From 'The Flashman Papers', 1854 - 55
As the British cavalry prepared to launch themselves against the Russian guns at Balaclava, Harry Flashman was not so much dismayed as terrified. But the Crimea was only the beginning: beyond lay the snowbound wastes of the great Russian slave-empire, torture and death from relentless enemies, headlong escapes, savage tribal hordes to the right of him, passionate and beautiful females to the left of him, and finally that unknown but desperate war on the roof of the world, when India was the prize and there was nothing to stop the armed might of Imperial Russia but the wavering sabre and terrified ingenuity of Old Flashy himself.
