Introduction to the Table of Contents

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The Angel of Mons: A World War I Legend features a Table of Contents that is reminiscent of a form found in older books. You may recall seeing such tables of contents in old novels, histories, and books on a variety topics. The idea is to introduce the many parts of the novel with a title that is instructive and entertaining. The reader gets a “preview of coming attractions” by reading the table of contents. The novel is divided into five books, seventeen chapters, and 123 sections.

                                                                     BOOK 2

                          DR. MALCOLM LECKIE AND NURSE’S AIDE PHYLLIS CAMPBELL

Chapter Eight: The Engagement                                                                        Page 100

Captain Malcolm Leckie and his Fiancée, Phyllis Campbell

Chapter Nine: Malcolm Leckie, Prisoner of War                                         Page 107

After Surgery – Another Meeting – “You Saw Them?” “Yes. Clouds Turned to Golden Angels.” – In Parting

Chapter Ten: Greetings and Farewell                                                               Page 115

Malcolm Leckie, Wounded, Returned to British Care – Phyllis Campbell, Nurses’ Aide, Voluntary Aid Detachment, and the Hospital Enquiry Sheets – The Angel of Mons: St. George, Intercessor and Salvation

                                                                           BOOK 3

                              ANGELS AT LE CATEAU AND THE VICKERS TEAMS

Chapter Eleven: The Quarry, St. George, and the Angels of the Golden Mist of Salvation                                                                                        Page 121

Without Pity or Remorse – A Lovely Place. A Deadly March – All that Remained was to Wave the White Flag – The Quarry – To the Bottom – The Problem of Manhandling the Gun to the Quarry Floor – Ziggy and Carmichael down the Wall – Valley of the Shadow of Death – What Tommy Atkins Saw – Tommy Atkins’ Second Encounter with the Divine – The Ascent out of the Pit – Let Death Rest from Toil

Chapter Twelve: St. George and the Angels of the Dark CloudPage 136

On this Vast Plain – Two Tethered Bosch Balloons – The Enemy Arrives – The Air Was Still – The Germans Came up to Us – “Angels Saved us Before. Why not Now?” – Herr Lieutenant Sardonic – A Front Row View – The Sky of Three Suns – The Rocks Arise as Soldiers – St. George! In the Flesh! – “Shoot an Angel of God?” – The Onslaught Halted – As Swiftly as they had Come – Souvenirs

 

Table of Contents for Books Two and Three

The Angels of Mons,

The Angel of Mons: A World War I Legend features a Table of Contents that is reminiscent of a form found in older books. You may recall seeing such tables of contents in old novels, histories, and books on a variety topics. The idea here is to introduce the many parts of the novel with a title that is instructive and entertaining. The reader gets a “preview of coming attractions” by reading the table of contents. The novel is divided into five books, seventeen chapters, and 123 sections. The table of contents occupies four pages! An oddity, for certain.

                                                                    BOOK 2

                      DR. MALCOLM LECKIE AND NURSE’S AIDE PHYLLIS CAMPBELL

 Chapter Eight: The Engagement                                                                        Page 100

Captain Malcolm Leckie and his Fiancée, Phyllis Campbell

Chapter Nine: Malcolm Leckie, Prisoner of War                                         Page 109

After Surgery – Another Meeting – “You Saw Them?” “Yes. Clouds Turned to Golden Angels.” – In Parting

Chapter Ten: Greetings and Farewell                                                               Page 115

Malcolm Leckie, Wounded, Returned to British Care – Phyllis Campbell, Nurses’ Aide, Voluntary Aid Detachment, and the Hospital Enquiry Sheets – The Angel of Mons: St. George, Intercessor and Salvation

                                                                   BOOK 3

                               ANGELS AT LE CATEAU AND THE VICKERS TEAMS

Chapter Eleven: The Quarry, St. George, and the Angels of the Golden Mist of Salvation                                                                                        Page 121

Without Pity or Remorse – A Lovely Place. A Deadly March – All that Remained was to Wave the White Flag – The Quarry – To the Bottom – The Problem of Manhandling the Gun to the Quarry Floor – Ziggy and Carmichael down the Wall – Valley of the Shadow of Death – What Tommy Atkins Saw – Tommy Atkins’ Second Encounter with the Divine – The Ascent out of the Pit – Let Death Rest from Toil

