What you're cheering for

‘I only wish,’ the General added. ‘that when it happens I could take all the asses who’ll be waving flags and cheering and crowding the recruitment office — take ’em all by one collective arm, and say: “Now then, Jack, you know what you’re cheering for? You’re cheering at the prospect of having a soft-nosed bullet fired into your pelvis, shattering the bone and spreading it in splinters all through your intestines, and dying in agony two days later — or, if you’re really unlucky, surviving for a lifetime of pain, unable to walk, a burden to everyone, and a dam’ nuisance to the country that will pay you a pension you can’t live off. That, Jack,” I’d tell ’em, “is what you’re cheering for.” I’d probably be locked up.’


Mr American, p.520, Pan Books, paperback edition 1982.


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A splinter of steel

. . . if you think it’s agony to run hobbling with a splinter of steel buried in your calf muscle, you’re right, but it’s wonderful what you can do when Snider slugs are buzzing about your ears.



Flashman on the March, p.267, Harper Collins, paperback edition 2005.


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Flashman and the avoidance of Powerpoint

. . . I tried to run, my wounded leg gave way beneath me, and I went head-first into a large rock by the wayside and lost all interest in the proceedings.



Flashman on the March, p.265, Harper Collins, paperback edition 2005.


Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, wounded.

Beef tea, rump steak and beer

Hutton brought a brisk sawbones who peered and prodded at my stitches, dosed me with jalup, refused my demand for brandy to take away the taste, but agreed I might have a rump steak instead of the beef tea which they'd been spooning into me in my unconscious state. I told Hutton to make it two, with a pint of beer, and when I'd attended to them and was propped up among my pillows, pale and interesting, he elaborated on what he already told me.


Flashman and the Tiger, p.162, Harper Collins, paperback edition 2000.


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Run through!

      What is it like to be run through? I'll tell you. For an instant, nothing. Then hideous, tearing agony for another instant — and then nothing again as you see the blade withdrawn and the blood welling on your shirt, for the pain is lost in shock and disbelief as your eyes meet your assailant's. It's a long moment, that, in which you realise you ain't dead, and that he's about to launch another thrust to finish you — and it's remarkable how swiftly you can move then, with a hole clean through you from front to back, about midway between your navel and your hip, and sprouting gore like a pump.


Flashman and the Tiger, p.153, Harper Collins, paperback edition 2000.


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Flashy’s Sufferance

      The point is I ‘ve made capital out of my dishonourable scars by adhering to one golden rule — Flashy’s Sufferance, I call it: always convey, but never say, that your injury is a sight worse than it really is. It’s elementary, really In convalescence this ensures sympathy, if you play it properly — the barely perceptible wince, the sharp little intake of breath, the faint smile followed by the quick shake of the head, and never a word of complaint from the dear brave boy — but far more importantly, in the heat of battle it enables you to feign mortal hurt and shirk any further part in the action.


Flashman and the Angel of the Lord, p.309, Harper Collins, 1995.


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I speak with authority

      Wounds, believe it or not, can be quite handy, if you know how to make use of them. I speak with authority, having taken over twenty in my time, from my broken thigh at Piper’s Fort to the self-inflicted graze which enabled me to collapse artistically during the Boxer Rising (I was seventy-eight at the time, an age at which you can get away with a lot).


Flashman and the Angel of the Lord, p.309, Harper Collins, 1995.


Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, wound.

A broken firing-pin

      ‘Good God, you don’t mean to say,’ cries I, genuinely appalled, ‘that he got his knocker shot off?’
      ‘Let’s not think about it,’ says he, but I can tell you I went about wincing for the rest of the evening. Poor old White Raja – I mean, I’m a callous chap enough, but there are some tradgedies that truly wring the heart. Mad about that delectable little bouncer Angie Coutts, despot of a country abounding with the juiciest of dusky flashtails just itching for him to exercise the droit de seigneur, and there he was with a broken firing-pin. I don’t know when I’ve been more deeply moved. Still if J.B. were the first man in to rescue Elspeth, she’d be safe enough.

Flashman's Lady, p.133-34, Pan edition, 1979.

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A hellish thing

…it’s this kind of thing, the stale smell of blood, the wasted faces, the hushed voices, the awful hopless tiredness, that makes you understand what a hellish thing war is. Worse than a battle-field, worse than the blood and the mud and the smoke and the steel, is the dank misery of a hospital of wounded men…

Flashman at the Charge, p.120, Pan edition, 5th printing, 1979.

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Flashman, Flashman quotes,Crimean War, wounded.

No good to Flashy

It was nip and tuck like a steeplechase, with the shots crashing and echoing and thousands of voices yelling; only once did I check for an instant, when I saw young Lieutenant Sturt shot out of his saddle; he rolled into a drift and lay screaming, but it would have done no good to stop. No good to Flashy, anyway, and that was what mattered.

Flashman, p.195, Pan edition, 12th printing, 1979.

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Flashman, Flashman quotes.