No butcher’s bill

      For once — and for the only time in my experience of sixty years’ soldiering in heaven knows how many campaigns — there was no butcher’s bill. We hadn’t lost a man storming Magdala, just seventeen wounded, and with only two dead at Arogee and one careless chap who shot himself on the march up, I doubt if we had more than half a dozen fatalities in the whole campaign, mortally sick included. If there were nothing else to testify to Napier’s genius, that casualty return alone would do, for I never heard the like of it in war.



Flashman on the March, p.280, Harper Collins, paperback edition 2005.


Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, casualty.

Drive a woman to fury

…he and Victoria weren’t getting on too well just then; she had just discovered (and confided to Elspeth) that she was in foal for the ninth time, and she took her temper out on dear Albert – the trouble was, he was so bloody patient with her, which can drive a woman to fury faster than anything I know. And he was always right, which was worse. So they weren’t dealing at all well, and he spent most of the daylight hours tramping up Glen bollocks, or whatever they call it, roaring ‘Ze gunn!’ and butchering every animal in view.

Flashman in the Great Game, p.23, Pan edition, 4th printing, 1979.

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Flashman, Flashman quotes,Prince Albert, shooting.

Lower the moral tone

It has never been the same since [the early Victorian Age] ; they tell me that young King Edward does what he can nowdays to lower the moral tone of the nation, but I doubt he has the style for it. The man looks like a butcher.

Royal Flash, p.13, Pan edition, 8th printing, 1978.

Tags:
Flashman, Flashman quotes,King Edward, butcher.