Chapter Twelve: St. George and the Angels of the Dark Cloud           Page 136

On this Vast Plain – Two Tethered Bosch Balloons – The Enemy Arrives – The Air Was Still – The Germans Came up to Us – “Angels Saved us Before. Why not Now?” – Herr Lieutenant Sardonic – A Front Row View – The Sky of Three Suns – The Rocks Arise as Soldiers – St. George! In the Flesh! – “Shoot an Angel of God?” – The Onslaught Halted – As Swiftly as they had Come – Souvenirs

Do the titles give you a sense of what each chapter and section will contain? Let me know. Comment. Share with friends.

This is the forty-seventh blog I have written, most about The Angel of Mons. Collectively, they give a detailed and inside look at the book—a study guide?

Introduction to an Old-Fashion Table of Contents

The Angels of Mons,

 

The Angel of Mons: A World War I Legend features a Table of Contents that is reminiscent of a form found in older books. You may recall seeing such tables of contents in old novels, histories, and books on a variety topics. The idea here is to introduce the many parts of the novel with a title that is instructive and entertaining. The reader gets a “preview of coming attractions” by reading the table of contents. The novel is divided into five books, seventeen chapters, and 123 sections. The table of contents occupies four pages! An oddity, for certain. I will here present Book One’s titles. Next week I will present Books Two and Three, the fourth and fifth in two weeks. Do the titles give you a sense of what each chapter and section will contain?St.George-cover

                                                                             BOOK 1

                                             THE ANGEL ST. GEORGE FROM THE CLOUD

Chapter One: The Sun Gaily Passed                                Page 3

Dusk: The End of the First Day’s Battle – Across the Canal — The Judgment – A Bullet       Found Lieutenant Dease

Chapter Two: War will Call Us Soon                             Page 9

Training – The Lectures – Who will be the Top Vickers Teams? – In the Workshop – In the Common Room – Interlude: “The Laughing Husband” and Lord Gooseberry Tart – Gunners Godley and Sanders Report to the Section Leader – On the Firing Range and Fields at Hythe and Grantham – Knackers Hauled a Dozen Dead Horses – The Tournament – Lt. Colonel Norman R. McMahon Congratulates the Winners –Passing out Parade – The Ruffians and Victors Plan their Tableau – Celebration — Next Day, At the Manufactory – Comments, Congratulations, Salutations, and Wishes for Success

Chapter Three: To Mons                                                 Page 34

These Vickers Machine Gun Squads Went on Ahead – Unloading the Limbers – Our Ladies – The Briefing – “Mons Shares St. George with You British”

Chapter Four: The Priest’s Sermon: St. George and MonsPage 43

“God and Monseigneurs Saint Georges” – “The Golden Arrows of God

Chapter Five: The Angel St. George of Mons              Page 49

Preparation – Sunday Morning – By Tonight We Will be Victorious – The Cloud of Dust – Where the Canal Makes a Sharp Turn – On the Slag Heaps –Tommy Atkins’ First Death – At the Victors: St. George and his Horde of Angels Descends

Chapter Six: Across the Canal the Germans Saw The Phenomenon in the Heavens                                                        Page 66

And So They Saw – From Drunk with Gladness to Sober with Grief – Lieutenant Maurice Deasy’s Ascent and Transfiguration – Even German Officers and Staff in the Field Saw the Angel –They Fought through the Hours to the End of Day: The Retirement – Escape into the Twilight and the Night – That Night the British Generals Marched the Exhausted BEF Thirty-two Miles

Chapter Seven: Jeanne d’Arc and the Road Through                       Page 75

Ahead Lay the Certainty – The Locale – From the Distance Came the Barking of Dogs and Lantern Light – Mongo Black Disappeared into the Gloom, The Victors Following — The Road where No Road Was – The Cyclists – Goullet Goes Forward – The Return – Captain Ashburner’s Conversion – Report to General Smith-Dorrien: A Pawn Offers Itself for Sacrifice – After Prolonged Silence – The Generals’ Meeting – General Smith-Dorrien’s Dream – The General’s Determination – The Ride Back – Protecting the Secret

 Do the titles give you a sense of what each chapter and section will contain? Let me know. Comment. Share with friends.

