Naturally, Who’s Who – with British discretion – barely hints that Harry Flashman frequently spied for Her Majesty’s government and that he was mixed up in both the African slave trade and the Underground Railroad.
Hickok, Esq.,’ and native interpreter – Sir Harry spoke nine languages fluently and could ‘rub along’ in another dozen or so. Over the years this far-ranging traveler also spent some time as a buffalo hunter, western scout, Australian prospector, ‘reluctant deputy marshal to J.
During the course of a long life, Sir Harry Paget Flashman (1822–1915) served as a political adviser to Chancellor Bismarck on the Schleswig-Holstein question, briefly functioned as chief of staff to the Rajah of Sarawak, rode with both John Brown and Jeb Stuart, and even assisted the Emperor Maximilian of Mexico as an aide-decamp. His Who’s Who entry – should you ever happen upon it – requires four inches of small type just to list some of his nearly unbelievable exploits. Who wouldn’t be incredulous? Sir Harry’s numerous honors include not only England’s Victoria Cross, but also the French Legion of Honour and the American Congressional Medal of Honor. ‘He had looked Sir Harry up in Who’s Who and read incredulously through the succinct list of campaigns and decorations – that gnarled old man sleeping there had seen Custer ride into the broken bluffs above the Little Big Horn, and fought hand to hand with Afghan tribesmen more than seventy years ago he had ridden into the guns at Balaclava and seen the ranks form for Pickett’s charge at Gettysburg he had known Wellington and Lincoln. Just before World War I, Mark Franklin, the hero of George MacDonald Fraser’s Mr American, travels to London, where he spends a bibulous evening with an elderly military man by the name of Sir Harry Paget Flashman. Heroes draw no higher wages than the others.’ – soldier of fortune Paolo di Avitabile in Flashman ‘Don’t wait to die on the field of honour.
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