Engulfed in water

      Falling down one of the highest waterfalls on earth (so far as I know on the Victoria Falls are appreciably higher) is not like toppling from the lofty side of a ship (which I’ve done) or from any other dry height. I say “dry” because being engulfed in water which is undoubtedly drowning you quite takes away the sensation of falling, and there is no shock of entering the water at the end of your enforced dive; you arrive cocooned in the stuff and borne into the depths in a state of complete confusion: you can see nothing but blinding light and hear nothing but continuous thunder, you can’t tell which is up and which is down, and only at the uttermost limit of your plunge does some inkling of your situation enter your consciousness and you begin to rise again.


Flashman on the March, p.142, Harper Collins, paperback edition 2005.


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Alas, I cannot swim

…in my panic all I could think to do was start singing – that old Pathan song that goes:

There’s a girl across the river
With a bottom like a peach –
And alas, I cannot swim.*

[*Flashman misquotes the song, see this link]

Flashman, p.226, Pan edition, 12th printing, 1979.

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Flashman, Flashman quotes.