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Gypsies Chekhov

 Richard Lovelace

FRANCES KING   La Belle Alliance


My name is Gaston and I am the Garcon de chambre at La Belle Alliance, a fine Auberge and Farmhouse opposite the ridge of Mont Saint Jean above the site of what is now known as the Battle of Waterloo. Had General Blucher had his way, it would have been called the Battle of "La Belle Alliance", which would have been good adverting for us, just one day's ride out of Bruxelles and a better description of what happened in the battle, because if Blucher had not kept to his word and marched to support Wellington after being mauled at  Ligny, the Emperor would have won and the world would now be speaking French, instead of English. The Emperor spent the night before Waterloo at La Belle Alliance and surveyed the field from its grounds which commanded a fine view of the valley from the Hougoumont chateau which anchored Wellington's right wing accross to the village of Papelotte on the Allied left where Blucher's army, bloodied but unbowed by their defeat at Ligny, joined up with the forces of Wellingon and sealed the Emperor's fate. It was here at La Belle Alliance, after the Emperor and his entourage had hurriedly decamped and retreated back towards Paris that  the Allied Generals, Wellington, Blucher and their support staff, were reunited to celebrate their narrow but bloody victory.

La Belle Alliance has one grande chambre and it was my job to take the occupant's intestinal offerings from the commode to the cess pit. Perhaps not the most prestigious of jobs but over the years I have met many great men (yes it's true, with their trousers round their ankles, they are all the same, and I'll be dammed if the turds of the Emperor were any different from those of Wellington's, Blucher's (or mine for that matter) but the job pays the bills, gives me board and lodge and I can buy the occasional half litre of good Dutch Old Geneva to keep the chill of this damp corner of Europe out of my bones. I didn't witness the reunion between Blucher and Wellington, which is a pity as despite being part French (through my mother) I had a sneaking regard for the bluff old Prussian general, certainly more than I had for that parvenu Wellington, but I had been dispatched to the battlefield before first light with some other lads. Battles are incredibly wasteful but provide useful income for those willing to grasp opportunity.  It didn't take me long to round up half a dozen fine looking horses, complete with saddle and bridles. One came complete with the corpse of its rider, from which he was soon unceremoniously parted. Unwounded horses are more valuable than wounded, but wounded ones if they can still walk, can  be rounded up later, butchered and eaten. People who have qualms at eating horse flesh deserve to starve. I doubt if any of these could tell the difference between beef and horse anyway, if served in a rich sauce with champignons. The horses I  tethered round the back of my uncle's place, to be taken to Bruxelles in  a few days  for sale to some aristocratic twit with more money than brains. Because of the wars in Europe these last few decades, a good cavalry horse sold in the capital fetches a king's ransom. And these English horses were very fine beasts indeed. There were so many, I thought to myself that another trip later on armed with a pocket full of apples might be equally profitable. What is even more lucrative than horses after a battle, is drink for the wounded and dying, but the women had this sewn up. Before the last cannon had been fired, they were climbing over the corpses round the battlefield with flasks of water and bottles of brandy, for those that could pay, either in bullion or gold rings with precious stones. Indeed those too weak to resist even had their fingers cut off so these vicious harpies could take their rings anyway. This scavenging  by the women was not without risk as there were competing bands of women working the field, made merciless by the horrors through which they walked. There would be bears and  foxes from the surrounding woods and dogs from the villages and towns to eat the dead and half killed meat, horse or human. They do us all a favour as unburied bodies stink pretty badly within a day or two.

When I got back to the auberge, there was panic, as all sign of the Emperor's presence had to be erased lest it offend the eyes of Wellington, the next occupant of the grande chambre. The commode had to be scrubbed, rescrubbed and soaked in lavender water, and only by me it seems. I cleansed myself from the smell of horse and went about my business (so as to speak) and soon the commode was clean enough to become the repository of the turds of Wellington, whose offerings in due course I deposited in the same cess pit as the Emperor's. There let them lie, side by side for the rest of eternity, fertilising the same earth as the decomposing bodies of the soldiers they led to their deaths.

 

Frances King

Frances King worked for the British Council for many years around the world but now lives with family in South Oxford UK.

 

 



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