This is the forty-seventh blog I have written. Most are about The Angel of Mons. Collectively, they give a detailed and inside look at the book—a study guide?

Blessed with a fine review

The Angels of Mons,
Nickolas Bird is a contributor to the Spectator, a military historian, a partner in Bird Battlefield Tours. He wrote this review of The Angel of Mons: A World War I Legend
A SPIRITUAL FANTASY WITHIN THE HELL OF BATTLE

By Nicholas Bird 

Sarah and I had the benefit of touring with Nick and Tony Bird and five other English folks to Le Cateau and the Somme battlefields in August. Nick graced the novel with this review.
posed picture soldiers nimy

Jerred Metz has written an original book on 1914, one that skillfully fuses history and fiction, imaginary characters and historical figures (like Churchill and Conan Doyle and W.B Yeats), with – at the core – a spiritual fantasy. That he succeeds is because at heart Metz is a meticulous historian who has done his research. His description of Mons and the Retreat, of Le Cateau and Nimy, of real characters like Dease and Godley, who both won the VC holding the bridge at Mons, and General Smith-Dorrien and FM French, ring true because they are true. Metz, although an American who has never visited Britain, seems to have an uncanny sense of Tommy Atkins’ character; and his surly but dogged cussedness. And he has a felicitous turn of phrase: of the lull before the storm of Mons he writes – ‘Thus ended the busman’s holiday before the busman’s hell.’ Metz knows the ground, he has walked from Mons to Le Cateau, he knows the soldiers and their generals, and he knows the weaponry. All this is reassuring, because novels and histories where there is the slightest confusion between a Parados and a Parapet, between VD and a VAD, tend to lose the reader’s confidence.

But above all the book must stand or fall on the credibility of its central theme – that of the appearance during the crucial point of battle of the Angel of Mons, and of the secret order, The Brotherhood of God and Monseigneur Saint Georges. Around this vision, and this mystical order, Metz weaves his story. And it is a tribute to his skill that he engages our belief, or wish to believe, in the miraculous moment that inspired and saved the BEF. Metz begins by quoting Harold Begbie who wrote in On the Side of the Angels (1915) – Long after the war is over, and the facts of it have been recorded in histories, one of the most widely known events will be the appearance of St. George and angel-warriors fighting in defence of the British (at) Mons.

The event may have originated in a short story by Arthur Machen (‘The Bowmen’) in the London Evening News but Metz makes of the vision something more – something real that connect Mons and Britain, their joint patron saint, St George. And he skirts round the actual genesis of the Angel by an ingenious plot involving the satanist Aleister Crowley, Yeats, G.B.Shaw and Machan.

At its crux perhaps is what a central character Captain Henri Lambert of the Belgian army points out to Dease and Godley: ‘There is eternal warfare between the forces of good and evil for the hearts of men, for souls. Satan never rests [but] each time the good Saint George came to our salvation. Prayer, penitence, blood, and death. Each time he redeemed us…know that tomorrow you and your squads will be initiated…St. George chose you.’

Towards the end of the book an angel appears in battle and has to be fought… there is mysticism here, and symbolism, and a spiritual thread but I would not wish to reveal the plot or assume to preach as to its meaning, which readers will deduce for themselves. Quibbles concerning minor solecisms (like ‘Sir’ Winston Churchill before he was knighted and some rather precise language for the normally foul-mouthed and inarticulate Tommy) this is a wholly different book on 1914 than the plethora of historical debates recently published, and one which will appeal to anyone with a mystical mien, or an open mind.

Metz has recognized that soldiers in desperate situations will clutch at any straw or semblance of hope that might deliver them from the imminence of death. It might be the arrival of Russians with snow on their boots, it might be the Seventh Cavalry, or it might be the Angel of Mons. There are no atheists in foxholes. And for Metz, as for the soldier in his foxhole (to use a phrase from a later war), the semblance of a thing is as real as the thing itself.

