Much of what I read is directly related to the historical novels I write. I read The Long Trail: What Soldiers and Sailors Sang and Said in the Great War, learned a lot that was useful to my writing. It is filled with definitions of the vast number of phrases the soldiers developed to talk with each other. It gave me words and phrases to use–and to avoid–since the descriptions often had a date or event when the phrase came into use. Since The Angel of Mons: A World War I Legend appeared on the very first day of the war, all the phrases and words I took had to be in use by then. Nothing later. The lexicon even has a bizarre reference to The Angel of Mons. By Eric Partridge and John Brophy.

I just read it again, since The Crowning Battle of The Great War: The Battle of Bellicourt Tunnel takes place on September 29, 1918, I will find many more terms and phrases to consider giving my characters to say.

My friend and expert in the 30^th Division and the Battle of Bellicourt Tunnel, Jim Legg, a military archaeologist, told me about Lingo of No Man’s Land: A World War I Slang Dictionary (Originally subtitled The War Time Lexicon) by Lorenzo Napoleon Smith, a soldier in the Canadian Army. The book has many terms that are not in The Long Trail and additional defining terms for the ones the two books share. It has many phrases, for example, that the soldiers used for lice beyond cootie.

It is wonderful to see the attitude or view the phrase expressed. Many ridicule officers and the enemy. Many, too difficult for me to use, are Cockney slang, a complicated set of word changes. An example, though not precisely accurate, is why Columbia, South Carolina is known locally as Soda City. Columbia is often shortened to Cola, which is a soda. Hence, Soda City.

In World War I many artists and writers were commissioned to produce memorial art to commemorate the glory, gallantry, sacrifice, and suffering of soldiers in the monumental struggle that cost the lives of so many and changed the world. One of the most remarkable is Gassed, by John Singer Sergeant. Though best known for his portraits, Sergeant also made several war painting, a vastly different subject.

At the age of 62, he was sent to the battlefield to observe first hand and paint a work for public display. He did several of smaller size. His study for this piece—his work, like that of so many artists, refers to several masterpieces. The picture was originally intended for display in a planned Hall of Remembrance. However, the hall was never built. Instead the picture was taken by the Imperial War Museum. Because of its massive size—7 ½ feet high and 20 feet long—the painting was not suited to any of the display areas in the museum. Instead, the work was placed in a room far from the normal flow of visitor viewing, hard to find.

I was fortunate in 2015 to visit the museum with my friends, Nick and Antony Bird, whose battlefield tour company took me and Sarah to important battlefield sites in Belgium and France in 2014. The brothers took me to see the painting. It is in a room where it is the only object. The room is narrow, so the view is rather close to the paining itself. I suspect that, seen from a greater distance, it would have a slightly different impact. In any case, it is stunning, one of the most impressive pieces of World War I art I wish that more people, especially those who visit the museum anyway, would get to see Gassed.

In the outskirts of Mons, Belgium is an unusual military cemetery. By way of contrast, I present a picture of the American military cemetery at Bony, France. The cemetery at Bony is typical of almost all Allied military cemeteries from World War I. Their organization is geometrically precise, graves arranged in horizontal, vertical, and diagonal rows. The ground is always flat.

The cemetery at Mons is slightly geometrical. In local spots the graves are in straight lines. The ground is uneven, the rise at the center being the principal feature. Also, St. Symphorien cemetery is unique in that there are German soldiers buried here along with British. The thick crosses carved in dark stone are German gravestones. The Germans began the cemetery during the war. The white headstones are over the graves of British soldiers. A feature the cemetery shares with all other WWI cemeteries is the cross of sacrifice, seen in background to the left. One final feature of the cemetery is the presence of the graves of John Parr, the first British soldier killed in the war. Facing his grave is the one of George Elliot, the last solider of the British Empire (Canadian.) The first and last British soldiers were killed at Mons. The city of Mons honors this fact, claiming itself as “Mons: the first and the last.” Standing between the two graves is deeply moving.

In the course of my research for Bellicourt Tunnel: The Crowning Battle of the Great War I run across oddities that have nothing to do with the subject, but are related remotely and fascinating anyway. Most of my nearly one hundred blogs have been of this nature. Here is another one.

We all know A.A. Milne as the author of the beloved Winnie the Pooh stories.

A poem written by Milne, recently discovered, praises the tank in World War One. He wrote the poem six years before he wrote any of his Pooh stories. It was for a fundraising performance to support the Tank Corps Prisoners of War Fund in November 1918. The poem praises the new British weapon which Milne  describes as “those wonderful tanks.” He wrote the poem for a fundraising matinee which took place on November 7, 1918. (It is worth noting that the Armistice took place only four days later. Since it was not at all certain that an armistice would be reached, the war went on at full pitch until the last moments. Over 2,000 soldiers were killed or wounded on November 11, the day of the Armistice.)

Harry Tate, a popular music hall comedian, organized the show.

What makes it interesting is that most of us associate Milne only with Winnie the Pooh. This trivial piece takes us back and deeper, though only slightly deeper, into Milne’s life and history.

Alan Alexander Milne was an officer in the Royal Warwickshire Fusiliers Regiment in the First World War. In 1916 he was wounded seriously enough to be removed from active combat. Then he went to work at M17b – a secret propaganda unit.

He worked with other writers whose articles and pamphlets kept the morale for the nation and her troops up in the face of defeats, deaths, and the strength of the German defense. These writers included Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Barrie, and many other writers of note.

