Chapter 3: Bordeaux

Our division took Bordeaux without firing a shot, and it was here that I met my nemesis, Lieutenant Jarvis Braxton-Clark.

I had scarcely noticed him when he first joined the battalion, along with other replacements for men lost during the campaign, as I had my hands full with matters other than a newly arrived officer. Captain Gurney Slade, my company commander, had been wounded at the Nivelle but had carried on in command, although in some considerable pain. Soon after our arrival at Bordeaux he left to obtain medical treatment in England, leaving me in temporary command of the company.

It was at Bordeaux that my best friend, Charles St. John, was shot and killed by Jarvis Braxton-Clark. Oh, it was perfectly legal and above board, if you subscribe to the theory that duelling is the only honourable way that gentlemen can settle a dispute.

Lieutenant Charles St. John had joined the battalion after Vittorio and had been posted to Captain Slade's company. On the face of it Charles was never going to be taken seriously as an infantry officer, in what was by now a veteran battalion. He looked like a milksop: a slightly built youth with curly golden hair, big blue eyes, and a complexion, and eye lashes, for which a woman would eagerly sell herself. Put a bonnet on his head, a gown over his body and some rouge on his cheeks and Master Charles St. John would pass as a very desirable Mistress Charlotte St. John. At first the men called him Molly, which was an epithet thrown not only at effeminate looking men but also at those men who preferred males to females. The first time they went into battle with Charles they changed their tune. He was as fearless as a lion, and he was soon re named Achilles.

This was during the series of engagements that became known as The Battle of The Pyrenees. Our army had to assault the French, who were not only behind fortifications but were always posted higher in the mountains above us, making each attack a scramble up a mountain side, with shot and shell being rained down on the attackers.
Charles St. John led many attacks on the outposts and redoubts, which the enemy used to delay and disrupt our main attack, and his men were so sure of his courage that they would follow him anywhere. Captain Slade's company received many plaudits for the successes that our force of arms had secured, and it was due in a great part to Charles St. John's leadership, although I might modestly add that I also played a part.

Charles and I shared the same tent, and in fact on several occasions I offered to share Dolores with him, as I thought he deserved some reward for his prowess in battle. He politely declined the opportunity to make the beast with two backs with her, saying that he must remain true to his sweetheart back in England. I did not belabour the point, although I think Dolores felt a bit aggrieved. Whether that was because of me offering her to him, or his refusal of her, I could not say.

By the time our battalion had reached Bordeaux I had seen Charles in action at Nivelle, Orthez and many other smaller, but no less bitter engagements, and I would, and of course did, place my life in his hands, as he did place his life in mine. We became close friends, and because of that friendship I must bear some guilt in his death.

I wasn't at camp when the duel took place. After Dolores had returned to Spain (with the mule Rocinante and a bag of gold coins), I had taken up with Yvette, a flame haired young widow with lust filled eyes, whom I had met at the ball held to celebrate the end of the war. Her husband had marched off with le Grande Armee in 1812, and had perished at Borodino. I doubt if she had remained celibate from the time her husband had quit her bed for the wastes of Russia, for she had a predilection for carnality, and a huge appetite for lechery. After the ball we made the beast with two backs, in the carriage taking us to her estate, and we shook and shuddered, jolted and juddered, along that rutted, rutting, road of pleasure.
Over the next four weeks Yvette and I galloped each other furiously, feverishly and frequently, until transports arrived in Bordeaux harbour to carry the regiment back to England.