Christmas Truce, 1914

The Angels of Mons, ,

This Christmas is the one hundredth anniversary of the Christmas Truce. The story is touching and sad. As the name implies, a truce between the British and Germans took place on Christmas Eve, 1914. Amazingly, the truce took place all along the four hundred mile long line of trenches. An article in The Wall Street Journal claims that this night’s truce is unique in the history of warfare. There are many accounts of the events. Now there are three books and a wonderful, moving song.

I was so moved by the song when I heard it long ago, I knew I would include the event in The Angel of Mons. In the final chapter, “Tommy Atkins,

Angel of Memory, Grief, and Tears” I inserted this tale.

 

Whenever I fought at a moment of need, one of the Ruffians or Victors would appear. Gabriel Jessop or Carrew Nancarew might help me repair the gun, hand me a part. Catchpole and Palmer might march along to the trenches, full kit, singing a London stage ditty, its verses replaced with ribald lyrics to lighten my heart, make me blush. “How’s old Vicki holding up? Had to piss in the canister to keep her cool when there is no water about?” Catchpole might ask.

 

“You uncouth old fool. Besides, I am Gunner One now. Not my task.”

 

Or at night under the glory and glare of tracer bullets, looking across No Man’s Land at the Somme. At the Christmas Truce, December 24, 1914, the Victors and Ruffians, all eleven killed, filed onto the field, made up a proper football squad, played against a German team. For all I knew, the Germans might also have been departed dead playing.

 

The Victors broke out a case of brandy, the Ruffians, wine. We drank with the Germans, toasted St. George. The Germans raised their glasses to St. Michael. Our hearts begged the saints to signal that we would not fire another shot, the war over, the peace to hold forever, all to return to homes and families. We ate sausage spread with dark mustard spread on rye bread, pickles, and roasted potatoes. We served up plum pudding with hard sauce and mince pies. That night my angel brothers reverently carried the dead and tenderly moved the wounded to aid stations.

 

I awoke next morning to gunfire and bombardment. My heart, filled with joy and hope the night before–last night a heavenly miracle–shriveled to a walnut-hard center of grief and regret.

***

I encourage you to read more ab

An Object has the Force of a Character: Nimy Bridge

The Angels of Mons, , , ,
Nimy Bridge over the Mons-Conde Canal
Nimy Bridge over the Mons-Conde Canal

Sometimes a place or an object can have the force of a character in a novel or story. Consider novels whose title is the name of a place. Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier, the Malabar Hills in F.M. Forester’s A Passage to India. Sites in Dublin in James Joyce’s Ulysses.

So it is that Nimy Bridge, that crosses the Mons-Conde Canal, and the canal itself, almost has the role of a character in The Angel of Mons. The bridge was the place of greatest vulnerability and, at the same time, the point in greatest need of defense by the British on the first day of battle. It was understood that the Germans would at some time in the long day’s battle breech the defense of Nimy Bridge, and make its way into the city of Mons. The longer the bridge could be held, the better would be the prospects of an orderly retreat for the BEF who fought that day.posed picture soldiers nimy

It was the task of the Royal Fusiliers, Company “A”, to hold the bridge. The machine gunners and the musketry fought courageously that day. The first two Victoria Crosses awarded in the war went to two soldiers who manned the machine guns—Lieutenant Maurice Dease and Private Sidney Godley. This was the first and the only day that Dease fought. Godley, holding the gun on his own, was taken prisoner by the Germans and spend all the rest of the war in a POW camp.

At the foot of the Nimy Bridge is a memorial plaque commemorating their brave defense and its importance to the battle.

 

The bridge is the first point battlefield tours visit because of its importance. On the one hundredth anniversary f the battle on August 23, 1014 commemorative exercises began there.

What places strike you as being of great significance in novels, stories, poems, or plays and rise to the standing of characters?

Behind the Scenes

The Angels of Mons

There are many behind the scenes matters that go into a novel. One such is that I decided to give many of the characters the names of dear friends. I received an e-mail from one. He wrote: Jerred, I am getting close.  Great read.  I’ve really enjoyed it and will be sorry when I am done.  I like your changes. (He had read an earlier draft.) The only thing I would quibble with is that dashing, heroic, charismatic young Kendall Haydon died so soon.   I would have liked to have seen him having brandy and a pipe with Holmes and Doyle, et. al. in the parlor.  Ah well.  The best always die young.

