Damn your eyes, lad… albeit not quite as lecherous or treacherous as Sir Flashy VC, but Señor Soldat Fletchy CSVC, UPH ^(1), UBD has written a book called 'Homage to Ukraine'.
Granted, it's 300,000 gibbering words of absurdity yet 'only' covers 2022-25, from food relief volunteering, deliveries, mobile service and kitchen graft to enlistment in the Legion, soldiery as an infantryman in the age of mortars, mines, MLRS, magnesium-thermite, machine guns, missiles and drones; being wounded in Kreminna Forest, medical limbo and more… up to a return to service (despite 'severe' classification injuries) after surgery in spring 2026.
330,000 words… fifty-thou longer than the longest Harry Potter, and more lunacy than Lord Voldemort mashed on magic monkey dust.
Aye, I know: literary asbestos to the literati, utterly unpublishable, they'll cringe from me like Dracula from the dawn…
But: if anyone is willing to dramatically unearth this manuscript from an Ashby-de-la-Zouch furniture sale, I can promise no wilder or more vulgar, surreal, curious, autistic ^(2) or philosophical war memoir ever penned.
I'm en route back (after eye surgery and neuro-rehabilitation) to military service in spring 2026, despite monocular vision; subcortical brain haemorrhaging; Diffuse Axonal Injury; foci of lesions, bleeding and damage in the left parietal lobe, the right parietal lobe, the right occipital lobe and the cerebral cortex, and with resulting gliosis in these lobes and cortices, as well as post-traumatic encephalopathy…^(3)
"'Tis but a scratch," and all that… in light of this, I'd love to know there was an avenue for leaving this tale to the sneering indifference of posterity. I doubt 'Homage to Ukraine' will be discovered by its own accord in a Leicestershire saleroom in 2069…
Let this memoir spread its wings and take flight… should its author collect the wage of idealism, and be blown into pink mist or find his bed in the mud, it's a nice daydream to think that as I perish, this story of a merciless war might be imperishable… that, or left for the scornful apathy of a smartphone-addicted herd of independent minds, in this unmerciful monkey farm of Absurdistan… but hey—worth a pop. Savvy?
If anyone has any idea as to how to get an essentially overlong and traditionally unpublishable book pumped out and placed on the shelves of all bookshops across the Anglosphere… well, I'd be eternally grateful to hear it. Or briefly relieved, considering life expectancy on the Ukrainian frontlines is about the same as a synagogue window in Hitler's Munich.
After leaving neuro-rehab (with a week to spare before eye surgery) I was damned close to bursting into the successor agency of the publishers (Secker & Warburg) who published 'Homage to Catalonia' in 1938… at the Vauxhall Bridge, I was mere moments from flouncing into their London hub and loudly demanding consideration ("publish this or the Legion besieges your building like Jalalabad, savvy? Nay: make that the Sekundar Burnes casa de Kabul") but let's not call a spade an agrarian implement: with a 300,000 word manuscript, I'd be laughed out of the gaff… ergo would be forced to hold them all hostage at spud-gunpoint while listing insane demands… such as the immediate release of the leaders of 'Liberté de Quebec', Asian Dawn, and the New Provo Front.^(4)
When these revolutionary brothers and sisters are released, and lounging in the palm-shade of paradise (with Homage to Ukraine promised an immediate print-run and marketing push) I would of course fling the hostages back into our unmerciful monkey farm of a world unharmed, and go out blazing with the peelers, with a 'Cat in Wonderland' smile as the light fades.
No Ukrainian poppets were flung out of sleighs into the snow in the making of this…^(5)
Sadly, no wolves were observed either^(6) while fighting in the 'Forest of Wonders', the 'Lis Chudes' of Kreminna Forest, or Serebryansky Forest ^(7) despite the the wild wolf population rising in wartime, amazingly enough. I did see cats, rabbits, rats and mice (as youtube will attest per the feline: no lupine critters, alas). Sadder still, no sadistic birch-lashed steam baths in eastern Ukraine, pizdyets. No Aunt Saras emerged through the mist. No kinky minx flogged me senseless: I was merely stupefied by orc mortar fire, blyat. Sexual charisma was syphilitic. But hope springs eternal.^(8)
Ideas welcome. 'Homage to Ukraine' needs a home. It needs publishers, a print run and readers, too. But beyond a campaign of bothering the literati outside their offices in a determined onslaught of harassment, I'm stumped. And I'm back to dance the war god's deadly dance in a month or two anyway, once my eyes have been under the surgeon's knife.
