This is the fourth book in the saga of the 105th Foot, The Prince of Wales Own Wessex Regiment, known throughout Wellington's Army as the 'Rag and Bone Boys', a nickname they earned after their first battle against the French. They have been in the Peninsula since 1808 and it is now 1811. The twelve months between March 1811 and March 1812 was the time of decision, when Napoleon swelled the armies of Marshalls Soult and Marmont with French veterans, this with the aim of ridding Spain and Portugal once and for all from the tiresome British . As a consequence, during this period the Allied army under the Duke of Wellington fought more battles and sieges and suffered more casualties than all the other years of the war combined. Within this twelve months, came the most severe encounters of the whole campaign, the dreadful battles of Albuera and Fuentes d'Onoro, then the two sieges Cuidad Rodrigo and Badajoz, each appalling for their hardships, the severity of the assaults and their aftermath. The story begins with the advance through Santarem after the winter inactivity, harrying the French North and East. It ends at the walls of Badajoz, with the Southern corridor into Spain now open and free of French. In the interim months, conflict between the two sides is almost weekly, either skirmishing, minor battles or simply standing and staring, one side waiting, the other deciding, either to attack or to hold their ground. Throughout all, the 105th Foot, the Prince of Wales Own Wessex Regiment march on, the 'Rag and Bone Boys', always either in the van or stood tense and ready in the second line. Within their number, their characters live, fight, suffer and die; Henry Carr, now an experienced Major, alongside Senior Major O'Hare and Lieutenant-Colonel Lacey, both now feeling the strain of four years of continuous campaigning. The men in the ranks maintain their bonds of comradeship, despite the dangers, the hardships, overbearing Officers and the ill-tempered characters of some amongst them. Their Followers support, to both feed, mend and tend as and when their men return to them, either just hungry, sometimes badly wounded or sometimes not at all. Thus the 105th continues both as a family and as a formidable fighting unit, one of Wellington's most trusted, which brings extra duties and accompanying dangers. However, old rivalries and jealousies continue, not least from Captain Lucius Tavender, especially when Carr's younger brother, Willoughby, joins Tavender's own Regiment, the 16th Light Hussars, as a Cornet. Elsewhere, Lord Frederick Templemere, a sworn enemy of Henry Carr, but now a Politician and a paroled prisoner of war, has his own and very different, furrow to plough.

The Walls of Badajoz (105th Wessex Foot. The Prince of Wales Own.)

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Genre Fiction

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Politics & Social Sciences

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Children's Books

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Arts, Music & Photography

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Synopsis for A Life of Art and Passion' by Kay Lipton This is an account of the life of a woman artist. It is raunchy and exciting. It tells of her war-time experiences, sometimes hair raising but always surviving the vicissitudes of war. She finds many opportunities to use her artistic skills in London, East Africa and Australia. Her description of the sexual mores of her day is explicit as is her first experience of childbirth. She has adventures of discovery in Europe just after the war and experiences the wilds of East Africa. She achieves success out of adversity. She is a woman liberated, an example of the meaning of tenacity in spite of all the odds against her. This is an unusual adventure tale because the protagonist is a woman. Kay Lipton is a promising art student. Life is exciting at the art school. Young men and women are honing their skills at life drawing and painting. The social life is good and summer in Britain is splendid. The black cloud of war is looming and life comes to a sudden chaos.

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Biographies & Memoirs

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Arts & Literature

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Mystery, Thriller & Suspense

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When the falcon has flown, the mountain lion will charge from the east, and all Byzantium will quake. Only one man can save the empire . . . the Haga! 1046 AD. The Byzantine Empire teeters on full-blown war with the Seljuk Sultanate. In the borderlands of Eastern Anatolia, a land riven with bloodshed and doubt, young Apion's life is shattered in one swift and brutal Seljuk night raid. Only the benevolence of Mansur, a Seljuk farmer, offers him a second chance of happiness. Yet a hunger for revenge burns in Apion's soul, and he is drawn down a dark path that leads him right into the heart of a conflict that will echo through the ages.

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