Chapter 15: Quo Vadis

Lieutenant Colonel Picard was like a dog with two tails and innumerable juicy bones. His plan of constructing landing sites for helicopter borne patrols had paid off in spades. A drug factory and prospective terrorist training camp had been located and destroyed, with valuable intel being discovered on site. Picard received most of the kudos from the coup, but the trickle-down effect also delivered some bounty to the Chevalier and me. The first bonus was Camp Szuts was mothballed. The Black Gang and Papillon Platoon were retained at Saül. Bi-weekly helicopter flights to Camp Hinds carried rotated men and fresh supplies. The Chevalier and I were rewarded by being redeployed to 3 REI’s RHQ at Kourou: air conditioned accommodation, first class cuisine, and many attractive and available European females working at GSC. I am no racist, but even if they spoke French, most of the local girls who hung around the base had little interest in conversation unless it led to them moving to France. European women were just as ready to open their legs as local girls but could also hold a conversation in subjects other than sex. I liked to talk to as well as make love to a woman. If conversation sometimes flagged, the sex rarely did – well, not at my age!

Another plus at GSC was the Senior Scientific Officer — who held a higher rank in the French Civil Service than did Lieutenant-Colonel Picard in the French military service — was a bridge playing fanatic. When he discovered the Chevalier was a first class player, and I was his partner (dummy) we were released from military duties and spent many days and evenings at bridge competitions. It was during our time playing bridge I learned new things about Maurice Champignon.

He was an excellent mathematician. Not a genius like Gaston Delroy but good enough to be better than most. He also had a trained memory. During any game of cards he could remember what cards had been played, besides knowing his way around the Bernoulli distribution. These skills, coupled with an ability he called ‘reading’ a person, made him a superb bridge player who could predict with uncanny accuracy what cards were held by the opposing pair. It seems that everyone has something the Chevalier referred to as ‘tells.’ These are subconscious behaviours that give information to an observer.

“I usually know when someone is lying, which also means I usually know when someone is telling the truth! A ‘tell’ is part of a person’s body language,” the Chevalier said. “Psychologists, mediums, police interrogators, and professional card players are skilled at interpreting ‘body language’ ... communication by a person’s facial expressions and gestures, especially hand gestures.”

I was astonished to discover that the Chevalier was also an amateur archaeologist, and a Latin scholar of some standing. The area of his expertise being the Roman military occupation of North Africa and he had several papers published in Le journal de la société française d’archéologie. This extraordinary facet of him came to light when we took part in a bridge tournament in Cayenne where the local police prefect was a bridge aficionado and had invited bridge players from near and far to attend. After the tournament (we came a creditable third) we were at the buffet supper when an attractive woman in her mid-forties buttonholed the Chevalier.

“It’s Maurice Champignon, isn’t?” she said, gazing at the Chevalier as if he were the reincarnation of Elvis Presley. “We’ve never met but I saw your name on the list of competitors and then saw you receive your prize.”

“Yes, Mam’selle. I am Maurice Champignon,” said the Chevalier, ever the gentleman as the female was well past the age of being a mademoiselle.

“Professor, actually,” she trilled, and held out her hand. “Professor Marie Bosson, Chair of Archaeology at the University of Lyons. I read your latest article in le journal just before flying out and hoped I would bump into you.”

I wouldn’t mind bumping into Professor Marie Bosson myself as she had a fine pair of bumpers!

The Chevalier beamed at her. “What a pleasure to meet you in the flesh, so to speak, Professor. I have read your erudite reports of your dig at Volubilis with much enjoyment.”

I would also enjoy meeting the luscious professor in the flesh, so to speak.

The two began a discussion that featured Latin inscriptions and Roman military buildings, when the Chevalier abruptly stopped the discussion and apologised.

“But I have neglected to introduce you to my colleague and friend, Philippe Soissons.”

He indicated me, and the professor held out her hand that I clasped and gently shook. Our eyes met. Hers were deep azure blue and inviting, and I knew I would be bumping into her bumpers and meeting her in her flesh later that evening.

“Are you a Latin scholar too, M’sieu Sossons?” she asked, her slim hand still nestled in mine.

