‘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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