Thread by @Scatbug1

@vbspurs Forever in Britain - Major Johnny Thompson’s War for Love - A Twitter novella. 1/

Loved by the men of his battalion. First through the breech. Stalwart against the perfidious French. A faithful woman he calls Spurs waiting for word from a place called Waterloo.

@vbspurs They met it seems now a century ago in Lisbon. Boney was on the march and Major Thompson was there to chase him out. She too was there, the daughter of a wine merchant, to learn yet another language. “Why so many?” He asked. “To better tell stories about you,” she teased.

@vbspurs Mademoiselle, it would take a strong pair of spurs to tame that spirit of yours.”
“Golden ones, of course,” she laughed again.
“Indeed. My golden Spurs.
And then he looked up and shook his head of the reverie. He hadn’t noticed the cannonade had stopped. They were coming….

@vbspurs He was sitting on the ridge, his back against a solitary tree, a smashed caisson to his left and to his front the turned, mounded earth that told of his battalion’s fate; his men buried where the French columns crashed and then receded, and then fled.

@vbspurs Half in a daze, he rose from his brief rest and gazed over the valley and said, “My God. These men…”
“They were your men Major,” a familiar voice said behind him, “and they were proper soldiers, and like proper British soldiers they held.”

@vbspurs “Lord Wellington…”
“Major Thompson, your battalion was the stuff of legend, and we are now chasing old Boney south. Now look to those who are left and…My dear sir. Look to yourself. I fear you are wounded.”

@vbspurs Yes, my Lord. I’m afraid an intemperate cuirassier tore my tunic and left this unsightly stain. Please forgive my appearance. My surgeon assures me my shoulder will heal. But I rather fear what the laundress may say.”

@vbspurs Wellington let go his reedy laugh. “Indeed Major Thompson. Indeed. Carry on good sir.”
And Major Johnny Thompson did carry on. He saw to his men, that they were provisioned and rested. He saw to his officers and made sure they knew their duty.

@vbspurs And he saw to his colonel, a nervous and rather useless man, who knew enough about fighting to know it was Thompson who held the thing together. And then he saw to his promise. The promise he made in Lisbon so many years ago to Spurs, the woman he loved.

@vbspurs The promise that after the last battle he would lay down his sword and lay with her forever. In Britain. Forever in Britain.
And then they had like 12 kids or something. Couldn’t keep their hands of each other. Insatiable those two.
-Fin