A Review of Flashman at the Charge by George MacDonald Fraser

 

Cover

This was one fun book. Flashman yet again finds himself somehow in the thick of chaos and history. This time entering the Crimean war as the mentor to a young German prince named Willie who he had earlier taken out on the town, gotten drunk beyond recognition, stripped and painted black and abandoned. Willie was none the wiser. He is part of several historical events in the Crimean war and by the skin of his teeth and blind luck lives without a scratch and is taken prisoner by the Russians. There he is taken to an estate in what is now present day Ukraine on the left bank of the Dnieper. He meets a young Nicholas Pavlovich Ignatiev who scares Flashman. He is kept at Count Pencherjevsky's estate where he of course beds Pencherjevsky's daughter, and sister-in-law. There he also meets Scud East, a fellow POW who he knew back at Rugby.

Charge of the Light Brigade by Richard Caton Woodville Jr.

Scud East and Flashy eaves drop on a conversation and learn of the Russian plans to attach British India. Scud East wants to make a break for it and try to get back to British lines. Flashman wants nothing to do with escape and the foreseeable capture and execution by Pencherjevsky's cossacks. One night there is a peasant rebellion at Pencherjevsky's estate and Pencherjevsky demands that Scud East and Flashman take his daughter and make a break for it. They do. After getting a few miles out of town they both realize that they now have the perfect opportunity to escape. Their escape tales them to the Arrow of Arabat (a spit linking mainland Ukraine to the Kerch peninsula). They are chased by Cossacks and East makes it away.

Arrow of Arabat

Flashman is captured sees his old enemy Ignatiev and is taken across the Russian steppe, Caspian Sea, and Aral Sea. He is thrown in a jail cell with two Tajik prisoners who are Yukug Beg and Izzat Kutebar. Miracurasly they are freed from prison due to a cunning and daring young lady named Silk Eyes.

Flashman wants to make a break for India via the Afghan mountains but the Tajiks want him to help them attack the Russian camp in order to stop their invasion of their country and India. Flashman finally gives in and they make a daring attack blowing up Russian munition ships and make there escape. Flashman is escorted to India by two Afghans via Kabul. He visits some of the locations that we know so well from the first installment of the Flashman papers and reports to the first British soldier he sees. They think he is a mad man and it takes some convincing for Flashy to be believed. Flashman has done it yet again.

This was a really fun book. Flashman is the center of things, bedding women, getting up to no good, caring only for his own behind, and yet making it out unscathed after being involved in some intense battles. GMF is a great writer.

A few lines I like from the book are:

"However fearful my present predicament, however horrid the odds and danger ahead, they'd get no better with being fretted over"

"One thing tribulation teaches you, and that is to wear the mask when there's nothing else for it."