I told you from the outset I'd make these memoirs truthful, but I never
promised anyone to tell the whole truth. I'd've had to be a damn fool to
make a promise like that, and whilst I may be a cad, a coward, a boozer and
a chronic adulterer, one thing even old Arnold never accused me of, before
kicking me out of Rugby, was damned-foolishness.
Nonetheless, there is one question I've left unanswered, thus far, that I know you must be agog to be satisfied upon. It is of course, the question of buggery - the love that dare not speak its name, the sin of Sodom, the Greek vice. Did I, or did I not, enjoy a spot of bum-banditry, to add the spice of variety to my many and well-documented amatory adventures with the ladies (God love 'em)?
Well, of course I did! It was a rare product of Britain's illustrious Public School system that didn't get their introduction to carnal pleasures at the fumbling hands of some prepostor, and being the comely lad and sneaking little toady that I was, I could hardly have escaped the attentions of these youthful swains. Not that I wanted to. To be perfectly frank, I took to the whole thing like a damn Scot to porridge, and when age and seniority put me in the position to press my own suit, I became quite as enthusiastic a buggerer as I had been a bugeree. I notice that Tom Brown, the pious little squit, completely glossed over THAT particular aspect of his schooldays, but I remember many an occasion when he positively begged for a tossing in Flashy's blankets.
However, it ain't Brown's buttocks that bring the fondest flush of remembrance to my ancient face, but a pair I encountered on quite the most bizarre of my many strange adventures.
To this day, I don't know how it came about. It was early in '43, not long after I'd returned from Afghanistan. Elspeth and I had barely settled down to domestic bliss, and Lola Montez hadn't even crossed my path. I had been at my club, where I'd spent the evening getting pleasantly tight at the expense of a grateful civilian, and I was ambling home, anticipating Elspeth's enthusiastic embraces. Now, if I'd taken a hack, it would never have happened, but I'd decided to walk, to clear my head and ensure that my equipment was fully operational, a skinfull of brandy not being much of an aid to sexual performance. That was how I came to be passing an alley where a bunch of bloody ruffians were skulking, looking for someone to rob, and inevitably they chose me as their target, God rot 'em. A few well- placed blows with the coshes they carried, and I was sleeping sounder than a well used whore.
This was bad enough, but fate had far worse in store for me. Instead of regaining consciousness comfortably restored to the bosom of my wife, or even crumpled on a London street, my coward's ears were greeted by the unmistakeable sound of troopers at rest. When I opened my eyes, I found myself in a God-blasted army camp.
Naturally I thought I was having some kind of nightmare, at first, imagining myself back among the Afghans - but the terrain was all wrong. I struggled to my feet, and grabbed the arm of an elderly, long-haired trooper in a green jacket.
"Where the blazes am I?" I demanded.
"About fifteen miles from Talavera, heading toward Madrid, Sorr." The oik replied in with damned north-country burr.
"D'ye mean to tell me I'm in SPAIN?"
"Aye sorr. Spain it is. Looks like ye've taken a nasty bump to your head, that's set ye all about contrariwise. If I were ye, I'd treat that with petroleum oil and brown paper - that's the best thing for a contrary head, sorr, petroleum oil and best brown paper."
I'd've damned the man's eyes for his impudence, if I'd felt steadier, but as it was I stumbled over a rise and down to the river nearby, to splash some water on my face and try to make sense of what was happening. The British hadn't been engaged in Spain, to my knowledge, since Wellington rompéd the damned Corsican upstart - and the name Talavera sounded ominously like the location of one of Old Hookey's famous victories.
I was more than a little unsteady on my pins, so I knelt down. Suddenly I heard a shout, and four damned great horses hurtled up from behind me. I glanced up, and saw one of them was carrying a squawking and struggling female. Worse, they were dressed in some damned ostentatious uniforms, all over braid - quite clearly Frogs of some description. A sabre whistled over my head, and I do what any sensible man would, hit the floor hard, and played dead. Peering up, I saw the woman swoon, and a red-coated ensign rush up. The fool engaged one rider, and despatched him with as neat a thrust as I've ever seen, and saw off the one who'd snatched the girl with equal promptitude, so that she slipped into the river. That was when his luck ran out and a third rider took him from behind, cutting him down with one stroke. Recapturing their prize would have meant getting of their horses, and the scrap was bound to have been heard, so the pair of remaining Froggies showed themselves men after my own heart, and spurred their beasts off into the hills at a gallop, before more men could arrive from the camp.
My skin safe, I decided the only thing to do was to help up the lady, who had come to what senses she had, before she drowned. I had just scrambled to my feet and was tugging her hand, when a bunch of riflemen crested the rise, and headed down towards me.
I was distracted at that moment by the sodden armful of black-haired doxy I held, who took it into her head to clutch at my coat and start weeping and babbling away in some heathen lingo, interspersing her chatter with kisses to my cheeks, and even my hands, dammit!
As I tried to disentangle myself, I heard one of the troopers say, to my left. "She's only trying to thank you, Sir, she says she's very grateful for you saving her, when your friend - I think she means Ensign Hughes - was overcome." The trooper's voice was surprisingly cultured - doubtless some tutor's brat, I decided.
"What?!" I thought , then it dawned on the that the wench had been lying in a dead swoon during the action. She blacked out with one man in a red coat apparently dead, and another fighting off her abductors, and woke to find with one man in a red coat apparently dead, and another helping her out of the water. Her mistake was not unreasonable (though the dead ensign was no more than five-foot-nine to my strapping six-foot-two), and I certainly wasn't going to contradict her version of events when the rise would have hidden everything from our men. Flashy seemed to have managed to make himself a damned hero again.
