Quotes from John Bainbridge

A few, more dedicated to public service, in government, in the Cabinet even, stifling yawns as popular opinion forced them into legislating for reforms that they must have hated.

There are devils in hell waiting to plunge red-hot pitchforks into your guts, Sergeant Berry.' 'No doubt, but until I get there I've a job to do.

death, the greatest enemy, would put in an appearance today. Now that he was here he was sure of it. Death seemed to be holding so many souls in the balance of his reaping hand.

These public executions are a positive disgrace.

After she had spoken she looked out the window once more. Darkness had fallen and she could see only her own reflection in the glass. The intruder had gone, though she had scarcely noticed him slip away. She looked at herself in the window. Soon there would be no reflection of her anywhere at all.

He looked up at the great grey peaks, some still topped by the remnants of the winter snow. He felt as close to happy as he ever got, the fittest he had been for a long time. His mind clear. Being in the mountains made him happy. He loved mountains. They were so much less trouble than people.

So what do you do when you're not working?' 'I read books, a lot of books. I have a cottage in Twickenham, right by the river. It's a small cottage, and the books take up a greater part of it. My wife and I are great readers.

Palmerston gave a wry smile. 'You may be right, though there would scarce be a politician at Westminster who would not be equally vulnerable. It is the nature of man to be at times…unwise.

the Home Secretary, Lord Palmerston, that wriggling mongoose of British politics.

As often as possible, Mrs Smythe would occupy a pew in the parish church and nod approvingly as the vicar sermonised on the evils of the world. From time to time he would catch her eye and beam a smile. He approved of her doings, being quite a champion of such Muscular Christianity.

Lovat thinks you can just hide someone in a place like the Commercial Road. You can't! It might be part of one of the busiest cities on earth, but at heart the East End is just a village. Too small to hide out in.

I'll tell you something about that war, Billy. With great respect to all the men who died. I don't think it was worth the fighting. Too many good men perished. For what? Is the world a better place for their sacrifice? You know what's going on in Spain and Germany. Has anyone really learned the lessons? It was supposed to be the war to end wars. Do you see any sign of that?

she would freeze and be no help when the danger came. These street girls were never as tough as they made out.

The stink from the Thames was particularly bad on the morning air. It had been foul the night before as he wandered through the corridors of parliament. The stench seemed to cast a dreadful miasma across so much of London, and not just on warmer days.

Are you a Bolshevik?' 'More an anarchist, I like to think. Anyway, I'm quite determined to bring down the settled order of British Society. Once I've dealt with Franco and Hitler that is.' She stood. 'Perhaps we'd better go in and have tea before you start the revolution.' Miller clambered to his feet. 'Ah, in this country even the revolution stops for tea,' he said.

London life made one lazy, he considered. Unfit for real existence.

you know I don't drink! The route to ruin, that's what drink is. Haven't drunk for near twenty years, so don't think you can tempt me. But I'll pour you another before I says goodnight, if you care?' 'And send me on the route to ruin?' 'There's many a route to ruin, as it says in the Bible. We all have to find our own?

Duties had kept him in London. A place he increasingly detested. A mood that may have come with age, for he had loved the city when he was young, in those last golden days of Victoria's reign. The world had seemed so sure.

Berry, supping the dregs of his tea. 'Well, not sitting here we won't. Tomorrow morning you and I will take the railway to Norwich. If I'm wrong, well, I'm wrong,' said Anders, swigging the awful tea back in one go.

Sergeant Berry was never enthusiastic about the countryside. It was far too empty for his liking, too quiet, too open. It needed bricks. Lots of bricks, walls of them, making houses and factories, cluttering up all those wide spaces where the sky was visible.

They could hear the little river prattling over its stony bed, as it had done since the dawn of time.

One of the finest snipers that ever graced the mud of the Western Front.

Pulling down his hat he lingered on the street corner, melting back against a grimy wall of London brick.

As the two women sobbed, Lovat felt a real hatred for the men behind this. Not just Johnson's killers, but everyone involved in the whole bloody mess. Stinking politicians and army officers who had the world at their feet but were never satisfied. Men who couldn't let their ambitions rest, but always wanted more.