“Alas, no, but I’m willing to learn from someone with your experience,” I said.

She giggled like a young girl and slowly, silkily, sexily, withdrew her hand from mine. At that moment, as another well-wisher arrived and gained the Chevalier’s attention, Professor Bosson leaned closer to me and murmured. “Room two twenty nine, Hotel du Cayenne.”

As luck or fate or whatever had it the Chevalier and I were also staying at the hotel, on the third floor.

That night, clasped firmly between the smooth thighs of Professor Marie Bosson, I learned some new techniques to bring a female to pleasure besides learning how to conjugate ‘Amare’ in the indicative present, indicative perfect and indicative imperfect. By the time we got to the indicative pluperfect we were both exhausted and sated.

“How do you know Maurice Champignon if you are not a Latin scholar?” She asked drowsily, her hand checking for life in John Thomas but he was temporary unavailable.

“I work for him.”

“As an archaeologist?”

“No, as a legionnaire!”

Marie sat up in surprise. “I didn’t know Maurice was in the Legion. I thought he was an archaeologist working for the University of Marrakesh. That’s in Morocco,” she added when noticing my look of astonishment.

My look of astonishment was not due to me being ignorant as to where Marrakesh was but that her rapidly hardening nipples indicated she was ready for some more conjugation. From where do forty-something ladies get their stamina?

“How long has the Che ... Maurice been publishing his work in the Le journal de la société française d’archéologie?” I asked after John Thomas had reappeared and we had slaked our latest thirst.

She pondered a second or two. “He started publishing about twenty years ago but hasn’t published anything in the last two years. In fact my husband thought...”

“Your husband?” Alarm gave my voice a squeaky tone.

She laughed. “Yes, my husband. The man who partnered me in the bridge completion, although you probably didn’t notice him as you were too busy looking at my tits.”

“They are well worth looking at,” I said gallantly, while showing my appreciation by running my hands over her heaving mounds. “Will your husband be bursting in on us? If so...”

“He is off tomcatting all night until mid-day. He and Maurice are indulging in their vice for young, barely legal, girls – in my husband’s case definitely illegal girls. You didn’t know of Maurice’s penchant for young female flesh?”

“He has a penchant for female flesh of whatever age,” I said in some heat, although now I thought about it I hadn’t seen him with a women of mature age for some time, and he had only plucked young girls when at the Hotel Kaliphornika.

“Maurice is supposed to have a harem of young girls in Morocco, Agadir to be more precise,” Marie said. “But never mind what Maurice likes, you know what I like. Keep conjugating me until I explode!”

Which she did, several times in fact, during a night I spent cramming, ramming, and delving deep into my Latin grammar teacher.

It was later next day that I learned more of the Chevalier’s past. I had returned to the twin bedded room in the hotel I shared with him by 5a.m., leaving Marie snoring sonorously in the sleep of the super satisfied and super shagged. I saw the Chevalier’s bed had not been slept in and he did not make an appearance until well after breakfast. He came into the room, gave me a slightly embarrassed smile, and went straight into the shower room. He emerged some half hour later vigorously towelling his head, with another towel wrapped about his waist. He sat on the edge of his bed and sighed.

“I’m getting too old for all night sex sessions with girls young enough to be my daughters or even granddaughters,” he said. “Pierre Bosson is a satyr and was still rutting like a stag when I left him. How the hell does he do it? He must be about my age.”

It appears the Bossons have super powers when it comes to sex, as Madame Professor Marie Bosson had a remarkably swift recovery time after explosive orgasms.

I noticed the medallion on the gold chain about the Chevalier’s neck. I knew he wore a chain with some sort medal upon it — most legionnaires have a Crucifix or St Christopher medal or some other religious token along with the ‘dog tags’ we all wore — but this was the first time I had a close look at the medallion. It was half heat shaped and made of some black substance I thought might be Jais, which I knew was a gem stone used in memorial jewellery and was known as Jet to the English.

He saw my interest and in a rare show of familiarity told me about the medallion.

