Jingling her loot

      “Och, isn’t he the wee duck?” sighs she, jingling her loot as he hobbled away. “Aye, weel, mony a mickle mak’s a muckle, as Papa used to say.” She slipped it into her bag and broke into civilised speech.


Flashman and the Tiger, p.229, Harper Collins, paperback edition 2000.


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Size of a tangerine

All kind of mad fancies flit by — not to be taken seriously, you understand, but food for wild imaginings — like bleaching your hair and striking out for Valparaiso under the name of Butterworth and never looking near England again . . . two million quid, Lord love us! Aye, but d’you dispose of a diamond the size of a tangerine?

Flashman and the Mountain of Light, p.314, Fontana Paperback edition, 1991.



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Experts will tell you

…none of it compared with the black jade chessmen I collared in the Birthday Garden a few days later; no one else would even look at ’em, which showed judgment, since the experts will tell you that black jade doesn’t exist. I don’t mind; all I know is that while Lucknow paid for Gandamack Lodge, those chessmen bought me the place on Berkeley Square.

Flashman and the Dragon, p.270, Fontana Paperback edition, 1986.



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The effect of plunder

“It’s a marvelous thing, the effect of plunder on soldiers, I suppose they feel real power for once in their wretched lives — not the power to kill, they all know about that, it’s just brute force against a body — but the greater power to destroy a creation of the mind, something they know they could never make."


Flashman and the Dragon, p.267, Fontana Paperback edition, 1986.


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Heavy speculation

One thing I'm sure of: there was twice as much treasure destroyed as carried away, and we officers were too busy bagging our share to do anything about it. I daresay a philosopher would have made heavy speculation about the scene, if he'd had time to spare from filling his pockets.

Flashman in the Great Game, pp.265-6, Pan edition, 4th printing, 1979.

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Spoils of war

It was a great bloody carnival, with everyone making the most of the war: I recall one incident, in a Lucknow courtyard (I believe it may have been the Begum’s palace) in which I saw Highlanders, their gory bayonets laid aside, smashing open chests that were simply stuffed with jewels, and grinning idiot little Goorkhas breaking mirrors for sheer sport and wiping their knives on silks and fabrics worth a fortune – they didn’t know any better. There were Sikh infantry dancing with gold chains and necklaces round their necks, an infantry subaltern staggering under a great enameled pot overflowing with coins, a naval gunner bleeding to death with a huge shimmering bolt of cloth-of-gold clasped in his arms – there were dead and dying men everywhere, our own fellows as well as pandies, and desperate hand-to-hand fighting going on just over the courtyard wall; muskets banging, men shrieking, two Irishmen coming to blows over a white marble statuette smeared with blood, and Billy Russell stamping and damning his luck because he had no rupees on him to buy the treasure which private soldiers were willing to trade away for the price of a bottle of rum.

Flashman in the Great Game, p.264, Pan edition, 4th printing, 1979.

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Just nuts to them

… the Cossacks were free, independent tribesmen; they had land, and paid little tax, had their own tribal laws, drank themselves stupid, and served the Tsar from childhood till they were fifty because they loved to ride and fight and loot – and they liked nothing better than to use their nagaikas on the serfs, which was just nuts to them.

Flashman at the Charge, p.147, Pan edition, 5th printing, 1979.

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Light fingers

I resisted a temptation to slip the plate into a pocket – plenty of time for lifting the lumber later.

Royal Flash, p.143, Pan edition, 8th printing, 1978.

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A soldier's eye

I have a soldier’s eye for such things, and I would say the loot value of that chamber would have kept a regiment for life, with a farm for the farrier-sergeant thrown in.

Royal Flash, p.77, Pan edition, 8th printing, 1978.

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