Flashman. George Fraser MacDonald

      

      

       Copyright

      HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd.

      1 London Bridge Street

      London SE1 9GF

       www.harpercollins.co.uk

      First published in Great Britain by Herbert Jenkins Ltd 1969

      Reissued by Collins 1982

      Reprinted by Collins Harvill 1986

      Copyright © George MacDonald Fraser 1969

      How Did I Get the Idea of Flashman? © The Beneficiaries of the Literary Estate of George MacDonald Fraser 2015

      Map © John Gilkes 2015

      Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2015

      Cover illustration © Gino D’Achille

      George MacDonald Fraser asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

      A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

      This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it, while at times based on historical events and figures, are the work of the author’s imagination.

      All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins ebooks

      HarperCollinsPublishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication

      Source ISBN: 9780006511250

      Ebook Edition © 2015 ISBN: 9780007325689

      Version: 2017-08-15

       Dedication

      For Kath

      One fine summer evening Flashman had been regaling himself on gin-punch, at Brownsover; and, having exceeded his usual limits, started home uproarious. He fell in with a friend or two coming back from bathing, proposed a glass of beer, to which they assented, the weather being hot, and they thirsty souls, and unaware of the quantity of drink which Flashman had already on board. The short result was, that Flashy became beastly drunk. They tried to get him along, but couldn’t; so they chartered a hurdle and two men to carry him. One of the masters came upon them, and they naturally enough fled. The flight of the rest excited the master’s suspicions, and the good angel of the fags incited him to examine the freight, and, after examination, to convoy the hurdle himself up to the School-house; and the Doctor, who had long had his eye on Flashman, arranged for his withdrawal next morning.

      – THOMAS HUGHES, Tom Brown’s Schooldays.

      Contents

       Cover

       Title Page

      Copyright

      Dedication

       Epigraph

      How Did I Get the Idea of Flashman?

      Explanatory Note

       Map

       Chapter 1

       Chapter 2

       Chapter 3

       Chapter 4

       Chapter 5

       Chapter 6

       Chapter 7

       Chapter 8

       Chapter 9

       Chapter 10

       Chapter 11

       Chapter 12

       Chapter 13

       Keep Reading

       Notes

       Glossary

       About the Author

       Also by George MacDonald Fraser

       The FLASHMAN Papers: In chronological order

       The FLASHMAN Papers: In order of publication

       About the Publisher

       The following piece was found in the author’s study in 2013 by the Estate of George MacDonald Fraser.

       How Did I Get the Idea of Flashman?

      ‘How did you get the idea of Flashman?’ and ‘When are we going to get his U.S. Civil War memoirs?’ are questions which I have ducked more often than I can count. To the second, my invariable response is ‘Oh, one of these days’. Followed, when the inquirer is an impatient American, by the gentle reminder that to an old British soldier like Flashman the unpleasantness between the States is not quite the most important event of the nineteenth century, but rather a sideshow compared to the Mutiny or Crimea. Before they can get indignant I add hastily that his Civil War itinerary is already mapped out; this is the only way of preventing them from telling me what it ought to be.

      To the question, how did I get the idea, I simply reply that I don’t know. Who ever knows? Anthony Hope