Kendall Haydon is a character in a Chapter Eleven: The Quarry, St. George, and the Angels of the Golden Mist of Salvation and the section entitled “The Valley of the Shadow of Death.”

The Kendall Haydon in real life is known to one and all as Duke Haydon. For many years he wrote a newspaper column under the name of Uncle Duke. That’s what I call him.

I wrote back: Duke, I read your e-mail, and laughed heartily. You are right. He should have had a brighter future. Now that you mention it, I am getting ready to write another WWI novel, this time with the Americans fighting their way through the Hindenburg Line. It wouldn’t hurt to have a soldier named Kendall Haydon as part of the story. And I am definitely planning to have Conan Doyle and Sherlock Holmes in it. In fact, Doyle was sent as a correspondent, as I have him assigned by Churchill in their meeting. He wrote a lot about the war. It will be part of the reading I do in preparation for the book. Also, I had Holmes go off to Europe as a spy. There is also a Doyle novel in which he has Holmes do this. I need to read that novel, too. You are welcome to join me in reading this material. So Haydon will be in the book. Good idea of yours.

Consider this also as an announcement of  the subject of my next novel. Give me a few years and it will be done.

An Arthur Machen Curiosity

The Angels of Mons, ,

In the 1980’s I began gathering material for the novel. I got a Xerox copy of Ralph Shirley’s

The issue in which Phyllis Campbell's article appeared
The issue in which Phyllis Campbell’s article appeared

fifteen-page pamphlet–“The Angel Warriors at Mons: Numerous Confirmatory Testimonials: Evidence of the Wounded: An Authentic Record”–and the two sides of the front cover. Putting together material for talks I am giving, I noticed that the back side of the front page of the cover was signed “Arthur Machen” with the name of a place and the year1930. Machen, author of The Bowmen, lived until December, 1947.

I am trying to find a sample of Machen’s signature. I am doing this just for research fun. Being a xerox of a badly worn cover, my document would be of no monetary value. But as a possibility, it is interesting to consider that Arthur Machen owned it. Naturally, Ralph Shirley’s pamphlet would have interested him. In it, he “demonstrates” that what Arthur Machen wrote was communicated to him telepathically from the battlefield. Therefore, it, along with many pages of “testimony” from soldiers who saw the angels, is evidence that St. George and his host of angels really did fight on the side of the British Expeditionary Force at the battle of Mons.The-Bowmen-men

Arthur Machen
Arthur Machen

Your Favorite Account of Angels Intervension in the Affairs of Mankind

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Without doubt, my favorite legend of the intervention by angels are the ones I wrote about in The Angel of Mons: A World War I Legend. The history of St. Joan (canonized in 1922) is well known. St. George is the patron saint of Mons, Belgium and of England. He is venerated throughout Europe.

What appearance of angels is your favorite? Please reply.

This poster reminded the British of St. George's aid at Mons
This poster reminded the British of St. George’s aid at Mons
Joan of Arc
Joan of Arc

There Is No Telling with Angels

The Angels of Mons, ,

For writers, poets, painters, sculptors, and film makers, angels can present any ideas or The Angel of Mons: one versionconceptions the imagination calls up. Angels can be of any size, shape, form, or even religion. They can be the fat babies with wings, the cherubim, we see in so many Renaissance paintings. They can be magnificent, stately beings of glorious proportions standing beside Jesus or God. They take many forms in the Hebrew Bible. There are innumerable representations of St. George. Type his name in Google and see many ways artists have depicted him. They can be demi-gods or even demonic. The great angels of the apocalyptic writings herald the coming of the end of time. They do much of God’s work.

Thus, St. George, Joan of Arc, and the myriad angels they command saving the British Expeditionary Force are part of the tradition writers and artists follow, making angels part of mankind tales.

It pleased me to have angels serve the story, saviors of the soldiers, instruments of peace after four years of war.