Duty and desperate notions

‘Silence, Ryan! says I. ‘I won’t hear of it.’ [an escape attempt] This was one of these dangerous bastards, I could see, full of duty and desperate notions.

Flashman at the Charge, p.121, Pan edition, 5th printing, 1979.

Tags:
Flashman, Flashman quotes,duty.

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.

Tags:
Flashman, Flashman quotes,Crimean War, wounded.

Zzzzz

…I slid away into unconsciousness and slept like a winter hedgehog.

Flashman at the Charge, p.119, Pan edition, 5th printing, 1979.

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Flashman, Flashman quotes,hedgehog.

We're British Cavalry

What they [the Russian officers] couldn’t fathom was how we’d held together all the way to the guns, and hadn’t broken or turned back, even with four saddles empty out of five, so I told ’em, ‘We’re British cavalry,’ simple as that, and looked them in the eye. It was true, too, even if no one had less right to say it than I.

Flashman at the Charge, p.118, Pan edition, 5th printing, 1979.

Tags:
Flashman, Flashman quotes,Charge of the Light Brigade, The reason why.

This Sandhurst-and-Shop crowd

I’m told it’s all changing now, and that war’s no longer a gentleman’s game (as though it ever was), and that among the ‘new professionals’ a prisoner’s a prisoner so damned well cage him up. I don’t know: we treated each other decently and weren’t one jot more incompetent than this Sandhurst-and-Shop crowd. Look at that young pup Kitchener – what that fellow needs is a woman or two.

Flashman at the Charge, p.115, Pan edition, 5th printing, 1979.

Tags:
Flashman, Flashman quotes,Herbert Kitchener, Lord Kitchener.

Poster boy Flashy

Well, I’ve always said, if you get the Press on your side you’re half way there.

Flashman at the Charge, p.114, Pan edition, 5th printing, 1979.

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Flashman, Flashman quotes,press.

The most crashing discharge

I moved, gasping gently to myself, stirring on my saddle, and suddenly, without the slightest volition on my part, there was the most crashing discharge of wind, like the report of a mortar. My horse started; Cardigan jumped in his saddle, glaring at me, and from the ranks of the 17th a voice muttered: ‘Christ, as if Russian artillery wasn’t bad enough!’

Flashman at the Charge, p.106, Pan edition, 5th printing, 1979.

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Flashman, Flashman quotes,fart.

And so have his brains blown out

Several times it had occurred to me on the campaign that it would be a capital thing if he could be induced into action where he might well be hit between the legs and so have his brains blown out, but he’d not looked like taking a scratch so far.

Flashman at the Charge, p.99, Pan edition, 5th printing, 1979.

Tags:
Flashman, Flashman quotes,James Brudenell, Lord Cardigan.

Hunting in Ireland

‘Tell ye what, Flashman; I don’t know much about fightin’, but it strikes me that this Russian business is like huntin’ in Ireland – confused and primitive, what, but damned interestin’!’

Flashman at the Charge, pp.92-3, Pan edition, 5th printing, 1979.

Tags:
Flashman, Flashman quotes,Charge of the Heavy Brigade, James Scarlett.

Their heathenish slogans

‘Damn your eagerness!’ cries he. ‘Stand fast! Reload!’
   They dropped back, snarling like dogs, and Campbell turned and calmly surveyed the wreckage of the Russian ranks.... they began to laugh and cheer, and yell their heathenish slogans…

Flashman at the Charge, p.85, Pan edition, 5th printing, 1979.

Tags:
Flashman, Flashman quotes,Colin Campbell, Crimean War, 93rd Regiment of Foot,The Thin Red Line.

Ye must stand!

'Ninety-third!’ he shouted. ‘there is no retreat from here! Ye must stand!’

Flashman at the Charge, p.83, Pan edition, 5th printing, 1979.

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Flashman, Flashman quotes,Colin Campbell, Baron Clyde, 93rd Regiment of Foot.

Wasted days

The clever men were for driving on hard to Sevastopol, a bare twenty miles away, and with our cavalry in good fettle we could obviously have taken it. But the Frogs were too tired, or too sick, or too Froggy, if you ask me, and days were wasted, and the Ruskies managed to bolt the door in time.

Flashman at the Charge, p.74, Pan edition, 5th printing, 1979.

Tags:
Flashman, Flashman quotes,Crimean War, French.