p.s. anyone suffering 'Flashman withdrawals' may seek solace in this book. I'm less atrocious by far, but more ponderous, cumbersome, blundering, and less assertive. It's been a peculiar ride. And as ^(9) Orwell asserted when reviewing the hideous Salvador Dali: autobiography is only worthwhile when it reveals something disgraceful.
p.p.s. "isn't this myth called bravery (half-panic, half-lunacy—in my case, all lunacy) meant to pay for all?"
p.p.p.s. as that crafty yank lawyer said (what was it, Moses Lincoln, Jesus Lincolnshire?^(10)) … "when all else fails, turn to Flashman."
Courage, lad—and shuffle the cards.^(11)
~
Editor's Footnotes, George Macdonald Fraser:
- Anglicised. Fletcher has converted the 'Медаль «За жертву крові в боях за волю України»' or 'Medal for the Sacrifice of Blood in the Battles for the Freedom of Ukraine' to its more common nickname among foreign Anglophones: 'The Ukrainian Purple Heart Medal'. T'other abbreviations refer to the 'UBD Medal', or 'Uchasnyk Boyovih Dil' / Veteran Warrior Medal (which—like the 'Purple Heart'—is awarded by the Ukrainian Minister of Defence) and the 'Chest i Slava' Voltse Cross / Krest: the 'Honour and Glory Cross', derived from the earlier 'Glory and Honour' badge, and eligible for military volunteers (voltse) at the behest of battalion or brigade commanders. 'Voltse' was informally added to the name of this new 'Cross' form of the old badge, to reflect that only ZSU 'volunteers' are eligible: it is a truncated form of 'dobrovoltse' or 'good volunteer', but rendered 'Voltse' (and per the Legion 2nd Battalion commander Colonel Ruslan aka 'Santa', in Eng/UA nicknamed 'Slava Voltse Cross', inscribed 'Chest i Slava' i.e. Honour and Glory), ergo CSVC or HGVC, not CSDC/K. For what it's worth, the Russian profile of Fletcher on Kremlin geopolitics wikipedia 'Geochronic .ru' calls it The Volunteer Cross 'Honour and Glory', which would be 'VCCS' or 'VCHG'. Fletcher elected for the latter, both being Anglicised and bestowed by the foe, as the sneered insults of an enemy such as Russia are, to him, worth more than the praise of a pal. Amusingly, 'VCHG' also refers to a voltage charger.
- Autism, or 'neurodivergence' is among the conditions that preclude enlistment in the ZSU (Ukrainian Armed Forces) yet astonishingly, this amazing gorilla was indeed diagnosed as such by psychologists and medical professionals in the course of his neurological rehabilitation, in Ukraine and Great Britain alike.
- Curiously, the MRI scans and documentation of the Kharkiv Military Hospital, the Truskavets Sanatorium, the Truskavets VLK (military-medical commission), the Харківська клінічна лікарня, the World Health Organisation ambassador and neurologist Yaser Alsaidi, and the Kharkiv Psychiatric Hospital #3 all corroborate these startling claims, as does a medical repatriation to Britain in the summer of 2025 (for rehab and eye surgery) that was arranged by the WHO's Dr. Alsaidi, approved by the Defence Minister and supervised by the British FCDO.
- Apparently, Fletcher read about them in 'Time' Magazine…
- See 'Flashman at the Charge!'
- Incredibly, the wild wolf population has indeed increased during wartime in Ukraine… sadly, a large number of alabai (or 'Asian shepherd' dogs), which used to guard agricultural land from roaming wolfpacks, were abandoned by their owners who fled the Russian onslaught: Fletcher's dear Viking friend, when not reducing the wild 'Russian orc' population, routinely goes to rescue them in his spare time 'off-mission', and relocates them to a specialised kennel run by former smugglers.
