Chapter 1: Death of a Comrade

There is never a good time to learn of the death of an old friend but the telephone call from the Vermilion Coast Hotel telling me of the death of Maurice Champignon could not have come at a worse time. My live in lover had just walked out on me. That in itself was no big deal as many former live in lovers have left me during my life and I’ve managed to survive OK, but this particular live in lover was also a first class bar maid and a huge asset to my business. I am the proprietor of the le Kepi Blanc, a harbour side bistro/ bar in Port Vendres.

I told Rafael Planchette, the night manager of the Vermilion Coast Hotel and someone I had known for over ten years, I would be along in an hour or so. I had the bar to clear, drunks to evict, and the place secured before leaving. Normally Elaine, my former paramour, would have emptied the place in a twinkling. Her bawdy good humour and voluptuousness had men obeying her slightest wish, other than me of course. The drunks and those who thought themselves hard men had delayed their departure to test my mettle and I had to lean on them, metaphorically speaking. However my build and reputation soon had them scrambling out the door when they saw the threat in my eyes.

I reached the hotel about an hour later. I said hello to Yvette at Reception (we had shared many a romantic moment or two when I had worked at the hotel as night porter) and made my way, puffing a bit, up the stairs to Maurice Champignon’s room on the third floor. Rafael was sitting at the side of the bed gazing into space and at his friend and former employer.

Maurice Champignon had a look on his face that I imagine those admitted to Paradise after being accosted at the Pearly Gates by St Peter would bear, and when Rafael told me how The Chevalier, as Rafael always referred to Maurice, met his death I understood why he bore such an expression. Maurice had died whilst firmly clenched between the thighs of a young girl. The manner of his passing was as he would have wished.

I suppose I have known the Chevalier longer than anyone else alive on the planet. I had served with him for the best part of the twenty years I spent in _La Legion Etrangere. I admired and respected him. I had also saved his life, and he had saved mine, giving me more reason than most to grieve at his passing. However, I couldn’t imagine a more fitting way for such a man to pass from this world to the next than expiring in the arms and body of a young woman. Even so, I shed a few internal tears for a man whom I had held in high regard and esteem from our first meeting.

The undertaker, Monsieur Barnard, and two of his assistants arrived not long after me and after paying their respects to the Chevalier they wrapped the body of my old friend and comrade in arms in a sheet and placed the corpse onto the gurney they had brought with them. Rafael suppressed a sob, and I put my hand on his shoulder. “Tears are okay at a time like this, Rafe. Maurice regarded your family as his own, hence his request to be buried at le Boulou, and it is only right and proper you should show sorrow at his passing.”

We then followed the gurney as it was pushed along the corridor and helped to carry it down the three flights of stairs to the ground floor. Monsieur Barnard and his assistants then wheeled the gurney to their unmarked van at the rear of the hotel where the corpse was placed in a coffin. The van drove off to Monsieur Bernard’s establishment and I took my leave of Rafael. I returned to reception where Yvette was still dabbing at her eyes with a handkerchief. I gave her a comforting hug. Time was when such a hug would have segued into a frantic meeting of engorged organs in an empty hotel bedroom but alas that was then and this was now, and although Yvette was still a pleasure to hug she was now a happily married woman. I regretfully but honourably gave her a chaste kiss on her cheek before making my way back to le Kepi Blanc and a lonely bed.

As I made my way back to my bisto I passed the shop of Abraham de Souza and remembered that Maurice’s chain and medallion were in there. I had been concerned when I first viewed Maurice’s body and realised the chain he habitually wore was not around his neck, but Rafael explained why it was missing. I would have to pay a visit to de Souza and retrieve the repaired chain and medallion as I imagined Maurice will have wanted to be buried with it. As far as I knew he never removed the chain from around his neck. However, that would have to wait until I had opened his Last Will and Testament and discovered his wishes and bequests, etc. His Will was with Suchet et Fils, a long established and well-regarded firm of lawyers, if that is not an oxymoron, in Perpignan. I was the executor of Maurice Champignon’s Will and had assured Rafael I would see to all the legal details, besides informing Foreign Legion HQ at Quartier Vienot in Aubagne of the Chevalier’s passing. A Legion Guard of Honour would be sent to le Boulou where, much to the astonishment of Rafael, the Chevalier was to be buried in the Planchette family plot.

Although Maurice Champignon had an account with the Bank of The Pyrenees in Port Vendres the bulk of his money was in the Liechtensteinische Landesbank in Vaduz, as was mine, safe from the prying eyes and grasping hands of the French Revenue Service. I remember Maurice saying, ‘I have expended blood, sweat, and tears in the service of the Republic but I’m dammed if I’m going to let it have my hard earned cash as well!’

I got back to my apartment above the bistro/ bar, poured myself an Armagnac, Maurice’s brandy of choice, then sat and thought of the life I had shared with Maurice Champignon, now a corpse in the establishment of the local funeral director, or undertaker as us older people refer to the trade.

This would be a good time to introduce myself and tell the story of my life, a large part of which was as partner of Maurice Champignon, aka The Chevalier, but not in the way the term is thought of today. We were heterosexuals, very much so in both our cases

My name now is Philippe Soissons; my given name is the same as that of my parental grandfather but ‘Soissons’ is the name of the town where my grandfather was born. However, in 1930 he moved to Malissard, a small town about 5 km to the southeast of Valence in the Drôme Department within the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region. My parents were pharmacists; they had met at college and married after graduation, setting up a pharmacy in Malissard where both they and their children were born. I am the younger of their two sons; my brother Charles is five years older than me and is also a chemist. At the time my story begins he was working for Hoffmann-La Roche AG in Basel.