The Tanks

You have head of the wonderful Tanks,
There are legends about them in plenty:
They will flatten a wood
If the cover’s too good,
Or recline on Hill 60 until it’s Hill 20.
There’s a story that one for a wager –
A matter of twenty-five francs –
Flew off on its own,
And just pushed down Cologne,
A proceeding which rather annoyed the Town Major.
Oh, they’re devils when once they get going,
They are up to the oddest of pranks;
There’s a patter – Mark III –
Which can swim in the sea,
And submerge until only its periscope’s showing.
Oh they’re wonderful, wonderful things are the Tanks!
You have heard of them?

THANKS!

You have read of the actual Tanks.
“At dawn we attacked on the So-and-So line,
Observation was good and the weather was fine.
On the right of the sector the Umptieth Blanks
Secured their objectives – assisted by Tanks”
With the co-operation of Tanks.
And perhaps you have pictured a Tank,
As it poised and pitches
Itself at the ditches,
And noses its way up the bank.
You can hear its machinery clank,
And its guns rat-tat-tat,
As it opens on Fritz,
And he runs like a rat;
But there’s no use in that.
He’s cornered “tat-tat” –
And shot as he sits…
So, perhaps you have pictured the Tanks,

The latest invention, the Tanks,
Then send for the Tanks!
Are machine-guns at play?
Then forward the Tanks!
The Tanks that go anywhere – Forward the Tanks!
The grim mechanical Tanks.
And you’re proud as you read of the wonderful Tanks.
You are proud of them?
THANKS!

But they’re not quite mechanical Tanks;
There are men at the wheel and the gun.
And the grim reputation of Tanks,
And the wonderful things that they’ve done,
And the battles they’ve won,
Are the work of the MEN in the Tanks.
And it isn’t all fun
For the men who sit tight in the Tanks.
No, it isn’t all fun in the Tanks:
You may read with a cheer
How they crashed down the wire,
But perhaps you don’t hear
That a couple caught fire –
Well, it’s one of the risks of the Tanks.
For the humans who sit in the Tanks:
The brain and the soul of the Tanks,
The Tanks that go anywhere. Anywhere, true,
If the men in the Tanks will go anywhere too –
As they do.
So remember, whenever you talk of the Tanks,
The newest invention, the wonderful Tanks –
The older invention – the men in the ranks;
The wonderful men of all ranks.
For they’re just the same men, only more so, in Tanks.
You’ll remember them?
THANKS!

After the war, Milne wrote a denunciation of war titled, Peace with Honor (1934.)

I have been on the verge of sobbing and tears four times four days in a row. Moved emotionally, not upset or hurt. We were in Mons, Belgium.

This was my third visit, the first in 2008 for research, then 2014 for commemorative events for the Battle of Mons, then 2015, and this time to give a presentation at the museum on my novel.

Our dear friend and guide, Christian Massy, took us to the new Doudou museum which celebrates two ceremonies held each year, one, sacred, in the morning, the other, more festive, but filled with symbolism, in the afternoon. There is a video of the relics of St. Waudru, patroness of the city and its founding, being lowered in their gold reliquary, to the place of repose. This came at the end of the church celebration of a mass attended by about one thousand. As I watched, I sobbed with emotion and tears streamed from my eyes. I was touched to the heart.

The next day we went to visit the grave of Captain Malcolm Leckie, RAMC (Royal Army Medical Corps) brother in-law of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and a major character in my novel. This was the second time I visited it. This time a historian, expert in that part of the battle, which took place on August 24 at Frameries, Belgium, a village near Mons, accompanied us, a group of six, to explain what happened there that night. We also passed the site of the hospital where Leckie died four days later, a prisoner of war, wounded in the neck by shrapnel. Once again, I had to stifle sobs, but tears came, needing to be wiped away.

The next day Sarah and I took a quick trip by train from Lille, France to Arras, France to visit the Wellington Quarry. Here New Zealander and Australian miners worked for six months to connect very old underground limestone quarries—twelve miles worth, to house 24,000 British and Australian troops for eight days. On the ninth day they emerged from tunnels that had been dug to the surface thirty feet above to surprise the Germans in an attack. Like so many battles, this one was successful for a few hours then turned into a defeat. When we saw documentary footage of the battle, once again my body responded with sobs and tears. Fortunately, I was able to suppress this. In the midst of two dozen other museum visitors, it would have been unseemly to break down in crying.

Finally, on July 13 Sarah and I were in London. We had planned to go to the Tate Art Museum, not the modern art, but the one with old art. The boat we took was the wrong one. We planned to walk the rest of the way there along the embankment. Along the way was Westminster Cathedral. Instead of going to the museum, we decided to visit the Cathedral. In addition to the splendor of the building itself inside and out, there are utterly remarkable remains and memorials to the multitude of heroes, leaders, nobles, kings, queens, princes, princesses, military leaders, and so on. In the vastness of the building we came upon the section devoted to the poets and writers. I could barely contain my feelings, being in the presence of William Blake, the remains of Chaucer, Caedmon, the first poet to write in English, Shelly, Keats—memorials, not graves for them, Wordsworth, Coleridge, a memorial to the many poets of World War I—even as I write this, tears want to come. The bones of Aphra Behn, George Eliot, T.S. Eliot, and many more.

Four days, sobs and tears. How grateful I am. I learn something about myself. Maybe it has to do with gratitude and sadness, wonder and joy. Happily, Sarah is with me and shares these feelings. It is good to squeeze hands and share a tissue. These feelings remain with me and arise anew when I think about them.

Now that I am at work on another novel about World War I, I hope to draw on these feeling and put them to good use in the book about the Battle of Bellicourt Tunnel. The main cast of characters are from South Carolina. While most ceremonies attend to sacrifice and honor, I find myself touched by the loss. Young men who do not live to see harvest the fruits of life. Parents, brothers and sisters, wives, children, friends who are bereft of loved ones. Promise unfulfilled.