De-ballocking Circle. “That is another.”


Flashman on the March, pp.186-7, Harper Collins, paperback edition 2005.


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An older, much wiser soldier

  
That was how I made my strategic retreat, then, from the massacre of Isan’lwana — the greatest debacle of British arms since the Kabul retreat nearly 40 years earlier. Oh, aye, I’d been in that, too, freezing and bleeding on that nightmare march which never reached the Khyber. But I’d been a thoughtless boy then; at Isan’lwana I was an older, much wiser soldier, and I knew I was a long way from safety yet.

Flashman and the Tiger, p.280, Harper Collins, paperback edition 2000.


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Warm feeling of survival

As I trotted through the lines I could feel that air of contented elation that comes at the end of a campaign: the men are tired, and would like to sleep for a year, but they don’t want to miss the warm feeling of survival and comradeship, so they lie blinking in the sun, or rouse themselves to skylark and play leapfrog.


Flashman and the Mountain of Light, pp.348-9, Fontana Paperback edition, 1991.




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Remembrance of things past

Any soldier will tell you that, in the heat of a fight, sights and sounds imprint themselves on your memory and stay vivid for fifty years . . . but you lose all sense of time.



Flashman and the Mountain of Light, p.337, Fontana Paperback edition, 1991.



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A ragged fence of bayonets

…and the muskets of the infantry squares came to the present in a ragged fence of bayonets that must be ridden under as that magnificent sea of men and horses engulfed us. I never saw the like in my life, I who watched the great charge against Campbell’s Highlanders at Balaclava — but those were just Russians, while these were the fathers of the Guides and Probyn’s and the Bengal Lancers, and the only thing to stop them at full tilt was a horse soldier as good as themselves.


Flashman and the Mountain of Light, p.260, Fontana Paperback edition, 1991.



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A man apart

…in my time Grant was a man apart. He wasn’t much of a general; it was notorious he’d never read a line outside the Bible; he was so inarticulate he could barely utter any order but “Charge!”; his notions of discipline were to flog anything that moved; the only genius he possessed was for his bull fiddle; he could barely read a map, and the only spark of originality he’d ever shown was to get himself six months in close tack for calling his colonel a drunkard. But none of this mattered in the least, because your see, Hope Grant was the best fighting man in the world.

Flashman and the Dragon, p.46, Fontana Paperback edition, 1986.

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Burly and surly

Grant was the same burly, surly bargee I remembered, more like a city storekeeper than the first-rate soldier he’d been and the disillusioned President he was.

Flashman and the Redskins, p.229, Pan Books edition, 1983.

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Paying for policy

“Someone is going to have to pay for that policy sooner or later, I fear—probably someone in a blue coat earning $13 a month to guard his country’s frontier.”

Flashman and the Redskins, p.215, Pan Books edition, 1983.

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The soldier’s first rule

I should have thought of the soldier’s first rule, to put yourself in the enemy’s shoes and ask what you would do.

Flashman's Lady, p.287, Pan edition, 1979.

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When the stakes were on the blanket

She didn’t take fright, or weep, or even plague me with further questions; I’ve known cleverer women and plenty like Lakshmibai and the Silk One who were better at rough riding and desperate work, but none gamer than Elspeth when the stakes were on the blanket. She was a soldier’s wife, all right; pity she hadn’t married a soldier.

Flashman's Lady, p.281, Pan edition, 1979.

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Deceptions small and large

He’d spotted me for an old soldier, you see, which was all to the good; having detected me in a small deception, it never occurred to him to look for a large one.

Flashman in the Great Game, p.116, Pan edition, 4th printing, 1979.

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I’m a soldier, not a diplomat

‘Your highness,’ says I, ‘I can’t talk like Mr Erskine, or Captain Skene even. I’m a soldier, not a diplomat, so I won’t mince words.’ And thereafter I minced them for all I was worth…

Flashman in the Great Game, pp.80-81, Pan edition, 4th printing, 1979.

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Ill thoughts and spit

‘Let the ill think ill,’ says I easily. ‘The spittle of a durwan* will not drown a soldier.’

* Door-keeper.

Flashman in the Great Game, p.74, Pan edition, 4th printing, 1979.

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As the wild sheep defecate

‘You see?’ says Yakub Beg, craning his neck and trying to grin. ‘A dotard, flown with dreams. A badawai zhazh-kayan* who talks as the wild sheep defecate, at random, everywhere. When you and I go hither , Flashman bahadur, we shall leave him, and even the Ruskis will take pity on such a dried-up husk, and employ him to clean their privies –those of the common soldiers, you understand, not the officers.’

*A wild babbler

Flashman at the Charge, pp.220-21, Pan edition, 5th printing, 1979.

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Flashman observes

You can’t make soldiers out of slaves.

Flashman at the Charge, p.147, Pan edition, 5th printing, 1979.

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A powder monkey’s a powder monkey

I found myself sharing the view of old General Scarlett, who once told me:
   ‘Splendid chaps the ordnance, but dammem, a powder monkey’s a powder monkey, ain’t he? Let ’em fill the cartridges and bore the guns, but don’t expect me to know a .577 from a mortar! What concern is that of a gentleman – or a soldier, either? Hey? Hey?

Flashman at the Charge, p.16, Pan edition, 5th printing, 1979.

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Half-decent soldier

If I had been the hero everyone thought I was, or even a half-decent soldier, Lee would have won the battle of Gettysburg and probably captured Washington.

Royal Flash, p.11, Pan edition, 8th printing, 1978.

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Better countries

There may be better countries for a soldier to serve in than India, but i haven't seen them. You may hear the greenhorns talk about heat and flies and filth and the natives and the diseases; the first three you must get accustomed to, the fifth you must avoid - and as for the natives well, where else will you get such a docile, humble set of slaves? I liked them better than the Scots, anyhow; their language was easier to
understand.



Flashman, p.68, Pan edition, 12th printing, 1979.