One-eyed Riley

It was like seeing the Prince Consort or Gladstone taking the width of the pavement and singing “One-eyed Riley”.


Flashman on the March, p.203, Harper Collins, paperback edition 2005.


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A drawing-room tenor

…Crixus was staring at me with the eager expectancy of a drawing-room tenor who has just finished butchering “The Flowers on Mother’s Grave”, and awaits applause.


Flashman and the Angel of the Lord, p.94, Harper Collins, 1995.


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My old tarpaulin jacket

        Wrap me up in my tarpaulin jacket, jacket,
        An’ say a poor buffer lies low, lies low,
        An’ six stalwart lancers shall carry me, carry me,
        With steps that are mournful an’ slow.

        Then send for six brandies and sodas, soda,
        An’ set ’em all in a row, row . . .


Flashman and the Mountain of Light, p.252, Fontana Paperback edition, 1991.



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Blow out your kite

      I can’t begin to describe the effect of hearing that pleasant, half-amused, half-impatient American voice issuing from the copper-red hawk face with its feathered braids; it was like having a Chinese mandarin suddenly bursting into “Boiled Beef and Carrots”.

Flashman and the Redskins, p.336, Pan Books edition, 1983.

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A lucky song

…Custer himself led them off in his cracked baritone until the rafters rang and feet stamped and the glasses swung in rhythm as they roared out in chorus:

              We’ll beat the bailiffs out of fun,
              We’ll make the mayor and sheriffs run,
              We are the boys no man dare dun,
              If he regards a whole skin!
              In place of spa we’ll drink down ale,
              And pay no reckoning on the nail,
              No man for debt shall go to jail,
              While he can Garryowen hail!

They didn’t notice I wasn’t singing; I was remembering the remnants of the Light Brigade in that grisly hospital shed by Yatla, croaking out those self-same words in pathetic pride at having done what no horse-soldiers had ever done before. I thought of the pale fierce faces and the horrid wounds, and the unspeakable hell we’d come through, and the ghastly cost—and I wondered if it was a lucky song to sing, that’s all.

Flashman and the Redskins, p.278, Pan Books edition, 1983.

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Songs and dreams

‘All holy songs are made of dreams,’ says he.

Flashman at the Charge, p.286, Pan edition, 5th printing, 1979.

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Flashy and the Angel of Death

…he just lay there, coughing weakly, and breathing in little moaning gasps… after a moment he began to mumble; I leaned close, but it was a moment before I could make out what he was saying – in fact, he was singing, in a little whisper at the back of his throat; it was a sad little song, The Lass so good and true, that they call Danny Boy nowadays. I knew at once, without telling, that it was the song his mother had used to sing him to sleep, for he began to smile a little, his eyes closed. I could have kicked the brute…

Flash For Freedom!, p.101, Pan edition, 8th printing, 1980.

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Alas, I cannot swim

…in my panic all I could think to do was start singing – that old Pathan song that goes:

There’s a girl across the river
With a bottom like a peach –
And alas, I cannot swim.*

[*Flashman misquotes the song, see this link]

Flashman, p.226, Pan edition, 12th printing, 1979.

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Flashman, Flashman quotes.