“The half heart is made from Obsidian, a glasslike igneous rock formed in a volcano. There is a matching half heart that when joined to the one I have forms a complete and unique heart. The two halves are shared between separated sweethearts. When they meet they join them, and their bodies, together.” He gave a great sigh. “I have had this half since I was fourteen but the half my sweetheart had...” He stopped and stared into space, lost in thought and the past for several moments. “Her parents had her confined in a convent when they discovered she was pregnant. Somehow, she escaped from the nuns, but when they were searching for her they discovered a body in the River Isère that her father identified as his daughter. I suppose he thought the chain she wore with the half heart a cheap trinket and probably threw it away, although the chain was made of gold.”

“And you have been looking for the half heart ever since?”

He shook his head. “No, I have been looking for Clothide, my long lost love ever since.”

“But she was drowned in the Isère.”

“Yes, but her spirit lives on, and occasionally I find a girl who has something of Clothide about her.”

He abruptly stood up and said, “I’m famished. Let’s go and find some lunch!”

He then dressed and we left the hotel. He never spoke to me of Clothide or the missing Obsidian half heart ever again.

Our holiday came to an end when two weeks after the Cayenne bridge competition Lieutenant Colonel Picard retired. He had been appointed as Chief Civilian Lecturer at the Military Academy of Saint-Cyr, a place where he would have the opportunity of moulding young cadets into officers of his own ilk. Say what you like about Jules Picard, he was a good battlefield tactician and a natural leader of men. Officer Cadets trained by him would be a credit to French arms, or so the Chevalier affirmed, and who was I to disagree with such a man?

Picard’s appointment was a great honour, which he knew was mainly due to the Chevalier and me. Picard acknowledged the fact and promised to do all he could to have both the Chevalier and me promoted. I thought it to be ‘bollocks,’ as Alfie Hinds would say; but within a month of Picard’s return to France, the Chevalier was promoted to Commandant (Major (US&UK))

Colonel Picard’s replacement was Lieutenant Colonel Pierre Massingney who had been at Legion HQ at Quartier Vienot as deputy Camp Commandant for several years. He was a surly man who had few enemies and fewer friends, but was an excellent manager. 3 REI would run like clockwork under his management. The downside was that the newly appointed Lt Col Massingney closed the newly established forward operating base at Camp Hinds, had Camp Szuts taken out of ‘mothballs’ and put Commandant (Major) Champignon in command of the reopened Jungle Warfare Training Centre.

The Chevalier shrugged at the change of scenery. “I have only four months before retirement, and the wear and tear of bridge games every night were beginning to tell on me.”

Actually, it was more likely the young Creole girls the Chevalier entertained most nights were what wore him out. I had been entertaining older, European, females — late twenties to mid-thirties, and in the case of the libidinous Professor Bosson, the mid-forties — and even though I was much younger than the Chevalier I was also glad of the rest when back at the Jungle Warfare Training Centre.

Camp Szuts was soon back up and was running courses and trainees from all NATO countries – bar the UK who had their own jungle school in Belize -- and came and went every two weeks or so. Most courses were overseen by the Officers and NCOs of the attending units, and the Papillon Platoon were mainly engaged in camp maintenance. Occasionally they would act as ‘enemy’ to the unit under instruction and being extremely well versed in both the conditions and the local terrain gave the trainees real lessons in jungle warfare.

It was during a lull in the training program (in fact it was the onset of the Wet Season) that the Chevalier, who had only a month left before flying back to France and release from the Legion, received a document from Legion HQ at Quartier Vienot, Aubagne. We got a lot of what the English call ‘bumf’ from Legion HQ, and assumed this to be more of the same.

(bumf = bum fodder; ie paper useful only for wiping ones arse!)

After reading the contents of the document the Chevalier swore, something he seldom did, and flung the document across the desk to me.

“I can’t believe what I have just read, Philippe. Take a look and see if I’ve misunderstood or misread it.”

The title of the paper was ’The Code of Honour of a Legionnaire’

There were seven articles that laid out the code:

This Code of Honour must be instilled into every member of the Legion. Recruits on the basic course will learn the Code by heart. They must be able to recite the code word for word when ordered. The same will apply to currently serving legionnaires by the end of the year.