Nonetheless, there is one question I've left unanswered, thus far, that I know you must be agog to be satisfied upon. It is of course, the question of buggery - the love that dare not speak its name, the sin of Sodom, the Greek vice. Did I, or did I not, enjoy a spot of bum-banditry, to add the spice of variety to my many and well-documented amatory adventures with the ladies (God love 'em)?
Well, of course I did! It was a rare product of Britain's illustrious Public School system that didn't get their introduction to carnal pleasures at the fumbling hands of some prepostor, and being the comely lad and sneaking little toady that I was, I could hardly have escaped the attentions of these youthful swains. Not that I wanted to. To be perfectly frank, I took to the whole thing like a damn Scot to porridge, and when age and seniority put me in the position to press my own suit, I became quite as enthusiastic a buggerer as I had been a bugeree. I notice that Tom Brown, the pious little squit, completely glossed over THAT particular aspect of his schooldays, but I remember many an occasion when he positively begged for a tossing in Flashy's blankets.
However, it ain't Brown's buttocks that bring the fondest flush of remembrance to my ancient face, but a pair I encountered on quite the most bizarre of my many strange adventures.
To this day, I don't know how it came about. It was early in '43, not long after I'd returned from Afghanistan. Elspeth and I had barely settled down to domestic bliss, and Lola Montez hadn't even crossed my path. I had been at my club, where I'd spent the evening getting pleasantly tight at the expense of a grateful civilian, and I was ambling home, anticipating Elspeth's enthusiastic embraces. Now, if I'd taken a hack, it would never have happened, but I'd decided to walk, to clear my head and ensure that my equipment was fully operational, a skinfull of brandy not being much of an aid to sexual performance. That was how I came to be passing an alley where a bunch of bloody ruffians were skulking, looking for someone to rob, and inevitably they chose me as their target, God rot 'em. A few well- placed blows with the coshes they carried, and I was sleeping sounder than a well used whore.
This was bad enough, but fate had far worse in store for me. Instead of regaining consciousness comfortably restored to the bosom of my wife, or even crumpled on a London street, my coward's ears were greeted by the unmistakeable sound of troopers at rest. When I opened my eyes, I found myself in a God-blasted army camp.
Naturally I thought I was having some kind of nightmare, at first, imagining myself back among the Afghans - but the terrain was all wrong. I struggled to my feet, and grabbed the arm of an elderly, long-haired trooper in a green jacket.
"Where the blazes am I?" I demanded.
"About fifteen miles from Talavera, heading toward Madrid, Sorr." The oik replied in with damned north-country burr.
"D'ye mean to tell me I'm in SPAIN?"
"Aye sorr. Spain it is. Looks like ye've taken a nasty bump to your head, that's set ye all about contrariwise. If I were ye, I'd treat that with petroleum oil and brown paper - that's the best thing for a contrary head, sorr, petroleum oil and best brown paper."
I'd've damned the man's eyes for his impudence, if I'd felt steadier, but as it was I stumbled over a rise and down to the river nearby, to splash some water on my face and try to make sense of what was happening. The British hadn't been engaged in Spain, to my knowledge, since Wellington rompéd the damned Corsican upstart - and the name Talavera sounded ominously like the location of one of Old Hookey's famous victories.
I was more than a little unsteady on my pins, so I knelt down. Suddenly I heard a shout, and four damned great horses hurtled up from behind me. I glanced up, and saw one of them was carrying a squawking and struggling female. Worse, they were dressed in some damned ostentatious uniforms, all over braid - quite clearly Frogs of some description. A sabre whistled over my head, and I do what any sensible man would, hit the floor hard, and played dead. Peering up, I saw the woman swoon, and a red-coated ensign rush up. The fool engaged one rider, and despatched him with as neat a thrust as I've ever seen, and saw off the one who'd snatched the girl with equal promptitude, so that she slipped into the river. That was when his luck ran out and a third rider took him from behind, cutting him down with one stroke. Recapturing their prize would have meant getting of their horses, and the scrap was bound to have been heard, so the pair of remaining Froggies showed themselves men after my own heart, and spurred their beasts off into the hills at a gallop, before more men could arrive from the camp.
My skin safe, I decided the only thing to do was to help up the lady, who had come to what senses she had, before she drowned. I had just scrambled to my feet and was tugging her hand, when a bunch of riflemen crested the rise, and headed down towards me.
I was distracted at that moment by the sodden armful of black-haired doxy I held, who took it into her head to clutch at my coat and start weeping and babbling away in some heathen lingo, interspersing her chatter with kisses to my cheeks, and even my hands, dammit!
As I tried to disentangle myself, I heard one of the troopers say, to my left. "She's only trying to thank you, Sir, she says she's very grateful for you saving her, when your friend - I think she means Ensign Hughes - was overcome." The trooper's voice was surprisingly cultured - doubtless some tutor's brat, I decided.
"What?!" I thought , then it dawned on the that the wench had been lying in a dead swoon during the action. She blacked out with one man in a red coat apparently dead, and another fighting off her abductors, and woke to find with one man in a red coat apparently dead, and another helping her out of the water. Her mistake was not unreasonable (though the dead ensign was no more than five-foot-nine to my strapping six-foot-two), and I certainly wasn't going to contradict her version of events when the rise would have hidden everything from our men. Flashy seemed to have managed to make himself a damned hero again.