That I would become a chemist was never in doubt. From an early age, aided and abetted by my parents, I conducted chemical experiments in the family garage, set up as workshop /laboratory. I was a gifted child, and at the tender age of 16 – in fact, I wasn’t quite 16 – I was accepted to study organic chemistry at the University of Grenoble. Thinking on it now, I was far too young to leave home and enter university. I was gawky, gangling, and gauche. At age 16 I stood 190 centimetres tall (6ft 3 ins) but only weighed 50 kilos (110 lbs). I have put on more weight/ muscle over the years but thankfully no more height. I had few friends, none of them female and no social graces. Chemistry and cross country running were my life. I was a full blown nerd, a geek, although neither word had been invented in those far off days.

I had discovered the joy of cross country running during a school trip to England when aged about 13. Malissard is twinned with Accrington, a town in Lancashire, England, and my class at Ecole Malissard spent two weeks (which the English call a fortnight!) in the town.

It was while in Lancashire I first went fell running, ‘Fells’ being the local name for hills. I was staying in Accrington with the Entwhistles, and Ernest Entwhistle, the son of Enoch and Hilda Entwhistle, was a member of the Accrington Harriers (Junior Section),’Harriers’ in this case being a running club and not birds of prey.

Ernie and I were both aged 13 years old and he invited me to join him on a day out with the Harriers in the Forest of Bowland. The first thing I discovered was that the Forest of Bowland had not one tree! The area, about 30 kilometres north of Accrington, was open, rugged, moorland scattered with up thrust crags and narrow, steep sided valleys, but no trees other than wind-stunted blackthorn bushes. I joined Ernie and the other harriers ‘fell running,’ which consisted of running up and down steep sloped scree, across ankle breaking granite outcrops, along limestone ridges, and through tufted tussocks of grass cropped by the local Hardwicke sheep. The first time I tried the sport I was hooked; running free, not on a track but across hillsides of waving grass, over outcrops of rock and along twisting tracks. When I returned home I would spend hours running over the hills and mountains of my home area. In fact I gained a degree of local notoriety as ‘The Lonely, Looney, Long Distance Runner’. People would tap the side of their heads when they me saw running past and ascribed my aberrant behaviour to the time I had spent in England.

Unlike most Frenchmen, I like the English, with their quirky sense of humour and their cheerfulness and friendliness. At least I liked those I had met in Accrington, who were always affable if somewhat incomprehensible. This is a verbatim account of a dialogue between Entwhistle senior and Entwhistle junior

Entwhistle Junior: ‘Aay oop our Dad, what are uz ‘aving for uz tea?’

Entwhistle Senior, taking some coins from his pocket: ‘Tek this five bob, our Ernie, and get thee sen down chippy for a piece of cod and a tanner’s worth of chips each for thee and young Phil. You can ‘ave a bottle of dandelion and burdock an’ all. Me an’ yer Mam are off down the Wheeltappers and Shunters Club. Stan Boardman’s on toneet and ‘e’s a reet laff. ‘Appen I’ll ‘ave a rusty leg when I gets ‘ome!”

( tek = take, sen = self, chippy = fish and chip shop, five bob = five shillings --there are twenty shillings in an English pound, a tanner = six pence, half a shilling, dandelion and burdock is a flavoured fizzy drink, The Wheeltappers and Shunters Club is a working mens club -- Mister Entwhistle was a railwayman. Stan Boardman is a comedian, toneet = tonight, reet = right, laff = laugh)

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My parents really should have known better than to send me off to university with me being so wet behind the ears but they believed I had potential. My brother had also gone to Grenoble University when aged 17, but he had been popular in school with both sexes. He had a shock of blond hair, charm, and a good physique, all attributes missing from my inventory. However, my parents knew I was gifted, and as my brother had enjoyed a glittering career after entering university they thought I was bound to follow in his footsteps.

I shared a room in the Halls of Residence at Grenoble University with Claude Montplaisir. It was a match made in Hell. Claude was to Academia what Attila the Hun was to the Holy Roman Empire. Strangely enough we got on better than could be expected given our difference in characters, upbringing, and age. I was not quite 16 whereas he was 20. He had already spent 2 years in university but had not passed his first year exams. Claude’s father was owner of a regional daily paper, a senior member of the political party governing the Drôme Department, and wealthy, in fact someone of real importance in the Auvergne Rhône-Alpes Region. Claude must have been a great disappointment to his politically astute and commercially successful father as he, Claude, was no academic. He wasn’t stupid but he had no interest in chemistry or any other subject taught at the University of Grenoble. His major, only, occupation was having sex with as many females as he was able. He carried out most of his liaisons in our room but thankfully in his bed well shielded from my gaze if not from my hearing. It was forbidden for females to enter the male halls of residence and vice versa, and there was a formidable concierge, Madam Defarge, at the entrance to make sure the rule was obeyed. However she seemed to have the blind eye of Nelson where females accompanying Claude Montplaisir were concerned. I guessed money was exchanged between Claude and Madame Defarge before bodily fluids were exchanged between Claude and the young woman accompanying him.