- The 'Forest of Wonders', as nicknamed in typical Ukrainian dark humour, is officially the 'Serebryansky Forest' and typically referred to as such by Ukrainians, but—as Fletcher himself added to wikipedia—more commonly referred to as 'Kreminna Forest' by foreigners, and the part nearest Kreminna itself was called 'the Kreminna Forests National Nature Park', or in abridged Ukrainian, and per google maps, Кремі́нські ліси́. That said, Legionnaires of the 2nd Battalion often described their zero line simply as fighting at 'Kreminna', while Ukrainian, surzhyk or Russian speakers employed the 'Serebryansky' or 'Forest of Wonders' / 'Lis Chudes' description interchangeably. It all refers to the same forest in Luhansk oblast, the easternmost region of the Donbas (and Ukraine itself)… this notorious forest was a major battleground, and is now a burned over post-apocalyptic wasteland that the Russians finally captured in December 2025 after three years of 'meat-grinder' warfare. Thus, the failure to recapture Kreminna gives way to a renewed orc offensive to recapture Lyman—once far to the Legion's rear back in Donetsk region—a town which changed hands twice in 2022, and where 25 mass-graves were discovered upon its liberation, with 58 in the surrounding area and more in Izyum to its west.
- It must be said: Fletcher, while coming almost two centuries after the deplorable Flashman, is at least comparable in his loucheness and crass vulgarity, and equally prone to what contemporary critics would decry as a disgraceful lack of 'political correctness'. His scorn for such image-conscious pandering reflects the editor's, as it happens.
- This reference, along with the titular arrow preposterously borrowed from the peerless Eric Blair's quiver, makes clear that the man known to history as 'George Orwell' remains Fletcher's hero, if he believed in heroes. The clinical detachment of Orwell's style, though, hardly applies to this demented account of more than three years (and counting) at war in Ukraine from a gibbering chimp who, among other eccentricities, is opening a poll to decide his next Call Sign by democratic vote: options include 'Flashman', 'Captain Spazchrist', 'Twatboy Slim', 'Massive Bereavement' and 'Magic Monkey Juice', which demonstrably forewarn a reader not to expect the same discipline or measured reportage as one would find in Orwell's own 'Homage'.
- A clumsy attempt to mimic Flashman's wry, often scathing humour. It is the thought that counts, perhaps, but some mind-grapes are not worth fermenting. Proof that haemorrhaging, diffuse axonal injury, cortical and lobular damage and traumatic encephalopathy do, in fact, affect the brain. Not to mention the sexual charisma: now akin to syphilis, as Fletcher (to his credit) freely admits.
- Shamelessly pilfered from Lola Montez, the saucy wench. For all his many faults, Fletcher does align with Flashman's one redeeming feature—shameless honesty as a memorialist—when he freely admits the practice of masturbating on watch, though it's unclear if Montez, as a libidinous hussy and legendarily great licentious fleshtrap of bygone times, occupied his thoughts beyond providing pithy maxims to pinch. 'Courage, and four-knuckle shuffle', perhaps. He'd join your Liszt.
- "Homage to Ukraine", by Fletch aka Daniel S. William Fletcher… 'wanted by Russian law enforcement agencies', according to the Kremlin's geopolitics propaganda wikipedia 'Geochronic.ru', and similarly profiled on Russian channels 'Track A Nazi Merc', 'Joker', 'Rybar', 'Foreign Combatants' and 'Path of Pain'. Help 'Homage' find a home. Also: enjoy a scoundrelly cover of rascality, of the Flashman ilk:
Stay cool.
~
References:
Ukraine Government's official Legion page:
https://ildu.mil.gov.ua/news/fletcher-fighter-2nd-international-legion-defence-ukraine
Fletch interviewed by Sergey Lyubarsky, Kyiv, January 2025:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxXZ0fZuEEY
Ukrainian television Suspilne feature on World Central Kitchen, Kharkiv April 2023:
https://youtu.be/3tMKkVK4JlU?si=u8uDkNrp5PWfqrwZ